Writings of the Nomad Junkie

Sunday

I can’t read the news.

It was easier to understand when I was a boy. Now, the writing seems to be just...words.

People who don’t enjoy what they do - never die. That’s cause they’re never born, they simply exist through life…and they hang around like gnats, forever. Doing EVERYTHING, buying EVERYTHING, watching EVERYTHING all the while the grip on their soul gives way and leaves a tattered trail of crisp-withered tears like the leaves in a Twentieth Century autumn.
Crick! Crick-Crattle, Flip! Crick-Crattle, Flip! That’s the sound of a dying man’s soul turning over, changing color, getting older…

                                                                      *

I’ve already explained to Nancy that I'm dying. I feel myself slipping, the rot setting in between my teeth, eating away at the edges of my brain. Have you ever seen your bliss deflate like a helium balloon in the bleak corner of a public school gym in a working-class neighborhood which thinks it’s middle class? (By the way, to be in the middle is to be wedged-in-between, safe within someone’s sticky pages. I say the top or the bottom – but never, never the middle!)

Monday

The frantic sea of job interviews and emails and...how hard it is now to even look for work. It has gotten physically harder for transients who don't want to be transients. Yes, I am one of "those" who don’t have a computer!
And the havoc I have brought upon myself: Bold unflinching masochism!

I’m taking up space. I’m a good person and I try hard and look for the goodness in people (and I usually find it much to the chagrin of most people who act ashamed as if I have found out something about them that they would rather not divulge; I realized being “good” irritates people) and am most grateful when others can overlook my sins or faults and can see a shade, a figment of the man I am trying to be. But I am taking up space. And I should either add something beautiful to my surroundings or simply give up the air I am breathing because life – no, the anxiety of life – is simply not worth it. I am ashamed to be part of it. And so I had to say, “YES,” when I was asked because - …Well, because I wanted to be able to tell Nancy I had a job and that I was hired and just once share a moment of victory.

The job starts tonight. And I need this type of job the way I need a hole in the head.

                                                                        *

I was sitting on the cross-town bus, heading east just barely past the park.

It was sunny and the ancient sadness of the fires roared down on us cutting through the trees and grass and the tall buildings sparkled and I remember thinking how pretty – how truly pretty – life was untouched. How amazing a sun, how incredible our land actually is. How important architecture could be…if we were as human as we think we once were. And I remember my stomach griping and bursting inside as if the plastic of my soul was beginning to stretch and finally snap. Staring out into the sun long enough I always think about the beauty of birth and the horror of slavery. I wonder what the animals have thought. I wonder what the butterflies have thought. I certainly know what the sharks have thought. Sometimes, late at night-early in the morning far deep in the pocket of the twilight, I can hear them burp. And I have no pity for them and I explain this to the Animal Rights People. Believe me, I tell them, they have eaten a great deal more than some people ever will.

It is in the shade, only in the shade, that I can reflect upon myself. As soon as the bus dove back under and the park and the sun and the painful poetry all vanished harshly – and not without cruelty like a gambler’s luck - I am able to hide and die a little in between the tall buildings and skyscrapers which cast the only eternal harmlessness that we can still rely on. They got it all wrong – or she or he or it or whomever they were that proclaimed a “little death” is in between our loins and our orgasm. All great fucks are affirmative and they give us sunshine inside where we cannot seem to be touched. A little death is not between two lovers – it is stuck somewhere between our organized madness and the revolving doors of Monday-through-Friday and the urban renewal of more shadows to lurk behind and more sadness to cover your cup.

The bus ride was peculiar as all things seem to be when you’re looking for signs. It was empty and the tryptophan roared. At the third stop, a trio of elderly people boarded. He shuffled, the two ladies crept. They moved all the way to the rear, which aggravated me because I felt as if my own territory had been invaded.

The old man had been a jockey, the two women were his sisters. They were still very close. He had lost his wife to an attack a year earlier and since then he never let his sisters travel alone. His wife had been beaten and robbed by three teenage thugs.

