A Break out is what I heard when I woke this morning, all over the radio and television news. NC about 30 minutes from Tennessee was a break out from one of the largest mental institutions in the United States. Which way did they go? Scattered all across the U.S.? Days later some tenants are still loose according to the local newspaper.
I had just climbed out of my RV and was walking toward the door of the building where I work when he approached asking questions boom! boom! boom! One right after another about my RV. What year, what model, how many miles? I'm thinking, take a breath! Jeez! He looked like a hippie with long dirty blonde hair who hadn't shaved in days. A crumpled Tye-died t-shirt with small holes around the neck and navy blue khaki type pants rolled up at the cuffs and looked too big for him. He continued walking with me and talking as if we were best buddies all the way into the building until finally I excused myself near the the restroom even though I didn't need to go in. Didn't know if I wanted to be seen with this guy. I didn't know him from Adam. Once I settled at my post he continued to wave...... just one little finger..... each time he walked by, and smiled a sweet smile each time he caught my eye. He is cute I thought to myself and he seems to be interested in me but he became so friendly so fast I really had to wonder about him. Does he think he knows me from some where? Maybe he's just a friendly guy. Maybe he just needs a friend. Who knows? Maybe he is interested. I was really pretty busy working on my blogs trying to learn how to make money writing, since I write all the time anyway and there isn't much work these days. Too busy to get involved, and I always remember that sometimes the tables could turn quickly, as it does quite frequently. A man could go from being too nice to too mean, in a heart beat. Anyway when I get involved I get too side tracked and I really need to make some money. So many people looking for work right now. So many businesses closing. No one is sure about their future these days. I want to help my family so they don't have to struggle all their lives.
Cutie continued to pursue me by dropping by unannounced and uninvited one night a few days after we met. He slipped up from the back. Was he listening? Was he trying to see in? Why from the back? He knocked on the side or the window and called out my name. I directed him around to the driver's side and we talked with the window rolled down. I didn't let him in because I didn't know him. I told him I go to bed early after an hour so he left. Then he came by during daylight hours. He was always nice and a gentleman though uninvited. Then he started coming around at work during the day wanting to show me things, like play a song for me on his instrument. He plays a saxophone. That seemed really sweet and I haven't been serenaded for many years but I was still leery of what he really wanted because of past experiences. It made me uncomfortable being right outside of the building where I worked but I let him in while I had lunch because it was hot out and I didn't want bugs to get in with the window down. It felt good to be pursued again.
One day Jake, yea his name is Jake, brought me a fruit salad he made himself. He could be as sweet as the salad when he wanted to be. After that he continued to come out to visit me at work but not daily and most often in the afternoon or when I was ready to leave. Jake said he wrote a song for me and he played it. That was sweet too. There were no words though. He's pretty good really, with his saxophone. He has just moved back here from some where north where he was for a few years. He was in a place where a lot of hippies live he said. He moved and talked very slowly sometimes. I wondered if he was on something because he got so mellowed out that he was so incoherent I couldn't even understand what he was saying, but my hearing is not what it use to be either. After being around him a few hours daily for a week or so I thought he was on maybe an anti-depressant or something stronger along that line. I wondered if he had an anxiety disorder. I even hung up on him on July 4th because I thought he was plastered since he was so incoherent with it being a holiday and I didn't see him or hear from him until near the end of the day. I didn't get to know him that well because after that I didn't see him for several days. Then he came around in spurts. He would wave one little finger and smile his sweet little smile and come and talk to me for a few minutes. Even ask me to go some where but he didn't show up when he said he was going to two or three times so I thought he met someone and I lost interest. Once he called and said he was going to a party. Didn't ask me to go either so who would want to get involved with one like that? Then he started coming around often again. He would go to movies and tell me about it but not invite me. The one time he did invite me I ended up paying. One of my first thoughts of him was that he spends most of his time trying to pick up women and a lot of time in bed. That would make him not my type at all. He did not fit the profile of a "one woman man" at all but insisted he was. He kept coming around though even though I wasn't as nice as I could have been and I got to know him somewhat and he seemed to sincerely like me a lot. He was either sincere or a very good actor, and it turned out to be the latter.
All the signs were there that he was not and never could be "a one woman man," so I knew what I was getting into. Sometimes it seemed like he had about three different personalities. We went to a couple of jam sessions . No one showed up at the second one accept a couple of homeless people and one family who took a lot of pictures. We had the first blow out at the first jam session (open mike), right after a very thin woman with very short blonde hair and a dark haired lanky man sat down at a round table about a foot in front of us. He suddenly, out of the blue decided he needed to tell me what to do and how to do it in a very rude manner. It was quite shocking, the way he could turn so quickly. It was mister sweetness to mister a-hole in a matter of seconds, literally a Jekyll to Hide episode. I told him unless he wanted to pay my bills he had no right to tell me what to do or how to do it. He continued to press for an argument. It seemed like he picked the argument for show and tell immediately after the couple sat down in front of us. Then he shoved himself up from the table, left me sitting there alone around people I didn't know, but he did, and went over to talk to some gal. How rude. While I was waiting, waiting, waiting to go home, just like the cocktail waitress waited, waited and waited, for the money for his drink, I had water, I understood the look she had given him when we arrived. All evening she waited until time to close when she finally had to ask him to pay for his drink. I began to wonder if he invited me along just to pay his way. Meanwhile a guy up front helping break down the stage equipment started joking with me and he made me laugh out loud, which truly made my night. Not Jake's though, he pouted, I don't know why since he's the one who threw the fit and stammered away. After the place closed and they finally got him out, he stood outside behind his car and played a little tiny guitar for about an hour. I finally walked away and ignored him until he quit and decided to let me in the car so I could go home. We both chilled out on the ride back and became friends again but what a weird night to say the least. Only the first of only a few more weird nights with this very strange one.
