Sweaty Guy Returns!

Who is the Sweaty Guy and what is He Doing Now?

Maybe you stumbled across this blog a few months ago, or a few years.  Maybe you may wondered, "Who is the Sweaty Guy and what ever happened to him?"

Maybe not.

No worries in either case.

The mystery will be revealed in March and you will be able to rest easy!

15.

The day before my first official day at Kapahulu Elementary, I was asked to attend their weekly faculty meeting so that I could be welcomed and introduced to the staff. The meeting ended with my introduction as the new Student Services Coordinator. Many of the staff members came up to me and introduced themselves, but there was one demure teacher who didn't approach me and even seemed to be avoiding eye-contact with me. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen her before.

Along with all the other paperwork that usually goes along with orientation at a new workplace, I received the school’s faculty handbook which included a phone list of all the staff members at Kapahulu Elementary School. On the list was a name that seemed to ring a bell with me, Darlene Wunderlich. Again, I couldn’t place where I knew the name from. I didn’t connect the name with the exotic dancer I’d met 7 or 8 months earlier. I hadn’t even thought about that night since the morning after, when I’d tried to remember what I had done and who this Darlene Wunderlich person was who gave me her phone number. Neither did I connect the familiar name with the familiar face I’d seen at the faculty meeting.

It wasn’t long before I knew that the familiar face belonged to Darlene Wunderlich. Still, I didn’t know where I’d heard the name or seen the face. My job as SSC required me to have a lot of contact with the Special Education teachers and Darlene ’s classroom was situated just below my office on the first floor of the same building. In those first weeks Darlene was always friendly with me, but she never gave me any indication that we had met before. Being attracted to her as I naturally was, and curious because of the nagging feeling that I had met her before, I went out of my way to spend time in her classroom and help her out in any way I could.

I wanted to find time to talk to her, maybe ask her out. The few times we did have time to talk, there were too many other people around for me to move beyond professional friendliness. Once she stopped by my office when no one else was around; she had a question about an administrative matter. I was able to give her the information she needed, then I took the opportunity to ask her a couple questions about herself. Where was she from? What was her ethnicity? I remember her little smile, as if she was humoring an absent-minded old man who was asking questions he should already know the answers to.

A few weeks went by; each day I would make a point of bringing Darlene a cup of coffee. I’d gently flirt with her at school and fantasize about her at night. She didn’t dress as you would expect a teacher to dress. Her job working with children with physical disabilities dictated that she dress for comfort, so it was not remarkable that she wore shorts and t-shirts to school. What was remarkable was the way they fit her body; short shorts and “baby doll” t-shirts. She had an educational assistant (EA) who was a hot little local Asian girl. I recall her with “Juicy” shorts and a tramp stamp, just visible. Frequently she would join Darlene and me in my nightly fantasy.

One Monday in February, the school had its monthly “faculty workday”. This means that the there were no students, but the staff came in to catch up on paperwork, develop curriculum, grade papers and do all the things they don’t normally have a chance to do when the students are around. In some of the classrooms workshops were being held on various topics of interest to elementary school teachers. I spent most of the day in my office, but late in the afternoon, I decided to go to a workshop that I knew Darlene would probably be interested in.

The district had sent a physical therapist to provide a refresher for teachers and their EAs on how to safely transfer students between wheelchairs and the floor or onto a massage table. The students at Kapahulu Elementary School's orthopedic unit sometimes had multiple disabilities and needed to be moved throughout the day for various activities and therapies. I was not likely to ever have to transfer students myself, but the information could be useful to me at some point. Besides, Darlene was there. It was near the end of the day, there were no students to deal with; maybe I could ask her to coffee after the class.

The class had just begun when I arrived and Darlene was already sitting in one of the second grade sized chairs facing a carpeted area in the center of the room where the transfer techniques were being demonstrated. An EA was playing the role of a student, while the instructor demonstrated how to safely move her from a chair to the floor and back into the chair again. The staff was then given the opportunity to practice the technique, working in small groups and taking turns playing the student.

Next, the instructor had a table moved to the demonstration area and asked Darlene to be his "student" while he showed us how to transfer her between a chair and the table. With Darlene on the table in the middle of the classroom, I had a sudden flashback to that night in the strip-club months before. I could see her in my mind’s eye in the blue bikini she wore (briefly) that night. I remembered her revelation that she was a teacher and our long conversation about the DOE. I remembered that after a while she had stopped dancing and we were just talking, though I continued to pass her dollar bills at appropriate intervals.

