~ Wednesday night in Hell. “Drinking on the job,” she says as she walks past. “Tsk tsk.”

I rarely get drunk, but I drink just about every day. Goes with working at a bar. Some nights, like Wednesday, you’re not so into being at work and having a drink or two doesn’t hurt at all. Something to do.

I can’t think of too many professions where you get to drink on the job. Rock star, live sound technician, priest… neurosurgeon… (“It’s really stressful,” he explained to me.)

Police officer. Guy’s got a gun, are you gonna tell him he can’t put away your confiscated liquor?

Music pounds all around me. People are dancing and freaking out. All I’m noticing is that the guys are outnumbering the women by three-to-one and maybe I should drop a little 50 hertz out of the graphic EQ.

I stir the ice cubes in my double White Russian and think, “At least I’m not working in an office somewhere.”

Yeah–thank god I’m not working in a quiet, smoke-free, non-violent place.

Thank god I’m not working in an atmosphere of calm and productivity.

Anyway.

~ Walking out of the place at 4am, I feel like I want to peel off a layer of skin. Bikers mingle with bouncers in the parking lot. Apparently I’ve missed all the commotion.

I wonder how one of these Hells Angels would react if I walked up to him and dropped my skin-suit at his feet. I could peel off my face and lay it across the shoulder of his leather jacket. And then I would turn around and walk home and go to bed.

No dreams. No face.

~ I walk downtown Thursday evening and knock on a guy’s door, trying to get my synthesizer back. Nobody home. So I hang out on Barrington for a while.

There’s an alcove where homeless kids usually hang out, the boarded-up front entrance of the old Paramount Theater. Cardboard boxes, cigarette packages, old paperback books lay strewn about on the ground.

In a corner of the alcove is an old Electrohome cabinet. I perch up on top of the abandoned colour TV and watch buses driving by.

“Hello?” says a woman’s voice beside me. I jump.

“Did you call me?” she says. “What’s going on?”

Cellphone.

Taillights glower in a red row.

I sit on Barrington Street and change the channels on a dead screen.