I’m comin’ in

I woke up screaming again this morning.It is a ghastly treacle, that shrill yelp stuffed desperately through the rigid body to the throat.

Unlike last night’s dream about the homicidal bicyclists this dream was actually pretty scary, but not without its element of lunacy which had me laughing throughout the day, simply asking “Where the hell did that come from? From where in my mind did *that* come from?”

In the dream I hear someone pacing outside the front door of my apartment, and apparently the person is trying to open the door. I make some noise to indicate to the potential intruder that someone is present behind the door, and I immediately sense the person’ impatience with this inconvenience. It does not turn him away, it only gets in his way.

i look through the peephole and see a gun pointed at the door, and at me. I can see the face of hte interuder, though i do not remember it now.

I say “Go away,” to which the man responds:

“I’m from Cleveland, my mother has cancer, and I’m comin’ in.” I step back from the door and yell at him to go away. He shoots a huge hole in the door. I can’t get to a phone in time to dial 911, so I imagine that others in ttthe building heard the noise and called on my behalf.

I woke up screaming “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE”, which is a lot to scream through the rigor-mortal stiffness of sleep.

All day I was chuckling at the man introducing his home invasion with the announcement that “I’m from Cleveland, my mother has cancer, I’m comin’ in.” Somehow those two circumstances combined to drive this man to a life of crime, a life of brazen burglaries and shameless trespassing. The line was this man’s “Go ahead, make my day.”

It was not funny at the time, though. I woke up and needed many minutes to slowly inform myself that the gunfire did not just happen.

Two straight nights of screamy wake-ups. What does it mean? Probably not much.

…..

Today found me, among other places, under the bam, under the boo, under the BQE, where I encountered the foulest stench (in recent memory) of garbage and I-don’t-know-what. It was really putrid, and it emanated from a mass of what appeared to be illegally dumped trash and treasure. I did not study it too closely but it looked like the contents of someone’s house or apartment (minus the furniture) strewn out to dry in this nondescript corner of obscurity.

I did not really want to record it, but I did anyway, thinking I’d never see this again.

I remembered an incident from youth, when I mowed the lawn and bagged the grass cuttings in large black or brown trash bags. Te bags would sometimes sit outside for a few days, until trash collection came to haul them off.

While sitting outside those bags would often get rained on, and the water would seep into the bags, which were tied shut with the built-in drawstring but were not sealed shut to the elements. The water would soak the grass cuttings, which could get moldy and putrid after just one rain storm.

I don’t know what was going on inside those bags, but sometimes they expanded. I imagined that the mounds of grass were primordial stews, attracting insects and fungi and generating gases of unearthly toxicity.

The insides stunk, but the stench was bearably contained mostly within the bags, which were summarily held away from one’s face like a soiled diaper.

One day, though, the bags had filled with gases and rancidity and had expanded so much that I could not secure my hands around the top part. I could not easily lift the bags when the ersatz handle portion was so fat. I did what seemed like the reasonable thing: I untied the twisty-tie thing and proceeded to push down on the bag, forcing out the excess putrid air and deflating the unwieldly zeppelin.

i pressed my hands into the bag like a doctor performing CPR, and at the same moment i inexplicably decided to take a deep breath. the gases and moldy air that had fermented in that garbage bag went straight down my throat. i inhaled deeply at the same instant as the foul air came rushing out of the bag and at my face, hurrying into my innards and filling my brain like a toxic geyser.

i sometimes imagine that this incident might have fucked me up for life. i don’t know what i inhaled but rain-soaked grass cuttings of 5 or 6 days vintage can not be an environment conducive to pure air. i probably sucked in some gnats and a vile fungus or 2. whatever i inhaled i know i did not feel right for weeks. i had a dull but not debilitating headache, my lungs felt stretched, and i basically felt like i head stars and birdies twirling around my head.

i never told anyone about that episode of garbage inhalation. i was embarrassed about it, for having so stupidly stuck my face into a stink hole and blasted its wretched fumes straight into my wide open and all-inhaling air canal.

by that standard i guess today’s sighting of foulness under the BQE was mild. i got bit by a shitload of mosquitos in the few moments i was there, and i briefly imagined that these were death ‘skeeters, a more potent vessel of contagion encountered at normal trash dums and garbage cans. This appeared to be an illegal dumping of garbage, and I imagined that illegal dumps attracted outlaw mosquitos and buzzards bearing only the deadliest diseases. or at least the West Nile Virus, which some theorize had its beginnings in the cemeteries near this spot under the BQE. Slapping at ‘skeeters and fearing West Nile revived a memory of the Howard Stern Show, in which the infinitely-adolescent host and his peers became surprisingly serious (surprising to me) as they discussed the symptoms of West Nile Virus. they played an excerpt from an interview with someone who had contracted the virus, a man in his 30s, who said he was just walking along, feeling fine, and then there was nothing until he woke up 3 or 4 days later. Howard Stern and the panel responded to that interview, simply saying “Wow.” i would have expected the Sterntuary to call the guy a fartface, or find some way to ridicule him, but they stayed above-water and respectfully shook their radio faces in shallow awe.

do you know who i think had the best live coverage of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York? Howard Stern. Seriously. Find the show somewhere, on Usenet or wherever it might be. it’ll make your skin creep.

today’s foul stench under the BQE might not hold an eternal flame to the bag of grass clippings inhalation, but thinking about it these hours later still is making my lower intestinal tract feel a little quirky. and i am still swatting at the mosquitos.

…..

I’M FROM CLEVELAND
MY MOTHER HAS CANCER
I’M COMIN’ IN

-haiku of the home invasion.