They're In Here, Too - Once Upon A Time In My Life - Part 8
It's midsummer 2004. My first night in the new apartment, which is on the top floor of an old, turn of the century, hospital building that was rehabbed into low income housing for the disabled and elderly several decades prior.
The first night here seems perfectly calm; a soft breeze, easy temps, late sundown. A good evening to relax and to think, but I'm interrupted. I hear the workers at the old folks home across the way talking about me from the moment the sun goes down. My adversaries congregate at what must be a designated smoking spot seventy five feet away from my windows and discuss my life and miseries in meticulous detail. They really hate me, I realize. And know so much about me.
I am afraid to look at them, afraid to stare out the window at them. I am spending time on the internet, trying to ignore the slights and taunts because if I react they will know I can hear them, that their cruelties are getting to me, thus adding fuel to their fires. They say things like "If he ever goes on Sons of Sam Horn he will be ridiculed because he's a know nothing blowhard who wasn't a good enough athlete to play sports in high school." They say I "have a funny looking body with big ears and sad eyes, bad skin" and am "just fucking strange in so many fucking ways" that they run out of descriptions.
They say that everyone that knows me hates me.
One of the smokers says he would shoot me on sight if he knew he could get away with it. This fills me with anger. I know then that the people down there are pussies and posers, that if they want to get me they should just do it, consequences be damned. I'm ready to go. Anger replaces the sadness for a few minutes. I hear them all evening that first night, until I fall asleep, just after I stop crying.
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How did these folks know anything about me? Because I am famous around these parts for being an asshole. Five years prior, back in the late spring of 1999, I had had a job helping to take care of a tough little developmentally disabled guy who lived in a home near Portland. He was about twenty years old and a real handful; small but wiry and athletic, with many horrifying physical problems that surely contribute to the terrifying temper tantrums he suffered through so often.
One afternoon I spanked this young man on his rear end, hard, three or four times. No one else was around. It happened when we had been left alone at his house; he was out of control with fear and rage and I was at my absolute wits end. I confessed what happened the next day to my supervisor. Maybe "confessed" is the wrong word, since I did not realize how serious my offense was, both at the time I committed the act and the next day discussing it. I was told to resign to avoid a scandal that could get me charged with assault, and complied. The guilt over not just the act but not realizing what a serious thing I'd done built quickly.
And everybody knew what I had done, I was sure. Word got out of how I had abused this young man, that I had been fired for cause, and been lucky to escape serious jail time. When I eventually move down into my Mom's tiny house in Kittery, the cops, I was sure, began putting up posters in the schools in town, warning the kids to avoid me should they ever come across me in the street or at a store. They were never to look at me, or to speak to me because I was a bad, dangerous person. That was how I was welcomed to Kittery in 2000, and things didn't get better in the four years I was there.
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As I move into the fourth apartment on the fourth floor of Loring House, my reputation follows. I am a child abuser. I am not to be trusted, not to be talked to, not to be made friends with.
Moving in on a hot midweek morning, I am optimistic. It takes my 65 year old mother and I several hours to bring the furniture and boxes from the van, up the three flights of stairs, to the apartment. I hear nothing unusual anywhere when she's there, but that night, I have a few Coronas in me, the sun has set, and I am left with only my thoughts. The talking quickly becomes nonstop and these people are not pleased with me. How can they know all the nasty things I've ever done? How do they know so many folks I have done bad things to or acted weird around?
