Amsterdam Sixty-Six: Kafka on the Shore

I went to Patisserie Kuyt on Utrechtsestraat in the morning. There was quite a line, but fortunately no Petty Princesses. There was more of a mix of ages on this day as well. It made sense that it was busy on a Monday morning, what with everyone heading to work. It felt good to wait, though. The weather wasn’t half bad, cloudy but not really cold. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits. When I came to the front of the line I ordered a coffee and ganache cake. I’d had my eye on the cake ever since I saw a woman bite into one and watched her swirl her tongue to catch the crumbs and icing on her lips. She was a little bit older, probably in her late fifties, but it was damn sexy—I was increasingly unconcerned with age when it came to the sex appeal of women. I suppose I wanted her more than the ganache, but the only feasible option was the cake so I went with it.

I weaved my way out of the traffic in the store and took a bite. Heaven for the taste buds. I wished I had bought another to put in the fridge to eat with shrooms. Possibly in the future. I had indulged sight, sound, and touch a great deal while booming, but I had mostly neglected taste and smell except on a couple of occasions. It was time for some sweets.

As I walked back toward my apartment I decided I could spare some time at Eik en Linde to say hello and order an uitsmijter for old time’s sake. I finished my coffee and disposed of the cup in a trash bin before I unlocked my bike. I rode over the Magere Brug and down Plantage Kerklaan to the corner of Middenlaan and hung a left. I parked out front and went inside. The curly Q was packed and so was most of the bar. I wondered if there was a holiday I hadn’t remembered or if someone had died and a crowd had gathered to mourn. I found a seat near a middle pillar of the bar and caught Kasper’s eye. He gave me a quick hello and I ordered a coffee and a ham and kaas uitsmijter mit tomaten and champignonen. Kasper gave me a quick “Ja” and called in the order before scurrying about to serve the myriad customers at the bar. I looked around the room. Most of the tables were full. What was going on this early in the day?

I never found out. I had my coffee, ate my uitsmijter, and waved Kasper goodbye. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Sorry, it’s just so busy.” I didn’t blame him one bit. In a way I was glad because it gave me a chance to go back home and work on the psychology textbook. I had more indexes lined up and I wanted to keep pace so I could continue enjoying my stay. Overall, everything I had done had been rewarding: diverse experiences, full days and nights, keen insights from shrooming, and even some heartache as I faced more fears, anxieties, and sorrows.

As I cycled home I thought of the previous night, the pain of realization, the layered hurt of rejections. The sorrows were like Russian dolls, inside each one was another in the same form. The intensities differed, whatever was deepest inside hurt the most, like diamonds of pain had formed from the pressure created by outer layers of more recent hurts. The wounds were deep, deeper than I wanted to admit. The rejections were losses, harms felt more acutely because of open-heartedness, vulnerability, expectations, and attachments. A mix of selflessness and selfishness, of giving and desiring, the combinations creating a powerful powerlessness. I couldn’t yet see the whole of the pattern, but I realized a change in perspective and approach in relation to others was necessary. How to maintain a spirit of trust and generosity without sacrificing self in the process? A question to address while shrooming, I believed. That would be the night’s agenda, though the Thai would likely expose what was most pressing—which could very well be an experience of joy instead.

I arrived back at the apartment around eleven. Still early. I started indexing then ate a big salad around one before getting back to work. I had a puff of Arjan’s #1 after an hour’s work, took a break, and watched the day go by outside the window for half an hour. The sky was cloudy but it was fairly light. The pedestrians walking by were a bit more hurried than at night and on the weekends. Mondays. Too many cars so I went back to work after fifteen minutes. Soon enough it was six. I had made good progress. I probably only had a day’s worth of work left, possibly more depending on how long it took to edit.

I checked my email and saw a response from Eliene. Shit, I had forgotten I sent her an email the previous day. I was apprehensive before opening it, perhaps still too raw emotionally. As I read through it, though, I was pleased: “Michael, happy you messaged. Auriana left for conference until Thursday. Hate being alone. Can you come over tonight?”

