My first resolution for 2009: No more drama.
It took me, granted, 27 hours of the new year to codify this one; actually, 26 hours and 48 minutes, which was how long after midnight on January 1 that Squeaky called me to tell me that Tim was "eating handfuls of pills"--Benadryls and Advils, before he started going through the OTHER roommate's pills (the 61-year-old guy, who I'm sure is on some heavy-duty stuff, and who will henceforth be known as Old Bastard). And when I told her to call 911, she claimed "I said I was going to, and he snapped at me and shit." Now, Tim, when drunk/whatever, is not always the nice guy he is when sober; he said the only time he ever hit a woman was during a drunken blackout several years ago, and so I wasn't in the mood to put Squeaky in that position. So I told her "Give me the address and I'LL call 911. I don't care HOW mad he gets at ME." (Which is true.) So she did, and I did, and I gave them the address and told them what she told me, and they said they were going to send somebody over there. Past that point, as I told Squeaky, I'm not terribly concerned. If he never speaks to me again...oh well. I would rather have a pissed-off ex-friend than a dead friend. And if he DOES speak to me again, he's going to get an earful; I've been down this road with him before, and I'm reasonably sure that it's a)alcohol-fueled; b)not an actual suicide attempt; c)calculated to get under SOMEONE's skin, probably Squeaky's. I know he's having a positively shitty time right now; he's still jobless, living in a place he hates with people he can't stand, and seeing no viable way out for quite some time. But what he's going to hear from me is: he's making it worse for himself, too. Squeaky and Old Bastard are NOT the only ones responsible for his misery; he's done a fair bit to further THAT himself. Not that I don't understand; but there's only so much I can do, and tonight he basically reached that limit.
This is NOT an auspicious beginning to the year.
Showing posts with label problems (other people's). Show all posts
Showing posts with label problems (other people's). Show all posts
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Oh, Yeah--I Forgot...
(See, this is what happens when I don't post in a long time. Things get overlooked.)
I didn't mention the BIG FREAKING DEVELOPMENT:
Tim and Squeaky are mostly-broken-up and (shocker) once again mostly-homeless. AND: Betty (Tim's friend who used to be a bartender at his favorite bar til she got fired several months ago) is apparently travelling with them.
The order of events, as I understand it, went something like this:
Tim and Squeaky had been living with Squeaky's dad for the past year. Squeaky's dad (hereafter abbreviated to SD) has his own issues; he's apparently schizophrenic, along with a bunch of other diagnoses, and so he lives in an apartment subsidized by some church group with which he's affiliated.
Meanwhile, Betty had been staying with her boyfriend, but they got into a huge fight and she left, and SD told Tim and Squeaky "sure, why not, what's another one?" So Betty was staying with Tim and Squeaky.
One night, after some trivial slight, Squeaky just basically flipped the fuck out. (I have this on the authority of both Tim, whose version of the story would be open to doubt, and Betty, who would have no reason to varnish the truth.) She started screaming at Tim "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and pounced on him, scratching and clawing and strangling and just generally losing her mind. Betty, at the time, was sitting in the living room watching TV with SD, and SD said "What's she doing to him NOW???" (Both Tim and Betty claim that Squeaky's attacked Tim before. I don't entirely doubt it...in fact, I don't doubt it at all.) Betty ran in and pulled Squeaky off Tim, and the screaming and yelling and the rest continued.
Meanwhile, SD had had enough. Now, normally, when people have Had Enough, they yell and make ultimatums and so on. Not SD. SD, when he's Had Enough, checks himself into the hospital for a break. And that's what he did in this case--he left, and went to the hospital, and checked himself in as a psych patient.
Betty and Tim managed to calm Squeaky down, and Tim was of course properly pissed--as who wouldn't be...Anyway, Tim told Squeaky that he was pretty sure that they were all in serious trouble, now that SD had gone to the hospital, and that the next few days would be critical.
Enter the Church Guy. The Church Guy (now CG) is apparently SD's caseworker or whatever; anyway, CG showed up at the hospital and heard SD's story of why he was there, and CG--quite rightly--said "oh HELL no; out they go, the lot of them." And so there they were: Tim, Squeaky, Betty, and two cats, out on the streets two weeks before Thanksgiving.
The first I heard of it was the first day of my vacation, when Tim called. "Um, G?" he asked. "Could me and Betty maybe crash at your place for a day or two?" He told me the story, told me he had "suggested" that Squeaky find somebody else to stay with among HER friends (oh, wait, that's right--she didn't really HAVE any, but fortunately someone she knew from the old days was willing to let her crash there anyway) and emphasized that it was only for a couple of days, that they were working on several other options. That was at about 8 PM, and they said they were "on their way".
They arrived at 4 AM, after several stops and missed buses and pauses at bars and et cetera; they told me the full story, which lasted pretty well til sunrise. Throughout the story, and in fact through the next two days, every conversation was interrupted with the BEEP of either Tim's or Betty's phones, with text messages from Squeaky. She was DETERMINED to get back into their good graces, which--from what I was hearing--was totally NOT going to happen.
