Read Walking the Sleep for Free Online

good to have a friend again. Somewhere outside of Ventura I fell into the sleep. Began walking the sleep. I snap back sitting on a bus bench, clutching a brown bag. There’s half a pint of gin in the bag and my head hurts.
    In Santa Ana, California. Night. Liquor store. I walk in and see people milling around. An Arabic clerk quickly checks out small bottles of VSO brandy, Svedka, cheap beer and malt liquor. Blunts for smoking weed. One after another I watch. The guy who told me I was dead is sitting next to me watching. The clerk is oblivious to our presence. He doesn’t see us. This I know. Sam is sitting on his stool eating an orange Hostess cupcake. A half smoked Camel sits in his left hand. He takes a bite, chews, then takes a drag on the Camel blowing smoke between chews. Half a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey sits on the counter next to him.
    “Why do you watch this shit? Isn’t there somewhere you’d rather be?”
    “No. I love this.” He finishes the cupcake and washes it down with a long drink of Beam.
    “You love watching people come in with money they can’t afford to spend, lay it down for things that make their lives harder?”
    “Yes. It’s a symphony of despair from which I cannot look away, nor turn a deaf ear”
    “That’s fucked up.”
    He hands me the bottle and I take a long pull. He tosses me the pack of Camels. I light one and drag hard on it.
    “Yes, I know. See the guy wearing the Dickies and Converse shoes?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He’s thirty-five. He’s lost three shit jobs in two months. He’s got two kids at home that need shoes. He’s spending the last of what he has tonight.”
    “Wow….it’s so great to be fucking dead and have the insights huh?”
    “I didn’t ask you to come back here. What are you doing here anyway?”
    “Looking for something.”
    A strange looking man shuffles in and then out the door. The back of his head is missing.
    “Why doesn’t someone wake that guy up?”
    “Don’t think I tried? He’s gone. No hope.”
    “No hope. That’s pretty fucking funny. Hope.”
    “ He’s been coming in here since before I came, I’m told. Walked in here years back. Bought a fifth of Scotch and walked in the alley to drink it. Found out his best friend was fucking his pretty little bride while he slaved away fifteen hours a day. They had a little house in Fullerton. Little kid too. I think first grade. I pick up a lot of shit when he talks to himself. So he drinks his fifth of Scotch and looks at the picture of his kid. Then he looks at a picture of his wife. Nice looking. I stole a look few times. He pulls out a .38 special. He calmly places the barrel in his mouth. You know what I heard him say once? Gun oil is a weird flavor of turpentine and not completely unpleasant. So then he says…goodbye…Pulls the trigger and blows his brains all over the back wall in the alley.”
    They never found the gun. Someone came along while he leaked all over the alley. Took the gun and walked away…or ran away. I don’t know.
    “You don’t have any answers for me, do you?”
    “Nothing that would mean anything, really.”
    “But you knew me.”
    “I knew you like I know anyone came in here on a daily basis. Buys a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper… a twelve pack of beer. Talk about the Angels, bad weather, nothing substantial. Sorry.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “ Huh?”
    “ What’s your name?
    “ Sam. But then, you already know that, Paul. I haven’t heard my name in a while. It sounds weird. I’m glad you made me say it out loud… Sam”
    “ Bye, Sam.” I walk out.
    And the time I search for the answers that always seem to furtively slip away, out of the corner of my eye, seem wasted and for no reason. I see them slip away quickly and quietly, never answering questions. A fleeting glimpse of time and a knowing stare in a moment. A glance of truth and knowing.
    Maybe I don’t want to know anymore. I thought I was staying to figure things out but now I am