update on Peanut

I wrote this last November. I have an update. I don’t know why gave this guy a pseudonym before. His name is peanut, not Freddie.

Previous note:

I’ve been doing a lot of editing and writing on chapter 13, but a lot of it is handwritten and I have to type it up. I’ll try to do that tomorrow and get it to you.

In the mean time I think I’m playing a small role in something good happening and I want to share it with you. It’s made all the more amazing because the main thing I care about is nonhumans, and this has to do with helping a homeless vet.

Cordella owed me some money. She had some pension checks, but doesn’t have a bank account, so she took me to Walmart to cash them and give me the money (oddly, Walmart would cash one and rejected the others). On the way into the store we heard some guy yelling, and a bunch of Walmart staff standing around him. He kept yelling, I bought all of these things from you! Stop hassling me!” And the Walmart employees kept yelling back, “Stop yelling at us.” Cordella evidently knew who he was because she immediately yelled, “Freddie ! Shut up. Just shut up!” She walked to the group, and the group said he did in fact buy all the groceries, and then he randomly started yelling at the employees. it wasn’t clear for what reason.” He would just start randomly yelling at the employees again and again. It was clear he was the instigator. Also clear he hadn’t shoplifted the materials. Every time he starts yelling, Cordella says, “Freddie. Calm down. Keep your mouth shut. Do you want to go to jail? Just stop.” He had like six bags of groceries, and a bicycle. and he was wearing long pants, but it didn’t take long to figure out he only has one leg. Cordella says, “Hey, let me take your groceries home, okay”

Cops show up about then, having been called by the Walmart employees. Cordella quietly tells Freddie to shut up and talks to the cops for him. Since he’s no longer yelling, the cops have no interest in arresting him. He starts to yell a couple of times but Cordella shushes him. She says she’ll deliver his groceries later, and the cops have no interest, so he bikes away.

On the way into the store she tells me about him. She’s known him for decades. He’s an Iraq war vet who lost a leg in the war, and also has mental health problems. I asked if he’s on benefits. She said no. He doesn’t want any help. But he’s living basically homeless, in a tent when he’s doing okay.

I called a friend in the VA, who says it is outrageous he’s not on VA benefits. He should be getting 60K/year, and he should be eligible for pack benefits plus interest.

I convinced Cordella to convince Freddie to allow me to make at least one phone call to the VA (his stump is getting infected, by the way, and needs professional assistance). The person I talked to was very clear and also very helpful.

I’m pleased that Freddie now has a visit set up for next week. We are all—including Freddie—of us very clear that if he gets set up with a settlement and an income, that there needs to be a manager who basically buys him a house, and then gives him a small allowance, and someone will have to be hired to live in to make sure he doesn’t blow everything on drugs and even more important his “friends” don’t break in to kill him and steal the money. So he has to get his hands on very small amounts at a time. And he basically has to have a house manager to kick people out.

The thing I feel good about is that I played a small role in him hopefully getting off the streets and into a comfortable situation, where he can take a shower, and not sleep in the weather, and to have money enough to support himself, and hopefully money where he can pay someone to drive him 3 hours each way to the VA for a while till he gets healthier

He has never filed for veterans’ benefits or disability because he doesn’t want their “blood money.” Cordella keeps pointing out that it’s his blood.

^^^^

Update from this week. In November, Lierre, Cordella, and Peanut met with a guy from the county whose job it was to help veterans in this situation. But before he can move on, he has to have his formal discharge papers. I’m not sure why the military can’t just take his numbers, and print them out. So the four of them filled them out. They were sent in November. Supposed to take 1-3 months. So last week, 7 months later, we get an envelope back. We’re all excited. We open it up, and the note simply says he needs to send it to a different address.

7 months for that. This is why people hate the military and hate the government. I made copies of the original papers, and took them to the post office the next day. The main clerk Brian is ex-military, and he said that most clerks would have just pushed one button, and printed out the label and forwarded it himself. But this was a lazy asshole, of the sort Brian said he saw many in the military who wouldn’t do anything to expedite anything, and it surely sat on lazy shit’s desk who doesn’t do anything all day until after many months his CO yells at him to clean his fucking desk. It could have been reasonably expected for the guy to a)forward it to the right place; and if extremely busy, still do it in a few days.

So now it’s off to presumably the right address. And now many how much longer this takes, this is 7 months peanut could have been living in a home of his own, with money to spend.

Again, this sort of bureaucratice malfeasance is a big reason people end up hating the government.

it’s too late again. TOmorow I’ll write you about the evolution of the next scene, which I think is going to be really good.

Thank you,

Derrick