Yea I decided to give the poor pathetic acting little guy another chance because he was so sweet (most of the time) and I really felt sorry for him. I cared about him too and we liked doing the same things. Plus he didn't smoke or drink. So I gave it another whack. He invited me to a resort to listen to a drumming session and I was eager to go because I love music and I wasn't getting out much. Even though I had a lucid dream the night before that was close to a nightmare and left me feeling fearful, I decided to go with him anyway. Oh boy! That was a mistake. A second burst of anger came out of him just like the first, out of the blue, without any warning, without any sane reason. I didn't like his spaghetti. That's what he lost his mind over, and I had brought food for both of us anyway, as instructed. I had no desire for spaghetti but he insisted I try it so I did, one bite. Then he asked if I liked it and when I said "not really", he turned from angel to devil that quickly and hatefulness rolled off his tongue like the chop of a meat cleaver. This one really made me uncomfortable because I didn't know where I was geographically and it was about a forty-five minute ride home. Again I was at his mercy to even get back, which he knew. I cannot explain how but we chilled out on the way back again. After that, in my mind, he was Mr, Smoothy. I was torn with my conclusions that he was really pathetic and really more of a professional con artist than I had ever seen, or there was a few pegs missing from the playing board. Thought I was pretty good at picking them out but no, he takes the cake. Yet I know we all have faults so again I let us get friendly for still another unexpected, unnecessary blowing of the fuses. I had just given him a birthday gift even though we had only known each other for maybe a month because he seemed to be obsessed for someone to show they care about him. This time we had just arrived at the beach when the explosion hit as quick as a puff of smoke after a gunshot. He was so persistent in getting personal information out of me. It was like his main goal. I told him I was too tired to talk. We both lost it and started bellowing for the public to see, which I got the feeling, was the plan, because it was just too frequent, and for really no good reasons. I had to walk away because I hate arguing and that was the third argument in a very short period of time. I was steaming, like a kettle boiling rapidly for too long on the burner with the lid jumping up and down. I had a lot better things to do than this crap. Luckily I knew where I was this time. That's another reason I wondered if these outbursts were planned, he always got me away some where so I was stuck with him, so he thought. It was close to a ten mile walk but I did it and wouldn't have gotten in the car with him if he was the last man on earth, even if he had gone by, which he didn't. He's brutal when he explodes. I decided he picks fights so he can go do something else without being honest about it. I had noticed a few times when he came to pick me up he appeared that he wasn't really where he wanted to be, so why was he there with me if he wanted to be some where else? Was he being coaxed? He was one strange dude. If you have seen "The Three Faces of Eve, you would know what I mean. Really, and his main concern was always that he is right and that he has done everything he can to be the perfect one in this thing, what ever it was, couldn't really call it a relationship. It was just too weird and the encounters were few and far between. Two days at most and he would start ragging and fall off the cliff of sanity. Every time he would repeat over and over like a broken record, that he only wanted to get along. Show and tell? For who?
The fourth explosion, was way too much. We had gone to a public event. He wanted to leave almost immediately, but I didn't. I wanted to meet people and socialize some but all he wanted to do was go. He didn't even want to take the time to tell the two friends he introduced me to, good bye. He just wanted to go. Later I wondered if he wanted to go before he was seen by, perhaps a certain woman? It wasn't that big of a deal to me so I relented and we left. He wanted to go to the beach but once we got there all he wanted to do was sit. I didn't feel like sitting so I wanted to go home. Like the snap of a whip his reaction was that of a snarling wolf ready to attack. I took in a quick breathe as I felt the pang of fear take hold of me and I moaned to my self, ohhh no, he's doing it again. I have to get away from him. He could be a killer, the way he steps off the edge for such silly things. I couldn't believe what he was bellowing. Out of his wide open mouth came words not even slightly associated with us or what we were doing or talking about. It was like he was some where else, with someone else. He yelled something about his ex-girlfriend a couple of times so I assumed he saw his ex-girlfriend at the event, and I knew he had been going snorkeling regurly with someone although he lied about it. I was too much in shock to even think of any kind of recourse. He was in another world. I had the feeling he had stepped back in time and really was somewhere else, with someone else, in a past experience. He was frightening! You have heard of "out on a limb?" That's how I felt, as if I was out on a rock or something, out in the middle of no where, alone. He was berserk! He continued bellowing insanely like a wild man. Again I was at his mercy with no other way to get home. I couldn't wait to get away from him. I actually covered my ears and kept my mouth shut the whole drive back while he bellowed things that didn't make any sense. I was literally afraid to say anything. That was really the last straw because I was afraid to go anywhere with him again. I just have one thing to say about the experiences with this man. No one, for any reason, or for any one, should ever put up with this kind of abuse.
What ever the relationship was it wasn't sealed, it was brief, it had a few fun moments and nothing bad happened. I'm leaving it at that. It took me a couple of months of ignoring him to get him to stop coming around but finally he has managed to pull the wool over another, and only comes by when they have a spat now, but I still ignore him and pray that he goes away quickly. Thank you who ever you are. I wish him nothing but good luck and happiness in his life as long as he stays away from me. He can be a really sweet and loving person when he's happy, secure and with someone he wants to be with........I think or I thought??
This really was a crazy scenario.................
My last thought.............................did they find all of the missing tenants from the break out????
Note: This writing lesson, "pick a crazy scenario" (but not the contents of the story) was taken from the book, "The Write Brain", by Bonnie Neubauer.
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