Making the Right Choice................ 4/9/16

      "Whack, whack, whack, whack."

       That was the sound I heard.  It happened as I walk-ed away from him.  He was pounding his head with a hammer.

        When I heard it, I thought, "This can't be.  He must be hitting the couch he is sitting on."  When I returned to the room, blood poured from the top of his head.

        It ran down his nose.  Into his eyes.  Unto his white T-shirt.

        His head was crimson.  The hair was standing up as if he had used red mousse.  He had.

        He created it.  But it wasn't a hair lotion you buy at the store.  He had mussed his hair while checking for the source of the red fountain he produced.

        "That is one way to become a ginger," I thought.

        "George, let's go outside,"  I said.  "You need to rinse off the blood."  Inwardly, I was stunned.  Not since working in a psychiatric hospital had I seen something like this.  He was dazed.

         Blood from his head dripped upon the carpet in the back room.  A trail of blood marked the cemented patio.  The slipperiness of his red-soaked hand prevented him from gripping the water faucet next to the lawn.  I tried.  The water would not pour out.

         I turned on the sprinklers.  "Wash yourself with the water spray-ing out," I said.  Though in shock, I did not show it.  That was a result of my training.  He squatted close to the sprinkler and rinsed the blood off his hands.

        His scarlet handprints were on the water hose, the faucet.  The patio now was polka dotted in bright red.

        After he washed up, I suggested he take a shower in the house.  I needed to know how severe he was bleeding.  There was no way of telling.  The top of his head was completely red.

        He showered.   I put away the dishes drying on the rack in my kitchen.  Mindlessly I did this as I decided what to do.

         I called one pro-fessional colleague. Then my friend Stuart.  I have known him for more than thirty years.

        They did not answer my ringing them.  On my third attempt---calling someone else---the person picked up the phone.

         I was happy to reach her.  Her support was a life preserver I could rest on.   The waves of this morning's events were pounding at me.

        I spoke with her.  Calmly.  Even though my heart raced.  I walked my neighborhood as we talked.  I released energy I felt---after witnes-sing the results of George's behavior.

        All this happened because I disagreed with him. 

        Earlier, while with him, he had a disturbing intensity.  I told him, "I don't care for this drama.  I don't like this energy," when I felt it.  We were working on a bookcase in a back room of my house.

         Something went wrong with the bookcase.  Rapidly, jerkily, he pulled off all the books.  He poured them on him, as he sat down before it.

         Afterward, I asked him a question on a different matter.  He deflected from it.  "You did not answer my question,"  I said.

         "It doesn't matter.  We are answering your concern," he said.

         I was heading for the kitchen after he said that.  I had nails in a junk draw-er, there.  But, I spun around.  I returned to the back room.   I stood in the door-way.  I poked my head in the room.

         "I don't like you are not answering my questions," I said.  "I don't like being manipulated.  I need honesty and integrity when relating with you."

         Having said that, I turned around.  I was in the den.  As I left for the kitchen, I heard behind me the sickening sound of the metal ham-mer crunching George's skull four times.

         Within an hour, eight policemen were at my house.  One was positioned with a stun gun.

          All this drama made for a draining and eventful Friday morning.  I will finish this story in tomorrow's post.