One of theotherguys knocked over my bucket that I had just freshly filled. But I didn’t get angry, even though I wanted to. Even though I wanted to grab a knife and ram it in his throat. I didn’t—I didn’t. Because you just can’t go around doing that sort of stuff.
I’m learning to control my temper, and my urges. See? I’m not dangerous, despite what people think.
I knew it had to have been an accident because he’s mostly a good guy. Sure, he calls me names sometimes, but it’s all in good fun. It’s all in jest.
But man, that stuff got onto my clothes and went all over my hands when I tried to clean it up, and it’s all I’ve been able to smell all day.
Normally I enjoy it because it helps to makes the smell of blood and memories go away, but not today. Not when it’s this strong. When the smell is this strong it washes everything else away: the fabric softener I use on my clothes, the smell of rain-soaked streets, even the smell of car engines. And after so many years trapped inside, smelling the same crappy doctor’s office and the same medicinal scent that clung to the walls of the wards, I like to smell everything. I like each of my senses to be caressed by the world every day. And I never take it for granted.
It’s funny how that works—how some things you miss right away, and others you don’t even know you miss until they come back to you—isn’t it?
I like to clean out my tub after my shower, so still naked, I run some cleaner around the white porcelain sides and I make it shiny again. When I’m done, my body is almost dry and I pull on my sweatpants, forgoing underwear, and then pull on my hoodie and head to my kitchen.
I make minestrone soup again, and I jack off in my hand thinking ofher, and then I sit in my comfy secondhand chair that I found by the dumpster downstairs and I watch the news while the whore upstairs fucks another john.
He goes on for a long time, and I think he’s never going to finish, and honestly I really wish he would. Not only because it’s every man’s God-given right to be able to come, and he seems to be struggling, but because my light fixture is swaying something fierce and I worry it may fall out of my ceiling giving me a full-on peep show into her apartment if he keeps on like he is.
Of course he eventually does finish, and I put my bowl down and I head to the peephole in my door as they both leave. He’s a fat old guy, with a little tuft of hair on top of his big round head—not that I’m judging, but I really don’t like the way he’s looking around at the graffiti-riddled walls like he’s somehow better than this place.
Because he’s not.
He’s a lowlife just like the rest of us.
You don’t come into a place like this pure and innocent, man. None of us do.
In fact, no one is innocent in this place. Especially not me.
