Carpet on the Walls

There are times when it all makes sense. Your life. Your wife, job, house, friends, your stylish fedora hats and argyle socks, your Westinghouse Electric Oven, your Zenith TV, Ed Sullivan, and plush, Robins-Egg blue wall to wall carpeting, All the parts fit. And then there are the other times when you can't get a dial tone, your car won’t start, the cat doesn't come home, your boss wants to see you, and everyone, EVERY ONE, looks at you funny.

You don’t sleep. You don’t wake. You begin to wonder if you really ever owned a cat. You hava an Edsel. You know you do! A 1950 Ford Edsel you bought brand new last year at Morgan Ford on Van Ness--you remember when you bought it and you remember other things... You had a black cat. It had yellow eyes. You had a wife... and maybe that’s it! Your goddamn wife stole your goddamn cat.

"This won’t hurt a bit,” they say. Your temples feel wet now and chilly cold.

You say, “Juwoona wassino leshis!” biting the rubber hose as you lie surrounded by white people without names, their eyes so focused, so fixed, and everything YOU begins to buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz