When I rolled over in bed this morning, the pillow was soggy. Water was dripping down from the ceiling, and the paint up there was bulging, all puffed, like if you fill your cheeks with air. It wasn’t air, of course. Just more water, under the paint.
I’m on the top floor of this dive hotel, and they re-tarred the roof over my head just a few weeks ago. That’s American workmanship for you, but I’m sure they didn’t use union roofers or anyone who knew what they were doing. Probably the landlord’s brother-in-law did the work.
So I rolled my tiny bed out of the way of the drips and the bulge, put my biggest garbage can underneath, then climbed up on a chair and poked a hole in the swollen paint, and watched that gusher go Whoosh! Lots of the waterfall missed the garbage can, though. Sorry, Mr Patel.
Everyone on the top floor has water in their room, and the mumbling man was crying, so I went into his room and helped him move some waterlogged boxes out of the way of more water. It wasn't dripping, it was flowing steady. He didn't say thanks, but that's OK. I don't think he's capable of saying thanks.
It never stopped raining all day. I had planned to visit the Rainbow Store, and maybe see a movie, but since I felt crappy and less than waterproof, it was easier to stay home and read zines.
♦ ♦ ♦
What do you call a toothache where there’s no tooth? A toothlessache? It hurts so much that the codeine can’t keep the pain hidden, so of course I phoned the dentist. Got frickin’ drenched phoning the dentist, from the phone booth in front of the hotel. This being Saturday, all I got was a recording, and an automated promise that the dentist would call back. He hasn't called back.
Where two of my teeth were pulled on Wednesday, one gap is healing nicely, and in the other gap there’s this grody white skyscraper-shaped stuff where the tooth used to be. It looks a little like a tooth, actually, but it’s nothing toothlike. It's fuzzy. I scraped it away with a q-tip, took a whiff and it made me want to gag and barf and die and take you with me. A few hours later, the white grody skyscraper had grown back, and there's a fever, too.
It’s an infection, of course. I don’t need four years of dental school to figure that out. Also, though, I don’t need to spend four hours waiting in Kaiser’s emergency room, and pay whatever preposterous price they’ll charge for ignoring me. Instead I dipped a q-tip in generic Bactine, spread it all around on the infection, and took what must’ve amounted to an overdose of aspirin along with the dentist’s happy pills.
It's still raining, hard.
From Pathetic Life #6
Saturday, November 5, 1994
This
is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago,
called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but
might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting
things, so parental guidance is advised.
I know what it is, you told us, but I love the concept of a "Rainbow Store". I would buy in bulk there.
ReplyDelete"Clean-up on cloud nine."
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