ENTRY 6: PANIC

I’m sitting here in my room feeling… comfortably numb.

Like that old Pink Floyd song. God I miss listening to my own music. I miss classic rock, the shit with soul in it. All they play in this place is that light elevator music shit over the loudspeakers. Makes me feel like I’m in a dentist’s waiting room that never ends.

For the first time since being here I’m not anxious about anything. I’m in that weird zone that exists when everything in life is on fire but somehow I’m okay with it. We used to call it gambler’s glee at the meetings. If I could tell you the number of times I’ve left the casino borderline suicidal because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pay my bills or take care of my problems you’d gasp. But sometimes the glee hits when that happens and it just feels sort of euphoric. I can’t explain it. I feel it now, even though my landlord is probably throwing all my shit into a dumpster and the Manzoni brothers are probably camped outside my apartment, but I don’t care.

It’s been four days since we started this shit and exactly that long since I’ve had a cigarette. The cravings are almost gone now and I feel a little more clear in the head, but I ran out of ibuprofen and my toothache is starting to come back. Dr. Nelson has been absent since yesterday and Waters and Roberts have been hush hush. They've been looking at me funny too like I did something wrong and to be honest I'm feeling like whatever that shit was yesterday with Dr. Nelson leaving the room might be serious.

I hope they don't cancel the trial or something... it's only been 4 days.

I guess that means I’ve made twelve hundred bucks. Way to go, me. The first thought that hits me is I could take that to the tables and double or triple it in a few hours. Second thought is I’ll lose it anyway. Even if I win, I’ll lose it after. I never could stop. That’s the problem. Always chasing that one big win that’s gonna free me from everything, but it’s always just out of reach.

Fucking money, man.

Why the fuck does life have to cost so much money anyway?

I keep turning that over and over in my head. Everything has a price tag. My rent back home was $1250. Electric was another $120 easy. Food? I was lucky if I kept it under $300 a month living off ramen and frozen shit. Cell phone $85, internet $70, credit cards I’m still paying minimums on from two years ago, fucking cigarettes 8 bucks a pack… it all adds up to over two grand a month just to exist. Just to not be homeless and freezing. And after all that there’s nothing left. No savings. No emergency fund. Nothing for the future. You just keep grinding month after month, praying nothing breaks or gets sick or goes wrong. It’s fucking exhausting. Life is tough nowadays. We’re all just paying to stay alive and hoping one day it’ll magically get better. It never does.

I don’t even know how my life got like this. Dropping out of high school probably didn’t help. And watching my mother blow half our grocery budget on scratch tickets probably didn’t properly educate me on how to handle shit. She’d spend an hour scratching tickets at the kitchen table and lose and we’d have to eat PB&J sandwiches and beefaroni for a month. Before my dad went to prison we actually had money. He may have been a murderer but he kept the lights on and took us out for pizza every now and then. He got locked up when I was thirteen and everything turned to shit. Mom started drinking heavy and I started hustling out in the streets looking for fast cash. Funny how that works. Or maybe it’s not funny at all. Maybe I was just fucked at birth. Life’s a real son-of-a-bitch if you ask me.

And what the hell is life anyway?

Does anyone ever ask themselves that question? Seems like most people are just on autopilot, living a life of “supposed to do this now…” type thinking. It’s been hitting me pretty hard lately. Why are we here? What is it to be alive, and WHY are we alive? Out of all the infinite ways reality could’ve gone, here we are. Billions of conscious meat bodies running around on a spinning rock, worrying about rent, cigarettes and whether the New England Patriots are gonna make the Super Bowl. I mean, seriously… what the fuck is all this? Why the fuck is life even a thing? There could be nothing at all, just blackness and we don’t exist, but not existing seems impossible because something has to exist, right? We don’t just exist though. No… we are aware of our existence and that seems even more fucked up. Being aware of being aware… Christ, I’m in a rabbit hole right now.

At Gamblers Anonymous they used to talk about a higher power or God or Jesus, but I’m not sure about any of that. Let’s say there is a God… okay, why the fuck are we here? Why did you make us, and why is reality like this? Why does everything have to eat something else to survive? Why is life a constant uphill climb and struggle?

Or are we all in just a cold, unfeeling universe with no God or gods at all? Maybe consciousness is just an accident... Or, what if there are higher beings out there looking down at us the same way we look into our microwaves as we heat up a plate of chicken wings? Is Earth just a giant fucking rotisserie being cooked by the sun so a giant fucking alien can eat us? I’m getting worked up. I gotta stop.

Anyway… today was weird.

Randy’s been out of it since the dose this morning. At lunch he just sat there poking at his chicken salad and shrugging off anything I said. I tried to talk with him. “You good, man?” He looked at me and muttered, “Wife’s probably fucking the mailman right now. What do you care?” Then went back to stabbing his chicken as if it was the source of all his problems.

Michael looked pissed the whole day. He kept rubbing his temples and muttering to himself in Spanish. Every time someone tried to talk to him he just gave this short little shake of his head like he couldn’t be bothered. When I asked him if he was alright he said, “No esta bien, Jake. Nada esta bien.” Then walked away.

Emily slept most of the day. When she finally came out she looked pale and didn’t eat anything. I heard Lynette arguing with Dr. Roberts about making a phone call to her kids. She kept saying, “They’re little, they need to hear my voice,” and he just kept repeating “Not possible.” She got so mad she picked up one of the chairs and slammed it against the wall. The sound jolted everyone in the room. Roberts didn’t even flinch. Just said, “Do that again and you’re out.”

The others were just existing. Chuck played chess by himself in the corner. Amanda was reading and asked me about my life. I told her I was just a lost soul. She smiled and said I should read the book she’s reading when she’s done with it.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“The Holographic Universe,” she said. “It talks about how reality might not even be solid. Like everything we see is just a projection, some kind of illusion.”

I laughed a little. “Sounds like the kind of shit that would make me even more fucked up than I already am.”

She smiled and said, “Maybe that’s the point, Jake. Sometimes you gotta get more lost before you find where you really are.”

I didn’t say much after that. Just watched it all and tried not to think too hard.

What the fuck, someone’s knocking on my door but I’m just gonna keep typing.

“Go ahead, open it.”

Dr. Waters steps in with two security guards right behind him. All three of them are looking at me right now serious as fuck.

“Jake. You need to come with us. Immediately.”

I don’t feel like getting up so I’m just going to keep typing.

“Why?”

Waters glances at the guards, then back at me. “You had visitors today.”

Oh shit… the Manzonis… how???

Waters talks again, “Unannounced visitors. No one is supposed to know where this center is located. We need to discuss how they found you—”

Whoa… I can hear someone screaming down the hallway right now.

“DIABLO! DIABLO!”

It sounds like Michael.

Crashing… something shattering, something hitting walls. I hear Lynette screaming “What the fuck is happening?!” and Emily yelling for help. More doors are flying open. People are shouting. Michael’s still screaming.

Waters and the guards just bolted toward the noise.

Shit. Did those bastards get inside?

Or maybe Michael just went Section 8.

This place sounds like a goddamn riot now... I gotta go

NEXT ENTRY

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