THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S 14
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THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S --
The Continued Saga of Paul Ess's Rehabilitation
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This is episode 14. Before I became tardfarm[tm] bait, I had a
daily uniform of charcoal grey khaki pants, yellowed white shirt,
plainfront deliveryman's jacket (brown) (think UPS) and my dark
blue Kangol cap. I buy my leather shoes from a mailorder outfit
in Massachusetts because they are reasonable in price and last
nearly forever. They are large, wide, clompy, and black. They
aren't that far off of the Doctor Martin thang. We mustn't
forget that out of doors I wear metal framed dark prescription
glasses a la John Lennon. This is sort of a severe way to
package oneself but it worked for me on the street by giving the
message, Don't bother me with your shit; I'm in a shitty enough
mood of my own.
Just to make people nervous or to cause them to ask questions so
I could growl at them, I wore odd bits on a 24-inch piece of
bathtub bead chain. My favorite piece is a one-inch jade penis.
People would pick it up off my chest and look at it and say Oh
what is that and Isn't it cute -- until they realized WHAT it is.
I have two small shrine boxes each with a different Hindu deity
statuette inside it. The blackish elephant-headed god had a
server in a buffet restaurant Mr Cheez and I pigged in ready to
rattle rosary beads. He considered me to be of the Christian
devil. Among the more whimsical items is a faucet handle of
chromed metal and porcelain which is engraved HOT. I tend to
have a high opinion of myself.
Probably the items which make more people more nervous than any
others are the ones Auntie Lenore says I must tell you about.
They are my sado-babies. They are a pair of tiny pink rubber
dolls, naked as can be, through which I ran a large safety pin
through each. I wear them on my jacket shoulder in the manner
these lower middle-class idiots wear those sickening
Angel-on-my-Shoulder things. They are worn in reverence for
the possibly late Charles Pierce, San Francisco's most celebrated
female impersonator. Mr Pierce does a hilarious take-off on
Mommy Dearest with a large blonde doll having a coat-hanger run
through its head.
Other than my collection of lavalier junques, I collect small
earrings. I used to give one of each pair to either Mr Cheez or
to a wildly queenly late friend of ours, Alex aka Miss Phoenicia
Mae All Done Up in a Red Dress Honeychile. They would wear the
earring in their pierced ear or, in Cheezie's case, in his tit.
I wore mine on my hat. I got a lot of curious looks on the city
buses I rode eschewing owning a car where there is no place to
put it when you are done with it.
Sometimes I'm surprised at the amount of my off-beat personality
I've put on hold since the leg swoll up and got me into this
tardfarm business. I find myself more and more able to accept
going back into being who I was. Age tends to make you
comfortable with yourself. I also am surprised to discover that
so many things I considered to be boringly individualistic
actually count as somewhat tasteless. Gee, maybe I was putting
people's noses out of joint a long time ago and was blissfully
ignorant of my calling.
* * * * *
Today we had a resident council meeting. Miss Ralph, the social
worker, was mistress of ceremonies. Miss Vicki, the activities
director, played Kathy Lee to his Regis. We went over a lot of
the same things we discussed when the owner's daughter came here
and sparkled for us last week. I won't hold my breath until any
of it causes improvements because blue is not my color.
It seems there is a resident's charity fund of some sort with
about $400 in it. The fund was started with the idea the place
would obtain a big-screen television. Said set would end up in
the fireplace lounge up front replacing the existing console set
which is highly serviceable and not that much watched. But some
of the old ladies want to bring their records and play them. The
1960s stereo radio-phonograph in the dining hall only radios
these days. The stylus for its turntable arm was discontinued
years ago.
The council decided that inquiries would be made to get a system
which can play records, tapes, and ceedees. I. as resident
electronics queen, will probably be hauled to Circuit Shitty to
select the components. Can't you just see these old girls ODing
on Rosemary Clueless and Vic DuhMoan?
While we were conferring, not less than two ambuli came up to
deliver new people. It was mentioned in the meeting that of some
100 beds, we have more than a dozen open. I warned you people to
avoid tardfarmery if you could, and I'm glad to see you're taking
my advice. Three others I didn't know checked out permanent-like
over the weekend along with Goddammit Lady. They must've
finished a new batch of condos in the Up Yonder.
The lady across the hall inherited our latest acquisition in
human misery. Her new roommate is an old crone with a toothy
grimace who jabbers incoherently and is likely to do so to the
point of HappyJuice[tm] or exhaustion, whichever comes first. If
such a person became _my_ roomie, I would complicate the equation
by adding possible asassination.
As you know, we no longer have Goddammit Lady quietly chanting by
day and loudly banging bedrails by night. We do still have The
Screamer down the hall. Every morning about five o'clock the
CNAs go around checking to see if people need their diapers
changed. As soon as anyone so much as _touches_ The Screamer,
she goes off like an air raid siren. You'd think they were
murdering her slowly with dull implements. (Not a bad idea, come
to think of it.) From the other direction comes the
responsorial, some old man yowling as though Swan was twisting
his nutsack. I've _got_ to get a recording walkthing in here and
put some of these noises on tape for .WAV files. There are .GIF
possibilities, too, from time to time but I don't have a camera
here either.
Mr AAAAAUUUUURRRRRNNNNNHHHHH next door has been quiet lately.
It's his roomie who ordinarily is quiet who's been carrying on.
I end up shutting both the bathroom doors all the time to keep
their vocal noise and the noise from their teevee out of here so
I can hear myself mutter and enjoy my Dracula music. Anyway, the
roomie was yelling GODDAM SONOFABITCH GODDAM SOMOFABITCH over and
over. I think somebody forgot to give him his pain pill is what.
There is simply no question that I am Quality on a stick. Every
time I come around a corner or turn near a piece of furniture, I
risk bashing the back of my hand. When this happens I get a
blood blister or a nasty tear in my thinned out oldfart skin. If
torn, it bleeds pretty copiously. If it pools under the skin, it
takes on a rich burgundy tone, not your usual plebein blue black
nasty.
We talked about the janitorial staff in the council meeting this
morning as though they all had ears and tails. (Apologies to
Delsie) They move night stands, jostle teevees, get closet doors
off their tracks, leave bathroom doors open, and put waste
baskets back down right in the middle of things. This sloppiness
must stop. It's all right for stuff be to cantered or out in the
middle if I put it there; it is not all right for a janitress to
do it, especially when she wears too much of the latest gagging
perfume they're advertising on teevee during soap opera hours.
George's daughter came to see him for Father's Day. She was
terribly late is all. In California, nobody is ever supposed to
be on time. Arriving at the stated time is considered rude.
When a shindig says seven, don't show up before half past. This
nonsense even has official sanction in that you can be to Mass
late. So long as you are there for the Gospel through to the
Consecration, it counts. They took George out to a local coffee
shoppe for prime rib. When he came back, he was so happy you'd
think they'd taken him to the Mustang Ranch and had given him to
the three best girls in the place. His FD present is a new Sony
headphone radio. It has so many buttons and wheels on it to make
it do anything that he couldn't figure it out. I helped him.
Then he gave me two dollars in quarters. He knows my price.
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