Four and a Half Horsemen

I

           

The reason that I woke with a jump was not a nightmare, or even some noise around my dorm room that had ripped me from sleep. In fact, it had been my own body, so frailly anxious that the idea of being asleep made it afraid of being dead. As always, for the next half of an hour, my joints shook and my head throbbed. I got plenty of sleep, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the chemicals in my head and in my body were misaligned. Three therapists had not helped, and I didn't blame them, I was just too much to handle. Not that I tried to kill anyone or threw any chairs across the room. I was just high maintenance as far as mental health went.

            We can stop talking about it if you want. It makes me kind of uncomfortable to address directly. In any case, I woke up. That was a better way to start. It was a Saturday morning, about 8 AM I took a shower and got ready for work and I imagine unless you're some kind of pervert that that's all you need to know about that part. I walked down the grid of grays and blacks as the subway rumbled underneath all of our collective feet. None of the others could feel it but I could. The strict line between Long Island and New York City was less of a hard cut line in the sand and more of a gentle blend of two completely unrelated colors. Like the way purple works. Yeah, that's a good one. The line between Long Island and New York is purple.

            My walk to work was pretty standard as far as walks to work go. I was pretty dead after, I mean, really dead. I don't work out much, and I eat pretty much crap all day every day, but my family has a strong metabolism so I don't get too big. Not that I'd be real sad if I did, I mean, you know. It's not really something I worry about, that kind of stuff, you know? That's why my hair sticks out of my head in pretty much any direction you can find on a three dimensional plane.

            /im on a plain/

            The record store was pretty slow that day. I mean normally we don't get a ton of business anyway but I mean it's a record store in New York City you know what I mean? The store does alright for itself. Anyway, I had to take out the trash because it had really been building up in the can under the desk by the register. Since that was my only real responsibility besides sitting around on comfy old couches and listening to vinyl that smelled like if you shook them some pot smoke would come out, I sacked up the trash and threw it over my shoulder Santa style to take it outside. I have a lot of thoughts like that, you know? Santa style. What does that even mean? My brain comes up with some pretty funky stuff sometimes.

            Anyway, the back door of the store was locked but that was a standard thing it wasn't anything I wasn't used to dealing with or anything like that. So I unlocked it and went the few feet back to the dumpster instead of throwing it in there because it was heavier than usual and I'm an absolute weakling.

            /meat grinder/

            In doing that, I accidentally let the door close behind me, and anybody who's had a shitty remedial job at some sort of store where they don't give you 40 hours a week so they don't have to pay you benefits and you have to sack up the trash so it doesn't overflow, once that door closes, it's almost impossible to open. Like I said, you know, I'm pretty weak. And the door is pretty heavy. So we've found ourselves in quite a pickle haven't we? I'm not about to try to open that door, there's no handle. And it weighs probably about as much as I do. Which isn't much for a person, but it's a lot for a door, you feel me?

            Anyway, I decided I'd better walk around, since I had to get back to work sitting on that dank old couch. So I did, except it took me thirty minutes because the record store was a part of this plaza that had a bunch of stores in it.

            /i know kung fu/

            There was this Chinese place, a laundromat, a whole foods, a drug mart, a dollar store, and a nail salon, and a tax place. Real ritzy part of town when you really get down to it. I don't actually mean ritzy I hope you know that. If you can catch where I'm being sarcastic and where I'm not this whole relationship is gonna work out a whole lot better for the both of us I can already tell. P.S. here's a hint: I'm rarely not being sarcastic. It's not that I'm trying to be a vicious criminal or anything, or some kind of Caulfield type delinquent or something like that, that's just the way I talk, you know?