Going Home

Whether I'll hear someone "calling me home" when I go is still undecided. Whether my time and date of death is my "time to go home," I don't know. I'll figure all that out later. Right now, call it fate, call it destiny, call it His plan; it's basically the same thing. Who will ever know why shit happens the way it does?

I'm still not sure if the program at my funeral will say "Homegoing Celebration," like my great-grandfather's did. Why not call it what we know it is? All we know is that I'll be six feet under one day. For all anyone'll ever now, that's my last destination. Mind, body, and spirit might just come to an abrupt, expected, or long-awaited end right then and there.

Most people, I'm afraid, are scared to stick to what's evident and only that. So, they embelish the truth. I don't blame 'em. Who wouldn't like to think eternal life awaits us all after death? But call it home, call it heaven, call it paradise, or simply six feet under. No one will ever have the facts to prove anything about afterlife happenings. So, fuck it.

Maybe one day I'll decide to come back to the path that was beaten for me. Maybe I'll become too afraid of the naked truth to recognize it. Just maybe I'll bank on having a reunion with all of my lost buddies in the land of no sorrow and no pain. But nobody's guaranteeing that reunion; my philosophy is applicable. Fuck it. That's exactly why I don't think twice about earning green just to spend green just to smoke green. I see nothing wrong with living every day like it's my last. That's why whenever Mary Jane calls my name and I have the means to answer her call, I do just that. She's my only love in this world. She makes me feel good.

Now, even when she doesn't call my name, I call hers. Communication is a two-way street, after all. Take right now, for instance. I'm running low, so I'm calling her name. The last joint of the stash is an ugly reminder of the trip across town that has to be made. But I always roll one up before I make the trip; it makes me forget about how long it is. The trip is even uglier when it's dark outside. So, now, since the sun is up, I'll go and come back quickly.

I've never been one to watch weather channels to find out what the weather is gonna be like. That's why I wasn't surprised when the drizzle started as soon as I stepped through the emergency exit. The rain wasn't enough to chase Ronald away from the back of Mo' Liquor, though. He was standing there, looking intently at something in the direction of the playground, looking like a nutty bum in the rain.

My lighter is never in the first pocket I check. I always end up fishing for it. It doesn't help that I wear cargo pants every day, either. It works out thought, because as soon as I find my lighter, Ronald starts to begging for it. "You got a light?" It was sort of a rhetorical question. He saw the green lighter right in my hand. I looked up to hand it to him and he didn't even attempt to look my way. What was he looking at? My first guess is that he suffers from pedophilia, but there are no kids to stare at. No kids are on the playground. It's raining hard by now. Yet, he stands there, inanimately, unaffected by the rain.

I looked towards the playground to figure it all out. Nothing. Had he gone mad? Puffing his cigarette, he kept his gaze still. "It'll still happen without her telling us it will," he said as he handed the lighter back to me. What will happen? What does that even mean? I dared not ask. He looked as if he could snap at any moment. He heard my thoughts. "The future," he answered. I looked again towards the playground. She was laying underneath the slide, motionless, protected from the rain. She looked ironically peaceful. She looked as if she had seen it coming and was prepared for it, just not the weather.

I made fire and lit the joint. "She's in a better place," Ronald said. "Rest assured."

An idle mind: The Devil's Workshop

This week was a slow one for June. She hadn't been called in to work at the book store in over four days. With no real reason to leave the house, she sat in all day, moving from one corner of the apartment to the other. She had become bored with waking up just to go back to sleep, getting high only to come back down again, eating simply to become hungry once more after a few hours.

She was bored with her life this week. The boredom had gotten so intense today, though, that she was driven to call her grandma -- a phone call that was guaranteed to consume at least two hours of her time. It was also guaranteed to be an intellectually stimulating conversation, as well. June figured it was worth it.

She scrolled through her phone book down to the contact that was named "The 13th." She was convinced that her grandma was the thirteenth disciple, the way she talked about nothing but Jesus and devoted her life to getting June "back on the right path." The phone rang, and rang. Finally, the answering machine came on and June realized why her grandma wouldn't have been available to answer the phone. Saturday evening mass started at 6, ten minutes ago.

She quickly decided that she would get her fix tonight, as well. Why not? she thought as she put on her shoes and threw her jacket around her shoulders. She grabbed her Bible and quickly remembered that Catholics don't use the Bible. She threw it back down and locked to door behind her. "Saturday night at six," she mumbled to herself. "Who the heck goes to church, let alone Catholic church, on a Saturday night at six?"

