2 days

1:22pm, my head is gently throbbing. I had a dream that a King called my cell phone apologizing profusely for firing me over blaring Dead Prez over the PA system while I did horticulture on his palace – the Queen was very upset with his decision and demanded that I be reinstated. What would Freud do? I think, climbing out of my bed and staggering across the hallway to the bathroom, where I can’t be bothered to clean myself up proper, instead just wetting the gel I slept with and running a comb through it. Today I’ll play some Legend of Mana and read some books.

Saw Batman Friday night. Wonderful film, astoundingly good Joker. Part of me thinks it was worth Ledger dying to birth a timeless piece of cinema, an immortal role that will transcend the man who played it, times infinity. I daresay the role is so good that the Ledger fan-girls who have pictures of him from Seventeen magazine posted up all over their walls because he’s an Australian heartthrob will tear them down, unable to recognize and reconcile with this horrific and brilliant postmortem face. The other part of me, the humanitarian, thinks it’s tragic the way a man will drive himself into delirium for the sake of his art. After all, doesn’t one’s well-being transcend artifice?

Discussed that and more on a roof of a convenience store “The Russian”, Oleg, and I climbed in the quiet night afterward. The ladder was a nice discovery, although there was a sheath of steel blocking the lower rungs to prevent people from climbing it. Oleg jumped and grabbed a higher rung and pulled himself up. When I tried I broke the little piggy that went to market – I felt the fracture on impact, but it seemed to mean very little. The pain doesn’t bother me much – ironically hurt more when drunk than it does sober. Oleg pointed out some nearby milk crates that I used to get passed the sheet of metal. The roof was covered in little pebbles that were cool to sit down on. Good place to remember.

I was vaguely aware that they’d been calling for a little rain last night when I went to the bar with Wynd, Eggstré and Jamie. It was Jamie’s 19th and a gay manly man that frequents One Eyed Jack’s bought him a pitcher, a shot of rolling thunder (half a shot of tequila rose, half a shot of something else – the liquors start to spin around each other like a Michael Jackson knife-fight), and a shot of the rawest, most awful burny shit they had at the bar. The barkeep called it the Widow Maker, it was some sort of plumb scotch from the Czech Republic or some such place. The rest of us drank cheap beers – the kind that aren’t advertised and only regular drunks even know to ask for (OV, Labatt 50, Crystal) – and watched God flush the skies down onto the streets from the sheltered deck, smoking like political effigies. “1 millimetre my ass,” Eggstré kept repeating, glaring hostile at the paintball sized rain drops bouncing off of the pavement. We drank and talked, and I listened to fragments of other peoples’ conversations: she ran through the pain of glass, screaming, covered in blood with all the broken pieces stuck in her skin – I’m the dj’s girlfriend – here’s my number, call that if you want to make your own money, I run a carpet cleaning company and need people to advertise for me.

“1 millimetre of rain my ass…” We sat on the porch long past last call, long past the bar was closed, waiting for taxis or for the rain to die down so I could walk home. Eggstré and Wynd left into their cabs, and the rain lulled for a few moments, so Jamie and I thought it’d be safe to walk home in the lite drizzle. I told him about poverty and the many faces of America, even considering walking him all the way home for the sake of conversation, but then the clouds broke in two, waves and waves of hard rain began pelting us just as we crossed onto my street, so I went home.

It still hasn’t stopped raining.