Unless You Know The Secret

Pardon Any Redundancy

This post was patched together out of at least 4 different writing sessions. Though, it was begun on Monday morning, after I sat up at the sign spot, with about 3 hours to spare before Sacred Heart Apartments were to open again...

Sunday Morning 9 AM

Staying at Bobby's for what I think amounted to 6 days, taught me at least one thing; and that is that two older gentleman can go from being happy friends, to brandishing knives against the other, in a span of 6 days.

I am happy and grateful for the fact that Sacred Heart apartments rather unceremoniously opened a bit before noon today, after being deemed habitable by the city. 

Before noon, buses began to pull up, letting off people who were full of stories about the shelters in Shreveport, and Alexandria where, according to one man they had been "treated like a king." They were giving away a lot of clothing, up there, one guy added.

"Yeah, but was there a dope man there?" I half joked.

That was where I would have wound up, had I not made that fateful call to Bobby, asking him if he had electricity.

"Yeah, I do; come on over!"

That was Saturday Afternoon, about a week before the knife would come out....

Sue Knew 

I am right now, at the sign spot, after having slept outdoors in the upper 70's temperature air, taking advantage of that amazing discovery of Sue the Colombian lady, which was this ultra secure spot for up to 2 homeless people to sleep at.

Basically, it sits between the Saenger Theater, and the huge "event parking" lots, with their half dozen levels of parking.

It's going to be so nice to get back to normal around here, after the devastation of the hurricane...

So, right off the bat, the property is under heavy protection, as it would not be good to have a nice family, on their way to see Donny Osmond at the Saenger be carjacked, or mugged, etc.

The sign itself takes silhouettes out of the picture...

The actual spot where Sue and I slept was fairly well illuminated, being in a stand of trees that blocks some pretty high intensity lights as bright as a night football game in nature. 

The average homeless guy might think the spot is too bright and might feel exposed and likely to be seen. 

But, Sue somehow figured out the physical laws of light, and the biology of the human optical system, and knew that the light bouncing off the trees and the grass all around a person who is nearby the spot, is actually so bright that the human eye adjusts for it; and when they look under the canopy of trees, it looks especially dark under there.
It just works that way. Sue knew. 

So, I trudged there, after getting kicked out by Bobby, and after busking for the first time in over a year at the Lilly Pad. I fell asleep about 11 PM and slept off and on, until the definitive wake up at around 9 AM.

It's hard to describe the sleep one gets, in a situation like that, when you are using your backpack as a pillow and have your guitar case tied around you somehow. You just lay there for a while, listening and being very still; resolving to just lay there and relax, and not actually go to sleep, if need be. If there are threatening sounds and movement. But then, you become like a cat, able to sleep through a noisy truck passing by and not even stir, but to wake up instantly at the sound of a lighter being flicked a hundred feet away, or some other "human on foot" sound.

You have to think of the picture you present, though.

Immediately upon sitting down at the spot, I buried the envelope full of hundred dollar bills that were from cashing the stimulus check. But, even if someone was stealthy enough to get my backpack and guitar case, at least there wouldn't be over a thousand bucks in either of them. This left me about 12 one dollar bills in my pocket; in the extreme case that someone would hold a knife to me, demanding whatever money I had. This wasn't likely, given the food items I had strewn around me...

I started taking all the food out of the backpack -everything of mine that I had hastily grabbed from Bobby's kitchen on my way out.

If you are a homeless guy and don't want anyone to think you might be worth robbing, just surround yourself with food. Many homeless people do this unintentionally, like the ones under the bridge to whom a lot of people do the "I don't have any money, but; are you hungry?" thing, and that food can come in faster than a homeless guy can eat.

So, I started munching on cooked shrimp, covering it in Vidalia onion sauce, and soon the hummus was open. I instinctively looked to the spot where I would have had stashed a few plastic eating utensils, 7 years ago, but wound up using the lid from the hummus as an eating utensil. I chucked away the part of the shrimp that I held in my fingers, since I didn't have any sanitizer. 

Certain birds, who were there, 7 years ago will enjoy them, or perhaps those birds grandbirds, in the morning, I thought. It's the mockingbirds who are vegetarian during the summer months, but eat meat in the winter, I thought, after I lay back with my head on the backpack, knowing that the huge football stadium lights were right in everybody's eyes, blinding them from the sight of me, through Sue Science; and that the security guy who worked the condo building across the street had had his booth conveniently placed right by the entrance to its bottom level garage; most likely so as to put yet one more set of eyes on the Saenger.

This arrangement meant that he had a clear view of, you guessed it, the stand of trees, that I was sleeping unseen under. 

Sue, the Colombian lady had gone as far as befriending the night watchman there at the time, who began to take notice of anyone going near the spot. Add to that the ubiquitous cameras that the city has installed to watch that parking garage in cracktown, and Sue's genius becomes even more apparent.

