5 - BOOZE

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Sprawled across my tiny couch (also my bed), staring up at the spiderweb cracks that ran across my ceiling, on that evening that wasn't really the evening, I thought, well at least if I kill myself, I'm not going to become homeless and therefore never become the Walker, at least I beat that rotten bastard Johnny Bobo, even if I'm doing something equally pathetic.

And then I thought, what if my Skid Row induced anxiety starts to spike and I get immobilized and I can't kill myself. And then I thought, maybe I need another beer.

Alcohol is the only drug that puts a dent in my anxiety. But it's tricky. Ever since I was moved to Skid Row about six years ago it's gotten harder and harder to calculate the proper dosage. Sometimes I need more, sometimes less. Sometimes the booze doesn't work at all. I only seem to know what do after I haven't done it.

I peeled myself off the couch, fell over and bashed my hip into the gritty linoleum tiled floor, then shuffled into the kitchen alcove for another beer. Okay, to call it a kitchen alcove is to be dishonest. My kitchen alcove, in my one room apartment, like everything else in my life, was shitty and undersized, a shelf, a mini-fridge, a TV dinner stand with a broken microwave on it, and a broken hot plate on that. The case of beer (Natural Ice) sat on the fridge. I didn't put it in the fridge because I knew if it was warm I'd still drink it, and I didn't want to bother myself with opening the fridge door, over and over again.

Why I put the case on the fridge instead of on the floor by the couch? Because I'm an idiot, that's why.

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