Then it all went poof.

An unemotional call from the boss, you don't need to come in tonight, and I might, probably will, close it down this afternoon.  He did sound sad.  Two weeks?  I'm estimating a month, if we have the right leadership.  Gulp.  I'll apply for a small business loan, to give you guys a week's vacation...

Later, I look at the clock.  The call received at 11:42, lasting about three minutes.

The writer's weird bad wish comes true.

All my stupidity.   Being too long in this business that never offered any real security...  A man will be forced to change his ways.

This is all my fault, to be in such a situation, the large voice says.  I knew I should have been doing better for myself, living in my own creepy little bubble world, pretending I was getting by and using my talents toward good employment.  "My lifestyle, paying me back."  So it goes.  The mind.

This will mean change.  I have to change.  I have to get a real job.  No joke this time.   But will that register...


I had a dumb errand to do, and I'd been postponing it.  The returning of a tea pot with the style of old Japan and tea ceremonies, which came not in the 1000ml size but in 600ml and with the stainless steel tea infuser.  Otherwise, I liked it.  But I gathered myself and just to get out in the sun and trudge along, down MacArthur, along the long boring sidewalk underneath Georgetown University with the river and Arlington, VA to my right as the path sneaks along against the traffic, to take my stupid little teapot into Georgetown to the UPS store, and the poor Georgetown students waiting in line to ship their clothes home, onward from that, past Martin's Tavern, a few people out at tables, then to the bank to put through a few checks, then to the old musty post office for stamps, and then to the CVS for laundry detergent and whatever else I can find to help fight the COVID-19, hopeful of catching the D6 back to the little apartment of another failed year's time, then waiting, then should I go by work to get my shoes, see who's there, from the back it's locked and I'm too tired to go around, the lights are off anyway, so back to the bus stop, but I miss the bus and walk all the way back with my feet about to hurt, lugging laundry detergent.  I get back, have a bit of pastrami, fall into a nap, not having solved any problems, and out in the tree pollened air too long.

There are certain things you can face on the day it happens.

Nice fresh-faced kids of Georgetown University, handsome, ready to be adult, mature, ready and with a plan to go out there and do things in the world...  Jesuit competence.

I slink along, baffled by it all.   A large three liter jug of Tide, Free and Gentle, in my backpack, and the planes still roaring overhead.

There's the strange man again, at the bus stop, by Little Kids School.  He's puffing on a smoke, and talking to himself, in a performance, "who you talking to?  are you talking to me," but I know now he's reachable, that he's headed out west on the same bus as I, as much as he is speaking what might be aggressive gibberish.  I catch his eye.  The bus schedule is in confusion today.  Saturday schedule. Not coming up on my app.  "Did the D6 go by?"  "Uhm, not yet.  The short one went by.  The D2."  It's almost like Monty Python.  He has some good black Timberland style boots on.  When he speaks with someone who is in the routine, perfect calm.  As to the bus driver, when observed.  And restraint while on the bus, no legion of voices.  Are the voices attacking his psyche?  Is it a show of some sort?  There's a talent to it.

It had been some cold night, after work, and I was waiting there at the same stop, by the gas stations. And it was a frightening show, for the weary just trying to get the bus home, humbly enough.  But I thought then of Jesus, no problem with the man of many voices and one eye slightly askew.  Jesus felt that he too had completely messed up his life, as far as leading a usual typical the, do the best you can, etc.

The man retreated to the wall, quieter now, under his hat, and I felt sorry for being abrupt with him, as if I felt I'd had to interrupt one of his voices to get to the main one, without the proper "hello, excuse me sir,  how are you today, would you happen to know if the D6 is running..."    He goes back to smoking weed, and it's a good smelling weed of good quality, I can tell.

My year on the old D6.  Going to work for a final shift, the man usually seen on the eastbound, with his dread-lock Rasta leather bulbous hat, is outside of his old red BMW four dour sedan, sounding old.  I almost say hi to him, but there are things on my mind, and it's cold out still.

And the whole thing confused me too, just like no one knows what to do on a 9/11.  Sleepwalking.

Do I go by work?  I'm not too many blocks away.  Pick up my leather sneaker shoes?  Say hi to who ever might still be there...

I end up walking home, all the way.


So what do I do?