I'm the Best You're Ever Going to Get (DS2)

So we moved into the little blue and white wartime house in the river valley. Dan wanted to be able to smoke in the bedroom and I don't like smoky sheets so we had seperate bedrooms upstairs, living room and and kitchen on the main floor and computers in the basement.

Things seemed good, but sometimes things would get a bit odd. Dan wanted me to look like this friend he had, Julie. I dyed my hair red for him, and he wanted me to get it permed as well. I would have, except my hair is straight as an arrow and won't curl even if you pay it. The nagging got a bit annoying, he kept trying to make excuses why I should curl my hair when I actually couldn't. I would have if it were possible. "It will tangle less" he'd say, I knew that wasn't a fact. He asked his friends and they sided with me. He nagged less about it, but he started talking about this girl more and more. I guess that was a sign I missed, or more accurately, didn't know at the time.

He began to talk about this girl insessantly, and I'd just sort of half-listen because I wasn't really interested. On hindsight, I think he was trying to provoke jealousy in me. "Oh Julie likes this sort of thing and Julie does that, maybe you can do that?" I don't know why he wasn't dating her instead, since he seemed so obsessed. But I didn't let it bother me.

Then came the jealousy. He would provoke it in himself, asking me questions about my ex's. I didn't really give him too much information since I didn't really see that it was any of his buisness, but it soon became a bit nuts because he was asking me about guys I was friends with or didn't even know.

The questioning turned into interrigation, but again I didn't give it any mind; I was used to crazy accusations from growing up with my mom twisting facts to make things my brother did my fault, again, it was all in my realm of normalcy.

He started making up stories about people gossiping about me. That worried me some, because I  didn't think anyone had any reason to. He started to have temper tantrums, and I was sort of already "conditioned" to be a fixer, and try and fix what was wrong to stop the tantrum. The cycle of abuse had begun.

He started to do strange things. Against my wishes, he let other people move in with us. Our mutual friend, Brad, which wouldn't have been bad except if I got caught talking to Brad, as soon as Dan and I were alone, there would be hell to pay. It turned out Brad was a pig. He smoked in the non smoking areas of the house and used my plants as an ashtray, they all started to wither. He wouldn't use a cutting board and my nice solid wood table got cut marks in it. He used our towels and we caught scabies from him. Dan wouldn't make him move out. Brad would break in through the windows. I constantly got accused of flirting with him. It was exausting.

He started to say I hadn't paid my share of the bills (so I had to pay twice, thus paying the full bill). He'd go out on drinking binges with his friends and come home angry. He limited what friends I could have to 3. He lied and said he was communicating with my parents. If I questioned him he would get very threatening and go "don't you trust me?" I didn't dare deny him when he spoke like that. I knew that tone all too well.

When he was angry, he wanted sex. Or when he wanted sex, he became angry. I would generally be in the basement on the computer or somewhere else in the house when I heard "Nicky! Come here right now!" So I didn't really know which way it went. Everyone likes being talked to like that, right? Being a normal person, I didn't want to have sex with someone who was in a rage. Back then, no one knew about "rageaholism" (a stupid term for a serious condition), but the more he was refused, the more it fuled his paranoia and jealousy (I belive his logic was that since I wasn't ready to jump on him I was "getting it" from somewhere else, rather than simple distate for his behavior.)

I don't remember the first time he laid a hand on me but at first he had put his hands on my shoulders if I recall properly. He'd get raging mad and be babbling some rediculous thing about some guy I barely knew and his face would get all screwed up and he'd look like a hamster. It was hard to take him seriously and I'd have to stifle myself from laughing because the stories and the look on his face was so perposterous. I think the rediculousness of it made it easier to take, or made me immune somehow because I didn't really lacth on to the seriousness of it until the shaking turned to choking and I realized that I was deciding to get beaten up rather than endure nasty sex with him where he's humiliate and insult me. "I'm the best you're ever going to get, you'll never do better than me. I mean just look at you." I'd stare at the clock. At least it was only six minues. But it was a long six minutes. I didn't want to participate to make it last longer so I stared at the clock, the ceiling... the clock...."

Then he invited his brother and brothers girlfriend to live with us. That was probably the best time because Dan wouldn't act abusive when they were around. But if they were out and Dan came home drunk and the house was empty, things would be twice as intense.