Impulse answer: Hell yeah! I saw she sent the email around noon. Damn, I hoped she was still up for a visit. On the other hand, I was hoping to shroom. Let’s see: Shroom alone or spend the evening with Eliene? I replied to her email. “Yes, I’d love to come over. Can you give me your address again?” I loaded a bowl of Arjan’s, smoked, and took a shower in anticipation of heading over. As I got dressed I checked the email. Eliene had responded. “Tomorrow night? Sorry, something came up. Love to see you tomorrow.” She added her address at the end and gave her phone number as well. Slight disappointment, but now I could focus on shrooming. Knowing I would see her the next night lightened my heart.

I was not sure if I was like others or not, but sometimes when I experienced intense emotions and moods it was as if they would remain indefinitely, as if I was simply a series of wounds or, conversely, a being of everlasting light. I wasn’t sure what that meant other than that my emotions had much more power than my thought. Maybe I was dropped on my head as a baby and my amygdala was damaged. I certainly had thousands of head-on collisions playing American football in high school as a running back and linebacker. It was possible there was more damage to my noggin and spine from those hits than I had ever imagined. Neuroscience was discovering that early life (including adolescent) brain and nervous system traumas had impacts that impact health much more severely decades later. If that was the case then I would be looking at increasing difficulties over time. Maybe the science would continue to progress and treatments would be developed to help in some way. Of course, the U.S. health care system was dominated by insurance companies so even if the science was there it wouldn’t mean I would have access to it.

Enough was enough. I had been in a marijuana-induced run-on of thoughts. Time to shroom. I made a salad and poured a glass of wine as I ate the Thai. I opened the window to let some fresh air inside, smoked a little more Arjan’s, and had a cigarette. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, turned on the television, and searched for a soccer match. Football, soccer, whatever. I enjoyed watching the games now and then. I felt good and high and I enjoyed the feel of the cold beer in my hand. It tasted especially good.

I watched maybe ten minutes and went out for a walk. I was still high, but not stoned. I walked over to Frederiksplein and then to Sarphatistraat. I walked east and crossed the long bridge over the Amstel. I was glad I was decked out in my winter gear because there was a mean wind over the bridge. Once I crossed the wind lessened. I was in an area of the city I rarely traversed in spite of being so nearby. It was newer and, because of that, a little more bland. Of course, everything seems bland after being around seventeenth and eighteenth century architecture in a city designed like Amsterdam.

I crossed Weesperstraat and kept walking. The buildings were newer and less spectacular yet I didn’t mind them. They were different and I liked that. I turned down Roetersstraat, crossed a couple of bridges, and found myself on the ever-familiar Nieuwe Kerkstraat. The road had had some bends in it but I was still surprised I wound up there. I was right at the point where N. Kerkstraat crossed the Muidergracht to become Plantage Kerklaan. I began to feel the effects of the Thai. I thought briefly of walking to Bloem. I felt warm inside and feeling warm inside corresponded with the environment at Bloem. I stood for a time wondering and as I did the thought of Bloem drifted away. I forgot entirely what I had been wondering about and that made me laugh.

I saw a woman with a wonderfully rounded ass walking toward the Magere Brug and decided that was the direction I should go. I was half a block behind her, but I could see her well enough to notice how her cheeks shifted up and down, back and forth. Her flowing pants weren’t too tight, but they were wide at the ankle and snug around her ass. The fabric gradually pulled toward the body as the pants rose—or a gradual distancing from the body as the pants descended. For me, though, her ass was the focal point and that determined the interpretation of the design aesthetic. I continued following her until she passed by my apartment. She was drawing me in her wake and I walked half a block past my apartment until I heard a raging car behind me. Even though I was on the sidewalk I felt I was in grave danger. I waved goodbye to the rounded ass of goodness and walked home.

I went inside, removed my coat, and had a puff of cannabis. I opened the window and smoked a cigarette. The shrooms felt light, but they always seemed to feel lighter when I was moving about outside. The effects began less than a half hour earlier so they were likely to intensify, especially now that I was in a relatively static environment. I felt nothing looking out at the street. It was a street and there were beings passing by, but I felt no connection to them. They were characters in a soap opera or a video game, two-dimensional objects under a cracked-glass sky. This would not do.

