Lunch With Mr. Fussy
Mr. Fussy insisted we take his car into town for lunch. I nestled myself comfortably in the passenger seat and buckled up before Mr. Fussy opened the driver side door. As he got in and started up his car I saw his hands were shaking a little worse than normal. He navigated through the North parking lot past a security gate and made a left hand turn to take us downtown. I figured now was as good a time as any to bug him with questions about old rumors.
"If you don't mind my asking, how come your hands tremble all the time?"
Mr. Fussy shot me a look and said in a deadpan tone of voice, "I have AIDS. Some of the medicines I take to treat HIV cause bad side effects. One of the drugs thickens my blood. I have to take another pill to thin the blood back to a normal level but a side effect of that drug makes my hands shiver."
I was surprised at his matter of fact reaction to my question.
We drove a few blocks without any conversation. The silence was awkward so I asked him, "How long ago were you diagnosed with the virus?"
"Most of my friends are dead. They took AZT."
I vaguely remembered back in the late 1980s the first anti-AIDS drug was called AZT. I was in high school then. Evening news on television had run a few stories about AZT when it was introduced amid some controversy. That was all I knew about it.
"Did you take AZT?" I asked.
"No."
"How come?"
"Because everyone that took it, died."
"That's kind of a risky decision you made, don't you think?"
Mr. Fussy yelled at the top of his lungs at me. "Everyone I knew died slow painful deaths because of that shit! If I was going to die I was going to die because of the virus, not AZT!"
"Okay, okay. I didn't know. Sorry." I had backed myself up against the passenger side door, startled by Mr. Fussy's angry outburst.
The rest of our trip to the Mexican restaurant was subdued. Neither one of us said anything.
After being seated at a table and placing our orders for drinks and food, I changed the subject to our days in the PC board department. Mr. Fussy had been accused of rifling through a manager's cubicle and stealing confidential paperwork which he then revealed to the PC board department's workforce. I asked him if the rumors I'd heard were true.
"That isn't entirely what happened. You know how some manager's cubicles have a waist-high partial desktop facing the hallway?"
"Yeah."
"A supervisor or someone in the department's management chain had a copy of their business plan for the coming fiscal year. They left it out in the open at our division manager's cubicle hallway desktop ledge. That night on swing shift I walked by in the hallway and saw a big stack of papers just sitting there in front of his cube. I stopped to see what it was and read it. That's when I discovered they were planning to cut all our job positions and outsource the work. I took the paperwork and showed it to some other employees. Next day the news was everywhere in the department."
"So you didn't sneak into the guy's office like a thief in the night and steal this stuff?"
"No."
"Then what happened?"
"They talked to everyone. A few people that I thought were my friends turned on me. They told managers I stole the paperwork. But they couldn't prove it. Instead of firing me they took my Expediter job away from me and put me back in production building boards. I was so stressed out that I ended up in the hospital and didn't come back to work for months."
Our food arrived at the table. I ordered a chicken super burrito with extra cheese and sour cream. Mr. Fussy got enchiladas or something that might have resembled enchiladas. Before he began to dig in, he produced a small plastic container and dumped about fifty pills on the table. Various shapes, colors, and sizes of pills scattered about near his plate. He took a bite of food and then fed a pill or two into his mouth. Washing the pills down with a soda he took another forkful of food followed by another pill. I didn't say anything. I quietly observed and ate. By the time he had consumed about half of the shotgun pill pile I said, "What's all that about?" I shook my knife in the direction of his medication cocktail. Mr. Fussy told me he had to take that swarm of pills every day to fight his AIDS infection.
He said, "It's keeping me alive."
"If you don't mind my asking, how come your hands tremble all the time?"
Mr. Fussy shot me a look and said in a deadpan tone of voice, "I have AIDS. Some of the medicines I take to treat HIV cause bad side effects. One of the drugs thickens my blood. I have to take another pill to thin the blood back to a normal level but a side effect of that drug makes my hands shiver."
I was surprised at his matter of fact reaction to my question.
We drove a few blocks without any conversation. The silence was awkward so I asked him, "How long ago were you diagnosed with the virus?"
"Most of my friends are dead. They took AZT."
I vaguely remembered back in the late 1980s the first anti-AIDS drug was called AZT. I was in high school then. Evening news on television had run a few stories about AZT when it was introduced amid some controversy. That was all I knew about it.
"Did you take AZT?" I asked.
"No."
"How come?"
"Because everyone that took it, died."
"That's kind of a risky decision you made, don't you think?"
Mr. Fussy yelled at the top of his lungs at me. "Everyone I knew died slow painful deaths because of that shit! If I was going to die I was going to die because of the virus, not AZT!"
"Okay, okay. I didn't know. Sorry." I had backed myself up against the passenger side door, startled by Mr. Fussy's angry outburst.
The rest of our trip to the Mexican restaurant was subdued. Neither one of us said anything.
After being seated at a table and placing our orders for drinks and food, I changed the subject to our days in the PC board department. Mr. Fussy had been accused of rifling through a manager's cubicle and stealing confidential paperwork which he then revealed to the PC board department's workforce. I asked him if the rumors I'd heard were true.
"That isn't entirely what happened. You know how some manager's cubicles have a waist-high partial desktop facing the hallway?"
"Yeah."
"A supervisor or someone in the department's management chain had a copy of their business plan for the coming fiscal year. They left it out in the open at our division manager's cubicle hallway desktop ledge. That night on swing shift I walked by in the hallway and saw a big stack of papers just sitting there in front of his cube. I stopped to see what it was and read it. That's when I discovered they were planning to cut all our job positions and outsource the work. I took the paperwork and showed it to some other employees. Next day the news was everywhere in the department."
"So you didn't sneak into the guy's office like a thief in the night and steal this stuff?"
"No."
"Then what happened?"
"They talked to everyone. A few people that I thought were my friends turned on me. They told managers I stole the paperwork. But they couldn't prove it. Instead of firing me they took my Expediter job away from me and put me back in production building boards. I was so stressed out that I ended up in the hospital and didn't come back to work for months."
Our food arrived at the table. I ordered a chicken super burrito with extra cheese and sour cream. Mr. Fussy got enchiladas or something that might have resembled enchiladas. Before he began to dig in, he produced a small plastic container and dumped about fifty pills on the table. Various shapes, colors, and sizes of pills scattered about near his plate. He took a bite of food and then fed a pill or two into his mouth. Washing the pills down with a soda he took another forkful of food followed by another pill. I didn't say anything. I quietly observed and ate. By the time he had consumed about half of the shotgun pill pile I said, "What's all that about?" I shook my knife in the direction of his medication cocktail. Mr. Fussy told me he had to take that swarm of pills every day to fight his AIDS infection.
He said, "It's keeping me alive."
posted by factory_peasant at 6:38 PM
4 Comments:
Mr fussy was a nice guy, but whenever he was under pressure he reminded me of a chihuahua. He started shaking like crazy. One time I went to lunch with him and a couple of other people at Rafas. He was a messy eater, and always had food on his chin. I had about one minute to get to the salsa before he started double-dipping. I have nothing against people with AIDS, but eating salsa with an AIDS patient that is double-dipping is a no-no.
TC
Yeah- you could accidentally kill him if you have a cold. Idiot.
Whooo, hold on there anono,
I have nothing against people with aids. I believe that they have just as much right to live as we do. We just need to find some place to put them. Like...........what state did you say you were from?
TC
aids or no-aids,
that seinfeld episode PROVED that double-dipping IS a sin hehehehehe!
i h8 double dippers *laff*
shit_f00t
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