I finally recalled where I knew her from, and understood why she behaved around me the way she did: avoiding eye contact with me at that first faculty meeting, the way she seemed amused at my questions about her. After I had demonstrated my lack of memory of that first encounter, Darlene had become friendlier toward me. With my memory finally jarred by seeing Darlene up on that table I began to think of how I could delicately confront her about her other vocation and our initial meeting.

After the class, which was on the other side of campus from our building, I walked with Darlene back towards her classroom and my office. When we were far enough away from the other staff members that I would not be overheard, I said to her, "I remember now where I met you." I turned to look at her and saw a smile on her face, though she continued to look straight ahead. I didn't mention where we had met. From her expression, I knew it was understood. Instead, I suggested that we get together and talk about it. Maybe we could go for coffee after work sometime. She said she'd like that, but we didn't set a date.

14.

My pattern for several years had been to call my dad two or three times a week when I was sober and doing well. Sometimes I’d call when I was tipsy, thinking he wouldn’t know, but he always did. But with the cough syrup, he didn’t seem to know, at least not at first. He didn’t know what cough syrup intoxication sounded like, or even that there was such a thing.

I started to call him almost daily. I told him about the premonition that had come true. I told him about all the great new ideas I was having for screenplays, books and other creative endeavors. I had ideas for political reform and solutions to the traffic problems on Oahu. Each day, as I became more and more manic, I would pitch him a new idea or two. He was happy for me at first. He thought that in addition to my alcoholism, I’d been suffering from depression. At last, he told me, I seemed to be snapping out of it. He encouraged me to write down my ideas.

At the sober house and in my evening treatment meetings I was expending great effort in hiding my DXM abuse. I couldn’t just throw all my empty bottles into the trash at the house. By mid January I was going through two to three eight ounce bottles per day. I had to monitor when and how much DXM I took into my system; I didn’t want to be incoherent during my treatment sessions, in front of my housemates, or on the phone with my dad.

Two or three bottles per day wasn’t cheap, even if I stuck to the generic brands. I’d tried all the brands and found the most potent one with the least disagreeable taste. It also turned out to be the most expensive brand. I began shoplifting it from pharmacies and grocery stores.

I didn’t like to have to steal the drug, but there was no other way to maintain my habit while I was unemployed and collecting welfare. I didn’t think of it as a habit though, I considered it a tool for managing my sobriety. A sober life would be easy, now that I knew how to manage my mental well being with DXM.

Of course, if I kept stealing the stuff, it would only be a matter of time before I got caught. Also, I had car payments, insurance, child support and student loans that I was falling further and further behind on. I started to think about going back to work for the DOE.

I’d damaged my reputation in Honolulu District, but I hadn’t been fired and maybe I could get a job somewhere else on the island. My house manager seemed to think it was a bad idea for anyone in early sobriety to start work too soon. “Too much money, too soon will lead to a slip.” But my dad was very supportive of me looking for work. “Too much time on your hands can lead to a slip.”

The application process for the Hawaii Department of Education can be time consuming, so while I was working on that, I also went to a temp agency that was able to place me right away. Every day I would go to this big medical insurance outfit and punch numbers into a computer database. Sometimes I was so high on DXM, the computer screen would pulse and bleed green light. My boss seemed happy with my work and the pay allowed me to purchase an iPod. To do this I had to keep stealing my cough syrup for a while longer and put off paying some of those important bills such as child support and student loans.

With the DOE I’d put in applications with a couple of the districts outside of Honolulu for special education teacher positions. I was afraid that I had damaged my reputation in Honolulu district with my drinking and absenteeism. I was right about that, but wrong to think that principals in the other districts would not ask their counterparts in Honolulu about me. While there was a severe shortage of special education teachers, and I interviewed at several schools, it seemed no one wanted to take a chance on me.

I’d become resigned to doing the temp thing until my first book or screenplay was sold (the ones I had ideas for but hadn’t wrote a word). Working for the DOE wasn’t what I really wanted to do anyway. I’d been feeling constrained from using my true talents while I was with the department. Really, I was only now truly recognizing my talents. New ideas came to me each day, ideas for books, movie and TV scripts, letters to the editor. I began spending more and more time with Rod and Pahi, encouraging them in their own creative pursuits.

After about a month of temping, I got a call from the superintendent of Honolulu district. When I’d worked in his district, he was always friendly with me, but I didn't know him well. I was surprised by his call; he’d known about my problems and was willing to take a chance on me. He told me that he’d noticed that I’d applied with the DOE again, but not in his district. He said that if I was willing to work in Honolulu, I should call the principal of Kapahulu Elementary; the school needed a Student Services Coordinator right away.

