#OBLIVION CUTTING ROOM FLOOR CRACKED#
#OBLIVION CUTTING ROOM FLOOR CRACK#

I separate myself from them, their sounds, what they are doing, watching Jade the prostitute across the street adjust her neon pink stockings. The two in the alley are on a diplomatic mission, seller and buyer. The sound of what they are doing with their bodies blends into the multitude of other sounds on this street. I canвЂ™t hear what is being said, what tactical maneuvers have been agreed on, but they depart together into the alley.

I watch as he moves on, targeting another inhabitant of the shadows not far from me. вЂњMy time isnвЂ™t for sale,вЂќ I say, shifting to the other boot against the wall. вЂњHow much?вЂќ the middle aged man in khaki shorts and a blood-red polo shirt passing slowly by asks me. From this location I can see the window of my room, the light left on like a safety beacon. This is the weather of Afghanistan without the sand and what I inhale isnвЂ™t dust particles, it is the drifting toxins of the city: gas fumes, rotting trash, urine. Rivulets of sweat run between my shoulder blades down my spine and down the middle of my pecs. The warm winds blowing in the night tousle my short blonde hair. I wear my sand color camouflage fatigues and a tight black t-shirt and black army boots, but in the darkness where I stand I am the same color as the shadows. One booted foot against this wall at night, my knee bent, my back pressed against the heat of the summer-heated bricks, I can only be seen by those looking for me, not me exactly, but the type of me they are looking for. It takes strategic thinking about when to venture out, so when it is dark I watch through the holes in the curtains for the time that is right to infiltrate those who inhabit the city streets. ItвЂ™s the bruised underbelly of this city and I am now part of the bruise. ItвЂ™s a dangerous place called the Tenderloin. Out on the streets, itвЂ™s a different story. Lifting dumbbells in front of the mirror, I watch the armor that is my flesh ripple with every arm curl. My biceps, triceps, forearms, pectoral muscles, abdominal muscles, glutes, quads and calves are strong and well developed. I see it in my blue eyes when I look in the mirror, the injuries of seeing what no man should see. I came back from Afghanistan, from the army, uninjured but not unscathed.

#OBLIVION CUTTING ROOM FLOOR CRACKED#

Looking into the cracked mirror, its scar becomes my scar, an injury across the smooth flesh of my muscled chest. Alone in this room itвЂ™s easy to forget a simple thing like my own name. No one going by on the street or in and out of the store know IвЂ™m watching them through the holes in the curtain. ThereвЂ™s a window with torn plastic curtains that looks out on the busy street and the small grocery store across the street. The walls have the wounds of neglect cracking green paint and peeling yellow wallpaper.

#OBLIVION CUTTING ROOM FLOOR CRACK#

The mirror above the dresser has a crack that looks like a scar. Everything else I own, my civilian clothes, my army uniform, army boots, two thirty-pound dumbbells, my emptied duffle bag, are scattered about on the floor forming small mounds that I step over like the dead bodies I stepped over in Afghanistan. ThereвЂ™s a dresser with five drawers but I only use the bottom one, hiding my papers there my army discharge papers, high school diploma, newspaper articles about me winning swimming competitions when I was in high school. I have no pillow, but I rest my head on a helmet and dream that IвЂ™m somewhere else other than this room. There are no sheets or covers on Murphy and the mattress has a tear in the middle. ItвЂ™s a small room with a bed that pulls down from the wall, a Murphy Bed they call it. In this room IвЂ™m hidden by a camouflage of poverty.

Oblivion cutting room floor