It’s around 8:00 PM on August 25th. I have four more hours left to live in my forever home. The home my own mother purchased for me to own after she was dead. The deal? I had to pay her $300 a month from my SSDI check to cover her expenses, and I had to run her errands if she were ever put into “a home.”

But she fucked me over. She’s a gas lighter. I’m autistic. It’s a combination rife with sickness.

I play a last DJ set. I have an extreme noise sensitivity. It’s so bad my mom threatened to move me out of the condo 11 years ago because the noise was driving me insane. But then the condo appreciated $150,000 in value and suddenly she was more interested in figuring out a way to get me out of there.

The noise is deafening, but I didn’t grow up with autistic mom support groups and noise cancelling headphones. I grew up learning how to cope at the end of the wooden spoon, or the leather belt. Donna loves to hit kids.

I developed a love for books and music. Playlists were always my thing, even before they existed. I used to try and make dance mixes with a cassette 4-track. Man, I miss my DJ controller so much.

The beat, sorting them out, putting them in order, creating a synergistic whole that wraps me in a world of love and rhythm. It blocks out the noise. It blocks the mundanity of the upstairs neighbors vacuuming their ceramic tile floor for the 15th time in the past 13 days.

The beat is fucking shamanic.

And then it’s over. 2 hours where I flew.

I gather up what belongings I both need and can carry, and abandon the rest. My whole life. Now it’s their life. The Christopher Michael Barnhart Special Needs Trust tasked with providing for my well-being until I die has fulfilled it’s real purpose: getting that damned condo back for a rich white octogenarian who already has six other houses.

My mom’s a real bitch.

The dog is excited. She loves adventures! We make it two blocks while she wags her tail and smiles at me all happy about wandering around with pops sniffing at the night.

Shit. I forgot my wallet. I have to go back. They’ve posted security because they think I’m going to burn the building down. Nah. That would be the autistic guy in 106. You know, the guy who almost DID burn down the building when he started a FIRE. He’s still welcome. The drug dealers are too.

But I called the upstairs neighbor a cunt, so I should be out on the streets.

(The upstairs neighbor IS a cunt. I defy anyone who meets her to reach an alternate conclusion. And take it up with Hannah Gadsby if you’re choking on the word. I don’t fucking care.)

I go back for the wallet. Fuck ’em. I’m over the whole “I will die by cop!” thing, but if they do shoot me I don’t much care.

I don’t like being outside. I’m a shut-in. I have severe monotropism. I love my dog and my computer. Everything else can go to hell.

I find a place to sleep in the Sehome Village Parking lot. It’s not legal. There are signs everywhere. What do I care? I do it anyway. The dog is still excited we’re going to sleep outside. That fades over time.

It’s exciting and defiant. I think of William Gibson novels and it’s easy to see myself as some bargain-basement Chase, down on his luck and cast out on the streets to die. But where’s my Molly?

I’ve already met my Armitage.

I’ve crossed a border. I’m not one of “us” anymore. I’ve become a “them.”

There is no more family. There are no friends. There is just me, my dog, and the darkness.

There are no beats.

I fall asleep under the sodium lights and the “Don’t even THINK about trespassing here you total scumbag loser!!!!” signs posted all over cheery liberal Bellingham.

Shane Maus is my soundtrack.

I always fall asleep listening to comedy. It helps prevent nightmares.

I have no idea what to do. My “trustee” helpfully sent me literature on “how to be homeless in Whatcom County.” It referenced the Base Camp: a totally defunded and defunct service that no longer exists. The property owner is trying to sell and sics the police on the homeless in an extremely aggressive fashion.

Go Fund Me tells me to start getting donations by reaching out to friends and family. I want to scream at the screen: I did! That’s how I wound up homeless.

I don’t know what to do. There are too many changes. Too many places where I can’t take my dog. I’m not letting some crackhead I don’t know watch my dog! People talk in this weird pseudo-woke patois where dogs need to display “respectful” behavior and it all just sounds confusing and fascist wrapped in a soy chai namaste facade.

Why don’t neurotypical people just say what they fucking mean?

The woman who runs the pack downtown gives me pitying looks on the sidewalk. She and I lock eyes. We both know I won’t make it.

I just want to fly my skyscale and stream the beat. I want to sleep in a bed. I want to cuddle my dog and listen to Brian Regan and Wanda Sykes. That’s my entire bucket list for the rest of my life.

My dog and I don’t want to be on any more adventures. It seemed fun, but I’m pushing 60 and she’s 10 1/2.

I just want to go home.