Anyway, they stayed three nights, at the end of which it was determined that they REALLY needed to get Betty out of my apartment before her entire head exploded--Betty is HIGHLY allergic to cats!--and so they actually left. They've since been staying here and there, and apparently Squeaky has some roommate situation developing, and though Tim is adamant that he and Squeaky are broken up, apparently they're going to be staying in the same place--all three of them, plus the cats (the cats had been living with SD, and getting fed by CG when he wasn't around--Tim was more worried about the cats than Squeaky, really, and I can't blame him) and Tim may have a job in the works, at last.
Mostly I'm just happy he and Squeaky broke up; I'm pretty sure it's for keeps, too. I have heard Tim at various points in most of his breakups, and I can pretty much tell when he means it and when he doesn't; then, too, Betty is a helpful reinforcement in several ways. One, she loathes Squeaky; two, Tim has had a crush on Betty for quite a while, though it's not reciprocated; three, Betty is pretty much an exemplar of all the qualities which Tim admires and which are completely lacking in Squeaky: Betty is down-to-earth, has street-smarts, is self-sufficent (well, when she has a job!), has a life outside her relationship...I would say "isn't annoying" but...well, Betty is kinda loud and brash, but in a fun way, and she has enough other good qualities that it can be forgiven. And she's smart, too. She actually READS--in fact, she left here with a couple of my books, and when I talked to Tim a couple of days ago I heard her in the background saying "Tell her I need more books!" It's been so long since I've had people around me who READ...like, at least ten years, maybe more. I don't think Tim and Betty will end up together, but it wouldn't be a bad match, if they did.
Really, I'm just glad they're figuring this out on their own, for the most part. Tim, when they were here, made some remarks about how much I've done already, and how he doesn't feel comfortable asking me for any more, in the face of all that; not that I mind helping him, but I'm impressed that he seems to want to handle it without asking me for help. That--like dumping the Squeakster--is a step in the right direction.
I didn't mention the BIG FREAKING DEVELOPMENT:
Tim and Squeaky are mostly-broken-up and (shocker) once again mostly-homeless. AND: Betty (Tim's friend who used to be a bartender at his favorite bar til she got fired several months ago) is apparently travelling with them.
The order of events, as I understand it, went something like this:
Tim and Squeaky had been living with Squeaky's dad for the past year. Squeaky's dad (hereafter abbreviated to SD) has his own issues; he's apparently schizophrenic, along with a bunch of other diagnoses, and so he lives in an apartment subsidized by some church group with which he's affiliated.
Meanwhile, Betty had been staying with her boyfriend, but they got into a huge fight and she left, and SD told Tim and Squeaky "sure, why not, what's another one?" So Betty was staying with Tim and Squeaky.
One night, after some trivial slight, Squeaky just basically flipped the fuck out. (I have this on the authority of both Tim, whose version of the story would be open to doubt, and Betty, who would have no reason to varnish the truth.) She started screaming at Tim "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and pounced on him, scratching and clawing and strangling and just generally losing her mind. Betty, at the time, was sitting in the living room watching TV with SD, and SD said "What's she doing to him NOW???" (Both Tim and Betty claim that Squeaky's attacked Tim before. I don't entirely doubt it...in fact, I don't doubt it at all.) Betty ran in and pulled Squeaky off Tim, and the screaming and yelling and the rest continued.
Meanwhile, SD had had enough. Now, normally, when people have Had Enough, they yell and make ultimatums and so on. Not SD. SD, when he's Had Enough, checks himself into the hospital for a break. And that's what he did in this case--he left, and went to the hospital, and checked himself in as a psych patient.
Betty and Tim managed to calm Squeaky down, and Tim was of course properly pissed--as who wouldn't be...Anyway, Tim told Squeaky that he was pretty sure that they were all in serious trouble, now that SD had gone to the hospital, and that the next few days would be critical.
Enter the Church Guy. The Church Guy (now CG) is apparently SD's caseworker or whatever; anyway, CG showed up at the hospital and heard SD's story of why he was there, and CG--quite rightly--said "oh HELL no; out they go, the lot of them." And so there they were: Tim, Squeaky, Betty, and two cats, out on the streets two weeks before Thanksgiving.
The first I heard of it was the first day of my vacation, when Tim called. "Um, G?" he asked. "Could me and Betty maybe crash at your place for a day or two?" He told me the story, told me he had "suggested" that Squeaky find somebody else to stay with among HER friends (oh, wait, that's right--she didn't really HAVE any, but fortunately someone she knew from the old days was willing to let her crash there anyway) and emphasized that it was only for a couple of days, that they were working on several other options. That was at about 8 PM, and they said they were "on their way".
They arrived at 4 AM, after several stops and missed buses and pauses at bars and et cetera; they told me the full story, which lasted pretty well til sunrise. Throughout the story, and in fact through the next two days, every conversation was interrupted with the BEEP of either Tim's or Betty's phones, with text messages from Squeaky. She was DETERMINED to get back into their good graces, which--from what I was hearing--was totally NOT going to happen.