The job paid much better than temping and I didn’t have to think hard about whether to take it or not. But I was determined that it would remain only a job to me as I had bigger pursuits in mind. With my head constantly buzzing on DXM, so many ideas flowing in and out, I was never able to focus on any of them. I didn’t recognize this as a problem though. I began to feel I was destined for bigger and better things, it was only a matter of time.

13.

Back in 1989, I caught a vicious 24 hour virus. I was newly married and my wife and I had plans to go out with friends that evening. I told her she’d have to go ahead without me. I stayed home, in our Waialua duplex on the North Shore of Oahu. I remember lying in bed dripping with sweat and feeling chilled to the bone. I drifted in and out of consciousness, the strange dreams I had seemed particularly real to me.

“What are you doing here?!” I jerked awake, delirious, when she came home and had climbed into bed. Joan looked frightened until I got my bearings and assured her that I was OK. I’d had a bad dream I told her, but I didn’t tell her what it was about.

*

By the beginning of 2005 I had been divorced from Joan for about 7 years. Drinking and drug use had set me on a downward spiral ever since. Now I was attending an out-patient treatment program three nights a week. Unemployed and collecting welfare, I was sharing a room with two other guys in a house with nearly twenty recovering alcoholics and addicts. I had trashed my career and ruined my relationship with my daughter. It seemed I’d lost everything.

It would have been easy to feel sorry for myself - to wallow. I probably would have, had I not discovered the spiritual uses of DXM. I’d been experimenting, on and off, with the active ingredient in many over-the-counter cough suppressants for months. Until December 2004 it had only been another drug for me. A way to feel okay inside my skin. I’d liked it because it turned me outwards, from introvert to extrovert, like alcohol, but without the impairment. If I watched my dosage, no one would know.

Between Christmas and New Years Day, I’d discovered that there was more to DXM. It had led me to a spiritual experience. It was the catalyst of my awakening to God, or at least to some sort of Divine Truth. I really hadn’t sorted it out, but I knew that there were more revelations to come.

I also knew that I had to be careful. The sober house had a zero tolerance policy toward drug use and the treatment center would view my continued use of cough syrup as a relapse. Fortunately, I soon learned that DXM is not usually picked up by the urinalysis tests we were required to submit to.

It couldn’t be just about not getting caught though. I mean, I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I? The twelve-step programs told me that I had to have a “Higher Power”; I was in need of a “Spiritual Awakening”. Cough syrup was just the vehicle for my Awakening. Where the twelve steps provide a horse and buggy, DXM was a rocket-ship to the Spiritual Realm.

*

One evening, in the double-wide trailer that served as the classroom for the treatment program, I sat in the second row with the drug providing a good buzz...but not merely a buzz. I was feeling the sort of contentment that came with acceptance of my current circumstances and Faith that better days were to come.

The counselor teaching the class, was an attractive lesbian named Alison. Looking at her I was reminded of my ex-wife. I was hit by sudden rush of sensations, a strange stretching, a warping of the classroom around me, then a déjà vu experience. I was taken back to the dream I’d had over fifteen years earlier.

In my fever, years ago - way back in ‘89, I’d dreamt of being in this very room with this same counselor. In my dream I’d not been with Joan for years and I’d been struggling with alcohol. But, in the dream, I also knew that everything was going to be alright. The whole dream was of just one moment in time, a snapshot of my own future consciousness. When Joan woke me up, it was as if she woke up Joe from 2005, instead of Joe from 1989.

Alison’s lecture continued as I recovered from the experience. I realized that the dream had been a premonition that I’d completely forgotten about. I had seen a piece of my life over fifteen years before it happened. I wondered if I’d had any other premonitions in forgotten dreams.

I would usually go outside with the smokers during the break, but that night I stayed back an talked with Alison. I didn’t mention my déjà vu experience, of course, but I felt I should get to know her a bit. Since she featured so prominently in my dream/premonition, she might be important.

It was a casual conversation. When I learned that she was living in Waialua, I shared that I had lived there as well. It turned out that we had a mutual friend named Charlie, who had been our neighbor in Waialua. Charlie was a crotchety old guy in A.A. who chain-smoked Camels. Charlie died in 2001 of emphysema. Alison had been Charlie’s roommate from the mid-’90s and continued to live in Charlie’s house after he died, the house just down the block from where I had been sleeping the night I had my dream/premonition.

At the beach meeting I heard announcements of openings at sober houses in the area and decided to investigate. I needed to spend time with others who were living without drugs or alcohol and I couldn’t continue to take advantage of Julia’s kindness.

