Cold Turkey – 10 April 2014

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10 April 2014

Good Morning, Chuck, did you meet with your lady friend yesterday?

“Hi Dennis,  yes, I met her in the afternoon, but not in the morning. You’re late, I didn’t know if you’d be here this morning or not.”

“I  missed my bus;  as I was stepping out my front door I could see it going past. It was a twenty-minute wait for the next one.”

“Buses are a pain. I had planned to meet my lady friend at the bus stop in the morning. She was there but my bus came right away. The other buses take a long, round about route and don’t take me as near to where I live. We agreed to meet in the afternoon, after she finished work. I went home, charged my wheelchair. I also have one of those little three-wheel scooters that I’ll be using soon. I went to a place where one of my friends works. He oiled and greased it; didn’t charge me labor. There is a place close to me that services wheel chairs, but your wouldn’t believe their hourly rate. I guess they figure, we don’t have a choice.

“See that woman across the street; the one waving. That’s the mother of my granddaughter, the wife of my oldest son. I don’t get to see them very often. They don’t have an elevator in their building. We see each other at family gatherings, like Christmas. It takes four of them to carry me up the stairs. They don’t often  have that many people around. They have to carry my wife up as well. She doesn’t walk so well either. She had to go down the steps on her bum. I said to her, “At least you’re making some use of that.”

I asked, “You’re not still with your wife are you?”

“No, I walked out on her  twenty years ago. We had a big blow up one day. I got up, had my shower, put the coffee on. I poured us each a cup then sat down in the living room, as I always did, to watch the news. Muriel started cooking breakfast; bacon and eggs. I don’t know what got into her, but, all of a sudden she was shouting, throwing things at me, including the frying pan full of hot grease.”

“I was dumbfounded. I walked over to her, grabbed her by the throat and saw red. It was just like in the movies. I was thinking,  I could kill her, with my bare hands, now!  I came to my senses, walked into the bathroom and shaved. I  threw some clothes into a knapsack, along with a couple of cans of dog food. I had D4 (dog) back then. I could only carry so much. I was on disability, but it came as a family benefit addressed to both of us. I said to Muriel, ‘Get down to the pension office and apply for your own  disability. I’m going there now to change my status to single.’ She was okay for money; I saw to that.

“I’d two dollars and fifty cents in my pocket and no place to go. I slept on somebody’s lawn that night. The next night, I went prowling around the alleys near our place. I found a car unlocked, so I slept there for the night. I did that for a few nights. One morning, I hadn’t been out of the car for two minutes when the owner came out. That’s when I started panhandling. With what I was able to collect on the street, and after my check came in, I rented a room — It was in a rooming house. One of the places I stayed was a house of ill repute. I didn’t get any discounts for living there. It was a lively place.

“One time, I was walking to the liquor store. A pretty young woman asked if I could spare some change. I said I only had enough money for a bottle, but If she’d wait there, I’d share a drink with her. We were outside, standing between two parked cars. She said, ‘I like you,’ then went down on her knees and gave me a blow job. I hadn’t made any suggestive remarks to her. There were guys across the street giving me the ‘thumbs up’. I still get plenty of offers.

“Back then, a lot of my money went on cigarettes, booze and, every so often, pot. I had my first heart attack and had to cut all of that stuff out. Just stopped cold turkey.

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