Then he decided he was infertile. Which of course meant he didn't want to wear condoms. I couldn't take the pill because of medical reasons so it was barrier methods. We'd made an agreement before we were ever intimate that if there was an accidental pregnancy, that there would be a termination. I didn't want to be a single mom. I started to use a diaphraghm and contraceptive foam. We were down from using 3 barriers to two and I was pretty uncomfortable with this since I wasn't really wanting to do this anyway. I thought it was something you had to do. I didn't have the money to get out of this situation. I'd phoned my mom and asked for help and said it was an emergancy, that I just needed money for a damage deposit so I could move, and she said that "it wasn't an emergancy, and I chose my bed now I have to sleep in it."

I told Tim about the abuse. There was a fight. The Police were called. Dan accused me of strange things with his brother Tim. To the police he said Tim and I had been kissing and to some friends he said Tim had been touching my breasts. It was all crazy fabrications.He couldn't even keep his crazy story straight. Dan was good with the police. Tim spent the night in jail. It should have been Dan.

I started to think of ways to get out. By then I had Pteri, my parrot, and I had to think of her safety too. He would hurt her if I went to a shelter.


Dan had graduated to shaking me by the neck and screaming something incomprehensable about some guy I did an art project with once. We'd talked about doing a road trip out to the country and photograph the powerlines that looked like crosses. Christian crosses. That was some hot and heavy stuff right there. Then I had the realization. This was happening now about 3 times a week. If this didn't stop, this was going to be my life. I didn't want this to be my life. Dan must have seen something in my face or in my eyes change because he became really psycho and started pressing really hard on my throat so I took a few steps back until I was backed up againsat the wall. I was in my "happy place" when I was snapped out of it with him shreiking "...look at my eyes! Don't look at me did I tell you to look at me! You're nothing! Your hair is all going to fall out! You're going to get fat! I'm the best you're ever going to get! Why aren't you looking into my eyes! What are you hiding!" the pressure was releived off my neck and I inhaled and then I was smashed into the wall. The back of my head impacted, hard, then my jaw slammed closed so hard I fractured a tooth and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Dan... stop it. You're hurting me."

Immediately he became like a baby bird, a small weak thing. He ran over to the sofa and started sobbing. Sobbing for his mommy. I felt an overwhelming compassion for him, he was so broken and miserable, I instintively followed hm over there with the intent to nurture and comfort him. I started to stroke his hair. A voice, maybe of reason, spoke to me: "What are you doing, 2 seconds ago he tried to kill you."

"Why are you crying?" "I can't control you. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I can't control you." I was a bit baffled. "Why would you want to do that?" I asked. He just sobbed. I put down the lock of hair and walked into the kitchen. I don't remember anything after that.

Surely it can't get any worse than this

Christmas came. His favorite holiday. We decorated the tree, I'd had made origami animals from John Montroll's Animals designs, they were so complcated that had to be folded with foil paper and some took as long as four hours a piece to do. They looked awesome with the colored lights and the different colours of foil paper.

Dan went out more and more often. I tried to drive home to my mom how scared I was by mailing her the christmas ornaments I'd made as a small child. One night I went out to the car to drive up the hill and get some milk from the 7-11, and the tire was flat. He admitted the next day to doing it. "What did Nen say?" I asked. "He thought it was a pretty stupid thing to do." At least he was ashamed.

I don't know what set him off but one night he came home raving drunk and screaming. He took a big carving knife out of the kitchen and was whirling it around, not even making intelligable words. I got him to put away the knife. Somehow. It was like wrangling wasps. The he went after the tree. He picked it up by the base and swung it around the living room. Water splashed everywhere and the cord fortunately was pulled out of the wall preventing an electrical fire. He dragged the tree outside, screaming in tongues. I barricaded myself with Pteri in my bedroom.

The next morning he was very hungover and very bashful. "I ruined your tree. I ruined Christmas."  I didn't have anything to say to him. I tried to wipe the melted candy cane off my origami treasures and packed them away in a bag.

"I'm a lover, not a fighter", he'd say. "I don't abuse women, I've never hit a woman." "Sure," I thought, "but you'll do everything else." It was hard not to roll my eyes. he went on, "I love you, and I'm the best thing you'll ever get, it doesn't get better than me." He was flaunting himself again, in a good mood because he'd gotten what he wanted. He was in an unusually good mood lately. As if he had something up his sleeve. This was going on March.

