The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane
You lock the door And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head asplodes with dark forebodings, too
I'll see you on the dork side of the moon Pink Floyd
Tami was in tears. Again.
This was getting old. I'd spent way too much time Tuesday night letting her cry on my shoulder, and got to bed past my bedtime after pawning her off on someone else. And my own life hasn't been too great lately either; I went blind in my good eye Monday night. I'm starting to get some sight back in it, thank you, but it's going to be a while before it's useful again.
I've spent way too much time lately letting Tami cry on my shoulder. It wasn't just getting old, it was getting lame and feeble. Now she was on the phone again right before I got off work, wanting to hang out. By hang out what she meant was that she wanted me to buy some alcohol and drink it with her.
I may be able to later, but I told Ralph I'd drop by. Actually I'd told Mary Jane I'd drop by, not Ralph, as she said she had some pot for sale. It's hydro, she'd said, with red hairs. When it has red hairs...
I know, I interrupted. I've been smoking pot since before you were born. I can only afford twenty bucks worth. So I was on my way to buy a few buds of killer hydro. Tami could wait. All night maybe, if the pot was as good as Mary said and I was having fun.
So I drove over to see Mary Jane after work. She had the reefer, and the bag looked small and she wanted an extra five bucks for it. I went ahead and bought it anyway.
Want to go shoot some pool? I asked Linda .
This isn't the Linda that just got out of prison that I'm usually shooting pool with. This is a different woman. I'm just calling her Linda to confuse you. Like these journals aren't confusing enough.
But life's confusing like that, too. Amy works with a cab driver named Tammy, there's a different Tammy that tends bar at Farley's on Sunday, and then there's Tami, AKA Lucifer by her alien husband. It can get comical when Tami and Tammy are at Farley's on a slow Sunday afternoon when Tammy (the other Tammy) is tending bar.
About the ex-prisoner Linda, she seems to have made good on her pledge not to sell pussy or smoke pot. And she got a legitimate job, too!
So at any rate, Linda said yeah, she'd shoot some pool. Mary went along too. But first they wanted me to give them some taxi service. Mary had family pictures at Walgreen's, and wanted to take them to her relative on north Eighth street.
I haven't known Mary Jane very long, but the relative is a friend of mine I met through Ralph . She's a medium height plump blonde. Almost too plump, but she's shapely and very attractive except for her eyes. She'd be really attractive if she didn't wear makeup. She uses way too much eye shadow which gives her sort of a crazy-eyed look. Julia is like that, too.
At any rate, Mary Jane wanted to take these pictures to her. Sure, why not? We also had to stop by the grocery store... Women!
I'd forgotten completely about the predicted eclipse of the moon until I saw the thing, big and fat, hovering above the horizon. Hey, I said, we're supposed to have an eclipse tonight.
We are? Linda asked. Mary Jane just gave me a funny look. She's young, barely drinking age.
We finally got to the bar we were going to shoot pool in, and before we could get the balls racked, Lance walked out of the rest room.
As I mentioned, all the names in this particular journal have been changed to protect the guilty. Except Lance. Lance is this fellow's real name. And he's not well liked.
Ralph and I used to be drinking buddies with him. The three of us are veterans of various wars, Ralph in WWII on a Navy ship, me in the Air Force during Vietnam but nobody ever shot at me, and Lance in the first Gulf War in the Marines. Lance has been shot at, and at various times various people have wished that the people shooting at him had been better shots.
One night at a cookout at Ralph's last summer, Lance thought I had been putting my dick in a woman he wanted to put his dick in. She and I were going to make a beer run, and as she was getting in the car and I came around the corner of the house toward it, Lance walked around the corner from the other direction and sucker punched me square in the face, knocking me on my ass and nearly breaking my elbow when I hit the ground.
I jumped up and dialed 911. Stupid young people, don't fuck with me because I fight like an old man. I'll be out of the hospital before you're out of jail and my lawyer will take half of everything you've got and give me the other half.
Lance was lucky he had no belongings worth taking.
The woman jumped out of the car screaming at him and told him to leave. He left and she turned on me, cursing me for calling the cops. There's a warrant out for me! she ex-claimed. I gave her a ride home, and as I was on my way back to Ralph's the police called they'd picked Lance up and had him in a squad car. Did I want to meet them at Ralph's or my home? I was on my way to Ralph's with the beer anyway.
The woman he thought I was fucking had talked me out of pressing charges, and besides, not only did he not have anything worth taking I remembered what religion I was and decided to act accordingly. I told the deputy I wasn't pressing charges, and he let Lance out of the car and removed the handcuffs. Lance apologized profusely, thanked me for not having him locked up and shook my hand.
The next week Tami, AKA the psycho bitch from hell , went off on Lance on the phone. Tami had never liked Lance.