She took the scenic route instead of cutting across the back lawn of the church. The statue of the virgin mother that stood directly behind the church scared her, the way the light reflected off of it at dusk. She figured the eulogy would be dry and boring as well, so she was in no rush to sit through it. She found her only incentive for going to mass was communion. Communion at every mass was the best thing about the Catholic church as far as June was concerned.

"The word of the lord," he said.
"Thanks be to God," the parish responded.

June dipped her finger into the small bowl of holy water and made the sign of the crucifix over her body. She made her way to her seat in the very last pew; she wasn't interested in sitting any closer. The droplet of holy water rolled down the middle of her forehead to her brow. She used her sleeve to wipe it away.

Just as soon as she sat down, it was time for her to get back up again. Communion was only served from the very front of the church, near the altar. She took her spot at the end of the line and waited patiently for her turn.

As she got closer to the front of the line, she couldn't remember whether it was left over right or right over left. She figured either one would have to do; she wasn't ready to let Father Eric place the wafer directly onto her tongue, especially considering the number of tongues that came before hers. "The body of Christ," Father Eric said.

June looked up at him, her left hand over her right. They stood there in silence for a few seconds. June alternated her hands, putting her right hand over her left. "The body of Christ," he repeated.

"Oh, Amen!" she said. It had been a while since the last time June took communion. The nit-picky techincal things had evaded her mind. He placed the wafer into her hands and June placed it in her mouth and chewed.

"The blood of Christ," the graying woman said as June stopped in front of her.
"Amen," June said. Chewed-up pieces of the wafer were plainly visible in her mouth when she opened it to speak. She grabbed the cup of wine and turned it up to finish off its contents.

Making her way back to the last pew, she cleaned the remnants of the wafer from her teeth with her tongue and fingernail.

Reincarnated

She dialed the numbers on her cell phone, her palms becoming more and more sweaty by the second. Her stomach began to sink and that very familiar feeling crept over her body-- she had run out of money, again. Calling home was the last thing she needed to do in order to prove that she was slowly, but surely, becoming a young, independent woman.

She hung the phone up.

Pacing back and forth over the old, creaking hardwood floor, she dialed the familiar combination of numbers, yet again. She could feel her heart nervously excite inside of her chest.

It had been only fifteen days since she had to call her mom up for cash. By now, everyone including June, expected that she would have a job. The truth was that if she wasn't busy making her treks across town to buy the best weed she could find, she was busy smoking up the best weed she could find. She replayed these things that she realized about herself over, and over again. Shaking her head, she was utterly disgusted by her apathy toward making any changes. She made up her mind then that this would be the last time that she would have to call her mom up for cash.

"Hello?"
"Ma..."
"Hey, baby girl. What's going on?"
"Nothing much. How is everything over there?"
"Oh, everything has been just fine. You know your grandmother's birthday was last week."
"Yes, Ma. I know. Where is he?"
"Where is... Oh!" Silence. "He's gone to work already. Why?"
"Ma, you've got to get out of there. How long are you going to allow him to dominate your life? You see I'm out of there, and I couldn't wait to get away. Ma, you can do it. You can even come and stay with me awhile if you need to."
Again, there was silence. Her mother sighed and said, "What is it that you need, Juney Boone?"

"Today's Tuesday."
"The food market is open. Is that it?"
"Yes..."
"I'll go to the bank now and put some money on your card. You have to wait about an hour, though. Give the transaction a chance to make it through."
"Thanks."
"Bye, baby. Love you."
"You, too."

June flung her body across her bed in relief.

Her mother tried to make the conversations as concise as possible–she didn't need June to tell her what she needed to do with her life. June understood, but only wanted the best for her mother and she was sure that her mom could do far better than to allow him to overtly adulterize time and time again.

Merely the sound of her mothers voice reminded her of the days when his wrath seemed inescapable. His force-to-be-reckoned-with demeanor was dominating and emotionally-tiring. Her mother moped around, suffering from a permanent state of emotional fatigue. Only a couple of years ago, June felt helpless under his power, too. She was not yet old enough to speak up, and too young to move out.

For her, simply reminiscing induced posttraumatic stress. Habitually, she grabbed for her stashes of green, but her money clip was empty and her little plastic baggie was left with only residue. She felt hungry. June got herself together and headed outdoors towards the bank.

She emerged from the back alley and immediately noticed the dense crowd right in the corner where Polaski and Rousse met. Her focus danced from the back of the crowd up the to top of the Bank. Who is this? she thought. What now? She drifted toward the perimeter of the crowd.

