something just short of disheveled

I moved around,

here and there,

sold mantras on the street

for a buck seventy-five apiece,

tried to become mainstream

but the counterculture wasn’t having it.

They kidnapped me,

threw me in the back of a Volkswagen bus,

fed me cheap wine from a brown jug,

pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

in honey,

read from Das Kapital,

Allen Ginsberg,

made me audition for the role of

Claude Hooper Bukowski

in a road production of “Hair.”

I wasn’t feeling their

rhetoric or their sideburns,

so I escaped and landed on my knees

next to some fat alley cats

who were waiting for their

SSI benefits.

I ducked into a bookstore

owned by a man in a red baseball cap

and a Santa Claus beard.

He nearly blinded me with

his high-beam eyes and offered

me a cup of green tea.

“You look like you could use a friend

and some meaningful conversation,” he said.

20

I nodded,

even though I was too sleepy

for friendship or meaningful conversation.

I asked him if he had a back room where

I could take a nap for about

an hour or so.

“You ain’t a narc, are ya?” he said.

“No, sir.”

He pointed to a door in the rear

of the store that had a cardboard sign

thumb-nailed to it:

GOING HOME,

it said, and it looked like

it was painted with

fluorescent red spray paint.

I turned the knob to the right

but it was locked.

I turned it to the left, and it opened.

I looked back at the owner,

who was binding a copy of the

King James Bible,

smoking Indian bidis and watching

cartoons on a 13-inch black and white TV.

I entered the room.

It was about 9 by 12.

There was a cot leaning against the

far wall.

I lay down and took a few deep breaths.

My nose began to run.

There was a potent odor of eucalyptus

in the air.

I closed my eyes.

I heard some voices on the other side

of the wall.

Two young men,

probably teenagers,

skipping school.

- I dunno, man…

- Dude, you’re sweating…

- Yeah, my heart’s goin’ crazy, too…I’m not gonna do anymore…

- It’s not cut right…something’s off…

- Yeah, flush it down the shitter…I ain’t in the mood to OD tonight…

When I awoke, the sun was coming up.

And I became half a human being again,

in and of myself.