I picked up Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. I ignored my bookmark and leafed through it, looking for something to speak to me, something to wake me from my disorganized thought. I forced myself to think of pain and rejection, but they held no meaning. Nothing seemed to have meaning. At first, this sense created panic, but then I found an easiness within it. “Well, I’m free of meaning and, more importantly, from needing it. What shall I do?” Even as I spoke I was flipping through pages, reading snippets and passing by them as they said nothing out of context. I finally found something and read backward to where the idea began. I found it and read it through:

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.

Yes, that was what the storm was all about, what shrooming was all about, what being in Amsterdam was all about. I wanted to come out of the storm a different person, someone else, someone I respected and loved. It had been happening; I was already past the point of no return. Whoever I had been might be carried along within me, but in a different form. The wounds might never heal, but at least I would know where they were and what caused them … to the extent that anything like that can be known or understood. There were still too many blind spots, confusions, and misinterpretations. All I could do was walk in a direction even if the destination was impossible to reach. The question I asked myself was whether I had been oblivious and before I answered I heard my own voice ask, “What makes you think you aren’t now?” Good question. Should I simply acquiesce to knowing and understanding nothing?

No answer. Fodder for future contemplation. The Thai wasn’t well suited for thinking such thoughts. I marked the page, shifted gears to my sketchbook, and turned off my mind. 

The Five Boys

The five boys did, in their way, claim every room but Mother’s as a space of exquisite exploration and robust horseplay. It was not in their nature to be docile, satisfied with rules, or succumb to any notions of negative rights, those defining political assignations against rather than for freedom. No, these boys were of a higher order of humanity than civilized men, unconstrained by propriety, property, or proprietary constructs. Had they been any more adventurous they may have dug a hole all the way to China and proceeded to redact sensibility for the sake of the senses.

The boys, though, exciting in the discovery of the small as well as the large, spent the vast majority of their waking hours of their first winter in their new home examining every nook and even dismantling crannies to make sure nothing of potential import was hiding from them. On occasion the boys took their activities of rambling creativity and inadvertent destruction from the house to the snows in the land surrounding, but as the temperatures dropped they mostly remained indoors, an acceptable alternative as the old Victorian was comprised of thirty-six known rooms on the first three floors, an as-of-yet indeterminate number of rooms and crawl spaces in the primitive rock-floored basement, and a labyrinthine attic that seemed, on the whole, to somehow contain more square footage than the first three floors combined. As far as they knew there were an infinite number of secret passageways, tunnels, and hidden compartments under the floors, in the walls, and possibly the ceilings.

Mother, a widowed woman begrudgingly bequeathed a sum of money from a railroad company after her husband met an untimely death while working on the tracks at a depot when a train failed to stop at its fixed location due to a malfunction caused by a faulty design of braking parts, was a stern woman in many respects, but as a single parent utterly incapable of managing her boys in the ways that more genteel families broke the wills of their children, forcing by harsh means their acquiescence to arbitrary rules designed, more than anything, to internally incarcerate their rambunctious natures into a form suitable for the social mores of the day and, furthermore, preparing them for a life of conformity followed even by those of the highest levels of management and a degree of moderation in private life that even ownership obeyed—or so it was believed.

Truth be told the five boys of the new Victorian manor on the edge of civilization, as it was known in this railroad town in the provinces of what would be incorporated, over time, by the United States of America, held more in common with railroad barons and bank owners in the sense that if they knew such things as rules or laws they certainly didn’t believe they applied to them. For the boys, the spirit was more benign, a brand of adventurousness that cared not at all about claiming spaces or processes or materials as possessions exclusively their own. No, these boys were freer in thought and deed than even the barons and owners of industry. Their perception of abundance was so great and their rugged practices of camaraderie so well developed that limiting concepts of “mine” and “yours” never invaded their minds.