I decided there was a 4rd option. Whe he was having an episode I couldn't run from the house, he's grab me and do the choking thing. I wouldn't succomb to the shaking. I wouldn't succomb to the rape. I locked myself in my bedroom and I took a plank off my brick and board bookshelf and I wedged it under the doorhandle. I sat on my bed in the corner of the room and wrapped my blankets around me. He swore. He screamed. He demanded. He shouted ultamatiums. He.. he started to bang on the door. First with his fists, then his palms, then you could tell my the tone it was his arms then he started ramming the door with his shoulder. The door couldn't handle that. It began to give. It splintered. It cracked. It shattered at the edge and the door opened, hinges first. It was like The Shining. I was never so terrified in my life. I was petrified. He smashed all the things on top of my dresser. My nautilis shell, one of the only things I had from my dad, shattered. Dan got his way on my bed. I thought the damage to the house would be proof that I needed help to get away. Dan had clearly done this dance before. He said I was crazy, and that he thought I was going to kill myself, and that he'd saved my life.

I felt bloated. I felt unfamiliar. My breasts felt strange. I squeezed one and a few drops of translucent white fluid emerged. I went to get a pregnancy test. It was positive.

I finally found someone that would take Pteri and my other animals and I in without a damage deposit, some work colleagues of my stepdad's who also owned horses where Foxy lived. We'd ride together quite a bit.

When I told him, Dan was very smug. "I poked a hole in your diaphraghm." I ran upstairs. It was true, there was a pinhole dead in the center.When he saw me looking at it, he laughed.

Janet said she would support me and take me to the clinic. First I had to get an ultrasound because it was already late in the trimester, they had to determine wheather it was first or second trimester. I had gotten spotting every four weeks and assumed it was my period so I didn't know.

They made me look at the ultrasound. I made myself not care. I didn't want to be glued to Dan the whole rest of my life. I wanted to get away, clean and even.

On Nen's advice, Dan had suddenly become pro-life. I told him that was bullshit, and he couldn't make that decision at the last minute like that.

Dan was still trying to get me to stay with him. I went out with him and his friends to their bar. Some of these guys were my friends before Dan and I got together, they'd met through me. Dan was emploring, begging me to stay with him. I told his friends in front of him that the door broken down was his temper and I wouldn't back down until he got psychological help for his temper. I didn't have any plans to stay with him anyway. I don't know why I was there. I guess I missed the old "us".

I dropped him off at home. He grabbed the papers for the procedure the next day and darted into the house. I bolted after him. He locked the door but I used my key and my strength to get one arm and my knee and foot stuck in the door. It started to thunder and rain. Dan twisted my arm behind my back, behind the door. I was jammed there. We were pretty equal strengthwise, but he had the leverage advantage. I used the same philosphy I use on horses, I sat there and waited. He was pressing really hard and using up all his energy. A car rolled by. "Help!" I yelled, but they must not have been able to hear in the thunderstorm. Every 10 minutes or so Dan would soften and I would try and gain the advantage. All I managed to do was get more of my leg stuck in the door. It felt like ages, felt like hours. I was cold, wet, tired, fatigued and my muscles were sore from being held in an uncomfortable position. Finally once Dan softened and I managed to pull away. He slammed my lower arm in the door frame. Let me out! He let me pull the rest of my arm out. I almost lost my balance from the muscle fatigue and he saw an oppurtunity and pushed me off the side of the front steps. Things went in slow motion for me as my head avoided the concrete gutter.

I found the nearest phone booth and called the police.

It took them a little while to arrive. They were impolite, rude, condescending, just like I would later learn they always were. I thought they would matter of factly take me up to the station and photograph the bruises and press charges. They got the papers for me. "Are you sure you want to press charges?" They may as well have tagged "little girl" on the end, from the tone of their voice. I couldn't stand it. I even had his hand print perfectly imprinted in mu upper arm in a bruise, the evidence was so obvious. It was as if the last whiff of strength left my body. "I just want to go home." I got into my car and went to Janet and Gord's.

The next day at 9:30 am Janet took me to the Morgenthaller Clinic to have 1/2 of Dan removed from my uterus. The Counsellers there by law had to explain to me birth control and simple things like that, but I think they went easy on me when I told them what had happened with the sabatoged diaphraghm and the rapes.

The procedure was horrible, but at least it was over, and afterwards I had a warm dry safe bed to sleep in.

Later I learned I had entrapped nerves in my neck and bony lipping growing towards my spinal column in the middle of my C 4 and 5 vertibrae from the shaking. I'll always be in pain from this.

Noise Through The Walls (DS1)

It was about 1994 and I was moving on from John. I was going to a gig at a bar on top of a highrise at the Uni. I sat with some aquaintences, Nen and his friend Dan. Dan started to flirt with me, he bent a paperclip into a croude ring and put it on my finger. I thought this was cute, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor and liked that I had a horse and pets.

