C'MON, GODDAMMIT, C'MON

Sherman Jimmo wakes me rudely
from my slumber on the train.
I slip on pants and t-shirt, step
out into the hall. Caged between
two sets of pneumatic sliding
doors, Sherman Jimmo, a duvet
draped over his right shoulder, jabs
his finger at a button
that needs a firm push, not a quick
poke, if ever it's to do its
Star Trek thing and open. Jimmo's
back is to me. Over and over,
he jabs at the door and intones
“C'mon, goddammit, c'mon.” (This
is what awoke me, the rhythmic
repetition, not of steel wheels
over rail seams, which I have trained
my brain to ignore, but of muttered
imprecations. “C'mon, god-
dammit, c'mon. C'mon, goddammit,
c'mon.”) So I come on and push
the button on the door aft Jimmo's
ass. I tap him on the shoulder
and he pauses his infernal
iterations. Jimmo doesn't know
where his bedroom is. Jimmo
thinks he is in London. Jimmo
has clearly imbibed something
in his bedroom on the train
that has gone and addled poor
Sherman Jimmo's brain. But part
of Jimmo's mental apparatus
recalls that there's a ticket
in the pocket of his shorts.
(That is how I came to learn
Sherman Jimmo's name and how
I learned the location of his
quarters, which Jimmo had forgot.)
As I walk behind him, down
the narrow hall, the duvet
on his shoulder slips, and I see
that Sherman Jimmo's cargo shorts
are soaked in Sherman Jimmo's piss.