The Rest of the Story

I’m picking up where I left off in my story of the Rise and Fall of Dan Tyler.
Bear with me.
When Caren and I moved to Portland, Maine after my birthday in 1999, we had a plan to go there with several friends of ours. One of them, Jessica, had spent many summers waitressing at a place in Kennebunkport (where the Bushes liked to vacation) and she had many a tale about how lucrative the jobs were, and that she had previously been rolling in the dough.
Just prior to the move, I had gone to NYC for the first time with two other friends of mine for a post-semester stretch-of-the-legs, as it were, after a long, but enjoyable stint at MSU.
Caren and I had, by this time, recognized we weren’t suited to be in a romantic relationship anymore, especially as my gayness was bursting at the seams, and indeed, while in New York, I met and fell in love with a young man named Nick along with the City, itself.
New York is sweltering in the summer, frosty in the winter, and so-so in the Fall, but, ah, New York in Spring! It’s the stuff the Beetles and Sinatra would sing about. There is a bounce in everyone’s step after the freezing snows, and on every street-corner, there is a flower kiosk, where a bunch of roses can be bought for five bucks or less.
Nick and I traipsed together with my friends Bret and Tony (from Montana) laughing, and dancing, and loving life. Good times.
Caren and Jessica in the meanwhile had packed up Jessica’s Volvo stationwagon along with Tucson and Jessica’s dog and boyfriend and had started East; thus upon my return to Bozeman, I leapt into that tiny Nissan Sentra we used to own and followed a week or so behind.
Frustratingly, when we arrived in southern Maine, not only was housing very difficult to find, but jobs were in short supply. Also, it turned out that Jessica was pregnant, so she and her boyfriend decided to head back to Arizona-where we had met them in the first place once-upon-a-time.
Caren snagged a job, that I cannot exactly say was cushy, but it was VERY lucrative--waiting tales at a crab shack right on the wharf where all the tourists from New England would ferry up to Nova Scotia and back, and although she stank like a deep fryer every night when she came home, Caren did quite well for herself.
As for me, well, I landed three different jobs all at once, waiting tables at three separate, yet struggling restaurants, and after a while, I decided to dump out of the restaurant biz and try something new.
I had seen an advertisement for “direct care workers” who assisted mentally and physically handicapped young adults in group homes, and I thought that would be much more to my liking.
And it was.
Dear god, I cannot sufficiently explain how proud I was of myself and the work I was doing. All I knew is that I was helping people, actually making a difference, if you can dig it, and I didn’t have to sell my soul doing a song and dance for some crummy tips!
Of the many clients I came to work with, one young man captured my heart*, and to this day, I cannot think of him without tears welling I my eyes, and there is a sliver of my heart, which will ever remain cold and empty.
*Note: my feelings for him never ventured into a romantic crush or anything like that. No, the love, admiration, and mutual trust which developed between the two of us was highly professional and on the up and up, yet at the same time, it became profoundly personal, intimate, and brotherly. Keep that in mind, as you read: I loved Jerome as the younger brother I never had and I attempted to treat him as the older brother I’d always wanted--with dignity and respect and trust, and the promise that I would never abandon him.
As I have said, all of my clients had some degree of mental retardation, most of whom also suffered a wide variety of physical problems from blindness to MS to traumatic head injuries, but Jerome, was wicked smart. I imagine, he would have scored quite highly on an I.Q. test. Moreover, he was extremely perceptive, unselfish, and kind, but whatever sick god there may be out there cursed Jerome with a horrific condition called Lesch-Nyan Syndrome-an extremely rare condition (at the time, there had been only seven documented cases as such, worldwide) which played havoc on his metabolism, and somehow, this affected his mind so that he would involuntarily attempt to hurt himself and needed to be encased in full restraints 100% of the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-fucking-five days a year.
The onset of his disease became evident when he was about five years old, when this normally healthy and precocious little boy became wracked with horrible back pains and seizures. At first his doctors were afraid he might be epileptic. The he was diagnosed with early onset cerebral palsy. Finally, a full body examination revealed he had developed kidney stones the size of GOLF BALLS!
I was stunned to read this in his dossier, remembering how terribly they hurt you, and presciently, I would be inflicted by such torturous pain. But mine were the size of rice grains; how a little boy’s managed to grow so large...well, nature, never ceases to amaze.
After an infinity of tests at some of the best hospitals in New England, Jerome’s official diagnosis was finally made, and especially as he grew older, his self-mutilating tendencies drew nigh.
How so? For example, on one dreadful afternoon, he bit his entire lower lip off and spat it on the floor, and as a preventative against another self-attack, nearly all of his teeth were removed. Thus, he spoke with a malformed slur, and through he remained very self-aware, he had great difficulty in refraining from attempting to hurt himself.
Additionally, his psychosis prompted him to projectile spitting and vomiting as well as a near Tourettes syndrome where he would call people names--not so much to hurt them, but to provoke them, so that they would become angry with him, and thereby satisfy the sadomasochistic demon which begged to feel the ire of others.
He was aware of his own entrapment--both within his body, and within the full restraints we were mandated to keep him, and understandably, he hated his fate, and often voiced desires to depart this mean world. Can you imagine knowing, your entire fate lay within the hands of others and how well they performed their duties? Thus, he was cursed with a deep anxiety, reflected as an almost incapacitating stutter, which so many untrained individuals tried to fill in for him, eliciting more anxiety and frustration, if not down right outrage.
Yet, for seven dollars an hour, warm bodies off the street, with no inkling of how to effectively deal with a client such as this were expected to play nurse, psychologist, caretaker, and friend--but pray, do not get too attached to him, we were admonished.
Yeah, right.
Perhaps, because I treated him as a human being, worthy of respect, and entitled to live as happy a life as this so-called government was supposed to provide for him, we became very close.
And ultimately, too close.
After working with him for six months or so, Caren and I moved into a truly spectacular apartment, and one day he asked if he could see it.
I saw no reason why not--except he was forced to be completely restrained in a wheel chair with his arms and legs lashed down with leather restraints. All the same, I could see no harm in loading him into the van and taking him by our new home--just so he could see it. Just so we could pretend he wasn’t a client, and I wasn’t a worker, and we were just two chums out to check out my new digs.
I had learned how to do a single-person transfer from his chair to his bed, and had even been working with him, teaching him to walk.
He weighed all of 75 lbs dripping wet, so when we pulled up to my place--a third floor apartment, I sequestered Caren’s help in lifting him up the stairs so he could see the new place, visit Tucson, finally meet out cat, etc.
All things went quite smoothly, and I didn’t give it a second thought when we returned to his home, where I exchanged him with the other workers on the night shift, but invariably he told them what we had done, which was reported to my superiors, who ultimately fired me ”...for failing to observe safety protocols and recklessly endangering a client’s life..”
I was banned from ever contacting him in person, my mail, or by telephone, and I was, in a word: crushed.
Not only had I lost my job, but I felt I had let him down, because now I was forced to abandon him--a thing I promised I would never do.
I cried for days, hating myself, hating the world, and felt so goddamn guilty, I was ready to throw myself off the nearest cliff.
And it wasn’t long before I did...at least metaphorically.
I won’t go too far into my relationship with Anthony except to say the first three months were the most wonderful of my life. You of all people, can empathize with the intoxicating power of love! To be the center of someone else’s world, and vice-versa, what could be better?
I’ll leave the gods to answer that one, but if you have ever felt like you were missing a piece and suddenly, without warning, you have found it, and it fits you--he fits you--like the proverbial glove, which rhymes with love … and oh, what a feeling!
Love is a a sort of madness unto itself, though, more’s the pity. It boosts you through the clouds, but then...then you find out whether or not you strapped on a parachute, and as I fell like a wingless angel, I plunged into an icy lake of fire, arguments, beatings, and abuse.
So there you have “...The rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey was wont to say. And so it goes.