I knew the bottle of apple juice, and the jar of olives, the hummus, etc. would protect me from anyone who might think he could rob me of something. There was my guitar case, but what would be the worth of a guitar carried by a guy who "eats out of the garbage," if appearances don't deceive, type of thing....

Bobby might have thought he was tossing me to the wolves in kicking me out. I slept like a baby and woke up with heightened senses, and a clear focus upon the great day to come...

Written Monday Morning

This is 3 hours before Sacred Heart is to open up, as I write, and as promised by a piece of paper taped to the front door. 

I happened to see it Sunday, after I had fed Harold a couple cans of good food and petted him a little bit. 

He seemed pretty shell shocked. 

If it is easy to tell when a human is stressed out, by noting the tension in their faces or a certain hunched over posture, as if said person is bracing himself for the onslaught of negative events; then if is also possible to detect the same state of mind in a cat, I have found. 

Harold was as jumpy as ever, and looking over his shoulder as he ate the Fancy Feast food that I had opened for him and slid through the front gate. Then, I saw the piece of paper which announced that in a mere 24 hours from when I was reading it, the building would be opened up. 

And then, not long after I arrived back at Bobby's, I found that individual, to be in a highly agitated state and seemingly angry.

It was over something that he had forgotten saying, which I paraphrase as: "Listen, you don't have to give me that money (that I told him I would) just pick up some chicken thighs, some Lactaid, a couple potatoes a couple onions, and a bag of baby carrots."

So, I had picked up all those items; miraculously it seemed to me; since the shelves were so bare in Rouses...
And, there was the moment after I had gotten back, having found the store totally out of the Lactaid whole milk that Bobby puts in his coffee, along with a few spoons of brown sugar.

Tampering With An Addiction

What had happened was, I had grown spiritually while in Rouses Market.

First off, I had the epiphany that, with a mask on; a person loses a whole arsenal from his emotive vocabulary, and this could be detrimental.

For example, I like to joke about things, and when people notice that I am smiling when I say something, it tips them off that I'm just kidding, or being sarcastic.

I had entered the sugar aisle, to get a bag of brown sugar for a man who had never pulled a knife on me; and I beheld there, a woman of color with a daughter who stood only to her waste.

The girl noticed me right away; and began to smile and wave to me. I value innocence such that I was compelled to respond, but not before pulling my mask down. Otherwise, I would have felt like a rattlesnake or something that all you can see is its pair of cold reptilian eyes staring at you. You never know what a rattlesnake, or a Gila monster, for that matter, is thinking; because they can't smile or frown. Is that snake scowling at me? type of thing..

She wasn't wearing a mask; good for her.

Dan's Transparent Mask Company
I, then and there, resolved to start a company that makes transparent masks, so people will once again be able use the full range of facial expressions that set humans above the other animals, even more than the fact that some of us pole dance, does..

So much can be communicated that isn't when everyone has on masks.. Are we developing an adroitness for hearing things in people's tones of voice, and taking meaning from it?

So, after seeing that Bobby's exact brand and style of milk was sold out; I turned to a skinny guy to my right and, taking the risk that he might be an Ignorlean and would just ignore me; I asked him if he knew where "skim" milk fell on the spectrum of milk, like, was it more than 2% and less than whole?

In a cautionary tone of voice, he began to give me the skinny on skim milk.

He was skinny, himself, with short black hair. He looked like kind of an intellectual. At first, I hadn't noticed his rather apparent homosexuality. I was all about finding out if I could bring Bobby back something that wasn't "whole" milk while sacrificing the least amount of fat. ...fat, sugar, caffeine...the guy wakes up looking for a buzz first thing...pathetic...

The young guy warned me quite adamantly me that "No, Skim is even less than 1%!" 

I then noticed that he was wearing a transparent Covid mask. I could see his lips moving and would be able to read them if I knew how to. The things have been invented...

I told him about how I had just decided to invent the transparent mask.

The guy recommended to me another brand of "lactose free" whole milk. He said that it was "delicious." 

Sometimes in life, you just have to make your most educated guess about things; and, all things told, I was betting that a gay cow's milk drinker probably knows what he is talking about. I added a half gallon of the different from Lactaid stuff to the load that I would carry home.

"Nonesense, Son!!"

Before I quit drinking cow's milk entirely, at the age of 16, I believe it was; I had never like the taste of it. To me, the point was to drink it so cold that it goes down your throat representing more of a texture, than a flavor. The only time milk became flavorful, I thought, was when it was sour.

Gosh, thank God, my body alerted me to the fact that I wasn't set up to digest cow's milk. Either that, or the amount of growth hormone in it, engineered to double the weight of a calf every 4 months, or something, was wreaking havoc with my glands.

