End Of The Line

95

After the disappointment of my first four speculative scripts sent into 'The Other Show' not gaining their acceptance, I decided my problem was 'pushing the envelope' too far with each one I had written. When the show had first started it had some issues and needed to have its envelope pushed in my humble opinion. But by the third season they had finally come into their own and I decided to craft a script that would be completely common place and unthreatening. After typing it up I passed it around to some friends as my test readers and I got back less enthusiastic responses than I normally did: Just as I had hoped. I mailed it off to the agent feeling this was the one that was going to sell!

Jude's and my relationship seemed to be coming to an end. While he had been a great help to me during my time having issues with medical doctors not performing their jobs, he since had little he wanted to do other than find me that 'perfect doctor' to handle my long term needs. Yet when I said I was interested in a doctor who could address my mixed-sex issues, he didn't like that idea at all and I ended up starting to see a different psychologist on the side for those questions. It turned out he knew my new psychologist, 'Samuel', and had good things to say about him and even had a nice supportive chat with him about me. In the meantime Jude and my appointments had gone from being twice monthly to once every few months and I was thinking we would end as I focused on working with Samuel. But at what I assumed would be that final appointment where we would discuss parting, he had some news for me that he was thrilled about. He had found that perfect doctor to serve as my long term primary care physician, 'Dr. Klasper'. The wrinkle was Dr. Klasper was in Florida, but he would be willing to work on my needs over the phone, Jude was certain! I expressed misgivings about this but Jude assured me that he knew this would be just the doctor for me. He gave me the phone number and told me I could call him that evening and check for myself.

When I got home, I decided to give it a try as Jude had been a big help and supporter of mine over these past two & a half years I had seen him. But when I called, I was very surprised. I asked Klasper what specialty he was in, he admitted that technically he didn't have a medical degree, but was just called 'Dr. Klasper' as an honorary title by his patients. In reality he was a personal trainer who worked at a health club in Florida but also did phone consultations. How much was a phone consultation? I asked. He said it was two hundred dollars an hour, no insurance accepted, and his price was firm. As my entire non-rent money supply was about seventy-five dollars a month at that time, it was impossible for me to afford his fee. Thankfully, this gave me a conclusive reason not to take him as my 'doctor' and when I next saw Jude I told him of the phone call and what I'd learned.

Having expected that Jude and I would part amicably at the previous appointment, now Jude became enraged by what I told him of my call and said it wasn't possible and I was lying. I told him he could call and check for himself if he didn't believe me. But he assured me he didn't have to call as he had already seen the 'video tape'. Video tape? Yes, he had been passed a video tape noting Dr. Klasper's skills and extensive knowledge of health problems.

In the early Nineteen Nineties many 'businesses' and 'professionals', whose claims couldn't be legally validated well enough to be touted in broadcast advertisements, had taken up making 'informational videos' of themselves and their claims and then distributed these tapes through a network of supporters. It turned out Jude had been passed one of these video tapes by ''someone he trusted.'' And as he'd seen that tape for himself, Jude didn't feel the need to question anything he had gleaned from it.

When I again assured Jude of what Klasper had told me directly on the phone, Jude told me I didn't know what I was talking about and I should give 'Dr. Klasper' a try. I assured him with the two hundred dollar price tag for each consultation, I couldn't afford him even if I wanted to. Jude felt that surely 'Dr. Klasper' would bring down his price if I told him of my circumstances. I noted that I had and Klasper was very firm on his price. Jude told me it couldn't possibly be true.

Our time was up and neither he nor I saw any reason for a subsequent visit. As our last appointment, it had been very acrimonious and the first time that we had exchanged any cross words to each other. I thought it was a shame, but he felt he didn't need to check the facts himself, I just needed to get different answers.

