You wake up hungover. You're laying across a slab of cold flat concrete and rolled up under your head is a doormat. 'Ugh.'� You sit up slowly and brush gravel off of your clothes. The sun is just beginning to come up--Hem warned that it did this also. You check your pockets to be sure, and surprisingly it's all still there: wallet, keys, a three-fourths empty pack of smokes. At first you don't even know where you're at. Your vision comes into focus and you understand that you've been sleeping in Okris' driveway. You only vaguely recall how you ended up here, only that you were pissy-drunk and you didn't want to be around people. You wonder what day it is and the sky's guess is as good as yours. You're only a few blocks away from The Porch. You decide to go to The Porch.
You wonder if Neil will be up yet? You surmount the laborious three-block walk to his house. You're passing like a ghost through a bad dream as the morning dry-heaves into productivity and cars pull out of their driveways one after the other in the twisted choreography of sunrise America. You're still drunk. This isn't just a hangover. You're still fucked up. You have nowhere to lay down and recuperate, so you have to make that decision: do you start drinking again, or do you suffer towards sobriety? The decision is an easy one.
God, or whatever, bless The Porch. You see it come into focus as you round the corner on Evans Avenue. The first thing you see is the rickety fence that surrounds the side yard where dirt is despot and grass is a dirty word--It winds around Second Street where you hang a right and approach the driveway. Cars rush towards you down the one way street, hurrying languidly into the angry day. You stop for a moment to prop yourself up against the fence with your right hand and wretch.
There are no cars in Neil's driveway, but there will be soon enough. Neil doesn't have a car anymore, he and Okris were driving through Punta Gorda recently and were hit from behind by a Mack truck. Neil works from home now, and Okris' brain still rattles around in his skull. You turn another right into Neil's driveway, into the driveway of The Porch as it has come to be known over intoxicated time. 'The Porch'� is an epithet whose origins are simple and logical: there is a large porch made of wood in front of the rickety house that wraps around to the right, and when downtown Fort Myers was still alive with creativity and camaraderie that was where everybody used to sit and shoot the shit. It was still 'The Porch,'� but that was several years ago--Life had moved indoors since then, the excitement had taken refuge in shadows.
You push open the wooden gate on its hinge and step into the perimeter. The dogs are sprawled out in the sand by the front fence. They look at you wearily. Even for them the morning is too crusty for barking. 'Dogs,'� you say to greet them, nodding your head in their tired direction. You go left up the four stairs to the left that lead up to the house. You cross the porch of The Porch. The front door hangs open like it always does. You walk inside.
Neil is lying on the filthy leather couch in the living room. His eyes peel open as the sound of the creaking floorboards under your feet lifts him from slumber. 'What's up, Laddy?'� he asks groggily, rhetorically.
'Morning, Neily,'� you answer. His eyes lilt as his dreams wilt from projection. You eye the small square personal fridge that stands post next to one of the comfy chairs and an exclamation point pops in your mind. 'Hey, Neily, you mind if I steal an oat soda?'�
Neil grumbles. 'No, go ahead. If there're any left.'�
You open the door to the fridge. Eureka! There are five Miller High Lifes left. You reach in and pluck one from its cooling perch. You flop down in the comfy easy chair beside the tiny refrigerator and twist off the cap on the bottle. You take a long, slow hit from the frosty beer. All hope has returned to you. The television is on, like it always is, at the front of the room, to the left of the murky windows with shades half-drawn. The volume is minimal and the TV Guide channel scrolls up listlessly. The time is seven forty-six in the a.m. You feel another one of those days coming on. 'I feel another one of those days coming on,'� you sigh quietly to yourself.
You take another pull from the watery beer, then set it down on the arm rest between you and the other comfy chair. You slip one of your few remaining cigarettes out of its pack, then feel around your pocket for a lighter with no luck. You glance about the long marble table in the middle of the room. It is covered in a thin film of cigarette ash. Empty beer bottles lay strewn about the table like bloodless soldiers waiting to fall over and die. Both ashtrays are overflowing. An empty pizza box punctuates one corner. You spot a black lighter directly in front of you. You flick it. It has spark, but no fuel. You spot a clear green lighter tucked beside the larger of the two ashtrays. You reach over and test its usefulness. It has fuel, but no spark. With your cigarette dangling from your lips you hold the fuel button down on the green in your left hand, you hold the black up to it and spark it with your right-- Necessity is the bastard child of obsession. A flame appears before you and you carefully steer your smoke towards it. You have nicotine and you have alcohol--A fleeting contentedness settles upon you like dust.

'Moby, shut the fuck up!'� The consternation tugs you from a dreamless sleep. Wakefield is sitting beside you, to your left, in the other comfy chair. He's leaning forward and his eyes rattle behind his glasses. You look over and spot Moby sitting slumped over on the leather couch with a bottle of Bud held in his lap, his Orca beer belly pushing out of his shirt.
'All I'm saying is I want to be eaten by sharks,'� Moby says.
'Moby, I swear to God, I'm gonna come over there and smack you!'� Wakefield's long blonde hair jangles around his head like soundless chimes.
'But don't you think that'd be a cool way to die?'� Moby is a very talented individual. Nobody can piss people off the way he can.
