by Reverse Engineer, Doomstead Diner
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Regular readers of the Diner Forum are well aware of my most recent Jet Setting, Fossil Fuel Burning trip down to the Lower 48 to witness and Christen the SUN Monument on it’s Eternal Resting Place in Springfield, MO, where I will join it buried beneath when I have my Final Meeting with the Grim Reaper and buy my Ticket to the Great Beyond. To date, I have been able to battle him off on all the occasions he has knocked on my front door, but win he will in the bye & bye. Nobody keeps the Reaper at bay forever, and I weaken still more with each of these battles. My time left walking the Earth as a corporeal Meat Package grows shorter all the time.
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As per the usual on these trips, I shot a good deal of video and fully intended this week to publish one of them on the Placement of the Monument, which took a full 2 years to finally come to fruition after many delays and frustrations along the way. Unfortunately in many respects though, here in my Low Income Federally Subsidized Tax Credit housing community, we had another incident accompanied by yet another visit from the Alaska State Troopers, along with a few other First Responder types like the EMTs and Fire Department, followed shortly thereafter by the Coroner as well as Animal Control. About the only agency that did not show up for this one was Child Protective Services, although we get more than our share of visits from them as well here in this community.
Just prior to leaving for the Lower 48 on this latest Adventure, while preparing one of my Food Give-Aways in what I call the “Potlatch Parking Lot” or “Cripple Cart Cafe”, I spoke about the non-stop Parade we have here of the various agencies who get 911 calls that there is something amiss ongoing, and shortly thereafter they arrive complete with the sirens and flashing lights. Due to the nature of this type of socio-economic community, we experience all the worst aspects of a decaying industrial culture on a far more regular basis than the typical middle or upper middle class suburban McMansion type community.
Subsequent to the Property Manager moving out of that apartment, right before I left for the Great Tombstone Adventure, they did in fact rent this unit to another woman, who I met briefly before leaving. She seemed nice enough, although I admit to being disappointed that I would lose my additional spot under the carport, which not only expanded the Cripple Cart Cafe but I also could drop my other car under during the winter and keep the snow off of it. Regularly sweeping snow off of the car during Alaska winters is not fun even if you’re healthy, if you’re a cripple it’s a positive nightmare.
Returning about 10 days later here to the Last Great Frontier in the wee hours of Monday morning, I was thoroughly exhausted from my return trip through TSA, over the jets and through the airports to the Last Great Frontier we go. So I crashed and slept through most of Monday, not leaving my cave. Tuesday I did venture outside and ran into a guy entering my neighboring cave and asked him if he was moving in. He said he was “thinking about it”. If he was just thinking about it, how did he have a key? The property manager always accompanies prospective tenants. I didn’t know at the time the woman I had met prior to my trip actually had been approved and had rented the apartment. I didn’t really consider this at the time though.
I didn’t see any more of this gentleman again, nor did I see the woman who actually had rented the place on Tuesday, but then on Wednesday while I was cooking up some Salmon for lunch with my front door open, a State Trooper showed up at my door (which I leave open during the day to keep the inside smoke level down and let in the fresh air full of smoke from the Alaska Wildfires). He inquired of me whether I had seen my neighbor who had not been heard from by her boyfriend who apparently works up on the Slope (the North Slope of Alaska, where the Oil is). I told him I hadn’t seen her since returning from my trip, and only saw her once before that before she rented the place. At this moment another Trooper opens the front door and comes OUT from inside. He got in through the back door, which had been left open. He told Trooper 1 (and me standing next to him) the place stunk from Gas and they had a “10-79”. That’s the code for a bomb threat. What I did not know at this time was they also had a 10-54, a possible Dead Body with the likelihood of a 10-56, a Suicide.
I learned quite a bit more through the course of the day as the Police Tape went up in front of my digs and there was a parade of various other members of the State Troopers, specifically Homicide Detectives who spent the next 9 hours or so dusting this abode and collecting evidence. Although this was an apparent suicide with the gas left on and numerous empty prescription drug bottles and alcohol bottles on the floor, there were some timeline issues here which just did not add up. I could figure that out and I’m not even a fucking Detective.
Later a friend of hers showed up after they pulled his phone number off her cell phone, and he had apparently spoken to her the day before and she met 2 guys and a woman out shopping and they were over visiting with her. This is where the timeline is fishy. When did the cops get the original phone call reporting her missing? When was her actual tiime of death? Had rigor mortis set in yet? I don’t have answers to those questions and probably never will, that’s what coroners do for a living and unless there’s a trial and you go to hear the evidence, you never find out this stuff.
Earlier in the article, you’ll find the first video I shot during the day as the investigation into this death was beginning. Below here is the last video, of the corpse being wheeled out of the apartment in a Yellow Body Bag and then into a nicely equipped Medical Examiner’s truck, powered of course by oil.
So now we get to the real meat of this story, which is WHY? Why in this tiny little complex of maybe 100 Units do we CONSTANTLY have some nasty shit going down worthy of nightly visits from the local Gestapo? Although we have *only* had 3 dead people so far since I have been living in this spot (about the last 5 years), we get regular visits from the EMTs for ODs or Seizures related to drug or alcohol abuse. Among the married folks and those just living with someone else we get regular Domestic Violence problems. For those with kids, there are regular visits from Child Protective Services on reports of Neglect or Abuse. For the Old & Disabled (I am one of those), there are regular calls for an ambulance to take them over to the ER for one issue or another. I fortunately have not yet had to call 911 for that, but I did have one occasion to call 911 and get the EMTs over due to this problem:
I don’t have a “Life Alert” amulet swinging from my neck, but most of the time I DO keep my cell phone on my person, so I can call 911. On this particular occasion I did not, but I was able to reach it fortunately. Had I not been able to, I very well might have died simply because I don’t get visitors (I’m a hermit mostly, or I was then anyhow) and I was just plain STUCK. I fell backwards on my office chair while editing an article for the Diner and leaning it back too far so over I went. I couldn’t even get into the “baby crawl” position on my knees which at least some of the time I can hoist myself back up to my feet from. Fortunately I had left my door unlocked, the paramedics were able to get in easily and then hoist me back to my feet and fix the office chair. I was however laying on the floor there for a good 30 minutes before they arrived contemplating this rather ignominious way to die. They wanted to take me to hospital, but I was fine and declined the invitation, though I had to sign forms saying I declined their kind offer. lol.
So the reason here that you get all these problems in this type of complex is a combination of the low socio-economics and the general bad health of the people who live in such places, along with MOST IMPORTANT, a lack of money! It’s the lack of money that precipitates the Domestic problems; it’s the lack of money which prevents the Old & Disabled from getting the regular assistance they need; it’s the lack of money which begets the Domestic Violence as roommates and married argue about money; it’s lack of money which begets the drug & alcohol problems as the people try to self-medicate their problems away. A place like this is the last stop on the road to homelessness, which of course is even worse.
Finally, if you watch the videos you may be put off by my flippant attitude towards all this tragedy. I know many Kollapsniks are put off because they don’t think I’m “serious” enough about the End of Industrial Civilization and the possible Near Term Human Extinction which could follow that, but probably won’t. First of all, as Shakespeare knew well, Comedy & Tragedy are flip sides of the same coin of human existence. In this case beyond that, I live amongst these people, I don’t look at it as an outsider. This is my little community. Nobody but the Dead & Dying here.
Published originally on The Doomstead Diner 15 September 2019.
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