(what'd i do, i forgot something, there's something i forgot to ... something i needed to ... i can't, dammit, i ... cause the niggling certainty that i ... and how'd we screw up that pork roast. how'd it come out tough like a shoe, how'd we manage that, jimmy looked at me and said we gotta be more careful, we gotta be more careful, and he's right of course, crockpot disaster like that costs us thirty bucks, but STILL, we can afford a thirty buck miss once in a while. hits still significantly outnumber misses, but i forgot to do something, unrelated to the crockpot, separate, there's something i did not do, and jimmy has judging eyes, they judge, like it was my fault the pork turned out like a ...)

(plus i got this haircut, this wretched ... told the lady don't go very high with the clippers, which apparently meant go real high with the clippers. now i got this haircut that looks like it comes from another, more unfortunate, time. when people come in and mine is the face they first see, they look at me, and before they tell me how many's in their party, they ... ever so slightly ... glance ... at ... my ... hair, up to where the disaster is.)

(i tell myself and i tell myself and i tell myself. don't go to hair cuttery anymore. when oh when will i learn.)

- sorry, no, it's ... it's only me tossing, go back to sleep ...

(the nyquil's not kicking in, why's the nyquil not kicking in yet, i took it half an hour ago, took a whole cap-dose. wonder if i'll hafta take another. knock my ass out, like a cartoon sledgehammer and afterwards, there's bluebirds or stars circling around my head cause i just got knocked silly. i'd like that. knocked silly. don't worry bout as much.)

(like i gotta bus tables twice a week, the foreseeable future, til summer and we can hire someone more for all the extra patio business. til then it's the tallest, gangliest, least mexican busboy in all chicagoland pouring your water, removing your plates.)

(maybe another cap-dose'd shut my mind up or off. would that make me o.d.? second cap-dose? be a pretty shitty thing to have people talking about, 'the fool tried to kill himself by chugging nyquil.' even though i didn't, i'm just trying to sleep, that's all. no one would believe that, though. cause of all the times i tell people things make me wanna kill myself, all the times i indulge in histrionics. it's like the boy who cried wolf, kinda, only not really. the comparison doesn't quite work cause of the ...)

(imagine the eulogy, though, if i o.d.'d and they couldn't save me, choked on my own puke or whatever. the eulogy and imagine the wake. set aside the funeral, leave the funeral out of this, and when they lower the casket into the ground or put the urn in the hole-in-the-wall, ignore those. the eulogy'd be pretty fucking funny though. better be. better let a whole buncha people have their say, but ... better not let alan or steve anywhere near the ... that the wake'd be a blast goes without saying, the food and booze and laughter, 'the revelry,' which is all any of us wants in our ...)

(okay. okay. okay. everything's ... everything's fine, if there's something i forgot to do, the worst it can be is i didn't put the drawer in the safe and that's okay, cause it was sarah who closed with me, she's good she won't steal and no one will be there fore i get there in the morning so if the drawer's on the desk, it'll still be there, no one will take it. long as i get there first. just gotta get there fore anyone ...)

(inhaling sounds weird. it's inside your head and makes a sound. and sometimes you can feel your heartbeat in your eardrums.) 

(that lady tonight, that LADY, made me hold her hand cause she's unsteady, i had to help her from the front all the way to the back, up that little step, to her table, she told me today's her eighty-sixth birthday, even though it's not, she told me that last month, and the month before that, and the month before that. it's a thing she says. she's been eighty-six since the day we opened. her son and daughter take turns caring for her. poor thing. and them. jesus, the toll it's taking on them, everything on hold while they ... uncle pete's getting that way too. unsteady. aunt jean has to help him in and outta the car. she's looking at nursing homes, i told her hey, don't go to the one dad was in, even though it was fine. it was just the food that sucked. dad had to smuggle in his own salt.)

(i cannot fucking sleep to save my life. what time's it. two-thirty-one??? wasn't it just two-thirty???)

- huh? oh. no, just checking the time on the ... on the clock.

(how did dad do it. how did he ever sleep. i can't build one tenth the life he did, i can't even ATTEMPT it, yet there he was, he did it. diner, house, two ingrates for kids, a few beagles, mom. shoulda asked him. shoulda asked him but never once did. all those afternoons when he was half-blind, that stretch of calendar the tumors made him blind. sitting there with him, doing crosswords for him, writing answers down for him, after telling him clues, however many letters, and what letters we already knew. all those hours with the crossword, i never once asked him, hey dad, how'd you do LIFE all those years. how'd you do all that stuff.)

(course his answer woulda been quit being such a candy-ass. being a man in life means you just do it. that's what a man in life means. means you have no choice in the matter. woulda told me that in no uncertain terms and he woulda viewed my having to ask as a failure on his part. raising a son who still didn't know.)

(why's it some things i can do no problem, other things make me hafta chug nyquil. why'm i selectively so PARALYZED.) 

(someone is stumbling home just now. another unit in the building. stumbling up the back entrance. prolly that guy who always comes home late. dunno why he uses the back stairs, though. front'd be quieter, front'd be ...)

- no, that wasn't me, that was outside.

(on the other hand, to take nothing away from whatever wisdom is contained in the old MAN'S answer, the OBJECTIVE answer, the TRUTH woulda been coffee and cigarettes is how he did it all. pots of coffee and three packs a day. all his stiff-upper-lipping, all his clenched-jawing, but without the crutch of coffee and cigarettes, he woulda been lost, and it's not like he slept. four five hours a night, TOPS, then a dozen naps on sundays. and he wore down. at the end. life wore him down, beat him into submission. nose to the grindstone all those years, he had nothing left, defenseless at 67. doctor said cancer, dad told us, hey maybe this is why i've been so TIRED lately. i looked out the window.)

(then mom went to yell at the doctor.)

- i'm fine. just thinking is all.

(just thinking.)

(you know what, that crack in the ceiling's new, when'd that get there, how long's that crack been there. goes all the way over to where the other crack is, over in the corner there by the water stains. gotta do something bout that. paint and plaster or spackle, but where does one find the time. only so many hours in the ...)

(and what about my leg. varicose veins left leg, back of the knee to the calf to all the way down, basically. can't ignore that forever. and i got another wisdom tooth in there still. hafta have that yanked at some point. then i'll run around bleeding all over the place like last time. mouth fulla gauze like brando, showing people to their tables, til jimmy came in and told me to go home, stop grossing out the ...)

(the customers ...) 

(i wish i knew if the pork roast got fucked up we cooked it too long or we cooked it shoe tort. too short, that's what i'm trying to ... and there wasn't any FLAVOR it was just duff try texture. huh? what? tough, dry texture, that's what i ... the roark post had ... pork roast. PORK ROAST. i can't even think in ...)

(... hope this is the nyquil finally. hope this is how it works. first the jumbled up mind, tongue-tied thoughts, then the drift setting in, the lilt. floating wide open, the slowdown. then the other stuff falls away, all the crap i carry, the things i can't ...)

(then i go. there i go. there i go. there i go.)

(there.)