If I Could Go Back Again

Poof!

Just like that. Poof! My computer goes off in the middle of work. This is probably the real reason why I no longer do anything. I've come to realize that I am nothing without my laptop. Absolutely nothing. I can do nothing, be nothing, think nothing. I waste away without this contraption, and I have to admit, I am not happy when she's off. Yeah, she goes off and refuses to come back on, leaving me with naked stretches of time with absolutely nothing to do. I look at the four walls and WISH they would close in on me, crush me, turn me into a bloody pulp.

But they don't. They don't move. Fucking walls. What good are they if they don't just kill you when you ask them to? They just sit there, staring at me staring at them. I get up, clean dishes, clean the kitchen counter, sweep the floor, throw out the trash, burn candles, make the bed, take my meds. This gets boring fast. I wash down things, pencils, pens, photos, nick naks. I straighten shoes, piss in a bottle. Oh, I shouldn't have told you that.

I am listening to Paula across the hall. She is going berserk again. I can hear her screaming: "Go ahead. I dare you to slap me! Go ahead!" I listen harder. A man with a heavy voice with a Spanish accent drawls drunkenly that she needs to get out of his face. They quarrel, then comes a short, sharp, slap. "What?! Oh, no you didn't!" She screams. "You're going to jail tonight motherfucker! You assaulted me!" I shake my head. She pounds on the doors of her friends, asking if she can use their telephones. She's going to call the cops. What a joke. They've stopped responding to her calls a long time ago.

The Spanish voice drawls on. He is saying something that I can't make out. "OH! You're just pissed off that's all!" Paula says, she has an audience now. In my mind's eye I can see the hallway filled with her crows, listening to her rant. "He was fucking around with me and his wife caught him and now she left him!" He bubbles something from his mouth. An explanation? I don't know. "Yeah, well you shouldn't have stuck your finger in my pussy!" Paula shouts loudly. Okay, this is going too far. I crawl into bed, put pillows over my head, the blanket over my body, and close my eyes. Her voice fades in a world of muffled, broken English. I am lost to dreams where there is nothing but danger.

Yeah, dreams about corpses, walking about dead. Blood red gore pouring from their mouths and eyes. They walk up and down the sidewalks, drive cars, ride buses, and trains. They are dressed in suits and skirts, some with garish makeup, unkempt hair. They are going about their lives. Lives? What Lives? They are dead and don't know it. What they do know is that I am alive. All of them. I'm walking down the street and almost in complete unison, they all stop and slowly turn their heads in my direction. Staring at ME! Suddenly, I realize that I'm the only one NOT DEAD! Now they do too.

Have you ever had one of those moments when adrenalin hits your blood- stream, stopping your heart, chilling your bones, flushing your face. You get it when you're on a train or bus and realize that you left something important home. That shock to the system. I feel that shit now. I realize that I am lunch, and these ghouls are about to tear me apart limb from limb. They rush upon me, hands outward, clawing the air, screaming.

I jerk awake. Fuck! Like I need dreams like that in my life. I sit up, slide off the bed and climb into my chair in front of my laptop, turning it on. It boots up and I sigh with relief. I have something to do. I have letters to write. To the State concerning my Section 8, which I do believe I have already. That's strange. I've been waiting for it since...well, forever and no one told me that I had it until I received a letter in the mail stating that my rent here in this building is being paid by it. Wow. I notice the rent. Don't tell anyone, but there are people paying damn near a thousand dollars a month to live in this madhouse.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in NO WAY knocking this place. It's wonderful. Wonderful! Shit, this is the first time in my life that I ever had a 24 hour security guard at the door, and I owned a condo at one time in my life. This place is fan'tabulous. It's just that the skeksies don't realize how good they have it. They really don't. They need to live on the streets and not in shelters to really understand how LOW you can go in life. Really. They think that the State will take care of them no matter what. What they don't understand is that the State doesn't give a Good Goddamn about them. If they make the wrong move, or a bad mistake, they'll fall right through the shelter system like tits on an old woman.

I've learned that it can always get worse. And then after that, it can get even worse. It doesn't stop until you make it stop. You make it stop by taking your own life. Suicide. The problem with that is that you DON'T want to commit suicide...so you commit yourself to your pain, which can always get worse. Yep. Trust me. It will get worse, and worse, and worse until you realize that the BEST and ONLY option IS suicide. The very best. That's when you have had enough. Believe me, I've been there. Done that. Got the rectal infection to prove it.

Wow, if you told me five years ago, when I was sleeping on the steps of the Public Library that I would one day pass through the shelter system, and end up in a boss SRO on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I would have laughed at you. Yeah, sometimes I wish I had a WABAC machine now, so that I can set it 'Way Back', jumping back in time. I would go back to where I was in the cool of the night, gathering chairs to make a bed and stretching across them, covering myself with my coat. I would put my backpack under my head as a pillow, and stare up at the cold, dark, star-less skies of New York and wondered about my future.

I would appear, like in the Terminator. In a ball of electric fire, naked, crouched, looking down menacingly at the melted crater of tar around me and stand slowly. The 2006 me would sit up from the park chairs and blink, staring at me dumbfounded, realizing that he was looking at a walking mirror image of himself. "You got to be fucking kidding me," he would say. "Yes, it's me, Hobobob," I would reply with a silly, deep voice. "I am future you." 2006 me would sit up, blink with worry. "What do you have to tell me?" he would ask.

"Stop mastur- bating. By the year 2010 you will be married and squirt dust from your dick," I would reply sadly. "You emptied your prostate." Awww, you say. Why would you say shit like that to yourself? Because, this guy is going to take his lumps anyway. What am I going to tell him? The New York shelter system sucks. Your life will continue to suck for a few more years before you move into Nirvana. "Look, bro. Just deal with it. And don't kill yourself. It'll all get better." The problem with this is, this would then be a paradox because if I am there telling him this that meant that he didn't kill himself, so there is no need telling him that.

Further, to show just how stupid I am, I forgot to get the winning lottery numbers for the past six months. Damn. I would be so pissed when I got there. Well, I've got to get back to 2010, I would tell him. "What is 2010 like?" he would ask. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. You've got a flying car. A Porsche, and a girlfriend that is a model, but she is one of those sex dolls with a vibrating pussy and lubricating mouth." Wow! He would smile. "Gee, I can't wait." And then I'll be off. I don't know exactly how the Terminator returns to the future. Or does he? No wait. Everyone from the future dies in the Terminator series. Even the machines. Shit! What did I tell you about life? Just get's worse and worse.

Is my life so painful now? No, not really. I'm alone, but believe me, I'm not lonely. I like my solitude. It makes me feel safe, and that worries me. I want to return to the land of the living, but that will take time. I'm realistic. I do have my breaks from the solitude though. There are individuals that make it easy for me to go out, and deal with the world around me. I go places with them, do things with them, see things with them. When I'm around them, I am not so hyper-vigilant. This is good. It's just that I don't like to do this often. I still want to be free of it all though. I want to sit in Central Park and watch women jog with shorts on.

I like that. I'll feel the sun on my face and think good thoughts without worrying about something dead laying a restrain- ing hand on my shoulder from behind. That shit would scare the shit out of me. That's why I keep turning around to look behind me. So that one of those ghouls don't sneak up on me.

As for 2006 Hobobob. Really, tell him to stop masturbating.

Hobobob