I should preface this paragraph with the statement that I'm far from judgmental, but I am a very analytical person -- but it's fairly no one ends up in this apartment complex or neighboring ones for no fucking reason. That's just how the dice fall. So I generally bullshit around with my neighbors and sometimes I'll bartend for them and they'll cook for me -- gin and food are the currency here just as you'd expect from an apartment of ill-repute. Another form of currency I have is answers to drug questions, which come out of the woodwork when someone sees me carrying my shiny white coat in after a day at work. If I can answer it I do, and if I don't know the answer you're just up shit-creek -- it is free, after all. For example, my neighbor Charles asked me two days ago about taking Seroquel for sleep. Sure -- it's a new use for Seroquel, but at low doses. So I asked him his dose. He replied 300 mg. I said that's not fuckin' safe -- just the kind of quality free advice you get from me when I'm in a reclined position with a post-work celebratory drink in my hand.
Anyway, my neighbor Charles introduced me to his buddy Wolf from across the street and I mixed some drinks, bullshitted around, etc. Today when I pulled in Wolf literally followed me in with a handful of change in his hand, saying he wanted a drink, but he wanted to pay for it dammit. I've always joked that I needed a tip jar, I guess now that's true. But so I mixed him what he wanted, dropped a lemon wedge in it and sent him on his merry way. Thirty minutes later he came back smelling like my own rum asking to borrow a dollar -- just 39 cents less than he paid me for the drink in the first place. Fine.
Fast forward twenty minutes later and he came back looking for another drink. Fine. He told me he'd paid me next week, and that's fine -- I'm not hoarding liquor so I can curl up to it at night but these freebies generally come from the "made in a bathtub" collection that I keep around for such occasions. Just as I drop the last quarter of a lemon in it that I didn't plan on eating anyway, he looks at me and says (his phrasing left intact):
"Now, I thank you for it. You know I don't go around lookin' for a handout. I get my check next week and I'm gonna straight over here and pay you back for this. I just needed somethin so I could sleep tonight."
Then he pauses. He turns to go, but doesn't. He looks me directly in the eye and asks me "Did you tell Charles to stop taking my Seroquel?" Well...I guess I kinda did. But should I say that to him? Did I interrupt his stream of income or do him a favor? I let the silence confirm that yes, I did.
"I...I been tryna get him to stop doin that. But he wouldn't listen to me -- he listened to you though. I been tryna get him to listen to me for a long time and now I'm out. He listened to you though, cause you know what you're talking about. See, I got bipolar and I need it."
A brief thought flashed through my head that Seroquel isn't one of the big three bipolar drugs, but he continued:
"I only get enough to do me through the month and now I'm out...I just hope that I don't hear...y'know...voices again."
My jaw dropped.
He's schizophrenic.
Awesome:
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