The boys, in their way, helped Mother, but never by being told to do so. Instead, their senses told them what needed to be done. Mornings started with the younger boys up before everyone else, down in the kitchen clinking and clattering not out of a sense of duty, but out of a powerful desire to sate the grumblings in their bellies. It never dawned on them to make enough for everyone because it was a generous thing to do, but because it was far more fun to make more of something than less. They learned, in short order, how to make toast, pancakes, omelets, hash browns, bacon, sausage, coffee, and other breakfast staples, the older boys doing the shopping not at their mother’s behest, but to set out to explore the city, roaming through the grocery to find items of interest and use for food, cleaning, and hygiene, asking the shopkeeper about this or that not out of any respect or deference; no, they consulted with him much the same way they asked the Fabrey kid down the street when and where to find foxes and owls because he knew all the best spots and the right times of day to look. The boys never saw themselves as limited, but acknowledged that certain folks held useful information that they had not yet discovered or learned and that asking questions was a form of exploration in its own right

This accidental ingenuity of the boys helped Mother considerably—another reason she felt no need to manage them; they seemed to do quite well on their own. Even seven-year-old Jimmy seemed more industrious than the hardest working men in the town. She delighted in walking down the stairs after even the oldest boys were up, smelling the aroma of a finely cooked breakfast—though it wasn’t all that fine the first month after Father’s death—and sitting down with her five boys to eat a hearty meal as the day began. The boys scarcely knew what Mother did between meals as they were still in the process of exploring the house, relatively unfurnished as it was after coming from a six-room home in the hinterlands of the forest up north. It may have been there where the boys learned self-sufficiency and the spirit of exploration and ingenuity, but it could have been their nature, their heritage, or magical properties unknown to civilized society.

The boys were not unschooled, though, as they took to reading and writing as easily as they did spatial exploration. The fantastic stories of Robinson Crusoe or those written by Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and Lewis Carroll enlivened their imaginations and propelled them to compete against one another to create ever grander stories of their own. These stories were often read after dinner, to the never-ending delight of Mother, each boy trying to outdo the last with panache, their oratories often as charismatic as snake oil salesman and carnival barkers, as mesmerizing as circus ringleaders and the most outrageous preachers, and as profoundly stirring as the speeches that had been delivered earlier in the century by Abraham Lincoln. Mother and the boys were often so exhausted by evenings of storytelling that there was no need at all to persuade even the youngest to hurry along to bed for a good night’s sleep.

Math and science were equally as fascinating to the boys, but their means of learning came not from textbooks, but from real world attempts to build various contraptions or gauge the distance, velocity, speed, inertia, degree, angle, slope, curve, arc, weight, height, size, shape, and all manner of physics and geometrical considerations when trying to build a ramp for one of their contraptions, figure out how to jump from the rooftop to a particular branch on the backyard oak tree, or build a tree house in a way that could hold all five of them at once. The ways in which they learned about math and science could not be enumerated, so constant and diverse was their use of concepts they learned through necessity in order to figure out how to do this, where to build that, why something worked when nothing else did, when to try one thing and not another because of cloud or sun or time of day, and who could fit into a tiny hole versus who could lift a heavy pole.

They repainted rooms, fixed creaky floorboards, removed dry rot, built and installed crown moldings, chopped wood for the fireplace and the wood-burning stove, made furniture, picture frames, and ornaments from wood, bought fabrics and metals for similar purposes, and installed indoor plumbing using as guides books they found at the local library or from traveling book salesmen. Not one of these things did the boys call work. No, they considered each activity just another game to play, a contest to see who could make something the others couldn’t, or figure out something that seemed unfathomable.

The oldest boy was Randy but by no means was he the ringleader. Even at twelve he still had all the markings of a boy and felt, as much as anything, that he was one of the group rather than a leader. Not a single boy was a leader in any traditional sense. If there were leaders at all they emerged through the process of a new game or activity. Jimmy, the youngest, was undoubtedly the leader of breakfast and cooking of all kinds as he had a knack for knowing how many ingredients to mix to make just the right amount with the best possible flavor. He never considered himself the leader, though, and if any of his brothers ever surpassed him in ability he would have handed over his apron to whomever proved himself to be better. In fact, he and the others would have reveled in such a change as it would mean even better tasting food would be made.

In that first month, though, before all the changes were made to the house and it was discovered who was better than everyone else at such-and-such an activity, the boys spent most their time examining the house while Mother knitted sweaters, scarves, hats, and mittens or sat quietly with one or two of the boys who needed a rest from playing or simply didn’t enjoy a particular project. They boys did not do everything together all the time. Once while four of the boys reinforced a buttress in the basement, Steve, the second youngest at eight years old, ran up four flights of stairs to the attic, looking through trunks left behind by the previous tenants, discovering postcards and letters, fancy handkerchiefs (which he cleaned and took to Mother as gifts), binoculars, viewfinders, and other items of interest to an eight-year-old boy.

