Driving into Austin with the U-Haul dragging my truck was torturous on its own, but adding Austin’s typical traffic behavior compounded the danger. Tim had made arrangements to stay at the La Quinta at 35 and Oltorf which, as anyone who knows the area can testify, was somewhat of an adventurous decision. All the crack and loose prostitutes we wanted were readily available. If I could to YouTube the hooker/pimp fights we witnessed, I would be world famous by now.
As Tim was a traveling rep, he had amassed a large number of La Quinta points enabling us to stay as long as we needed until we found an appropriate place to live. The first few days we drove around the areas of town I liked. At this point, Tim had agreed to stay with me, so we were searching for rental homes with a yard for the dog. We found a few we liked, but nothing that really grabbed us. In the midst of our search Tim’s mind started to go in wild directions, to the point it started to concern me. His thoughts of talking to angels and reading hidden messages inside of spam email was somewhat of an issue over the last two years, but in the recent months it was becoming more and more prevalent. The move to Fort Lauderdale was purely based off a letter someone sent him encouraging him to “come down and see our facility.” By the time Austin came into the picture, I was worried about his safety and the safety of our dog, Jordan.
It wasn’t more than a week and Tim announced he was leaving. I was in shock. I had not found a place to live, I hadn’t even seen Jeb as of yet. We have just started looking and I had barely $2,000.00 to my name, and less than $1,500.00 in credit. I was… not a happy person. This also meant a week’s worth of searching was wasted as I now had to look for apartments, not homes. But, as I thought about Tim’s decision more I was actually relieved. It was my dependency issues that kept me in question. The actuality is that Tim needed to go back to his parents as originally planned and I needed to put one foot in front of the other and act like an independent adult.
I purchased a storage unit and unloaded all my stuff which was conveniently placed last in the U-Haul for this very reason. Now, looking back, this should have been the second most liberating celebration of my adult life (the first being outed by Aaron), but at the time I was feeling abandoned and confused… alone to be a grown up when I was such an adolescent emotionally. I knew what I needed but what I wanted was a dovetail to this new life, not be tossed out and ditched… again. The decision wasn’t OURS… it was HIS, and I was left to work around him once again.
Within 2 days of his decision, Tim was gone. I sat in the Oltorf La Quinta, listening to the sounds of arguing bums and sirens, not able to move. I cried. I cried a lot. There was such a relief and helplessness at the same time. I wasn’t really prepared for any of this, but the reality is that I have gone through much worse the first time I came to Austin nine years prior, and I knew that I could go through it again. I had more money, more resources, and more connections. This can be done.
A week went by and I found a place off Riverside. It was cheap, near downtown, and it was a two bedroom in my price range. They didn’t mind my lack of credit and the complex itself, though nestled on the border of the ghetto, was actually a quiet community. I turned the second bedroom into my office where I can work my freelance drafting job. It was the only furniture I had, so the living room and dining area was void of furniture. I sold my MacBook Pro (an acquisition during one of Tim’s spins) and I had enough money to live off of until I could establish steady clients for which to work for.
I went over to Oil Can Harry’s, the bar where Jeb was a DJ, and over the next few weeks, Jeb and I established a routine of seeing each other. Jeb had just moved into his own apartment on south Lamar, but he started spending more and more time with me at my place, which was the unspoken point. I borrowed an air mattress from the third member of our original trio, Anthony, and Jeb would sleep in my empty living room. We would drink, and laugh. Jeb wasn’t too keen on seeing any of his workmates seeing him laugh as he had successfully masked his failing health with a “grouchy old man” persona. So in ‘public’ we kept our conversation minimal, but privately we were a very different pair.
Jeb’s health had, in fact, taken a sharp decline south. He was skinnier than usual, his face sunk in, his bright brownish eyes with green had settled into an unknown dark, stale color. He looked like pain and tired personified. The first few weeks involved him drinking Ensure and alcohol. He wasn’t eating at all as his stomach was revolting every time he tried to take in a meal and the torture of swallowing was too much for him to handle.. The only nutrients he could ingest were from liquids and alcohol could numb his digestive system enough for him to take something more milky and thick like the Ensure. It wasn’t long before I was talking with Brian and thanking him, as his assessment of Jeb’s condition was pretty damn accurate.
