Chad Kultgen, The Average American Male
Geez, even the most innocuous articles from The Onion have a rush of people commenting just so they can claim �firsties,� to which hundreds of others respond by calling the firstie an asshole, just because they managed to be first and were smarmy enough to state as such, without leaving a comment of any relevance or intelligence. I finally write and entry after nearly a month and it takes over a week before somebody decides to say anything.
This, of course, means I should write for The Onion to get the reader validation that I so obviously crave. I mean, hell, I�m already sleeping with one of the writers for 12% Beer, if only on occasion. What the hell else do I need to do?
Actually, I got a private message from an old friend, saying the posts I�ve written since moving to Hawaii have seemed less personal and more angled toward being entertaining. I replied saying I didn�t agree, since there have been plenty of personal entries while at the same time, things I�ve written previously had plenty of posts showcasing me being a smartass. And I'm not really entertaining.
But hell, perhaps she has a point. The majority of things I�ve written lately have been about annoyances or comical events, mostly because they were timely. Obviously, I don�t have a whole hell of a lot of time to be reflective, so I�m not going to have some sort of East of Eden revelatory epiphanies, because I�m too tired and too retarded to notice when they�re happening.
But fine, you want personal?
So there�s this rash I�ve noticed�
Kidding. I�m kidding, people.
That�s the point though, isn�t it? I can make a quick joke and go back to work. Story epics like the visits to Hawaii from years past before I moved here take time, which I don�t have a lot of. Kelly and I have flown across the ocean in what must be close to the double digits since I moved, and yet I�ve only been able to mention it in passing because of a lack of time and general exhaustion.
And that rash.
So, the last trip I took to the mainland back in September, mentioned in passing because of the god-awful ugly hotel that Kelly and I stayed at in the middle of nowhere, meaning we were nowhere near the semblance of a cell phone tower. We got back to her apartment, which despite being located in the prestigious Presidio area, next to some sort of LucasArts operation (complete with a Yoda statue in the courtyard), has shit for reception. It was only after traveling into town that I got the message saying my father was in the hospital.
I was back in Hawaii two days later. He was still in the hospital. I visited him and talked with the doctors, who were very concerned that he was living on his own.
I didn�t see what the problem was. He had been doing that for years with no problems, keeping meticulous notes of doctor appointments, bill payments and the like. But, in conversations with him, the staff noticed a lack of retention. The first speech I got was from the social worker at the hospital.
�The thing is, Dean, he�s having trouble remembering my name and his doctor�s name,� she said. �We�re worried that if he was going to stay home alone, he might wander off or do something dangerous like leave the stove on.�
�Yeah,� I said, �but he came here because his heart rate had slowed to an abnormal level. It wasn�t because of anything involving his brain or his memory, so what makes you so sure he can�t continue as he has?�
�Well, �she said, �we�ve been doing tests, and his cognitive memory is very poor. To us, David, it really shows the onset of dementia.�
�Who the hell is David?� I asked.
�You�re not David?� she asked, quickly scanning her notes. �I meant Dean, I�m sorry.�
�Should we get your cognitive abilities tested?�
She wasn�t amused. (By the way, for faithful readers, I know I already used that joke � though true � a few posts back, but this is part of the entire story. Fuck off.)
We got the paperwork started to find him suitable care. It all sounded pretty awful. Since he wasn�t crippled, incontinent or insane, the options mostly revolved around finding him a surrogate home � a foster home of sorts. This was at the same time that a family here was in the news for locking their own 11-year old daughter in a closet and nearly starving her to death � she weighed 40 pounds when social services rescued her. Blanche DuBois may rely on the kindness of strangers, but my name ain�t Blanche.
I also didn�t have a lot of other options. But I was interested in whatever other options there might be, so I arraigned a meeting with the social worker to see about the feasibility of me renting out a two-bedroom apartment and moving him in with me. I had the job at the paper which paid shit, but was steady, and the bartending shifts were helping. He had a habit of sitting on social security checks anyway, so that could go toward rent and since he was old, he didn�t eat much. The social worker, when finding out that I would be gone at least ten hours every day while I worked, and feasibly be gone on some days for 18 to 22 hours, said it was a bad idea. She said that he really needed to be in a setting where he could get full-time care. I acquiesced and told her to start the paperwork to get him placed somewhere. The doctor came out to tell me the same thing: he needs full-time care. I said I understood, and let�s make it happen, so long as they understand that I�m not paying for it, as I have nothing to pay them with.
A week later, I got an urgent sounding message from the hospital, saying they needed to finalize the outpatient papers and transportation. When would I, they asked, be picking him up?
I called back and asked where exactly I was supposed to transport him to.
�Oh,� they said, �you�re taking him home to live with you, isn�t that right?�
�No, that�s not right, and if you keep stressing me out like this, you�re going to be taking care of both of us.�
Long, boring, clinical conversations resulted, but everything was worked out. No, I was not taking him to live with me, since I rented one bedroom out of four, and the doctors and social workers said it was imperative that he has 24 hour care. Since he was under care of both the hospital and the state, it was their responsibility to find a suitable place for him to stay.