Anyway, they stayed three nights, at the end of which it was determined that they REALLY needed to get Betty out of my apartment before her entire head exploded--Betty is HIGHLY allergic to cats!--and so they actually left. They've since been staying here and there, and apparently Squeaky has some roommate situation developing, and though Tim is adamant that he and Squeaky are broken up, apparently they're going to be staying in the same place--all three of them, plus the cats (the cats had been living with SD, and getting fed by CG when he wasn't around--Tim was more worried about the cats than Squeaky, really, and I can't blame him) and Tim may have a job in the works, at last.
Mostly I'm just happy he and Squeaky broke up; I'm pretty sure it's for keeps, too. I have heard Tim at various points in most of his breakups, and I can pretty much tell when he means it and when he doesn't; then, too, Betty is a helpful reinforcement in several ways. One, she loathes Squeaky; two, Tim has had a crush on Betty for quite a while, though it's not reciprocated; three, Betty is pretty much an exemplar of all the qualities which Tim admires and which are completely lacking in Squeaky: Betty is down-to-earth, has street-smarts, is self-sufficent (well, when she has a job!), has a life outside her relationship...I would say "isn't annoying" but...well, Betty is kinda loud and brash, but in a fun way, and she has enough other good qualities that it can be forgiven. And she's smart, too. She actually READS--in fact, she left here with a couple of my books, and when I talked to Tim a couple of days ago I heard her in the background saying "Tell her I need more books!" It's been so long since I've had people around me who READ...like, at least ten years, maybe more. I don't think Tim and Betty will end up together, but it wouldn't be a bad match, if they did.
Really, I'm just glad they're figuring this out on their own, for the most part. Tim, when they were here, made some remarks about how much I've done already, and how he doesn't feel comfortable asking me for any more, in the face of all that; not that I mind helping him, but I'm impressed that he seems to want to handle it without asking me for help. That--like dumping the Squeakster--is a step in the right direction.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
"Weird" Is Not Even the Word
Aaaaaaand it gets weirder.
I'm having a difficult time wrapping my brain around this situation, so I'm going to relate the facts as I understand them.
At 6 this morning, I awoke to a tap on the leg from Tim. We'd both stayed up late last night, drinking beer and just generally relaxing; I'd finally fallen asleep around 4, so I was apparently pretty difficult to wake.
"Um, can you give me a ride? Squeaky's in the hospital again," he said.
We drove to the hospital--not the same one we'd taken her to the other night, but one a fair bit closer to home--and I dropped him off. We were both assuming it was Squeaky's stomach again.
I stopped at McDonalds and picked up some breakfast and came home. There were a couple of messages from Squeaky's dad, asking if she was here; just as I finished eating, he called again, and I told him what I knew--that she was in the E.R, probably with her stomach complaint again. He said she'd gone out last night with his upstairs neighbor--a woman he's apparently known for about a year--and that she hadn't come back. I assured him that I knew where she was, and that she'd probably call him soon. I sent a text message to Tim for him to call Squeaky's dad, and then about 8 AM, I went to bed. I set my alarm for 10:40, since I had a noon appointment with Dr. J on the north side of the city.
At a couple minutes after 9, the phone rang. "Hey, um..." said Tim. "Listen, I don't have my bus card, and anyway they wouldn't let Squeaky on the bus because she doesn't have any shoes, and they're gonna discharge her in a few minutes....she's really fucked up..."
"What, did they give her pain meds or something?"
"Nah," he said. "She got raped by them Kings over in Humboldt Park. They drugged her up, too. Drugged her up and raped her."
"Holy shit," I said. "Damn. Yeah, I'll be there in a little bit."
I pulled up to the hospital and Tim and Squeaky walked out. Or rather, Tim walked; Squeaky leaned on him. She was moving very slowly, obviously in pain. While we drove home, she made a couple of phone calls; from what I overheard, I gathered a little of what had happened. She told someone "Yeah, I relapsed last night," and made arrangements for her dad to pick up some of her belongings from a friend's house, which Tim was supposedly going to get later. I dropped them off--Squeaky needed substantial help from Tim to get out of the car and up the steps--and went to my appointment.
I came home, fixed a sandwich, and went straight to bed. I slept like a stone for quite a while, and came downstairs around 8 PM. Around 9, as I heated up some leftovers, Squeaky emerged from Tim's room, on her way to the bathroom.
"How you doin', lady?" I asked.
Her voice was hoarse. "I have bruises all over my body and I feel like shit," she said. She showed me her arms; they were covered with bruises, like big finger-marks, all the way from the upper arm to her hands. "And I can't use this hand because it hurts so much. Do you have some ice I could use?"
I fixed her an icepack, and she went back into Tim's room for a while. When she came out, she started telling me what had happened.
The story she told was so crazy-sounding, so fantastical, that she said she knew nobody would believe her. It started out normally enough--she had left her dad's place with his upstairs neighbor. "My dad trusted her, so I figured I could trust her too, right? He was okay for me to go out with her..."
At one point last night, around 10 or 11 PM, Squeaky had called and said she was on her way over--that this woman was going to give her a ride over here. Then that plan changed, and Tim said she wasn't coming after all because "the girl who's driving wants to go see her baby-daddy," Tim said.
What neither Tim nor Squeaky knew was that the baby-daddy in question lived in Humboldt Park. *note below When they arrived, Squeaky protested, repeating that she really, really wanted to come over here and see Tim instead. "No, no," the girl apparently told her. "These guys are cool."
