I was not at all surprised to learn that the $12 per month apartment insurance did not actually protect me, mandatory per the complex – from the crazed-ex placing a can of Rave hairspray in the microwave before making a hasty exit (a unique method of egress, no doubt). Imagine explaining with a straight face a charred wall and an exploded microwave – “I was in the shower, and all of a sudden: pshhboomyah.” Neither the landlord nor the police took much stock in a word I said. I decided to pay the very heavy fee and get the hell out of there. I had two weeks, a gesture granted by three years of loyal and on time payments. I even gave a log of cheap fruit-cake to the lady at the office, Kim, on holidays.
Here I am, a responsible adult in my slacks coming home from work having to deal with home-made bombs, sharp fingernails, and an array of habits that conflict with my overall demeanor, though they’ve creeped through. My work is an office/warehouse setting that I scramble around looking busy 42 hours per week. They know I’m about to burst, that I have secrets stashed all over that have been progressively darker and darker. I feel like I’m looking for trojan horses all day: everything anyone says, I think about it for days. To accuse someone of “overthinking” I always found it quite rude given the comfort and speed at which it’s said, yet, few people no matter how wide-eyed, can barely get away with telling someone they’re “under-thinking.”
Having an astonishing ability to time your own implosion is a prevalent function and feature of the addict type, or someone very in their head and 30 steps ahead. Either way, if your mind races too often, eventually adolescents call and ask if it’s still running and thus, you better catch it. I spent months trying to recoup the loss from that fire. The $12 policy was supposed to cover up to $50,000 in damages; so I was confused why my Cult, Meatloaf, and Tom Petty vinyls weren’t snapped up as being top priority. I have at least 14 emails back and forth from a, let’s call her Caitlin, with little arrows drawn onto desktop snapshots; “as you can see these are all melted and ruined and unplayable, the hairspray dripped and the wax from the carpet globbed..” I hear sighing like clockwork everytime we speak before being told that vintage/antiques can’t be replaced by the agency. Along with the amber Crosley vinyl player, a vintage 70’s ashtray (with wood trimming) and a collection of Rolex teaspoons, my cigar box banjo is beyond repair.
This is living like a savage, a pointy stick and a pear, a cheeky sense of the day. I say shoot the messenger, it’s 2023 and you can never ever be too careful. The other week I was too careful, and I got truly hurt, whipped, almost into submission, but I had my $20 bucks just like the teacher asked and I went.
Filtering glass out your drinking water with some cheesecloth in the dark is truly more fun than doing a bureaucratic or worldly task or errand that the brain simply doesn’t have a warm blanket for, and you get so mad at your ease to fall behind in all the wrong ways.
When the fire marshal was able to explicitly point out she had used the baked potato setting for her commando style mayhem, I lost it. I personally would be the defrosting bandit but that’s a story for another mind.
The two week notice was submitted at 2pm, I was told I’d be paid for 2 weeks and didn’t have to ever return. Meaning pack the box, load the Miata, the kind of exit where the metal tin has been peeled off, never to be returned or smoothly screwed on or added ever again. I wish my exits weren’t so volatile, my entrances have never seemed to bother anyone (until very recently). The exits however, shrapnel.
I’m taking a long run along a very sexy southern port, with cemeteries and 18th century marsh houses across the street and everywhere. The Spanish moss is looking a little Scooby Doo and it’s reassuring. Two Miller’s for 2 bucks for breakfast with a ham and cheese croissant scarfed down in 3 bites, I barely look like a victim of arson.
Living in the RV park for a couple of months turned out to be one of my best ideas. My neighbor looks like Willie Nelson and a piece of leather procreated, and there’s an honor system on the Ice, so far so good. Working in the back of an O’Charley’s, because you fucked up, is a shame some people can’t fathom. To go from a nice office and apartment to not having a clue and arguing with a felon over ramekins and French Onion, it’s not for the faint of heart. It was truly a case of the jackals moving in, the sand on the beach I sat for months, not as warm, everything started to turn gray once again. There was a very large and violently busy family/nest of huge fire ants living directly under my thin mattress. They looked like translucent kidney beans, it was one of the final straws for me. In that moment, sad and broken and gray, I fell into a long weird journey that would only lead to more – grayness, but it would be very far away. Always blame your environment. Like a cheesy 90’s sitcom, “I just have to get out of this city babe!”
So, it’s that time of the year again, September leading into a question mark shaped Fall. Where it’s time to find the crack I’m going to crawl in. It’s time to lock in, bite down. New England seems to be calling my name for some reason. I was chased with a metal pipe as recently as week and it brought back awful memories. I can’t be around hairspray, I’m doomed on microwaves, and yes indeed VT or somewhere similar might just be cold enough to freeze the warts of bad luck right off of these dragging knuckles.