The Resident Assistant carrying a DVD player out of the R.A. office two floors down was no random ob- servation. Yesterday, during my five hours of wakefulness, I was down at the shelter's conversational benches listening to Bernie rant on and on about how someone in the R.A.s office had stolen his mail: a DVD player he had ordered by catalog two months ago. Bernie's last name is Phelps. Someone in the R.A.s office had signed 'Smith' to accept delivery and then had spirited the machine away.Bernie was livid yesterday. He was going to call the post office, the feds, the director of this homeless shelter, the armies of Satan, whoever it took, to get justice. Someone in the R.A.'s office had stolen his DVD player and Bernie was going to get satisfaction.
I tried to lighten things up a bit by gently making fun of Bernie for being stupid enough to have something of value delivered to the R.A.'s office. Never mind that those R.A.s in there are ex-felons and creepos with guardhouse mentalities. Didn't Bernie know any better?
Bernie turned his wrath on me, saying he didn't need any shit from a silly-ass stupid motherfucker like me. Ouch. That hurt. It made me rage in my heart for a couple of minutes, then I let it go to go back to sleep, to straddle my Fatboy and ride the desert roads all night last night.
So today the first thing I see is an R.A. spiriting a DVD player out of the R.A.'s office. Am I going to say anything to anyone about it? No. Bernie's insult last night cost him an eyewitness. Let stupid be stupid, I always say. Bernie needs a life lesson about how to treat your friends differently than your enemies.
I am in what author Stephen King calls 'creative sleep'. That's why I am writing this all down, this afternoon of bike rides through Monument Valley and its interruptions.
Some readers have said that they are tired of and bored with my stories of homeless veterans, geetahr-picking roommates and satellite friends; homeless RV-dwelling, senile old farts, but what the hell do they expect? That I'm going to write about starships and bar room brawls? Gunfights and grifters at the racetrack?
The moment I step aboard a starship for Mars I'll write about it.
Meanwhile,this is it. This is all I've got. My journal of the unfortunates and my half-hearted struggles to escape them.
My uniformed roommate steps into our room. "When is your next doctor's appointment?" he asks.
"I dunno," I answer, "They told me to call back at the end of the month."
"No, no, no. You need to go now," he says, "Something's wrong with you and you know it. All this sleeping . . ."
"Yeah. I know."
"Well whatcha gonna do about it?" he asks as he reaches for his guitar.
"Burn my prayer candle, grit my teeth and hope for the best," I answer.
We laugh. This is the way of homelessness. This is the ribboney, oiltop desert road we've chosen. If you go down, you go down. There's nobody out there to pick you up.
Except that THAT'S where MY Chill Wills-lookalike God dwells, in Monument Valley, sitting on an upcropping of stone, watching His silly-assed stupid motherfuckers fucking up.
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