Day 11

I’m just now waking up. It is 4:25 PM. LOL. I received an unusual phone call in the middle of the night. Or early in the morning. However you look at it. The ringtone woke me up at 3:16 AM. I know that time is the same everywhere. But in the caller’s mind, time was ‘three hours earlier’ because they were sitting in the state of Oregon. I was too tired and, frankly, too surprised to receive the call to correct the caller. The caller was a female I worked with decades ago. She was a co-worker. We flirted with each other on the job to kill time. She weighed too much for me to ever seriously consider fornication. Anyway, as she began explaining something to me, the reason for her call, I was extremely surprised as well as tired. Why on earth would this person be calling me after at least twenty-five years? She was saying something about her son when I interrupted her. “How did you get my phone number?” That’s all I gave a shit about. LOL. She was telling me something about her son in what seemed a somewhat unfortunate situation, yet I wanted to know how it could be possible for her to have the means to bother me in the middle of the night. Or early in the morning. However you look at it. “( ) gave me your number.” Yup. We text each other during football season. We are Michigan fans.

Me and ( ) and the lady on the phone worked at the same place. It surprised me that ( ) and the lady on the phone were still in touch. ( ) had never once brought her up in the last ten or so years we have been texting about Michigan football. Then again, why would he? But then again then again, why would he feel he could give out my phone number? That irritated me. This is all gonna make me sick, I thought, this kind of irritation could provoke a mild fever that could burn into something big. All the while I’m thinking these things over, the lady on the phone is explaining a thing to me.  A thing about her son. I am comprehending what she is saying even while I am thinking my own thoughts. I will synopsize what this broad was taking a long time to say: I lived in the town where her son was last seen. Local authorities were of no help to her. So she wanted me to go to a certain spot he was seen at, go twice a day or night at random times and see if he was there, or anybody was there who “looked like they could help.” I laughed out loud at that last part. I said without thinking, blurted it out really, "I’m supposed to just talk to some stranger and say 'can you be of help,' like, what to some old lady, some kid, some bum, just anybody?"  "I DON’T KNOW." She literally shouted. At 3:30 in the middle of the night. Or in the early morning. Whatever. There was a pause in the conversation. Not that it was much of a conversation. There was a pause in her talking at me. I just sat there in my bed. This was unexpected. The timing. I don’t believe in coincidence. I’m in the middle of recovery, trying not to relapse, trying to ward off illness. Trying to save people from me. I couldn’t help but think this was meant to fuck me up somehow. “Just feel it out, OK?" she finally says. “Oh-kaaay,” I said. I’ll synopsize the rest of the shit: she told me how old her son was, she told me about the circumstances that led to this stupid shit, she told me about the person who claimed to have seen him at the location I was supposed to go to, she said she would text me a couple of pictures of her son, if I would just go a couple of times for the next three or four days, she knew it was unlikely anything would come of it, but at least she could tell herself she tried. As she said this last part I was thinking well, she could’ve flown out here, got a hotel room and been at this place all day but I kept that to myself. Maybe she was poor.  I don’t know. Whatever. I wouldn’t have the kind of money for that kind of shit.  Anyway, I agreed.  After the call was finally over, it took me forever to fall back asleep.  I ain't going down there now.  There would be nowhere to park.  I'll go late tonight.  Take a quick look.  LOL.  Stupid.

Intensity: Zero.  Sub-zero. LOL.

Frequency: Dormant.

Factors: This will take my mind off my own illness.  That is good.  But. . .this location the son might have been seen at is the bum park downtown.  If I should happen to see one particular female bum down there, this could all become problematic.  There will definitely be an opportunity to commit a crime.