Who Cares About Being Alone

"He's not in today, Hobobob,"

Dr. A. Secretary, Eve, says to me with a grin. What? I was supposed to meet him today. "You didn't send him an email." He never reads my emails. She laughs. Now what am I to do? Eve, could you write me a doctor's note stating that I was here on his letterhead? "Sure, you are here aren't you?" Gee, thanks a million, Eve.

In seconds I'm holding a fresh doctor's note in my hand and heading out the door. It's another overcast day, but it is also hazy, hot and humid. The Three H's are on their way. Our cooler days are soon to be gone forever, being replaced by the New York heat. That spelled some rough times when I was homeless. I would have to walk through the stifling heat with a backpack on my back for miles just to get grub. That was a bummer. No wonder I was thin.

I walk briskly through this heat once again, reminiscent of the old days, to twenty third street and second avenue where my psychiatrist is. I get upstairs and what happens? I walk into a party. I head to the front desk and sign in. What's going on, I ask Pearlene, the receptionist. "A condom party." Oh. I turn around and there is a basket of NYC condoms being passed around and handed out. I kid you not. The people in the waiting room, even the very old and infirmed, are given a fist full of condoms. I laugh as my turn comes and I'm given a handful. I look at them. They're pretty funny. Multicolored condoms with NYC on the package. I wonder if it has NYC on the condom too, raised...for her pleasure.

I pocket the tools and take a seat, closing my eyes and try to get sleep until I hear a loud mouth in the waiting room, speaking in a strange pseudo-Italian/Slavic language, interspersed with English. I peek through an eye and notice Slavo walking into the room. He's one of the clients with me in Dr. D's group. Slavo walks around and talks to everyone, and when he recognizes me, I close my eye and feign sleep. Slick bastid. But my cover is blown after I actually go to sleep and a nightmare wakes me up. I sit up in the seat and look around and Slavo is still in the waiting room with me. His entire face brightens when he sees me awake and he comes running over to sit by my side. Immediately he starts to imitate Dr. D. It was funny the first time, but this was the thirtieth. Yeah , Slavo, how are you? He continues to imitate the doctor. I close my eyes right in his face, slide down in my seat and drift off to sleep.

When I wake up twenty minutes later, I notice that I had five more minutes before my session, oh...I had got there an hour early so I slept to kill time, which is easy when you don't get much sleep to begin with. When I awake, Slavo is gone. Why am I so antisocial? I tend to like to be on my own, especially around other outgoing people. I let them catch all of the attention. I like to be in the background, to be left alone, to be silent in the corner. I'm happy where I am in my head.

Dr. W. comes out and calls my name.

"So how did you do on the LUVOX?" Is the first thing that she asks as we make ourselves comfortable in her office. Well, I had an episode while I was on it, doc. "Describe it for me." Well, I felt like I was not in my body. Depersonalization, huh?" She produces her Palm Pilot and with the stylus, begins to flip through the files on the tiny device. "Well, I don't see anything about psychotic episodes here, Hobobob. GI tract irritation, nausea, headaches...other things, but no...no psychotic episodes. Look, how many did you take?" About a weeks' worth. "Well, wait two weeks and start taking it again and we'll see what happens then." Sounds like a plan, doc. "So... what else has been going on in your life?"

Nothing.

I walk again, through the building heat of the afternoon, ducking and weaving through the New York foot traffic on my way crosstown to my favorite barbershop near Port Authority. Two men are standing at the doorway to the shop. "You want a haircut?" One asks. Yeah. "This way," He leads me up an obscenely high flight of stairs, maybe it was because I had walked all over the City as it was, and into a crowded barber shop filled with men. I am led over to his chair and he motions me to take a seat and remove my glasses. As the barber's smock is laid across me, I wonder what kind of cut I want. I had grown a pretty surprising amount of facial hair, even for my standards. I would not do it again. Maybe a little beard though. I'm thinking Denzel Washington/John Travolta beards that they sported in the Taking of Pelham 123.

My barber is on the cell phone, yamering away about his handbag designer company. That's alright. I drift away mentally as this guy cuts my hair with one hand, the cell phone against his head with the other. After awhile he flips the device away and is a two handed barber, using my ears to position my head and to turn me about as if they were handles. It doesn't matter, I am done and pleased with my clean, shaven head in minutes. The instant that I walk out into the daylight I feel the sun on my skull.

I came home, no problem. Got to my room. No problem. Got home and crawled into bed. No problem.

I go to sleep like a baby.
No problem

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