After I get the call I stumble out of bed without my glasses. I open the door to my room and walk down a small hallway. In the hallway I walk past the "stacked" mini washing machine and dryer. The bathroom door is open and I walk in.
My scalp itches so I turn on the faucet to the bathroom sink and run my hands under the cold water. I splash the water in my hands on my face and scrape the top of my head with my finger nails. I rub the sleep out of eyes and peer into the mirror.
I rub at my bloodshot eyes. I try and smooth down the swollen bags of tissue under my eyes. The skin under my eyes has turned black.
"I need to get more sleep." I tell myself.
I grab a towel that is draped over the shower curtain to dry my face off. I open the curtain and turn the hot water on. After a gurgling noise from inside the pipes, water spurts out of the shower head like the semen from a 40 year old man. It sputters, randomly spraying water limply over my hand and forearm. I withdraw my head and arm just in time to miss the full pressure of the water.
I peel off my t-shirt and dark blue pajama bottoms. I toss them casually at the closed door. Next my underwear and socks. My right sock is sticky from dried blood and I have to yank it a bit to take it off. I lose my balance, but quickly reach my hand out against the wall to steady myself.
With my clothes off I open the shower curtain again. I am greeted by a rising wall of steam. The shower water is hot and it burns my chest and thighs as I enter the bathtub. I point the shower faucet down and locate the the faucet gauge. I lower the heat setting so that the temperature of the water is bearable.
The water temperature is still hot and it is making my flesh red. The water from the shower is coming out hard and fast. I have to make certain that the aim from the shower faucet misses my penis. I buckle my knees and bend a bit at the waist whenever a splash of water reminds me by hitting me in the shaft with a forceful blow.
Once I am happy with the water temperature I turn my back to the water. For a second, I stand still, letting the warm water snuggle with me. It moves around my body like an old lover. I enjoy the tingling sensation I get from the splashes of water against my back and the warm air that is rising around me shielding me from the cooler bathroom air.
I open the bottle of shampoo and carefully begin to massage my hair. The suds from the shampoo are thick and luxurious just like the commercials say on TV. The suds smell like vanilla and I spread the shampoo onto my goatee and public hair. I let the shampoo sit for a few seconds and then rinse it off.
Next, I condition my hair with conditioner made for my bottle of shampoo. The conditioner is supposed to replace all the minerals my hair has lost from shampooing. I follow the bottles instructions and leave the conditioner on my hair for 3 minutes. I then rinse the conditioner out of my hair.
After shampoo and conditioner I wash. I pour a large amount of body soap onto a wash sponge. I guide the sponge around the length of my body taking care to scrub extra hard on the bottoms of my feet. I leave my ass for last and wash the sponge under the shower faucet with my eyes closed- to avoid any possible e coli.
I step out of the shower and dry off with the a fresh white towel I get from the linen closet.
I dress in my room. I put on my best pair of jeans. A brown belt with a large buckle I bought from Target. A gray long sleeved shirt and black Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. From my mirrored closet I take out a navy blue jacket that is styled in the faux manner of an army jacket. The sleeves are too long on me. Otherwise it is fine jacket. It is the easily the most stylish thing I own.
I check myself in the full length mirror. I smooth down any wild hairs I find. I straighten the wrinkles out in my jeans. After what feels like the best I can do I grab my wallet, keys, bus card, and cell phone and walk out the door to my bedroom.
I stop by the dining room table and pick up my headphones with the adapter needed to fit the 2.5mm plug that my Env3 uses.
At the bus stop there is a homeless girl. Her face brightens when our eyes make contact. She is wearing black platform flip flops and a blue jean jacket. Her long hair is curly and dirty blond. Like most homeless people she is jittery.
She scratches at her elbow randomly. This is followed by a wild scramble through her purse. She pulls out a package of Camel lights and a purple lighter.
The wind is blowing, so she has trouble lighting her cigarette. She turns her back away from the wind and cups her hands around her cigarette protectively.
After the cigarette is lit she turns around to me. She asks me, "If I waiting for the bus."
I tell her I am and I tell her I am about to meet my attorney for drinks at a yuppie bar.
"I don't like meeting my attorney in yuppie bars." I tell her. "But sometimes that's what you have to do."
"You have an attorney?" The homeless girl asks.
She pauses for a moment thinking this admission over. She nods her head a few times. Thinking this is a set of circumstances that would come in handy for her.
The girl lets out a loud cough. From the sound of the cough she must be blowing out chunks of the rat that died in her lungs last week.
"It could be very useful to have an attorney." She says just a little out of breath.
"It could be." I tell the homeless girl. "If my attorney ever did anything for me...like ...practice law." I fumble at the volume control setting for my phone. I mute the audio book I am listening to. I know the homeless appreciate it when you take the time to listen to them. I don't take my headphones out of my ear, because I don't want to give the girl the impression that I all I want to do is listen to her.
My attorney is already seated at the third floor balcony of the yuppie bar. My attorney never sits inside a restaurant. He sits outside on the patio or balcony. He never suggests meeting anywhere this is not an option. My attorney chain smokes Marlboro Light cigarettes, "because cowboys smoke them."