This is the last point at which the story makes perfect sense. From here, it gets dodgy. Not that I disbelieve her--I want to make that clear. I don't doubt that she THINKS some of these things happened, but...
I'm ahead of myself.
There were apparently several people in this place the neighbor took her, and at one point one (possibly more) of the guys wanted Squeaky to come for a ride with him. She didn't want to go but the neighbor said he was okay, that she should go with him and just relax, and that nothing would happen because if anything happened, Squeaky's dad was going to blame HER (the neighbor). Squeaky resisted, saying she still would rather go to see Tim, but the neighbor was adamant and said that if she didn't go, it would mess up her (the neighbor's) relationship with the baby-daddy, and blah blah blah. So against her better judgement, Squeaky went with the guy.
ALSO against her better judgement (she claims), she was persuaded to have a couple of drinks. She says she really, really didn't want to drink--she's been sober for a couple of months now--but that the guy pressured her. She said that after the drinks, she started feeling really strange--like her limbs were going numb, and her brain was fogged, and all sorts of other uncomfortable sensations. (I'm thinking the guy slipped her something in her drink.)
THEN, she says, he started trying to make a move on her, and she told him not to touch her--that if her "man"--meaning Tim--found out that he'd done anything to her, Tim would kill him. She fought him off, she said. Later, she says, he stopped to get some weed, and she took two hits.
This was where things got really, REALLY weird.
She claims she jumped out of the car at a stop sign, because she had called the neighbor to tell her to come rescue her, and when she asked the guy where they were, his answer didn't match the street signs she could see, so she got out of the car to check for herself. She claims she passed a cop car, but when she told them she was in trouble they said "I don't give a shit" and "Don't make me shoot you" and such; that they were in marked police cars but wouldn't show her a badge and wouldn't help her....
The story went on like this for a long time. At one point she was in a church that wasn't a church, because there was one white person speaking English and a lot of black people speaking in tongues, and they tied her down and put some sort of liquid on her which made her skin numb, and some guy made her repeat something after him...and there was an ambulance, except the people driving it weren't paramedics, and she said they were going to set it on fire...and on and on.
My suspicion here is that either her drink, or the weed, or both, contained some sort of hallucinogens--PCP, maybe, is Tim's guess. I'm pretty sure that all sorts of seriously-disturbing things happened to her, but that the cult/church and the fake cops and fake paramedics and being chained to the rails inside the ambulance...that all of that was the result of her seriously-altered perceptions. (Even when she was staying here before, I'd commented to Tim on her seeming inability to tell fact from fiction and reality from unreality; I'm sure THAT little quirk of personality is involved here as well.) She swears up and down that all of these things happened, and I'm sure, in her mind, that they did.
What is NOT called into dispute, though: the girl is COVERED in bruises. She was clearly hurt, and she clearly gave a good fight. She said she was combative in the hospital when she finally woke up, even to the point of yelling at Tim, when he arrived, that HE was part of this big conspiracy too. (She had convinced herself, at some point, that there was a small group of people who were in on this plan to hurt her; she says that the people she saw at the house when she arrived were the same people who were supposedly paramedics and police; that this same group was in the "church" and on the streets in the area. I don't know WHAT to make of that.) I'm sure some of the bruises were from the medical personnel trying to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. She also says it took them a couple of hours to get her name and contact info out of her, because she was convinced that the people in the hospital were part of the plot as well. She says she thought they were going to kill her, and that she also thought they were going kill Tim, and she begged them not to kill Tim, to kill her instead.
She's absolutely devastated, to say the least. She's scared to be alone, and claims she's never going anywhere alone again, ever. She's very obviously been traumatized--there's not the slightest sense that she's faking. I don't know how much of what she says is true; the bulk of the story, as far as I can see, is the result of horribly-distorted perceptions caused by whatever these assholes spiked her drink or her weed with. She swears they're not--she is absolutely SURE that everything happened exactly as she remembers--which, to me, would be enough reason to be traumatized all on its own! But it's very obvious that she was victimized in some manner. I didn't press for info about the rape--whether the hospital had done a rape kit or anything--but I did ask if the police were called, and she said no. She has no recollection of how she even got to the hospital; my guess is that the "fake" ambulance, supposedly part of the plot, was actually real.
The hell of this? According to Squeaky, her father is still defending the upstairs neighbor--the one who brought her into this situation. Tim, of course, is livid. I'm hoping HE doesn't do something stupid as "revenge".
I told her I'd give her a ride up to her dad's tomorrow, so she can collect her stuff; before this happened, Tim had approached me with a request: that Squeaky be allowed to stay here til we move, to make it easier for her to get to the job that's waiting for her (downtown) and so that she can give a Chicago address to the social-services agencies; apparently some programs are only available to city residents, and her dad's address is in the suburbs. I told him yes, but SOLELY ON THE CONDITION THAT her residency with us ends the moment we move, and that any attempt to extend it beyond that point will be considered a dealbreaker as regards the continuation of our roommate-ship. He agreed to that condition--and several others, such as "she has to bring her own toiletries, because I'm tired of her using all my shampoo".
