I could tell you about how my car broke down less than 2 miles from the mechanic yesterday morning and how I had to push it off a busy street by myself until, out of nowhere, a semi-toothless black man, a pudgy white dude in business casual attire, and a lady in a sari appeared to help me. Or how later the mechanic called to say I needed a new distributor and with labor that would be $465.
I could tell you how our new lender approved us but at a higher rate and we’re just trying to understand it all. This new guy is not as clear when he explains things like mortgage points. Our closing date will have to be pushed back to early June. I was freaking out about how it will all work with our landlords, our replacements, renting our apartment.
I kind of lost it about 4:30, just wanting to go home and cry from the stress of it all.
I called our landlords who were understanding about our situation and said if it all fell through we could just stay on being managers which is nice of them but OH HELL NO. We want that house and we want to pass the torch. It’s just going to be delayed a couple weeks. When I talk to our lender today, we should know better about rates and closing dates and then we can get on with hiring movers , etc.
The real story here starts at around 5:45 when we got a knock on our door. I looked through the peep hole and turned to Mr. Darcy to mouth The Music Man’s name. He was standing out there, dog on a leash, with a paper in his hand. I haven’t had any interaction with him face-to-face besides seeing him at court or trying to reason with him through a locked door in months. I open the door and he starts talking about how he needs help- with his flight, how he wants to get home, how he is sorry, how the bank won’t let him get money, etc. I tried to reason with him and figure out just what it was he wanted. He handed me papers that were his flight information. He seemed very confused as to what to do. He was acting very erratic and had a black eye that he later told me was from a fight and then a few minutes after that said he got drunk and walked into a door jamb.
He started bawling about having the landlord forgive him and that he was sorry. He pulled out a bottle of pills from his jacket and asked me to keep them for him because he wasn’t sure he would wake up. My crisis counseling kicked in and I started asking him all kinds of questions about harming himself, how much had he taken of the pills already, did he need us to call the paramedics. He couldn’t recall how many he took. He said yes, call them. Mr. Darcy went to call and I sat on the ground with him outside our apartment. He was all over the place, glassy-eyed, obviously very agitated and spacey. He’s always been a bit crazy but this seemed worse than usual. The fire department showed up then the paramedics. There were at least 5 people working on him. He changed all the answers when they asked him about the pills, etc. I had to pull one aside and give them some back story. They wanted to take him into the hospital but he refused to go so they asked me to check in on him later that night as a compromise. They lead him back to his apartment and we closed the door.
I sat down and just cried. In talking to The Music Man we had learned that his plan was to fly to Santa Barbara (where he is from) and stay at a homeless shelter. This is his plan. HOW CAN THIS BE A PLAN? He is not in his right mind and can barely navigate getting on a plane let alone landing in his former home town with no support system and no place to live. It breaks my heart. I left a message for his case worker and called the numbers of the two friends of his I have spoken to before. One friend said they were on the outs and that being in The Music Man’s life is very wearing. Apparently The Music Man has burned every bridge and is left with no one to call in an emergency.
We went downstairs around 8pm to check on him. There is a huge frame sitting out in the hallway outside his apartment. I mean, it’s bigger than a headboard and covered in bright blue glitter. We knocked and could hear him on the phone inside. He spoke through the door saying he’d be right there and then continued to talk to his grandma. He kept saying grandma and was clearly pacing the apartment by the way the sound of his voice came and went. I could hear him saying “can you send me money” and “no I won’t get in trouble again” and “I woke up from a nightmare, this is all a nightmare”. A few minutes went by and we knocked again. He hung up with his grandma (who, by calculations would be in her late 80’s at best because he’s 52) and immediately took another call. We stood there looking at each other like WTF? I knocked again and he finally came to the door. I announced who I was and that I was just checking on him. He said, “I am fine but I don’t know why you have a police officer with you.” Mr. Darcy = Police Officer. Who knew?
He finally opened the door and looked even crazier. His eyes were super glassy and he wasn’t making any sense. He asked us for a suitcase and also if we could lend him money. We said no and encouraged him to call his case worker. We left shaking our heads. What a disaster.
Very early this morning, Mr. Darcy got up to pee and I checked my phone to see what time it was. The clock read 5:00AM. I had two texts from a tenant on the same floor as The Music Man saying that the dog had been barking and howling for two hours. I texted her back and she was awake doing homework and said that he was still at it off and on. We thought about going back to sleep but we were both worried that the dog barking meant The Music Man was hurt or dead. So we got dressed and went downstairs.
I knocked a couple times and called out The Music Man’s name. The dog was at the door barking. We decided to call for back up because there was no way we were walking into the apartment of a dead guy. 911 dispatched cops and paramedics in case he had overdosed. When we met the paramedics outside the building, it was the same guys from earlier and they informed us that they had received a 911 hang up around midnight from The Music Man so they came out and checked on him. When they were at the building earlier in the evening they had told him that if they were called back, he’d have to go into the hospital. And they did haul him in and his dog was locked in his apartment.
I have no idea how long he will be at the hospital. I emailed the landlords and they want me to call the SPCA for the dog. I cannot do that. As much as I don’t like the thought of the dog in the apartment, it would kill The Music Man to lose his dog. I thought about taking the dog with me to work (which I’ve had to do before) but I can’t get involved to that level. I’m really hoping that he gets released from the hospital and is back with his dog to prepare for his 10:35am flight tomorrow. It could get way worse for him if he is not out of the apartment by May 3rd. The sheriff will have to be called and all that.
While not having The Music Man as a tenant is a good thing for the building and the landlords, us and our replacements, it’s such a sad and terrible story. I hate thinking of him on the streets of Santa Barbara, penniless and out of his mind, with his poor dog in tow. That is no way to live out your final days, even if you’ve been a crazy nuisance and retaliatory, passive aggressive asshole.
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