I can’t go outside. I can, but it’s difficult for me. That’s why I didn’t sleep last night. I’ll be able to focus better on going to the grocery store this morning. I get my crocs, grab a kitchen knife, and stretch my bad joints. I walk through my front door. Making sure to avoid my reflection coming off the screen glass door. The shine makes me look like a yellow crayon. I step outside and open the trunk of my barely functioning car. I pick out a little snow globe with Ronald Reagan standing on a missile. I cough and faintly taste something unpleasant mixed with a tiny bit of blood. This has been happening the last few days. I take in a deep breath and try not to let it out. The store is only a block away. I start walking. I live two small houses away from the intersection I need to make a left on. It’s a busy crossroads. Loud music, police sirens, the late night bickering, homeless vandalism on cars, it has it all. The other day, around this time, I had to hear my neighbor have a mental breakdown. He cried about being beaten by his mother’s boyfriends when he was an adolescent. He said that it made him develop into a person that was afraid so he found shelter in drugs, alcohol, but, most importantly, the wrong people. Until I started meowing at him to stop, he especially complained about that. Not having anybody worthwhile in his life. “You need people that won’t use you, that will always care about you! That will always love you!” “Meow!” Let’s be serious here. Some people got to work in the morning. Folks have to make their calls. I couldn’t let him just keep on going all day. I finally let my breath escape. There’s a group of people standing on the corner. As I get closer, I see they have signs with a message. It’s 7:00AM. I try to make myself look like I’m a busy man on a Saturday morning. Got to get to where I’m going. I should’ve brought my clunky suit so they knew I was important. They see me approach and begin to part into two. There’s more of them than I thought. I feel hands grazing my shoulder. Children giggling. I turn around. A man who looks like John Woodbridge cups his mouth and is absorbed back into the crowd. Fear is in his eyes. From the back of the group I hear, “you can’t fight fire with fire, John.” I hear people muttering their approval. “Yes, sir.” “Amen.” “That’s right.” A woman with intricately braided hair, long, light blue gowns, and chin stubble shrieks, “THERE IS ONLY LIGHT, ONLY THE LIGHT SHINING OFF MY ROCK!” I cough and smile at them but they don’t reciprocate. Some take a step back. I put my hands together in the sign of prayer and bow. I smile again. A baby screams. Some of the group's members begin looking at me menacingly. I slide my knife to the front of my hip. I start thinking about how mob bosses sent thirteen year olds to collect money from their rackets. Imagine a thirteen year old walking into your house or place of business with a baseball bat. Telling you who he works for and that you better act right or your skull is going to get caved in. A thirteen year old. I taste the blood mixture in my mouth. I turn the corner. I hear somebody from the crowd curse my name and my descendants. Only a hundred fifty yards left to go. There’s a clean stretch of land up ahead, brilliantly blue skies, black birds in the air, I like what I’m seeing. Cars are flying by. It’s early so they want to take advantage before the gridlock builds up. The houses on this street look taken care of, unlike the ones on the side streets. These have different shit all over their yards. Croquet clubs and fountains instead of car parts and fake flowers. A croquet bat could fit in my pants along with a knife. I’m making some progress now. Up ahead is a gas station I come to for candy. I think about gas station sex. But like in one of those gas stations you find out in the middle of Nevada. The sun and the imagery is making my head hot. I’m feeling delighted. Only seventy more yards left to go. This is going better than I expected. As I keep walking, I begin to notice something. The trash bags that have been lining the curb look like they’re full of people. I kick one and get my foot covered in lo mein. A woman in a suit comes out of her house and asks me why I did that. I start to run away and she yells something in another language. I turn. “What did you say?” “That. I. Know. Where. You. Live. Come clean up this mess.” I approach her making mush in my crocs because of the lo mein. I stomped it into a bowl worth of baby compote. “I didn’t make a mess. I think you’re imagining things.” She hears me and starts crying deeply without saying anything. Just moaning and spilling huge tear drops. Her shirt and suit get quickly soaked so she takes them off. I look inside her house and there’s Christmas wrapping paper all over the walls. It’s been torn off in patches. She sees me looking inside and stands in front of my line of sight. She’s wearing a bra with Clifford the big red dog on it. She looks awful. Her teeth are stained, her hair is frizzed, the whites of her eyes have big purple veins. She squares up to me and asks, “what are you going to do about it, big man.” I hand her the Reagan snowglobe and lick her cheek. Her eyes light up and she runs inside. I see her jumping around frantically. I hear her screaming. Her head looks like it’s going to pop off her shoulders. The veins in her neck bulge. She presses the Reagan snow globe to her chest so tightly that it shatters. She looks down and her eyes widen. I keep walking. Guttural screaming commences from her house. Thirty yards away is the cultural center which is right next to the grocery store. I can see two of the four Jamaican men I once overheard talking about stoicism. As I get closer, one of them stops me. “Careful where you’re walking, son. Don’t bring that mess over here.” He’s referring to my lo mein…but son? I raise my foot up and shake it so that I spittle some of the goop from my shoe onto the man’s upper lip and forehead. He swings at me but I’m able to evade his shots. I grab both of his forearms so that now we’re wrestling but you might think it’s a dance. While we grapple I’m able to explain to him that he must calm down. He must regain his composure and realize that I am simply a part of life. I should be embraced. I shouldn’t become the target of his emotional outburst since that wouldn’t be in line with stoicism. He yells, “fuck stoicism!” I laugh big time and a lot more of the awful liquid that’s been filling my mouth spills out onto the concrete. The Jamaican man’s Oxford wingtip shoes are covered in bile and blood along with some of the dried flakes of the lo mein. At this point his friend separates us and they tell me to get the hell away from them. I walk into the grocery store, say hello to the clerk and walk to the aisle that has what I’m looking for. I examine the aisle but notice that they’re out of stock. There’s a yellow sign apologizing for the inconvenience and explaining other very important information that I don’t read.