This new development, as I told Dr. J today, will not shake my resolve. (I was proceeding on very sketchy reports of what had happened, but I'd seen enough to know, even before I got the story, that something bad had clearly taken place.) She can stay til we move--which will be happening by the end of October at the VERY latest--but once we move, if Tim wants to live with her he'll have to get them an apartment together, because I'm not going down that road. That's what I told him in the first place, and that doesn't change because of what happened to her.
But oh, my god, do I feel bad for that poor girl. All my animosity towards her has gone; I just feel really, really bad for her. Nobody should have to live the life she's had; no matter what percentage of the bad decisions have been hers, that doesn't excuse the bastards who have taken advantage of her. Like everyone else, when she said "No" that should have been respected; like everyone else, no matter if she'd made a bad decision, she's still a human being and should have been treated as such. I can't begin to describe how sad her story makes me, or how angry--or how lucky I feel, to have had the life I've had, because no matter what has happened in my life, it's mostly stuff I've brought on myself--not stuff that other people have inflicted on me.
And again: she's only nineteen years old. I know some EIGHTY-year-olds, and not ONE of them has had HALF the bad things happen to them that have happened to Squeaky in those nineteen years. No matter what part she's played by making bad decisions--nobody, NOBODY, deserves the things that have happened to her.
*Non-Chicagoans--Humboldt Park is a neighborhood in Chicago, about a mile to three miles north and two to four miles east of where we live. It's predominantly Hispanic; though it's been in the process of gentrifying for about fifteen years now, there are still very rough patches here and there. JP lived in Humboldt Park when he and I first started seeing each other, back in 1994, and when my ex found out where I'd been going every night, he referred to it as "a demilitarized zone". Tim has an instinctive fear of H.P., because it's predominantly Latin Kings territory and Tim affiliates himself with a rival organization.
I'm having a difficult time wrapping my brain around this situation, so I'm going to relate the facts as I understand them.
At 6 this morning, I awoke to a tap on the leg from Tim. We'd both stayed up late last night, drinking beer and just generally relaxing; I'd finally fallen asleep around 4, so I was apparently pretty difficult to wake.
"Um, can you give me a ride? Squeaky's in the hospital again," he said.
We drove to the hospital--not the same one we'd taken her to the other night, but one a fair bit closer to home--and I dropped him off. We were both assuming it was Squeaky's stomach again.
I stopped at McDonalds and picked up some breakfast and came home. There were a couple of messages from Squeaky's dad, asking if she was here; just as I finished eating, he called again, and I told him what I knew--that she was in the E.R, probably with her stomach complaint again. He said she'd gone out last night with his upstairs neighbor--a woman he's apparently known for about a year--and that she hadn't come back. I assured him that I knew where she was, and that she'd probably call him soon. I sent a text message to Tim for him to call Squeaky's dad, and then about 8 AM, I went to bed. I set my alarm for 10:40, since I had a noon appointment with Dr. J on the north side of the city.
At a couple minutes after 9, the phone rang. "Hey, um..." said Tim. "Listen, I don't have my bus card, and anyway they wouldn't let Squeaky on the bus because she doesn't have any shoes, and they're gonna discharge her in a few minutes....she's really fucked up..."
"What, did they give her pain meds or something?"
"Nah," he said. "She got raped by them Kings over in Humboldt Park. They drugged her up, too. Drugged her up and raped her."
"Holy shit," I said. "Damn. Yeah, I'll be there in a little bit."
I pulled up to the hospital and Tim and Squeaky walked out. Or rather, Tim walked; Squeaky leaned on him. She was moving very slowly, obviously in pain. While we drove home, she made a couple of phone calls; from what I overheard, I gathered a little of what had happened. She told someone "Yeah, I relapsed last night," and made arrangements for her dad to pick up some of her belongings from a friend's house, which Tim was supposedly going to get later. I dropped them off--Squeaky needed substantial help from Tim to get out of the car and up the steps--and went to my appointment.
I came home, fixed a sandwich, and went straight to bed. I slept like a stone for quite a while, and came downstairs around 8 PM. Around 9, as I heated up some leftovers, Squeaky emerged from Tim's room, on her way to the bathroom.
"How you doin', lady?" I asked.
Her voice was hoarse. "I have bruises all over my body and I feel like shit," she said. She showed me her arms; they were covered with bruises, like big finger-marks, all the way from the upper arm to her hands. "And I can't use this hand because it hurts so much. Do you have some ice I could use?"
I fixed her an icepack, and she went back into Tim's room for a while. When she came out, she started telling me what had happened.
The story she told was so crazy-sounding, so fantastical, that she said she knew nobody would believe her. It started out normally enough--she had left her dad's place with his upstairs neighbor. "My dad trusted her, so I figured I could trust her too, right? He was okay for me to go out with her..."
At one point last night, around 10 or 11 PM, Squeaky had called and said she was on her way over--that this woman was going to give her a ride over here. Then that plan changed, and Tim said she wasn't coming after all because "the girl who's driving wants to go see her baby-daddy," Tim said.
What neither Tim nor Squeaky knew was that the baby-daddy in question lived in Humboldt Park. *note below When they arrived, Squeaky protested, repeating that she really, really wanted to come over here and see Tim instead. "No, no," the girl apparently told her. "These guys are cool."
