Nakid Bihatch

I leave the Starbucks and head back to the Box to pick up my Meds, snatch up my shades and go to work. I wanted Wendy to see me as I did so and ask me where I was. I wanted to tell her that she's not the boss of me. But she didn't come out of any crack in the wall that she crawled into earlier, so I didn't see the bihatch. That would have been a meaningless victory anyway. The Beeeyotch is crazy.

I headed to work and did a days worth of faxing, emailing and letter writing. I was once again, pretty spent when I finished up and headed over to Starbucks to do another night of sitting behind the keyboard. But something in me was restless. Something wanted me to do something this evening. It's quite hard to explain it, other than I was overcome with a strong sense of boredom. I made a promise to myself that if my brother came walking through the door of Starbucks within ten minutes, I would treat him to a movie and drinks.

I got to blogging, and within ten minutes my brother walks through the door. I told him my bet with myself and pack up my gear. I invite him to go and see The Dark Knight. We first stop at the nearest liquor store to pick up some portables, and then head to the theater, where we just made it in before the movie began. We stopped at the concession stand to buy some overpriced popcorn and soda. Can you remember that you could buy a ton of popcorn, sodas and candy for less than you paid for your movie ticket? Do you remember those days? You can forget them now. Damn snacks for two, which was just nachos, popcorn and sodas cost twenty four dollars. Can you figure that shit out?

We catch the movie right when it began, and filled our cups with hooch and slowly slipped into the Brown World while watching the film. Now I know that this is the second time that I watched the flick, but this was too much. I barely remembered it. I must have been just that smashed up when I watched it the first time with Craig. Well, now I was working on a second smashing. I enjoyed the movie just as much the second time as I did the first. Near the end my brother and I had to go to the bathroom to take a leak, but neither wanted to leave our seats and miss all of the action, so we did a 'porto-john'. That's an old trucker trick, where we pissed in our liquor bottles while in our seats, screwed the tops on tight and left them behind. Oh yeah, we can do that sometimes. When you got to go, you got to go.

It was time to leave and head over to the Box, but when stepping outside and glancing at my watch, it was a quarter to Ten. Can you believe that? The movie was two and a half hours long. That's a long fucking movie. Now here's my problem. If I run to the box and get in late, I get hit with the mandatory piss test and breathalyzer. I will outrightly fail the breathalyzer and it would mean a three day jag in DETOX. That's unacceptable. So what other plan do I have but to hang out with my brother. We cut over to another liquor store to buy another round of portables, and on a long walk to the park we pass a bar. I still have much of a day's pay on me, so I offer my brother a squat and some drinks. We hit the bar and sit drinking glass after glass until we meet a young man named Vinny. We have a few drinks with him until the four of us meet up with another young man, an out of towner, named Country. Country is from the South and is in town with a group of women who he had worn out running them around the city and had left them all asleep in their hotel room. Too fucking bad for us.

He was using the opportunity to hang out and hit the neighborhood bars by himself. He bought us all a round of drinks, and then the room started to turn. Yeah, the Brown World turned angry. Like a ship rocking in the maddening sea, I was tossed in an unsettling world. It was time to go to bed. I was being cut off by the bartender, if I remember it right. The blackouts were soon to begin. It started quite innocently. My brother and I walked to wherever he was taking me. A certain place to have a good night's rest. But he wouldn't tell me where it was. After the walk grew too long for me, it must have pissed off the primitive mind not t know where it was going. Because the next thing that I knew, I was in Penn Station. I went to the bottom level, looking for Electra, being recalled to her like a homing pidgeon. I hear my name called out as I pass one of the deli's and I notice an old friend, a counter person who used to give me free food when I was penniless and sleeping in the back of the deli. He called me over and I remember trying to have a conversation with him, but it must have been a poor excuse for an effort because he grew tired of talking to me quickly.

I bought a danish and wished him farewell, to begin my search for Electra anew. I went over to the Starbucks on the lower level, one of our old favorite haunts and found it empty, save skeksies. They were all asleep at the tables, tossed about like human refuse, broken dolls and mannequins. It was almost too saddening to view. But I was mentally twisted, and in the Brown World, this was home. I spied out a table and decided to sit and crash there. Now here's where things get blurry, because the primitive brain most likely decided that I wasn't going to sleep in the Starbucks, but instead I find myself before a police officer waking up a large group of us in the upper waiting area. I was slumped in a chair, and the first thing that I reached for was my bag.

Electra had told me that there was a spate of bag snatching being done to the tourists here, and I was way too drunk to be responsible for mine. All I knew was that I was in a chair and it was not on my back. I reach down and find it at my legs. Whew. "If you ain't got a ticket you gotta go!" The officer bellowed. He pointed to a skek behind me with his billyclub. "Oh, I KNOW that you don't have a ticket." The skek got up and walked off. I rose, wobbling, and hoisted my burden on my back. It was six O'clock by my watch, and I was in the growing press of rush hour. I rode this current of humanity like a surfer would a wave, and allowed it to carry me out of Penn Station and across town to Madison Avenue, where I headed uptown to 36 Street and the Madison Avenue Starbucks. I boosted a coffee and got online immediately for reasons unknown.

Not that I did so much, I was just glad that I was somewhere, someplace, that I could call home.

That was the real rub, now wasn't it?

Hobobob