As Brandon eats his chicken noodle soup, we put a hat on his head. Someone hands him a pair of those warm socks, and the new guy wraps a warm blanket around his shoulders. Snot drips from Brandon’s long nose.
Viewing entries in
I Was Sick
(Excerpt from Beloved Chaos. “Chuck” died in his sleep on the back porch of Joe’s Addiction on May 24th, 2019. He died at home.)
They told him to load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and to empty them when they finished washing. Chuck is a bit OCD, and it bothered him that sometimes dishes came out with cooked-on-crusties.
He pulled up his sleeve and extended his arm toward me. Tracks marked the inside of his arm. He pulled up the other sleeve and swiped his fingers over the red places.
One night he got confused. His mind doesn’t process things well. He was pushing the four wheeler through the long parking lot (where it would have been okay to ride). He got to the intersection of two main streets, climbed on it and rode it through the intersection. A police car was sitting right there.
Frank smiled. Then he asked, “Does your iced tea have healing powers?”
The policeman stepped out of his car, and the young man who had called breathlessly rattled his complaint. “These guys are gonna beat me! They threatened to hit me! I didn’t do nothing to them, but they’re gonna kill me! Some of them are Juggalos and some of them are Crips. They’re gonna kill me!”
I was sad. The semi-lucid moment had passed. It was clear I wouldn’t learn anything more about Bill today. We couldn’t even converse anymore. He just kept repeating the same thing over and over again.