The Continuation of Vomitous Tormentous
I’ve been putting this off long enough. Time to face the guttural heaving (possibly known in some cultures as “music.)
Before the Vomit
I had it made. It was the beginning of August, and I had moved into a 2 bedroom apartment in Medford. Not only did it have 2 bedrooms, it had a huge kitchen, living room, dining room, an office-y type room off of the living room, a small yard, and 2 decks – one in the back (with a roof) and one in the front (no roof.) The pre-existing roommate was currently overseas – sent there for work (I’m still not sure what his job was), and was due back sometime in September. The rent was $1200, and despite the fact that my roommate was in Europe, he was still paying his half. So I had this huge amazing place all to myself for $600 a month. Because his company kept extending his contract, Indecisive Jesus-Looking Guy would come home for a few weeks at a time, but overall, we probably actually physically cohabitated for about 3 months for the entire year I was living there. (Sidenote: when he was home, he and I got along great, and are still friends to this day, despite the fact that I never know where he is.)
Cut to the following May – Indecisive Jesus-Looking Guy sends me an email and says that his company will no longer be paying for his housing in London, so he will “technically” have to move out of our place in Medford. I was going to have to find a new roommate to cover his half of the rent. Crap. I was more disappointed that I’d have to find a new stranger to live with than the fact that I’d no longer have the place to myself, because that was a scenario that should have come to an end 6 months prior. So I put the word out to friends and also put an ad on craigslist. I sifted through all the responses – people with ferrets, single men over 40, girls with 3 cats (i already had 2) and then finally I got an email from a guy who sounded laid-back, liked cats, and seemed very friendly. He came over, we chatted, and I got a general all-around good vibe from the guy. I told him I’d love to have him move in, and he was equally excited, and over the next month I helped him bring over his belongings (he currently lived about a mile away with a girl who was agoraphobic and they both had to move because their landlord sold the building.)
“Hey, it’s Mark. I just wanted to let you know that I’m in the hospital – I’m okay and I’ll probably be home tomorrow – I got really sick Friday night and they think it was food poisoning but they’re not sure. Anyway, just wanted to let you know! Hope the show went well!”
My initial reaction was “oh my god thank god I wasn’t here for that.” And I told Mark the same thing when he came home the next day. “I would have been nowhere in the same neighborhood – I cannot deal with vomit. No offense.” He laughed, said he totally understood and things went back to being fairly uneventful.
Over the next month, I started noticing things that made me start to feel slightly uneasy. Mainly the 22 ounce tumblers of green apple vodka he’d drink every night or afternoon when he wasn’t working (he was a fine dining waiter.) I didn’t even know we had vodka, which means he was hiding it.
Did I mention he was diabetic?
Other things that started to make me nervous – he had no bank account, no car, and he would pass out on the couch at night and talk in his sleep. A LOT. And he had an entire pharmacy of drugs on his bureau in his room. He had said to me once early on in the relationship, “I never used to take even aspirin, but I’ve become a prescription junkie.” I had let that slide, because I myself have gone from zero to sixty on prescribed drugs, but it’s what happened about a month later that made me lose my shit completely.
To be continued…
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