The Jones Like a Junkie

I can hear my left eye moving around in my head.

Yeah, my left eye makes squishing noises as it looks about. It's weird. It comes and goes. Mostly goes. But every once in awhile it comes back and it's really weird. I wake up itching today, scratching all the way to the coffee maker, my french press and make the blackest mud you can possibly imagine. It's early, around 8:00am, which is good. I'm starting to get a regular schedule, going. This is a good sign that they drugs are leaching out of my system.

I go and look at the dishes in my sink. You know, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get these damn kitchen dishes to stay clean. I've even resorted to keeping hot dishwater in the sink and wash the plates and pots the instant I use them, and STILL dishes accumulate in my sink. I roll up my sleeves and get to work, turning on the water. Now, I have one of those faucets with a single lever. Left, hot, right, cold. Middle, lukewarm. NO, middle....straight from the bowels of Hell. The water comes out so hot that it will literally melt the plastic dishes and glasses in the sink. Who the fuck builds a faucet like this? It has to be pretty far to the right to get it to lukewarm. What the fuck?

After I scald the shit out of myself, I proceed to wash dishes and then drink the bean, and get online. Do what I don't want to do first, then do what I love. Talking about love. I go check my email to see if I'm getting any love today from my friends. I get nothing. No love for me. That's alright. I can do other things, like edit my book until it's time to go for my walk. I get drowsy just before. Tremendously drowsy. This is what I call First Morning. I crawl into bed and sleep for about twenty minutes. This is called Second Morning. I wake up refreshed, with tons of energy. Literally tons. Which is good. I'm going to walk and can use all the energy that I can get. I get dressed and reach for my sneakers, and I swear, I smell them from four feet away.

I was told by the nurses in the Bellevue hospital emergency room, when my blood pressure was through the roof and they admitted me to keep me from dying on the streets when I was homeless. I had a pair of sneakers that got wet from a long monsoon, and I continued to wear them, not having a place to dry them out. Because of it being dark and hot in my sneakers, while wet, they develop foot fungus, which once gets into the fabric of the sneakers can never come out. Ever.

When I was admitted, they took off my shoes and it sent them out of the room. They pulled the curtains around me, closing me in the room. Then they returned with a foot bath, filled with an antibacterial and hot water to soak my feet, and ziplocked the sneakers in a large plastic bag to keep the odor in. Dayum. Was it that bad? Yes, I smelled like pure shit. Funky as all Hell. I reach for my sneakers today and there is the same funky odor coming from them. Dayum.

I know what works on them...I've learned over the years. Baby Powder to dry them out, and Lysol to kill the fungus. Nothing else, not even Dr. Scholl's will work when they are this bad. Unfortunately I have neither in my stock, so these motherfuckers will just have to stink. I wrap my right ankle up, and don the sneakers. Fuck it. It's cold outside so I grab my hat and heavy motherfucking jacket and head downstairs.

Earlier, I get a note under the door from Snow White, stating that she wanted to see me. I go down- stairs looking for her and an old man is in front of me going through the long hall. I let him stay in front of me with his slow ass, because, well his ass is old. Guess where this old motherfucker is limping to. Right into Snow White's office. I stand out side while he, not only walks slow but he even speaks slow. I mean, he drags out every syllable. I look over his shoulder and glance at Snow White, who sees me, but no expression crosses her face as she returns her attention to the old man.

I sit down on the couch in the waiting room, waiting for him to go into a detailed conver- sation of some issue that is plaguing him. After five minutes I say fuck it and get up and walk out, going across the street and down the avenue. I pound the pavement once again. It feels good, although it is cold. But I don't feel it, because I have one Motherfucker of a coat. I swear, it is the best thing that I ever got from the Bowery Mission on Christmas.

I was living in the streets at the time, with this huge tan coat that went down to the knees, and balloon-like. It was good, but the cold always seemed to get through, somehow through the zippers maybe, up under the hem. But I used to get cold as I slept on the park benches in front of the library at night. Well, over time, sleeping on concrete floors and benches and in chairs, the light brown color started to get large, darker brown spots, growing like flowers in a flowerbed. Yeah, the dark stains grew to such an extent that I looked like a Skeksis going from place to place. And if you look like one, you're treated like one.

So the coat has become problematic. Now, the word got out among the Skeksis that there was going to be a huge coat drive at the Bowery Mission. Now I was looking for coats all over the New York area. A coat warm enough to do the job, and dark enough to not look dirty too soon. A tall order for someone looking for a handout, but shit, any less would mean more problems for me, like pneumonia, or being identified as a Skek more often. This has got to stop. I go to the mission and they had a nice, orderly, distribution of the coats. You went up, signed a slip with your name and your coat size and they brought up what they had available.

I got this black and blue, reversible ski jacket. Pretty as all Hell, filled with down, and the only problem with it was that it had a tear on the blue side that leaked feathers. Other than that, it fit me, and when it took it outside, I sweat like a pig. Yeah, it was so hot inside of it, I wore it open through much of the season. During the very cold days, I zipped it up and it kept my core so warm that there was no weather that could penetrate it. I was toasty all season long. Before long, I had called the Box and was picked up by the Men's shelter and had a chance to keep it in the storage locker under my bed, during the spring.

When I moved into my room, it moved with me and now I wore it walking down the street in the cold, an I was impervious to the wind and the cold. I worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up my walking regimen due to the cold weather, but now that's highly doubtful as long as I have this coat. I am happy.

I march my sixty blocks and make it back home, exhausted. I check my email. I have one. It's from Charliqua Love- biscuit, my social worker. "Good Morning Mr. Hobobob. You missed your scheduled WeCare appt. I need you to return on 12/21/09 @ 10:30am and bring in the completed WP." Of course. The only love that I'm going to find.

Hobobob