Raking the Leaves

As loyal readers may have noticed, the title of my blog is different. This is because Schizophelia Jones must make like a tree and get out of The White Trash Moulin Rouge.

See, it all started with my drug dealing neighbor. He is a criminal, which might be cool if he wasn’t a mega small time, VCR stealing, pawn shop lurking creep. I think he’s a closet case because he and his buddies have (what I call) “Weed Whacking Parties” where, from the distinct sounds of vigorous porn and a shout here and there, they are sparkin’ up doobers and fapping together. There is room for doubt though because I have discovered love notes from him on my door BUT they’re written on lavender stationary and well, I'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body. Maybe he can sense this? Either way, Dwayne, for that is his name, drags his buddies into my building and they steal from my neighbors and fap too loudly and sometimes go on the roof to behold the wonder of gravity by dropping eggs off the side and watching them explode on the little flower pots below. I once caught Dwayne and one of his “friends” getting their Sir Isaac Newton on. They both managed sheepish grins and lumbered back inside giggling like a couple of children, completely consumed in their own abandon. I thought about what a great discovery I’d made: Ovary envy. Two closet cases (Ok, the “friend” was a little less in the closet. I bet he’s worn a few britches with butt-cheek holes in his day) launching ovum and watching them release their gooey insides on the bunch of luscious flowers below. So, as described, Dwayne is not the most stable fellow and obviously somewhat confused about his sexuality. Sometimes he leaves my opened mail on my doorstep, as if he knows I’m getting mail from ‘other men’ and wants to call me out on it! Keep in mind I’ve said like three words to this guy! I suppose when I said “Hey,” he could sense the heat in my greeting.

Dwayne and his buddies are only part of the equation of course. My neighborhood is being gentrified and the locals, who used to mill about on crack, are stoned on Oxycontin and have become too lazy to line up to sell blood down the street or pawn their grandmother’s wedding rings. Not a whore fight on the street in over 2 months, which sucks because you should hear the stuff they say! I don’t particularly relish that kind of confrontation but I can’t help but be impressed with the ferocity of people who must see the worst things in life yet have the strength to violently defend their own meager slice of the pie. But the only loitering that has been going on has been by people who probably live next door to one another in the suburbs, armed only with a Frappucino and the glassy stare that people get when they have New Money burning a hole in their starched Dockers. My landlord (Whiskey Bloom Santa Perv) is slowly losing control of his one functioning neuron too. When there was a gas leak in my apartment and he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, he instructed his henchman (who never does what Santa Perv says after he leaves but pretends to obey him while he’s around) to light a match to find it after trying to “empty the line” and spewing gas into the entire place by putting a fan in front of the room where the gas was leaking. That was my cue that perhaps I should cut my losses and get out while the gettin’s good.

So this month, I've waved goodbye to many things that were static, old, boring, completely unfulfilling, and all together a drag. I'm ushering in brand new stuff that blows away anything I'd ever experienced before but neither negates my previous experience nor makes it anything more than what it was. Right now, life is a peach orchard and it's the first day of spring.