I know what to do. Close the freaking window. But I can still hear the voices discussing me. They are saying, "He's on to us. He's trying to shut us out." Where the hell is that coming from? I focus my attention on the sprinkler head in the living room, just above the door that leads to the hallway, as well as the smoke detector in the hallway. It occurs to me that this apartment was rehabbed prior to my moving in. And the intriguing thing is that the place was available so quickly after I told Loring House management that I wanted to live here. It was a matter of weeks, not the months long wait I had expected. Maybe they have some sort of setup special for me. I look online for spy cameras and find tiny devices in all shapes and sizes. There are fake sprinkler heads that can be purchased, so I test out the one in my apartment. It seems to be pretty secure, not a plant, but that doesn't mean it isn't a camera. And I locate the description of a "wafer thin" device online that can be planted in a smoke detector to surveil. Opening up the smoke detector in my place I find what looks like that exact same device! This does it: I have proof that they're fucking with me. In a rage I punch the drywall next to my stove dozens of times and shred the wall, angered that I have not broken my hand. I call up my Mom proudly with my discovery of the surveillance equipment. She rebuffs me gently, not really disagreeing but not telling we I have actual evidence either.
Next I call Portland PD. Surely they will be happy to find out about this. Two cops, one male, one female, show up in the lobby. The female is all business, the male gentler. I show her the smoke detector and point out the camera. She quickly informs me that what I think is a camera lens is actually just the reset button. She is talking fast and seems rushed, and I realize what is going on. They are in on this too, and I am really fucked now. The cops know about the cameras in my place. As they walk out the door, I hear the larger male say to his partner, "But what happens if he kills himself?"
Just what the fuck is going on? How big is this? Why is this happening to me? The next day I go to Radio Shack in the Maine Mall and show a tech the "wafer thin" device. He tells me he doesn't know what it is, but as I'm leaving I hear him tell another customer, "I'm not getting involved with the government!", so I know he was lying to me. As a final attempt at getting to the bottom of this I go to the Portland Police Station and ask to see their SWAT team. Could anyone there take a look at this device I found in the smoke detector in my apartment and tell me what the hell it is? The guy they send to talk to me is kind and seemingly generous with his time, but is another dead end. My god, I am fucked.
----------------------
I know I am being watched 24/7. Why? Because I am an asshole and because they can. Because I am on social security disability for no real reason, because I take money from my Mom without paying it back, because my siblings despise me, because I've been dumped by every woman I ever cared about, because I am lazy, and because I hit that kid. They have good reasons for treating me like this. I deserve it all.
The first night here seems perfectly calm; a soft breeze, easy temps, late sundown. A good evening to relax and to think, but I'm interrupted. I hear the workers at the old folks home across the way talking about me from the moment the sun goes down. My adversaries congregate at what must be a designated smoking spot seventy five feet away from my windows and discuss my life and miseries in meticulous detail. They really hate me, I realize. And know so much about me.
I am afraid to look at them, afraid to stare out the window at them. I am spending time on the internet, trying to ignore the slights and taunts because if I react they will know I can hear them, that their cruelties are getting to me, thus adding fuel to their fires. They say things like "If he ever goes on Sons of Sam Horn he will be ridiculed because he's a know nothing blowhard who wasn't a good enough athlete to play sports in high school." They say I "have a funny looking body with big ears and sad eyes, bad skin" and am "just fucking strange in so many fucking ways" that they run out of descriptions.
They say that everyone that knows me hates me.
One of the smokers says he would shoot me on sight if he knew he could get away with it. This fills me with anger. I know then that the people down there are pussies and posers, that if they want to get me they should just do it, consequences be damned. I'm ready to go. Anger replaces the sadness for a few minutes. I hear them all evening that first night, until I fall asleep, just after I stop crying.
---------------
---------------
How did these folks know anything about me? Because I am famous around these parts for being an asshole. Five years prior, back in the late spring of 1999, I had had a job helping to take care of a tough little developmentally disabled guy who lived in a home near Portland. He was about twenty years old and a real handful; small but wiry and athletic, with many horrifying physical problems that surely contribute to the terrifying temper tantrums he suffered through so often.
One afternoon I spanked this young man on his rear end, hard, three or four times. No one else was around. It happened when we had been left alone at his house; he was out of control with fear and rage and I was at my absolute wits end. I confessed what happened the next day to my supervisor. Maybe "confessed" is the wrong word, since I did not realize how serious my offense was, both at the time I committed the act and the next day discussing it. I was told to resign to avoid a scandal that could get me charged with assault, and complied. The guilt over not just the act but not realizing what a serious thing I'd done built quickly.