The problem with my attorney is that you cannot tell when he is being sardonic, or when he is making an ass of himself. I tell him that, "I find this quality of yours to be quite useful in your chosen profession."
My attorney agrees with my assessment, but I am not sure if he is being sarcastic again.
My attorney is waiting for me with two of his friends. He has invited them to stay for a long weekend of drinking in cabin a few miles north of Flagstaff. We go to the cabin every year to celebrate the fact that none of them have been convicted for vehicular manslaughter.
That kind of celebration may not make much sense to you. Since most people have not been convicted of vehicular manslaughter. But it's the kind of thing we do.
We tell my attorney's wife that we got to the cabin every year to celebrate the anniversary of my attorney's bachelor party, because telling my attorney's wife things like, "We had to dismember part of the homeless girl's body in the back your pickup truck" is not the kind of polite language that the wife of an attorney wants to hear.
Even though we got a way with it.
I can tell the homeless girl wants to have a conversation with me. I give in to her silent wish. But the only thing I want to talk about is the dream I keep having.
"I keep having this dream," I tell her. "About a guy who gets paid 3 dollars for every live kitten he finds."
"I am sure the man is homeless in the dream." I glance over at the girl and give her a slight nod to show her I am down with her. "And he's got to do whatever it takes to get by."
"You gotta do what you gotta do." The homeless girl interrupts.
"Yes." I wait a second and take a second look at the girl. Satisfied she is done interrupting I continue, "He collects the cats however he can. He goes to garage sales. He looks in day old newspapers for ads giving away free kittens."
"You'd be surprised by what people will do to get rid of cats." I tell the girl. "Doesn't matter what the advertisement reads either. Even those that say CATS TO GOOD HOMES."
"It's not true at all. People get desperate. Cats have huge litters. There can be so many left. Even after the first 6 or 7 kittens get given to smartly dressed men in khakis, or a few to kindly grandmothers..."
"The lonely kind..."
I pause and spread out my hands emphatically,
"or the kind with tag-a-long children in sun dresses...doesn't matter."
"It's not easy. You can't get rid of them all." I say.
The girl takes a drag from her cigarette every time I pause to take a breath. Puffs of smoke shoot out from her lips and nostrils making her look like a 19th century locomotive.
The girl nods her head at me. Her eyes are wide and her loose curly hair is blowing wildly in the wind.
"People just give up. They want out of the kitten giving away business." I say and take the headphones out of my ears.
"People just want something to believe in. Even if that something is a disheveled looking man in a plaid overcoat carrying a huge card board box offering to take all the kitties they have."
"Yes! I will take all the kitties. All the kitties."
"I promise to make them a good home. All the kitties."
"A good home!"
"It doesn't matter how many times the guy bows like some kind of Japanese envoy from the United Nations. Sooner or later the parents just hand over the kittens, one-by-one, and place them in that card board box. They watch as the lumbering old man walks away sweating through his plaid colored overcoat in the mid July heat."
I shake my head at her. "I have no idea what kind of story the parents tell the kids in these houses."
"No sweat pea, that man is a good man. Yes it IS unusual to wear an overcoat in July. But remember how your little friend Timmy wore the same shirt every day for the whole summer last year. I am sure it is a lot like that."
"What's the man do with all the cats once he gets them in the box?" The homeless girl asks.
I look down the street and see the bright lights of oncoming cars. They twinkle like stars. I squint my eyes a bit more and take a look past the twinkling headlights. As far as I can see every few hundred feet or so the darkness is punctured by a string of street lights. At first all the cars and trucks coming towards me look like they are the bus I am waiting for. But as they approach the lights grow dimmer and the shapes that emerge from the gray background grow smaller.
The bus is not here yet and this is not the kind of neighborhood for a homeless girl to be waiting for the bus.
"Sometimes the homeless man takes the box of kittens to a doctor or scientist." I tell the girl.
"You mean to do experiments on them?" The girl gasps.
"ELECKTRO-Shock convulsive experiments?" I mock the girl. "No. No. Those kind of things are illegal." I add that last thought hoping that would comfort the poor girl.
"The box of kittens is mostly used for industrial experiments. So I am sure that it is okay." I hope the homeless girl is reassured by this. But somewhere I know a dead Ayn Rand is.
"They test cattle prods." I say.
The homeless girl looks shocked.
"They test the cattle prods on kittens."
The homeless girl looks even more shocked.
"It's all perfectly legal." I reassure her. "If the cattle prods work."
"Basically all they have to do is lightly touch the rear end of one of these little kittens and the whole thing explodes. The head of the cat pops up and drops in a large bin or container. The rest of the body just" I make a magic act symbol with my hands, "poofs and disappears."
"Of course that's if they cattle prod works." I tell the girl. "Then they take that prod and sell it to McDonald's or Burger King or whatever."
"The rest of the prods end up down another conveyor belt." I say.
"And what about the heads?" The homeless girl asks, "What about them?"
"Oh." I am not sure.
"I think they get driven off in huge dumpster trucks." I tell her.
"Can you imagine such a thing?"
1 comment:
i'm still here
xox
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