Well, I spent a wonderful afternoon at WECARE's sprawling assessment complex on 51st street. I walk into a large waiting room, divided in two by the front doors and up to a long desk to announce that you have arrived for your appointment, and you take a seat. THEN YOU WAIT MOTHERFUCKER!!! Oh, yeah, get it straight into your mind, you are going to wait, and wait to the tune of five hours before you go through this entire process. I was called in within ten minutes to a room with four others, where I was handed a urine cup and booklets, and instructed that it will take about four hours to get through the entire evaluation. No, she was lying, it took FIVE.
Most of it waiting in the waiting room. They had large monitors up at the ceilings, in the corners of the waiting room, where movies were playing. That was alright. I hate to come in the middle of a movie, even if it is a movie that I've already seen before. I had my book: Just Kids, by Patti Smith, given to me as a birthday present by July, that gorgeous redhead. It's a very interesting book. I never knew that Patti Smith had a relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe back in the sixties. Her life and his, were somewhat parallel to mine, barely making it by, living low to the ground. She was even homeless and had to live off the charity of the streets. Struggling artists syndrome I guess.
I'm called and I follow a female social worker into an office filled with cubicles. She explains that this will go really fast if I don't offer explanations unless she asks for them. I nod. She calls up windows on her computer screen and starts to fill out digital forms, asking me questions as she goes along, and I give her terse responses. We fly through this strange form of interrogation in less than forty five minutes. Then I'm taken to a line of chairs in the hallway and told to sit. Someone will be coming out to get me. Here, let me describe the situation. There are a line of seven chairs. I'm in the farthest left chair, and this woman is in the farthest right, on her cell phone. She is going nuts. Firstly, she looks like a crack addict. Skinny, with skin like a wrinkled raisin, sunken eyes, frazzled hair. She's complaining to someone on the other end of the cellphone that she has been there for four hours and has seen NO ONE. I wonder if she is speaking either to her pimp or drug dealer.
Well, as long as she keeps her shit clear down to the other side of the row of seats she's fine by me. I get into my book. Presently another woman, this one with suspicious, hungry features takes a seat RIGHT NEXT TO ME. There are at least five more empty seats in the row. Why sit all up beside me. I look at her and she smiles, then for some reason, she and the crack addict get into a conversation about waiting on 'these people'. The crackhead was there since 11:00am, and has not had anything to eat all day. Her hypoglycemia is acting up. Maybe her need for a crack rush was doing it more. The weirdo seated up against me offers her some cookies, which the crack addict hungrily accepts. A nurse comes into the hallway behind her, calls out her name, and tells her to follow. Both nurse and crackhead stride down the hall and turn a corner, forever gone from my sight.
I feel the eyes of the weirdo boring into the side of my head, while I'm trying to read my book. I can see her burning eyes in my peripheral vision. It's as if she is trying to stare conversation out of me. I get uncomfortable, angry even, as was just about to ask her if I could help her with anything when a nurse emerged and called my name. I got up and gratefully followed her into an examination room. She checked my weight (wow, I had lost weight) , my height, my eyesight, took my blood and gave me an EKG, then she asked me to fill up my piss cup. I was led to the nearest bathroom and I went through the routine.
The nurse led me back to the main waiting room and I sat and watched a movie that was just coming on: The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I liked that movie, and to see it from the beginning would be great fun. The timing was just right. Well, about forty five minutes into the movie my name is called. SHIT!! I rise from my seat and follow a male doctor into another examination room. I'm asked the fated question that they ALWAYS end up asking you in these reviews. "Do I feel like harming myself or others?" "Do I hear voices?" "Do I see things?" No, no, yes, yes. Well 'maybe' on the first one. Yeah, I tried to kill myself twice, but I've lived a long time, and when I was a teenager and then later, after I was married for awhile I made attempts, but that was water under the bridge, many, many years ago.
The doctor looks at me, nods and continues typing into his computer. A score of other questions come up. He marvels at the amount of drugs that I take on a daily basis. I'm up to fourteen different prescriptions now. I am well medicated. This process takes another forty five minutes and I am led out into the waiting room once again. I stop, look around....EVERY SEAT IN THE WAITING ROOM IS EMPTY. There is no one here in the building. Fuck. I sit down and wait. I read, and in time my name is called and I follow a little Latina down a hall and into her office. She has to schedule me for three more bonehead visits. Yeah, I've been through all of this before. This isn't my first time in the belly of the beast.
After I am resched- uled, I am allowed to leave and head home. It's around 6:00pm and during the crush of rush hour. Oh, I am really miserable. I get home, sit down and watch television, make dinner, ruminate. I'm writing a play now, so far only two acts, but its for some friends in Florida who are interested in doing something big. I am completely excited to be a part of it. I haven't had the motivation to write anything in a long time. Well, I guess you can tell by looking at my blog recently. I'm just not into writing anything. Stupid me. Don't I realize yet that this is the only ticket out of Dodge? Stupid me.
About July. She came down again, this time after Christmas, during the cold and snow season. We had a great time together. She took me to an Art museum. We walked around the city, I took her here and there, and she stayed at a hotel that night. In the morning I got up and went to her hotel which was down near 72nd street, on the West Side. I picked her up to take her to breakfast and then to the bus to the airport. We went to my favorite dive, Smith's Bar and Restaurant. All during breakfast I couldn't take my eyes off her, and I was pretty certain that I was making her uncomfortable, but her eyes were like open ocean, blue-green aquamarine. July turned a corner for me that day. She went from average to stunningly attractive. Just a natural beauty.
I think, as with all men, that we are mainly brainwashed by our peers and the media to look for the supermodel, the covergirl. She has these proportions that don't match most of the women in American society, and we, the instant we meet a woman, measure her up to these impossible standards. Our brains quickly go from reasonable to ridiculous. But time, time is the true measuring stick. The more time that I spent with July, the more entrancing she became. I began to see her for the 'woman' that she was. A real, flesh and blood woman, and not something that you would see naked in a Playboy magazine. While we are eating breakfast, July gets a phone call. Her flight has been canceled for the day. Whoopee! I almost jumped out of my skin. I get to spend another day with her! I AM a fortunate son!
She argued with the person on the phone, stating that she had nowhere to stay overnight. I offered to her my home. She frowned, then smiled. "You must be loving this," she says to me. I laugh, are you kidding me? I'm going to start slapping the shit out of myself in a few seconds! We hung out for the rest of the day, searched for an Indian restaurant and dined, then went to a wine bar that night and hung out pretty late. Then we left for my home.
On the next day, her bus arrived in front of Grand Central and she poked me in my chest with a rigid finger: "You better take care of yourself!" I nod. She climbed aboard, the doors to the bus closed and the vehicle pulled from the sidewalk and turned down 42nd street, taking her from me to the airport. When the bus was out of sight, that's when I felt it, pure, sharp, painful. She had gouged out my heart, placed it in her bag and left. The Hobo had to finally admit it. He was completely stricken. This was not going to be an easy next five years. I knew that now. This was not going to be easy.
This story is FAR from over.Hobobob
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