The man held a thick book in his hand. It was tattered and of dark green. In the other, he held a machete, gripped so tightly that his veins protruded from his hand, all the way up his neck to the center of his forehead. He looked down at the book, his mouth shining from excess salivation. "I am the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Bank except through Me." He looked up from the text, waiting for the crowd's reaction to the familiar words.

June made her way through the crowd, hand extended into the air, bank card in hand. She wasn't there for the show; she had read about it before. "That means you, bitch!" he shouted from the top of the building. He pointed the machete at the top of June's head. "If you wanna do business here, you need my permission." June kept waking. "Aaaand I grant you permission," he said as June approached the ATM.

She heard the helicopters approaching above her head. Had they seriously brought the S.W.A.T. team in for this occasion? she thought. The blue and red lights were visible through the convex mirror on the front of the ATM. She could smell the rain and feel the familiar breeze that comes before the rain. She grabbed her money from the slot and made her way back through the crowd. She saw the lady from the top of the laundromat along with her imaginary...something. By now, she had figured out that it couldn't be a human, but wasn't quite sure exactly what it was yet.

As it landed on the top of the Bank, the helicopter blew leaves from the trees that surround the old well. The green leaves fluttered in the air and rained down onto the heads of the crowd. Three men bearing arms and dressed in all black hopped out of the helicopter. A fourth toted handcuffs and a straight jacket. He raised his machete and several shots were fired. Both of his hands began to pour blood. They tackled him from behind and his bible flew from his hand off the top of the building. The wind tore the thin pages from the bind of the book and the words fell over the people. The crowd made way and the cover, reading "HOLY BIBLE," landed on the ground, empty. "Forgive them father." A strained voice could be heard from the top of the building. "They know not what they do." June mouthed the words as he said them aloud. Birds flew from the trees as the leaves continued to blow.

"Don't let the psycho fool you, " she said under her breath. "Fool you once, shame on him. Fool you twice, shame on you."

She looked down at the money in her hand and was sent back to her own calvary.

Don't Judge the Book by its Cover

She was startled by the sound of blaring horns and sirens outside her window. She reached over and peeked through the blinds to satisfy her curiosity: she couldn't tell if the sirens were ambulances or fire trucks in her half-woken state. She was surprised that, by now, she wasn't able to sleep through the sound of the sirens.

The clock read 9:47am. She forcedly swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped on her bedroom shoes. She'd figured it was a good thing that the sirens had woken her up this early--she was tired of wasting her days away by sleeping.

From the closet, she retrieved her one-point-five rolling papers and what remained of the gram she had bought the other day. She made her way to the wooden rocking chair that she kept in a corner of the room. She picked up the bible that had been collecting dust under the chair, blew off the dust and sat it in her lap. She flipped open the front cover and read, "PRESENTED TO," printed in all caps. "Nellie L. Gardner," written in faded, blue ink. She was immediately reminded of the 3-hour conversation between her and her grandmother that lead to her owning her grandmother's 27-year-old bible. She smiled--only slightly--and began to break down the weed over the words "HOLY BIBLE" on the cover.

She creased the one-point-five at about a fifth of the way up before she filled it--the way she had seen her grandfather do it for years. She rolled it up and moistened the strip at the top edge of the paper to seal it off. When she sealed the spliff off, she held it up to observe; she could tell she was getting better, but she wasn't as good as her grandfather, yet. She blew the residue from the cover of her Bible and set it back under the chair.

She got her matches from the pants she'd worn the previous day. She struck one and blew it out--she loved the smell. She used the next one she struck to light the joint and sat down on her bed.

As soon as she sat down, the alarm went off inside her building. She, in sudden excitation, could feel the perspiration seeping from her pores. The safety strobe light right above the door caught her attention. She nervously put on her sneakers, grabbed her coat and scarf and ran out of the building. With the smoking joint in hand, she'd figured it would be best if she moved, quickly, away from the apartments, especially since she had forgotten to ask if her room was a non-smoking one.

She accidentally flung the emergency exit door open so wide that it slammed against the chipping, brick wall. Again, she was startled. She emerged from the back alley onto Polaski panting. For a moment, she stood, caught her breath, and got herself together. She looked towards the book store as she took a long drag. She decided to walk in that direction--she wanted to see if she could tell what breed the man's dog was.

