Hi-Brow + Low-Brow = Uni-Brow

There's this crazy mofo lives in my building. He can be a nice guy and he can be a real prick depending on which way the mind blows.

He's in the LATE stages of AIDs and the dementia has settled in. He never had all that strong a baseline of sanity to begin with. Maybe manic depressive? Hard to say cuz he has a history of meth use.

Some backstory bullets.

• A couple weeks ago he asked me to take in his mail while he was in the hospital. I said sure. A couple days later a friend of his shows up and tells our neighbor/pal Sue that he had said he had given his mailbox key to some guy and that guy stole all his mail. (no big deal -- but you see it's hard to help this guy)
• He was throwing temper tantrums and stuff the other night cuz his power was turned off. I called out the Sheriff's department cuz he was being so irrational. Funny, the bulk of his behavioral problems instantly cleared up when a guy with a badge and gun showed up.
• His apartment is full of piles of clothes covered in diarrhea and other substances. He says a friend of his is to blame for throwing all his clean clothes in with the diarrhea clothes.
• On temper tantrum night we ended up babysitting him for four or five hours and that was enough. The next day he asked Sue for a hundred bucks to turn his power back on. She said yes but with conditions, that he call Adult Protective Services and accept their help and that he understand that we cannot take care of him. (Karen and Sue were way at the end of their ropes prior to that night, I got there in one night -- he's always banging on doors with imaginary/unsolvable problems)
• He was put in a 72 hour mental health lockdown/observation and he was about to be placed in a facility for difficult/dangerous patients but he walked out.
• It's closing in on a week and his power is still not turned on, but new furniture was delivered the day after tantrum/sheriff's department night. He was also on the phone calling friends trying to get their credit card numbers so he could go to a hotel in Beverly Hills. He has limos pick him up and drop him off.
• I've never been around for it but he sometimes stands in front of Sue's door and screams for 20 minutes at a time. (He never raises his voice in front of me and I will continue to make sure of that ... I've given Karen implicit instructions that if he ever raises a hand to her or Sue or Sue's dog she is to drop him on the pavement really hard ... and she will too)
• His family has given up on him, he's been mean to them. Sue's point is that however mean he's been to them, he's been meaner to her.
• Our main concern is that he might light a candle and burn the place down. Also he's hallucinating/imagining things -- that's always problematic. He's dying and shit but he's real tall, has a long reach and carries a cane. He also has that meth physique still. I'm fairly certain he's still using, which I can't say I blame him for but it just complicates the matter. He scuttles about the apartment complex at all hours with little tweaky projects.
• Karen and Sue often speculate as to what he's thinking. I don't bother. You can't get there from here. They sometimes ascribe dark motives to his moves. Maybe. He is a prick but near as I can tell, at this point he moves and lives like a lizard.

The thing is, he needs to be in a hospice or some sort of clinical setting. He truly cannot take care of himself. He is a danger to self and others, but he is "alert and oriented" and has the legal right to refuse care. And it's a good thing that there's no mechanism in place to just put away inconvenient people. But it's troublesome that the one person who can make the decision is the one who is incapable of it.

Karen says only one person is making the situation worse than it has to be and that's him. I feel bad, but I ain't his mama. He's still refusing to go to the hospital and stay. Our position is that he thinks he can live on his own and take care of himself ... prove it. Friends and family have vanished from the picture. He's refusing help from social services and that put it on the neighbors doorsteps -- us. Well fuck that. I never liked the guy to begin with.

This is tough love, he needs round the clock care and anything we do to prolong him seeking it is making it worse.

What's astonishing is how the three of us really had to talk ourselves into this position and still kinda feel bad ... like we have some obligation to take care of this gigantic fuckstick who lives in our building.

He has not used this time to get his shit together. He's the same cranky, crazy, racist, miserable asshole he was last year but now he's crankier, crazier and smells like diahhrea. He will accrue no good karma from here until the end, it's just a matter of how much havoc he wreaks.

So long, thanks for playing. Do not pass GO. Do not collect liberation from the cycles of woe. Time to press the Karmic Reset Button.

He should have been gone weeks ago if not months ago but man oh man, nasty assholes NEVER die. It's amazing. Nice people cash out FAST, but assholes just last forever.

I kinda see his point. Lie around in a clinic and die? Fuck that. It probably is more fun to wander around all night, selling your AIDS drugs to buy meth, pestering people at the all-night Tai food place and taking gigantic dumps in your living room. "Here you go BOB, this is a LITTLE like a rent check! -- THHPTT!"