This is the last point at which the story makes perfect sense. From here, it gets dodgy. Not that I disbelieve her--I want to make that clear. I don't doubt that she THINKS some of these things happened, but...
I'm ahead of myself.
There were apparently several people in this place the neighbor took her, and at one point one (possibly more) of the guys wanted Squeaky to come for a ride with him. She didn't want to go but the neighbor said he was okay, that she should go with him and just relax, and that nothing would happen because if anything happened, Squeaky's dad was going to blame HER (the neighbor). Squeaky resisted, saying she still would rather go to see Tim, but the neighbor was adamant and said that if she didn't go, it would mess up her (the neighbor's) relationship with the baby-daddy, and blah blah blah. So against her better judgement, Squeaky went with the guy.
ALSO against her better judgement (she claims), she was persuaded to have a couple of drinks. She says she really, really didn't want to drink--she's been sober for a couple of months now--but that the guy pressured her. She said that after the drinks, she started feeling really strange--like her limbs were going numb, and her brain was fogged, and all sorts of other uncomfortable sensations. (I'm thinking the guy slipped her something in her drink.)
THEN, she says, he started trying to make a move on her, and she told him not to touch her--that if her "man"--meaning Tim--found out that he'd done anything to her, Tim would kill him. She fought him off, she said. Later, she says, he stopped to get some weed, and she took two hits.
This was where things got really, REALLY weird.
She claims she jumped out of the car at a stop sign, because she had called the neighbor to tell her to come rescue her, and when she asked the guy where they were, his answer didn't match the street signs she could see, so she got out of the car to check for herself. She claims she passed a cop car, but when she told them she was in trouble they said "I don't give a shit" and "Don't make me shoot you" and such; that they were in marked police cars but wouldn't show her a badge and wouldn't help her....
The story went on like this for a long time. At one point she was in a church that wasn't a church, because there was one white person speaking English and a lot of black people speaking in tongues, and they tied her down and put some sort of liquid on her which made her skin numb, and some guy made her repeat something after him...and there was an ambulance, except the people driving it weren't paramedics, and she said they were going to set it on fire...and on and on.
My suspicion here is that either her drink, or the weed, or both, contained some sort of hallucinogens--PCP, maybe, is Tim's guess. I'm pretty sure that all sorts of seriously-disturbing things happened to her, but that the cult/church and the fake cops and fake paramedics and being chained to the rails inside the ambulance...that all of that was the result of her seriously-altered perceptions. (Even when she was staying here before, I'd commented to Tim on her seeming inability to tell fact from fiction and reality from unreality; I'm sure THAT little quirk of personality is involved here as well.) She swears up and down that all of these things happened, and I'm sure, in her mind, that they did.
What is NOT called into dispute, though: the girl is COVERED in bruises. She was clearly hurt, and she clearly gave a good fight. She said she was combative in the hospital when she finally woke up, even to the point of yelling at Tim, when he arrived, that HE was part of this big conspiracy too. (She had convinced herself, at some point, that there was a small group of people who were in on this plan to hurt her; she says that the people she saw at the house when she arrived were the same people who were supposedly paramedics and police; that this same group was in the "church" and on the streets in the area. I don't know WHAT to make of that.) I'm sure some of the bruises were from the medical personnel trying to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. She also says it took them a couple of hours to get her name and contact info out of her, because she was convinced that the people in the hospital were part of the plot as well. She says she thought they were going to kill her, and that she also thought they were going kill Tim, and she begged them not to kill Tim, to kill her instead.
She's absolutely devastated, to say the least. She's scared to be alone, and claims she's never going anywhere alone again, ever. She's very obviously been traumatized--there's not the slightest sense that she's faking. I don't know how much of what she says is true; the bulk of the story, as far as I can see, is the result of horribly-distorted perceptions caused by whatever these assholes spiked her drink or her weed with. She swears they're not--she is absolutely SURE that everything happened exactly as she remembers--which, to me, would be enough reason to be traumatized all on its own! But it's very obvious that she was victimized in some manner. I didn't press for info about the rape--whether the hospital had done a rape kit or anything--but I did ask if the police were called, and she said no. She has no recollection of how she even got to the hospital; my guess is that the "fake" ambulance, supposedly part of the plot, was actually real.
The hell of this? According to Squeaky, her father is still defending the upstairs neighbor--the one who brought her into this situation. Tim, of course, is livid. I'm hoping HE doesn't do something stupid as "revenge".
I told her I'd give her a ride up to her dad's tomorrow, so she can collect her stuff; before this happened, Tim had approached me with a request: that Squeaky be allowed to stay here til we move, to make it easier for her to get to the job that's waiting for her (downtown) and so that she can give a Chicago address to the social-services agencies; apparently some programs are only available to city residents, and her dad's address is in the suburbs. I told him yes, but SOLELY ON THE CONDITION THAT her residency with us ends the moment we move, and that any attempt to extend it beyond that point will be considered a dealbreaker as regards the continuation of our roommate-ship. He agreed to that condition--and several others, such as "she has to bring her own toiletries, because I'm tired of her using all my shampoo".
