F***ing Gary

It's almost the 15th, so Gary's gonna be around again soon. I expected him at the turn of the month but he never showed up.

The stuff with ReadyI'm got worse. Moe said he needed a lot more help than anyone of us could give him. He's getting bullied, but he probably deserves it.

Skull never gave him his phone back and he had to go get one of those government phones they table about downtown. 

Kairos got it back for him, but ReadyI'm didn't want it anymore. 

Just a bunch of a**holes.

I'm not always angry. It's fine.

Gary knows how to use his anger. And his deep baritone voice. He doesn't even have to yell. It projects enough. 

One time, he got in trouble over it at one of the city assistance offices. He said he wasn't yelling, it was just the way he talked.

One time. There's a lot of one times. Let me tell you an actual story about Gary and why we call him Fucking Gary. Or at least I do.

He hides. He hides from people when he doesn't want to talk interact or deal with others and he hides in places when he doesn't want to be seen. 

I never have to pay for a movie with Gary. Fucking Gary will hide in the trash can.

I don't go looking for him when he hides from people. Sometimes I'll call with one of my telephones.

I thought about him when I had the issue with Doy, I figured he could help with anything. 

He told me it would make more sense for me to hide since Doy had these cousins.

In any case he didn't want to have anything to do with it. He preferred to hang around when there were girls.

He tried to buy shoes for the first girl, he paid for them at some little shop with shoes but she couldn't make it that far. We saw her again now that it's getting warm. Gary told me to stay away.

He always knows what's going on but he wouldn't want me to say that. It doesn't help. He's not a bully but he tried to teach me how. 

People will tell you anything if you expect them to. I never used it in sales. Gary didn't want to hear about that shit.

Gary heard about what Gary wanted to hear about. And Gary doesn't like to hear about himself. He's a good egg. Not egg shaped.

He tells people what to do. Which is fine because he usually knows what's going on, or can make it. 

I tell Gary what he wants to hear sometimes. It doesn't make it true, but a lot of times it doesn't matter anyway.

He was the one who pointed out Floride was a prophet. I thought he wanted to make it so. She just sounded crazy to me, but a lot of people do when you're not exactly paying attention. And she was pretty doing it. 

She had said something about an electric chair. I'll remember.

She'd bumped into me and asked for a cigarette. I had a few long butts in my pockets that I'd picked up along the way. People are wasteful. 

I wasn't paying attention and just heard someone, you know, asking for something. Usually I didn't have it. Sometimes you think someone is asking for something but they're offering it. It could be a trick. 

I gave her my longest butt, it had a little bit of lipstick on it. I'd found it on the bench at a bus shelter early in the morning. 

Maybe someone lighting up just before her bus showed up. It happens that way. 

I wasn't doing anything that day. I didn't have a job at the time. I may not have one again soon. Mostly it's just somewhere to be and something to do. You can't just stand in a corner all day. Not even on it. 

Gary helped me string together some assistance checks and stuff. He doesn't like to talk about it. It's all above board. Fucking Gary. Of course it's not his real name. 

I thought Floride liked me because I listened but I didn't say much. Even when she didn't make sense to me I'd nod along. 

It was nice to be around someone pleasant for a change. 

The electric chair is out of order. Something like that.

It's easy to sound profound, we're exposed to so many combinations of words and ideas and they're just floating there for us to put into whatever context we imagine we want. We don't even know what they really mean, or what we mean. 

But she made sense a lot. She said she died to become herself. Sometimes she'd mention an ex but it was hard to follow. I assumed it was an ex. He was never around. 

I thought he was an amalgamation, she'd trail off like she was just talking to herself. 

Maybe I liked spending time with her because it didn't even feel like I was there sometimes.

Gary felt that way too. He ran into us later that day. He had a whole pack of cigarettes and told her she didn't have to split one. 

He knew how to combine the words with hers and it was like I wasn't there. 

She started explaining something the ex, whoever the male figure in her narrations and asides was, had done that was unkind to her.

Gary apologized like she was talking about him, and she accepted it.

I didn't even think he saw me until he told me he could cash my unemployment check for me. I hadn't even asked him.

I didn't see Floride or him for a long time after that. Fucking Gary.