I heard the pounding of hand-to-wood beats resonating through the rest of the house as I woke from a mid-afternoon nap. The knocking had to be from the front door and must've been going on for some time. But by the time I could tell what was going on, it had stopped. Too hazed from sleeping, eyesight still splotched with drifting fuzzy film, I walked to the bathroom and began urinating. The toilet stunk of days-old dried piss stuck to the sidewalls of the ceramic basin.
Around this time, it had become increasingly difficult for me to get good sleep. I napped more often. It seemed to go this way every year around mid May. When the weather gets warm, I don't know, I just get restless. It could have, of course, been the paranoia I'd amassed from growing and processing massive quantities of cannabis in my bedroom and adjoining closet-space.
I thought I'd probably told too many of my friends. I'd stay up at night thinking about one of them getting pulled over by the police for speeding and getting caught with a few grams of coke or a couple of pain killers. They'd get scared and intimidated and tell the cops about this friend they have that grows weed. That way, the police would play nice and let them get off clean. I wasn't even sure if that's how it worked. I watched a lot of cop dramas and saw how rats got shot. I never thought, “I'll kill a motherfucker if he rats me out.” I wouldn't. And everyone knew it so I was a perfect target. Why wouldn't someone save themselves by giving me up? It wasn't going to come back to them.
So I kept on pissing in that toilet. I was staying at my Dad's at the time. He was a ruined man of little possession and less money. His house was decrepit, mold growing in wall corners and over every inch of the bathroom's peeling wallpaper. The toilet was pink on the outside and a light butter speckled in black in the bowl. Years before, when the mold began growing, you could aim your stream on the spots and they'd wash off. By this time, though, the spots had become a steady film overgrown on ceramic.
There was no reason to refurbish the house however. After I moved out, it was just him there. My father is a useless bend of a man, unable to care for himself let alone the others in his life who tried to depend on him. Why did I live here? It was cheap and I was in college. I tried to say it was bohemian and maintenance free. I just didn't want to feel embarrassed about it. I was, regardless.
So I was kind of paranoid. It came and went. When nothing else was going on, I'd remember that I was doing something illegal. Why do people worry? It's so worthless.
I remembered the knocking on the front door. I looked through the dusty miniblinds in the bathroom window into the street in front of the house. A white police-cruiser was parked in the yard across the street from the house and the owner's officer was walking down to their door.
My fears were apparently coming to fruition. They had been knocking on my door to arrest me. Why didn't they just knock the door down?
Around this time, it had become increasingly difficult for me to get good sleep. I napped more often. It seemed to go this way every year around mid May. When the weather gets warm, I don't know, I just get restless. It could have, of course, been the paranoia I'd amassed from growing and processing massive quantities of cannabis in my bedroom and adjoining closet-space.
I thought I'd probably told too many of my friends. I'd stay up at night thinking about one of them getting pulled over by the police for speeding and getting caught with a few grams of coke or a couple of pain killers. They'd get scared and intimidated and tell the cops about this friend they have that grows weed. That way, the police would play nice and let them get off clean. I wasn't even sure if that's how it worked. I watched a lot of cop dramas and saw how rats got shot. I never thought, “I'll kill a motherfucker if he rats me out.” I wouldn't. And everyone knew it so I was a perfect target. Why wouldn't someone save themselves by giving me up? It wasn't going to come back to them.
So I kept on pissing in that toilet. I was staying at my Dad's at the time. He was a ruined man of little possession and less money. His house was decrepit, mold growing in wall corners and over every inch of the bathroom's peeling wallpaper. The toilet was pink on the outside and a light butter speckled in black in the bowl. Years before, when the mold began growing, you could aim your stream on the spots and they'd wash off. By this time, though, the spots had become a steady film overgrown on ceramic.
There was no reason to refurbish the house however. After I moved out, it was just him there. My father is a useless bend of a man, unable to care for himself let alone the others in his life who tried to depend on him. Why did I live here? It was cheap and I was in college. I tried to say it was bohemian and maintenance free. I just didn't want to feel embarrassed about it. I was, regardless.
So I was kind of paranoid. It came and went. When nothing else was going on, I'd remember that I was doing something illegal. Why do people worry? It's so worthless.
I remembered the knocking on the front door. I looked through the dusty miniblinds in the bathroom window into the street in front of the house. A white police-cruiser was parked in the yard across the street from the house and the owner's officer was walking down to their door.
My fears were apparently coming to fruition. They had been knocking on my door to arrest me. Why didn't they just knock the door down?