Inside Out Morning

Last night I drank some tea. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately- not sleeping at all during the night, sleeping for four hours, waking up for four hours sleeping for 2. It goes on and on. I ascribe my lack of sleep to two things. No, three.
(1) I don’t have a job. Thusly, no schedule to keep.
(2) Lack of physical activity.
(3) Art.

#3 requires some explanation maybe. The positive side of my joblessness and general sloth (I like that name, General Sloth..) is that I am able to fully dedicate myself to drawing, painting and making comics. I have good days and bad with the art, as any artiste will tell you. The best of these days seem to occur directly after a certain kind of sleeplessness; lying in bed, my mind is calm and relatively lucid. Thoughts troll by, they do not race. Lines of ink take a pleasing shape and carry a sublime weight. Compositions are simple and strong. The tone is attainable. I know exactly how and why. Absorbed in my own head- My own clean, nice head. Often I’ll lay awake while in this state and passively let these abstractions run their course until I’m gently nudged toward the drawing table, where I’ll remain for hours without noticing the morning light filter through the shades or the cats running their morning laps around the apartment.
Beth does notice. She notices the stale cig smell I attempt to expunge but only mange to blanket with the incense that neither of us really like the smell of. She notes the approximate relationship between her bank account, my joblessness and the hours I’ll spend unconscious after she’s left for work.
So yeah. I need to sleep at night. I need to rejoin the general population.
Though I enjoy these late night/early morning rendezvous, it is wreaking a certain sheer fucking havoc on my daily ( though not nightly) life.
Thus the tea. I don’t often drink tea. I wish I did. Tea-drinkers seem somehow refined and tasteful, less crass than coffee drinkers. They are unassuming and thoughtful.
I am not. I drink coffee and smoke and talk too much.
The decision to drink tea last night came without a second thought, which seems odd in retrospect. I made no effort. Tea is comfortable and homey. The right kind will bring about a buzzy, heady sleep. It made sense.
I picked bags out of a tea-box marked ‘Sleepy Time Tea’. I assumed that this box contained various flavors of ‘Sleepy Time Tea’. I picked out a lemon-scented bag, drank it.
Cut to 4 am. I have not slept. This is the bad kind of non-sleep. Images click by .
Phantasmagoric nonsense cartoon figures, voices of your friends or parents on a tape loop, itchy arms and crotch. It was hopeless. The only alternative that might lead to a normal sleeping pattern is to power through the coming day and to finally allow sleep at around 8pm or so. I’ve done this before.
Before I knew it, I was walking Beth to the El-train station. It’s still dark. And my head is still clipping along with nonsense. Beth laughs at me for drinking Yerba Mate.
She’d noticed the mug with the tea bag while making coffee and figured out quickly why I’d volunteered to walk with her. Do you know what Yerba Mate is? I didn’t either. She tells me that when she worked at a coffee shop in Durango Colorado, all the hippies would drink this stuff instead of coffee. Some claimed the effects akin to a minor drug excursion. A little ripple in your lens. It filled my head with nonsense.
Beth descended the stairway into the underground station .I set off alone.
It’s a big heavy dark blue out along a busy boulevard just now coming to life with cars blurring by. Off to work. Off to work.
Either side of the boulevard was lit by streetlights that I couldn’t quite bring into focus. Big, old brownstone apartment buildings border each side. It’s still very dark. A few pedestrians joined me on the sidewalk. I shuffle along with the nonsense.
The Hispanic man twenty yards ahead of me stops for a second and continues. I can’t quite make out the mass that drew the mans’ attention away from his walk, but as I near this mass slumped against black iron fencing it becomes clear to me that it is in fact a person. I slowed a bit and tried to bring it all in focus. I tried to quiet the nonsense reel. It was a young woman; Early twenties, a department store bag sits beside her. Knees to her chest on the ground . Curled.
She is well dressed and must have recently washed her hair- it seemed to glow in a disproportionate way. The reflection from the streetlights made it so.
She clutched an open cell phone . A very shiny cell phone.
She was weeping. Sobbing. Like a child.
I couldn’t quite wrap my head around this sight though the nonsense loop had at some point clicked off. I started talking and found myself surprised at the sound of my own voice. Too loud. Wavery.
“Are you okay?”
I stood five feet from her. She moved her head in response but I couldn’t tell in what indicative direction. It seemed to jerk a little bit is all. The sobs seemed to respond to this movement; a louder, awkward sob jerked itself out right when she shook. Like a baby. It wasn’t clear to me. Fuzzy.
I started to feel kind of stupid. I’m not really sure why.
“Do you need help?”
She clearly shook her head no.
I had by this point begun to feel real dumb. Was it inappropriate of me to speak to her at all? What if something really terrible had just happened to her? What if she did need help? It wasn’t yet six am. It was twenty degrees out.
“Okay” I said in a voice that was again far too loud for my head .I resumed the pace I’d maintained before spotting the sobbing woman.
Had Her Father just died? Had a boyfriend thrown her out for good?
3 blocks till home. It suddenly seemed far lighter outside.
Had she been assaulted? As I turned the corner onto my street and off the busy boulevard (1 block till home) I saw on the sidewalk opposite me a familiar movement. A black spot like ink on paper moving.
A little black cat running under a parked car. A little black cat the same size as my little black cat.
I approached the car and made little kissy sounds. The cat came out from under the car immediately. It made a beeline to my leg and started purring while it rubbed against my calf. Was this my cat Rita? I looked closer. It was not. It’s a dirty little alley cat with bright green eyes. But it’s so nice. How can a cat be this nice? Is it mentally ill?
I looked around hoping its owner would pop his head out a window and call for the thing. Alas.
I was far too wierded out to deal with this. I started off toward home. The cat followed. It walked along side me, inches from my feet.
I stood on my porch and pet this perfect little black cat for a minute. I was in awe. A certain kind of awe I can’t quite explain.
I went in and got some food for it and watched kitty devour.
The kitten was filthy, but beautiful. It’s hard to explain.
Who sent me this perfect little cat? This is more than a ripple.
I left her outside for a bit- 20 minutes or so. I considered going to sleep. I think I could have at that point. I wanted to retreat for a while, wake up and remember this crazy morning as I checked my empty porch for signs of black cats with bright green eyes.

Something urged me to keep checking up on this cat. I went inside and out again three, four times.I decided I couldn’t live with myself if the cat was run over. Somebody should have this cat.
I proceeded to lock my own cats in the bedroom and brought Little Black indoors. It'd get hairy if they met my cats. I'm not sure I'd want to expose them to such stress. It'd be totally alien to them. They don't leave the apartment either.
I let her sniff for a bit before setting up a litter box and food on the back porch- the enclosed one that leads to the basement. She’ll have room to run around before I figure out what to do with her. I checked back a few times in the next half hour. Each time the same sight: green eyes staring up at the door waiting for it to open. I had to do more.
I dug up an old blanket and formed a little nest for it on the porch. She climbed right in a snuggled up. Perfect cat.
I began writing this post minutes later. Took two hours to write this, including cig breaks and kitty breaks.
I still wonder about that woman. Is this not that uncommon? Why haven’t I seen more people weeping on the street? It doesn’t seem too far-fetched when you think about it. Then again, I'm not sure what really goes on out there at all.
I think I’ll wait until Beth gets home to really think about what to do with Her-Little Black, I mean.
The anticipation might keep me awake. We’ll see.
Waitaminit! Maybe the girl lost her perfect cat. I just thought of that now…