Day One-Hundred-Eighty, Hepatitis

I didn't make it out of my homeless hotel.  The same thing has happened before.  I get locked into this luxury life, hot showers and flush toilets.  Not very and not every time.  This ain't the Holiday Inn.  You get what you pay for or not too much less for twenty-some dollars a night.

Don't think I'm letting fitness slide.  I took a long walk around town.  And there is enough of a slope in the floor of my room to keep me in shape for the hills.  The lumps in the mattress are like pine cones and roots.  The heater keeps things plenty cold. It is not so very much different than life out on the road.

I did make friends with one of my neighbors, Amos, a homeless gent.  Some friendly church has put him up here.  He is headed to California.  As soon as he can get bus money.  He is fleeing from Alabama.  His brother, with the help of the FBI, is poisoning his water.

"To make me lose my mind," he explained.  He is getting out just in time.  I'm afraid though they will find him again.  They put a tracking device in his teeth.  And will not stop until they have stolen all of his "thirty-three-hundred-million dollars."

I hope he gets to keep some of it.  He seemed like a very nice fellow.  He rolled me a couple of cigarettes and made me a cup of coffee.  Which I was glad to receive.  It pays to be neighborly.  I hope I don't get hep' three.

I probably should have invited him to dinner.  I would have if I were braver.  But he was just a little unclean and given to passionate rants.  I worried he might get me kicked out of the local buffet.

Where for some money down I ate all that I could.  Less than the other folks there.  Many of whom were fairly old.  Many others were very fat.  We're a big-eating country, America.  I'm just doing my part.

I had chicken and catfish and mashed potatoes, okra and turnip greens.  Which I did not recognise at first.  I asked the next man in line.

"You ain't from around here, are you?"

And corn bread and something slimy and green and three different kinds of pie.  I'm quite sure I got my money's worth.  I still feel just a bit weak.  There were women there eating a lot more than me.  I do like my six-thousand calories a day, but it is hard to get them all at once.

Tomorrow, I guess, I walk it off.  If I can get out of town.  I still don't know where I'm going.  But I'll figure it out.  I always do.  In spite of my fool self.

CATFISH is a little musty.  Too bad.  It's cheap.

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