December 22, 2020:
I hate my apartment.
Roachland: overrun, swollen in permanently swaying brown motion. Noisy: Masonic at Grove, urban traffic, brawls, gunfire. Bereft, heartbroken, isolated, exiled: I would have hated any apartment. But this is worse.
Racist landlords. "Niggers and roaches," sayeth the Man, with his weasley high-pitched giggle. A schoolteacher, natch. Former Air America pilot whose daughters both became junkies. Irony, that.
To spend as little time there as possible.
Walking: solitary urbex, working off the impossible energy of heartbreak and ADHD. North to The Exploratorium or my friend Donna’s on Sacramento, or to meet her for burgers at Mel’s. West through the Panhandle into the Park, head radio playing Blows Against the Empire on repeat: last electric Sunday morning / waiting in the park for the dawn / laughing at all the animals / in the park and in the city beyond. Except without the laughter. I’d walk to the beach and back daily.
Yet all my time was there. Sleepless, weeping, alone.
I had a wall-sized poster: Sandinista!, the Clash. "Aren't we supposed to be against the Sandinistas?", asketh the Man, with his weasley high-pitched giggle.
"You're welcome to be against anyone you want."