The Plan

The plan.

I have to be out of here by Tuesday. That is the goal. Now how to do it? I think about this time a year ago, and I shake my head. How in the world did I do it? I had nothing to my name that could not fit into my backpack. My life was completely nomadic, so my gear had to be so. But in the scant time of a year later, I'm in need of another bag just to carry all of my shit out of here.

I crawl into bed and I'm out like a light, sleeping completely black dreams, with no music playing in my ears. I drift into the morning and wake at six to write. After a few emails and a little blogging I grow tired and crawl back into bed again. This time, my body believes it's night all over again, and I awake at 1:00PM.; the morning shot to Hell. But amazingly, this time, I wake with no aches or pains!

Probably from the fistload of TYLENOL that I choked down at six this morning.

I hop up and head into the kitchen to look for some lunch. On reaching the threshold of the door, out waddles Michelle, carrying her cane, momentarily blocking the entrance. "Are you looking for lunch," she asks in passing. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to get into the dining room. "It's all gone," she says with a hearty grin. "It's all gone." I stop short. Peek in. The room was largely empty, the tables being wiped up, bowls being put away into the dish holders. Lunch was over.

I couldn't care less. I leave. Grab my gear and head uptown. I had work to do. I had to follow the Plan.

I stepped out into the new day and everything was brighter. Frightfully brighter. There were too many people on the streets, moving. Going this way and that. Too many bright colors that stood out like shouts. Too many flat colors that scratched the air like claws across chalkboard. I stopped short and staggered. Was I drinking last night? No. Did someone slip me a Mickey? No. What the fuck was going on? Was I having an attack? A heart attack, a busted vein in my brain? I went to a nearby lightpost and leaned against it, staring wide eyed at the populace as they moved past unknowing and uncaring.

I got a grip of myself. If I was going to walk through a cartoon rendition of the world I knew, then fuck it then. I pushed myself from the post and marched on, forward, eyes straight. Moving through an obscenely colored day, like someone cranked up the color knob on an old television set. Fuck it. I had the Plan to deal with.

I had forty bucks and if I couldn't get a good bag for my shit for forty bucks, something had to be wrong. I hit 14th Street, and cut a left on Fifth. I hit the shops down the block and found a luggage store. I passed by the front of it, looking at the hanging bags and was met by the owner in the doorway. "Can I help you, my friend?" Yeah, I want one of these. I point to a huge bag, with wheels and a handle. I look at him. I want one of those, without the wheels and handle. "Come in my friend!" he waves me in. "I have what you are looking for right over here." I follow and he points to a large bag on the wall that looked exactly like what I had in mind. I turn and stare into his eyes, as if I can see a lie. How much? "Twenty five dollars."

TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!! Shit!! I wish I had an extra ten, I'd buy two from the mother- fuckers! Get it down for me, you've got a deal. He goes and pulls one from a stack of flattened bags and hands it over. I pay the man and leave, glowing over my purchase. I hate shopping, but love it when I get what I want at a reasonable price.

From there I head to a new Starbucks on Ninth and Third, after playing Starbucks musical chairs in two others, Astor Place and Union Square. Ninth and Third is somewhat of an abberation. The place has about a dozen plugs against the walls, with tables nearby. It is the Nirvana of laptop users, and there always seems to be a table open with an empty plug near it. I hit a table and blog and write email, and stay busy until it's time to go. The SHOUT OUT is about to begin.

What I didn't know was the explosive nature of the SHOUT OUT today. Little was I aware of the gunpowder and sawdust mix that we were stirring up, my brother and I. Because last weeks SHOUT OUT was abbreviated, we had to end early, and our Feature came in late. Hence, we had no feature, who was to be Precious Jones. But my brother had the presence of mind to ask her to come back next week to make it a double Feature, with April Jones. No relation.

She agreed, and then it was sealed. Our fates were locked on course and it rattled like a boxcar filled with dynamite. The SHOUT OUT started like it normally does, with anemic attendance in the first thirty minutes, so we started off late. By the next thirty minutes it was near capacity, and the Features got on stage. Precious and April Jones brought the house down. The two women literally detonated on the stage, tearing through skin and bone like shrapnel. The audience went wild.

My brother walks up to me and whispers: "It's times like these when I love doing this." I can agree with him. This is when you love poetry, when you have a day like this. This makes the entire week of work all worthwhile. It really does.

When the SHOUT OUT ends, people do not leave. They linger, they talk, they bubble forth like freshly popped cham- pagne. They are the joy of the SHOUT IT. It's all about the poets. That's what my brother and I always say. It's not about us. It's about the poets.

That's what I think as I stand outside of OTTO's, and that is that life is beautiful. I am surrounded by cliques of poets chattering in the night about any and everything, happy that they left their homes to spend time with two homeless men.

Well, soon with one homeless man in an SRO.

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