THAT was an ordeal...

Charles told me about running into a student at Starbucks last night. He let the kid use his laptop to find phone numbers and try to contact friends/family so maybe he could have a place to crash, since he's just run away from home. Charles feels terrible for this little gay boy who is massively ADHD, most likely bipolar, and is FRIGHTFULLY sheltered (mommy forgot to cut the cord, and even at school, his mother sat by his side in his classes- everyone thought she was a student, too. Nope. Just an overprotective psycho). So after a while of trying to find people online, he went on his merry way, continuing his aimless gallivant around Henrietta, traveling to payphones and trying out different numbers he's found, until he lands on mine at 2am.

At 2am, though, I'm at the losing end of shots roulette down the street at a party. In the noise and confusion, I handed the phone over to someone sober, who had to ask a dozen times who she's talking to. I got it back and tried to zone in on the garbled sound that is THE RAMBLING GAY BOY, with a voice so effeminate, I thought it was a girl, til I heard 'professor Chuck', and the name Joe, and I remembered what Charles told me earlier in the evening. This is the little runaway.

No one involved still has any idea why Charles gave the kid MY number to call if he's in a bind. But by 3am we had a skittish 19 year old kid on our couch for the night, using my laptop to find his sister or any facebook friend (and let me say, this kid was baffled by facebook - thinking the main page were all messages to him from people he hardly knows, and then he examines every person on his facebook trying to figure out how he knows them, messaging everyone currently online, and being baffled by the lack of such people online).

We set him up on the couch with a blanket and pillow, and went to bed. I had him put the computer away, but then heard my computer being restarted 4 times. Then the rustling began. I peeked through the keyhole, and saw him going through every crumply plastic bag he had, tearing up papers, and throwing things away. Ugh, for over an hour! I finally went out and told him to go to sleep. Which led to over another hour of him detailing each item in his bag, including each free sample he horded in his first hour of homelessness, and every type of tea he had in there (ten minutes to describe echinacea and honey teas), and then gabbing away about his friends not getting back to him. I had to explain twice that it's fucking 5am and the odds of one of his pals being up at the ass-crack of dawn on a Sunday morning ain't even on the table. I also had to explain to him that once the computer goes off, no matter how many times you re-start the computer, it's still gonna ask for a password! I turned off all the lights and told him to sleep.

Now with a stranger in our midst, and a liability on our hands (being a student at Charles's school), we weren't sleeping anyway, but at least now we could get some peace and quiet for a couple hours.

I guess I could thank him for making a hangover damn near impossible, not that I didn't have a wicked headache anyway.

Next morning, I peaked my head out to see if he was still asleep. To my surprise, I saw his head planted on the pillow and his eyes shut, but he must have been listening for signs of life from one of us, because he immediately jumped up bright eyed and bushy tailed, and just had to describe every detail and thought regarding his weird friendly happy eerie cool sweet soothing super fun best dream ever.

Yeah, after that, I went back into my room, collapsed on the bed, curled up under the blanket, and told Charles, "your turn." He went out, and I got some sleep while he took charge, they went through the kid's rolodex of addresses and phone numbers, and found gramma. Then somehow, since mom used to work Student Services of the school, she was on the phone with Charles getting info, and lo and behold, she managed to find granny's phone number! We were going to just go over and drop him off, but then Charles announced we got the phone number. I handed over my phone, and that was the end of it. Kid sat on the line and didn't even mention he's now fucking homeless with nowhere to go until 20 minutes into the gab-fest. I woke up and went out there, trying to find one single moment where I could say "tell her you want to come over!" but shit, that kid doesn't fucking breathe!!

So after FOREVER, we were finally on our way to fucking Newark (ny). Not one moment of silence the whole 45 minute trip there. I drowned it out as best as I could, and was totally aware of my mouth gaping open, eyes unblinking and glazed over, like I'd just had a lobotomy, and inside my head, I tried out several different firearms on my face. What I wouldn't have given for a pair of sharpened chopsticks to shove in my ears.

Kid begged for us to meet granny. She sounded like the Squidbilly's grandma, and looked like a spooky version of TrueBlood Sookie's grandma. Half blind from a recent retina surgery, she seemed pretty unhappy by us dumping him on her, but we had to. He needed to connect with family while he's got the chance away from his mother.

We washed our hands of it, got some breakfast, and enjoyed the silence.

Oh, and I didn't realize til after we'd dropped him off, but the kid MURDERED my phone battery. And called my phone FOUR MORE TIMES between 7 and 9. I didn't get any of them because the phone died. I wouldn't have taken the calls anyway. We need to disconnect from him because he cannot think we are his best contacts when he's in a bind. Best part of dropping him in Newark is that's not a leisurely jaunt across the neighbourhood for us, so we can't go pick him up again if we need to. He's got to find a shelter. Our liability risk went far enough.

Blah.

Anyway, that was an ordeal. Now we sleep.

(x-posted at my dreamwidth)

Ugh.

