bisquick

Dec 14, 2007 - 12:02 PM PST

With tired legs and the aftershocks of dying migraines lingering from my midnight maddening that weebled and wobbed my morning footing through the cluttered porch, yellowed stacked newspapers, empty 40s, tall boys mingled with wine bottles in bags next to a lawn mower, and the mower gas container, and splattered lawn mower grass from the overgrown lawn beyond the concrete steps of the enclosed porch with a busted bulb.
I turned the key in the lock scratched gold plated . It opened. The cat rushed to my foot. Saw me. Disappointed she ran back to her alleyway between the bourbon couch a consignment shop throw-way and the wall-- where she clawed, gnawed, knocking something or other.
I hauled off my well worn loafers whose warped soles worthy of moccasins, tossed them toward my porcelain painted, fingerprint smudged, pot singed bedroom door near the bathroom and the my other mother's shelves stacked with the roommates countless albums. CDs, tapes, yes tapes, all album artwork in tact, all labeled, in alphabetical order. It ends with C.
Bisquick, Real Butter, Cracked egg, Near spoiled Fat Free Milk and the roommate's spatchla. Shake. Twirl. Clump on butter spread on old friend's frying pan. Calm yourself. Crack your neck. Don't move. Let it solidify. Careful. Careful. Temper. Temper. Flip. Flatten. Flip. Flatten. Once more into the beach dear friends.
Fat free syrup.
I think this plate is clean.
Yum.
Kicked the shoes onto my bedroom carpet, a Pollack, stained with ink from busted pens, and random sauces food. Slam the door.
The walls are bare besides a black and white head shot of an old white dead man with a knowing smile. Just enough teeth and Rushmore ready face. I wrote his motto on in sharpie. FOLLOW YOUR BLISS.
Food never tastes right when you're half swatting at a makeshift desk in front of my bed which laid only where could between the closet to its left the vent to it north and the window to its right. My cluttered cell was just that, clutter crammed with piles of overdue laundry, forgotten trash bags full up of styrofoam and stale ketchup and pieces of dried long ago munched sub bread.
One man's rubbish was my easel, laid against the wall riddled with flung acrylics from months ago. One of my binges that I couldn't muster now. I flipped channels, counting dots on the ceiling, my stomach aches, not hungry, not sick, just unsatisfied.
It wasn't so soon before I lifted myself up. Stumbled into the kitchen couldn't kill a bottle orange juice. Turned back.
"Did I close this door? I did? The bedroom door? I told myself shakin', than jiggling giggling the cheap metal lock, "Fucks wrong?" Tried picking it. My debit card still regrets that. Jiggle-- harder faster better stronger, knife, a saucer fuck fuck fuck. I sat at the kitchen table, a white knuckle wobblier itself and licked the last of the Bisquick batter from the spoon. Rocky was wrong, raw eggs are raw for a reason. There should be warnings on cartons.
Went for the door. I dumped the blue bin of egg cartons, cereal boxes, and plastic containers to the floor next to the microwave by the refrigerator before hearing a squish, squash, squish, it was the leakage the roommate calls refrigerator urine. I noticed something. "But I must." I told myself. "Fuck." So I did.
Out the door onto concrete into the yard, than the sidewalk, through the shabby crooked wood plank fence door, it was drizzle then. My white socks were soon somewhere between shade of dark blue I'd only seen in poorly recreated Van Gogh paintings and pre-charcoal black. Each step hurt, as you'd expect, but not as bad as you'd think.
Round the storefront, "Hi Linda", her rosy cheeks and sheepish grin were hard to ignore, into the alleyway where vagrants, barrow boys, broken men, uniformed men who changed bedpans, and washed uniforms in poly-threaded goodwill jackets from upstairs, cross the street, and the Laundromat next door often hung. They were gone but it was littered with the vilest smelling can half full of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, some crushed, some standing, others tipsy, all days or weeks old. Truthfully I wouldn't know. I never strayed into the alley much. I just heard crunches from my bedroom window while men on hot days yapped on their portable phones and a rare prepaid cell catching some cross breeze.
I knew it but I had to try. I threw down the bin upside down. I stepped up, slid up my window and was stuck. For the life of me, I can't remember a time when I was more emasculated. I slid out and kicked the box over and over.
Walked around the corner and limped back into the apartment. The roommate looked down at the trashed floor. "What's this?" he asked somewhere between laughing and anger. I said "I need a boost."
"A boost." he laughed or cackled, can't tell any more.
"Yeah."
"Give me ten minutes."
"Uhuh." He finished my carton of orange juice and went into his room. It must be a law of human nature or maybe some piece of minutia I focus too much on but ten minutes are never ten minutes. Especially for the roommate. I sometimes wonder why we bother with giving how long. Soon is better.
Isn't it?
I made more Bisquick batter, who bothered to think that you could make biscuits with Bisquick. I watched them bake. Had three.
It was an hour before we left.
We talked headlines, straying between rumors of war and the politics of quarterbacks dog fighting.
"Its not like he killed the president" I said following the thin thick 30 year old in a shoulder ripped tee down the porch steps and into the yard.
He snickered "Who would protest that?" He was right, who doesn't hate Dubya these days. Its too easy-- right. I almost admire the hearty few at George's side, at least they believe in something, Kool-aid or conviction, I'm no judge.
When I woke up yesterday I never thought the roommate would be pushing my size 15 dirty socks through my window and my 38 waist still wouldn't slip through. I felt like a beached whale that couldn't fit in a blender.
As an old friend said "You were never a fatty but you're not a fatty." Her guileless unwittingly witty personality is why I keep her around.
The migraine's back.
"Fuck it" he said. "I'll do it."
I slithered down gave him a boost and he was in. Turned the knob of my door and it popped open. I pressed my head against the hard metal.
"You must have pushed this button" he said.
"I didn't push any buttons"
"Than what was that pop?" he frowned.
"What pop?"
"The pop." He said angry. I stared at the sticks and ants below and searched logic for denial found none.
"There's biscuits on the kitchen table." I paused. "You can have some if you want." I stopped. "Yo. Can you hand me my…" I looked up he was already gone.
Back round the storefront. Through the gate into the porch, than the apartment.
Pissed.
Popped a few pills and said goodbye to myself.