I was told, by a fellow soldier in Basic Training that some day I will be walking down the street when my legs are just going to snap in half. Because I had told him that I didn't drink milk.

What They Say About Cow's Milk Is Bull Crap!

This (me telling him that) was probably because his face was ravaged with eczema. I had taken pity upon him. His face looked the way I imagined mine would, had I listened to an elderly doctor of dermatology when he said: "Nonesense, son. You drink all the milk YOU WANT!" after I brought up the subject of dairy allergies. ...Nonesense, you keep showing up here and paying me for cortisone shots, antihistamines, and lotions; for the care for your skin, son....

He was going to keep shooting me up with cortisone shots which would cool down the whole inflammatory system, excuse the corruption of medical jargon, but, yeah, I would stop itching for a while after the shot, but it would also come with kind of a cost in that, I would kind of have a sensation of chills running down my spine.

And, like so many other "drugs," the shots seemed to do progressively less with each administration of them, which was something like every two weeks.

Doctor LeDonne, the dermatologist, had a membership at Oak Hill Country Club, where his bag of clubs collected dust, and he was something like a 42 handicap. I'm pretty sure he recognized me from there, as I worked there over the summer vacations just a couple years prior.

I had kind of chosen him as a skin doctor based upon that solitary connection, thinking he might care more about my skin, since he knew me from the golf course.

But, since there are only 18 holes on a standard course, the doctor, whom I paid good money to demonstrate how I should pat myself dry with the towel after a shower, and never rub the skin; and to tell me that that shower should be lukewarm and never hot in the first plalce, was getting at least 2 strokes per hole, and 3 strokes on a handful of the most difficult.

That kind of skewed the dynamics, though, because here, coming into his office, was a guy who knew how much he sucked at golf; that might have been embarrassing to him.

Being terrible at golf, and not much better at treating eczema; his one moment of redemption came, during one of my latter visits to his office. It's building sat by itself in the middle of a huge square lots; as if the practice of skin care must take place in a void or that skin diseases are contagious. He may have been guided by a black plague/small pox mentality in the decision to lease the place...

There were rarely more than a couple cars in his parking lot. This made me wonder how he could afford a membership at Oak Hill. 

But, to his redemption: He did, during one of my visits, probably at the point where the cortisone was giving much-diminished returns, kind of wink at me and say: "What you really need is just a couple weeks on the beach in Key Largo, Florida, *wink*wink*"

And that was probably something that could have gotten Doctor John LeDonne in some hot water, had the American Dermatological Society gotten wind of it. This was 1979, and "sun therapy" would have been labelled a crack pot remedy, especially by the manufacturers of cortisol shots and all the other drugs that dermatologists prescribe. "How dare you suggest something that is a free gift to all from God, LeDonne!"

So, I turned to this guy at the milk rack in Rouses, who didn't seem to look at me suspiciously because of my ignorance about milk, and he wound up recommending the other brand.

I felt there was a congruence to the way that he had described it as "It isn't Lactaid, but..."  So I decided to give it a chance. Sure, I could have gone across the street to see if the Winn Dixie had Lactaid, but I really thought I might have found a diamond in the rough, or at least was going to be expanding Bobby's horizons, turning him on to another brand of milk that he can fall back on when the Lactaid runs out; or maybe even switch to.

I knew of the dangers of messing with a person's "first thing upon waking" ritual, though. And I know people's brains aren't sufficiently in gear to undertake the task of explaining things like: why they just don't like butter that's been in the refrigerator (the cinnamon sugar distribution gets thrown off, and it's enough to skew the whole day towards the shitter, type of thing).

I knew there was a chance that Bobby would freak out and, he almost did. When I first took the bottle of milk out and explained that I had made a judgment call and decided to trust the endorsement of a gay guy.

He seemed believable.

So, the spiritual growth I realized was, I was able to talk to a gay guy without judging him; and basically not even noticing his gayness until his boyfriend walked up; having had an intelligent, friendly conversation about milk and masks and so on.

I had brought Bobby a half gallon of "delicious" milk. I felt like that was as much as I could have done. My bike is still locked to the Whole Foods rack by a cheap lock that is jammed; and so I am still on foot. There comes a limit to the distance a man will walk through the heat in order to placate a fussy roommate.

He stared at the half gallon of milk; and I could tell he was getting angry. It was a sign of things to come. Our relationship had deteriorated over the week that I stayed there, and this was about half way through the slide. Somehow, he was able to calm down, after noticing that the milk was "lactose free," just like his trusted brand. He might have been thinking I got the kind with lactose that was going to give him indigestion, based solely upon a recommendation of it being delicious. "I don't drink it for the flavor; I can't digest lactose, what are you, retarded!!"

