Hot City Diary: Sheriff Letter + 25 days

Getting hotter.

For the past two weeks, every morning I've been awoken by workmen banging, cutting and drilling their way through the house.  I stay in my back bedroom until the sun goes down and they pack up for the day.  That was until I destroyed all their work and hid their tools and now they'll wait for me to leave before bothering to clean up the place or fix it.

Nobody comes around anymore, they don't even bother to put up a new "For Sale" sign in the yard.

Things are nice and quiet these days.

I found a dune buggy with the keys in the ignition a few days back.  It just needs some fuel, so I've been scrounging through the couch and the change jars to find some money and I'll fill up the gas can one of these nights.  Take a shopping cart down to the gas station.

I go out at night all the time now.  It's the only time to go out without being spotted and it's easy to get away if someone does.

I've been building up my strength.  I can maybe run for a solid mile now without stopping.  It helps that I ran out of cigarettes a long time ago.

Hot City Diary: Day 320

The pool is cloudy but for the most part clear on the top levels.  It's hot today.

The sun isn't as high on the horizon.  It's not the cooker that it usually is.  I probably have another couple months to find  a way out of here or else I'm a goner.  The sun will turn me into a vegetable if I stay here another season.  I'm just starting to feel some normalcy.   I realize my house is a complete mess and to make matters worse...

There's a knock on the back door.  It's Sandy and she's with some men in suits.  She's here to finalize the divorce and the men are here to make sure there's no funny business.

The dog jumps up and down and is happy to see her.  I'm not so happy.

I sign the papers.

She leaves and takes the dog.

They put up a "For Sale" sign among the cactus in the front yard.  I laugh.  Nobody is going to buy this house.

Hot City Diary: Sheriff Letter + 5 days

The daily mark on the bedroom wall have been washed away by the maids, so I've had to make some new more permanent ones.

I'm not sure how long I've been here now, but it feels like things are heating back up...There's a letter from the sheriff that says I've got 90 days to get out or go to jail.  I'll get out, thank you very much.

I've been surviving on a few more birds and rats and when I ran out of BBs' for the BB gun I broke into some houses and stole some food and took some showers.   It's easy to know which houses are empty and I've been watching several with this binocular periscope that I taped together.

I'm running low on food and I'll probably rob another house tonight.  I've yet to find a car, but as soon as I do, I'm outta here.

Even though I've taken down the sign, the realtors have keys and they walk through the house with prospective buyers.  There's usually a security guard with them that has a stun gun.  Especially after I chased the first couple people out of here.

Stupid stun guns.

I stay in the back bathroom while they are here.

I stay in the back when the maids come to clean, also.

I stayed in the back when the movers came, too, well, after they stunned me and put me in the spare room, hogtied.

Hot City Diary: Day 311

It starts with being uncomfortably warm.

Then it starts getting hotter.

It's hot.  I've got things to do.  I just can't lay around here all day and complain how hot it is.

I get into the pool and float around.  Things are nicer in the pool.  I lay around in the pool all day.  I've got plenty of time for that.  What we don't have plenty of is food.  It looks grim in that department.  We might last another couple days and then the party is over.  We'll have to scavenge in the vacation houses.

Hot City Diary: Day 310

Colorful lights.

Hot City Diary: Day 300

Trapped.

Hot City Diaries: Day 278

We've let a couple other strays off the street in the house.  It's too hot out for them to be wandering the street and it's easy to lure them in with the smell of BBQ coming from the kitchen.

My dog and two others are living pretty high on the hog.  It's just what I need.  Re-hydrate and build up some more body fat.  I cook whatever I can get my hands on.  I drink a liter of filtered water per hour.  They've got all kinds of frozen meat, and I soon feel like one of those side walk vendors, except my only customers are these mangy dogs and myself.

So we stuff ourselves on the food and they shit all over the back yard and my dog has to make a point and shit in the house, and pee all over the house, and ok, we get it, it's your house.

Later there's a fight and we have to throw out one of the other dogs.  The small little burrito doggie can stay, but Mr. Chompers with the attitude has got to go.  He looks a little bit sad when I scurry him out the front door.  We look outside to see if he's there 10 minutes later and he's gone.  Good 'ol Mr. Chompers.

We all settle down and watch some TV.  I remember that I need to refill my pool and in the middle of a Downton Abbey marathon.  I run the neighbors hose into my yard and turn it on.  The dogs stay put on the mattress kingdom in the living room and I'm back in a flash.

I go take a shower for no reason.

The air conditioner has to be on constantly, but it's a nice 76 inside.  I can finally plot my escape, but the old bourbon that I've found in the bar is making it hard to focus.  I pull a stack of paper out of the computer printer and grab a couple pencils.  It's time to write this plan down.  I'll die if I don't get it together in time and the heat comes back.

Step One:  Find the keys to a car

Step Two:  Get out of here

That's all I really get down before I pass out with the dogs in front of the TV.  I kinda draw a map of the back road out to the mountains and a portrait of the burrito doggie and my dog sitting together.

Hot City Diary: Day 277

It's so nice in here.

Me and my dog have brought the mattress out to the living room so we can watch TV in bed.

I must have taken 5 showers.  I've washed all the gunk out of my eyes and my sight is returning.  My neighbors have the nicest selection of silk robes, so I feel sexy.  The food is phenomenal.  I'm going to have to write my neighbors a thank you note.  Never met them, but I love 'em already.  I wonder if they'll like me?  Probably not after they see what my dog did to the library.  Hmmmm, and the door.  Whatever, it's not like they brought over cookies when I moved in.