Our first date was my brother's wedding reception. I don't remember the wedding itself. I was excited that I would have a sister, something I've longed for.

Dan and I became inseperable. He was working at the time at a drive through, and I'd give him a rose instead of paying.

Some people told me that they didn't like him and that they saw bad signs in him. I didn't see anything, so I was confused why they would say such things. I asked what they meant and they wouldn't say anything, as if it was blatently obvious. It wasn't.

I mean, his sense of humor was dorky and self-flattering and sometimes obnoxious, but that described 99% of all guys I'd met. It Just seemed normal.

We'd stay up all night and eat tortillas and watch (old) Dr. Who and Red Dwarf and infomercials till dawn broke, things were very simple and straight foreward compared to John. I wasn't stunned by his intellect and knowledge, he was a pretty straight foreward guy.

Someties he'd make up weird anecdotes to puff himself up, but I didn't mind. One was something about him working in a pharmacy and a woman had an asthma attack at the front of the store and her lips were turning blue and so he ran to the back of the pharmacy and vaulted the counter and grabbed some ventalin and administered it to the poor, semi conscious woman and saved the day. He saved the day a lot, but I didn't care, it just seemed to be a cute harmless quirk.

At the time I was living on 107th Ave, a nasty part of town with lots of drugs and crime. I was very fed up with the landlords, who had installed screen windows in such a way that it would take an Exacto knife to enter my apartment, and I had an ex, Brian, that had been stalking me. He kept climbing up on the hood of my car onto my patio and trying to get in my place that way. In that area, the police didn't care.

I had neighbours that would have loud, obnoxious parties with plenty of shouting, fighting, banging around and lots of loud sex. Frequently I'd hear women, their girlfriends, I assumed, shouting back at them and the banging and sex would ensue. Calling the police on a late night noise complaint was futile, it didn't matter in that area.

I was working to the East at the new College as a lab assistant in the Biology lab. The lab job was great, in addition to taking care of the animals, I got to do cool things like hatch praying mantids, and stay late drawing and painting specimens. It was the best job I'd ever had, I could set up the class, go fro a swim in the pool and come back in time to tear down the lab and set up the next class and go to my own class. In addition I was  doing a diploma in Psych to get closure on John's death. I thought I was handling it pretty well, it was 2 years ago. Dan came to my work and I let him in the lab. He wanted to "move another step in the relationship" and move in together. I told him I'd think about it. Something made me a little apprehensive. He seemed to nag about it a lot.

Everyone said not to do it. No one would explain why. I didn't get it. One friend, who I'd been crushing on for years, warned me away from him. I told him if this is a jealosy thing to let me know before I made a real commitment. He said it wasn't like that.

One night the fighting and partying was much louder and more intense than other nights. I put my pillow over my head but it still didn't muffle the sound. I tried the police again. The tired dispatcher said the would send someone out, but "it might be a while". I knew by then that meant no one was coming. Somehow I managed to drift off.

The next day I was finishing an old guitar for a fixer upper that someone had given me, the laundry room was a great place to do woodworking as long as I wasn't too loud (the irony was not lost) and I cleaned up the shavings and sawdust after. The landlord came in the laundry room and asked if I'd heard any strange noises last night. I told him that it was the same as every weekend, shouting and sex and banging, same as I'd told him before. I guess they went too far that time, turned out that one of the brothers had OD'd on coke that night and died. It was hookers they were bringing in the apartment, and something had gone wrong.

This was bad. The death was too close, too close to John and I couldn't stand it. The next week when I was staying late painting in the lab and Dan came by and brough up the topic of moving in together I said "Ok, let's get a house in Rossdale, I always wanted to live near the Folk Festival." And so it began.

We rented a little 2 story wartime house just a block from the Folk Fest Entrance. It was going to be awesome. Things were looking up.

Emotion is a Pejoritive (John I)

It's not "Awe, don't cry", it's "don't cry or you will regret it."

Stuff it down, keep a stiff upper lip.

I met John working in a guitar store when I decided I was good enough of a player that I wanted to get a nice bass. Then, acoustic bass guitars weren't made, so I was recommended to a place that would make me a custom one for the price of a moderately decent factory made guitar.