It dawned upon me, after seeing how Bobby would wake up with a lot of anger and negativity each morning, that there was a connection to that, and his espresso from a special machine he paid a lot for, along with the generous amount of whole milk, and a couple heaping spoons of brown sugar. It's like his first order of business, upon waking is to get a buzz of some kind. The coffee does the trick.

But, in tempting fate and buying a different brand than what he is used to, I was kind of tampering with his whole addiction thing. It would be like if I wrapped a tourniquet around his arm an unusual way, preparing to shoot him up with heroin; I'm sure he would correct me. It's as if drug related rituals can be sacred, in a way.

And I'm sure that was running through his mind, at least for a while, before he calmed down.

"It was either that, or skim milk," I tried to joke.

But, I believe Bobby is falling down the rabbit hole, and is probably dipping into a little bit of heroin. I think he said that it, combined with the methadone is a jolly good combination.

I think he wanted to get me out of the picture, so as to not have anyone to feel ashamed of himself in front of, type of thing.

He had promised me that there would be no repeat of certain events, like the skinny woman stripping naked, in order to demonstrate to her boyfriend that she didn't have any heroin on her, so as to cast the blame upon Bobby ("so, it must be him that took it") or another appearance from a certain older black man who has shown up a few times with a pipe already loaded for Bobby.

Those evenings ended with Bobby, in the coming down phase, in tears and beating up on himself, and guaranteeing me that it will be no more. "I'm just not gonna answer my door; I'm through with that poison!"

So, I think that, after coming into the windfall which was the FEMA check; Bobby want's to break his promise to me and open the door and let them all in, with their needles and their pipes and their peep shows. "I never learn," he lamented.

I guess not.

And, well, there I was, heading out to busk at the Lilly Pad for the first time in over a year. I had all my stuff in my backpack and the guitar with me, so why not go to the Lilly Pad, where I had seen Lilly's daughters, Angelique and Chantilly, earlier that afternoon, painting the doors of their house a vanilla cream color.

Lilly had admonished me to get the vaccine, promising that we could barbecue and swim in the pool together. Her girls, whom she has raised to be ladies and to marry well, looked the worse for the wear. They were still pretty, or at least the part of their faces that showed around their masks was. But, Angelique especially had the "black hole in the sky" look in her eyes, as if she has recently been dropping a lot of acid.

The girls have just each started college, a couple years apart. It would be their first severing of the tether that has attached them to Lilly, since their births. Never in their lives have they ventured forth out into the Quarter without Lilly or someone else, chaperoning them.

Lilly has probably sent them to schools full of girls of the same station, who might be getting their first tastes of freedom, also. 

I can imagine whole study halls full of kids tripping their teeth out on acid especially kids with mothers like Lilly.

Back to Bobby

After Bobby had told me not to worry about the money but to instead get him the food that cost me about 20 bucks, he woke up Sunday morning and greeted me, not with "Good morning," but with something like: "We need to talk about you giving me some money for staying here!"

When I pointed out that I thought the food was in lieu of that, he snapped back that, since I got the food for free "I mean I've got food stamps, I can get food" that it didn't "count."

Yeah, but you sold all your food stamps for heroin, and then were trying to sell mine to the same guy....

Bobby came into his $999 check for "disaster assistance" from FEMA and his decline from that point has been precipitous. He has been living high off the chemical hog.

During his last trip to the methadone clinic, he brought along extra money and was able to purchase some wafers from people who sell them outside the clinic. They are 15 dollars for one wafer. I believe that is 20 milligrams.

The clinic has Bobby's dosage set at 40 milligrams. He was padding this to 120 milligrams, which is a "decent" amount, he told me.

 I slept alright at the sign spot, but did have one “bad” dream that woke me up.

It is a spot where I have slept maybe a hundred times, often with Sue the Colombian lady in my company. 

Great memories came back to me, and I once again had to admire the ingenuity of Sue in finding that sleeping spot. I can remember having to walk up to within about twenty feet before I could tell if Sue was “home” when I would go there, about seven years ago, now. 

I suppose I will find the check from FEMA in my mailbox, unless there is still something I need to do online or somewhere. 

The Land of Gwen

I am trying to get the “one time” check of about a thousand bucks that took Bobby all of 24 hours to procure for himself. 

Gwendlyn was a very nice sounding elderly white lady, I’m guessing; based upon her name. 

After she had come on the phone and said something like “Hello, my name is Gwen” and gave me her employee number, I asked her: “Oh, did you say ‘Gwen,’ as in ‘Gwendlyn?” “Yes,” she said and even spelled it for me.

I mentioned that one of my favorite singers was Gwen Stefani, to which she returned that she was also one of her own favorites. But, she was biased because she comes from the same home town in Oklahoma as the former lead singer for No Doubt...then even started telling me about her wedding to Blake Shelton that I guess my FEMA operator attended. Small world. Unless you know The Secret...