THE MORNING AFTER

Ok, so this is the morning after our ( me and Na-Na) big trip to the Savoy Lounge to get 'material!'

Next thing I know, I'm in my bed, waking up to the morning sunlight flooding through my curtains. Still clad in my dishevelled golden ensemble under my covers! The manic activity of everybody getting ready for school must have blasted me out of my slumber, and it takes me a minute to figure out where I am. To say nothing of how I even got here. This confusion is accompanied by nausea, and a headache bigger than Hardcore. I feel horrible. My mother sticks her head in my bedroom door.

"Get up, Joseph, you're going to be late for school!

Within minutes, I convince her, or she realizes, that I am way too sick for that. I'm careful not to let her see that I'm fully dressed under the covers.

I take a peek at my sketchbook, mysteriously lying next to me. Opened up to a crudely drawn picture of some black man's face contorted into a fierce grimace, head apparently on the floor. That's weird, I think to myself as I drift back to sleep. I lay in bed the whole rest of the day, and somehow, in between frantic dives to the toilet bowl, and falling in and out of consciousness, remember that Na-Na and me had decided we were going to break into the school tonight. And, for the next three nights, to get down this mural thing. I just hope I'm not dreaming. Or, indeed, having a nightmare. I'm far too incapacitated to go to work, which is fine with me, and I take a certain redemptive comfort in that it's a rainy day – raw and chilly. The real autumn is absolutely barging in on our Indian summer now.

It calms me, along with periodic visits from my mother, with homemade vegetable soup and hot tea with honey. There is a nurturing, soothing feeling I haven't experienced in a long while.

It goes on like this all day, falling asleep to a fantastic montage of mysterious, other worldly dreams, waking up, and back again. Until the piercing whistle from the southbound train at the Roselle Park station blows me into final awakening. I dazedly peek at my clock radio! Holy shit, its eleven o'clock in the night! Whoa. It's almost time to go. As if on cue, I hear my parents turn off the TV downstairs, and begin their treacherous, middle-aged ascent of the steps. Yawning, as their footsteps drag. They take their turns in the bathroom, and have their nightly whispering argument in which my father asks my mother where the clean towels are. Finally, they close the drama – and their door. I wait the requisite fifteen minutes for them to settle in, don my work clothes, and creep down the stairs.

The rain had stopped, but it's damp and cold as a bitch. The instant I hit the street, doubts about what I'm going to be able to accomplish tonight begin swirling around my head, like the invoking winds blowing down the nape of my neck. I shudder and quickly zipper all the way up.

The warm, satisfied feeling that had enveloped me while I was lying in my bed, has now disappeared. I observe the vapor from my breath, and begin trudging down Third Avenue, a stabbing tinge of sadness, of being alone - separated - curls around me. I hesitate, gazing back at my house, and stop for a second.

How am I going to do this mural?! I really have no idea of what I'm going to do! Panic sets in. Na-Na and I have never even talked about it, really. I mean, I made this big bravado speech and everything...what if I - we - get busted? How are we going to finish this in only three nights, anyway?! And, to be honest, I am still kind of afraid to be alone in a room with him for any extended period of time. Especially with nobody at all around. Maybe I should turn back now! I keep going, though, more scared of not showing up than anything else.