January 12th, 2022

If Time Paid The Bills I’d Live My Dreams By The Hour

Being jobless has its perks. The money isn’t great. But there’s plenty of time. And that’s got a value of its own.

I’ve been sleeping in everyday. (That’s partly due to my trip back to California for the holidays and the fact that I was bed ridden for nearly a week when I returned. And now I can’t seem to break the habit. I don’t mind though. I don’t really have anywhere to be.) Wake to my own circadian rhythm.

And then I walk up the flimsy steps to the attic, sit down in my orange tufted-back chair and pound away on the typewriter until I’ve satiated the word gods,

or when there’s enough yellow pages laying on the floor like casualties in an effort that seems almost fruitless (It’s an exercise, really ((The only kind I seem to be doing these days ))).

And then I make coffee and sit here at the desk for hours drinking coffee until I switch to wine and then I’ll pick up Fante or Didion or the Russian campaign of Napoleon (A farce from the very outset ((The guy should’ve went home as soon as he fell off his horse)). But when there’s time (Which I have much of) I am open to the whim of the day and wherever that takes me (I tried taking a bath the other day and when I finished filling up the tub and got in and relaxed myself in the pool of scorching water, Fante in hand, I heard a trickling of water as if from a spout coming from downstairs. Roused by this water music I got up, threw on a towel ((Because the first floor of the Bungalow is all windows)) and without drying off, I took off out of the bathroom, slipped on the wood floor in the hallway, my whole body slamming into the wall and then hitting the floor, only to get up, run down the stairs and witness two waterfalls coming from the kitchen ceiling and a pool of water on the tile floor).

When there’s enough time anything is possible.

For instance I can take mine and Guff’s Fifth Avenue to the Steering Column Repair (Because the thing moves like a joystick and switches gear every time I make a turn ((A dangerous predicament considering it will rev high up in RPMs in the middle of an intersection and could possible send me into a ditch by locking up (((That didn’t happen but it damn well could have ((((I read about this same instance with a older woman who did, in fact, end up in a ditch (((((A real tragedy)))))). And then walk home to Dundee (With a mug in my hand ((Because I needed my morning coffee on the road)) from 72nd and Maple with the sun warming the cold midwest a bit).

Time was on my side with the passing cars and Benson quiet in the morning with few restaurants open (All the artists of BFF asleep or working or not doing anything at all). I moved up Maple to Radial down to 60th before cutting south into the neighborhood with the houses losing their paint and sagging into the hill and then from there making a left at Blondo towards the brick and Blue Line Coffee where I ordered a bagel and they filled up my mug and I sat outside in the warming cool day because I could, talking to strangers and realizing Max I. Walker Cleaners was just a cross the street (I made a mental note to bring a couple pairs of pants there).

Afterward I got up and headed home, put the key in the door, only to get a call from the Steering Column Repairs to tell me my car was ready. And there’s plenty of time (Because they close at 5:30, and it only being noon at this time) so I went upstairs and worked on my book and read Fante, that brother of the grape, and I thought I could be as great as him putting down the word, yet somehow he is able to write twenty or thirty pages in a single night and me struggling to put down one as I stare at the screen longingly like a distant lover and I know it’s all about time so I went back to the book and ate up his words and take them in as if I had written them. Fante! My paisano.

And I think I could be as great as him one day as I poured a glass of wine in the early afternoon because I’m jobless and after all why the hell not.