The Private Show of Discretion

Fourth Morning.

I could not get up. Just couldn't. I would for a little while and then go back to sleep. That's just the way I've been doing it lately. I woke up today and my foot was swollen, puffy and painful. No doubt because of not taking my ALLNOPURINOL for two days is bringing on the gout. Rule one, if I can't get my foot in a shoe, that's it for that. No SHOUT OUT for me today. I send out an email to OBSIDIAN, D2tehL and T-Fuk to see if they can cover for me. Only D2theL got back. He's under the weather. Well, hopefully OBSIDIAN went in and could cover....if not, there's going to be a hot time in the igloo tonight.

But I wash my hands of it for today. If the SHOUT OUT is wholly dependent on me then the SHOUT OUT has a problem. I'm not all that dependable. I do have my down days too.

I settle down to spend the day off my foot and online. I work on my Novel and rest. I'm going to take it easy today, rest, relax, and listen to the fire alarm. Yes, the fire alarm goes off, ringing up and down the hallways. This is nothing new. The fire alarms is always going off, expecially when some one lights a toke in their homes and forgets that there is a commercial smoke alarm in every room.

That's when I smell smoke. Not just smoke, but heavy smoke. I hear people in the corridor shouting smoke. I am sitting naked before my computer. That's not a good idea to be naked when there is a fire in the building. I turn off the music in my room and I can hear the fire trucks coming down the block. I get up and get dressed and head for the door. I open it and come out into a hall filled with a pale haze in the air. Other individuals are standing in the hall heading towards the elevator where the smoke is the heaviest. I head to the elevator, walking past the bystanders and ask questions that no one can seem to answer. Questions like: What's on fire? Where is the fire? What the fuck are you standing out here for? Simple questions like that.

I get tired of being a Jammoke with the rest of them and head back into my room and go to the intercom, pressing the talk button. Hey! Is there a real fire?" Then I hold down on the listen button. They don't answer. They are too busy talking to the firemen. You can actually hear what is going down in the security office just by holding down on the listen button. So if you ever want to know the silly shit that they talk about after dark, just hold down on the listen button and you can be privy to all kinds of things. Just a side point for those who live in this silly building and read this blog.

At this time, however, there is nothing but firemen giving these knuckle- heads instructions on what to do if there is a small fire that they can put out themselves with a fire extinguisher. That is the reason for them being on every floor. I guess it must have been a small enough fire that the firemen were incensed about coming all the way out here to put out. I laugh. I think that this is going over the heads of those guys and gals down there as sure as sugar. The next time that there is a fire, these poor firemen will be called, no matter the magnitude.

I take it easy again, glad to be back off my foot. I would have been hard to grab all of my gear and hobble downstairs to escape a fire. I wonder what I would take....and the list is quite short. The basinet (my laptop back pack), the baby (the laptop itself), her gear, a change of clothes for the night (week) and me. A real short list. To some, that might be an incredible question to ask, and a milk crate full of things, if not more, would come to mind. We collect so much in our lifetimes that we consider of valuable, that if we consigned everything to the fire, and gave ourselves five minutes to take what was of the most valuable, to some, it would be an imponderable.

That's funny....all of my life can STILL fit inside a single bag. All of it. What that also means is that I have not really moved out of home- lessness. Mentally speaking, I am still homeless. I have yet to shake the mentality of total loss. It's happened before, it will not happen again. I have accepted it as a fact of life and I still can't shake it. I am afraid. Afraid of collecting once more. I have a coffee maker, a French Press, a can opener, and that's about it, oh and a modest wardrobe.

Other than that, I have nothing. And these things are completely jettisonable. I want to free myself of this. I want the normal life, but the fear is too great. The pain is too lasting. I cannot bring myself to own again. I cannot bring myself to actually live again. I am struggling with myself, like swimming with an anchor. I want to pull myself down, down to Davy Jones Locker, wherever the fuck that is. But that's where I want to go. But another half of me fights against it. I struggle to stay afloat. I struggle to win the battle of the mind.

Funny, thinking of battles. Two nights ago, I'm heading downstairs to get something to eat, probably the night that I went for my can opener, maybe not. I don't remember. But I'm heading to the elevator and further down the hallway, a clique of three big, burly white men in dark suits lumber out of the elevator. Tall as all Hell, dressed in dark trench coats white shirts and dark ties, they head to a door at the far end of the hall. I slow down, missing the elevator and pressing the call buttons when I reach the door.

They are further down the hall. One rings a bell, the other two take up positions. One flanking the door, the other behind the suit that rang the bell. A woman peeks her head out, speaking with a heavy drunken Italian accent. The suit in front of the door asks where her boyfriend is. He speaks in a powerful 'Brucklin Ack-sent'. "Tell 'im dat we R lookin' fo' 'im. Where's he at?" She looks around in the hall, counting the men, then notices me standing there not far off. "You want to come in?" The men, who I now KNOW are Brooklyn Detectives, pile into her small abode and she closes the door.

Why the privacy now lady? On a previous night she was standing in the middle of the hallway, shouting. I walked out of my room, carrying a music roll, heading to the john to take a dump, when she is screaming down the stairwell, "I'm going to let everybody know, how you are a no good, two bit drug dealer, thief, liar, wife beater, coke abuser, wife abuser...."she catches her breath, marshalling her thoughts. She notices me then too, so she repeats herself louder. "You live at room XYZ and you sell drugs and you batter your wife!! You are scum, you're a bastard and a shit!" And stuff like that. I close the bathroom door behind me. Their business is their business.

But today she is showing discretion? I think, as the detectives file out of her room and into the hall. They talk to her as they come my way. "Youse let 'em know dat we'll be back for 'im. He's gotta keep in touch wif his Parole Officer or we'll come an' pick hiz azz up." Oh yeah, oh yeah, she calls behind the detective. The elevator door pings, and opens. I step in and hold the door open for the officers. One of them looks at me and then turns to his two companions. "Are we catchin' dis?" He shakes his head, nods his head, shakes his head, then turns to me. "Naah, gowan, you take it." Sure, I say and down I go.

I head to the store, grateful not to be leaving this building flanked by those guys, cuffed with my hands behind my back like the Handcuffed Dummy. Instead I go to the nearby Duane Reade, and pick up a box of Lucky Charms and milk.

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