Cereal with Water

 

 

That’s the breakfast that I had the morning I woke up on the damnable day. I was just comin’ down from a bad case of ‘cocaine blues’ and forgot to go to the store the previous day. So water and Cheerios filled my aching belly. It tasted like soggy card board, felt like it too. High in fiber and nothing else. I ate it out of a cup with a fork because everything else was dirty. As a matter of fact, I think the fork may have been too. Any way, I tossed those into the building pile of dishes and dirt as well, and went into the bathroom. Snorting a line off the linoleum, flicking a roach off the mirror and watching it drown in the sink, I gave myself a good once over. First, a glance at the old pallet. My eye was swollen and blue, with reddening around the edges and some yellow shit right in the corner. I braced myself and wiped off the yellow shit, and looked at my nose. Luckily, it was numb, because the sight of the gash through the right nostril would have caused it to sear. So I wiped off the dry, crusty blood, and turned on the faucet, cupping my hand to scoop out the cock roach. I took a crusty towel and rinsed my face, then ran a comb with missing teeth through my hair. Looking at my own grill, I wasn’t much less worse for wear. My left canine and my right front had disappeared, and, feeling around with my tongue, I found that I was missing half a molar as well. Once again, it had paid to be high.

I’d have to get that tooth fixed, so I figured I’d squeeze into a dentist, give her the old once over, and see what we could do about pulling it. Then I thought, “fuck it”, and pulled it myself. I ditched the tooth and scratched my scrawny, white arm. It was okay, but I was missing my shirt. And my pants. So buck naked, I made my way across the hotel room, and into my hamper where I found some torn up blue jeans and a wife beater. Itwas blood stained, but I didn’t care. Blood stain are pretty fuckin’ tough. Then I found my Jean Jacket, and a broken cigarette on top of the T.V. I lit the cigarette, dawned the jacket, and walked out the door, where I was jumped by I don’t know how many sons of bitches, and beaten unmercifully.

The next thing I knew, my Jacket was gone, and I was shoeless. There was now a burn mark in my previously healthy arm. The fuckers got me with my own cigarette. I made out the bunch runnin’ down the street, so I started runnin’ after ‘em. I liked those shoes. They didn’t know that, clipped to my boxers, was a box cutter.

I finally caught up to them. They were sniffin’ lines in the alley, so I crept up quietly, real still like, and gut one by the neck, blade to their jugular, and I said “I’ll be takin’ my fuckin’ shoes back.” And they gave me my fuckin’ shoes back. So I let the guy go.

Cereal with water: That’s the breakfast I had the morning I woke up that damnable day…And when I looked in the mirror, my eye was swollen and blue, my nose was slit open, my teeth were shit, and I had a cigarette burn on my arm.