The Adobe

      I’m waking up and I am groggy and I hurt. I don’t know why I hurt so much; normally I feel robust, even superhuman. I open my eyes everything is blurry and grey scale. I focus hard until I can see that I am inside a shitty little room. I feel out of sorts. I am trying to collect my thoughts.

“What is wrong with me?”

“Did I have too much too drink last night?”

My bladder is full and I get up only because I must empty it soon or piss my bed.

Begrudgingly I roll out and land on the floor.

“Shit that hurts.”

My legs ach as I slowly and painfully stand up and make my way to the only open door in the room.

It is the bathroom and it is small.

It has a small shower stall. A small sink and a small toilet, barely big enough to comfortably fit my small ass. I feel cold, weak and clammy. I think I may have a flu bug. My legs are too unstable to stand and piss, so I sit on the toilet like a woman. My bladder is emptying and the stream feels endless.

The bathroom is so small that if I lean forward as I am taking a dump, I can actually have my face over the sink and shave.

“Damn, it is so small in here that there is not enough room for a rat with an erection.”

I laugh at the errant thought.

I feel so weak I feel tempted to actually shave as I sit on the shitter. Instead I stand-up and I have to use the sink as I lean forward to help me stand erect.

I look in the mirror. For some reason, I am surprised to see that my hair is very thick, dark and glossy. Otherwise I do look like hell. Despite my thick glossy hair, the yellow lighting makes me look like a cadaver.

I certainly feel like one.

I am dismayed to see that I had slept in dirty work clothes. In the mirror embroidered over one pocket it Says Glenhardie Apts. & Condominiums and over the other pocket it says Janitor – Vinny.

“My God, I’m a fucking Janitor. When did that happen.” “Is this to be my niche for the rest of my life, a janitor?”

I don’t know why, but I have a strong feeling that I should be somewhere else. I feel I have a different career. I feel as if my life is really better than this.

“Just wishful thinking.”

I take off my shirt so that I can wipe of the cold gritty clamminess off my skin.

I see that my body is lean and without an ounce of fat. I can see my ribs. I am befuddled. I vacuum in my stomach and my navel looks as if it is touching my spine.

“Man I am skinny. When did this happen?’

I get on the scale and it says one hundred and sixty-one.”

I could have sworn I was closer to two hundred.

I need to get some food. A little less drinking and more food.”

I am starving. My body has been cannibalizing itself.

My body needs food, but I feel too sick to eat.

I feel too sick not to.

A banging on the door startles the hell out me.

“What the fuck!’

“Vinny, hurry up man! I gotta shit!”

“Who the hell is that?”

The voice sounds desperate and strangely familiar.

I open the door. 
I see a face I think I should recognize, but I don’t.

“Vinny, are you all right dude?”

“Dude?”

“Come on man, I have to shit!”

I recognize him.

“Don, what are you doing here?”

“Vinny, I live here dude?”

“What’s with this dude shit?”

“When did that happen?”

“Are you alright man? What’s wrong with you dude? You didn’t have anything to drink last night.”

This surprises me since I do feel terribly hung-over.

I sigh, “Just humor me. How long have you lived here?”

Don looks at me with suspicion and concern.

“I moved in three months ago. You remember, right after my mom kicked me out?”

I shake my head and the cobwebs are not loosening.

“I got to get food in my stomach.”

I stumble out into the bedroom.

I see that the room serves as both a bedroom and living room and it is not as large as the smallest one car garage.

I hear a girl’s voice.

“Food? You have food?”

Her voice sounds hopeful.

She is lying on the other side of the small bed I had fallen out of.

I am shocked that I did not notice her earlier. She looks familiar. She is pretty and full figured and she reminds me of the playmate bunny Barbie Benton.

“But that was years ago. Who is this girl?”

Don looks at the girl in my bed.

“Lorraine, we told you and Nina last night that we don’t have any food. And we don’t have any money.”

“Why not?’

Don is angry.

“Because we spent it all on beer and dope.”

“All of it?”

“You and Nina weren’t complaining last night, you must have chugged down a six-pack and smoked several bowls all by yourselves.”

Lorraine looks embarrassed.

I look around and it is the first time I see that there are cases of empty beer cans and bottles stacked in a massive pyramid against the main wall.

Don walks over to a love seat that has a pile of blankets over it. He shakes the pile.

“Nina, Nina. Wake-up! You and Lorraine have to get going and go home. Your parents have called the police on us and we don’t want them to find you with us.

My head is spinning. Now I know Lorraine and I know that she is my girl and that I love her. She is in fact my first love. She just turned seventeen and Nina will soon be sixteen. Don is twenty. I realize to my disbelief that I have just turned nineteen and that Lorraine and I have been having sex for quite some time. I have been regularly committing statutory rape with a minor. I don’t know why it has not bothered me until that moment. It is more than niggling at my mind now.

I love her and I am terrified that her parents will have me arrested or worse I will get her pregnant and we will suffer a life of poverty till the day we die.

“This isn’t real. It can’t be. This is not my life.”

My life or not I desperately need to put something in my stomach.

I am scrounging through the kitchen for food. The kitchen is not much bigger than the bathroom.

Don, Nina and Lorraine follow me and are hopeful.

The fridge is empty except for a bottle of mustard and a jar of mayonnaise, both of which looks as if they are turning bad. I look through all of the drawers and cabinets. They are empty. I feel desperate.

“Vinny, I already looked, there is nothing to eat dude.”