Which they did � a rehab hospital which would concentrate on making him self-sufficient. Since the pacemaker that was installed was working fine, the hospital had done their job. Getting him out of bed was somebody else�s problem.
Except for one other problem. The place where they discharged him to is apparently the fast food outlet of rehabilitative therapy. They assess the patient, and if they don�t think they can fix you in two weeks, they don�t want to deal with you. Patients who need more intensive care apparently drag down morale. I got another call, asking when I was planning on bringing him to my house.
I was furious. For the second time, simply because I asked about the possibility of him living with me while I continued to work two jobs and was advised against such action, this was listed in paperwork as what was going to happen. I got to his room and sat in the empty bed waiting to talk with the case worker, near tears in frustration.
When the case worker finally walked in and saw me, she knew something was wrong, and was dumb enough to ask about it. �The hospital fucked us,� I said simply. �All I did was ask if it was possible to move him in with me while I continued to work, and they said it was a bad idea. But that�s what all of you all expect to happen. In two days, no less.�
The case worker was sympathetic. �It�s just a misunderstanding,� she said. �And now we know, so we�ll get started on finding him another place where he can get the therapy that he needs. It�s all right.�
In the meantime, I asked my father how he was handling all of this. After all, he, a guy who up until about ten years ago was in better shape than I was (and it�s not like I�ve been working out), suddenly found himself bedridden, unable to walk more than 20 feet without totally exhausting himself. At the time, he couldn�t even sit up or roll onto his back, instead just staring up at me from his side, half his face buried in the stiff hospital pillow. He answered that he hated this. It brought the memories of what he said before I moved here flooding back, when he said he never planned to be so helpless, and figured that he would soon simply walk into the ocean and that would be the end of it.
�Is there anything I can do?� I asked, knowing that there wasn�t.
�No,� he said feebly. �I just want my old life back.�
My father was the one I always remembered as having too much energy for his own good. Certainly too much for my own good, as I�m content to be lazy. In any case, I�ve seen a lot of shit in my life, and I�ll tell you, that really broke my heart. I�d safely wager that in my entire existence on this earth, I�ve never seen a sadder moment in my life.
But it doesn�t change the fact that I�m an asshole. �You mean you wish you were still married to Mom?� I asked.
�Oh good God, no,� he said.
There�s a scene in the Ron Howard movie The Paper, a film that I quite like despite the happy ending, Marisa Tomei being pregnant and characters which are a little too quirky to be believed (if you�ve never worked at a newspaper, anyway). The scene, featuring Robert Duvall, has him explaining how the newspaper takes over your life.
�Ninety-nine percent of your time and effort goes into three basic things,� he says. �Your house, your work and your family. [�] You put them all together, and the three of them want more that you have to give. Now, the family, they�re people, so you figure you can get a little human leeway. You figure they�ll bend.�
�So you crap all over them,� the bartender says, totally understanding, as bartenders are wont to do.
�Yeah,� Duvall says. �You do.�
I never felt that this was what was happening. But I got the sense that others felt that this might be the case. Me, being as busy as I was (and still am), treated it like a deadline, like I could run in on the last day, shouting �stop the paramedics!� with the answers clutched in one upraised fist. Of course, I�m not that stupid. But I knew I was putting stuff off for longer than I should, either to take care of my jobs, or to try and find a chance to simply rest, and perhaps hide from the enormity of it all.
Between all of this and the two jobs, both of which were/are understaffed, it was too much, and I called in a favor to my sister. She still had bonding time owed to her by her company from her recent birth. I told her to come and take care of some of this paperwork that I couldn�t keep a handle on. She brought the whole fam-damily, husband, newborn baby and all.
Speaking of which, just in case this is getting too heavy�
In the meantime, just before she came, I stopped by his apartment, which had been vacated since September. There was a notice from the housing department which had apparently decided to stop in. Seeing the unused state of the place, mostly revolving around cobwebs, they issued a failure health inspection. I called the number, explaining that since he hadn�t been home in two months because he was in the hospital, it would stand to reason that there would be some dust and cobwebs.
�Oh,� said the voice on the other line. �So, you gonna clean it then?�
Yeah, I guess I was.
And man, if only it was just dust and cobwebs. I don�t know how many times it takes before one stops shrieking like a little girl when you open a drawer and see it crawling with cockroaches, but I never reached that level of disinterest. That was the first sign that something was wrong. I mean, sure, our first guitarist moved to a place in the Santa Cruz mountains, and his house was such a sty that I wasn�t surprised when, while searching for video game cartridges in his room, we found a litter of baby rats in the corner of his room. But my father�s place was, for the most part, pretty clean and unobtrusive. The roaches had just figured out cabinets and drawers that hadn�t been opened since he moved in, and decided to stake it out for themselves.