This new development, as I told Dr. J today, will not shake my resolve. (I was proceeding on very sketchy reports of what had happened, but I'd seen enough to know, even before I got the story, that something bad had clearly taken place.) She can stay til we move--which will be happening by the end of October at the VERY latest--but once we move, if Tim wants to live with her he'll have to get them an apartment together, because I'm not going down that road. That's what I told him in the first place, and that doesn't change because of what happened to her.
But oh, my god, do I feel bad for that poor girl. All my animosity towards her has gone; I just feel really, really bad for her. Nobody should have to live the life she's had; no matter what percentage of the bad decisions have been hers, that doesn't excuse the bastards who have taken advantage of her. Like everyone else, when she said "No" that should have been respected; like everyone else, no matter if she'd made a bad decision, she's still a human being and should have been treated as such. I can't begin to describe how sad her story makes me, or how angry--or how lucky I feel, to have had the life I've had, because no matter what has happened in my life, it's mostly stuff I've brought on myself--not stuff that other people have inflicted on me.
And again: she's only nineteen years old. I know some EIGHTY-year-olds, and not ONE of them has had HALF the bad things happen to them that have happened to Squeaky in those nineteen years. No matter what part she's played by making bad decisions--nobody, NOBODY, deserves the things that have happened to her.
*Non-Chicagoans--Humboldt Park is a neighborhood in Chicago, about a mile to three miles north and two to four miles east of where we live. It's predominantly Hispanic; though it's been in the process of gentrifying for about fifteen years now, there are still very rough patches here and there. JP lived in Humboldt Park when he and I first started seeing each other, back in 1994, and when my ex found out where I'd been going every night, he referred to it as "a demilitarized zone". Tim has an instinctive fear of H.P., because it's predominantly Latin Kings territory and Tim affiliates himself with a rival organization.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Strays
So, Squeaky is back.
She has been back, in fact, for more than a week now. Apparently her AA-evangelist friend refused to accept her assertion that she hadn't been drinking for the two days she spent here last weekend. (Which she hadn't, and I know that for a fact. I'm the beer-purchaser around here; I'm the one with money; and I COUNT my beers. Squeaky was perfectly innocent, in this case. But tell that to 12-Stepper.) Because she didn't believe Squeaky, Squeaky was told she would not be staying at 12-Stepper's house; because all the other places she could stay were out of range of public transportation, Tim went and met her and brought her back here. She's been doing very well here--even though Tim and I have had beer in the house almost constantly, she hasn't drunk any, and since there's no other type of intoxicant available, she's been relentlessly sober. She's....not so bad, I guess. She sings a lot, and dances a lot, and has more energy than I would even WANT to have; she's loud and aggravating, but she's also sweet and very considerate and very grateful to be allowed to stay here. And she loves the hell out of Tim, unfortunately; he's still pining for Nicolette, and makes no bones about Squeaky's role in his life. He cares about her; he just doesn't plan to be her guy permanently, is all. It's a hard state of affairs for everyone concerned, really.
She's told me more of her history; if even five percent of it is true, she's had a life no one deserves. If all of it is true, or even the half of it, she's lucky to be alive, mostly sane, and mentally-functioning at all. As I said to her, after her recitation of the things her stepfather did to her: "There's a special circle of hell for some people, you know? I have to believe that, because if I didn't I'd jump off a bridge at the injustice of it all." She broke down crying at one point; I gave her a hug. It was the best I could do. "You're the only one who listens to me," she told me. "Tim doesn't want to hear it." I happen to know that Tim doesn't want to hear it because he's EXTREMELY sensitive about his friends being hurt; if he hears about it, man-like, he feels an obligation to act, and if he can't solve the problem....well, it just eats at him. I know there's nothing I can do; the past is the past, and sometimes it helps just to talk. And if I can listen, at least that's something. (But it doesn't mean she's not driving me completely bat-shit crazy...)
LJ, unexpectedly enough, showed up at the front door Thursday night. Apparently he's been in town for a couple of days; he's been staying at his mother's.
"So...was that your girl?" I asked him. "One of them, yeah," he replied coolly. "She's a headache, though...always tryin' to control my life, all 'where you goin' and 'when you comin back' and all that...And she HATES it that I still keep in touch with you," he added. "I told her ain't nothin' goin on...I told her that truck is like our kid. I let her know...'Gladys an' me are probly gonna be friends for life,' I told her," he said, which I thought was nice. He hung around for a while; he and I and Squeaky and Tim talked for a few minutes. We laughed, had a beer, talked about the situation. I told him we'd lost the house; he agreed to come back and get what little stuff was left here, which he did last night. Those twenty or thirty minutes were more comfortable than the relationship ever was.
That's not to say that everything's perfect. I'm still behind on a lot of bills, though I'm chipping away at it; we still don't have a place to go when we have to move. We haven't heard anything from Betty about her friend's amazing condo; if that doesn't work out, I'm thinking I might just get a one-bedroom or a studio closer to work. It's a little bit stressful, this not-knowing--but only a little. Really, things are good. I'm back in the groove of having a job; getting up in the morning, coming home at night, being exhausted--but in a good way. I really love my job.