'Okay, Moby, I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take you out on a kayak one of these days, and we're gonna throw a bunch of chum in the water,'� Wakefield says. 'Then when the sharks come up good and hungry we're gonna throw you in.'�
'I'm sayin'.'�
'Jesus Fucking Christ, Moby!'�
'Morning, gentleman,'� you say as you prop yourself up and tuck the footrest back under the comfy chair. 'We're back on sharks again, huh?'�
'Motherfucker's a broken record,'� Wakefield says as he sits back.
'I was jacking-off yesterday to...'�
'Moby!'� you shout. 'It's too early, man.'�
'It's two o'clock in the afternoon,'� he laughs.
'Than it's too late,'� you say. 'Who's got a soda for the kid?'�
'There's Buds in the bar fridge,'� Moby offers. 'Grab me one while you're up?'�
You push yourself up from the easy chair with a moan. You see Neil in the computer room doing his work as you pass by the open doorway. 'Howdy, Neil,'� you state plainly. He looks up from behind his long stringy black beard. 'Yo, Laddy.'� He looks back down. You pass through the beaded curtain into what might have once been a dining room. There is a table in there covered with discarded bills and scraps of paper. The whole house seems to sink with you as you walk, slipping softly into the cemetery ground. Beside the table is a chair covered in rat shit. You pass through, past the bar fridge, into the kitchen, past the food fridge, past the kitchen, to the back bathroom. You go to splash water on your face but the sink doesn't give any water. You look up at me in the bathroom mirror. My hair is mussed and I haven't shaved in a week. You bare your teeth at me in the mirror, they are yellow and jigsawed. We haven't worked in months. We haven't eaten in days. Our clothes smell like the streets. We are a mendicant piece of shit hustling poems through holes in the ozone layer. You stick your tongue out at me, then turn away from the mirror. You saunter back through the kitchen, into what once might have been a dining room. You can't discern whether it is you or the house that is swaying so much. You produce two Bud bottles from the bar fridge and then make your way back to the living room.
'Moby, I swear to God, if I have to come out there you're gonna be looking for your teeth between the sofa cushions!'� Neil exclaims as you meander by. He means it. Neil put Moby in the hospital once. Moby is a very talented individual.
'Just tone it the fuck down,'� Wakefield says. 'At least until Neil's done working.'�
'Your beer, sir,'� you say as you extend the bottle. He takes it. 'Thanks, Moby,'� you say, holding up your Bud, and you slide back into the comfy chair. It's six hours later and you're still drunk, still woozy from last night's debauchery. You twist off the cap and take a good hit.
Just then Okris pushes through the gate outside and ambles into the house. 'What's up, guys?'� He's wearing the same smile he always wears. On other people such an external optimism is sickening, but on Okris it works. You're always happy to see him. He sits down on the couch, a safe distance away from Moby.
'Chris and Okris,'� Moby says, pointing from you to Okris.
'He's Okris,'� you say. 'I'm oh-no-Chris.'�
'Yo, Laddy,'� you hear from the computer room. Neil calls everybody Laddy.
'Hey, Neil,'� Okris returns, twisting his head in that general direction.
'You just gettin' off of work?'� Wakefield asks.
'Yeah,'� Okris rejoins. 'Had a pretty good day, too.'� Okris was always having a good day.
'It's the curse of the drinking classes, as Oscar Wilde would say,'� you tell them, holding your beer into the air.
'What is?'� asks Wakefield.
'Work.'�
'Well I quit drinking,'� Okris announces.
'Do you want a beer?'� Moby asks him.
'Sure.'� Upon instruction Okris disappears through the beaded curtain and returns bottle-in-hand.
'Well, that should be enough work for a Tuesday,'� Neil says, suddenly appearing behind you, stretching. He reaches into the personal fridge beside you and retrieves a Miller's.
'Is it Tuesday?'� you ask.
'Sure is,'� Wakefield responds, sipping a High Life.
'To Tuesday,'� you say, standing up. Everybody cheers with their beers. You plop down on the couch between Okris and Moby so Neil can have his captain's chair.
If you could elect anyone to sainthood, you would nominate Neil without a second thought. The Porch has been open to anybody who could call themself a friend since you can remember. People came and went all day long, on into night. If you were stranded downtown with nowhere to sleep, you could always saunter right onto The Porch and kick back in one of the comfy chairs. If you needed an oat soda, somebody would always have a beer for you, provided they had enough for themself. Cigarettes were passed around like poker chips. Conversations ornate with guffaw stained the air. Even Moby was always welcomed back, eventually. It was Neil's gift to existence, The Porch, a reliable harbor in an otherwise unforgiving world.
As Neil picks up the remote control to travel through channels you hear Wakefield mumble, 'Jesus Fucking Christ.'� You look at him, then look out the front window. An SUV has just turned off of Evans and is going down Second Street the wrong way. A moment passes, and then a tremendous crash splits the awkwardness of the outside afternoon. The sound of crushing metal, the sound of shattering glass. You look at each other and start to get up to see. Just then a grown man in a clown costume walks past the front fence, in the direction of the crash. He stops and peers in the front window, seeming to make eye contact with everyone inside. The dogs are going fucking nuts, barking and jumping at the ridiculous figure on the other side of the fence. The guy is in full attire: white painted face, black circles around the eyes, red painted-on oversized smile, curly red wig, with a polka-dotted jumpsuit and enormous red shoes. He jumps from one foot to the other, from side to side. He does a little dance in a circle. He waves. And then, just like that, he walks off, into the unknown territory of everything else that was happening on the indifferent earth. You all look around at each other, one by one, not sure what to say. And then, in unison, you shrug, and wonder what absurdities tonight might bring.

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