With this disappointment already in my mind, I soon after received a letter from my agent lambasting me for how disappointing my most recent script had been. She stated I needed to learn ''the basic tenets of good writing'' before I sent her any more scripts. She then concluded her letter by noting that, if I really wanted to, I could of course always submit the script myself. When I called to assure her that I had specifically designed the script to make it as comfortable for the show readers as I could and was sure it would sell, she told me that clearly that wasn't the case as why would they want to buy something so poor? When I asked her what she had meant by ''the basic tenets of good writing'' she scoffed as she thought this meant I didn't know of the 'Man versus Man', 'Man versus Society', 'Man versus Nature' and 'Man versus Himself'' underpinnings of narrative story structure. When I noted that my story fit 'Man versus Society' she assured me it didn't as my story focused on an 'Android' and not a 'Man'. When I told her that the 'Android' in question was one of the major characters of the show and they routinely featured stories centered around him, she assured me I didn't know what I was talking about and it didn't matter as she wasn't going to represent me as my agent with that script. She then echoed in a sarcastic tone what she had written at the end of her letter, that I could always send it in on my own if I wanted to, but she assured me they wouldn't look at it. The call was done. It didn't occur to me until afterwards that given her strict interpretation of what qualified as 'Man versus...' for a valid story, then all stories about women and children would be deemed invalid by her logic as well.

Not only had my relationship with Jude ended, it seemed like my relationship with my agent was over as well.

The next time I saw Samuel and discussed these two occurrences he told me that Jude had gone even further than just having a bad last appointment with me, he had now joined the old chorus of medical doctors disparaging me on the grapevine and claiming I never had any 'real' medical problems... Samuel quipped that it might be nearing the time when Jude would have to renew his medical license and wanted to ensure a conflict-free process with his peers.

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To And Fro

94

I could no longer live in my apartment given the broken door and large roadside hole so I needed to find a new place for a while as I sorted through the new issues in my life. As Daina had a spare bedroom, and we were already taking my computer and stereo to her condo for safe keeping, I asked if I could stay there for the next few days until I knew what my long term living circumstances would be. She agreed and with our third trip to my apartment the morning after the incident I collected my toiletries and a bag of clothes and any other little valuable kitsch I might have lying around. It felt wrong leaving the rest of my stuff in this now permanently open place, but moving everything to Daina's was too much to handle with no empty room to put it into. I just had to let my nerves settle and hope the rest of my belongings wouldn't interest strangers while I was gone. It probably helped that my apartment was directly under the manager's, but I fretted just the same each day I was at Daina's and not checking on my place.

With my computer taking up the majority of her small dining room table it occurred to her that, with all of my desktop publishing software in her place, I could help her make Christmas time letters to her various family members and relatives. While I could, I warned her that using only my printer they wouldn't be as crisp and clear as the Quarterly and The Doctor Who Report issues were. That was fine with her as they'd still be a step up and save her from writing all of the permutations by hand. She composed the base letter and we went to the local copy shop to find an appealing style of paper to print them on. By the end of the day we were done and I helped her with the envelopes, sticking on return address labels and stamps as she wrote the mailing addresses on them and sealed each card with the letter included. I was thankful for the task as it kept my mind off of my unguarded stuff, but as she decided to drop them off at the mail box that night, I asked if we could swing by my place just to ease my nerves. Everything left behind was still in place.

The following day she was off to work and with little idea what to do with myself, I decided to assemble my stereo components and realized her television was modern enough to have stereo jacks on the back, allowing me to hook it up to my stereo system as well. For the first time I was able to watch television with great stereo sound and excitedly showed Daina when she got home. It turned out it was one thing to assemble my own stereo but she was nervous about the thought of it intermingled with her television. I assured her it was completely safe and there was nothing to worry about. She took me out to eat that night and I fought off the urge to ask her to swing by my place, less it became an annoying daily habit. I was able to do this for two whole days before asking to check on it again midweek to find everything still in place and untouched, though a bit cold with a few snow flakes blown in through the hole in the wall.

As Daina had a cat, I needed to have the door to her guest room closed at all times to keep the cat out. While I wasn't allergic to cats, I was allergic to the household dust that would get into their fur. As her cat was a single person only feline, I didn't have to worry about it coming to me for attention. My days finally fell into the routine of working on the next TDWR issue while listening to cable news. In between I'd stay in touch on the car accident investigation and the ramifications.