These discoveries, naturally, led all the boys to the attic after they had finished their buttressing project. Steve was patted on the back and celebrated as a brilliant discoverer of the unfound and as the winter passed he proved to be adept at looking where no one else ever thought to look. Each of the boys, in this manner, discovered they possessed unique abilities. Robert, the middle child at nine years old, had the keenest of senses. He could tell the particular sounds of creaking wood and the smell of rot on one of the rails of a fence whether it would hold his oldest brother without breaking. He had a keen sense of temperature and humidity and thus knew which rooms could be wallpapered or would need to be painted. He also could identify whether Jimmy had used coriander, thyme, or fennel in a given dish served for supper. Over time, these abilities became ever more useful in unforeseen ways.

David, the second oldest boy at eleven, was gifted with great athletic ability. He had the ability to leap and climb like no one else. He was fast as a gazelle, could turn on a dime at full speed, and crawl almost as fast as he could run. He walked on his hands almost as often as his feet, taught himself how to scale the outside of the Victorian from the ground to the top of the roof, and generally exceled in any creative athletic activity. Randy, the oldest, possessed a quiet wisdom and lively but practical imagination the others came to respect. He had an uncanny sense of when to start doing something and when to stop. It was he who came up with the ideas to paint the house, build furniture, fix the dry rot, install plumbing, and more. His ideas about what to do were usually so spot on that he rarely ever met with opposition. If something he suggested wasn’t appealing then one or two of the boys might go off and do something else, as Steve had done when discovering the attic treasures. As often as not, though, the five boys played cooperatively and competitively together, but no one gave a thought to anyone who chose to do something else at any given time. The behavior was not just accepted but appreciated because whoever went off on their own almost always discovered something new or something new to do.

When Mother first moved the boys from the hinterlands to the edge of civilization she worried that they would feel displaced. She also concerned herself about how the boys handled Father’s death. The boys cried when Father passed and wept at his funeral, but in the days afterward became enlivened once again. This was not a matter of forgetfulness or repression of emotion on their part. Rather, the boys had truly grieved and, each in his own way, found ways to honor Father in their everyday activities. The boys never became solemn; rather, they embraced life all the more as a way to keep Father alive. Still, each boy did this in his own way as each boy had a particular relationship with Father.

Jimmy made breakfasts with zeal, recounting how Father had loved to cook pancakes on Sunday mornings. The idea of communing never entered Jimmy’s mind; instead he would say to himself, “Okay, Father, watch how high I can toss this pancake in the air while flipping it.” Jimmy did this simply because he had been, from the youngest age, fascinated by Father’s ability to flip pancakes nearly to the ceiling without ever dropping one.

Steve, whenever he found a new nook or cranny in the house, imagined he might find Father peeking through at him. Much of what drove him to search out new places was to excitedly see if he could find something Father would have found interesting. Steve often accompanied Father on treks around the property and whenever he found a strangely colored rock, an oddly shaped pine cone, or an eagle’s feather Father gave the items the utmost attention, complimenting Steve on his eye for the unusual. This common connection kept Father alive not just in his heart, but in his hunger for finding what no one else could.

Robert’s acute senses were first appreciated by Father when Robert woke everyone in their old house by smelling the faintest of smoke before anyone else. He had saved the house from burning to the ground and, by discovering the smell early, prevented the damage from becoming more than cosmetic. Father had always been a keen observer and Robert, more than the other boys, became thrilled when, while on walks through the woods, Father pointed out a buck so well hidden only he among the boys could see what Father saw.

David was the only boy who could keep up with Father when he raced across a meadow, climbed up a cliff, or swam across the lake. They often competed against each other to see who could do the most backflips in a row, who could hop on one leg the longest, and who could grab the most fish out of the stream with their bare hands. David’s abilities fascinated Father and he told David on occasion that in a matter of years there wouldn’t be a person in the world who could run, jump, or swim as fast or as far as he could. David excitedly kept pushing his athletic boundaries day after day while imagining Father matching him stride for stride, jump for jump, and handstand for handstand.