We hit it off immediately, it was like we were made to be together. We both were artists and introverts and we both had our ways of working out and being healthy and everyone said we were a "good looking couple". The ex was jealous, telling everyone that John had "stolen me away from him" as though I was his property and actually shaved his long hair bald to be a complete drama queen, all this and we had broken up for very good reason four months before John and I became a couple.

John had a fallout with his boss at the guitar store and bought a studio to work in and there I learned to identify and carve and bend exotic woods: indian rosewood and purple heart and red mahogany and madicasar ebony. I learned to carve soapstone and cut inlays out of mother of pearl and abalone.

Freelancing as a luthier wasn't going as well as he'd expected but he did as well as he could and we'd enjoy long weekend days window shopping at our favorite hobby stores: the place that sold stones of all kinds from carvable soapstone and alabaster, the exotic hardwood store run by a sweet couple, Herman and Marie, and the aquarium shop where we would dream one day of having a huge discus tank.

I was 20 then and doing my first year of college, doing fine arts. John was 27 and told me all about the midevil artists like Hieronamous Bosch and Albrecht Druer. He built his instruments with a heavy Celtic accent to them, I learned how to do Celtic braids and knots for the soundhole designs.

I became very very attached. It seemed we were joined at the soul, because I could just imagine where he was and go there and he would be there, even though I'd never seen him at this place before, and we hadn't made plans to meet.

He took on a full time job working at a home for the handicapped, and time went on. He started doing a live in job with a single handicapped man on the weekdays, so I didn`t see him much. He invited me to come to a local hang out where these guys were often, but the times I would go were uncomfortable with the guys making remarks about my body and touching me and stuff.

Around the time this happened, John became very jealous and stuff. I just dismissed it as normal, since other boyfriends I`d had had their jealous, posessive moments, but this was a bit strange. He moved into a house a block away from my bachelor apartment and he would call at 9:30 every morning and night.

Christmas came, we had been seeing each other about a year and a half now. We talked about getting married and where we would live and such. He didn`t have enough money for a ring, but was going to get one.
Things weren't perfect, John was ever more and more demanding in bed. Nothing I did lasted long enough for him and I'd do my best to the top of my pain tolerence. Maybe I'm a lightweight but 20 or 25 minutes of BJ was all I could handle. I didn't think it was a problem, we were together whever he had time away from work.

He started to drink, heavier and heavier. "Green Chartruse," he said. "It's made my monks." He would get absoutely plastered on the stuff and microbrewery ale. A few times I had to practiclly carry him to my apartment where he would pass out in the bathtub. He seemed to have an obsession with bathtubs.

I went to the Christmas party at the home for the handicapped where John worked, and one of the clients had invited one of my friends. It was warm and nice and I had that rare I belong, feeling that I always wish for that I don`t get from my family, but I think thats what most people get. I helped out out the platters and listened to jokes and laughed and did their dishes and really felt for the first time in a long time that I belonged somewhere. Once the dishes were done, one of the female staff pulled me aside and asked what I was still doing there.
``What do you mean? I'm here with the other guests and we are having a nice time I think"
"You're not one of the guests and you will have to leave."
I went white, then red.  The room shrunk and suddenly felt cold. "But I've been a good guest and helping out and I even did your dishes."
"Yeah, we were kind of wondering why you did that. Now you have to leave."
"But I am John's guest."
"Staff don't get guests" this wasn't true, there were family of staff there.
I asked Jason, then Brian, both CP survivors who I had taken on trips and  gone out with. Neither would make eye contact with me and both of then shook their heads.
"Come on Michelle, we're going." "But I'm a guest here, just come and get me when the party's over." "I'm not a cab driver," I said "you can come now or find your own way home." She was mad at me. It was me, after all, that convinced her to come to this party in the first place. "You see, this is why I don't like John," she said. "I don't follow..." "Isn't it obvious? He's cheating on you."  But the words didn't sink in, the rolled off into the winter wind. Quiet in the car. "John would never cheat. We are in love."

Things were still going on at the studio, I was getting good at carving and was doing the head stocks and the heels on the guitar necks as well as making little wooden and soapstone animals.

John was becoming strange though. He and his boss at the guitar shop had had a bad parting of ways, and there were disagreements on who owned what tools. John would tell me that the owner had a man come in the night with a dog and there was a fight, and that he killed the dog with a pipewrench. There was no blood outside. John was becoming delusional from stress.