So things are great and I've had 3 microwave burritos and so has my dog in our last sitting and now we split a big bowl of bottled water.  Life is easy.

They get all the Alaskan TV shows and we're in heaven.  Simply heaven.

We fall asleep watching the episode where Sue breaks her ankle and tries to make some tea and then realizes she's all fucked up.  We drift off to sleep in the snow fields with her, searching for the magic bushes with the mild pain killer in the bark.

My dog is chasing a moose and then the moose stops and starts chasing my dog.

Sue and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Hot City Diary: Day 280

I've cut a hole in the fence between the two yards so that it's easier to get back and forth between the houses.  It's hot out and scaling that stupid fence every time I want something to eat or some fresh cool water is too much.

You'll never guess who I found in the house next door.  My dog had gone in thru the doggy door and was eating all kinds food and drinking from the toilets. Between the both of us, we've almost eaten everything, but the rice and pasta will last us a couple more weeks.

I've managed to somehow get it together.  Although if my neighbors came home right now, they would totally disagree with me.  There's fresh water and a climate that I can control, although I've had to hang a blanket over the glass door that I broke, or else all the cool air just goes outside.  The neighbors house doesn't smell funny or have mold growing on the walls.

I've been watching TV again.

One day around 3 in the afternoon, while I'm watching re-runs of my favorite Alaskan TV show, the neighbors come home.

I see a car pull up into the driveway.

"Oh Shit!"

I grab my glass of water and the sarong I've found in the closet and run for it.  The piece of fence is easy to put back into place and it almost looks like it was never cut in the first place.

I run into my house and hunker down in one of the back bedrooms but I can still hear the screams and the police sirens.  I wait a day and then go outside to find my hole in the fence seems to have gone unnoticed and they've had the glass door repaired.

It wasn't much use anymore anyways.  It did have ice and ice cold water.  I will miss that.

I wonder if the neighbors on the other side of my house are home?  After a quick scouting mission, I find that they are not home but they own some pretty big dogs and seem to make it their full time residence.

I'll have to go out in the early evening and scope out some of the houses.  That should be the first step in my budding burglary career.  What the hell is going on around here?  What's next?  Maybe I'll find a gun and start robbing people.  I need a car.  Maybe I'll find a gun and car jack somebody and get the hell out of here.

That sounds like a plan.

Hot City Diary: Day 275

Too weak.  I'm blind in my left eye and things aren't looking good for the other.  I've long since abandoned the sofa fort and left it to the hordes of fire ants and their dirt empire.  I will now make my stand under the patio table.  It's teak, and so it feels like a ship. 

Discarded wings and husks of beetles are all that's left.  Things may sound bleak but I keep seeing something at the bottom of the pool but it's yet to bite that hook that I've left dangling for it.  I'm sure I'll pull up something soon.

I'm not sure if I ate my dog or if she ran away, but she's been gone for quite some time now.  Certainly I would have some of her bones laying around if I ate her and there are none.  Maybe she went for help.

I killed the champion of the lizards two days ago and I'll kill more if they come back.  Vanquished from my back yard.  I figured out that the fire pit was their beacon and now that it's destroyed, they can't receive anymore signals from the mother ship.  I'm sure they'll send down a scout, but I'm not afraid of them anymore....

Time seems to have taken on a new meaning.  It's probably that I'm just crazy and time is different for crazy people.  It's not linear.  It jumps all over the place.  

There are sounds at night, but I ignore them and the images in my head never materialize.  The day comes and it's blistering, again.  Temps in the 100s and the inflatables have melted a little bit on the tops.  I don't dare step into the sunlight; or maybe I should.  Step into the light.  That's the last thing to do or not to do, step into the light, or remain in the shadows.  I don't want to step into the light.  I'm not ready to step into the light.  I'm not ready for the last thing to do or not to do.

I've got to get out of here.

The first clear thought in a long time.  I've got to get out of here.

I get up from under the table and need to take some time to stand up.  I haven't stood up in a really long time.  Head feels light.  I sturdy myself against my trusty ship and look with my one good eye over at the neighbors fence.  I can climb over that.  There are some Eucalyptus bushes on the other side and they don't make a good cushion but I fall into them anyways and they kinda break my fall.  

I'm in the neighbors back yard.  I look around and see no one.  It's all gravel with some iron statues set out.  An iron coyote glares at me.  I ignore it's stare and make my way to the back door, and look/fall into it.  I bounce off the window and the sound reverberates around me.  I pull on the door and it's locked.  My knock turns into a rapid banging and then tappers off into a tippity tip tap.  Nobody is home.  Or at least they are waiting for the police to arrive to come out and see what I want.

I lay under the patio on a lounger for a long enough period of time that I realize the police aren't coming.  There must be no one home.  If I can get inside and get some food and some water, then things are gonna be okay.  Then I can plot the next steps to get out of here.  Maybe I'll even use their air conditioning.

I wait until it's dark and grab that damn coyote.  I wait until the low rider with some boom tubes and a tricked out muffler comes down the street and that's when I throw the coyote through the back door.

BOOM.  BOOM BOOM.  BOOM.  CRASH.  BOOM. BOOM BOOM. BOOM.