My sister showed up just in time. (Though after I did all the roach killing and house cleansing.) She got a lot of the paperwork done that I couldn�t seem to get together. My father was moved into a temporary care center and when they called, asking when I�d be moving him in with me (the third time now, meaning you should never suggest to a for-profit organization that you�re toying with the idea of taking over), she set them straight, and quickly. It became obvious that they preferred dealing with her over me.
Which was fine, as I was still swamped with my jobs. If one thing came out of her trip, it�s that she knows I�m not making this shit up. She would drop me off (I let her use my car) at the newspaper at 8 in the morning and pick me up at ten that night. I worked a triple shift at the bar while she was here, forcing her to pick up my vehicle in a cab, since I didn�t have time to pick them up. Still, her week passed by in what seemed like only a few days (probably because of the lack of sleep that I had), and then she was gone.
Finally, the care home found one of those foster care places. They pretty much made it clear that this was our only option unless we were willing to pay for him staying there, at a place that runs into the high hundreds for a week�s stay.
I went to see the place on the same day he was scheduled to move in. It was kind of a moot point. The care home had discharged him, so there wasn�t any place for him to go. I just wanted to make sure his new place was free from vermin and British nannies.
It was satisfactory, though far from ideal. A lot of Hawaiian homes have a lower level for a garage, and what�s usually a dirt basement. They had put floorboards over the dirt, separated the area into rooms, and had railings running along the walls for the old and unsteady. A rottweiler barked at us from behind his caged compound in the driveway, while a Pomeranian yapped from within another. But for the most part, it gave the impression on where you go to be forgotten; the people under the stairs.
�That�ll do, pig,� I muttered under my breath. Then I asked my father what he thought. He just wanted to get out of the hospital environment and said it seemed fine. I dropped him off and said I�d return with some of his belongings.
That, I wasn�t able to do until today, a week later. I was at his old apartment, packing up photo albums and gathering together his television and stereo, when I called the foster home. I got the mother, who used to run the home until her son took over the operation last year. (The mother still lives there, which gives me the impression that the son has failed in every venture he�s tried in life, and now is poised to take over the family business, simply because it beats digging ditches.)
�He es scleepen,� she said in her thick accent, an amalgamation of Hawaiian pidgin and some oriental language.
�Ok,� I said. �You don�t need to wake him. I�m going to bring some of his things by in a couple of hours, so I�ll call back.�
�Yeah, but he es scleepen,� she said.
�I got that. I�ll call back.�
�Es scleepen! ES SCLEEPIN! He keep leaving!�
Oh fuck. Escaping. Really, though, the fact that they use terminology like �escaping,� doesn�t that set off warning bells?
I arrived, and my father was getting a lecture from the son of the household. �I was just explaining to him why it�s important that he not wander off,� he said.
�No,� my dad interrupted, �you were telling me I can�t do something, which I don�t like.�
Proof we�re related, people.
I had a talk with the son outside, away from the prying ears of the three other elderly people who lived in the home, though I noticed the mother stared down from the balcony, trying to eavesdrop. He explained the safety issues, how they�d be liable if he got hit by a car, or got injured, etc. I explained that after finally being mobile after nearly four months, it would make sense that he would want to go for a walk during the midday. I asked him about the excursions that he said happened with those he watched over, and he changed the subject. It was soon quite obvious that he wasn�t really listening to me or my concerns, and frankly, he seemed annoyed that my father was proving to be a hassle, even though this is the job he signed up for.
It also became obvious that they�re pretty much in operation to care for people who are willing to waste away the remainder of their lives in front of the television or staring out from the porch. Or in this case, the garage enclave. The fact that my dad didn�t want to sit for hours on end worries the guy because it ultimately means more effort in watching over him. They're taking these people, people who have nowhere else to go, and essentially bottom feeding. We had to pay his first months� fee at this place, because Medicare and Medicaid won�t pay for something until they�re already there. The fee was $2000. There are three (and maybe four, I can�t remember), other people at this place.
I went about to setting up things in his room, things that would remind him of his family and friends; things that might make his new room feel more like a home. The television cable was wrapped in one of those plastic twist ties that are impossible to separate. I searched the bottom floor, or what should be called The Ward, looking for something to cut the plastic with. Of course, there was nothing, as old people, like children, can�t be trusted with sharp objects. I finally went to the stairwell that led to the family dwelling unit.
I could only see a few feet into the foray from where I stood, but it was enough to see the new tile job on the floor, the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the matching double oak doors with picture windows.
I�m thankful that these people are here, and that they�re willing (for now) to take care of my father, as I�m unable to at the moment. But I can�t shake the feeling that it�s all about the money, that they�re trafficking in the elderly to make a quick and easy buck.
So the book? It�s a first novel by a young guy who likes to complain about his sexual liaisons. If that�s the average American male, I wish I wasn�t so extraordinary.