From the suburbs.

Who were moving to the city.

His wife had been on her way back into the city from visiting her sister, Fran. Fran had recently gotten married to her best friend, Gina. The jockey’s name was Harvey and he had eyes the color of smog-infested snow. At first I thought he might have been blind. His hands were like overgrown claws. His face was etched in a permanent scowl and I expected a gruff, ornery voice. But is was tender and buttery and tended to trail off and get lost in the back of his throat. He had muttered something to his sisters, two well-dressed old ladies and it wasn’t until he pushed back his cap that I noticed the small hole in the center of his forehead, as if a tiny third eye had not quite grown in.

I looked up and read an ad on the bus: Save Darfur, People Are Dying. Outside a homeless man struggled with his cardboard box, the wind pulverizing the flaps at the edges and sending endless newspapers into the air. I looked back at Harvey.
“You lost?”
“No…”
“Oh. You look lost.”
I didn’t tell him I was going to a job interview. I don’t think I said anything. “I feel lost,” he said. He turned to his sisters,” We’re all lost aren’t we?”
“Hmm,” the older one said.

I got off on 66th street and walked south. Before I reached the end of the block, I turned and looked, as if I knew. Harvey stood at the corner like a face from some ancient circus poster. But with the sun dazzling the way it was I could not tell if he was smiling or frowning and from where I was standing his lips appeared to be two glistening orbs circling and crying out to God knows what.

Angels, demons, we are all the same.

Wednesday

Well maybe trepanning is not for me.

Harvey has been generous enough to help, but I’m nervous at the thought of performing such an act on people who are willing to go through so much for so little. “Brain damage, even death, it’s a risk you take, so what,” says Harvey. And perhaps he’s right about everything he says about side effects and consequences. And I agree with him that no man has the right to tell another man what he should or should not do with his own body but this really is getting to me. I shake terribly when I get home. It starts as soon as I turn the key and unlock the door. Something spreads all over my insides and I tremble. Last night, I shook so intensely – Nancy caught me with the drill (I did not have time to put it away!) and she asked me if the construction was giving me stress and was I all right?

Thursday

This morning when I woke up to go to the bathroom I noticed a drill bit jutting out of my bag, a slender sun ray caught it right on the tip revealing the dried specs of blood and pus.

I was repulsed and gagged, but not too loud so that I wouldn’t awake Nancy. She’s already getting suspicious, she told me: “You haven’t screwed me for two weeks!” I tried in not so many words to explain to her that it was the stress, yes, but not her. It has nothing to do with her…In fact I miss her. But the bottom line is that I have rent to pay and a family to feed. Maybe its not a giant family, but it’s all we’ve got. Plants need water, food, and care, too, you know. Once I get back on my feet I will be able to cultivate my life again: write, play chess, eat salads (I can only relax and eat salad when I am not concerned about money), run in the park, and…pay attention to my wife. I just have to find a way of asking her to please not use the word “screw.”
I looked at the drill again and all I could think about was the time I was ten and I was eating a sandwich and I was nauseas and the ketchup mixed with mayonnaise dripped down the sides of my fingers. A pasty-brick-milk. Just like the fluid that spun out of Harvey. I can’t do this anymore, I’m gonna quit.

Friday

Top 40 radio has just reminded me that you cannot live or die without spending money. The music played was the very soundtrack of the negotiations, printing, and synthesis of dollar bills. The chords and fibers of legal tender have proven they have a mouthpiece – and an earpiece – and a whole lot of representing. I am feeling very run down, exhausted, and extremely frightened. There is no way out is there?

Next Monday

I did not sleep last night/this morning on account of the decibel levels that rocked our flat between the creeping purple blackness that covers the nostalgic pain of 125th street and the early dawn traffic, when buses and taxis outnumber the trios of birds singing their songs at the top of another working day.

