This is the fourth place I’ve lived in the bay area, and my second time living on the top floor of a building with a flat roof. Which, of course, leaks.
Who’s the college numskull who invented flat roofs anyway? What a dumb idea. The water has nowhere to go when it rains, and just puddles over your head, and after some years and a strong rainstorm — like yesterday — it’s not going to simply stay there for the weeks it would take to evaporate.
Monday, Dec. 11, 1995
So it drips through the ceiling, of course. Jake pounded on my door at 3:30 this morning to tell me to check for leaks in my room, but my drips didn’t begin until sunrise. There are buckets in the hallway, and now two buckets catching slow leaks in my room.
It’s been raining inside all morning, and it’s raining outside, too, and I gotta go outside to get to my job in San Francisco, so I’ve wrapped a few layers of duct tape around the holes in my soles, and there are plastic bags between my shoes and socks. Now I’m wrapping my bulky body in this new but cheap parka, hoping it’s sufficiently water-resistant, and I’m off to BART under the Bay to spend a few hours at Black Sheets.
♦ ♦ ♦
On the ride home, the rain briefly turned to hail, thrown against my parka like fistfuls of rice. And I wonder where the homeless are huddled tonight? Danny, and a few other homeless people I sorta know, and the tens of thousands I don’t know at all.
This is a wild storm, just walking a few blocks in it, but I’m walking home. Having no home to walk to, nowhere to be warm and dry, is something I can only imagine.
My new parka is water-resistant, but not waterproof, so I’m a little moist. The duct tape on my shoes unpeeled itself, but the plastic bags worked well enough that my feet feel mostly dry.
That’s why, when the cashier says “Paper or plastic?” the answer is always plastic. Just try wrapping your feet in a brown paper bag when it rains, bub.
♦ ♦ ♦
Home again in this drippy room, I’ve emptied my buckets, and now I’m filling this week’s zine orders, listening to the rain, looking out the window, and wondering if everyone feels as alone as me.
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.
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