Stormy Monday

I Went downtown

If you go there to sleep, enter through one of the two arched
openings on the left (not recommended on rainy nights).

yesterday afternoon, where I still am now.
I had wanted to play on 3rd street, and I did, but it was a ghost town. I only saw two people. One threw me some change, the other asked me for it, while the guy that threw it was still standing there.
It started raining, so I hopped a fence and slept under a roof on the "campus" of St. James Episcopal. In the morning, I had the notion of leaving at the crack of dawn, but then decided that, even if Christians found me on a piece of cardboard in a doorway, with my head on my backpack pillow and my guitar by my side, they would probably not call the police on me; and so I slept until about 7:30a.m.
I started the day with just enough money to take the bus back to Scotlandville, should I decide to.
I haven't decided anything. I've been working most of the day on a Flashback Friday installment (chapter 3 of The Girl Who (owned a house, yet) Slept In A Mustang..
Back in Scotlandville
All things being equal, I decided that, rather than stay downtown and face the limited Tuesday night prospects of making any money and the high probability that the police will be on high alert for a guitarist scaling the fence of the St. James Episcopal Church "campus," (I had mis-named it in a previous post) at the end of the night, that I would spend my last handful of change to take the bus back to Scotlandville and face the limited Tuesday night prospects of making any money here, rather than there; the "difference maker" being Howard's presence and the fact that he could at least lend me a buck to get me started...
I have gotten a "general delivery" postal box in downtown Baton Rouge, as Martin W. in West Virginia has notified me that he would send me his "beat up laptop," as well as a guitar strap, if I were to have such an address.
The nice lady at the post office (there was only one working, and she had a line of about 8 people behind me) accepted my tattered, expired paper ID from Mobile, Alabama as proof of my identity and thus qualified me to receive mail there.
I now go off to e-mail Martin W. and give him the address of the post office, so that he can send me the beat up laptop, which is probably 10 times more powerful than the last computer that I owned, which, as I recall was a 188 megahertz speedster, with all the bells and whistles which one could dream of having, back in 1999...Now, people are wearing watches with more computing power; when will it end??

After that, I believe I will go to the convenience store where they allow me to play and play for anything that I can get; anything.
I picked up some frozen ground beef and some hamburger buns at the Dollar General on my way back to the boarded up building. The beef is thawing, under the watchful eye of Howard. It seems to be thawing at just about the right speed to keep him fixated.
I have constructed a grill, using bricks and aluminum roasting trays, which I found laying around at the recycling place down the street. It is a luxury that we couldn't afford in The French Quarter of New Orleans, as, fire there would draw unwanted attention...
I suggested to Howard that he might want to get some food of his own to place on the fire; it would be a marvelous opportunity for him to roast an egg or heat up a can of soup.
"No, I....ah..." was his response.
I know -he doesn't want to sabotage the success of his "all Jack-In-The-Box, Cheeto and Pepsi" diet.
I might let him have a burger, but it's going to cost him a beer, especially if I don't make "jack" in front of the convenience store, using my brand new strings...