Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Coffee, books, sleep, and the return of Spam

I was beat, as you could imagine, from the train ride and all the walking. I left the ‘all you can cram down your gullet‘ and walked into the mecca.

Then I saw it, I hadn't dreamed of such a thing. I was walking towards the most glorious site I have ever seen, a Barnes and Nobles. Fresh and new and all clean – and full of books and coffee. I love books and they were hard to come by in my existence. I also love coffee and that was easier to get, but crappy. My exposure to coffee was instant that my dad made tasted like warm water with cleanser in it. After he died I didn't have any coffee.

So I am totally blown away by this site. I walk in and am overwhelmed by the books. I remember the smell was awesome and still love that smell. I smell coffee and head over to the cafe. I order a large coffee and sit and drink it - I was in heaven. This was the first time in my life I felt happy and after this I knew how miserable I was previous to this. I could never go back. I fell asleep in a large cushy chair.

I awoke over an hour later with a lower intestine full of bad news pushing hard at the backdoor. I was in a blind rush when I hit the bathroom door and by the time I was in the stall my transcending colon emptied itself with a vengeance. The kid in the stall next to me coughed and cursed, “Flush that will ya!” I chuckled perversely.

I got more coffee and returned to the chair - a man was sitting in it. I stood very close to the man in the cushy chair until he vacated it. That’s classic passive aggressive behavior. Comes in handy sometimes. Long story short, I again fell asleep in this chair. I was sound asleep too! When the store closed I was awaken by the retail book-whore kicking my foot. I don’t blame him because I was pretty funky with smell and visual smears. I rolled to the floor and started moaning, “That bastard kicked me.” The kid looked nervous and sort of backed away. When he returned with his manager I was long gone. I decided that I was flippin’ stayin’ in this mecca for a while.

I ended up sleeping in the bushes outside the B&N. When the sun came up I went in and washed up in their restroom, made a real wreck of it. I sang really loud to annoy the woman who gave me a look when I went in. I was screaming when a pounding on the door started. I fell silent. “Sir, are you alright?” “Of course I am, why?” “You are screaming. Is everything okay?” I refused to answer.

As I was starting to walk back to the eatery across the parking lot a hand came from under the small green shrubs in front of the B&N and grabbed my ankle. I went flying and crashed on the cement. Old Spam was looking up from the dirt panicked. He wanted to know why I was in the building. I just walked away. He ran after me. I yelled at him to stop. He thought we could hang out, but I told him to haul ass outta here. He was soon gone. Kinda’ sad but Old Spammers just held me down in this gig. I decided not to hop the rails anymore and instead decided to have some fun.

I was there for a few days laying low, eating, drinking, reading - begging for some bucks. I was soon smelling to high heaven - I was smelling soon after I started my journey but now you could smell me from a considerable distance. I was still wearing my sweats and army jacket and looking like I was dragged through a dumpster when I entered the Gap. I had been playing it low key until this point and decided that I needed to get some steam out when the salesgirl approached me. She said, “You can’t come in here.” I stopped and looked at her, and I know I looked like a homeless crazy fuck, but I looked her straight in the eye. “Excuse me? Is that because I don’t look like Gap material?” She said, “No because you have food and drink.” I dropped the offending beverage and jumbo dog on the floor. I fell to my knees. “I hate this shit. I hate this shit! No one will every help me become the man I want to be.”

She kind of looked around sheepishly and squatted next to me. “I will help you.” She said.

NEXT: I strut my stuff and am forced to move on, but not after taking a nasty spill off an escalator.

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