2-16-01 F 6:44 PM

I want an E tuning fork, even though I have a hi-tech, electronic tuner. Here, home, sitting on the couch, switching between the Kings and the Lakers. “The Maltese Falcon” is on the Turner Classic Movies channel in ten minutes. I’m going to tape it. I walked to school reading The Crossing this morning. It appears that Boyd has been killed, swept away by history and the soul of Mexico or something. I have about fifty pages left. Met with Paul’s mom and stepfather today. I’ll have to get the paperwork going on his dumb ass. We did our tickets out the door and our phonics and a lesson on sentence end marks, including exclamation points, question marks, and periods. At recess, I typed fifteen minutes on the laptop. Then, we went to the library. I let the kids read library books until lunch. Stone and Chernikov came in to “observe.” I sat at my desk, looking at the sports page and let them observe. I read the paper through lunch. Put in a video from the library about Jackie Robinson. The kids paid no attention. We went to P.E. for some handball. I walked home from school. Saw some kids on the way. They celebrated my appearance like it was 1958 and I was Elvis Presley. No one was here when I got home. Rochelle had been running errands. I finished reading the paper. Shit! I was four minutes late taping “The Maltese Falcon.” Fuck. Ugh. Shit. I kept watching the clock, but still, I missed it. Fuck. Urg. Shit. I rolled a smoke this afternoon. It didn’t come out too good. “In Cold Blood” is on after this. I’ve never seen that. I guess my dad and stepmom will be coming by between ten and noon tomorrow. I should try to straighten up a little before they come. You know they’ll be full of sunshine. I want to go to Fry’s tomorrow and get that external disk drive and a case for the laptop. I don’t know how the rest of it’ll go. Sunday, we’re supposed to go out to visit them at the Grave’s in Hacienda Heights. Monday, I guess I better sort out what I need to do about my tax situation. I wonder if I should get a Turbo Tax program or something. Too bad I can’t go fishing. I also need to figure out what’s going on with my 403B. [the author hanging from a palm tree I the dark near a can of Kalik beer in the Bahamas]

His head ached. He struggled through the sunshine. The light tore his eyes. He saw little more than the sidewalk. A phone. If he found a phone he could call. Who? He didn’t know. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Did he have change? It took a minute to summon the memory of how to reach into his pocket, to summon the will, the strength, the coordination. His pants were cold and stiff, and they seemed to have shrunk. He had to work his fingers into the pocket wriggle them down to the knuckles and push his hand in to the wrist. He had to stop walking. He felt like a blind man. His fingers felt the lighter. Some papers. He felt a coin. He pulled the pocket out and managed to dump its contents into his palm and studied what he saw there. A dime, a nickel, a penny. Lint. A receipt. He pulled out the other pocket. Empty. He made a half-assed attempt to put the pockets ban, but one hung out still and the other was only partially put back, so that it looked like he waws trying to play the old Kiss the Bunny game. He came to an intersection. State College. Fast food joints and gas stations. He could barely see through all the light. It wouldn’t have surprised him if none of them had any payphones.