Sweet Potatoes

So.....the phone rang at 4:18. Fumbling in the darkness for my glasses as to see who it was, hoping not a family emergency. Spud says,
"Steven, I don't know what to do". I responded, "Stop drinking. Consider inpatient." A short pause with the response, "I ain't going there, Fuck You!" Click. I will visit him this morning after church. He has not returned my calls in a few days, so he can wait. He hopes I will come, and I will as I will not abandon a dying man. My science project is fermenting. I pray that rotten potatoes is not the final result.

Hideous thing Alcoholism. Alcohol being a solvent which dissolves life. Houses, cars, marriages, families, health. All eaten away until the last breath is gasped in chronic fear and loathing. Spud very well may die soon, as some of us must die so the rest of us can live."I really don't have time for this shit", I often say, yet it is just the words I think out loud. I care too much to not be the life ring. I remember the word HELP. Oh how I remember.

Years ago, in my first marriage, I worked for an electrical contractor. We were upgrading an apartment complex downtown Seattle. The St. John on Capitol Hill. An old complex that took our four man crew two months to rewire. One resident was an alcoholic and we worked around him. Carpeted with beer cans, wine bottles, and liquor bottles, plates of moldy food filled the sink and counters. The place smelled septic and dying. We called the unit Stench and wired it up in record time. As we pulled out the stove to get to the wires, it was like discovering a new species in the Amazon. The man was never conscious as we worked around him. Sad thing.....

The highlight of that job was when a movie was filmed across the street at an old Gothic church. Vincent Price and Richard Pryor were in it. We watched the production crew dump a case of MD 2020 wine in the gutter near a drain as they used the bottles for props as Pryor played a wino. A few drunks walking by went ballistic at the sight they were beholding. We were watching out a window from the St. John, laughing in the sadness of it all. The late 70's was still a toxic time for me. My wine of choice then was a little more top drawer.

Loon




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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft