You put the apple core in the metal garbagecan by the bus stop.
You ring the buzzer for your apartment, just to test if anyone is inside waiting to attack.
Inside your apartment, you look at yourself in the mirror on the back of your bathroom door.
Deciding your hair is at a “Level 6” greasiness.
Deciding that “Level 6” is characterized by not only appearing wet, but almost “oozed.”
“Oozed,” you say, touching your greasy hair.
You consider calling off work tomorrow.
I’m just too oozed, I can’t come in, sorry.
The thought of calling off work is like the thought of suicide, just nice to think about.
“You, my friend, are a handsome man,” you say, making direct eye contact with yourself in the mirror.
Feeling acutely bothered by the tag of your shirt.
Feeling like you’re already happening.
January 2011
No work today.
You go to the currency exchange to cash a recent paycheck.
400 united fucking states dollars.
You’re next in line.
In front of you there’s a homeless woman wearing a backpack.
She’s at one of the windows with an employee.
The employee keeps saying, “I need a form.”
And the homeless woman wearing the backpack keeps responding with one or two short shrieks.
She keeps communicating that way to the employee, shrieking and holding her hands up.
Everyone in the currency exchange is ignoring her.
You’re looking right at the back of her head.
Her voice scares you.
Then she’s just saying, “uhh uhh” like a person doing an impression of a monkey.
She adjusts her backpack, walking backwards away from the window.
The currency exchange employee ignores her, waving you to come forward.
It’s your turn.
You cash the check.
Feeling that something is wrong the whole time.
Like something has already gone wrong.
But that’s how everything feels — you think, smiling.
Considering that maybe you’re making the same shrieking sounds, even though it feels like you’re talking.
Goddamnit.
That could be happening.
The currency exchange employee cashes your paycheck.
400 dollars.
You envision yourself getting robbed outside.
You envision a complex series of attacks perpetrated on you by a robber, where you gracefully defend each attempt.
Lately, you always seem to be thinking of ways to defend yourself if something happens, no matter what happens.
You think of things that could happen and then how you’d defend yourself.
But then you can’t even think of what you’d want to be defending.
Outside on the corner of Montrose and Sheridan, it’s cold.
Some wind blows into your infected ear and it hurts.
People are out, walking and doing whatever.
Living.
400 motherfucking dollars.
A younger woman passes you, holding the elbow of a much older woman, who keeps saying, “Muh muh muh.”
You want to approach her and say, “Muh muh?” with a confused look on your face, then point at her like yes, it is indeed the person you thought it was. “Muh muh!”
On the corner of Montrose and Sheridan, things are happening.
This is happening.
This is you.
And it feels like freedom.
But it’s shitty.
And you can’t describe how.
400 motherfucking dollars worth of indescribable shittiness.
*
You use some of the paycheck to buy a bed.
There’s a small bedding store under the Red Line tracks on Broadway Avenue.
The bedding store is next door to a chicken place that has chickens painted on the windows and the man chicken is looking at the woman chicken’s legs and the caption underneath says, “Only a rooster can get a better piece.”
You go into the bedding store.
Inside, you’re unable to tell if it’s a store or someone’s apartment.
It smells like some kind of deodorant you used when younger, which saddens you, and you feel you might fall over.
A salesperson walks out from the back area and says, “Hi boddy, how are you. Hi hi.”
His hands are in his pockets the whole time.
It bothers you and you don’t know why.
On top of his head there are maybe twenty to thirty hairs and just as many moles and you want to name them all, then introduce them to each other.
“I’m fine,” you say. “Can I see whatever bed costs the least, please.”
“You want something easy on pockets, boddy,” he says, scratching his chin on his shoulder.
“I want the one that costs the least.”
The salesperson nods and walks you to the back area.
The bed is leaned up against the wall to the backroom.
It’s very small and thin.
It’s purple, with the word, “Kiddddzzzzzz” printed on it, in different areas with different colored lettering, as if exploding.
The salesperson says, “Forty dollars for this option here.”
“Which option,” you say.
“This option,” he says. “Right here. Kids bed.”
He sniffs.
Takes his hand out of his pocket, puts it on the “Kiidddzzz” bed.
At this point, you realize how awesome it’d be if he’s been keeping his hands in his pockets because they were claws/insect pincers — maybe just skeletal.
“Forty dollars for this option,” he says, tapping the bed.
“Is this a good option.”
“Pretty good option here,” he says, putting his hand back into his pocket. “Springs good. No stains. Everything good. Kids bed basically.”
“And this option is easy on the pockets, you said.”
“Forty dollars,” he says. “Sooo good, boddy.”
“A good option,” you say, nodding.
“Yes yes,” he says, hands in pockets.
Hiding his hands again — you think. He’s reaching for something. Have to kill him. Have to finish him first.
“Forty dollars,” he says. “Also, can’t help you carry it, boddy. Sorry man. Back is fock-up. No debit card, k?”
“Yeah, ok.”
For some reason you don’t want it to be over though.
So you pretend to examine the bed.
The pretend-examination involves moving the bed a few inches off the wall and checking behind it, then pinching the fabric a little in a way that suggests examination.
This is a pretty good examination — you think.
And you realize your forehead muscles are painfully flexed.
It’s hard to relax them but then it feels good.
The salesman sniffs loudly. “Really, for forty bucks, is good option, boddy,” he says.
“I think I’m going to go with this forty dollar option then.”
The salesperson looks comatose, staring at the bed and nodding. “Ok, you carry though, sorry guy, k?” he says again, shrugging with his hands still in his pockets.
“Ok, I understand.”
You give him two twenty dollar bills then leave the store.
Snowfall has started.
It’s mild.
The flakes hit the ground and reverse into nothing.
You carry the bed home, six or seven blocks under an increasing snowfall.
The bed helps to block the snow a little bit from your head and face, carrying it on your back, holding the loops on the side.
A soft shell.
Snowflakes hit your fingers and hands, but nothing else, carrying home the Kiiiddddzzz bed during a snowstorm.