good | bad | profile | band | remember-it |diaryland
earplugs
2012-11-10 - 12:54 a.m.

After I logged out and turned off my light I put my earplugs in. I bought the moldable kind, they shape the best to my ear so I can sleep on my side. I drifted off sometime around 3:30.

Sometime around 4:30 I heard screaming outside my window. I didn't wake like I normally do, fast and alert. The earplugs dampened everything, so the sound faded in, just noises for the first few seconds and then I heard my name.

It sounded like Patrick. I'd only heard him scream like this once before, when we were drunk in the woods of Vermont years ago, standing around a campfire.

He'd gone into Manhattan around 8:30 PM to meet up with his insane friend from home. This city's conditioned me to not care where my friends are when I'm not with them. It's too hard to keep track of everyone, even the people that I live with. I don't even text Sam when he works after 1 anymore. Any of us could be dead and it would be a week before we find out.

Patrick was screaming my name outside. First floor apartment, he might as well have been standing right next to me. I don't remember if he even tried ringing the bell. I heard him move from the front steps and start rattling the bars in front of my window, hitting the walls.

I pulled the putty from my ears and left my bedroom, hit the door button on our intercom, because we have one of those now.

I opened the front door and stood there waiting for him, because at this point I know he's lost his keys. He looked normal when he walked down the hall, and when I said 'Are you fucking serious,' he kind of just stopped where we was and said 'I got mugged.'

He came in and sat down and when Sam woke up he just stood in the doorway with a furrowed brow, look of disbelief on his face. The two of us have lived in Brooklyn a year and haven't experienced anything like this, and Patrick is here for less than a week and gets his phone, keys and money stolen.

I had told him that morning to stop walking around with his headphones on. When he came home that I was angry at him for not listening to me and angry at Sam, who's been disregarding my warnings for a year, riding his bike without a helmet while wearing headphones, brushing crumbs onto the ground and wondering why we had ants crawling all over our stuff, telling me to leave our food at the old apartment because 'We can just buy it again for the new place.'

And I know that a broken clock is right twice a day. My planning for the worst will pay off eventually, but only because shit happens eventually. I could never say I told you so, because, fuck, Patrick got mugged. They didn't hurt him, just said they had a gun and made him hand over his things.

A small part of me was mad at him for being careless, but most of me was sad because he should be able to walk around and listen to music a few blocks from his house. He should be able to feel safe where he lives. He shouldn't have gotten mugged.

People ask me how long I'm going to stay here for and I can't give them an honest answer. I think it's ridiculous that I can't think of anything better to do.

earlier - later