The female birds seem a lot more interested in newer songs and newer forms, the males seem to be less threatened only when singing traditional ones. I know this because I don’t sleep and by the time birds are awake they don’t have to catch the worm – all they have to do is eat. I have the worms all ready for them, my bantering and madness wills them down until they cannot stand it anymore. My shrieks of pain and agitated insomnia literally make the worms turn. I pick them up, I feed them to the birds. And the worms are glad. They are relieved of their burden: no one likes to be a lubricant of neglected roses and newly colonized concrete. Not everything is about colonization says Nancy. But when tractors and saws and machines are pounding and slicing and cutting the air outside your window and your landlord doesn’t care – colonization seems to find its way into your sleep-deprived vocabulary. The clock is ticking and condos have to be built: Better they don’t stop the morning traffic and simply make sure the conscious-working-pathetiques don’t get their sleep. After all, why would we want sleep? We don’t work, certainly not…And sleep? Sleep is a luxury for the rich who don’t have to work…but choose to.

The sound of the drill has convinced me it is time to stop trepanning.

Next Tuesday

Harvey died this morning. There were three people at his funeral. His sisters carried the coffin.

Next Wednesday

I called the agency and told them I really need them to find me a job.

Next Thursday

Train fare went up 50 cents. We’re in trouble…

Next Friday

Went on Craigslist and got a job interview. It was all the way in Red Hook, in the bottom of a basement. The woman interviewing me terrified me. In fact she took her job way too serious. She asked me about rules and following them and what I thought about them. I told her they’re fine as long as I can respect the person making them.
The woman had a stale odor and short curly black hair and granny spectacles and wore a brown turtleneck that she looks like she’s been wearing for three weeks straight – tiny white pieces of fuzz-lint clung to the sleeves. Her nails looked bitten down some. She kept walking in and out of the small office. The office reeked as well and I counted two half-eaten apples in the waste bin. The woman crept back in to the office (was she trying to ‘catch’ me doing something?) and asked for a copy of my social security card, drivers license, birth certificate, and High School diploma. I told her I didn’t drive, but I had a passport and I was obviously born so why would she need a birth certificate? My high school diploma I ripped up the day I got it and my social security card: well, it even states that you should store it in a safe place and not carry it around with you. She then stuffed her face right into mine, and for a second I thought she was trying to kiss me and she asked me: “Well, where is it?” It was the oddest threat that ever cut chords or pierced dust. She didn’t ask again and, needless to say, I did not answer.

I did not get the job.

Monday again.

The heel of my right shoe is flapping and when I walk it makes a flapping sound like a heart not fully pumping. It aches as I walk, my feet despise me, my body is embarrassed but what can I do? I have not told Nancy, I always remove my shoes when I get home. I would hate to have her see me in those well-designed, but wounded, shoes. God forbid her last image of me is walking in those run-down shoes with right heel reverberating, my prideless gait stammering and gliding to find a rhythm. I know how I look when I walk in those shoes…I wonder if my shoes are preventing me from getting a job?

Tuesday again.

Rode the trains all day, read three newspapers.

Front to back. There are two pages of Want Ads in all. Mainly for babysitters or plumbers. Plumbers can always find work. Why can’t artists? “Because,” as Harvey told me before he died, “the world is full of shit, will always be full of shit and therefore a plumber will always be needed. Creators can shit and make something out of it. The world is not interested in making something. It’s interested in nothing, in dumping and leaving and turning and flushing and never seeing, never seeing the shit. If someone came up to you and really made you look at your own shit, really up close inspect your own filth, how would you feel? Get interested in removing, but not solving – and you’ll make some money.”

Wednesday again.

Tired. Stayed inside all day, just couldn’t face those employed crowds today. I’m even jealous of the students who have jobs. Stared at the ceiling and contemplated praying.

Thursday again.

Stayed home, listened to the daytime television coming from the neighbors’ bedroom. With my ear perched, I allowed afternoon TV to haunt me. So did our neighbor. And with our backs providing heat for one another against the wall, we cried.