John Would Never Cheat

We were together and it was early spring. Things were just getting intimate and he took down his pants and... shaven. Bald. Everything. "Sherry said you would like it." "Sherry? Your boss?" "Yeah well you don't like going down, she said you would like this." "John, I have a broken skull. I'm doing the best that I can, but it hurts me." I've never seen such of look of horror on a person's face, ever. It was as though I'd hit ho or something. He locked himself in the bathroom. I realized the levity of what he meant. He'd been fucking his boss. I was floored.

I asked why that happened. John said "They don't like you." I didn't understand. I was nice to them, they had accepted my invitations out... "You use too big of words." Well that's stupid I thought. "John, you are jealous of every move I make. You accuse me of things I haven't done, and it turns out you were the one doing it. Those guys... they touch me and they make lewd remarks about me. You're the jealous one, you should be noticing this and protecting me from those goons." He looked like a scolded child. "But they like Sherry?" I realized that this handicapped guy was being very self serving. By welcoming Sherry into his house he had 2 caretakers for the price of one. This guy had shitty values.

Things weren't the same after that. I couldn't touch him. I couldn't leave him. I couldn't talk to him. I was traumatised. John began to get more and more despondant. Hindsight was 20/20, I knew now why i was kicked out of the Christmas party. Months went by, and nothing seemed to change. My heart and my trust had been broken.

My friends invited me over for games and drinks. I overdrank and the room was spinning and so they put me into Michael's bed to cool off. Michael came in the room and was saying something to me, sympathzing. I was barely conscious. Just as Penny came in the room to check on us, Mike reached out and touched my breast. "Mike!" Penny yelled, snapping me out of my state for a minute. I felt violated and used in so many ways



I knew Everything Would Be Alright from then on

One day I got home from school and there were valentines all over my apartment. JN+NP, bookmarked in books, written on the bathroom mirror in lipstick, on the windows in soap, on the walls, on my denim jacket, 80's style. 


John and I went on our usual Saturday route to the craft and hobby stores and the reptile and aquarium shop. It was a really nice day. After I dropped him at his house so I could go and ride my horse. "I love you" he said. "I love you too." "Things have been really hard, but they will be better from now on." I thought he was talking about Sherry, that he's told her to go take a hike. "I'm glad" I said.
"but you never come over to my house, you don't spend time with the guys at the deli."
"Those guys touch me and make lewd remarks, you are the posessive one, why aren't you doing something when they do that? As for coming over, you never invite me over. You have told me that you didn't want me there. I can come over now, and ride my horse later."

Silence. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No, it's too late. Everything will be ok from now on. I love you."

"I love you too. I will see you later."

I went on my ride with Foxy, and I felt something strange like a wisp. Fox seemed to have felt it too, because he spooked at nothing and smashed my knee into the wooden fence. I didn't cry often but I suddenly started to sob, not because of the pain, but because John was dead. I pulled myself out of that weird feeling. "You're just imagining things because of the weird talk."

John didn't make his usual 9:30 call that night, nor did he in the morning. I assumed he was making a final breakup with Sherry and thats what he meant by everything being ok. Then the phone rang. It was the rude handicapped client wanting to know where John was. "He's not with you?" Suddenly I remebered my premonition from the previous day and my blood ran cold. "Check and make sure none of your medications are missing, please" I waited some time and he came back and said no they weren't. I went across the road and knocked on the door. No answer. I knock on his landlord's door and tried to convince him to open it to check on John. He reminded me of the 24 hour privacy rule, and wouldn't comply. I went back home and called the police. They said they would come.

They arrived after about 1/2 an hour and got the unhappy landlord to unlock the door. I got dizzy and told the policeman that I would be back, I just needed my medicine. When I got back to John's house, an ambulence was there. The police asked if I knew of any ways that John might have killed himself. What a horrible thing to put through someone's imagination. "Um he works with handicapped people and might have gotten some pills, and he has a woodshop, I can't even think of what he could have done with tools..." the cop had me sit down on the curb. "9 out of 10 times when someone thinks that someone has committed suicide, they are wrong, the person has just gone for a walk." That seemed wrong to me, the ambulance... "but 1 out of 10 times the person is right and this is one of those times." I got mad. I threw my keys into the middle of the parking lot. I got mad again because the keys didn't fly nearly far enough for the amount of emotion I was going though. They should have circled the globe and smashed through every window along the way.

I started at a raindrop that was hanging under a blade of grass. It was like I was tiny, like an ant, and I could stare up at this raindrop, left over from last night's storm. I could see the police car and the ambulence and the ENT's rolling the covered gurney out of the house towards the ambuence in perfect detail, but upside down. The drop shook loose from the blade of grass and rolled into the depths of the lawn.