All The Enemies Get in Line

Angel is stuffing all kinds of toys into his asshole.

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He is beyond elated. He is estatic. He is beyond joy. I walk into the dorm before my trial by fire, before my breathalyzer, and piss test and Al Qada dinner and I see him watching a video on the laptop. Yeah, he found a fan, sat the laptop on top of it and turned the fucker on. Air. Precious air that the device needs to keep from overheating is instantly supplied. A poor man's laptop indeed. He is dancing about the dorm. He FIXED the laptop. If you can imagine it as being fixed. I drop off my gear on my bed and head back out into the hallway. I've been told that here is where I have to stay until midnight.

"Hey, Hobobob! A voice calls out. I turn to see Ralphy. "Hey, I have to talk to you." He pulls me to the side, in low tones he continues. "I'm going to buy the laptop. Now I need the power cord." Forget it, Ralphy, it's not mine my brother. "Well ask whoever it belongs to that I want to buy it." She won't sell it Ralphy. She wants it fixed. Not parts of it sold. "Please ask her." I can tell you what she'll say. She'll say: 'fix my laptop.' Now why don't you go out and buy yourself a real laptop. He walks off disgruntled. What can I say to him? Huh?

I sleep pretty solidly. I'm still getting over all of the alcohol in my system and it's depressing me. The WELBUTRIN will soon kick in and that will be the end of that. I lay in my bed, awakened by voices. But I'm tired. I don't feel like opening my eyes or raising my head off the pillow. But with even partial vision I see Angel, sitting on the edge of his bed, some distance away. "MY DUDE!" He calls out. He has been sitting there for some time awaiting my arrival into the world. He gets up and crosses the distance over to my bed and hands me a power strip. "Here my dude, I told you that I would get it for you." I reach up and take it from him tiredly. Thanks. Thanks loads.

He returns to his bed. This is his version, no doubt, of an olive branch. He wants to make a move on the powercord. With it, he has a saleable item. Without it, an expensive paperweight. Go figure that shit. He's not a stupid man. How can something so small cost him so many hundreds of dollars? I read it in his head as if his skull was a projection screen, lit bright white with his thoughts. I rise and get ready to leave for the day. That was when, moving gracefully through the dorm, comes Del Toro. He is a lean, long hippie haired latino with a heavy accent. He glides up behind me like a ghost. "Hobobob, when can I arrange a meeting with you?" How about now? "Today?" No, right now. "Great, come upstairs with me to my office."

I go upstairs and follow him into his tiny office that he shares half of it with Mr. Car Crash Personality, Matthew. A real fuckhead that doesn't acknowledge either of us as we practically step over him to get into Del Toro's half of the office. We take a seat and Del Toro plays with paperwork on his desk. He has something to talk to me about, but doesn't know what until he finds his paperwork on the topic. Ahhhh, he finds it.

"Did you talk to your Independent Living Specialist about your psychosocial evaluation?" He asks, his accent almost making him unin- telligible. Yes, I just had it faxed to him two days ago. He has it. Del Toro nods his head. "Good, goood," He puts his hands together, finger to finger, as if praying. "Now about your AWOL, can you tell me why you were AWOL?" I was with my brother. "And why were you with him?" Because he lives in the street and I want to spend time with him. "But why?" Because he's my brother. "But can you tell me why?" Because he's family? "So you just decided to spend the entire night with him instead of a few hours?" Yeah, something like that. And then here is the rub. As if you didn't see it coming. "Well, we hold your bed because we are under the impression that you want to sleep in it. When you go AWOL you are giving us the other impression then. We want to have people in your bed that appreciate the importance of being there. If you are not the one then we'll find one. Now, what can we do with the AWOLs on your part.

As if you don't know you malignant tumor. I take it then that you want me to promise you that I will not do it again. I get it. One more AWOL and I'm out. But I just couldn't let him get the upper hand on me like that. I just couldn't, God damn my soul. I will not make it that easy, so I asked: Can I get overnight passes? "Oh, only on weekends." Well, lets see how this will work on the weekends. "You'll try to get this to work on the weekends?" Yes. How does that dig deep you fuck.

As you are probably aware, I don't like Del Toro much, largely because he is one plastic motherfucker. He is absolutely one un-real cock sucker. He is a greasy car salesman, shyster lawyer, lying politician, cum in your mouth boyfriend, shit on your lawn dog, flash your wife and daughters creep you'll ever meet. He's a sideswiper, and comes at people sideways, being too much of a coward to come at you face to face. I can't wait for the day that I can walk away from the Box and tell him off. And I"ll do so with a smile. But then again, this place is too small change, and he is even smaller. I'll probably just walk off because he will be so irrelevant that he won't even be worth my time.

Keep your eyes open for Del Toro. I know about these things. He'll be either my downfall, or a force to reckon with in the months to come.

I leave his office, get my meds and then head uptown to the library where I will spend the rest of my days, and wonder what the fuck am I to do now.

Really. I have no goddamned plan. What the fuck am I going to do now?

Hobobob