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Damien

April 7, 2004 - 12am

Today had been a pretty good day. I got up late, went for a fifteen mile bike ride, got some extra credits points in one of my classes… I was feeling pretty good. I sat down at about a quarter to five, and turned on the TV to catch the last half of Jeopardy, and was playing Nintendo. (We have two TVs in the living room.) When Jeopardy ended, I was engrossed in my game and didn’t bother to change the channel from the local news.

A car accident in Green county leaves one man dead after his vehicle left the road and collided with a tree…

I paused my game. Green County. Huh. That’s where I’m from. I wonder if I know anyone involved.

The driver was 23-year-old Damien Nipple…

Oh shit. I went to grade school with that guy. He was in my class. I remember he was one of the few people that could stand me, but only because he didn’t really have any friends either.

His passenger, Christopher Dixon, was transported to UW-Madison hospital where he later died.

Oh fuck. I walked with his half-brother at my high school graduation. My first girlfriend’s brother was best friends with him.

Alcohol was a factor in the crash. Nipple is being held on counts of providing alcohol to a minor, driving while intoxicated, and homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle.

Jesus. The reporter blithely moved on with the rest of the local news, but I didn’t hear any of it. I just sat there, dumb, with the controller in my lap.

I don’t feel bad for Chris. It’s a tragedy that he’s dead, but he doesn’t feel anything anymore. He’s either in a better place, being reborn, or has simply ceased to exist.

I feel terrible for Damien. The odds were stacked against him from day one. When we were kids, I remember that he always came to school dressed in clothes that were obviously from Goodwill. (Well, when he came to school, anyway.) Half the time he was dirty, as if his parents didn’t even bother to make him bathe. He told me a story about how he had once fallen out of a tree and landed on his head. Being all of eight, I assumed that was the reason that he went to special education classes when the rest of us had recess.

And for fuck’s sake, the guy’s name is Damien. fucking. Nipple. How fucked up did his parents have to be through the entire pregnancy to select “Damien” as the name for their son? You’d think that with a last name as bad as “Nipple,” they’d at least try to give the kid a break on his first name.

He moved to a neighboring town before fourth grade. My best friend at the time moved into their old house, and told me how the ceiling had huge holes everywhere, and that they had found these weird glass pipes with burn marks on them left behind in the parents’ bedroom.

So now he’s facing homicide charges. I don’t think he’s going to do well with them. I can almost guarantee that he and his family can’t afford a lawyer. I think his only hope is that the public defender in Green County gets very few homicide cases, and that he’ll get a fair trial.

But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Damien spends the next 15-20 behind bars.

Ow…

April 1, 2004 - 12am

Today has not been a good day, health-wise.

I was unloading the dishwasher this morning, and I suddenly had an intense burning pain directly over my heart. Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon. I’ve been to doctors, and they’ve run all kinds of tests on me: EKG, Cholesterol levels, blood tests, etc. They have no idea what’s wrong with me. One doctor finally told me, “Well, we don’t know what it is or what’s causing it, but take some ibuprofen when it happens.”

Great. The miracles of modern medicine. You’ve been very helpful, Doctor. Why, yes, I’d love to pay you a hundred dollars for not helping me in any way. No, thank you.

Anyhow, while stabbing pains are not uncommon, it is uncommon for them to last more than a split second. Today, they lasted for about two minutes. It was intense enough that I considered calling an ambulance if they lasted another two.

But I popped 600mg of ibuprofen, and the pain went away. Better living through chemicals.

Later that afternoon, I was sitting in a chair watching TV and got up to get a drink of water. My vision started to go black, and I gulped air to try to stay conscious. No dice. I collapsed to the floor in a twitching heap. Undeterred, I got up and got my water.

Most people would consider consulting a doctor at this point. Not me. I’ve been to doctors to determine the causes of my blacking out and for my chest pain. None of them helped at all. The end result has been my near complete loss of faith in medical science.

On the bright side, though, if I pass out at work tomorrow, I can probably go home.

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