Rehab

“Nigga, you just pissed yourself” she said looking at me. I looked down at my pants in panic but they were dry. I turned around and noticed the man in the wheel chair. I wondered how I didn’t notice him before. I guess I got caught up deciding which gallon of poison I wanted for the weekend from Crazy Chicken liquor store. The guy in the wheel chair, I thought he was just retarded but turned out he was very drunk. Ironically next door were they the AA meetings. I wonder if he had wondered off. I looked down at his crotch, indeed he had pissed himself but that wasn’t his major concern. His mission was more liquor. He was tattered like an overdue heating bill that fell on a muddy ground and decides it doesn’t need to be paid. He looked like there was no recovery for his suffering. I laughed. It was so sad watching him struggling to count the change in his hand and gather the strength to place it on the counter. He was in a damn wheel chair. At least it was electronic. I couldn’t figure how he even managed to get himself into the store or how he will manage to get himself wherever-- if he succeeded getting more liquor. So I laughed. I watched in awe for ten minutes. I was actually rooting for him. I also wanted to see if the liquor store clerk would take his money. Then I got bored. He passed out in his chair. I decided I would drink rum that weekend. It was an oldie but goodie.
I finally reached home from another day “it pays the bills” work to find two pieces of philosophically related mail in the mailbox. I had been looking for a refund check for weeks, instead I found a jury duty notice and a large envelope with the big letters “ADDICTION.” I immediately started thinking of ways of how to get out of my social responsibility. I figured I’d keep postponing it until they arrest me or dismiss me. The envelope titled “ADDICTION” intrigued me. I looked at the other mailboxes and it wasn’t just me. Everybody got the mysterious “ADDICTION” envelope. I suspected from the strange smell that my downstairs neighbor liked the green boogey man. From the trash, I knew the guy next door really liked wine but I never saw him drunk, just dozen of bottles when he recycled. Drunks don’t recycle. I took the mail and quickly got into my apartment. My neighbors’ schedules are annoying close to mine and I do everything in my power to avoid them. I hate the friendly chatter. I rather pretend they didn’t exist.

Inside my apartment, I first make myself a cocktail. I sip it quickly, feeling as if I deserved it since it was Friday and I made it through another week without getting fired. I start removing the uniform (blazer, tie, dress shirt and pants and dress shoes.). I feel better just in my underwear and I turn on the TV to the cartoon channel and begin reading my mail. I wanted to know who was calling me an addict.
Thanks to Oprah we all now live in a rehab culture. Everybody is an addict. If you cheat on your wife you are a sex addict. If you were a child star you are an addict. If you drink too much and piss on yourself that one time at Mardi Gras you are an addict. If you have a couple of beers after work some talk show host will say you’re an addict. If you cheat on your wife, you’re an addict. Too many damn addicts and fat people in America.

I started reading the letter and it was about if I knew someone or myself that might have a problem with a bad habit. I knew plenty of people but I was no snitch. I didn’t want them straightened out. It’s like the jolly fat friend who gets skinny and suddenly becomes a mega bitch. I detest the reborn.

I attended an AA meeting for six days when my landlord and some dramatic tenants got together and scheduled a spontaneous intervention. I was told I needed document proof of “getting help” or he would have to end my lease. I felt insulted. I was never late on my rent, so what if I took it a little far some weekends. The ring leader was some old pothead lesbian. She caught me pissing in her welcoming plant in front of her door. I’d done it so many times I can’t remember but that night she caught me. Another neighbor said she was tired of my cat howling at 4 in the morning. She didn’t understand that if I was still drinking at 3 in the morning I became an alley cat. It wasn’t irrational. So to prove them wrong, I stopped drinking and went to AA.
AA was like the church of my childhood, mostly fake and a bunch of people who just like to hear themselves talk. I would listen to the stories of angry drunks who beat their wives, those who blacked out or ended up in the hospital or jail or sometimes the mental institution. They seem so far right of the spectrum. I just got caught pissing in my neighbors plants. I felt it could be worse. Feeling inadequate, I started to lie. I’d make up stories about getting so drunk and kidnapping homeless men and keeping them in my basement. I say I once drank a gallon in three hours. I just wanted to hear myself talk.

Being sober, I just needed the attention more. I guess I was addicted to irrationality.

