The Help

The hood here is pretty strange, but nothing like my friends. Well, one friend in particular. He is on a fixed income and I give him thirty bucks to stay at the house on Wednesday from 8:30 to noon. I take a short bike ride with friends, the same thirty-some mile loop every Wednesday. All he has to do is wait for Wally to finish his cereal, take him to the bathroom and then help him to get back on top of the bed, fully clothed and nap. The only thing I ask of David is to be here in case there is some type of emergency,  fire, earthquake, whatever.

Today's forecast was for the low nineties. I was looking forward to home and sitting in the cooled living room after my bike ride. It had warmed pretty fast after 10.  I left the air-conditioner on, one of those wall units so the living room is very cool, set at 70 and the other rooms, depending on where they're located, are warmer. It's a small house and on hot days its more money to keep it cool but on cooler days I have the air off. It was just under ninety by a hair when we got back from the bike ride. In the patio, where I have misting fans to help cool the area are Wally and David, no fans are on, no misters and the doors to the house were wide open and the air-conditioner was off. Wally's head, when a fly landed, was being smacked by a fly swatter from David's hand and Wally was trying to shoo away what was hitting him on the head. David had a grin on his face.

I was dumb struck. I paid David the thirty while he was ranting about it was too cold in the house. Why he turned off the air and opened the doors and then sat outside taking Wally I have no idea, he said he was saving me money.

David has HIV, he is a long time survivor of the disease. I don't know what his thinking is, it's bizarre at best, mean and almost criminal at worse to put Wally in such a position and to take it upon himself to change our environment to suit what he wanted is very weird.

Gabe is coming next week to stay with Wally, he will be back from Germany and I have learned things from Gabe on how to deal with Wally myself, he has the patience of Job. I'm so upset about this. Every other friend I have talked to thinks it strange, Mom (our female bike friend) and her boyfriend both thought so when they came back with me. Only one other friend said I should give David another chance and talk to him. But I'm not sure if I should talk with David, tell him this is not appropriate behavior or just not ask him to watch Wally, he'll call me if I don't ask him. He needs the thirty to buy gas for his SUV, its a gas guzzler. I want to be careful what I say because I don't think he knows what he did was wrong. How anyone cannot see that and why I would have to tell an adult is a bit baffling. I think Dave has some type of brain malady. I'm serious about that, what he did doesn't sound rational to me.