I have twice in my long life as a landlord made bad decisions about renting to someone. Way back in the day - when the Police Department was driving the Chevy Caprice that looked like Shamu - I rented an apartment to a girl named Michele. This cop pal of mine asked me to rent her a place saying that she was a single mother - blah blah blah and so I did. She never paid rent once - not even once - only turning tricks for my "cop pal" who every lunch hour would stop by for a quickie and toss his lil-cop loaded condom on the lawn on his way back to his waiting police car. I ended up having to evict her and still have a judgement order sitting someplace in my safe.
The second has been the latest - another favor for someone else. See "The Rental Agreement" and "The Eviction Notice" if you like.
This fellow is a supremely talented musician to whom I rented a room because his son asked me to. His son, my favorite official tenant, lives next door. It is a sad tale of a wife's untimely passing and a husband and life long rockstar - junkie - who lives in a sad and lonely place. His story has been told I'm sure by countless numbers. For a year in anticipation of this - Nick next door lamented often about his father's use of drugs and alcohol and stints in rehab. I thought, mistakenly, that a change of environment might help him, revitalize him - and return him to the living. So too did his son.
Like all marriages - it seems best to play the piano a few times before you move in with it, try on the shoes, pluck the strings. We were an odd couple without doubt - but within just a few weeks of his moving in - I knew my mistake was a big one. He was drunk every day, passed out every other day with intermittent episodes of spontaneous crying. I actually went and bought a bunch of new fire alarms out of fear he might actually burn my house to the ground in a drunken stupor.
And then I noticed my medications started disappearing. I have a drawer that I keep every prescription in - from Levaquin to Vicodin - and the latter was dissipating into thin air. He'd already expressed verbally his affinity for opiates and his long time history of abusing them. So, one night, Bronwyn my neighbor and I counted all of my pills that might have some abusive character. And within an hour of doing this, Marshall came home drunker than a cooter brown - and pilfered more. Bronwyn and I watched him from the living room. We confirmed our observations and discovered a handfull of various narcotic drugs missing from the very bottles we'd just counted.
The next day I talked with Nick and the tenants of our relationship - between he and I and that of his father changed. Nick says "welcome to my World and what I've been going through the past ten years." The "Rental Agreement" was written as you now see it. He was put on probation - and alas to no avail.
Just two weeks ago now. Marshall was admitted into the ICU with a bleeding ulcer. Nick says again, "welcome to my World" saying that he almost died the last time. Within five days of being released - he was drinking again. I warned Nick. The writing was on the wall.
In the mean time, I'd had surgery - my first full on body invasion ever. Bronwyn was staying with me and got to see first hand the peculiar behaviors that she'd heretofore only witnessed occasionally. And then on Thursday, February 21, 2013 in what can only be described as absolute insanity - Marshall started cleaning the railings of my wood staircase in the middle of my solid wood historical home with Gasoline. I was asleep in my room - the day after surgery and I smelled Gas inside my house. My torn gut felt like fire as I rolled out of bed to find out what the fuck he was doing. I could hear him on the staircase scraping on the wood. What the fuck I said - why do I smell gasoline. He says he's just using orange oil on the staircase. I say, what is that smell - it smells like gas??? He says, it's some sorta solvent - and then - maybe it came in on my shirt, I was using gas on my van. The varnish on the railing had dissolved and tarnished where the gasoline had moistened it. The whole house smelled like Gasoline for hours. Can you imagine someone so absolutely crazy? Really - it's nearly incomprehensible!
I called Nick on the phone and said "that's it dude", he's gotta go - and that's where we are.
And so today I will speak to the kind of people who live in that place of sad, lonely despair where they are afforded only two choices in their lives - 1) get their shit together, or 2) kill themselves - and of them, those who haven't the balls to do either one.
As compassionate and generous as I am, I have absolutely no consideration for people who wallow like a muddy pig in a pond of sewer without the strength to get their lives in order or to actually kill themselves and put everyone else out of the misery they cause.
It's completely different when it's a young person with a lot of life ahead of them and their despair is irrational and seated in youthful inexperience. But for old farts who demonstrate year after year their inability to cope, manage or get through life on a daily basis. who always blame everyone but themselves for their maladies - Jesus Fucking Christ, go off yourself in a parking lot and stop forcing your miserable drama on everyone around you! Overdose, blow your brains out - die in a hospital bed from some abuse related affliction - but just fucking DO IT and stop pussy footing around and constantly coming up short!
I am not inconsiderate of those who are stricken with mental infirmity or ailment who haven't the capacity to butter their own toast - much less make informed life changing decisions. But a time does come for everyone where being put out to pasture is best for everyone else. That's also where we are.
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