The moral dilemma I had on my mind was of a Kevorkianesque scenario. The problem was that Jeb wasn’t my friend… he was my brother. After being excommunicated from my bloodline, I had worked to acquire my own family and Jeb was part of that. Jeb was going to do things Jeb’s way and there was no turning from that. I could either be the protagonist or the enabler – and I didn’t really have any other choice.
There is a two month time frame which I’m not going to write about. The discussions, laughter, bickering, and drunken discussions of life and death were memories very personal and intimate in nature (and, let’s be honest… between the two of us talk quickly became very disturbing in nature, much to our delight). I don’t feel this is an appropriate platform to reveal information. I will say that after a very scary trip to the hospital after a night he was working, Jeb finally agreed to a hospice program and on October 31, 2007, the appropriate evening of Halloween, Jeb turned in his paperwork and received an onslaught of odd and uncomfortably worded brochures. We laughed for hours until we were practically hyperventilating.
Seriously, someone needs to re-write those brochures for the not-98-years-old elderly grandparent stuck in the corner of the room with nothing more than adult diapers and a “Reader’s Digest” to sooth their pain. The first paragraph we read was basically written as if to say, “So, you just found out you’re going to die in six months… STEP 1…”
This milestone reached, this flatness at the summit, this weight that had been removed from Jeb’s shoulders had put him in a smile. I agreed with his decision… even if I didn’t I would have lied, but Jeb and I always had similar views, so he picked a good person to take along for the ride. The ride, as it so happened, started that very night at Austin’s Enchanted Forest for their haunted trail Halloween party and show. Granted, we watched the show and by the time we went through the “haunted” trail the witch was snorting coke in the gingerbread house, the mad doctor’s acid had kicked in, and the ghost in the tree was engaged in a political conversation with the leaves… it was more of a DARE haunted trail than anything else and we were sober, but we still had a blast. Jeb stopped all drug use because his body couldn’t physically handle anything other than liquid alcohol and he wasn’t sure how his upcoming morphine prescription was going to affect his life. I was Jeb’s chauffer for the night, so I refrained myself (unfortunately). That night, we saw some fantastic entertainment both on stage and in the audience. We left a few hours later as Jeb was in too much pain to continue.
Upon walking out we run into a bartender friend named Hunter who was in his early 20’s at the time. Jeb and I looked at each other and our eyes lit up instantly as we knew he was going to be our first victim without our having to say a single word.
After some small chit-chat about Hunter’s nipples (it was a cold night and he was shirtless), Jeb blurts out, “So, I just found out I’m going to die in six months.”
My cue. “It’s true. And if you need, we have some lovely brochures back at the apartment for you to read.”
“We also have Jack Daniels.”
“Which, I know it sounds strange… but you probably need the Jack more just to read the brochures. They are way more difficult to digest then the ‘six month to die’ thing.”
Hunter’s face was frozen. His eyes darted back and forth between us trying to comprehend what is being told to him while simultaneously trying to not forget his fire dancing steps he was about to perform on stage moments later. Jeb and I cracked up laughing and Jeb promptly explained that he has entered Hospice care, and nothing more. Yes, the brochure did say 6 months, but people have lasted years on Hospice.
Hunter deflated like a balloon. He could smile. He was one of the few people that knew that Jeb was sick although no one really knew the laundry list of aliments that were attacking the body and no one realized it would be so bad that a 34-year-old would need to enter Hospice. Once Hunter balanced out and was able to laugh, we decided to let him be to his fire dance.
Before leaving he looked at us both and said, “You two are going to be doing a lot of this kind of shit, aren’t you?”
“Oh yeah,” we both replied.
And over the next few months, we did. None of us knew that evening that Jeb REALLY only had six more months.
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