Charles told me about running into a student at Starbucks last night. He let the kid use his laptop to find phone numbers and try to contact friends/family so maybe he could have a place to crash, since he's just run away from home. Charles feels terrible for this little gay boy who is massively ADHD, most likely bipolar, and is FRIGHTFULLY sheltered (mommy forgot to cut the cord, and even at school, his mother sat by his side in his classes- everyone thought she was a student, too. Nope. Just an overprotective psycho). So after a while of trying to find people online, he went on his merry way, continuing his aimless gallivant around Henrietta, traveling to payphones and trying out different numbers he's found, until he lands on mine at 2am.

At 2am, though, I'm at the losing end of shots roulette down the street at a party. In the noise and confusion, I handed the phone over to someone sober, who had to ask a dozen times who she's talking to. I got it back and tried to zone in on the garbled sound that is THE RAMBLING GAY BOY, with a voice so effeminate, I thought it was a girl, til I heard 'professor Chuck', and the name Joe, and I remembered what Charles told me earlier in the evening. This is the little runaway.

No one involved still has any idea why Charles gave the kid MY number to call if he's in a bind. But by 3am we had a skittish 19 year old kid on our couch for the night, using my laptop to find his sister or any facebook friend (and let me say, this kid was baffled by facebook - thinking the main page were all messages to him from people he hardly knows, and then he examines every person on his facebook trying to figure out how he knows them, messaging everyone currently online, and being baffled by the lack of such people online).

We set him up on the couch with a blanket and pillow, and went to bed. I had him put the computer away, but then heard my computer being restarted 4 times. Then the rustling began. I peeked through the keyhole, and saw him going through every crumply plastic bag he had, tearing up papers, and throwing things away. Ugh, for over an hour! I finally went out and told him to go to sleep. Which led to over another hour of him detailing each item in his bag, including each free sample he horded in his first hour of homelessness, and every type of tea he had in there (ten minutes to describe echinacea and honey teas), and then gabbing away about his friends not getting back to him. I had to explain twice that it's fucking 5am and the odds of one of his pals being up at the ass-crack of dawn on a Sunday morning ain't even on the table. I also had to explain to him that once the computer goes off, no matter how many times you re-start the computer, it's still gonna ask for a password! I turned off all the lights and told him to sleep.

Now with a stranger in our midst, and a liability on our hands (being a student at Charles's school), we weren't sleeping anyway, but at least now we could get some peace and quiet for a couple hours.

I guess I could thank him for making a hangover damn near impossible, not that I didn't have a wicked headache anyway.

Next morning, I peaked my head out to see if he was still asleep. To my surprise, I saw his head planted on the pillow and his eyes shut, but he must have been listening for signs of life from one of us, because he immediately jumped up bright eyed and bushy tailed, and just had to describe every detail and thought regarding his weird friendly happy eerie cool sweet soothing super fun best dream ever.

Yeah, after that, I went back into my room, collapsed on the bed, curled up under the blanket, and told Charles, "your turn." He went out, and I got some sleep while he took charge, they went through the kid's rolodex of addresses and phone numbers, and found gramma. Then somehow, since mom used to work Student Services of the school, she was on the phone with Charles getting info, and lo and behold, she managed to find granny's phone number! We were going to just go over and drop him off, but then Charles announced we got the phone number. I handed over my phone, and that was the end of it. Kid sat on the line and didn't even mention he's now fucking homeless with nowhere to go until 20 minutes into the gab-fest. I woke up and went out there, trying to find one single moment where I could say "tell her you want to come over!" but shit, that kid doesn't fucking breathe!!

So after FOREVER, we were finally on our way to fucking Newark (ny). Not one moment of silence the whole 45 minute trip there. I drowned it out as best as I could, and was totally aware of my mouth gaping open, eyes unblinking and glazed over, like I'd just had a lobotomy, and inside my head, I tried out several different firearms on my face. What I wouldn't have given for a pair of sharpened chopsticks to shove in my ears.

Kid begged for us to meet granny. She sounded like the Squidbilly's grandma, and looked like a spooky version of TrueBlood Sookie's grandma. Half blind from a recent retina surgery, she seemed pretty unhappy by us dumping him on her, but we had to. He needed to connect with family while he's got the chance away from his mother.

We washed our hands of it, got some breakfast, and enjoyed the silence.

Oh, and I didn't realize til after we'd dropped him off, but the kid MURDERED my phone battery. And called my phone FOUR MORE TIMES between 7 and 9. I didn't get any of them because the phone died. I wouldn't have taken the calls anyway. We need to disconnect from him because he cannot think we are his best contacts when he's in a bind. Best part of dropping him in Newark is that's not a leisurely jaunt across the neighbourhood for us, so we can't go pick him up again if we need to. He's got to find a shelter. Our liability risk went far enough.

Blah.

Anyway, that was an ordeal. Now we sleep.

(x-posted at my livejournal)