In fact, I love my job so much that at the moment, I'd be happier THERE than I currently am at home. At least, it would be more peaceful. Who was that, who made the comparison between houseguests and fish? Yeah. DEFinitely. I'm weary unto death of hearing about whatever TV show or movie she just finished watching, or hearing her singing various pop songs and demanding that people watch her dance, or watching the same MadTV skit on YouTube eight times a day. Between that, and the constant married-couple bickering between her and Tim, I'll be very glad tomorrow when this little arrangement comes to an end...at least for a couple of days. I'm driving the two of them to the Cubs game, and then I guess she's going....somewhere. I'm concerned, but not terribly concerned.
I know, I know--I should be more compassionate, but seriously, I can only be so good for so long; I'm rapidly approaching the moment when I'll finally put my head through the wall in total irritation. There was a REASON I didn't have kids; and honestly, if I'd wanted a 19-year-old in my life when I was 37, I'd have had a baby at 18.
She has been back, in fact, for more than a week now. Apparently her AA-evangelist friend refused to accept her assertion that she hadn't been drinking for the two days she spent here last weekend. (Which she hadn't, and I know that for a fact. I'm the beer-purchaser around here; I'm the one with money; and I COUNT my beers. Squeaky was perfectly innocent, in this case. But tell that to 12-Stepper.) Because she didn't believe Squeaky, Squeaky was told she would not be staying at 12-Stepper's house; because all the other places she could stay were out of range of public transportation, Tim went and met her and brought her back here. She's been doing very well here--even though Tim and I have had beer in the house almost constantly, she hasn't drunk any, and since there's no other type of intoxicant available, she's been relentlessly sober. She's....not so bad, I guess. She sings a lot, and dances a lot, and has more energy than I would even WANT to have; she's loud and aggravating, but she's also sweet and very considerate and very grateful to be allowed to stay here. And she loves the hell out of Tim, unfortunately; he's still pining for Nicolette, and makes no bones about Squeaky's role in his life. He cares about her; he just doesn't plan to be her guy permanently, is all. It's a hard state of affairs for everyone concerned, really.
She's told me more of her history; if even five percent of it is true, she's had a life no one deserves. If all of it is true, or even the half of it, she's lucky to be alive, mostly sane, and mentally-functioning at all. As I said to her, after her recitation of the things her stepfather did to her: "There's a special circle of hell for some people, you know? I have to believe that, because if I didn't I'd jump off a bridge at the injustice of it all." She broke down crying at one point; I gave her a hug. It was the best I could do. "You're the only one who listens to me," she told me. "Tim doesn't want to hear it." I happen to know that Tim doesn't want to hear it because he's EXTREMELY sensitive about his friends being hurt; if he hears about it, man-like, he feels an obligation to act, and if he can't solve the problem....well, it just eats at him. I know there's nothing I can do; the past is the past, and sometimes it helps just to talk. And if I can listen, at least that's something. (But it doesn't mean she's not driving me completely bat-shit crazy...)
LJ, unexpectedly enough, showed up at the front door Thursday night. Apparently he's been in town for a couple of days; he's been staying at his mother's.
"So...was that your girl?" I asked him. "One of them, yeah," he replied coolly. "She's a headache, though...always tryin' to control my life, all 'where you goin' and 'when you comin back' and all that...And she HATES it that I still keep in touch with you," he added. "I told her ain't nothin' goin on...I told her that truck is like our kid. I let her know...'Gladys an' me are probly gonna be friends for life,' I told her," he said, which I thought was nice. He hung around for a while; he and I and Squeaky and Tim talked for a few minutes. We laughed, had a beer, talked about the situation. I told him we'd lost the house; he agreed to come back and get what little stuff was left here, which he did last night. Those twenty or thirty minutes were more comfortable than the relationship ever was.
That's not to say that everything's perfect. I'm still behind on a lot of bills, though I'm chipping away at it; we still don't have a place to go when we have to move. We haven't heard anything from Betty about her friend's amazing condo; if that doesn't work out, I'm thinking I might just get a one-bedroom or a studio closer to work. It's a little bit stressful, this not-knowing--but only a little. Really, things are good. I'm back in the groove of having a job; getting up in the morning, coming home at night, being exhausted--but in a good way. I really love my job.
In fact, I love my job so much that at the moment, I'd be happier THERE than I currently am at home. At least, it would be more peaceful. Who was that, who made the comparison between houseguests and fish? Yeah. DEFinitely. I'm weary unto death of hearing about whatever TV show or movie she just finished watching, or hearing her singing various pop songs and demanding that people watch her dance, or watching the same MadTV skit on YouTube eight times a day. Between that, and the constant married-couple bickering between her and Tim, I'll be very glad tomorrow when this little arrangement comes to an end...at least for a couple of days. I'm driving the two of them to the Cubs game, and then I guess she's going....somewhere. I'm concerned, but not terribly concerned.
I know, I know--I should be more compassionate, but seriously, I can only be so good for so long; I'm rapidly approaching the moment when I'll finally put my head through the wall in total irritation. There was a REASON I didn't have kids; and honestly, if I'd wanted a 19-year-old in my life when I was 37, I'd have had a baby at 18.
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