I found a house in Kahalu’u that would take me in. A large oceanfront house with about 20 men living in it, my new place would require me to get into outpatient treatment and go to twelve-step meetings every day. The house manager explained that I could apply for welfare and medical assistance would take care of the cost of treatment. I would be discouraged from looking for work until I had established some quality sober time.

This felt like a new beginning for me. This time I felt like I was finally doing all the right things. Three nights a week I went to an out-patient treatment program. I even stopped drinking cough syrup.

I spent my days with the other newly sober guys I was was living with. We hung out together. We had sober house parties that were actually attended by women in recovery. We held a big thanksgiving pot-luck and I held an awkward, sober, conversation with an attractive girl named Lilly.

I became friends with a couple of of the guys in the house. My roommate, Rod who’s about ten years older than me, seemed to be a burned out relic of the seventies. Longish dirty blond hair and a generous mustache, he’d been addicted to just about every drug known to man. When I met him, he had a little over a year sober and still seemed somewhat spaced-out. Rod had played guitar for locally successful bands in southern California, and at one time was good enough to turn down an opportunity to record with Eric Clapton in England. He had fast fingers that had earned him the nickname: Lightning Rod.

My other friend was Pahi. Mike was his given name but everyone called him Pahi. He was a Haole from the Big Island; about ten years younger than me, he was a musician too. Pahi had been in a band on the island of Hawaii, playing local music at weddings and bars. He played ukulele and sang Hawaiian falsetto songs, but he was a rocker at heart.

It was nearing Christmas time as I was starting to get to know these guys individually. They didn’t hang out together normally, but they were on friendly terms. One day I found the two of them on the lanai, Pahi with his ukulele, Rod with his acoustic guitar, playing around with blues riffs and just having fun. I stood and watched, enjoying their improvisations and rapport.

Guys in the house started catching colds and I caught the bug few days before Christmas. None of my previous experiences with cough syrup had been negative. I told myself that alcohol was my real problem. Cough syrup is completely legal, even in the sober house. I should just watch my dosage so I don’t arouse suspicion. The idea that it would be dangerous to my sobriety to misuse the drug, did flit across my mind.

But more powerful rationalizations won out. I had a cold, damn it! And I needed relief. Besides, the DXM effects were fun and I wouldn’t be hurting anyone. I conceded to myself that it could become a problem though, so I vowed to be careful with my doses and stop as soon as my cold was gone.

I spent Christmas Day in a stupor, unable to focus on anything in the world around me with my eyes open. With my eyes closed I was treated to the same acid trip visuals I had experienced previously on DXM. Since I was in a clean and sober house, I really had to watch my behavior. I didn’t want anyone to suspect I was on something. I spent most of my time in my room until the cold was gone.

I was feeling better a couple of days after Christmas but had decided not to stop the cough syrup. After a couple of days, I’d found that I could regulate my doses of DXM so that I could function without anyone knowing, yet still feel the pleasant effects of the drug throughout the day. I’d take a large dose an hour or so before bed for an extra kick and some vivid visuals before I drifted off to sleep.

At night my brain spontaneously produced its own music; sonorous and richly produced songs, complete with lyrics, played in my head. Cartoon hieroglyphs performed elaborately choreographed numbers as they morphed into aliens and back again. When I wasn’t simply enjoying the show, my mind was working and I was praying. That creative side of my brain, the side I knew I had but rarely exercised, was brimming and bubbling with ideas. I had found a new channel to the divine, and I expressed my gratitude to God for the new insights He was providing me.

I felt reborn. I’d made a mess of my life over the last several years. I’d been unhappy for a long time and I’d been using alcohol to numb my feelings, to help me escape. DXM was a new tool. Unlike with alcohol, I was able to manage my doses so that I could function productively and unlike alcohol it connected me to God rather than cutting me off. It helped me to feel good, it sharpened my senses and it sparked my creativity. 2005 was going to be different; I just knew it.

12.

Back in October, the morning after I’d relapsed in Club Rock Za, I spent much of the morning looking for my car. I tried to retrace my steps from the night before.

After Sasha pressed her mouth to mine, letting the tequila flow from her mouth to mine, I went straight to the ATM machine. I was in "fuck-it" mode; I knew it and I wanted it. Really, I told myself - and it was true - I’d not been sober as long as I’d continued to drink cough syrup. The future, my plans, consequences...It wasn’t that they didn’t matter, they just didn’t exist.

I couldn’t remember how many times I hit the ATM. I didn’t remember leaving the bar, but I had a vague memory of going over to Daiei and picking up a bottle of vodka. After waking up on the side of the road, I headed back the several blocks to the Japanese store to look for my car.

