The names in this piece have been changed to protect the innocent...and ME. The author does not guarantee that the events described herein are accurate or even factual.
…and that reminds me of what may possibly have been the meanest thing I have ever done to another human being. It’s something I would not want to be done to me and I would NEVER do it again. Yes, I wish I had never done it, but there you go…
I was staying at a house in the country. I was sort of watching over it, as the owner lived in a different home several miles away. I thought of myself as “security”, but in reality it was simply a case of a generous man giving a homeless person a place to temporarily stay.
It had only been a couple of years since I’d been released from the Naval hospital, A year and a half since my wife left me. About half a year since I’d stopped taking meds. I’d been booted from my dad’s house by his wife. I wound up at John’s place by chance. I didn’t even know the guy. Seriously, I’d never met him until the night he offered me the place after hearing my tale of woe.
John was the manager of the band my brother was playing with at the time. He owned all of their P.A. system, which stayed at the house, so it actually was a benefit for him to have me there watching over it, keeping it safe from thieves. The house was out in the boonies and it would have very easy for anyone to steal whatever they wanted from it at any time, day or night.
Anyway, I’d been there for a little over 3 months when a guy they called Bear started spending a lot of time at the house. Looking back on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if John had been planning on moving him in to replace me as their “security man”. His wife didn’t like me at all. Eventually I learned that she was convinced I had stolen a gun they kept (hid, they thought) in an unused bedroom. HA! I had no idea there was a gun, where it would be, or even how to use it if I HAD ripped it off.
But that’s neither here nor there. Point is that Bear was the kind of person who grated on the nerves. I was stuck with him on a regular basis. He disturbed my precious solitude, and that was his only sin.
Okay…so there was rarely anything to eat at John’s house. It was almost as if we survived on the Busch beer he left behind. He would stop by every day on his way home from work to check in and see how things were going. He’d almost always bring a 12 pack of beer that he would share with me, leaving behind several for me to enjoy the next day. There was almost always beer. It wasn’t unusual for the refrigerator to have a couple of cases in it, left behind from the band’s rehearsals (which always devolved into parties).
When we did run out of brews, Bear would make up a gallon of iced tea. I never liked tea so he was the only one who drank it.
And this is where we get to the MEAN part…
Bear had been getting on nerves that day. Not that he actually TRIED to annoy me. It just came naturally to him. In fact, I don’t think he even disliked me. There were a couple of times when he gave that impression, but those could probably be attributed to a bad mood. He was a nice guy.
One afternoon while he was gone I took his pitcher of tea, which about half full…AND I PISSED IN IT. I put it back into the refrigerator and waited for his return.
When he came back I was sitting inside the fenced patio, strumming an old guitar that had been left at the house from one of the band rehearsals. I was making up impromptu songs when he joined me. He sat down and listened.
It wasn’t too long until he got thirsty.
He went into the kitchen, found some ice, and poured up a nice, big glass of tea. Then he came back to the patio, sat down…and took a huge gulp. Of course he could not taste it, so he had no idea why I bust out laughing. I laughed and laughed and he kept asking me what was so funny. He didn’t believe when I told him it was nothing. I just dept guffawing.
Then I started playing a couple of chords on the guitar and sang, in a nasally voice and in a manner that assured he wouldn’t understand a single word…
“Pissed in your tea
Oh yes, I pissed in your tea
Ain’t you so pissed off at me?”
I still have this on a cassette tape somewhere, as I had been trying to write some songs that afternoon and used a recorder to capture ideas. It had serendipitously been running during this exchange.
Bear never found out about my practical joke. Which is a good thing, because he was a big ol’ boy, bigger than me, and had very likely been the one who stole the gun I mentioned earlier.
I got booted from the house because John’s wife hounded him to get rid of me. She didn’t think I pulled whatever weight she figured I should be pulling. And the gun thing, of course. I don’t know why she hated me, but, seeing as how I was the kind of person who would spike someone’s beverage with urine, I imagine she had some strong instincts that told her I wasn’t a good ‘un to keep around.
I don’t blame her. They say that “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. That may well be, but I’d hate to think that my Dr. Pepper had been pissed in somewhere down the road, even if I DID deserve it.
Karma? Oh boy…
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