And everybody knew what I had done, I was sure. Word got out of how I had abused this young man, that I had been fired for cause, and been lucky to escape serious jail time. When I eventually move down into my Mom's tiny house in Kittery, the cops, I was sure, began putting up posters in the schools in town, warning the kids to avoid me should they ever come across me in the street or at a store. They were never to look at me, or to speak to me because I was a bad, dangerous person. That was how I was welcomed to Kittery in 2000, and things didn't get better in the four years I was there.
----------------
----------------
As I move into the fourth apartment on the fourth floor of Loring House, my reputation follows. I am a child abuser. I am not to be trusted, not to be talked to, not to be made friends with.
Moving in on a hot midweek morning, I am optimistic. It takes my 65 year old mother and I several hours to bring the furniture and boxes from the van, up the three flights of stairs, to the apartment. I hear nothing unusual anywhere when she's there, but that night, I have a few Coronas in me, the sun has set, and I am left with only my thoughts. The talking quickly becomes nonstop and these people are not pleased with me. How can they know all the nasty things I've ever done? How do they know so many folks I have done bad things to or acted weird around?
I know what to do. Close the freaking window. But I can still hear the voices discussing me. They are saying, "He's on to us. He's trying to shut us out." Where the hell is that coming from? I focus my attention on the sprinkler head in the living room, just above the door that leads to the hallway, as well as the smoke detector in the hallway. It occurs to me that this apartment was rehabbed prior to my moving in. And the intriguing thing is that the place was available so quickly after I told Loring House management that I wanted to live here. It was a matter of weeks, not the months long wait I had expected. Maybe they have some sort of setup special for me. I look online for spy cameras and find tiny devices in all shapes and sizes. There are fake sprinkler heads that can be purchased, so I test out the one in my apartment. It seems to be pretty secure, not a plant, but that doesn't mean it isn't a camera. And I locate the description of a "wafer thin" device online that can be planted in a smoke detector to surveil. Opening up the smoke detector in my place I find what looks like that exact same device! This does it: I have proof that they're fucking with me. In a rage I punch the drywall next to my stove dozens of times and shred the wall, angered that I have not broken my hand. I call up my Mom proudly with my discovery of the surveillance equipment. She rebuffs me gently, not really disagreeing but not telling we I have actual evidence either.
Next I call Portland PD. Surely they will be happy to find out about this. Two cops, one male, one female, show up in the lobby. The female is all business, the male gentler. I show her the smoke detector and point out the camera. She quickly informs me that what I think is a camera lens is actually just the reset button. She is talking fast and seems rushed, and I realize what is going on. They are in on this too, and I am really fucked now. The cops know about the cameras in my place. As they walk out the door, I hear the larger male say to his partner, "But what happens if he kills himself?"
Just what the fuck is going on? How big is this? Why is this happening to me? The next day I go to Radio Shack in the Maine Mall and show a tech the "wafer thin" device. He tells me he doesn't know what it is, but as I'm leaving I hear him tell another customer, "I'm not getting involved with the government!", so I know he was lying to me. As a final attempt at getting to the bottom of this I go to the Portland Police Station and ask to see their SWAT team. Could anyone there take a look at this device I found in the smoke detector in my apartment and tell me what the hell it is? The guy they send to talk to me is kind and seemingly generous with his time, but is another dead end. My god, I am fucked.
----------------------
I know I am being watched 24/7. Why? Because I am an asshole and because they can. Because I am on social security disability for no real reason, because I take money from my Mom without paying it back, because my siblings despise me, because I've been dumped by every woman I ever cared about, because I am lazy, and because I hit that kid. They have good reasons for treating me like this. I deserve it all.
posted by joe sweeney at 8:40 PM
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