The TV has to go, that’s the first step. I unscrew the cable from the wall. Programs haven’t flowed through the cable in a while. I coil the cable and tape it to the back of the TV. My neighbor’s TV is loud enough for both of us. I can hear the channels change through summer-screened windows.

I need to get out of here. Where’s my notebook? Not by the stove or under the newspaper pile by the door, I need to throw those out, stopped reading them ages ago and stopped paying attention to their headlines before that.

Senate Approves….

The rest is covered with shit, Henry’s shit, old Henry, I almost had him trained, found him outside by the garbage bins with his nose in a coffee can. Henry, one eye missing, curly fur grown over the dead socket. He slept on the couch cushion from the couch I had once. Now he sleeps under the flowers under the elm in the yard behind my building.

The notebook, the notebook. By the toilet? There it is, beside the sink, spotted on the cover from my flicking hands after I washed last. No hand towels. Are the pages dry? Good.

-Morning, Mirror.

-A little scruff, gonna be a goatee in a day or two.

-I’ve got to get going, clean it up when I get home.

-And pop that spot too. You haven’t fogged me up in a while, been paying the hot-water bill?

Back to the room. The notebook: back to the bathroom. I slip into shoes, find a pen. I need another arm, can’t carry the TV, the notebook, and open the door. I toss the notebook onto my mattress. I’ll make the bed tomorrow, wash the sheets too. Are there coins in the cup? No worries, I ‘ll get change when I’m out. Let’s see, a fiver and a couple ones, plenty for coffee and a scone and laundry later. Shit, I forgot the sign. I rip a page from the notebook, there’s a marker in the kitchen. I use the fat, flat end.

Up, to the right, up a little more and too the right one more time.

F

Straight up, to the right, come down in a semi circle, add a dead end angle down to the right.
R

Now: right, up, right, up, right.

E

And again.

E

Slap that to the tele. It’s an old tele, I have to hug it and take breaks on the stairs. I leave it on the grass where one-eyed Henry was learning to shit, between the curb and the sidewalk.

Back inside for the notebook.

On the street now, the notebook pressed to my side under my arm. Street’s still wet from yesterday, the first rain in a month.
The sun’s up now. Sneakers wet from the puddle stepping off the curb.

Wet on the sofa in the yellow house on the corner. Katie, she still lives there. Katie, before I knew she was Katie, took in the wrong mail, my mail. Letters wet too from that day’s rain. Katie, wet on my fingertips and prickly on my palms.

There she is, watering those hydrangas? I don’t know flower names, look like the flowers over Henry, look like all flowers. Don’t you know it rained last night? You’ll drown the flowers. No, don’t turn around.

-There you are, I’ve been calling.

-I took the phone off the hook last week, the TV too.

I throw a thumb over my shoulder to my old set down the sidewalk.

Someone take it before I get back, everybody loves TV. Did I lock the door? I’m sure I did, got the key, there’s nothing to steal in there anymore.

-Well, I’ll just have to come over then, tonight maybe? I’ll bring a bottle of red. Or white? Red, I’ll bring red.

I say nothing. She turns back to the flowerbed, bends over, wiggles in her jean-skirt, tips the water can. Dry.

***

It’s loud in the cafe, who let all these brats in? I’m sure the swingsets in the park have dried by now. Go outside, skin your knees, get picked up in vans by men with puppies and candy, I don’t care, but stop your shouting and your juice-spilling. Stop it. Stop it, fat man yelling about your hangover and how you need to triple up your mocha. I have work to do. And not a word’s come out. The water’s all gone, just ice to rattle, more noise. No coffee. No beer. Not today, not ever anymore. I can’t write high-strung on caffeine or with a steady beer hand. Not with wet fingertips either, if I’m home when Katie comes by with her cheap wine and maybe a card game. Whoosh… And the espresso machine exhales. And a cappuccino is born.

-That’ll be $3.50.

I don’t need the Whoosh, the cashier’s hello’s, whatcanI getyou’s and haveagoodone’s. I don’t need the cafe.

Not the library either though I walked all fifteen blocks on just-dry sidewalks with dirty puddles in the cracks and street’s potholes. I had a fast walk, rush hour had ended before I woke this morning.

Up the marble stairs to an empty room and a desk and a few old-smelling books who’s location in the stacks I knew without asking the computer or the wrinkled, veiny-handed lady at the information desk.

We…

Ok, a start. A start dribbles out in black ink, just one word. It might not be the right start, might get scratched out later but it’s a start. Alright, focus. Who’s ‘we’? Where were ‘we’? ‘We’ is me and… A girl, it’s easiest to just give the story a girl. Not Katie. No, no, no. Not Katie. Not Katie bending over the flowerbed, tight blouse and wellies. Wellies in July. Wellies with flowers on them and loops on top to pull them on. No socks, just legs up to the jean-skirt. No, not katie, another girl. Who’s the speaker? Me? An old man? Another girl? Not Katie. She nearly knocked her lamp off her nightstand with her foot when we moved to her bed and got turned around.

I should read something old, purge my distractions, maybe learn something. The old writers could write. They’re all downstairs, the old writers, pressed together in rows in the stacks in the basement. Too much noise down there: the patter of footsteps on the old marble on the way and the echos of the teenagers in the study section where the librarians allow talking. The teens will be there, I’m sure of it. I think today is a Saturday or some dead-president holiday. I’ll smell the cigarettes if I go down there, I can still smell them from the walk in. Even with the steel doors shut tight to the smokers outside. Anything outside this room might corrupt the senses. I’ll probably be able to smell the booze on the bums out on the front steps. Fuck booze. And Katie thinks she can bring me a bottle, have a drink on my mattress, the only place to sit off the floor, the mattress and Henry’s doghaired couch cushion. She’ll laugh at my jokes, if I tell any. I won’t tell any. I won’t even come to the door. Not for Katie, and she thinks we’ll use my bed this time. No. I have work to do. Keep knocking Katie

The quiet’s all gone anyway. I hear a buzz, not coming from this floor , somewhere downstairs. The buzz goes in circles loud then quieter ‘till it almost goes away then louder and louder again. Janitors buffing the floors? What time is it? Have they locked me in? No. The sun’s still seeping under the door from the skylights in the big hall on the otherside. The only light in the little room, the sun and the desk lamp.

I can’t work with that buzzing downstairs. I need a bed, pillows behind my back and the notebook splayed on my lap. No light, no sunshine, just a bulb overhead.

Maybe my neighbor switched off his TV, maybe he’s gone to the bar, maybe he’s passed out already. Maybe Katie won’t come over or she already has. Katie, don’t come over.

Don’t think about Katie.

I walk down the pitter-patter-stairs, and out into the street. I walk back through the honking cars and cigarette smoke, the couples drinking sleepy-wine and fizzy-beer in still-sun-lit bars and across tables topped with early dinners and manager’s specials.

Wait for the blinking man at the crosswalk.

So much gum stuck to the pavement.

I obey about two-dozen more blinking men until I’m here.

Here: that is my mattress, that is the ebbing sun, now just a patch on the floor by the stove; that is the notebook, with just ‘we’ so far; that is a spider summiting my indifferent, up-bent knee; that is my drooley pillow under my head, still drooley from this morning; that is the crack on the ceiling that looks like it’s grown just a little since this morning.