More than just bitter

[Mollo Ray]

I met D back in 1980 at a place I worked. He was big, tall, bright and
a fun person to talk computers or just about anything with. He raced
cycles, restored classic cars and went to the South Pole with the
university doing God only knows some kind of esoteric weather
research. He was gay, I'm straight. He told me one day that I was one
of the only people that he ever knew that didn't give a shit about his
sexuality. Which is true. Whatever turns you on, go for it in my book.
D lived at home until 85 when he bought his grandmothers victorian
house located about a mile away from the parental unit. He spent 5
hard years restoring the place and a bucket or two of money to do the
job right. A master of perfection. His father was one of the most
hated people in town because of heavy drinking, fighting and crashing
his car at one time or another into the neighbors Detroit iron. The
ole man also drove to his house at least ten times a day to see what
the hell was going on and see if he could piss anyone off. He was
quite good at that. He would finally roar off into the sunset and D
would be bummed out to the max over the latest encounter with daddy
dearest. D started to get depressed to the point that he could no
longer work. Went to the shrink twice a week and forked over 75/100 an
hour for nothing. They wrote endless script for him. Nothing worked,
things got worse. The fucking quacks just kept writing more and more.
They never got around to even trying to find out what the hell the
real problem was. They would just sit there and nod their dumb ass
heads and say.."Here, have some more of these." Five times D got so
drugged out of his head that we carted him off to Vista detox for a
few days. All they would do is change his medication and hand him a
bill for ten grand. He would be ok for a week or so but then his
shrinks would start shoving the pills down the old throat. Things got
worse and worse. I would go over to visit all the time and D would
just be sitting in a huge chair totally zoned out and staring at the
idiot box. This went on for twelve years. The drugs caused him to
bloat up to 300 pounds. He got so big and out of it that I would have
to tie his damn shoestrings for him. He could get down to do it but
not back up again. Fast forward to Nov.25, 1997. Due to all the
weight he contracted a king sized case of roids. Went to the doc and
the butcher lanced the little devils. And then gave him a perscription
for 45 heavy duty pain pills. D got confused the following day with
the pills. Ended up taking eight of the pain specials with all of his
other crap. The day after Thanksgiving he was a mess. I could hardly
understand a word he was saying. Kept falling on his ass. We sat out
on the front porch around 4 pm. I asked him if he wanted me to get
some help. He said that things would be cool, just needed to sleep it
off. Which he had done a thousand times in the past. Like a fool I
believed him. He went back into the house to lay down. When I saw him
he was sound asleep. I got into the wind. Called him back a 6pm. His
aunt answered the phone which I thought was a wee bit strange. I asked
how he was doing. She said "He's just doing fine. Died about ten
minutes ago." I rushed over. The feds were just putting him in the
meat wagon. The coroner asked me to gather up all his drugs so they
could determine the exact cause of death. I did that little chore and
filled a shopping bag half full of the shit. No joke, half a damn
bag.All given to him by shrinks that didn't give a fuck about the
person. You bet your ass I'm bitter.As far as I'm concerned every
psychiatrist/psychologist on the face of this planet can rot in hell
forever.