TWANGS AND PANGS

My homeless shelter dorm closet roommate Ranger Mike is out right now so I have a chance to think. Today is our payday at Sucko Security, so I drove him down to Marina del Rey to pick up our checks and stood right behind him in line at the bank while he cashed his $500 check. He owed me $300.

While Ranger Mike was in the Sucko Security suites picking up our paychecks, a message from his family in Flint, Michigan found him. His grandfather died.

He wishes he could go to the funeral, but what with having to pay rent here at U.S. Vets and pay that $80 traffic ticket he got for being foolish enough to get caught riding in a car driven by my homeless attorney and the expense of building his sound stage in my (our) room, he just can't afford the time off.

I still stood behind him in line at the bank while he cashed his paycheck.

It's been a hard month for Ranger Mike. The Gulf War cancer tumor at the base of his spine has been bothering him and since he turned over control of his medications to me, he hasn't been able to get high on his painkillers like he used to. These sad facts he explained to me on our way to the bank this afternoon.

I still stood behind him in line at the bank while he cashed his paycheck.

Ranger Mike is off catching buses to Redondo Beach right now. He needs more strings for his 'geetahrs'. He's hard on guitar strings.

Up until yesterday he was also very hard on my eardrums, but I dug and dug and dug through the packrat plunder of my milk crates until I came up with the dumpster-salvaged Radio Shack-like attachments necessary for him to route most of the noise from his guitars---through our dumpster-found karaoke machine---into headphones.

Once again the dumpster gods have saved a life, Ranger Mike's or mine, depending upon which you think is tougher in a roommate fight: a cancer-ridden ex-Airborne Ranger or a street-crazed, White Rhino ex-army journalist.

I've had a whole afternoon ( A WHOLE AFTERNOON!! ) of peace and quiet today. A WHOLE AFTERNOON! I've squandered most of it just lying on my bunk bed, soaking up . . . and I mean SOAKING UP . . . the peacefulness of a quiet room. It was better than lounging in a hot tub of bath salts.

I could've been writing. I could've been writing about Grace and the French accordion music I hear when I'm taking care of her. I could've been working on gathering up more of my writing to put on the CD for my agent Louise.

Or I could've been writing about the Mother's Day fiasco we had here at the shelter the other day, or the time-travel trip Gordon The Hollywood Anarchist and I took through Beverly Hills last week . . . but I chose lounging in my bunkbed---thinking about Grace---instead.

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Ranger Mike is back . . . he bought the strings and a geetahr case and a blues book. He wants me to learn to pick the blues on the acoustic so I can accompany him. Looks like I won't be saved by Grace tonight.

Tags: Revver, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Veteran Affairs, U.S. Vets, Westside Residence Hall, homeless veterans shelter, sober living facility, viral video, country songs, country music videos, Sucko Security, security guards, security officers, Marina del Rey, Flint, Michigan, my homeless attorney, Gulf War cancer, Redondo Beach, dumpster salvage, dumpster diver, dumpster diving, airborne ranger, white rhino, ex-army journalist, mother's day, Hollywood, saved by grace, vlogger, videologist, videophile, jarvis