Marcus says
There’s this threshold when you stop complimenting weight loss. It usually comes with other factors, like something is wrong with his teeth. Hair’s thinner. Other things. Jim was fine, and then he lost weight, and then he looked like he was hollowing out. He was gray in places that he used to be green.
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Let me take it back a little bit. Um.
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He moved out here and we were all happy about it because, you know, he’s near us and that’s great. He was not doing well, sent those long e-mails that he’d send. Those e-mails people send when their meds aren’t properly calibrated He’d curse a lot. That’s what I always said. He was the kind of guy that cursed to make a joke, usually. When he was off, though, everyone was a motherfucker, or a fucking bitch, or something like that. It was off, you know. So we were happy he came out here. Sunshine. We could feed him. That’s what we thought.
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Anyway, he would lie. He told me he had hepatitis. He did not have hepatitis. We’d invite him over and he would just not show up. He could drive but said he didn’t want to have a car. He sold his car. This is L.A. He’d walk everywhere. Until he sort of stopped going places very far from his home.
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I used to actually have this e-mail chain with my wife and this other friend of his about what to do, you know? We couldn’t force him to go to the hospital. He never did anything in front of us that was actually criminal. He wasn’t even being dangerous. He was warm. Grateful. But then, he’d disappear. So we were like: “Do we go over there and go through his stuff?” What do we do? I know he went to a lot of groups, but, you know, where were they? We even thought about having him followed.
HELEN
But you didn’t do that.
MARCUS
I mean, no. We just talked about it. Who thinks that’s actually going to be necessary, you know?
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So…I…
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Well to make it a shorter story, I found out he’d been in and out of the hospital. I literally thought “At least he’s going to the hospital.” I took it as a good sign. Then, he died. He went in, and didn’t come out.
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So…there’s more to it. I don’t know what you want to know. But, yes. That’s what happened. Right before New Year’s Eve.