Binge, Purge, Binge, Purge

A catastrophic Saturday began well enough with me being up and walking down towards the bus stop where the bus to Walmart stops.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was about room temperature as I got to the Family Dollar where I wanted only an energy drink, as I was in the purging stage and in recovery from the day before and drinking only juice and the occasional energy drink. So far, so good.

One bus came as soon as I cracked open the drink and so I decided to wait for the next one, rather than try to hide the drink when getting on and then covertly sip it.

I came out of Walmart with bags loaded down with 7 pounds of cat litter, a tin of oysters and sundry other food items, along with a few cans of food for Harold and some "Temptations" treats, which are more like deserts than anything a cat would want to live off of.

I also bought a bottle of apple wine, made by a company called "Farm Fresh" winery or whatever, which I had Googled while in the store to make sure they actually used only fruit to make wine and that it wasn't just cheap grape wine with added fruit flavor. It is apparently fruit only and they make it from apple, blueberry, blackberry, cherry, cranberry and a few more. The cranberry flavor intrigued me, but it was the bottle of apple that I opened while sitting at the bus stop. 

There was a heavyset older black lady to my right who was eating what looked like a peanut butter and jam sandwich on white bread. She had a giant packet of BC Powder aspirin, which she proceeded to wash down some of, after finishing her sandwich. It occurred to me that she might be consuming something regularly in her diet that gave her headaches, and rather than explore any dietary solutions, she fought fire with fire by washing down aspirin a few times a day.

I opened the tin of oysters to wash down with my apple wine. This made her curious and she asked me what I was eating.

"Oysters, oh no, I can't eat oysters; I can't get them down, it's the texture of them..." she said.

I told her that I only ate them once in a great while and that I thought they had some trace minerals or something that something that lives in the mud under water (and probably goes back as far as lobsters and flounders in history) might acquire. "People have been eating oysters for centuries, and so we are probably adapted to them..." (unlike peanut butter and jam sandwiches on white bread, I didn't say).

I felt bad for the lady, who is probably on all kinds of prescribed drugs for all kinds of ailments that probably stem from her diet; and there she was, unable to swallow my diet.

On the bus ride back there was another older black man in the seat in front of me who was reading one of those post doctor visit forms that give a synopsis of the visit, explain the medications subscribed, etc. and it crossed my mind that an entire culture of black people might be being used by Big Pharma and the medical industry as guinea pigs, in cahoots with a food industry that has convinced them that a peanut butter sandwich and a bag of Doritos is a lunch that is going to help them be at their best.

Once back on Canal Street, I thought about walking to Patrick's house, but chose to drop off the 20 pounds of stuff I was toting at the apartment first. The bags kept bumping against my legs as I walked.

Patrick has a bike that he has offered to sell me for 50 bucks; and I had entertained the idea of bringing the 5 Walmart gift cards that I have gotten from doing the blood pressure application study to him, with 10 bucks on each of them to see if he would take them in trade for the bike. I've seen the thing and it's a beach cruiser style one with only one gear -something that really bothered me the last time I had one like that because the one gear is made for lazy "cruising," ostensibly along a beach, and I used to get frustrated trying to make any time. But, it would be better than walking, and Patrick said that he would ask 200 dollars for it from anyone else, but was cutting me a deal.

I still decided not to trade all the Walmart money for it, opting to get toilet paper, toilet bowl cleaner, dish washing liquid, the cat food, people food and, of course, the bottle of apple wine, instead of a bike.

After dropping off the stuff, I soon found myself walking to another store to get a bottle of vodka for Carlos, who lives on my floor and is kind of hobbled. Along the way, I ran into none other than Patrick, who, seeing me walking, told me that I could get the bike from him and just pay him the 50 bucks for it when I could. He could see the connection between me having a bike and winding up busking more.

I got Carlos his bottle, taking a gulp off it as payment for delivering it to him; and then, as I was crossing the parking lot of the Shell station, a black guy who sells weed and other things on that block, pulled up in his car and handed me a fat blunt, which was lit.

I walked home, shooting a few videos on my phone that I thought were rather humorous in my apple wine and blunt haze, and proceeded to start jamming away on my electric guitar, forgetting to walk down to Patrick's to get the bike in the process, and ultimately cooking up and scarfing down a pound of lean ground beef, which I guess contributed to me falling asleep; a blueberry pie insured that I would wake up with a slight heartburn; to begin The Purge, once again..

I have no idea what ever happened to the videos that I shot on my phone; I was trying to send them to Jacob in case there wasn't room in my phone's memory for them.

And so, this will be a Sunday when I do the Wim Hof breathing exercises, watch some of the Saint's game, which started at 9 AM because they are in London; and then I guess I'll walk down to Patrick's to get the bike.

My ego exalts in the vision of me showing up at Sacred Heart with a bike, just about exactly one month after mine was stolen. I imagine that whoever took it had a modicum of the crab mentality (whereby, when one crab has almost succeeded in climbing up and out of the basket that a bunch of them are trapped in, it will be pulled back down by the others that are trying to latch on to it in order to pull themselves out). 

By having a bike, I was able to pull myself out of the abject destitution that is the norm for most of the people at Sacred Heart. They would see me ride off on it with my guitar on my back and then would notice that I always seemed to have my needs met; as evidenced by the plastic bags tied to its handlebars. In their minds I was selfish and greedy, as a beneficiary of White Privilege who doesn't share the wealth; who never returns on the bike with the guitar on his back to break out a pack of cigarettes or a liter of liquor and pass them around among the "less fortunate."

So, to a degree, I believe the bike was stolen as much, if not more, to deprive me of it than to benefit whoever took it. And so, when I show up with another bike, I'm sure there will be dirty looks along with spitting on the ground directed at me by those who would whisk away my guitar and bury it in the dumpster, should I turn my back on it for a few seconds. Then, I would have to while away my days sitting in front of the building alongside them, asking everyone who walks past for a cigarette or a dollar. And I would have to enlist myself as a courier for those who get a check every month; running to the store for them in exchange for a few gulps off a bottle or a couple cigarettes.

But a white man can always get another bike or another guitar, by virtue of his skin color, they believe; not because he has actual friends with whom he has good relations, and isn't trying to use to pull myself up while pulling them down.

So I'm trying to check an ego that is looking forward to showing up on another bike, back in business again, having only lost a step or two. I just wish it could have been sooner; like the next day after the last one got stolen; that would have demonstrated a greater amount of crab proof-ness...