In Groups of Six

Getting up at six in the morning is not hard at all.

I exercise now without the struggle to overcome mind over matter. I take my meds, that's not hard either. I punch on my baby, easy. What's hard is not pouring a bowl of cereal and milk and chomp away as I try to surf the web. That's hard. I look at the clock: it's after six by about twenty minutes. Daddy Day Care opens at six, so the crowds of toting toddler parents will be downstairs by now. Yeah, that's right, six in the fucking morning. I wonder if they wake the kid at six for them to get ready. These little motherfuckers are going to grow up autistic because of their hyperactive parents.

Not my fucking problem. I get dressed, grab my gear and head downstairs and slip into Daddy Day Care, finding only one other person there. A woman bobbing her head to Christmas Carols. Whatever. I go to the Oompa Loompas behind the counter and today, instead of being nasty, they are just ambivalent.

I stayed a short time in Daddy Day Care. Honest to God, these people started showing up with their baby carriages, and running toddlers that I thought that I was in a fucking nursery. I got up, packed my shit and left for the Way in exhaustion. The trains, although long and brutal, were kind to my soul and got me to Grand Central in record time. Outside it was cool and drizzly. I closed up my coat and hustled my way down the avenue to Madison Starbucks and found my brother and Electra there.

It's the Big House and then over to Oz's rehearsal studio, where I have an assignment to write a piece for their website. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm always excited when I first get a writing assignment. My brother and I hop the Way downtown, fighting with the maddening crowds to 34th Street and then walk down to 30th Street from there. Upon getting upstairs to the floor of the building we could hear the music pounding down the hall. We followed it to a small studio, jam packed with Oz and his band. A drummer; keyboardist, James; bass guitarist; three back up singers, one being a trombone player; and lead guitarist, Oz.

OBSIDIAN and I make ourselves comfortable. I record the session so that I can listen to the music directly when I'm writing the piece for their website. Soon, they finish with a very lively and relaxed rehearsal session. Many hang behind when it is over, my brother and I leave with James.

Later, I hang out at Starbucks until late, but not till closing tonight because I have to be at the office by the morning. My brother and I ride up to Ninety Six Street and once there say our respective goodbyes. I, for my part, head to The Spot. There are no loiterers in front of the building...hey, thats exactly what I'm going to call them: LOITS. Definition: A loitering Shelt, close to Skeksis-like in appearance and apparent behavior.

The front door is free of them. I guess that the cold is too much for them to be goofballing in entrances. The choice of an entrance is odd to me also. If you're going to stand around with a group of your buddies, why do it in doorways? The most that's going to happen is that people will be passing through your ranks. Why would you want to have people wading though your conversation? Why don't you stand off to the side, maybe down near the middle of the block? No subconsciously they WANT to be an obstruction. It tells the world and assures them that they are something more than a mote of dust on a larger mote of dust. This is how they get all the attention that their father's deprived them of when he left the house when they were born. It's sad, but this is the issue behind many Loits, I'm sure of it. If I'm wrong, you know I have no problem eating the motherfucking crow. Serve it up, Jack.

The Loits aren't the only problem in this place. Well, I shouldn't say problem. There are my other tenants. Scary looking stuff. I've lived in apartment buildings before, and these buildings had some sketchy people coming in and out, but they weren't in the majority. Now I TRY NOT TO SEE my other tenants. Tonight I walked into a woman getting out of the elevator that looked like she was mangled in a meat grinder, and to add insult to her injury, bashed in the face with a brick, leaving her a toothless, bearded hag. She says hello to me, I respond reflexively with: excuse me. She is taken aback, but still leaves the elevator like a busted wheel. I really don't care.

I have long ago adopted the policy of separation from the shitheads here in this place. Ever since I noticed the firemen tenants here, I've made up my mind. These knuckleheads are beyond redemption. Not that I'm all that....

Waitaminute. I live here too. Aren't I the same STUFF that they are? If society has singled me out with these meatheads, shouldn't I be one too? Dressed like them, walk like them, talk like them. I have to check myself now. Maybe their traits have rubbed off on me, or is rubbing off on me. Maybe I'm more like them than I care to admit. A fucking Loit. I don't have my brother around me to check me if I get out of pocket. I feel myself already slipping. I don't brush my teeth as regular as I should. I don't do exercise or shower daily. That could be sure signs of falling apart. Although my room is impeccably neat and clean. Almost frightfully so. It looks like no one lives there. I'm keeping myself together in some aspects of my life.

Some.

That's enough for me right now. Shit. I've always been known to rise to the occasion, come out from under. Maybe this is the next hurdle on my way back to independence. Keep moving up, keep rising. I'll make it.

I have to.