2004-10-27 - 12:17 p.m.
I wake up every morning trying not shiver, forcing myself into the shower. Brooklyn in the fall.
Then, I guess, Brooklyn in the winter.
Block by block this place varies; little worlds in between Bedford and Nostrand, Underhill and Vanderbilt.
Safe for four sidewalk squares, leered at over the course of nine more.
One bright morning last week I found a roomate's friend sprawled at the bottom of the concrete stairwell. She's tiny as doll, curled up in a rabbit fur jacket and her own vomit. Reeking of liqour, dried leaves caught in her long black hair. She speaks little English, but blacking out is a universal language. I help her upstairs, late for work, towelling off the vomit from her face.
Later she's in the apartment with my roommate, their baking cookies like it's 1955. The drunk smiles at me, and Raina says, "I heard you saved my friend."
"I thought you were dead," I say to her, but she doesn't understand. I turn to Raina. "I thought she was dead."
The friend gestures to her head, grinning. "She thinks she fell down the stairs."
I want permanance; this transient life has become exhilirating and tiring. By Monday I should have a lease. A lease! Me!
Millions of other things.
~j
|
|
|