June discreetly caught up to them and realized that the dog was one of those helper dogs. As she got even closer, she heard the man say, "Heel, Shad." The dog and the man stopped and the man reached down to adjust the dog's harness. June walked around them to get a better look at the dog. As she circled around, she took another drag. The blind man turned his head in her direction and his nostrils began to flare. June stood there and watched the two of them. The man finished what he was doing and stood up straight with his nostrils still flaring. Still, June stood there and waited for a look of recognition to appear on the man's face. She took another drag and inhaled too deeply. She began to cough and the blind man suddenly began making his way inside of the coffee shop. As June stood there watching them, coughing, the blind man turned his head in her direction. He stood there, seeming to stare at June through the window.

It took a few seconds for June to ask herself, "What if he's not actually blind?" Her thought gave her the chills. She looked at her joint to break their stare, took another drag, and made her way to the Pawn Shop.

His head turned as June passed by.

You be the Judge

It was going on 5:30. June laid in bed with her stomach growling; she hadn't eaten all day. Her spine was practically touching her belly button, but she didn't feel like getting up to eat. The empty refrigerator wasn't particularly encouraging, either.

"Damn," she thought aloud as she realized she would have to face the cold in order to eat. She slipped on her shoes and carefully made her way to the closet, making sure not to squish a roach on the bottom of her shoe. The mere thought of the frigid weather made her want to climb back in bed. Anyway, June grabbed her scarf and ten dollars from the modest stash she kept in the corner of her closet and made her way outside.

She hated being outside in the cold, let alone in the snow. So, she pulled the scarf tighter around her neck; the draft would be stronger between the buildings.

The back alley seemed narrower today, perhaps because it was almost completely dark. However, it wasn't long before her eyes adjusted to the lighting and she noticed the stark man coming from the opposite direction.

He wasn't particularly strange or eerie looking, but the fact that he was walking in the dark alley, seemingly aimlessly, coupled with the way his eyes wondered made her uneasy. As they approached each other, June clutched the pocket knife she kept in her pocket; she had seen too many dark-alleyway incidents in the movies. As they passed each other in silence, June held her breath. She didn't want to smell the smell that he probably possessed.

"God bless," he said when she was behind him and him behind her.

Her heart sunk to the soles of her shoes.

She emerged from the alleyway onto Polaski Ave. shaking her head. Being judgmental was one of her several vices. June pulled the knife out of her pocket and stared at it for a few seconds. She turned around. The man was making his way, slowly limping, out of the alley.

"Hey," she yelled down the alley.

The man's silhouette moved, jerkily, from side to side as he kept walking.

"Hey, are you hungry," June yelled.

The man turned around.

Home. Sweet home?

She climbed the last few flights of stairs, panting, her three bags in hand. She made it to the thirteenth floor and placed her bags down at the top of the stairs to catch a breath.

After a few seconds, she picked her bags up, opened the door and made her way to 1213B - her new home. The door read 1213. June could tell from the way the door was worn that there used to be a B next to the 3 at one point. She dropped her bags, once again, to fish through her pockets for the key.

Once in the door, the key would move neither left nor right. She pulled on the door knob and tried to turn the key. Nothing. She pushed her shoulder into the door and turned key. The bolt slid unlocked. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The sound of her shoes on the hardwood floors bounced off of the naked walls and back off of the floor again. This was definitely a fixer-uper; it was nothing like the unit that Jupiter's website displayed.

After scanning the efficiency-style apartment, with it's worn, yet well-preserved hardwood floors, June got her cell phone from her pocket.

She walked around the edges of the room, looking, her phone ringing in her hand.

"Hello."
"I thought I told you to call me when you got in."
"Ma, I literally just walked through the door."
"Well then you should've called right once your foot crossed the threshold."
"Okay."
"How do you like the place?" June saw a roach on it's back in the corner of the room right next to the closet door. "I said how do you like it, June?"
"It's fine, I guess."
"What are you guessing about? You're right ther ein the place, aren't you?"
"Mom! I just walked through the door, my bags were heavy, plus I had to carry all three of them in my lap on the busride here," June said. "Please don't start this with me. Not now." She noticed the roach had collected dust on its belly.
"Well, I'm sorry baby. I just wanted to know if you liked it. How am I supposed to act? It's your first time being out on your own. Asking you about the place is the next best thing to being right there with you.
"Alright. I'll just call you once I get settled in, mom. Just not now."
"Okay, baby. Don't forget to call me back."
"Bye."

June hung up the phone and made her way back to her bags, which sat in front of the open door. She slammed the door shut and the walls rattled. "Okay, baby," she repeated aloud. She wasn't going to let her phone be the vehicle through which her mother continued to baby her. June decided to move out for two reasons: to get away from the emotionally-draining environment at home and to prove her independency. For these reasons, constant phone contact was not advantageous.

She got the bed sheets from her bag and began to make her bed in the way her mom had taught her.