I woke up. I hurt all over. No idea where I was. Head hurt.
Hands hurt. Sour adrenalin aftertaste. Couldn't take a deep
breath.

I had started to slump comfortably back into a corner of the
couch again and maybe I would have fallen asleep, but just then
the fancy musical doorbell bonged a whole lot of times like there
was a large heavy insistent finger putting muscular pressure on
the button. I tried to get ready to run away and hide somewhere
else but all of a sudden I could not breathe any air into my chest
and my feet and legs went all weak and too heavy to move. I was
scared and confused so I just did nothing other than think, Oh,
shit! Oh, crap! Then the doorbell went silent and two sets of heavy
footsteps walked away.

Inertia is the greatest force in the universe.

I sat up, leaned forward, and looked at my hands. It`s what you do
with your hands, creating or destroying with your hands... the choice
between the open hand, the affectionate nurturing hand, the skilled
purposeful hand, the graceful gesturing fingers... and the closed
hand, the tight parsimonious battering fist.

Why do I keep groping backwards into the past? It has to be pointless,
feeling around back there in time. As if it`s starting to turn cold
out here, the California chill, like trees in the winter with their sap
retreating down into the roots after all their leaves fell off.

I know I do have this one persistent memory of a man who was not a
relative, definitely not my father or even my grandfather or one of the
drunk uncles. I remember he was huge, a big-boned man, and he had very
clear blue eyes, the commanding sort of giant they had to build thrones
for in the olden days because ordinary chairs will not hold up. And I
seem to see those scuffed hardwood floors that always shook and creaked
when he walked around the classroom. He probably could have been my
English teacher, I guess, which would account for my writing so much.
His hair was shaggy brown turning gray and always a bit too long and he
didn`t shave regularly. But you couldn`t call him "hip" or a hipster type
guy either. As a matter of fact, he looked like he could turn "hip" upside
down and spank it. Maybe it was Hemingway... Yeah. Because I did used to
read a lot of Hemingway when I was a kid.

And then I did roll over onto the couch and fall asleep, slept all day long
and most of the next night. I had a really great sleep as a matter of fact,
probably thanks to all the pills I took before. Somebody must have beat me
up.

I felt almost human when I woke up next time but the room was so inky black
I had to finger my eyelids to check if they were open, and then I was too
paranoid to even try to turn on the Tiffany lamp. Predator eyes see very well
in the dark and can easily detect even the slightest movement.

I started to realize this place had looked a lot like Joel`s old house from
before he got married and moved down to Malibu. I used to call it his Art
Nouveau chateau. Yeah.

I also believe there are some large slinky moths out there who silently flap
around seeking the nectar of the big moon-white flowers that only bloom in
the dead of the Hollywood night. The flowers have a scent that is powerful
and sweet. But it is not a delicate perfume. It`s sort of gross. Those big
bad-ass moths love that. They could be aliens, I guess, but probably not. I
just have a strong impression that they are intelligent and green, sort of a
greenish gray colour.

So I lay there for a long time, just needing to feel safe for a little while
longer, my mind and my eyes wide open and watching the windows, deeply
suspicious of the dark distorted contents of any lurking shadows. Outside the
house I was pretty sure the night was already starting to turn purple around
the edges, and I knew the smoky air-polluted dawn would be climbing up above
the feathery pink clouds that were probably coming nearer and nearer by now,
reaching out of the dry death-valley sky far to the east.

I shut my eyes and had an ugly little dream. I forget what it was about.

The next time I looked, the sky outside the windows was a bright cloudless
clear blue and I became distinctly aware of the Pacific Ocean, way out there
west of the city, moving to its own cosmic rhythms, an immense blue curvature,
swollen and unknowable, vastly indifferent. Some day we could all just slide
off the flank of this crazy, damaged, despoiled continent and get submerged
in that great big ocean. North America could just give one impatient shrug
maybe. Or have an itch.

I maneuvered my feet down onto the tile floor and decided to stagger along
the hallway and try to find the bathroom.

02/18/2019