Randy most resembled Father in deliberation, contemplation, and practicality. Father noticed these qualities in Randy when he was young and the two of them often sat silently together while playing chess, thinking not just about the game, but all manner of strategic thinking. Randy might say, while moving a rook, “Robert said he could feel a storm coming in the next few days and Steve noticed there was a tile out of place on the roof. Maybe David should climb up and take a look tomorrow while Jimmy helps you with the pancakes. I’ll look in the basement to see if we have any tiles laying around in case we need to make repairs.” Father would nod his head in agreement and say, “You know, if you keep going like this, I’ll be able to sit with Mother and relax while you figure out everything that needs to be done.” Randy never felt closer to Father than when he was scheming about what to do next.

To be continued ... if there's enough interest.

Frosty

My name is Frosty. I own a Weinermobile. I drive it to work every day. My job? I work as a nocturnal garbage poker in Millennium Park. That’s in Chicago. Downtown, right off Michigan Avenue and adjacent to Lake Michigan. Well, there’s a bike path along the lake shore that separates the park from the lake, but still. I wander around the park with a trash satchel hung over my left shoulder. I poke at candy wrappers, ripped up newspapers, used condoms, and general detritus. I have to bend over to pick up plastic bottles and aluminum cans. I wear latex gloves for sanitary reasons.

Sometimes I have to call security because couples are making out on the lawns or next to statues. Some couples are man and woman, some are women and women, and some are men and men. It doesn’t matter the pairing, though; they’re all forbidden from having sex in the park. After hours, at least. I’m not sure what the policy is during the day. Other times I have to call security when individuals or groups are drinking alcohol or using drugs. They can be loud or quiet. They’re often loud when drinking, but usually quiet when using drugs. Drugs are illegal so I imagine they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Either that or the drugs they’re using make them quiet. I don’t know. I just call security.

I have to call security on homeless men and women, too. I even had to call security about a homeless family sleeping under the band shell when it was raining cats and dogs. I didn’t want to do it, but I could lose my job if I don’t report such things. I need my job. It doesn’t pay too well, but there’s good medical and dental plus a 401(k). It’s a city job. Government jobs often have the best job security and benefits, particularly for menial jobs such as mine. I couldn’t find a job like this in the private sector. Corporations often hire illegal immigrants for such work. They pay them less than I get paid and they get no benefits. They certainly have no job security. I’m glad I was born here. Just luck of the draw. I could have been born in Mexico or Honduras. That would have sucked.

I have been harassed and even assaulted while working at night in Millennium Park. It’s often groups of teenage boys or young adult men. They’re usually drinking, but not always. I would like to wear earphones and listen to music on the job to drown out the ridicule that is directed at me. My supervisor won’t allow it; he says it violates regulations. There’s another good reason not to wear them, though: I wouldn’t be able to hear threats approaching. A few times, even when I could hear the threat, I couldn’t get away. Once I tried to defend myself with my poker but one of the big guys took it from me and broke it in two. He handed one half to a friend and they both beat me with my own broken poker. The one with the sharp end shoved it into my asshole after they pants me and propped me up with my ass in the air. It hurt like the dickens.

My supervisor came upon me while looking for me because I hadn’t answered my walkie talkie—the men had stolen it. He just shook his head and walked away. Then he walked back and took a picture with his phone while he laughed. I was humiliated by my own co-workers as my supervisor had blown up the photo and posted it on the community bulletin board. A co-worker, Sam, has a locker next to mine. Every evening before we go to work he asks me if he’d like me to break my poker now or if I’d rather wait for someone in the park to do it for me. I don’t like my supervisor or my co-workers.

Fortunately, I rarely see them while working. It’s a solitary job. I like it. The lights of the skyline are beautiful at night. I could do without the rain and snow, although we don’t often work in snow. We have furlough between December 1^st and March 1^st. During those months I take odd jobs or travel. It depends on my financial situation and my interests. My interests often shift. It’s very strange to one year feel like working at a donut shop and another year desire to visit Arkansas. I went there one year for a few months. I didn’t know anybody there and I never met anyone. I took the bus and stayed in a one-bedroom apartment I rented for three months. It was furnished and cheap. I mostly watched television and lived like I did in Chicago.

