Fitting Friday for a firing. Nine Eleven. Last day for Evan. Well this is a new feeling. For the moment a bit purgatorial. This morning I’ve been biding my time in cafes, waiting for the final paycheck. Raining outside. Girlfriend unclothed a few floors above me, a couple doors down. Eighth street. She will visit me on her bathrobe break.

Walking here from the bookstore by Union Square I passed a small wet casket on Broadway. Fine Friday for a funeral. Oh one. Oh nine. Just wish the rain would let up. Recluse of Bushwick now. Have to think about money again. Maybe spend my days in the parks. Busking?

Going to get a new tattoo below my arrow. Not that one. A Brancusion Joyce looking down tension’s nose. Discord. Two like strings stretched. Unison bow. Ping! Ping!

Or will I become like one of the regulars in this cafe? Jobless life on free WiFi jobfind. Away from the empty apartment. Remind em you exist. Talk to yourself and the cute girl behind the counter who will tolerate you. Another two-toothed regular is in love with her. “Can I paint you naked, my dear?” Take the class like the rest of em. 

Hungry. Joyce on library steps describing his tightening stomach muscles. Shabby suit and smelly (he rarely washed). Hunger. Hamsun, driving himself insane. Should I bite my finger? I can’t do it, I’ll do it. Was Beckett ever hungry like that? I’ll wait till I’m home to eat. 

Screenwriter in the corner with high-paid intern who eats for free. Lucky dog. “What’s the uh… word for the words at the bottom of the screen… like in Spanish you know?” Says screenwriter. “Subtitles,” says intern. Days work done. Base of operations. Base operation. Bass operator. Check not yet ready. Guess she hasn’t had a break. Rain still raining. I’ll wait for her lunch hour. 

I bum a cigarette from a begrudging ex-bum regular. Loud talker, head shaker. Under the awning outside now. Gaggle of Italians pop their umbrellas round my head as they exit. Black, uh… brellas? Funeral pyre? Broadway. A man across the way rolls a smoking cigarette between his knuckles like a pensive poker player. Rubber sanitation worker sweeping up the falling leaves with rough painters brushstrokes against the pavement. Kht. Kht. Khht. I flick my cigarette into the street away from his hooded eyes. 

Here in this spot yesterday afternoon, with flowers in my hand and bass on back about to leave for Philly. Got home at dawn twelve hours previous. Drinking contest with myself. Slept through most of work, so fired by Pfao. Made Shirah worry. Treated wrong. Do flowers help really? Falling over my bike in the juggernaut dawn. Least I had the sense not to ride it this time. Drank with Tyler till he got tumbly, then drank with some others when he left. Womb-like purple over the Bushwick bulk. Above the projects with one charred window on floor twenty eight. Trash on their lawn tossed out of every other window. Beyond caring. Pathetic. Rode the train with a real-live Dubliner. Not the dead one in my backpack. Could not understand him. Probably couldn’t understand me. Here she comes now…

Fired by Pfao on Friday the eleventh. Freedom in this years September!

-Evan