My Name Is

 Daniel, and I'm an alcoholic...

I have caught myself in the delusion that, since I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, before the stretch of 1,387 days when I didn't touch a drop -an amount that had me blacking out nightly, so that in the mornings, I would have to reconstruct the previous evening by piecing together clues- "I must have stopped at Burger King and bought a Whopper, because the wrapper, along with some half eaten fries is crumbled up inside my backpack," type of thing, then I don't really have a problem.

Back in those days, I might have all my busking stuff packed and be ready to push the bike out the door, and only then notice, and remember, that the back tire is flat. "Oh, yeah, that's right, I got a flat coming up Canal and wound up pushing the bike the rest of the way; and that's when I stopped at Burger King along the way...now I kinda remember...but why is there a carnation inside my guitar?" type of thing.

The delusion is that, because I drink only half as I used to, I have found a happy medium and have it all under control. I hadn't considered that, perhaps being ten years older now, it might only take half as much alcohol to wreck me.

That is because to drink or not to drink has become The Great Fork In The Road, with one sign pointing towards "a fulfilling life" and the other, "regret and shame" for lack of better phrases that might come to me if I ponder longer.

And there is a glass of whiskey at the entrance to one portal, and maybe a freshly juiced carrot, kale and beet drink at the other entrance.

My nicotine vaporizer had run out at about 4 in the morning. This, after I had been up since midnight, after waking a second consecutive night at that time, full of energy and unable to go back to sleep.

So, I made a morning walk to the Shell station, once the sun had come up.

I exited the building and walked past the alcoholics who sit out front every morning, consuming their first cans of cheap malt liquor. They are drinking first thing in the morning because they are hopeless alcoholics, I thought. For me, the morning is kind of the end of my day..because I often stay up all night, and then go to sleep soon after watching Jeopardy at 11 a.m. so I am capping off my day with a few beers right before noon. I'm not as pathetic as they, who toast the rising sun with a Steel Reserve "511."

Besides, I was going to get Heineken, something that elevates me in stature, and distinguishes me from Freddie and Arnold and "Pops" (an elderly black man who is always in an electric wheel-chair/buggy thing, cheap malt liquor in hand.

Heineken is a little more expensive, but is a reward for the discerning man who drinks because he enjoys the flavor of a well crafted beer; not just to get drunk, like those guys.

The day before, Monday, it had been raining pretty hard. My new glasses had come in at Eyes On Canal, the optometry place. I had walked through the rain, getting my feet soaked, because I didn't have the $1.25 on me to take the street car. I would have, had Freddie paid me for the beer that I had gotten him, like he had promised to do.

"Are you going to the store?" he had asked, as I was leaving Sunday morning at the usual time. No, I'm going to church, where do you think I go every morning before returning after about the time it would take to walk to the store and back, carrying beer and other items from the store? I thought, but didn't say.

"Get me a beer; I'll buy you one...I'll buy you one..." he had said.

So, I took off my debit card, one 24 ounce can of Bush beer along with my 4 pack of Heineken, nicotine vape and Zebra Cake for the lady working security at the front desk, as is my tradition. I think I have gotten the security ladies to the point where they salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sight of me returning from the store. I choose Zebra Cakes as a symbol of unity as, black and white get along just right, on a Zebra Cake, which I point out in a song I wrote called "Zebra Cake."

But, Freddie had just taken the beer from me and said "Thank You," with a little smile that I wasn't sure didn't mean "sucker." He hadn't even reiterated that he would buy me one, and certainly didn't hand me a couple bucks.

This might have seemed a petty, trivial and frivolous matter until the next morning when I had to walk through a pretty heavy rain to get my glasses. I had prepared to sarcastically say: "Thanks for giving me the money for the beer I got you yesterday, so now I can take the street car instead of getting soaking wet!"

Freddie is infamous in our building for getting, the rumor is, $1,800 on the first of every month, and then begging for beer and cigarettes no later than the 6th or 7th of that same month. "He get eighteen hundred dollars, and he out of cigarettes?!" I have heard exclaimed by more than one person.

Freddie has managed to attain the status of being both mentally and physically disabled, with blindness somehow also "attributed" to him, hence his monthly check being bigger than most residents here, who get a paltry $743, I think is the figure I've heard. This amount of free money is grounds for a lot of derision, directed at the United States by a lot of the residents, who see it as an insult to them, and think that it is clear evidence that the government expects them to live shitty lives. "Thanks a bunch, assholes!" being the sentiment. "And you wonder why we vandalize the building at every turn, or plug up our toilets on the 4th floor and then sit there, flushing them over and over until there is a foot of standing water on the whole floor, causing the ceilings of everyone below to start raining toilet water on them, dripping through the air vents. $743 a month; there's your answer!!"

So, I got to the Shell and bought a new nicotine vape, grabbed a 4 pack of Heineken, almost without thinking, and a Zebra Cake.

