Yesterday was not a bad day. It was quiet. Everything has been nice at the fruit stand. Not much was going on and that was fine. No complaints, as far as I know. None from me at least. I can’t say there were any about me, but I wouldn’t know.
Bill and I did our thing last night, just watching TV, being boring which we like. I slept OK last night, though the night before I had the dehydration headache. But not last night. A trip to the bathroom was expected and accomplished.
When I woke up with the alarm clock, I decided I needed a day off. A mental health day. When I dad dinner with the counselor who placed me at the fruit stand along with other fruit stand employees, the counselor mentioned that we have a PTO which stands for Personal Time Off.
And so I took a PTO. When I attempted to do so in the past, I was usually hit by a wave of guilt, so much so that I would actually go to the office later in the day. Granted I would say I wasn’t feeling well, and had gotten better.
But today was not that. No guilt. More rain was expected today and I did not want to deal with that, not after getting a thorough soaking on Saturday afternoon. Bill had his errands to run as I fixed up some coffee for myself.
So much bad news, a steady current of bad news and it does take some effort to avoid it. I admit there is a social media addiction which causes the stress levels to rise and allows some depression to creep through.
I was able to not look at those things, most concerned L’Orange Merde and that piece of shit is everywhere.
While Bill was on his way out, I made my own way for my errands. A stop at the cigar store where I saw Imram who was having his lunch. The cigar shop is not doing so well and he’s taken to being a delivery man for people’s food orders after his shift at the cigar shop. He has that immigrant work ethic and I have the spoiled work ethic of needing a mental health day.
The rain was approaching, pushing forward a front of humidity. No breezes, just thick, warm air.
I walked to the supermarket again, this time a lot drier than Saturday. The supermarket was easy enough, I bought things I forgot on Saturday as well as things that I noticed that I needed since then. The walk home was easy going.
I walked through the streets where the St. Ann’s Feast were setting up for the upcoming events. Mike really wants to go and wants Bill to join us, so that is what is planned for the weekend, probably Saturday night.
Tomorrow I will be stationed at the main fruit stand. There is the usual apprehension but I think I have a good grip on it. It’s mainly from working alone at the fruit stand I am usually at, dealing with a handful of people to dealing with maybe a hundred people at the main fruit stand.
And in the back of my mind, there is what Jimmy Chile calls the evil Jiminy Cricket telling me that I am not up to snuff and that I am going to be let go. Evil Jiminy Cricket pops up every now and then, saying variations of the same thing, but I am still there though for today, I am here.
And of course, it’s raining again.
Google Gemini James Baldwin-esque essay
There is a quiet, almost radical grace in a day that demands nothing of a man. Yesterday was such a day. It was quiet. At the fruit stand, the world slowed its relentless, churning pace, and for a few fleeting hours, everything was simply nice. Nothing of grand consequence occurred, and in a world so furiously determined to grind us down, that lack of drama was a mercy. No complaints—none from me, at least. If there were any directed at my own fragile, human presence, they did not reach my ears, and perhaps that is the best one can hope for in this life.
By evening, Bill and I retreated into the gentle, unremarkable rhythm that has sustained us. We watched television. We embraced the quiet luxury of being completely, unapologetically boring. After the violent, throbbing dehydration headache that had claimed the night before, sleep finally came with a rare and merciful gentleness. When I woke briefly in the dark to make that familiar, midnight pilgrimage to the bathroom, it was accomplished without struggle.
Then, the alarm rang. And in that sharp, sudden moment of morning clarity, I realized something profound: I needed a day. A day for the mind. A mental health day.
I was reminded of a dinner some time ago, sitting across from the counselor who had placed me—and so many others like me—at the fruit stand. He had spoken of a concept known as “PTO”—Personal Time Off. In years past, the very thought of taking such a day would summon a dark, suffocating wave of guilt. It was the inherited guilt of a working man, a guilt so sharp it would drive me out the door and into the office by afternoon, feigning a sudden, miraculous recovery just to appease the invisible overseer in my head.
But not yesterday. Yesterday, the guilt did not come.
The sky threatened rain—a heavy, sullen gray—and I simply refused to be soaked again, not after the thorough, bone-chilling drenching I took on Saturday. As Bill set out to run his errands, I stood in the kitchen, brewing coffee, listening to the quiet murmur of the pot.
It is no small thing to live in this country right now. We are inundated by a steady, crushing current of bad news, a relentless tide that requires an immense, conscious effort to avoid. I am as guilty as any man of yielding to the siren call of social media, feeding an addiction that does nothing but elevate the blood pressure and invite a heavy, familiar depression into the room. It is almost impossible to escape the shadow of that man—that *L’Orange Merde*—whose loud, wretched presence seems to occupy every corner of our collective consciousness. But yesterday, I chose silence. I looked away.
I stepped out into the thick, suffocating air to run my own small errands. A front of heavy humidity had settled over the city, still and airless, pushing the rain ahead of it. I walked to the cigar shop and found Imram eating his lunch in the dim light. His business is struggling, caught in the undertow of an unforgiving economy, and so he has taken to delivering food after his long shifts behind the counter. Watching him, I was struck by the stark, painful contrast between us: there he was, embodying that fierce, desperate immigrant work ethic, while I walked the streets carrying the soft, spoiled privilege of a man who had declared he needed a mental health day.
The rain held off just long enough. I walked to the supermarket, my clothes remaining dry this time. I gathered the small things I had forgotten on Saturday, the tiny provisions one realizes one needs only after sitting alone in a quiet room.
On the walk home, I passed through streets that were beginning to transform. The neighborhood was setting up for the St. Ann’s Feast, stringing lights and building booths for the upcoming festivities. Mike has his heart set on going, and he wants Bill and me to join him come Saturday night. There is something deeply human about that desire to gather in the street, to eat and laugh in the humid summer air, if only to pretend for an evening that the world outside our little enclave isn’t burning.
Tomorrow, the reprieve ends. I will be stationed at the main fruit stand. A familiar, cold apprehension settles in my chest when I think about it. It is the terror of scale. I am used to the solitary rhythm of my usual post, dealing with a manageable handful of souls throughout the day. Tomorrow, I will have to face a hundred faces, a hundred demands, a hundred fleeting glances.
And in the dark, quiet corners of my mind, that wicked voice—what Jimmy Chile so accurately calls the “evil Jiminy Cricket”—begins its cruel, familiar whisper. It tells me that I am not enough. It tells me I am not up to snuff, that the axe is about to fall, that I will be let go. That voice has followed me for a long time, changing its phrasing but never its bitter intent.
Yet, as I sit here, I know the truth: I am still here. Whatever tomorrow brings, whatever judgment the world attempts to pass upon my worth, I am here today.
And outside the window, right on cue, the rain begins to fall again.