The Cell (Part 4.5 – Alhambra, CA)

(Written during the drunken period when I first moved into my studio in Alhambra, CA after returning from Wyoming)

Modern minimalist plain white sanitarium type room with white and blue striped bedspread: blue being the only color (white and blue (I’m blue all the time here) as if at sea)(lonely like that) – but sometimes HAPPY just to see spiders in the cracks and corners of my walls while taking shits in my bathroom smaller than most people’s closets AND, why call it a bathroom? Can’t take no bath in it – it’s only a shower stall – I miss my soaking warm baths of mom’s apt. (sadness), but, as I said, spiders and ants in the cracks and corners of my walls to keep me company, very much welcomed, to watch, LIFE FORMS, existing on a higher plane than where I’m at, certainly, me, moping, not moving at all really (no room to pace even)(like a zoo animal)(lesser so)

But, let me tell you this: The ants are organized, you should see them – the middle ant in the middle of the wall corner, standing there, taking and relaying messages from all the ants coming and going (all ants coming and going stop to talk to this middle ant, and, I think, they all shake ant hands!)(HEY!, what you guys saying??) until there are no more ants, and then the middle ant leaves(where all go?). Ah. Well. And the spiders!, DaddyLongLegs with souls so bright in their small corners I can feel their LIFEbright souls, so small though, sitting there suspended in midair WAITING for food (one of those ants, poor souls) – they keep me company (and mindoccupied, temporarily anyway).

(Cont’d on a different day – A further description of studio and neighbor)

I live in a backhouse, a studio, a room with a bathroom and closet and small kitchen that I share with my neighbor Jorge who yawns big and wide so wide that it’s almost a song – eeyhaaahhhhughhh;  it rises and falls from the belly like some dopey animal cartoon character. He whistles; burps loud through the thin walls where I can hear his t.v., his music (loud and mostly good), his phonecalls, him pissing in his toilet, etc.

I lay in bed at night high in the dark and hear him turn on his bathroom light. The loud ceiling vent gives a claustrophobic space sound like inside space vessels in late 70’s 80’s science fiction films, a continuous monotonous low throbbing hum, drone, it’s almost alive.  What’s he doing, shaving? I can’t hear him.

I have visions of him, I see him doing these things in my head, though I’ve never formally met him, no real small chat other than “hey man’ and a head nod.  I don’t know his outside habits, job, relationships, etc.

I had an idea about him, a test to make things interesting, our relationship, something like – when he’d play a song, say something by Bob Marley or Bob Dylan, I’d play the same song, and do that for every song, back and forth we’d go, until he played a song I didn’t know (smiling in his bedroom at my silent defeat)(or thinking me insane?). And to take it further, I’d pee every time I heard him peeing, and burp every time he burped.

I know that he’s conscious of my habits. First two months living in the place I hardly saw him fill the fridge with food except for something microwavable and frozen, on occasion. Most of the time the fridge and counters were bare, except for whatever food I bought. According to the landlady, he’d been living in his place for a year. I found his food situation weird. And weirder such that after two months of me filling the empty fridge with food he started to buy healthy grub like me, endless fruit and vegetables, and even the same brand of orange juice as me.  It happened like that, I came home one night and he’d filled the fridge healthy like.
He studies my habits.

I drink a lot of water so I always piss.  What does he think about that?  And when I drink beer I burp all night. Sometimes I’m gone for a week.  Sometimes I don’t leave the house for a week straight. What’s he thinking?  Especially during the weeks I’m home, same time as him, I’m always rattling in the kitchen cooking up something to eat! Even late, midnight, 1am, “Boy that guy’s always pissing and hungry.”  Maybe he isn’t thinking any of this.

I lay in bed at night and listen to his nightime-heavy cozy snores, which comfort me. He leaves his T.V. on when he sleeps. On days I work and wake up early I listen to his 6 AM morning sounds: taking a shower, the water hitting the floor with continuous heavy water thumps, the pipes groaning and shuddering in the walls.

I listen to it all. I lay in bed surrounded by white walls, and I listen to it all.