The driver had run home the night of the accident and when the police figured who the car belonged to they went to his house to find him. His wife claimed he wasn't there and since they didn't have a warrant, they couldn't force their way in. The driver turned out to be a chronic drunk with a history of such driving violations. But he had a good lawyer and as the police couldn't check on him that night, there was no proof that he had been drunk at the time of the accident. Nor, too, could they prove he was even the driver that night as the apartment manager's husband only saw his backside as he ran away from the scene. His story was that he had left the cowboy themed bar to discover his truck had been stolen and then for some reason walked the two blocks to the local 7-Eleven to call his wife for a ride home. Why didn't he call from the bar, it was still open at the time? He couldn't explain, nor had the 7-Eleven clerk remembered seeing him. In the world of land-lined telephones, no record per call was kept by the local telephone company so his story couldn't be disproven. It was also odd that he had his wife give him a ride home, yet she told them after this supposed ride home that he wasn't there... He couldn't explain that, either.

When I called his car insurance company to cover my damages and other costs, they told me they wouldn't be paying as the owner had told them 'the car had been stolen' and they weren't responsible for the damages caused by 'whoever stole it'. Yet while the driver had verbally told police that his car had been stolen, he refused to file a stolen vehicle report and swear to it. A smart thing for him to do as the police told me they were planning to immediately charge him with filing a false report if he did. But his car insurance company didn't let it get in the way, just that he had mentioned the possibility to a cop in passing was good enough for them not to pay for the damages. Thus it seemed my costs weren't covered by his insurance, nor did I have any renters' insurance at the time to cover it either and I was apparently out of luck.

Then to my surprise the apartment complex's own insurance offered to cover the damage, less the value of the couch given its age and having come from a thrift store. Of my just under two thousand dollars worth of damage, I received a check for sixteen hundred dollars and knew under Food Stamp rules I couldn't save it in my bank account past the end of the month without reporting it. So what to do with the money? I concluded much of what had been destroyed I could live without, such as the keyboard I had purchased to play with and rarely used since. Buying a replacement couch was out of the question as Daina's condo didn't have any room and I didn't want to ship a new couch to my broken apartment. I decided to replace my computer with a second generation PC clone. Their prices had plummeted in anticipation of the fourth generation PC coming out in the next year, so it was a good time to upgrade at least one step up the ladder, even if I'd still be two steps behind. I placed an order for it at Jeff's friend's business which had since moved from his basement into a real store front at a shopping center and he would have the parts in and fully assembled by the end of the year.

As for a place to live, after two weeks staying in Daina's spare bedroom it was time to pay my rent, but as I couldn't live at the apartment anymore, I brought this issue up to the manager. She realized the duplicate apartment above her own was empty and said I could move in there at the same rate and not even have to worry about changing my mailbox as my current apartment wasn't going to be repaired and re-let until next summer. So for Daina's Christmas break we spent much of the time making trips from my old apartment up two flights of stairs to the new apartment carrying a handful with each trip. Daina particularly damned me for having concrete block & board shelves for most of my storage, but I pointed out to her it was cheap and easier to carry up one piece at a time rather than trying to wrestle with a whole shelving unit all at once. She grumbled it might be the case, but still damned me for it under her breath with each concrete block she had to carry up.

By the last week of December Nineteen Ninety-One, I was moved into my new apartment, a duplicate to my old apartment, the only way to realize the difference was the two flights of exterior stairs to reach my door, and that my unused patio was now a balcony. I pledged to myself to actually use the balcony once Spring came. To replace my couch, a friend in the writer's group had an old wooden framed couch I could have as its pieces had come apart over the years, but as he knew I was handy with wood he thought I could get it back together and into a usable shape. My first night in the new apartment I spent pounding the pieces together with a mallet and using glue for the seams and fresh cross dowels for stability. I was startled by a late night phone call and it turned out to be the manger wondering what all the noise was as they were trying to sleep. I apologized as I hadn't realized the time.

I settled into my new apartment assuming I'd be there for at least the next year or two.

Little did I know that was not to be.

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