I was still struggling with the lenses on my new glasses. They had made a mistake, I had been informed, and made the bottom lens of the bi-focal "2 millimeters too high." It was suggested, though, that I try wearing them anyways, to see if  I might get used to them, and be alright. Otherwise, I have 30 days to call them to complain, whereupon they would order another set. 

After wearing glasses held together by duct tape throughout 3 months of procrastinating in Googling "optometrist near me," another 2 weeks would seem like 2 shakes of a lamb's tail. I just need to make that call today, and not procrastinate, I guess.

I was ready to leave a good review of Eyes On Canal on Google, and told the lady so, as I was leaving.

But, after I left, and started to struggle with the bi-focal, and then noticed that the frame sat on my face a little bit tilted, I began to reconsider that. The lady hadn't made any adjustments, and, outside of telling about how the lab had screwed up, and saying "They look good on you," had sent me on my way.

Maybe they don't make much money through Medicaid on people like me; maybe we are a burden on them; perhaps they feel like attorneys who volunteer at a clinic that provides free legal aid to the poor, as a public relations move. Maybe Eyes On Canal is required to take x amount of Medicaid people, in order to keep their license...

But, I sure was whisked away, "Off with you!" and sent out into the heavy traffic of Canal Street wearing lenses that were 2 millimeters too high.

A curious thing had happened on Friday. When I checked my voicemail there was a message from them, telling me I could pick the glasses up "at your convenience" etc. and then there was the sound, not of a phone being hung up, but apparently of one being placed down on a surface, and, after that clunking sound, the voice continued "I just remembered who he was..." and then something that sounded like "Because he was singing in his greeting."

It seems that my "custom" voicemail greeting, which is me striking a chord on my guitar and singing: 'He doesn't seem to be answering.." called to her mind who I was in real life.

As I stood at the counter at the Shell, in front of the plexiglass, I noticed a skinny black guy, in his fifties and wearing camouflage type clothing, whom I had seen before.

He had been in line behind me another time. I had swiped my debit card, and was waiting for the next prompt, and took the few seconds to open the box that the vape came in, remove its wrapper and the rubber cap, and test it. I've gotten so many "duds" that I have made it a habit of testing them right after I buy them. One time I got 3 in a row of a certain flavor which didn't light up nor emit steam. This was enough for the clerk to set that whole box aside, to be returned, or whatever.

The first time I got a dud, I had brought it all the way home and was sitting on my couch saying "You've gotta be s****ing me!" after puffing on it.

My concern then became: What if I walk all the way back there and they refuse to replace it "'cause it already left the store," or because of "How do we know that isn't one we sold you a few days ago and you smoked the whole thing, and are now trying to scam another one for free?"

I was "painting it black" and fearing the worst as I walked.

I remember preparing to be really pissed at them, not sure whether or not there was a ray of hope in the fact that the staff there speak Hebrew. 

Would Hebrews do me like that? Are they even "Hebrews" or is that just the language that Jews speak, alongside maybe some Yiddish? I wasn't sure, feeling suddenly very uneducated. I felt more hopeful than I would have, had I bought it at The Brown Derby across the street, where Arabic is spoken, and where I had been rudely treated before deciding to switch to the Shell.

I had asked them what language they spoke, so that's how I knew. Then I had Googled "Saying 'hello' in Hebrew," so I could greet them with "Ma Shlom Kha!" whenever I went there. Maybe that would be my saving grace.

Plus the fact that the Israelite Shell employees seem to favor white customers, almost as much as they seem to favor Latinos. They evince disapproval of the brusque mannerisms of blacks, and I have seen them in shouting matches with more than one of them. One time that seemed to be over something that a fat black lady took offense at, which was that the cashier counted out a handful of change she had handed him. This provoked her to ask "What, you don't trust me?" and then to assure the guy that it was all there.

Well, as fate would have it, it wasn't all there. Had the guy just thrown it all in the drawer, the store would have been short a dime or a quarter. The corpulent woman practically threw the delinquent coin at the guy; and seemed to have the attitude that the guy was holding her to some ridiculous standard, or perhaps just looking for a way to deny her her pack of Philly Blunts (used to roll marijuana by a whole tribe of them. It's another gesture of "solidarity," along with smoking Kool brand cigarettes, and voting for Biden.

As brazen as she seemed to think he was for holding her to account by tallying the the change, which included pennies, it was as if she thought he should have forgiven her shortage, as "reparations," perhaps, rather than publicly shaming her and insinuating that she was scamming when he said: "This is only $1.61" or whatever the case was. She had made an honest mistake, but he was making her out to be a shyster, type of thing, and maybe a schmuck, to boot.

"I ain't never shopping here again, I can tell you that!" she yelled on her way out.

"Good; you no come back!"

He might have thought she was trying to "jew" him out of some money, LOL!

Regaining his composure as I stepped to the plexiglass, he said: "Yes, sir, how may I help you?"

"Ma shlom kha! Could I please have a blueberry flavored Flow vaporizer?" His day had gotten better, already. 

"Trump would have blown those hamas guys all the way to Mecca, soon after they launched the first rocket, by the way..."

"Ma shlom kha!"

