Entitlement



Want to buy The Villa?

 Once upon a time, a halfway house known as “The Villa” operated in buildings just up the street from our home and business.

Closed now and melting into the ground like empty buildings do, “The Villa” was once a set of student dormitories owned by the University of Northern Colorado.

Most recently, the complex served as housing for an odd mix of people: criminals finishing out court sentences; disabled or handicapped individuals; and the elderly poor.

Not a good mix. The criminals wanted drugs. The challenged people had to have drugs. The elderly sat in silence, turning their heads from left to right, watching the inevitable exchange.

Amid a big sex-and-drugs scandal, The Villa closed some years ago. A good deal of pressure was removed from our neighborhood when the ragtag collection of humanity which lived there was moved elsewhere. It’s palpably improved around here without “The Villa.”

We met a lot of characters over the years whose residence was The Villa. Here’s a sampling:

-- Slurpy. He was a Down Syndrome adult with a nasty disposition. He walked back and forth between The Villa and the convenience store a dozen times each day, cursing, growling and baring his pointy little teeth.

He always carried a large slurpy cup and we’d see him when he was motivating to or from a refill session. When I would be over at the mailbox and he’d happen by, I would say hello. I never got a response.

One day a freight train interfered with his free migration and he threatened violence to the Union Pacific staff. Slurpy’s freedom in our neighborhood ended at that point, but one day last week we saw him over on Tenth Street. Riding a bicycle! Aw, Slurpy.

-- Mr. Bill. This poor man had one claim to fame. He had actually met WWII hero and movie actor Audie Murphy. He would tell the story again and again.

-- Librium Paul. One day Paul came into the store, sweating. “Where’s a chair? Mind if I sit down? I’ll be O.K. once the Librium kicks in.”

-- Dog Bite. We were walking home from work on the south side of the street, accompanied by our dog Jack, on a leash as always. Coming toward us on the north side, slogging along with a huge canvas bag, was Dog Bite.

She stopped slogging and screamed. I mean she screamed. “Don’t let your dog bite me! Don’t let your dog bite me!” Naturally, she became Dog Bite.

-- Barney. Barney was the original model for the animated character in television cartoons. Tall. Pear-shaped. Always cheerful.

One day we looked out our window at home to find Barney in our front yard. He had picked a handful of flowers. I opened the door and said hello.

“Purdy flowers. Purdy flowers,” Barney said. He didn’t have cognizance of the inside or the outside of a private fence. Later on, Barney grew a tomato garden just across the fence from our house, in the weeds at the cigarette store. Barney watered his garden every day, “borrowing” water from the tobacco merchant.

-- Jowley. Like Slurpy, Jowley made frequent daily trips to the convenience store, mostly for soft drinks in large containers.

We nicknamed him Jowley because when he walked so purposefully along the street, his jowls would shake violently. Later on, he lost weight and his jowls didn’t shake so much. But the name stuck.

-- Carrot. This woman was able to sit in a wheelchair. Period. That was the extent of what she could do. She was in a vegetative state.

Often Carrot paired with Jowley. He would push her from the Villa to the Conoco and from the Conoco to the Villa. We wondered if this might be the reason Jowley lost weight.

-- Elvis. This man bore an uncanny resemblance to . . . Elvis. Dark black hair, slicked back in a ducktail. Shining eyes. Perfect teeth. A little sneer always on his lips. He was God’s gift to woman. Don’t believe it? Just ask him.

-- One Eye. This poor man also had some resemblance to Elvis, except that his left eye was missing. Perhaps through the miracle of modern medicine, whatever had happened to One Eye’s other eye had been covered with a skin graft. He wasn’t pretty. His personality had adapted to match this lack of beauty.

-- Spider. There were numerous guys who wanted to be known as “Spider.” They were criminals, to a man. They had all been reading Easyriders magazine, they were all wannabe or ustabe bikers.

They all wore leather vests which had shrunk up the back. They all smoked countless Marlboros. They all favored Harley-Davidson paraphernalia.

They were all drug-deal related convicts. They were all recidivists. Sad.

-- Downtown Patty. The last time I saw Downtown Patty, she had put on enough weight that she couldn’t quite fit in her electric wheelchair. Everything lopped over.

Patty dyed her hair purple at times, and would have one or two yappy dogs in her lap. She was not a nice person.

The last time I saw Patty she was in the downtown Safeway, careening through the aisles at top speed. She very nearly ran over my toes. I am fortunate that she did not.

Entitlement

One thing all of the Spiders had in common was a belief in their own entitlement.

Spider #1 asked if he could use our business phone. I pointed out to him that there was a pay phone 30 steps away.

“I don’t have no money. They only give us a dollar a day for cigarettes. These days, prices what they are, I don’t know how they expect a man to buy his cigarettes on a dollar a day.”

Although he had been in the state pen and although he did get a small allowance, Spider #1 firmly believed he was entitled to smoke cigarettes. The idea that tobacco is a luxury, not a staple, was lost on him.

Downtown Patty firmly believes she is entitled to run over people in the grocery store. After all, she is obese and confined to a wheelchair. So she can thrash about without a care for the rest of us.

To a man, the criminal types we knew from the Villa believed in entitlement. “Well. They took away ten years of my life.”

To a man, the criminal types we knew would swear their innocence. I’d say, “Hey, somebody had to be guilty, maybe it was you.” I’d get the universal blank stare.

I know people who believe they are entitled to their handicapped parking stickers. I know people who believe they are entitled to cable television. Or to a certain pew or parking place at church.

Ya got another think comin’ folks.

-0-

Word of the week: Entitlement. Latin, in plus titulus, a title. It means a right or claim or legal title to an office or an honor or possession. Spider #1 is entitled to his cigarettes. Pretty spoiled, we humans, to believe we are entitled, even to life itself.