638 Rt. 52 in Beacon [Or: Breakfast of Alcoholics and Junkies] [Or: An Empire of Groins]

A few months after my restorative departure, I'm 
remembering the babysteps, the minor discontinuities 
of the building where my room was and the harmless 
alterations that welcomed harmless alterations 
that made Jack & Raoul unbearable to live around. 

Our landlord got around to fixing the broken socket 
in the lights above the bathroom sink. He also made it 
so the faucet didn't drip, even a little. And so, too, the 
circuits were repaired that the light housed with the venti-
lator-fan now ignited when the corresponding switch 
was moved. 

I was feeling altruistic. 

I hadn't worked steadily in several months. 

Nor had I continued attending the obligatory therapy & counseling 
I was required to in order to receive government funds 
for my rent. (The maternal benefactor assured there was a 
pillow beneath my face and a roof over my head that wasn't hers.) 

I'd taken a mostly uninterrupted retreat from any ambition or 
creativity in the creative sense, my discipline for such in the range 
of writing down cute/novel pairs and strings of words, the very infrequent 
and brief spontaneous eruptions of verse, and picking up the scattered debris 
of road accidents and things left in free piles or discarded by telephone & 

electric company technicians and what else random default granted. 

This altruism begged me to use my hands again. 

I complied by dusting & sponging the walls of the hallway that ran 
from the front of the building past all of our separate doors to 

the back of the building, where the rear/exit and the kitchen stood. 

In the next few days I cleaned the kitchen and the refrigerator 

and the bathroom and my own room I preferred to tidy as 

needed and maybe just wipe down the most-trafficked surfaces 

with soap & water as tolerability dictated. 

It was just around then that Jack & Raoul 

started acting on their queer, idiosyncratic 

impulses 

at a gradually more antagonistic rate. 

Jack's cooking for instance: the Frisky/9 Lives-reek of liver 

grilled to repulsion virtually every morning, Jack saying "C'mon, boy, 

C'mon, boy, C'mon, boy" over his choices as though on trial 

for his sordid, yet empty years. 

Jack working part-time into his 70s (presumably sweeping at a bar) 

returning in the fetidly hot afternoons doing harsh mouth exhalations 

in rapid successions while ascending the four steps to the front/entrance 

of the building and carrying his fat-taxed, withered limbs to the kitchen 

or his room... Jack upset all the fucking time... Jacking looking for acceptance 

all the fucking time... Jack upset all the fucking time... 

Raoul's slimey offerings of trite small talk, the sound and scent of him 

too loud in his head to notice your obvious disinterest... The nightly chorus 

of dull movies with cut & paste plots seemingly adored by the lonely 

& tasteless... Plus the evasive, mysterious girlfriend who never set foot 

outside her car or anywhere else if we're being honest.... 

This reached maximum tilt when things started being rearranged in 

my room 

without my knowledge or agreement and I began locking my door whenever 

the room wasn't in plain sight...to no avail... And Jack's constant 

wheezing and bemoaning... And Raoul's cowardly attempts at 

nonchalance... 

Two months later, I hatefully drew the line. 

I disposed of all that I could be detached from-- 
which was lot of it-- and began sorting my 

notebooks and personal belongings into boxes, bags, 

a suitcases, bins. I told my mother I'd either live with her 

or take my chances homeless in Poughkeepsie or at the shelter. 

To my mild relief, she opened her door again. 

....I've been here just a shade over 3 months now. 

Looking for work. Looking for a future of some quality. 

We got about half the deposit with a note from Herb (the 

tersely soft-voiced landlord who'd weekly hand-deliver 

some piece of my junkmail, though neglecting the 

neighboring Bobs's mail (they lived in rooms above 

the Oil Company office next door). (The Bobs's mail would 

simply accumulate into fat wads of AARP flyers 

and bills and such for about a week or so 

until some anonymous force carted 

them away and the process began anew.) I told myself to 

let it go, I told myself... Place it, sort it, move it. 

(Write it.) Condense the trespasses of scoundrels 

into easy habits of thoughtfulness and care 

until their gravity of entitlement withers 

off their unlived muscles and bones. 

Ting-a-ling. 

****