They say people who go to jail are never rehabilitated but just learn to be better criminals and not get caught. In AA I learned how to become a better drunk. I learned we live in a rehab culture where any sign of disturbing the peace demands “get so help.” Which means, I need for you to shut the fuck up, or I need for you to stop ruining my silence. I am just trying to get out of this life

Nickel Bags

This is how it went down. Lunch break. I checked my yahoo account. Filenes Basement sent me a 20% off coupon. I figured I needed new underwear and socks cuz I only buy under garment if it’s on sale. Most of the time I wear my drawers until the bootyhole burns a hole in the cotton for fresh air. I printed out the coupon. I planned to take a long lunch cuz my boss was at an offsite meeting. It was a nice day. The sun was on fire rocking sunshades like those raisin commercials. I was in a good mood which meant I was on my third day of sobriety. I took my time. I got to the store and walked around looking at stuff I knew I couldn’t buy. I’ve never been much of a shopper. I see my clothes more as inventory and things that need to be replaced. Menswear is stagnant. You just need something to cover the ass, pair of jeans, slacks, shoes and shirt and just keep replacing that combination in same color scheme.

Ten minutes in the store I got bored and decided to check out. It turned out I wasn’t the only one who had gotten that coupon right before lunch. It was an epidemic. The line was slow. I could hear the impatient breaths but I was cool. I knew I had plenty of time.

Living in the “protest” city, most days I cleverly ignore people behind my dark sunshades. Yet, in lines I can’t help but focus what is around me just in case someone pulls out a gun and start shooting motherfuckers. I want to know who I should grab to shield me.

Funny, a line taking more than five minutes invite stranger’s banal chatter. Their existence suddenly needs affirmation that they are frustrated or late for work. I don’t care. But for some reason I focused on the cashier. I didn’t like her hair. It wasn’t just the kitchen showing but also the clogged up toilet. I wanted to offer her some lye.

As a black person from the front section of the ghetto, I still get nervous about using my credit card. I guess it’s the fear of public rejection. It’s societal. It’s a machine screaming at you, YOU SHALL NOT PASS. I like watching people whose credit cards get rejected. They suddenly have to explain. Sometimes it’s extensive stories about a runaway slave or sex change. Sometimes they become irate and want to argue their broke bank accounts. It’s never pretty. But when it happens to you when you’re black, it’s representative of the entire 12 percent. It’s like the only black kid at an all white school going up to the chalkboard to solve the calculus equation and getting it wrong. Not all blacks are dumb, just that nigga.
So I am standing in line and I’m watching the nappy headed cashier for my own personal reasons. I want to see who she is going to ask for I.D. using a credit card. I remember something stupid nickel bags.

DC has some stupid law that all grocery store bags cost a nickel. I was in a self checkout line and I needed a couple of bags and the machine prompts you for the quantity but you still have to go to some bag handler to get them. The act like they are dealing crack cocaine with their holier than thou attitudes. It’s stupid. So I told the girl I needed two bags and she had the nerve questioned me for ten cents. I had to show her my receipt. It pissed me off cuz I live in a mostly white gentrified neighborhood and I saw her give bags to at least five other whites without a problem. She didn’t interrogate them. And she was a black girl. And I was black. And it was like damn, I can’t even escape being black to other blacks. I was like do I look poor? I am.

Back to reality. So now I’m pissed rehashing memories of discrimination like the annoyance of being followed in a department store. I watch the black guy who is two people in front of me. He looks working class like UPS. He seems harmless and he is buying underwear like me. I watched the three white people in front of him hand the nappy headed girl their credit cards, she wipes and no problem. She doesn’t ask for I.D. The black guy, in his twenties, average looking, it’s his turn. She notices that he is about to use a credit card and she immediately asks him for I.D. He hands it to her and she thoroughly checks it. I watch in disgust. The next white person, again she doesn’t ask for I.D. WTF.

It’s my turn. Before she rings me up I show her my I.D. and work badge. I tell her I forgot to bring my social security card and birth certificate cuz you know we blacks must always have our papers. She looks at me annoyed. I tell her I hope that’s enough for me to pay cash. She rolls her eyes. I give her the cash, demands that she checks the twenty to see if it’s counterfeit because you can’t be too careful with us blacks. I could feel the white guy behind me uneasiness making his testicles retract. She asked me if I am done. I say, those damn grocery store bags that cost a nickel, I’m sure every black person can afford it. Also, you are a racist bitch.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

IT was odd. I had been renting an usual amount of porn, for no reason other than boredom. The sex clerk confronted me on a Tuesday afternoon. He said I left an empty bottle two weeks ago in his store. He went behind his desk and retrieved the bottle and handed it to me. He then proceeded to lecture. He asked stupid questions like, is this your bottle. It was two weeks ago but I did have a bad habit of predictability. I always mixed my "to go" drinks in a Gatorade bottle. I figured nobody would every question exercise.

I immediately thought and then accidently said out loud, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” It seemed weird that he was collecting evidence of my bad habits. I didn’t like the feeling.

I took the bottle from the rude clerk and threw it in the trash. He then grabbed my new Gatorade bottle and wanted to know what was in it. I told him it was none of his fucking business. Yet, I suddenly felt somewhat offended. I mean, why did he keep that bottle for two weeks? I became pissed off like a drunk girl who passed out a frat party and then discovered she was raped the next morning when she sat on the toilet and shitted cum. Getting fucked in the ass is one thing, but not being able to enjoy it is another.

