Day Sixty-Seven

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS*****

After breakfast in the morning I get a blanket out of my locker and sleep on the bench outside. Our doctor lady rides her bike past me and asks me how I am. I tell her that I have a migraine of enormous proportions and I still feel like poop. She asks me how much I've been drinking and says I appear dehydrated. She tells me they can't really do anything but if I want to come in to be seen I can. It's been a slow day in the clinic anyways. I don't really see the point of getting an appointment so I try to sleep it off. I fall asleep hard and wake up after noon only because of the heat.

I roll off the bench and stash my blanket and water bottle before heading to the store to pick up my prescription. I buy a thing of cookie dough mix and butter then steal an egg while I wait for the medications to be filled. When my medication is done I walk back to the day program where I mix and eat the cookie dough in a large soup cup. It's ghetto but it's delicious. When it's time to go up for lunch they are serving chicken strips which I am getting sick of so I sit and read my book and eat cookie dough.

Recreation group is going to one of the cheap theaters to see Men in Black 3. It sounds awesome, largely due to the fact that movie theaters are always cold. I sign up. We drive in the van to get to the theater. It's one of the ones inside the Wonderland arcades that play the older movies that have finished their run in regular theaters. It's halfway between downtown and where I used to live. When I first moved to Portland I stayed with a roommate who rented rooms out to college students. The other guy who rented from her would take me to Wonderland where we would play the nickle video games all night.

The movie is alright. It's better than I would expect from a third film in a series that aired ten years ago. I sit with my feet on the chair in front of me and crochet through the movie. The scarf I'm working on is about done now. Just two more rows to go.

Dinner is ham which looks really unappetizing. I think I can do without since I had a lot of the cookie dough mix earlier. I continue to read there until I finish my book. Then I walk to Powell's and sell it back to them. They give me $1 for it. Seeing as I stole it from there it's not a bad deal.

I go to Whole Foods to mooch off their free wifi until shelter opens. When it's getting close to nine I head over to the benches two blocks from shelter. One of the boys who went to the movie is sitting smoking a cigarette. I ask him if he has an extra one and he gives me his last cigarette. I start to talk to JP, the kid who gave me a smoke, which pisses Nerdboy off. He runs off and starts yelling about how he wants to "smash" me. This time I can honestly say I've done nothing to him. I don't know what's wrong with him. I tell him that since we have no contact orders he cannot talk to me. He continues to rant nonsense I don't understand.

When we go up to shelter Director Lady is back and Nerdboy is still freaking out. He calls Moby a little boy then follows that up with calling him a fat ass. One of Moby's arms weigh as much as I do. When I start laughing Nerdboy starts screaming, "You shut up; you're not on my good side either."
"No one wants to be on your good side," I say.
Moby calls Nerdboy an asshole which sends him off screaming. I don't get it.

Director Lady sits down with a bunch of us and we joke about how much she must have missed shelter since she's been gone for a week. About talk of dirty ear plugs, drama and people not showering. Yup, she missed us.

I watch Burlesque on my laptop, tuning everything I can out. I ask to talk to Director Lady. I tell her about having to walk to the hospital and the Nerdboy rants getting out of control. She tells me that staff should have let me up early that night I had to walk to the hospital. She tells me that Nerdboy has been saying he's getting attacked.

"No," I say, "He hasn't. In all honesty there are people who fuck with him just to get a rise out of him but I haven't done anything to him lately. You know I would tell you the truth."
She says she will put my issues on the staff meeting agenda.

I ask some of the guys who talked to Director Lady before I did if they were complaining of Nerdboy too. They were too. Moby complains that they'll make special exceptions for Nerdboy because he is mental.
"But we're all mental," I say, "If we weren't we wouldn't be here."
"I know right?" Moby says.
We sit and bullshit for awhile. One of the guys takes Nerdboy's Game Cube and rips the ridiculous stickers he has on it off. "Why does he even leave it out?" We comment, "He's begging to get it stolen."
We get yelled at many times for being too loud but we continue on until we all decide it's bed time. Moby walks off the game system.

It's probably cruel and not right for me to participate in tampering with Nerdboy's belongings. While I didn't do it personally I did watch it and instigate in it. But I also know that the guys I was joking around with would never actually hurt him. Moby will most likely give it back. It's just messing with a guy who messes with everyone else.

It's cool outside tonight but it's still hot in shelter. I sleep with a frozen wash cloth but I do in fact manage to at least sleep a little bit.

--mm