Friday again.

Told Nancy I was sick again and I think now she’s getting nervous. It’s reminding her of the time when I was fired from a job after only two weeks of working due to the fact that I was writing a story during work hours and paying no attention to my office responsibilities. They caught me working on the 7th chapter of my manuscript when I was supposed to be filing.

I lay in bed, Nancy said “Goodbye,” and then a long ominous telephone call consumed me for the next sixty-seven minutes.

Monday…?

Exhausted from working the past 48 hours. It’s a relief to be working again, but I’m exhausted.

Tuesday…?

Some people should not have children. In fact, most people should not have children. 

Wednesday…?

Clutching the thigh of my wife is a source of great comfort for me in the coldest hour of the night as I toss and turn and try to determine if it’s the cheap whiskey that’s giving me a headache or the anxiety of things done long ago. And the feeling of nervous responsibility – as if I must commit the same mistakes again!
Her bare legs are warm and smooth like a hot chocolate on a Radio City Hall Monday morning. Before the crowd. Her body is a furnace and an anchor right before that long great voyage. She makes sounds when she sleeps like a host of robins waking up (or maybe it is the birds outside?) and has a breathy-oven-sigh like the infinite murmur of a seashell. She is asleep and I love to watch her asleep. She is not aware that I am staring at her and taking her in, the way perhaps I never can when we are making love or talking. Her thighs are aware of my hands, however, and they know what they wish to do - but can’t. My hands themselves are aware of this and act like dead crabs folding in, their legs willing to touch any last thing before that long fade out. My hands are under enormous pressure and looking down at them now and bringing them close to my face I can see how scared they are. My middle finger, that old burning sage, his head slightly bowed so as not to loom too large over the others; weary and slightly ashamed of his pride. The pinky, that aloof little puppy - better yet: a blind baby squirrel ducked in, tucked away for cover. That is as harmless and futile as it seems. It is my index finger that I worry about, though. He is the one I seem to neglect (always, oddly enough, in favor of my thumb) and yet when I take a good look at my hand – it seems to be the most cognizant of what it must do to survive. So I can survive. So we can live.

Thursday…

I ate breakfast slowly. My hands were cramped, fingers felt like they’d been stuck in a car door. I actually did get them stuck in a car door once. I was seven and my father, accidentally, slammed the car door shut on my left hand. I always thought it was on purpose. We never played baseball together again after that. And somehow we always eyed each other with a vague suspicion. He would be shocked now if he knew what I did for a living. I’m shocked. But at least I’m living. No one expected that I’d be doing that.

I got my first phone call at 9:30 in the morning. I find it strange that parents would call so early in the morning as if they were planning to punish their kids in advance. Which in a sense, I suppose they were…But I often felt that the parents were not so eager to discipline their children as they were to see them cry. I could never tell if they were punishing their offspring or rewarding themselves. But it is no longer the matter. One thing I realized: it is better to ask no questions and mind one’s own business. It may keep a gray-ness in your heart – but it assures a roof over your head.

Friday…

The Carusos called. I always wondered when I’d get the fatal call from them since I serviced nearly all their friends’ children. At least the ones that are young enough to be spanked. It’s a lot harder humiliating a teenager and usually they end up doing it to you. I only do it on the rare occasion. Like when we’re six months behind rent. Don’t laugh: it happened to me once right after Cori and I got married. I saved up for a modest, but charming, wedding dinner and celebration – but failed to tell Nancy that we’d have no apartment to be returning to after our three-hour honeymoon. I was young, impulsive. What can I say?

So Mr. Caruso calls. He is young and nervous but he tries to act older, he is self-conscious and amped up in that way that adults who were not privileged try to pretend that they always were. In fact he sounds vaguely like one of those guys in the subway who tries to casually talk to his friend, Larry, about the opera in between giving his opinion on Hilary and Obama and the occasional carnival glance at the “swarthy youth” across from him and wonders if that fifteen-year-old is the same fifteen-year-old who beat him up when he was fifteen-years-old. He is the type that pretends to be something that he isn’t. He is hopeless.