“Are you stalking me?” I had to ask because there could be no other explanation. I had made the mistake of trying to be friendly with him once. I told him I wanted to take him to the Wendy Williams show. I was lying. I was just drunk that day. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. But that was no excuse for him to keep the bottle. And then he tried to lecture me and I wasn’t going to have it.

I wasn’t going to get a lecture from a clerk at a sex shop that overpriced their porn. We started to argue. I really wanted to know why he kept the bottle. He explained the store had a strict no alcohol rule. I explained it was a closed container. I mean, had the sex shop turned into the airport. Was I to be stripped searched every time I wanted to rent “big black guys and small blond midgets.” I wanted my membership money back. He quickly noticed I wasn’t pleased and ran to his phone to call his manager. I mean, the membership fee was only ten dollars but I wanted it back. I felt harassed. It wasn’t like I was a fall down drunk or something that didn’t happen until four in the morning. My neighbors should have voiced more complaints. On the phone with his manager, he explained that a couple of weeks ago I left a bottle that smelled like liquor was it. He then said he wasn’t for sure cuz he didn’t drink. I guess he scored one for the forty-year-old drop out. He said he called in a friend and had him smell it. I was disturbed. It seemed like a lot of work, like sex shop CSI. I wondered what type of investigating they did in those backrooms. I wondered if unsuspected government workers got cornered for leaving cum stains on the benches? I felt as if I pissed in their bathroom did they keep samples to confront me the next time cuz I missed the toilet. It was insane. It was a sex shop that sold porn where old women took it up the ass from donkeys.

Where was the line?

As I stood there waiting for my money, I heard him say to his manager that I might be “psychotic and unemployed.” The bitch had just called me homeless. I was a little psychotic but unemployed could be argued. I did have a part time job with a temp agency just to make ends meet, but I wasn’t homeless. It was like a midget screaming in a large crowd you have a small dick.

I was dumbfounded. A clerk in a very seedy sex shop had decided he was better than me. I didn’t get my money back. I kept the overdue porn I was to return and canceled my credit card linked to that store. I had to find a new hobby.

Nappy Boogers

Overnight the temperature dropped from a crisp 70 to a bitchy 40 degrees and I was hung-over and not pleased that I didn’t wear a jacket. I wasn’t in the best of moods. Eight o’clock in the morning I rushed to keep my head together and eyes awake. I took a sleeping pill that night to sleep but that morning I felt more like a placid blow up doll, enough to get a desperate bastard off-- but the body knows the plastic pussy wasn’t real. Sleep is supposed to be resetting not cheated. I couldn’t awake. I was still horny.

Arms folded and the requisite Dark sunshades on, I stood in line at the Starbucks with my eyes closed letting the line push me forward. It was my turn. I didn’t remove my sunshades. The cashier smiled at me. It made me feel uneasy. I never really liked strangers smiling at me. I ordered my coffee. I handed her my debit card. She took it seductively. I felt the pull of interest as she swiped my card. Was she flirting or was I still sleep.
The thing about flirting with me is that I am awkward. I find flirting invading my personal space or silly like office banter. I mean, is the morning ever good?
Back to my dick rising, she placed the card in the palm of my hand. Most clerks put some distance between the exchanges of transactions. Some clerks throw the card back at you. Some clerk hand it over like a dirty diaper, only with the tips of their fingers. But she placed it in my palm. I couldn’t understand her problem. She was an okay girl, but it was eight in the morning and I hated the world. Was she flirting? I suddenly got nervous. I have never been a flirt. I am more confrontational. I am more direct. I start thinking of off the wall stuff. I mean, doesn’t flirting lead to sex. It does in the movies.

I can also never tell if someone likes me. I always found it somewhat of an impossibility. It wasn’t that I was ugly, I just never considered myself on the radar. I felt as if each and every time I even considered my attractiveness I had to pause and wait for the joke. Like that time I got on the city bus and noticed everyone was staring at me. The two old ladies in the front seat were just smiling. It wasn’t until the bus driver asked me curiously, “Are you going to put that away.” I didn’t know what he meant. He then you said, “Your dick is out.” I looked down at my pants. I noticed my pants unzipped and somehow my dick managed to slither through the slit of my boxers. And there it was, naked without a care in the world. I guess it felt like flirting. I couldn’t get off that bus fast enough before I was arrested. That was me.

I touched my zipper to make sure it was intact. Those zippers are sneaky. I was now awake at Starbucks. Somebody appeared to like me and I questioned if I should flirt back. I wondered where it would lead. I didn’t have much time. The morning coffee rush was brutal. Am I supposed to tell her my name? Am I supposed to say something trite like “Would you like to meet for coffee” to the girl who works in a coffee shop. I wanted to know her criminal history. I wanted to know if her grandmother had diabetes. I wanted to know her credit score. But I kept silent, best, the second I opened my mouth it was over.

