apostrophenow

My best friend has an inside joke about me, which he never fails to jab me with whenever I see him. He lives around the corner and I often walk to his place to shoot the breeze. Typically, he sits on the front porch, watching his kids play in the yard. From his vantage point on the front porch he can see me walking down the road from 300 hundred meters away.

The joke is that he thinks I "lurk", with a menacing expression on my face, like I'm up to no good. When I get within shouting distance he'll bark something stupid like, "No wonder the cops won't leave you alone!" That's my buddy, we've been trading wiseass remarks for about 25 years.

I don't so much walk as limp along in a stylized, unconventional mosey. I'm still kind of fucked up from when I was partially paralyzed after contracting West Nile Virus. For most folks, a casual walk helps clear the mind. I expect to meet the devil, or at the very least I expect some teenage assholes to roll up on me and start some shit.

I have to maddog the locals, I have to be a punk to blend in. I'm not talking about the kind of punk you want to know. The strain of it is such that when I get a chance to relax I appear sad and tired. Sometimes I need drugs and strong drink to forget this, sometimes I need to forget myself. My best friend says I need a girlfriend, like that's gonna solve my problems. Maybe if she carried me around piggyback while I smoked a joint and drank a tallboy I could finally enjoy going for a walk.

I'm in a world of shit... yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.