The call comes in, I’m already feeling nauseas. Caruso’s a broker and he’s calling from his office downtown to discuss his son, a boy I’ve never met, his son’s habit’s and his son’s embarrassing relationship to a very large red rubber ball. His son’s name is Simpson, he named him after a television show. I am already getting suspicious.
“What exactly is the problem?” I ask.
“Well, what do you mean when you say ‘the problem’?”
“There must be some kind of problem – “
“With me? You mean with me? You – “
“No, I – yes. Yes! I mean with you…and your son.”
“Our son. I have a wife. We had him together, I want to make that clear.”
“It’s as clear as Katrina. And the hurricane.” Nancy shakes her finger at me.
“Well, let’s take it easy here. This is a lot different. And this can be avoided.”

Of course.

“My son is a boy. And it’s time he stop playing with toys. Even the bible says that.”
“How old is he?”
“Seven.”
“Have you tried buying him a sword?”
“Of course. He won’t touch ‘em. All he does now is play with this big red rubber ball my sister bought him three years ago. Carries it everywhere, holds it, feeds it. It’s embarrassing.”
“How is he doing in school?”
“Great. Teachers love him, lots of friends.”
“So what's the problem?"
“Have you been listening? My son carries a red rubber ball. He could be having an affair with it for all I know. “
“He’s a kid, let him play…”
“What century are you in? No one plays with rubber balls! It’s not 1950. Give me a break here, will you?”
“What is it that you want him to do?”
“Turn on a computer, get online – join the 21st century! My neighbor’s kid knows how to download music and she’s only six. I’m losing lots of sleep over this. I mean – this is ridiculous!”

What’s sad is that Caruso was dead serious.

“I asked him if he wanted a computer and he didn’t respond,” he said and a burst of tears sprang out over the phone and then he was quiet again. He sniffled.  He knew he was not in therapy, but then had to confess and his voice got low: “He wants to go out and play…Does this kid have any idea how dangerous it is out there in the world?”

At this point he started making some sense to me and I began to get a little anxious. I turned back to get some recognition from Nancy, but she had left. Attached to the wall was a small note: Can we buy a car? And underneath it was a smiley face. The note was almost as vulgar as the telephone call. While Eglon continued huffing and puffing, I proceeded to tape up a crack in the window near the kitchen. The window-pane itself wasn’t looking so good and I could see the damage done to the cheap panes as a result of the construction work outside. The glass has begun to crack on top, it would only be a few days before the entire face would be shattered.
“I wish I had the access to computers and the instruments that make the world go round – it will only be harder for him down the line if he doesn’t get with it now. It’ll be tougher for him than it is now for us. He’s got to start now so he’ll be ready!”
“Ready for what?” I blurted.
“To compete digitally and electronically! You think I want him to be some kind of loser without a job!? I even tried to install software on the computer that allows children to create their own balls and games! If I had that engineering preparation – think where I’d be now, but the little fucker shows no interest!” I could hear Mrs. Caruso in the back telling him not to curse.
“But don’t you understand if I break his fingers he won’t be able to use the computer?”
“Sure he will! There’s the mouse – all you need is a palm and an index finger!”
I hung up the phone.

In fact, I ripped it out of the wall.

(I do not have have a cell-phone).

                                                                       *
I opened the fridge and stared in, nothing was in it except frost and cold humming that smelled slightly of ham. My stomach growled and I finished the flat beer I had been drinking last night. I sat on the floor. I was unemployed again.

                                                                       *

Today Nancy left me.  Scrawled above the Rent Due notice was a tiny note that said she could no longer wait for me.  It is time for her to start living.

                                                                       *

I went to the park and sat down.  Didn’t even have money to check my email.  I followed the death sail of a curled maple leaf.  It was cold. But at least the bench was clean.  I lay myself down.  And swallow hard.