I’m checking in from the Super Center payphone. This is the sequel to the original Super Center payphone, or payphones rather. There used to be at least two of them up on the wall of the building that used to be Pathmark and which is now the Food Bazaar. But beteween the Pathmark and the Food Bazaar this place was vacant and, somehow or other, for some… by hook or by crook the payphones on the wall continued to work for almost the whole time that the Pathmark was closed. And it was such a great place to make a phone call. It felt like I was, Idunno, delivering an urgent message or a sermon. I’d like to imagine that my voice was going out over the entire vast, empty parking lot that was in front of me.
I just went to the doctor. I got my annual checkup three or four months later than I got it last year. Everything was the same. Blood pressure was perfect on top but a little high on the bottom. 130 over 90. The bottom number is the booze number, and 90 is cause for concern, and anything above that is like a problem. But it’s better today than it was two or three weeks ago when I quit drinking. But I’m going to poison myself tonight because I feel like it. I felt like it really badly last night. I just wanted to pour the toxins all over my brain. The challenge is to see if I can do that one night but not the next. Or maybe two nights in a row but not the third night, like I did back in my more strictly organized routine of the corporate days. I would drink sometimes on Thursday if there was an offie outing or whatever. Pretty much always Friday, pretty much always Saturday, but that was it for me in those days. But that’s before I got into troubule. That’s before the hard stuff. That’s before a lot of things.
The dude took my blood and he did it… I told him I might pass out, because I almost did last time. I only pass out when I have blood taken for the first time in a long time. There have been times where I had to get it taken (please deposit 25¢ for the next three minutes) every four weeks, or every week or so. If I get it taken on a regular basis I don’t even care. But anyway this time he said let’s go have you lie down on the… whatever it is, the gurney? It’s not a gurney, or maybe it is a gurney.
So I lay down on this thing and he drew the blood, and I felt the needle go in and that drove me crazy, but I didn’t even come close to passing out this time. He said if you lie down it’s like 100% different. I was happy for that but at the same time I thought why didn’t he do this last time? Because I’ve always told him that I might pass out. And not just him but any doctor. Next time I get blood taken, I don’t care where it is, I’m gonna tell them I gotta lie down. Because it made all the difference. I barely felt anything as far as dizziness and that feeling that your entire soul is being sucked out of you.
I remember the time I fell down in the hallway at that place up on 31st Street near Ditmars, across the street from the place where I got my MRI done. Er no it isn’t, it’s the place across from the guy who told me to get the MRI done. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. But they though, that blood place they thought I was going to die.
It’s the most fucked up medical procedure out there. Actually, no, that’s not true. Drawing blood and sedating people. The anesthesiologists are guilty of probably the most or the second most fucked medical procedures in the business.
And then I got a flu shot.
So now I’m out trying to get more exercise. I haven’t been doing that. I’ve just been sitting at the desk and piling up more content to wade through for the rest of my fucking life.
I call this the Super Center payphone even though this isn’t the Super Center anymore. When there was the Pathmark they used to call this place the Super Center. This is the phone I used to call the suicide hotline from. I would never talk to anybody because there was never anybody there. I would just sit on hold for a long time, but even anybody picked up I’d probably hang up. I guess I’m weird that way.
Super Center Payphone
