The Hearing of the Deaf

I look down....

...at a fist full of pills. A lot of pills. I look down at my hand.

I wake up this morning pissing a quart of urine. How in the fuck can I hold so much when I take a water pill just before going to sleep. I guess that's it then isn't it. I stand in the center of my room, listening as the church bell rings Nine O'clock with successive bongs from it's great bell. I tell more time with that damn church bell than I do with all the digital clocks in my room. I'm online.

I have a lot to do today. I'm thinking about going to Dr. D.'s session, but then again, like I said, I have a lot to do. Firstly it's my morning exercise. I get my clothes on and trot downstairs, skate out to Walgreens for more picture frames and toilet paper. I return to the lobby of my building and I hear a tiny voice call out my name: "Hobobob!" I'll be right there, I said, holding up my hand. I shoot into the cafeteria and get my breakfast/lunch. They are moving pretty good today. I have my bag and find myself in Snow White's office in seconds. She wants to have that inspection today. How about 10:00am? That sounds alright.

I walk up the stairs. They are not so much a problem as time consuming. I walk past room #2, and there is music playing loud. This is probably the home with the fucking new stereo that I noticed its box resting on the floor with the trash. The music is throbbing behind the door. I'm just glad that I don't have the room next door. I walk down the hall, and on the other side of the corridor, when I shut the door, the pounding is all but gone. But I really don't care, once I put on my headsets that spells the end of all of the assholes of the entire planet. Shit, fucking asshole Al Qaeda and drop a bomb on New York, and I'd still ignore the blast with my headsets on.

I strip down to my bare knees and open the window. I get out my pair of scissors and cut away at more printouts of pictures that I have in my laptop. Once trimming them down perfectly into the frames they go. More on the sill, more on the desk. There's room and they are gorgeous pictures. Pure beauty. I wish I took them, but a friend of mine did. He's a good photographer. He knows how to frame things and people just right. He's a good photographer, especially when given a good subject.

My room is brighter with his work. I get busy on the laptop. Time flies. The bell rings. I jump up, get dressed and snatch open the door for Snow White. She strolls in, looking around, and instantly her eyes are caught by the photographs. "Oh..." she says with a smile. "You've decorated. The pictures look good." Thank you. She reaches out and picks up one from the window sill, studying it closely. There is a breeze around my nuts. I look down. My zipper is wide open, my jimmy trying to make an appearance. I look up at Snow White, who is more interested in the photos in the window. Like a magician I zip up my slacks. This reminded me of when I was drunk in New Jersey. I used to get naked and drunk and when I ran out of movies to watch in the early afternoon, I would throw on some clothes and shoot down to Blockbuster Video.

And it would never fail that I would get to the counter, with the young ladies working, with my jammie lolling out of my slacks like a dog's tongue. Yeah, giving a serious profile for the ladies. They would have to let me know that I had my sail in the wind I was so drunk. This happened so often that they realized it wasn't intentional but that I was such a brittle drunk that I JUST DIDN'T KNOW. They, my penis and myself became like friends. "OH, there he is today!" They would laugh and point. YUK! YUK!

Now, sober, here I'm back in the same preDICKament. I'm not ashamed of my tool. I'm not an exhibitionist either, but I've never died because someone I didn't intend to saw my James Brown. Snow White leans into the corner of my room. I hit the bed. She asks questions as to what I'm doing. Am I making my appointments? Who am I seeing now. I'm going through her questions and bring out the point that I'll need an air conditioner before the summer comes. Shit, it's hot in this room already and its not even fully Spring yet. She agrees and tells me to order it from maintenance quick before others put in their requests. She lifts another picture. "These make your apartment look more lived in,' she says with a smile. I've got a sprig of green in the window where I pulled up a leafy vine from somewhere some night and put it in a glass of water. It looks like it's about to sprout roots. If it does, it will be a nice change of color from Brown, Gun Metal Grey and Rust Red around the window.

She lurches away from my window and goes to my desk, lifting up another print. "I like these plastic frames too." I tell her how well they make the printed photos that I have look. She agrees. 'Take care Hobobob." She is gone. The pounding music is still in the hall. She marches off as if she doesn't hear it.

While online an IM window pops up. It's Khami. Would I be so kind enough to lend her my digital camera? You know how my self defense mechanism kicks in. Remember, I've lived years closely and carefully watching everything that I own, not lending nothing to no one so that I don't have to hear the stories as to what happened. But this is Khami. She is like my baby sister, and it's hard to say no to her. I tell her to come over and pick it up.

Later there is a mad pounding on a distant door. There is shouting. "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. THE SAME MUSIC EVERY DAY!!" Someone is yelling, possibly the neighbor. A door opens, the music blares. Two sets of voices are screaming now, but lost in the screeching of the latin music. The door closes, the music lowers but does not go out.

Khami IMs telling me that she is downstairs. I leave my apartment and coming up on the elevator is one of my neighbors, no doubt the one the lives next to door #2, bringing security with them. I wish them luck. Security here is somewhat of a joke in this building, as I have demonstrated earlier. I go downstairs and meet Khami outside on the corner and hand over the camera. From there I go to Duane Reade and pick up three bags of pharmaceuticals. Six bottles of pills in total. I bring them home.

I put them with the rest, I count out sixteen pills.

I look at them in my hand

Hobobob