Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Real Loo-Loo.

Wind outside is fierce. The sky is that ruddy shit brown only an El Paso dirt storm can create. I sit quietly - no radio, no tv, no internet, the only sound was low whistling from the gales - like I was saying, I sit in my darkened apartment on this shitty afternoon - the smell of dusty ozone and stale cigarettes - and ponder an event which happened yesterday.
I was waiting in a McDonald's downtown to meet an old friend and give him a signed copy of my new book. While sitting in the crowded restaurant - all the downtown nacos staring at my oddly-dressed gringo ass like I was la migra - I was overcome with an extremely sever anxiety attack. A real loo-loo. The whole enchilada. Shakes. Nausea. Flop sweat. Stomach pains. Dizziness. I stumbled up to the counter under the fey stare of the late-teen cutey who was at the register and I barked out an order for a large Dr. Pepper. I had to get something in me. He grinned and rapidly retrieved my drink solely to get this deranged looking mother fucker from his view.
I returned to my table, sat, thought. Quivering like a terminal junkie, wiping the oh so attractive cascade of sweat beads from my ravaged, pink face with a sole, flimsy napkin. It dawned on me, it surfaced at last. Months of debate and analyzing and cross-doubting surfaced into this one revelation. Every cell in my body now screaming for me to leave - the very thought burning in my over-active brain. I know I have to escape, get out, flee this hell I have put myself in. As the waves of paranoid nausea ebbed away, I came to the final conclusion - if I stay here, I will die.

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