A Bump in the Night, then Some Weird Events

It was shortly after 1 a.m. when I heard the crash. Given the acoustics of the apartment, it was impossible to tell where, exactly, the crash had originated. Sound bounces all over the place in my apartment?especially around the bed. Even the tiny mewling sounds that followed the crash were hard to place. n My eyes fell open, and I groaned. Guy, the big cat, was snoring next to me, unfazed by the noise. That left only one possible culprit. Or one logical culprit, at least. Not bothering with the contacts or the lights, I swung my feet to the floor, pushed myself up and slowly padded across the apartment. Figured I'd just feel my way around all the usual places where a crash like that might've occurred.

The unstable pile of novelizations right outside the bathroom door was still standing. So were the two bad paintings I attempted some 10 years ago, which were leaned against the wall behind the same door. Nothing around the sink or the tub seemed out of place. The CDs stacked around the broken stereo weren't all over the floor. The stuff on the kitchen table was still there. The new garbage can was still upright.

Goddamn, I thought.

I heard a set of light paws clicking around in the kitchen, so at least she wasn't trapped under anything.

Fuck it.

I made one final pass around the perimeter on my way back to bed, crawled under the covers and realized immediately that I'd never be able to get back asleep. Not tonight, anyway, and maybe not ever. Sometimes I can sleep through car crashes, and sometimes the tiniest noise will have me spinning for hours. I threw the covers off again and went back out to the kitchen table, where I lowered myself into the hard wooden chair (careful to mind the troublesome new cyst that had developed on my tailbone in recent days), shook a smoke loose from the pack and lit it.

After crawling back into bed some 10 minutes later, I spent the next several hours tossing and turning as best as I could (still trying to stay off that cyst), until around 5, when I finally dozed lightly.

Unfortunately, my clock was set to go off at 5:15. Equally unfortunately, my cats, beastly pranksters that they are, had once again, without my knowing it, reset the clock. So when my eyes opened again some time later, I was already late for everything?and numb, and pissed.

I lumbered around the apartment, doing what I could, and was still able to get outside before the sun came up. Once the sun comes up, the foot traffic gets too heavy.

It didn't matter that morning, though. I didn't need foot traffic to get in my way. Although it should've been obvious that there would be no trash pickup the previous day (it being a holiday), most of my neighbors still insisted on dragging the cans and the bags and the discarded trees out to the curb, or at least as close as they could get them before they got tired or bored. They simply needed to get all that crap out of the house now.

As a result, with every third or fourth step the cane ripped through a plastic bag and got stuck in a bunch of coffee grounds and orange peels, or snagged itself on a tree bough, or knocked against a trash can that was lying on its side across the sidewalk.

Shit!

Shit! Shit! Shit!

My mood darkened the closer I got to the train. I was so goddamn tired, too tired for this, anyway?but I needed to get into the office, I needed to get some things done. Nothing I particularly wanted to get done right then?but that's the nature of things.

An hour later, I sat down at my desk and turned the computer on. First thing I had to do, I figured, was send a note to a friend of mine. Morgan and I were supposed to meet up with him that night, but I was going to have to postpone. The traditional six-hour mini-binge we were scheduled for was probably the last thing I needed that night. Either that, or exactly what I did need.

Before I could send that note, however, I noticed something. Another note, this one from a friend I hadn't heard from in many a year, writing to tell me of attempted suicides and dissolved marriages and other, what you'd call major, changes at the last minute.

Well, that caught me off guard, and didn't help my mood at all.

Then shortly after that, news began arriving from several different directions that over the course of the next week, I was to talk with several Germans and one Swiss woman about "my various diseases," as they put it.

At least the questions should be funny, I thought.

Then another friend wrote to tell me that he had put the bullet to his own marriage the night before.

That morning's coffee had done nothing?nothing!?and as the day wore on, the people who spoke to me seemed to make less and less sense. I couldn't do half of what I intended to do. That cyst wasn't getting any smaller, either.

Finally, at around 2:30, knowing I wouldn't be able to do anything else, and not wanting to know what else might be done to me, I packed up and split.

Walking down the street toward the train that would take me to Morgan's place, I couldn't feel my legs, and couldn't focus the eyes. Everything, once again, got in my way.

Finally down in the station, I heaved my body against a pillar and waited. The train took a long time coming. When it eventually did arrive, however, I felt blessed to find a seat. I closed my eyes.

From the other end of the train, I heard a man ask someone, "Excuse me, son?do you know what time it is?"

"Ten to 3," a voice answered.

"No it's not!" the first voice shouted, before being joined by three other voices, all shouting in unison, "It's doo-wop time!"

Several people around me chuckled, and I nearly wept. But I guess that's the way things usually work out.

Once they started the quick shuffle down the aisle while singing "This Little Light of Mine," I was on my feet at the doors, looking out into the darkness, praying that the station lights would appear much sooner than I knew they would.

Well, at least that's all the evidence I need that I'm not being a baby.

And it was true. For years, it was the mariachi band. Whenever they appeared on the train, it was all the proof I needed that I'd had a real bastard of a day. At some point maybe two, three years ago, however, things shifted, and the justification was delivered unto me by the gospel doo-wop group singing "This Little Light of Mine." It had been a while since I'd had one like this, and in a way, seeing them made me feel a little bit better.

Morgan and I had a bite to eat, had a few beers and it was a fine time all around. I got home early, feeling some better, and crawled into bed, hoping for the best. Sometimes after one sleepless night, they hung around for a while. At least until the end of the week.

Not that night, thank God. I drifted off quietly.

Then I dreamed.

I was walking home late at night from an unknown location. A light rain was falling. In my hand, I carried six snow peas. I pulled each pod between my teeth, squeezing the peas out like toothpaste. When I got to my apartment, I stepped in some cat sputum over by the computer. I turned on the lights to see an enormous puddle, which covered much of the floor. This isn't good, I thought. I grabbed some paper towels and began to mop it up, but it was no use?there was just too much of it. Guy trotted in from the other room, and I realized that I had to get it all back into him, somehow. His long, pink tongue was hanging out?a sign, the vets had told me once, of serious illness. Then I noticed that his stomach had been sliced open. He was still alive, but looked like he'd been gutted. I needed to find some way to get all that food and all his innards back into his body. He looked up at me and meeped weakly. Last thing I remember, I picked him up and set him atop the sputum pile, hoping he'd simply absorb it back into his body, somehow.

I woke up in a cold sweat, my eyes wild in the darkness. In a panic, I flopped my left arm out, only to feel Guy there. He was snoring, as always. Relieved, I fell back asleep beneath the damp blanket.