Epilogue
It wasn’t until years later that I began to probe the layers of emotional fall-out, which I caused myself via that deadliest of suicide attempts, and only after years of both therapy and academic research was i to learn about the phenomena of Survivor’s Guilt along with my own personality taking on that of Jerome’s: hence, the stutter, the panic attacks, etc.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’d make one hell of a case study for some ambitious psychiatrist. Perhaps I’ll write a book.

A really Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (and then some.)

Accomplishments:

Woke up

As usual, I set my alarm for 8:00 a.m. Delusions of grandeur!

Went of Food

Tried to get food hand outs from Feed America. Secured an orange, a loaf of bread, and 4 baguettes.

Checked email
Actually, no, I did not. Couldn't establish a wireless connection. Damn

Checked Bank Accounts
Panic. No Tax return in my Wells Fargo. -$300 in checking.

Applied for Work
Turned in application to Skechers Shoes. Omigod SHOES!

Health Care
Missing dental appointment. Will have to find another dentist, as I’m sure this one is pissed at me. However, I did make appointments for Vision and Audiology exams.

School
Missed the Arriba Juantos MS Office Cert. class sign-up yesterday, so will try again next week. Also need to check on City College and CSU Summer in Fresno.

Volunteering
Put in an application at a Bicycle Non-profit to teach kids to make bikes. if only I knew how to make bikes!

Socialization
Talked a bit with Tara across the hall, but am wary of her. She has all the signs of being a junkie. Don’t need to be around that.
Finished reading an account of the Bosnia War called “Like Eating a Stone.” Very troubling.
God, rape camps, concentration camps, massacres. And for what? Seriously, I cannot even remember what the Yugoslav war was about, and, from the interviews, it seems, very few of the survivors have any sense of the goals of the war.
I do recall making speeches about it back in high school--the war broke out in 1992--my junior year, and I remember my passion for NATO or UN intervention. They intervened all right-- with cluster bombs, just like in ‘Nam.
Additionally, I recall the term “ethnic cleansing” coming into fashion. Such a fucked up euphemism for genocide or mass murder, but easier for the NGO’s to stomach, reckon.
I also remember my final year at UCLA trying to get an interview with sometime lecturer UN Commander and presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark to take him to task in my passion to help Tibor.
My efforts were in vain, although I was able to help Tibor somewhat financially after he got beat up so badly, time and again. Coincidentally, I discovered one of the worst war criminals now lives in Tibor’s hometown, Novi Sad. Six degrees of separation, or what?
But would the Jewish federation Help? Did any of my Jewish catering clients help? No, the fucking selfish bastards.
Cervical or prostate cancer will be too good for any of those selfish prats!

Lastly, I finished “Y The Last Man” series of graphic novels. Truly some of the best literature out there by my man Brian K. Vaunge and Pia Guerro.
So many plot twists, and a grand finale that no one could have foreseen, expected, or even like. Oh, so bittersweet.

Poverty

Friday, March 27, 2009

For the first time in my life I was truly afraid of starvation. I woke with no food and not a cent to my name. Fuck!
Also, stressed because my SSDI claim forms arrived--22 days after being sent. Had to call the analyst to explain the mail situation and my new address.
Thank goodness I received $165 from mom later this afternoon.

Tomorrow

March 28, 2009

Hope the direct deposit comes.
Plan on working on the summer workshop applications at CSU Fresno as well as try to figure out what my status is at SFSU.
Goddamn, I wish I could land something so I could get back on my feet and out of this one room prison as well as start paying everyone back and try to set something up with the Ouomas.