Good Afternoon;
So after I left here yesterday I stopped at the coffee shop and sat out on the back patio just spacing out and at times nodding off from lack of sleep, waking up abruptly when I either smacked the back of my skull against the brick wall behind me or damn near snapped a vertebrae when my head fell forward towards my chest. Coffee didn't help, neither did a Coca Cola, (until I wanted to sleep, many hours later..THEN the caffeine kicked in!), so I ended up taking an unwanted 'power nap'.
While I was sitting there a bit later, (in the early evening), I saw a large, long billed, long legged grayish blue bird fly across the grass and along the Jones Falls to perch on a branch overhanging the river. I went over to look at it and we stared at one another across the stream. It spread it's wings and fluffed up it's feathers and raised the long yellow feathers on it's head that made up it's crown, in either a territorial or mating display. What an amazing sight, and within the city limits too. I just looked on Google and identified it as a "Yellow Crowned Night Heron". This was the highlight of my day and along with sitting in the shade as evening fell and painted the sky with a pastel palette, helped to lift me somewhat out of the black mood I have been in.
I left there about 8:00 pm to head over to Monkee's to get my 'bupes' for the next 5 days. We talked for a while and I went back out to North Ave. to wait for the bus. This is a part of my old stomping grounds when I was using and it is always interesting to watch the interplay and social dynamics of the people on the streets and on the bus, and also their reactions and actions toward me and any other white folks who may be around. It is pretty much a given that almost any white male down there at 10:00 pm at night is either looking for drugs or a cop, females have additional categories of 'baby mama' and/or 'ho', and sometimes there will be white folks who are just totally lost and clueless as to where they are. The majority of the 'locals' will usually just ignore you, or talk about 'white boys' as if you were not there, with an insulting or confrontational attitude, and then there is the large minority of mostly younger people who eye you as a predator eyes up it's prey, calculating whether the risk is worth the possible profit, and sometimes just whether they can get away with senseless violence for it's own sake.
I could not sleep so I ended up riding buses and the Metro all over the city, watching and listening.
I had a couple conversations with people, one of which was with another homeless guy who also refuses to lower himself to the level of the available "EOS" or Emergency Overnight Shelters" that most outreach organizations and well meaning but clueless Samaritans point toward at first mention of homelessness. He had also some of the same experiences I had at one of the missions, where, if you start to fall asleep in the overcrowded, overheated room during the hell and brimstone, damnation sermon you must sit and listen through before you are allowed to enter the mess hall or the dorm...you are put out on the street. He also told me of experiences he had at a detox center run by BBH, (Baltimore Behavioral Health), where while on a combination of powerful medications , (Seroquel, Klonapin, Clonidine,...among them), given him by the center, he nodded off during class or group counseling and was immediately accused of being 'high' on 'street drugs'. Having gone through this same detox back in 2000, and leaving it to go cold turkey and do it myself, I could relate to his misery.
I watched as the 'normal' riders thinned out and the destitute and derelict lingered, catching as much of the coolness while they could before the subway closed at midnight, or bus routes began to shut down at various times through the night. The passengers remaining on the train looked like zombies or the TV/movie stereotype of a refugee shown fleeing war or natural disaster.
I finally got to Pikesville and stopped at the gas station, then since I STILL could not sleep, sat on the bench in front of First Watch and read for another hour or so. When I did get into the shed I used my little portable battery operated fan for the first time to try to counteract some of the heat that builds up during hot sunny days. As I was rearranging the cardboard mattresses and laying out the blankets and sleeping bag for padding, I encountered more of the big fat black waterbug/roaches and tried to spray the air freshener, (the smell of the decaying and decomposing birdies is almost but not quite gone), to either kill..HA!!..or keep them away. Of course now I could not sleep because every little scratch and skritch had me turning on the flashlight and grabbing a shoe looking for the little bastards!
I ended up getting about 3 hours sleep and then just lay there, overcome and enervated, by ennui and inertia, lack of motivation and direction, and this cloud of depression that is enveloping me.
When I did get up about Noon, feeling like two bags of dead mice, and like something died in my mouth, I wandered through the Giant for an hour, and shaved, which can be almost as good a shower in a pinch, brushed my teeth, and grabbed some of the low budget bologna and day old rolls for meals, and....here I am. I'm just about out of time, and I'm going to the Starbucks I guess. I have $4.00 to last me the next 10 days, so I guess it is 'dumpster dining' on some nights. I'll be able to get something at Jenn's tomorrow when I stop by for a shower and maybe babysit the grandmonsters for a while. As I said before not getting that extra bit of marked out stuff from Starbucks really makes a difference. If nothing else comes through this week, I may be back out on the corner of I-83 for a few days, the first time since last October, and that was only a day or two.
We shall see what we shall see!
I still have one copy of the poems printed up..$10.00 if anyone wants it.
I am seriously thinking about purchasing a month's worth of meds and getting all my refills from the pharmacy and as soon as I can just stick out my thumb and see how far south or west or maybe even north I can go. The Foodstamps are good across the country, as is the cellphone. I should have about $100.00 cash if I don't buy my monthly bus pass and only put the minimum on my phone.
I need to either immerse myself in the ocean, or sit on the top of a mountain.....or both!
Like the timeless and deeply meaningful philosophy expressed so succintly by
Otter and Boone in one of the darkest moments of the seminal male bonding movie and anti-establisment classic........."Animal House", when things are at the bleakest and blackest and all you have left is hope and faith, when everything is gone, even the stuf you didn't steal..when the man has even taken the bar!
There is only one thing left to do......
Road Trip!!!
The library is closed Sunday...see you Monday.....maybe........Dave
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