*

I tried to drink in a controlled way for a couple of weeks after my relapse at Club Rock Za. I had no income and my funds were limited. I made fliers advertising my services as a tutor and posted them in coffee shops and community bulletin boards. I had the idea that I could work as a tutor part time and start a practice as an advocate for children with disabilities. Maybe I would get a part time job to provide a steady stream of income while I built my business.

After an initial flurry of activity, printing up and posting the fliers, I continued my drinking while I waited for the calls from frustrated parents to come in. I did get a call from one mother who wanted me to help with her teenage sons math and English homework. I managed to slow down my drinking for several hours before we met at a coffee shop in Kailua.

I showered and thoroughly brushed my teeth immediately before our meeting. I was feeling a bit queasy as I sat down with the single mother who was having trouble getting her son to do his homework. I don’t know if she detected alcohol on me, or sensed something wrong with me, but though she said she would call me once she talked to her son, I never heard back from her after our meeting.

Within week or so of more heavy drinking, and no effort to find income, I began to see my money run out and the hopelessness of my situation. To stretch my funds, I began to shoplift bottles of liquor from several different grocery stores. I knew this couldn’t continue, but I couldn’t stop; I didn’t want to face another painful detoxification process.

Finally, one morning in mid-November, I found myself feeling too ill to go out to get more liquor. I still had several beers and a little vodka. I weaned myself with the little alcohol I had, spending endless miserable hours in bed with the TV on. In a couple of days I felt well enough to go to an twelve step meeting. It was an early morning meeting that I’d been to before. The group met on the beach. As usual, I stayed to myself, arriving a little late and leaving the circle before the end of the meeting to avoid interacting with anyone.

I spent the next few days going to this and other meetings. I spent my days at the beach thinking about what I would do with myself. I didn’t want to go back to my family on the mainland, I had no income and hadn’t paid my rent for over 6 months. The house in Maunawili belonged to my close friend from law school, Julia, who moved to the mainland after she graduated. She’d cut me a lot of slack, but I couldn’t continue to live there.

April 2005


11.

Perspiration is the bane of my existence. I am a sweaty guy. I’m sitting in the back of a blue and white police car on Kalakaua Avenue. I’m done yelling. Some of the officers talk with each other while one interviews Jessica. Beads of sweat roll down my nose while I wait to be taken to jail.

Jessica looks frightened. I can't hear what she’s saying to the officer who’s taking notes. Tourists had watched the spectacle of my take down and arrest, but they’re beginning to disperse. I rub my sore ribs while I scan the scene for the woman who'd had her video camera rolling as the officer and security guard threw me down onto a lava rock wall. I don't see her.

While they were trying to put me in handcuffs, I had been screaming frantically to the crowd, particularly the tourist with the camera, about corruption and abuse perpetrated by the Honolulu Police Department. With one wrist cuffed, the cop, who’d been first to arrive to assist the security guard, viciously yanked my other arm back.

"Stop resisting! Stop resisting!" The officer repeats over and over as my arm feels it’s about to be pulled from its socket and my ribs are pressed into jagged rock.

"I'm not resisting; just stop yanking so hard, I'm trying to cooperate!"

Some of the members of the gathered crowd are sympathetic. I hear someone shout, "He's not resisting; you're hurting him."

It's twilight in front of the International Marketplace, on the main drag through Waikiki. DXM co-mingles with adrenaline in my system. This is not how I'd planned to spend the night.

How could this have happened. I was sure that I was on the right path. I had read all the signs. I’d been directed by God hadn’t I? Over the past six months I’d experienced revelations, new insights granted only a chosen few. Wasn’t I the chosen one for my age? Wasn’t I the next in a line of spiritual leaders, extending back into prehistory?

Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammed to name a few, these were my spiritual forebears. Of course, Divine Nature is not limited to Western Abrahamic traditions. From shamans to the Buddha, Divine truth has been shared with select individuals through the ages and throughout different cultures.

Had I misread the signs? Could I be mistaken about my own Divine nature. Are they all right? My dad, Julia, Jessica; they’ve all told me in one way or another that I’m delusional, that I need to seek help. If that’s the case, if I’m crazy, then I’ve really fucked up.

The thought is too much to bear and my mind switches gears. My thoughts are so fluid...It’s obvious to me now; all great Spiritual Leaders must suffer and many are persecuted before their Greatness is recognized.

I lean back in hard the molded plastic seat of the squad car and relax, resigned to whatever suffering may lie ahead.