My pal Merty, who is a dog, barks really hard at sick and injured dogs. I used to try to ignore that facet of his psychology. Now I kinda see his point.

I'm tired of wondering if I smell smoke or dead body. I've smelled both of those smells enough already. Sue told the sheriffs the other night, we always check in with each other to see if anybody saw him and the day we don't see him, we'll call 911. He's gonna leak, then he'll die, then he'll bloat and then he'll pop. If he pops before they get him out of there, we're all going to have to move cuz that smell NEVER comes out.

Sue says it's worth taking the time to untie all your knots while you still have the cognitive faculties to do so. Then when you lose your marbles you have the goofy happy dementia rather than the angry, frightened dementia -- perpetually troubled by things you can't quite put your finger on and lashing out by habit. If you're gonna shit on your floor, it should be fun.

Arf Arf

EMT school wise ass comment

INSTRUCTOR
You need to know the respiratory system like the back of your hand.

ME
How well do we have to know the back of our hand?

"If your patient is on fire, put out the fire."

I used to be my company's "Go-to" Guy.

Now I'm the "Go fuck yourself" Guy.

TEACHER
And this afternoonm we'll be doing Poisonings and Recreational Drugs

ME
So class is cancelled?

A MOMENTOUS OCCASION
I remembered my PIN.
Weeks ago I tried to remember my PIN and the only number that came out of my rusty old noggin was a co-worker's phone extension - which is similar to my PIN. Well just now at Gelsons, a number popped into my head, so I tried it and they let me have my groceries. That's huge.

A NON-MOMENTOUS OCCASION
Also at the Century City Mall, I saw a pretty girl.

Yeah I'm in EMT school. I wasn't going to mention it to anyone so as to limit the public humiliation when I inevitably flunk and/or feint, barf and run screaming like a little girl out of class.

I try really hard to behave myself, but shit happens.

Here's one off the top of my head


Instructor
Are there any contraindications to giving your patient oxygen?

Me
Yes, if your patient is on fire.


Here's another

Instructor
And are there any ethnic groups that have a statistically lower possiblity of hypotension?

Me
Eskimos


One of my instructors is a big Buffy fan. I asked him if he would feel any hesitation to treat a wounded vampire. He said no. So vampires are inside our scope of practice. Yes, he said, just do not use wooden hypodermic needles. Weren't wooden hypos all but phased out by the seventies? Yes he said, and be careful using silver bullets around werewolves. Aren't bullets contraindicated in all patients? Yes, he said, bullets are contraindicate in all patients.

He's a groovy old hippie guy so we got us some banter going as you can see.

Some are kinda inside. Like on the first day of labs and I passed a group of students in the hall ready to go do the lab we had just done. They looked a little nervous so I comforted them by saying "Suck the stoma boys, you ain't a REAL EMT until you get stoma juice in your mouth!" They looked a little grayer after that.


While recounting wise-ass stories, here's an unrelated one from a recent meeting with a manager.

Basically he was saying the bankers had said we didn't know how to use a particular piece of software, but I knew that they were the ones who were in fact using it incorrectly so I said:

"Hey you might be able to pound in a nail with a saw. It's their gear, I'll use it any way they want, but you can't tell me it's the smart thing to do cuz I know how to use a fucking hammer."

Damn, good thing I'm in EMT school cuz they should really fire me.

I dreamt I was in the restaurant Kiev in NY. Four guys at another table were messing with me, one of them even put his hands on me.

So I went over to discuss it with them.

The ringleader asked me "Is there someone at this table you'd like to fight?"

I said "all four of you, but I'm starting with him" (biggest guy, foot taller than me) "Go outside and wait for me, right now I'm going to finish my dinner."

I was starting to come awake already, so it's kinda cheating but I added this:

"I'm not going to cheat and use my weapon but if one of you cheats - uses any kind of weapon, or doesn't wait your turn, I'm going to shoot all four of you."

Pretty bad assed eh? It's a compenstory dream cuz I'm such a chickenshit in real life.

Oh and in the second draft I'd cut the whole second part. The scene would end on "right now I'm going to finish my dinner."

Tragic thing is, I'm trying to think who's around who could even sell a scene like that? Lee Marvin and James Coburn are both dead. Sheeit, maybe Ving Rhames?

Who's a good badass these days?