But, they replaced the vape with another one, and started my habit of checking them right after I buy them.

But, the black guy in the camo outfit had felt it necessary to say: "This motherf****er is taking forever!" when he was in line behind me the first time. Yesterday, he was about 10 feet to my left, getting a couple bottles of Wild Irish Rose out of the cooler, as I swiped my card.

While the "processing" was showing, and before "approved" appeared, I unboxed the vape and tested it. I had assured the employees during a prior visit that I would never do that if I didn't have cash in my pocket to pay for it, should the card be declined.

The black guy seemed to be picking up his pace, scrambling to get a hold of the bottles and get behind me in line, as if he was looking forward to complaining loudly again, maybe for catharsis.

The vape was working fine, and I was already taking the plastic bag with the Heineken and the Zebra Cake off the counter as he reached it, and I had already taken a step towards the door when camo guy said "You done yet?" I hadn't delayed him a second.

Before I could think of anything to say, or decide if he even deserved a response, he lost his grip on the the bottles of Wild Irish Rose, as he was fumbling for his free-money-from-the-government card in his wallet, and the whole mess landed on top of the candy on the shelf in front of him. It seemed that, in his haste to get behind me in line so he could start his bitching, he hadn't secured them. His focus had been upon me. I guess this particular (but not every) black man has nothing better to do.

I stood there for a second saying nothing, letting his folly speak for itself.

For those of you who might be thinking at this point: "How were you paying for your beer and vape and Zebra Cake, huh, how were you paying for your s***?"

Well, with my free-money-from-the-government card! I wasn't judging him on that; plenty of other things to judge him on...

I stopped outside and cracked open the first Heineken. I realized that the whole scene had kind of charged me up. I felt wide awake, and was gulping down the beer, as if preparing for a fight -power drinking the thing.

I had felt only mild amusement, as I watched him trying to catch everything as it cascaded down; but, after a few sips of beer, I started to feel anger, like flipping a switch on.

I remembered a time when I was about 12 and caddying for a guy who was playing at Oak Hill Country Club as a guest. He had a pronounced limp, as if one of his legs was shorter than the other, but he was a pretty good golfer. This was something, he explained to me, that he used to his advantage when it came to wagering on his rounds.

"They see my handicap and it's easy to get them to play for money."

He wound up kind of taking me under his wing, and lecturing me about many facets of life, as we walked the course. He ncouraged me to go to college, at one point. "College is the way, young man; there are plenty of people too dumb to even make it to college, and so it's a way to rise above them in the world!" type of thing..

The better he played, the more he cussed under his breath about not having found a sucker to play him for money. It was kind of humorous to see him knock a 5 iron within 6 feet of the pin from 175 yards out, and then shake his head in dismay, as if it had been a bad shot. 

This culminated with him totaling up his score on the 18th green and groaning "Uhh, an 86, and no money on the line, damn!"

But, the lecture he gave coming up the 16th fairway, was about anger, and I paraphrase it as something like: "The worse thing that can ever happen to you on a golf course is getting mad. Once you're mad, you're Gonesville!" The Gonesville part, I'm not paraphrasing. Some words stick with you for life.

And, that is what came to mind, watching the camo guy dropping his stuff in the candy. "He's Gonesville!"

And, gulping down the first Heineken, I had made the turn at the fork in the road. My choices were literally in opposite directions. I could go in the direction of the optometrist, and while in the neighborhood, drop in on the dental clinic that has been assigned to me by my "plan" and maybe save a tooth or two, in the long run.

I decided to go in the other direction, towards Whole Foods, thinking I would get some cash and then maybe walk to Bobby's new dwelling a mile away, to perhaps buy some weed from him. And that was when my whole day went south.

The other option would have had me going into GNC and getting an energy drink. They've go some pretty souped up concoctions that would have gotten my day off to a flying start.

I bought some changa mushroom powder at Whole Foods, not knowing anything about it, except that it was on sale. Lion's mane, shitake, turkey tail, reishi, and now changa; these are the shrooms of my life.

So I count this as one day sober, if I make it through. Everything changes as the sun goes down. I could go to the store for beer, but the weather forecast is for heavy downpours with flash flood warnings, and I'm pretty sure if went to get beer, I would get drenched.

It's going to take something like 8 to 10 days of a cleansing fast, something which would put me through all the withdrawals in one fell swoop to change my lifestyle. At least that is the proactive way to do it; rather than waiting for the withdrawals and discomfort to come. It's hard to quit one thing while keeping other things going. The fast could get me off of alcohol and maybe even the nicotine. It just feels like I'm going to look back at this time and realize that I had everything I could dream of; all the free time in the world, and the resources to upgrade all my busking gear, so I could go out there and have a lot more fun. I don't want to blow the opportunity.

The headset microphone with a little Roland Micro Cube in my backpack would make it so I wouldn't have to use that harsh raspy Tom Waites style of singing that so many buskers have to rely upon, just to be heard over the din.

Plus, sobering up might even turn me in a different direction; away from busking.