That’s not entirely true, though. I live with my grandmother. Her name is Helga. She’s old. I think she’s ninety. She won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes several years ago. $10 million dollars. Half went to taxes, but still. She bought a big five bedroom house in the suburb of Forest Park. She lets me live with her. I have to pay rent. She charges $2000 for bedroom rents but only $400.00 for closet rent. I live in a closet. It’s a walk-in so it’s not bad. There’s no room for a bed, but I have a comfortable sleeping bag. I set up a tiny nine inch portable television. I get the broadcasting stations. It’s fine.

My grandmother sleeps in a King size bed in the master suite. She’s four feet tall. I’m six foot. *sigh*. All the other bedrooms have queen size beds. They’re always made. They have four pillows each and a nice comforter draping them. Each room in the house, including the bedrooms, have been designed by an interior decorator. Grandma won’t let me sleep on the beds even though no one else ever does. I also have to take the servant stairs down to the kitchen and out the back door. I’m not allowed in any of the other rooms other than the bathroom upstairs. It’s my one slice of luxury. There’s a toilet, a sink, and a shower. It’s great.

Some people might complain about having a grandmother so stingy with her wealth, possessions, and ample space in her house. I can’t complain, though. She raised me since I was three. My father, Russpus, and mother, Amoeba, abandoned me. No one I know knows what happened to them. They left on my third birthday and never came back, never called, never wrote any letters, nothing. They just disappeared. Amoeba’s mother and mother, Liesha and Laysha, my other grandmothers stopped visiting me as soon as their daughter left. They never liked my dad. That’s what his mom, the grandmother who raised me, told me. I don’t know if it’s true or not. They were never part of my life after my third birthday.

My grandmother was the only person who stuck with me. That’s why I love her no matter how she treats me. She’s been the only person there for me my whole life. Well, she wasn’t really there most of the time. She often left me home alone when she went to casinos or on trips to Florida. That started when I was about seven and it’s been like that ever since then. She never talked to me much, either. She signed me up for school and stuff like that, but otherwise she didn’t do much for me. Not much directly, anyway. She never read to me or helped me with my homework. We never played games or even watched television together. She made me watch it in my closet. Yeah, I grew up in the same closet I live in now. She started charging me rent when I got out of high school.

I’m leaving her, though. I don’t know for how long. I took a leave of absence from my job, too. My Uncle Stumpy died. He lived in Linden, Wisconsin. He’s my dad’s brother. I didn’t know I had an uncle until my grandmother told me he died last week. The funeral’s in a couple days. I want to go to meet more family. My grandmother isn’t sure if he was married or has any children, but I want to find out. Even if he doesn’t I want to be at his funeral. Someone related to him should be there. I think so, anyway. My grandmother disagrees. Stumpy was her son but she hasn’t had anything to do with him since I started living with her. As far as I know, anyway. Who knows what grandma does when she isn’t at home. I don’t.

I’m packing my things right now. There’s not much. A few changes of clothes and my one suit and tie. A pair of dress shoes as well as the loafers on my feet. I’ll pack a lunch. I might do some sightseeing after the funeral. See the Wisconsin Dells or something like that. I have to gas up my Weinermobile. Hopefully, it can handle the trip. I’ve never driven it more than forty miles per hour and never longer than forty-five minutes. I had a tune-up recently, though. The mechanic said it was in good shape. I think that’s what he said, anyway. He was laughing so hard it was difficult to tell. The Weinermobile gets a lot of attention. Most of it’s good, but sometimes people squirt catsup and mustard on it. I suppose they think it’s funny. I don’t like it but what can I do? I’m not a particularly strong man and I’ve never been on the winning end of a fight. Better to let people abuse my property and my pride than my body. That’s my motto.

Well, I’d better finish packing. I’ll write again soon if all goes well. I’m not sure who will read it, though. As far as I know, I have no friends. I’m not really sure what a ‘friend’ is, anyway, as I don’t think I’ve ever had one. I wonder what it’s like to have a friend. Maybe I’ll think about that while I’m driving.