But there was this letter, addressed to me, telling me that on the day before my birthday I have to, under penalty of law, report for jury duty, when I can't even make a doctor's appointment without tying a string around my finger.
And, there was the thing -and of course my first question is: do they pay you for your time?
Otherwise I am going to send them a letter telling them that I think capital punishment is murder committed by the state, and I am vehemently opposed to it, or something, to get myself disqualified...
Even Stephen?
Then Friday around noon, I ran into this homeless guy named Steve that I have seen hanging around The Holy Ground.
He offered me 20 bucks a night for two nights of staying at my place, claiming that all he needed was a little space on the floor to roll his bedroll out.
In order that I didn't have to go and sell my plasma for 75 bucks, I took him up on the offer and we went to Sacred Heart and Sherry at the front desk recognized him and said hello and; apparently this guy had stayed with another resident named JJ and JJ had kicked Steven out in the middle of hurricane Francine, when she was pouring down rain, and had 75 mile per hour winds.
He called the police and had Steven removed from his place and so in Sherry's eyes, JJ was the bad guy.
Sherry knew that Steven was "paying for everything," and JJ had shown immense ingratitude in kicking him out in the middle of a hurricane, but as often is the case in life, I found out that appearances can be deceiving; and it was Steven that I wound up kicking out (on a bright sunny day) because the guy came in looked at the place.
I apologized for how cluttered it was, and then should have backed out of the deal, right then and there.
As soon as he said: "Yeah, you could say it's cluttered!"
And then, after criticizing my refrigerator, telling me that it was broken because it should be a lot cooler and then saying the totally ignoramus type thing of: "gee I don't understand why it's not cooler because the freezer works..." he should have been out.
So that's the kind of ignoramus I was dealing with, one who thinks that a refrigerator should work because the freezer, which is a totally separate component, does.
He went basically through the apartment loudly complaining about everything from a piece of hair on the sink to Harold having knocked some food out of his dish onto the floor.
The guy sprayed Raid in my kitchen without asking me first. He cleaned the bathroom counter by basically shoving all of my toiletries into the corner end of it leaving them knocked down and in disorder. Then when he cleared the bed off so he could sleep on it, he tossed all the items that were on it seemingly in random directions to clear a space for himself and I wound up asking him to leave after he finished his laundry.
He had also said a bizarre thing about himself not having to buy cheese when he went out to get groceries because "we already have (the block of medium cheddar that he saw in the fridge while inspecting it like any renter would, I suppose) some."
His deal was going to be to try to slight me on the rent because he had made some kind of breakfast that would come out of his food stamps, I suspected.
"What makes you think my cheddar cheese is 'ours,' what's that got to do with a space on the floor to unroll your sleeping bag?"
That thread of conversation wended predictably, with him espousing some pretty woke ideas while trying to explain why he is entitled to the cheese, and I reached the point where I didn't want to be sleeping in the same apartment as Stephen Henning, and so..
He almost left with my coffee filter in his possession.
Luckily, I had the hankering for a cup, but couldn't find the thing,that he had admired openly the night before and even offered to buy from me.
So I encountered him with: "Have you seen the coffee filter?"
He said: "No ," and then I went back in the kitchen and looked again whereupon he confessed that he had been about to steal it.
And then he became; I don't know what, a Democrat? by starting to argue that somehow he deserved the filter, because he had been short changed on his $20 for some reason, maybe the refrigerator...
Anyways, that was my Friday.
And then Jacob and I went out and had a pretty good night, but I did drink.
And we went back out Saturday and we played in a different spot because Lily had run us off for bringing other musicians.
Within an hour, we had -you guessed it- other musicians...
A man from Germany who played the "musical saw" as they call it, came along and became quick friends with Jacob.
In fact he had approached him and directed his request to jam with us mainly at him, in a slightly disrespectful way. But I had my reservations about him as he was kind of openly gay and so I doubted that music was his prime motivator. To most gays, everything is a means to the end of gay sex. A musical saw can help you hook up with queer musicians, and that's the extent of the purpose of a musical anything, has been my experience, and that's the way I had read this guy.
The guy hardly said a word to me, as noted, except for at the very end.
"What about the tips?" of course was referring to whatever had gone into the case when all four of us (there was a drummer by now) were playing which it was implied by him was to be divided four ways which might have yielded $4 each, for him and the guy who came along banging a homemade drum.
I am remiss for not giving the saw player $4. The way they came at me demanding it had taken me aback and I thought it more important that they understood that no agreement had been settled on. Most of the time musicians who ask to sit in will specify: you can keep all the tips, I just want to play.
It should be a privilege to sit in on an act that has practiced together and it should be that person's aim to keep up, and assumedly they like the sound of the combo and want to play along.
But saw man immediately said: Let's do something that we all know," and offered "The House of the Rising Sun" as a suggestion. We sounded really good. I went to get my first beer of the night, and when I got back there was now a drummer and, it was like goldilocks as far as there being someone in my chair and using my microphone. Good thing I had brought my guitar and harmonica with me or there might have been some slobber on the latter...
Jacob became angry.
We should have given the musical saw guy 4 dollars...
Maybe 6..
Today I called Lilly..to be continued...
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