Just Killing Time

I know my feet are still there. I can see them from all the way up here--ridiculous boats launching out of the ends of improbably long, skinny legs. Tonight they wear faux bowling shoes, the right of which has a gouge in it left over from a New Year's Eve party spent shuttling up and down steep concrete steps between a crowded, frosty basement where bands were to play and a dark, muddy rectangle of yard where a crowd five deep surrounds a defenseless keg and the chain-link fence is lined with drunken young men taking a group whiz.

I know my feet are still there. I can see them from way up here. I just can't feel them.

My own fault, really. I could have gone straight home from work, surfing the serpentine Brown Line past projects soon to be razed and stations soon to be rehabbed to my stop, then walked the few blocks to the apartment formerly known as "La Casa del Terror," now just called "that place where I sometimes sleep." Could have stopped by my local Pallid Poultry for a gallon of skim milk, a pint of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie and a gander at the recently hired cute alternachick behind the counter. Could have been warm by now.

But no. Hardly ever go straight home anymore. Too quiet there. Too much time to do nothing but think. Usually wander around downtown shops to kill time, occupy mind. Sometimes Borders. Sometimes Virgin Megastore. Tonight, I went local. Laurie's Planet of Sound. Cool little record shop in Lincoln Square, with an eclectic music selection, from Dido to Dennis Wilson to the Damned. Also sells DVDs (that copy of Can't Stop the Music still calls to me) and obscure videos (the idea of watching Jackie Gleason take LSD in Skidoo appeals to me; the idea of watching Carol Channing seduce Frankie Avalon does not). Tonight, I hit their used video section, buy a couple cheap horror films: The Valley of Gwangi (a Ray Harryhausen-animated T-Rex stomps Mexico) and Island of Terror (Peter Cushing vs. tentacled creatures that suck your bones out). The collection grows. Spreads. Makes the time at home less quiet.

Could also just walk home from here rather than waiting for the notoriously slow Montrose bus. Done it before. Not that far. "Just a good stretch of the legs," as both John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara say in The Quiet Man. (Mmmmm...Maureen O'Hara...) Instead, I stare east. Then straight ahead, playing the game of counting the number of drivers talking on cell phones. (Once saw a driver on a cell phone nearly run down a pedestrian on a cell phone at this very corner.) Then down. The feet are still there. Then back east again. And wait. Wait. Wait some more.

Do buses still run on this street? Did CTA cancel the route and forget to take down the signs? The five other travelers, all packed into the bus shelter, all craning their respective necks east as if taking turns, appear to be thinking the same thing. What. The. Fuck.

A bright yellow moving light cuts the darkness. Finally. A bus is coming. Slowly. Struggling up Montrose against late rush-hour gridlock. And, Pavlovian predictable, I can suddenly feel my feet again. Not the best thing. They hurt now. Like they've been pounded with bricks. Or cartoonishly large mallets. Ow. Ow. Ow.

And still the yellow light grows brighter. Closer. An inch at a time. Closer. To me. To them. To home.