Actually nobody liked Lance, but all felt sorry for him and tolerated him. The man badly needs psychiatric help.
Fuck off and die Tami had told him.
So he left a message on her answering machine pretending to be me. Hi, lover, this is Steve the message started, and he continued, saying how much he'd enjoyed the sex with her and was looking forward to it again. Nobody was fooled; it was unmistakably Lance. Tami's alien husband, who thinks I'm fucking her anyway (I'm not), seemed to want Lance's blood.
Nobody had much more to do with him after that, especially me, and including the woman he wanted to fuck that he thought I was fucking that triggered the violent outburst against me the week earlier. Ralph's caretakers were scared of similar violence against Ralph; after all, Lance had no hesitation in violently ambushing a man old enough to be his father and quite a bit smaller than himself. There was no reason to think he'd be more thoughtful with the truly geriatric. It wasn't hard convincing Ralph; the episode with the answering machine pissed Ralph off, too. Ralph and I are friends.
So here comes Lance walking up like a long lost brother, apologizing yet again.
Mary Jane and Linda kept trying to pick a fight with him so he'd get thrown out of the bar, and finally succeeded in getting him to angrily leave. I'm going to... I forgot who he said he was going to visit, but he doesn't drive, riding his bicycle everywhere. So he wouldn't be going far, as it was well below freezing outside and there was snow on the ground.
I went out in the beer garden with Mary, she to smoke and me to look at the moon. It had gone from full to crescent. When we went back in I decided to waste some money and contribute to the evil RIAA, just this once, because there was an RIAA album that fit the situation perfectly.
I hate those damned internet jukeboxes. I'm no fan of jukeboxes anyway, and always let some other fool put money in them. But the new internet jukeboxes cost twice as much as a normal old fashioned CD jukebox, and if it has to download a song it takes a whole dollar, and it doesn't sound as good as a CD jukebox. But at least I should be able to hear a song from an album that was in the top 100 for twenty years.
I put my dollar in and searched for Dark Side of the Moon. The only song from the album was Money . Fitting.
Fucking dickweeds. One more reason to hate the RIAA! And congress; that album should have been in the public domain long ago, which is why there's only a fair-use snippet at the beginning and end of this instead of the entire lyric; there is no way to contact whoever holds the copyright.
So I played the old Patti Page song Crazy which should have been in the public domain when Dark Side of the Moon was recorded, and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap . As the second song started, Linda broke and put the yellow ball in. I should have played Big Balls I said.
Lance came back in. He wasn't home.
I went outside again, and Mary Jane followed me out, butt in hand. I'm glad I'm not a butthead any more. Giving those things up was the hardest thing I've ever done.
The moon was totaled. It wasn't like the eclipse I'd seen in '75. That one the moon had turned red, this time it was kind of an orangish yellow. Wow! said Mary Jane.
Her phone rang, and she started having an animated discussion with whoever was on the other end. I went back inside. Your turn Linda said; we were still shooting pool. I took my shot and missed badly. I'm not used to using my right eye. Well, that's as good an excuse for sucking as any, I suppose.
Mary came back in fuming. I had two balls on the table, Linda only had the eight, and she dropped it in the called pocket, followed by the cue ball. I'd won the game. That fucking bitch! Mary steamed.
Who? asked Linda.
My relative, damn her. She ripped that poor old man off again...
What?! exclaimed Lance. I bet it wasn't her. I bet it was that fucking boyfriend of hers. I KNOW it was him! That cocksucking motherfucker!
Shut up, Lance, Linda told him.
No! I'm going to kill that God damned son of a bitch!
They eventually calmed him down, and I went home to bed, having already gone past my normal bed time for the eclipse and with an alarm clock slated to annoyingly wake me up the next day.
Friday's State Journal-Register brought News about Wednesday night:
Accused of death threat
Lance S. Carter, 37, of the 1300 block of Ledlie Avenue is accused of barging into a home and threatening to kill a man.
The victim told police that he and a woman were in a home in the 900 block of North Eighth Street about 11 p.m. Wednesday when Carter barged in through the front door and began yelling at him while holding a large kitchen knife. The victim picked up a 2-by-4 to defend himself, pushing Carter out the door.
Carter allegedly threw the knife on the street when he saw police coming.
Mary Jane said they'd charged him with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, home invasion, and breaking and entering. She heard they found drug paraphernalia on the dork as well, but that was a third-hand rumor. She said he'd pleaded guilty to something or other, she didn't know what, and that his sentencing hearing is on March fifth.
That's the day I go back to see Dr. Odin about my eye.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come,
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
Errata: there was no dork side of the moon. As a matter of fact it was all dork.
Feb 25, 2008