“Why the fuck does he keep calling me dude?”

I am irritated by his way of talking. It doesn’t seem right. It seems out of place…out of time.

My hunger makes me more irritable, it makes me redouble my efforts to find food.

Instinct or desperation cause me to climb up on the counter so I can look on top of the cabinets.

I spot an ancient pack of spaghetti left by a former tenant. It was yellow-brown with age and a few dusty mold spots had gotten a foothold.

I hold it out to the three of them as if I am a successful hunter that has brought home big game for my starving tribe.

Nina and Lorraine do not look pleased.

Lorraine leans in and sniffs it.

“It doesn’t look edible.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll dress it up.”

Don looks at me with raise brows. “With what?”

I open the fridge and pull out the mayonnaise and mustard.

“Don hand me that pot.”

I break the spaghetti to fit into the pot and I squeeze the little mustard remaining in the bottle over the spaghetti, then I shovel all of the discolored mayonnaise on top. I add water and we all watch as it boils and cooks.

Lorraine and Nina look doubtful and ill.

“Aren’t you afraid of food poisoning?”

I am, but I desperately need food in my stomach.

I lie.

“Na, I’m cooking out all of the germs.”

They still look doubtful.

The meal is ready and I put a pile into a bowl.

I offer the meal to all of them.

Nina and Lorraine both decline.

I feel ashamed that I cannot provide adequately for them. I am grateful that they don’t want any.

“More for me.”

Don however wants a little. I can tell he is only asking so he does not look like a sissy.

I am proud that he will try some. I am resentful because that means less for me.

Everyone is looking at me to take the first mouthful.

I stuff some of it in my mouth. The mayonnaise and the mustard had turned. I know now that it would have been dangerous to eat without cooking it. I am hoping that the heat killed all the bad germs.

The heat however did not help the taste.

My dissipated body is crying for nourishment however. I greedily suck down a meal better left in a dumpster.

They look at me.

“How is it?”

“Not bad,” I lie.

Don and Nina start gathering up Don’s mixture of drugs. Stuff he orders through “High Times” magazine. Stuff that he boils and dries and mixes and eats and smokes and does anything to get high. I have no interest in any such shit. I am simply a beer and sex man. Those are my drugs.

Suddenly, I notice that Lorraine and Nina are not there.

“When did they leave?”

“Shit this all feels so weird.”

I leave Don to his strange concoctions.

I walk out of the kitchen through the only entrance to the outside.

The outside looks familiar. I see a pale blue Dodge Satellite parked right out front.

“That’s my car… isn’t it?”

Two of the tires are flat. The tires have been slashed.

Seeing this makes me angry and afraid.

“But why?”

I am searching my memory for why. I seem to remember that some people don’t like me and one person is looking to kill me.

I think it has something to do over a girl. Someone I have fucked. Now I see that very girl sitting on a porch across the street. Her name is Lori.

“I didn’t fuck her. Her pussy is too tight. My finger barely fit.”

I decide to walk about to see what else I can remember. I wander the streets for many blocks in every direction. I see signs that indicate where I live. I see signs in front of many buildings with names such as Bridgeport Pharmacy, Bridgeport Garage, Bridgeport Beverage Center and Bridgeport Tavern. I see other signs with names that strike me as familiar. I see Desimond’s Tavern, Lucky’s, Sam’s Garage.
“I’m going to hazard a guess and say that I live in Bridgeport.”

It is apparent to me that for some reason that I cannot recall, I have moved into the crappy section of the burnout belt of the slummy area of Bridgeport. I see that three types of people have found their way here. Those people that were born here and then move out; those who are born here or move here and are like barnacles, stay firmly rooted, never to leave; unfortunates who pass through on a downward spiral, like a meteor burning out.

“Am I like a meteor?”

      I see that this area of Bridgeport is set up like a twisted experiment of social Darwinism on a day that God is feeling pissy. There are many denizens that have their niches in this neighborhood. I see that there are predators, muggers, and thieves. I see that there are also the human equivalents of little fish, flitting about, striving to eke out an existence as they desperately try to avoid the predators. The others sad souls appear as if they are barnacles and jellyfish, waiting or floating mindlessly about for distractions to ease their pain, to fill their need.

As I walk about I notice that there are a more than a few prostitutes and numerous drug dealers plying their trade both of these recreant members of society responding to the poor souls stuck here or those floating about mindlessly, endlessly. 

“Which species of animal do I fit into?”

I tried to imagine I am a noble porpoise that somehow has found myself accidentally swept into the murky waters of the “Bridgeport Triangle” struggling to get my bearings, struggling to reverse my downward spiral.

I tried to imagine this and fail to believe it.

“Face it, you’re a burned out meteor.”

      As I ghost about like a disembodied spirit, I see that there are a lot of toughs here; most of whom I think I know from someplace and sometime. But I can’t be sure from where or when. I just know that they are equipped with reputations they have been carrying around for years. I see that most of them are looking at me askance. I sense that I must have a reputation also. They are edgy around me and are begrudgingly civil.

I feel edgy and a little fearful.

“They act like I’m a tough customer. Shit, I don’t feel very tough. I can’t ever let them know this or I’m fucked.”

I am back in front of my apartment. I really don’t want to go in. Don would be doing his dope and hassling me on the advantages of using. I just don’t want to hear it.

I seem to remember that just around the corner and kitty corner across the street is a hangout where I can indulge in distractions of the flesh. I think it is called Pistachios

      I push through heavy door and I pass out…

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