And then it happened. The joke. I heard “nappy boogers.” Somebody was calling me “nappy boogers.” I felt my anus contract. I turned around and it was some woman cutting the line rushing towards me. She looked familiar. My third grade teacher would call me “nappy boogers.” I hated that bitch. I told myself that it couldn’t be her. I was two thousand miles away from childhood. I immediately touched my nose. It was my OCD. My nose leaked constantly as a child. My third grade teacher used to say I was going to die with a head of naps and nose of full of captain crunch boggers.
“It’s me, Ms. Arkansas.” It had to be some type of joke. She hugged me. She grabbed for my nose and swiped her index figure in it like a white glove. I retracted. It was Ms. Arkansas. What the fuck? I turned to the cashier who now looked at me as if I vomited an afro of crusted mucus all over her counter. I turned away. The flirting was over. I told Ms. Arkansas she had the wrong person. Nappy boogers don’t live here anymore.

Cows vs. Ants

“Did this motherfucker just fart on my pinky finger” I wanted to say out loud but the scream cowered in my head. No one flinched, but the oxygen stopped as the smell of the obvious vibration of foul heat arrested the air. You couldn’t ignore a grown man with lactose problems. But no one spoke a word. They just guarded their borrowed place in the overly crowded metro, turned the music up on their headphones and refused to make eye contact. The red line was having problems again. The last problem killed some people. I figured I let the fart go.

Living in the “protest” city or DC, it seems that mornings are the worse. Everybody is always in such a rush or confused. The busiest metro stop in DC has to be the red line, Gallery of fools place or Gallery Place. It’s where all the major metro lines exchange its people. Spit out and spat on, they move like fireflies slamming against a lonely nightlight just because. Getting off trains, getting on trains, waiting for a train, to go only god knows where. Nobody cares. It seems everybody got to be somewhere important or not. I remember when I didn’t have a job-- and I would be coming from some club or one night stand probably smelling of liquor and bathless weeks -- and I would greet the morning ants and cows with dark sunshades and wonder if they pitied a mid twenty something year old man with no place to go but bed at 8 in the morning. Now, I am an ant. I don’t notice anything but strange farts and my metro stop.

The metro traffic of blah blah humanity is like cows and ants. The slow moving or the mass of electricity. Lights on or lights off. Everybody always seem to be rushing, get out of my way rushing or just in the way. I used to love being in the way.

The cows. The slow moving cows, confused. They graze. They seem to always be in the way of the rushing ants. The cows, often tourists or someone directionless. Cows in general seem to be on a never ending vacation or drunk. Probably why they are so easy to tip over or kill and make great burgers. The meat seems lazy. In the rush of life, cows just get pushed out the way. The stampede pushes them where it wants. And then they just start running, scared shitless from the barking of someone who thinks he or she is more important.

I like the part when the metro door opens and everyone rushes to the escalator. And then there is the swipe of the metro card for exit. No one likes the person who messes up the flow. The directionless. It’s always the cow who gets to the swipe and sometimes just looks at the machine, confused. The world suddenly stops. Traffic jam. The stampede becomes aware of itself and we are no longer-- but I who is a hour late for work-- and I who is getting a divorce-- and I who farted on that train.

I don’t mind the jam, it gives me time to think. I can finally slow down. Work can wait another second.

And then there are the ants. As a kid, I liked watching ants cuz they are also seem as if they’re rushing towards something life threatening. I’ve never witness an ant just chilling. I’ve never seen an ant on vacation. They seem to know direction. Get food and protect the queen. It was so simple.

I feel as if I am an ant. Alarm clock goes off and I wake up, rush, get dressed, watch the clock, out the house, make it to the metro, get on train, stand, get off train, work, clock out, back on train, and suddenly I am home until the alarm clock goes off again. In the morning with my uniform on: blazer, shirt, tie and dress pants, I feel as if I look like I do something important. I don’t. I pretend and hope no one finds out. I am on corporate welfare.

I feel as if all those who look like me, in the same uniform look as if we are rushing towards something. Just like ants. It’s simple. Work. Get food. Feed the Queen. Hide bad habits. But who the fuck is the Queen. And what has she done for me lately.

I barely see the world in my rush of instinctual importance until I stumbled into the cows. I was once a cow. Reincarnation is a prankster.

The cows, they just sit there, like they do when cars pass them on highways in the country. They don’t notice the rushing. Cows don’t even say raise their head to say hello. The cows, tourists, directionless. The alarm clocks goes off again. I rush. I am an ant now, dreaming about cows. I need a vacation or a burger.