It is nearly midnight. About an hour ago, I was summoned by my mother hurriedly, and she told me to get dressed ASAP. She said that our neighbor’s elderly father passed out, and they needed an extra hand to get him into a van. They called 911, but it had taken too long to arrive.
Immediately I was like "fuck. Just what I need. Hysterical neighbors trying to shove a slobbering old coot in a van. I bet the fucker weighs about 500 pounds. Goddamnit."
When I arrived there, the neighbors were unusually quiet. They always are, you don’t hear a peep from them. Unlike my family, who keep ignoring the fact that these houses tend to be excessively acoustic and yet they still find delight in screaming for every little fucking thing.
I went to the neighbors’, and I saw the poor old guy being carried around by my dad and the old guy’s son in law in a bed sheet, while he rested in an office chair. The old guy looked pale. No. He looked bluish. I didn’t see him breathe. I just kept my mouth shut, seeing as the old guy’s daughter, a stern looking yet usually friendly middle-aged woman, was about to pop a vein in her forehead. However, she kept her poise and didn’t resort to the usual pathetic wailing and hysterics. She was doing the strangest thing: shoving wads of sugar into the old guy’s motionless mouth. Her two sons were also strangely calm yet nervous, and there was no sign of hysteria anywhere. They were truly a quiet, controlled bunch of people. My family should take a leaf or two from their book.
As I helped get the heavy old guy in the back of the van, I noticed his fingers were purple. I dared not touch his skin to see if he was cold, because if he was really dead it would have really grossed me out and I could have released him and dropped him on his poor, freshly deceased ass. They left in their van with my dad, and my mom said she would tail them to the hospital. Before leaving she asked me: "Aren’t you coming?" I looked at her as if she was on heroin and said a dull ‘no’, but I really meant to say ‘no fucking way, are you crazy?’. What stopped me, precisely, is the afforementioned fact that my house is very acoustic and they could probably hear me next door and label me as an insensitive lazy fuck.
Mumsy and Dadsy returned about an hour later. When Lucifer gets off the car he says to me: "What did you think of the old guy, huh?" I was aware we were in the garage, and the neighbor’s windows were like ten feet away.
"Well, he looked really pale to me", I said. Dad scoffed sarcastically, which meant that he understood my sarcastic comment, and went inside. Mom was the one who told me that the old guy had been dead all along. They just didn’t realize it. Or didn’t want to. My dad had even flashed his eyes with a small lamp and his pupils were as motionless as Courtney Love’s singing career.
Goddamnit, I touched a dead guy. I fucking hate dead.. things. It’s not a fear-based hatred, it’s more like an "Ew" kind of hatred. It disgusts me. And, as you read in the title and are probably wondering yourself now, this wasn’t the first time something like this happenned to me.
The first time was in my old dorm, owned by an ancient marriage, where the old man had been the subject of several heart related surgeries. The old coot could barely walk, but when he got pissed, he somehow could draw up the energy to scream up a storm. His wife was an energetic, retired nurse, who constantly asked me about my parents whenever she saw me, which happenned every stinking day. Numerous times I held in the desire to answer "My parents are fine, how about yours?" (Bear in mind that this woman is in her 70’s.)
Well, one day I wake up from my peaceful, sacred afternoon nap by a shrill sound. It was the old lady, bellowing her heart out and asking someone for help. My brother and I rushed into the house to find the old man collapsed on the floor, sort of twitching. His shirt was open, exposing the huge scar on his chest from a previous operation. He looked so beaten and battered up, I started to wonder how this guy had been up and running for so long. But now it seemed his fuel gauge had just about hit the red ‘E’. The old guy’s daughter and a few neighbors were there, but nobody could do anything, since every time somebody came close to the old guy, his wife snapped at them like an angry hyena defending her carcass. Even a med school student was shoved back when he tried to CPR the old guy. And to think, the old lady was a nurse. It seems she lost all traces of medical knowledge and became one of those hysterical italian widows you see in funeral scenes from gangster movies.
The ambulance, as predicted, took too long (or we got really desperate) so they decided to throw the pale, now purple old guy in the back seat of their car. As they were lifting him up. I swear I heard him breathe his last sigh. It was really depressing, and slightly disturbing, when I realized someone had just died in front of me.
Just like a few hours ago, I had also helped carry and old, dead person into a car.
I just hope that these sort of things have already reached full circle in my life, and that this this means it is the last time I have to witness somebody’s death right in my fucking face.
It pisses me off! Just throws me off balance, you know? I don’t need this shit. Other people’s grievances. I tend to absorb emotions around me, and I end up feeling like pure, battered shit. Now I can’t fucking sleep, and I have to wake up at 8 a.m. tomorrow. I mean today. I mean… Agh! See? I’m already acting like a crazy person.
Anyway , the point is:
If you’re gonna die, get the hell away from me.
