Friday Free

Ahh, sweet merciful Friday. There's something selfishly satisfying about having an engagement-free Friday. Especially when it comes after a hard day's work. How delicious it feels to come home and collapse onto the couch, without a care in the world. The legs and feet sigh with relief as the cushion takes them. Millions of cells behind the skin and muscles there rejoice and throw a lively and intensely orgiastic celebration. It feels like millions of localized micro-orgasms soaking the tissues in warm love. There is nothing like it. Except for waking up in bed Saturday morning well-rested, on your own time, trapped under a bunch of cozy blankets, the pink-orange morning light just touching the tips of the windows as you stretch out and yawn deeply and admire how all the world is peaceful and untainted by the cold hand of duty or obligation. Nowhere is there a deeper feeling of contented emptiness. Sure, there is the post-coital serenity which we can all agree is equally pleasing, but we have to work for that emptying. To fall asleep requires one to do no work, only to have done work. And to wake eight hours later is a sort of magic Lazarus can admire. It is to break the spell of oblivion.

I should use this free time. There are two chores I've been putting off all week. The first is laundry, which I haven't the heart to do tonight. The second is more attainable. Before Burning Man I purchased a gigantic black gymnast's mat for Holly and I to sleep on. Needless to say, we did more than sleep on it, and it got ruined in the desert; by the ravages of sun and sand and sprays of semen and sweat. Now I must dispose of it. The problem is, the thing is huge, and heavy. My vision of its future is to leave it sitting perched against the wall of the closed bodega down the street, or propped up beside a garbage can somewhere within walking distance of my apartment. I'd like for a homeless person to take it and use it as a place to sleep, as I once did. It's clear that the mat misses the musky stink of humanity that only homelessness can provide. For me to accomplish this task I'd need to wait until about 10:00pm to sneak the mat out. There are several reasons for this:

1 - The bodega is still open and closes at 10:00
2 - I don't want to run the risk of my neighbors seeing me, because my intent will be obvious to them
3 - I don't want to be seen by anyone else carrying an oversize, dusty, semen-stained mat
4 - Blatant littering is best done in darkness

The prospect of doing this at 10pm is daunting, though. My body is exhausted from a week of abuse in the gym. This is what I imagine:

While hobbling conspicuously down my staircase with the mat, I run straight into my neighbors before even making it out the door of the building, smiling at them like a snake with an egg in its mouth as I turn sideways to let them pass. Can they smell the mat, I ask myself. I hear them speak in hushed voices about me as they climb the stairs to their door. Awkwardly, I grab for the door handle to let myself out, but the mat falls and loudly slams the door shut. Everyone in the building hears it. Once more I pull at the door - having set the mat aside - and I prop it open with my foot as I pick the mat up and place it in between the inner door and the outer door. While opening the outer door the mat slides off the wall and crashes the gate, closing it against my hand. I howl in pain and promptly release my fingers. Standing there, clutching my hand, covered in dust and dirt, the mat lying limply half on the floor and half against the door, I wonder what the fuck I'm doing. Briefly I consider tossing the mat onto the gutter in front of my building, but then I remember I've already been spotted by my neighbors. They're probably watching me from the window right now. I check my hand and, using the light from my cellphone, I notice I have a blood blister under my fingernail where it got pinched in the door. My hand is crushed and deformed looking. Picking up the mat again hurts my hand. It stings and aches dully. Angrily I lug the mat down the block, huffing and panting, trying to move quickly but my grip keeps weakening and I have to stop, put the mat down, reposition my grip, pick it up, and move again. I make slow progress this way. My back and shoulders and legs burn from the weight and the uncomfortable angle I'm holding it at. My hand is throbbing. I've still got two blocks until I'm at the bodega. A bunch of college kids, all dressed up and ready to hit up a local house party, spill out of a door up ahead and are walking towards me. I watch as fright turns to hesitation turns to condescension turns to pity. They believe me to be a homeless recluse, or a meth addict on a binge, stealing gym supplies from the nearby campus. One of them considers calling the police. I hadn't thought of the police. Fuck. What would I tell them I was doing if they saw me? Why would I be carrying an oversized gymnast's mat at 10pm. I don't look like a gymnast. Well, that's because they're all doping. THIS is what an olympian really looks like. Why is the mat so filthy? It's just chalk...and protein shakes. I'm bringing it home, I'd tell them. Yeah, that's right. But why are you walking in the opposite direction? Surely they'd have asked for my ID and realized my house was just up the block. Ah, my mistake officers. I'm going to my car. I've got a van, you see. They offer to help me load it, on account of how unwieldily the thing is. That's quite alright officers. They notice blood on my hand from when I'd caught it in the door. Now they insist on walking me to my car. We arrive and, to my surprise, my vehicle's been stolen. I guess I'll just have to bring my mat back home then. Can I file a police report with you gentlemen tomorrow morning about the missing car? I'm really very tired and it's late - I'll have all day to deal with this tomorrow, when I'm fresh. They clasp handcuffs on me and throw me in the back of a police car. I ride away looking at the mat leaning against the side of the closed bodega where they'd left it. 

That doesn't happen though. The cops don't come and I keep struggling down the street with the mat. Finally I arrive at a reasonable garbage can. As I bend down to leave it near the garbage can, I pull a muscle in my back. The pain shoots like lightning down my leg and up my spine and I can't immediately stand upright. After a few long minutes of using the garbage can as a brace, I decide to lay flat on my back, on top of the mat. Unable to get up, I spend the Friday free - from my apartment, my bed, blankets, warmth, sleep. 

And as I lie there I can't help but notice, I'm stranded in the most peculiar way. 

The stars look very different, today.