one destructive tantrum later

okay, well, apparently staying up at my cabin, locked in by weather, was not to be

a couple hours after i typed yesterday’s journal entry, i got a voicemail from the county sheriff’s office. “this is [deputy], we had an incident with [cheetah] and i need you to call me back”

that was about 11a. i poured a stiff drink and gave the deputy a call

apparently, they picked up cheetah this morning, walking barefoot down the road, waving a couple big knives around

the responding deputy is actually the same one who pulled me over a month and a third ago when our big fight happened, so he knew where the house was. they checked my house and said the door was open. the deputy hinted my stuff was kind of damaged but he didn’t go into details

cheetah, they managed to talk down. the deputy told me it was the closest he’s come to firing his gun on someone ever. they booked chee into the hospital on a mental health hold

i called the neighbor next and had her go check on the kitties. she found ally and he was okay. she couldn’t find pen, which did not worry me at all; i’m quite sure pen’s ability to hide is better than the neighbor’s ability to find her

but where the cops hinted the house was damaged, the neighbor went on at length, totally appalled at complete destruction

ugh

next i called cheetah’s mom. i’ve never had to call her before, but i guess this is another first. i filled her in on what happened and gave her the number for the hospital

a bit later i called the hospital too. it took me a while because i really didn’t want to face him. but cheetah was sedated, so they didn’t let me talk to him anyway. i asked them to give me a warning before turning him loose

i talked to fox a little bit next, and he helped me settle and process

then came the challenge of getting myself out of the woods. the roads never froze the night before, and the forecast didn’t show another solid freeze until tuesday. the next snow was supposed to come in around midnight. shit, how the hell do i do this?

i started out the most obvious way. i closed up the cabin, loaded my backpack, and snowshoed down to my truck. there, i took some time and put claws on all four tires. these are two new sets of tire chains that i’ve never used before so it took a minute to figure it out, but we got it

then there was nothing for it but begin the drive and see how far i could get. my backup plan was, if i mired down, to hike out to the pavement and hitch-hike back to town. but the gods smiled on me, i love my truck more than any person i’ve ever held in my life, and with all their help combined, we drove out of the mountains

mud is splashed to the top of the truck windows

then there was nothing for it but return home and see what cheetah left me

the truth turned out to be between the two extremes i’d been given. yes there’s stuff broken. a couple things that will cost a few dollars even. but the truly valuable stuff, like my computer for instance, is fine

there was a lot of destruction, but mostly it was just incredibly random, like a storm cloud had a temper tantrum

here’s some selected examples:

• he threw my hand weights. one was in the storage room, the other in the corner of my room. the corner table it was laying under has a weight-sized hole in it, i suspect this is related

• there was a rope in the wash machine, and a pillow in the drier. both appliances were pulled out from the wall and unplugged

• the gas oven was partly taken apart and there was a candle in the bottom of it, so he may have tried blowing himself up

• the furnace is disabled. he’d stuffed three furnace vents full of rags, a wooden block in a fourth, and i found one of my chef’s knives inside a fifth. the thermostat was popped open. the furnace itself had the service panel open. inside he disconnected a solenoid of some kind and left it sitting there

• the thing that offended him next most was the wireless router. that one got smashed and distributed into five parts across three rooms

• the laser printer got pulled off the shelf and dropped on the kitchen floor, on top of a poster that used to be on my wall, then a lot of water dumped over the whole thing. the laser printer does not work any more

• my design portfolio folder was hidden on top of the kitchen cabinets, except for a print of the one piece that he collaborated with me on, which was ripped apart

• my safe was tinkered with but not opened. i found a couple keys from the spare key jar next to it. the spare key jar itself was on the table with its handle broken off. where the jar should be, on the back corner of a shelf inside a cupboard, i found a box of allergy eye drops

• the bathtub had a trash bucket in it being used as a bucket, and it looked as if he had been partway through bleach-sanitizing all the spare computer cables that sit in a crate in the office closet

• the neighbor told me the fridge was unplugged, but i found it plugged in, so she may have done that for me. it was pulled out to the middle of the kitchen though

• random other mess: the television bench was pulled out from the wall too. spices were thrown around the kitchen. a 3-ring binder was partially shredded. much art semi-non-destructively thrown around. one art print of mine slashed with a knife. one glass-mounted print of his that he totally smashed

• there was a light taken off the ceiling. between that and some of the other ways things were searched, i suspect he was looking for spy devices

• his phone is dead too. it has a fatal knife wound all the way through it

i spent the rest of the day picking up the mess. it took about five hours, then i finally remembered to eat something. then i got a shower and collapsed into bed

but this morning, the core problem still exists, and still circles my mind. thus i journal, to try to get the thoughts out of my brain and help me settle

the cops told me cheetah told them he did meth the night before. that would be three days after the last time, which was the one where he blasted himself higher than i’ve seen him in a couple years, and which was itself seven days after his time before that

they also said he told them he lost his job. no surprise there. but you know, i don’t think he should have that job anyway. he says he thrives on the stress of a chaotic kitchen. but each time i’ve seen him have a high-stress job, he falls apart during it. i think he thinks he likes stress, but any real stress and he starts to crumble. maybe he should be a librarian or something

of course, being on the outs with me doesn’t help de-stress cheetah at all, and so the cycle spins even faster

what do i do?

i can’t just say “oh, did kitty throw a little tantrum? it’s okay, let’s just clean up and act like nothing happened.” i can’t pretend this didn’t happen any more than i can pretend our fight last month didn’t happen

i know cheetah’s stability isn’t helped by me leaving him alone

yet at the same time, i look at the destruction i found in the house, and i’m just thankful i wasn’t here for it. can you imagine if he’d gotten into this level of temper while i was here? i’m guessing that we’d have ended up having our biggest fight ever

i mean, he stabbed his phone with a knife, presumably right after talking to me on it. if i’d been here, would he have tried to stab me?

update: i went to see cheetah at the hospital this morning

as the nurse led me back she explained that he was on an “M1 hold”, which i guess is the legal term for what we already knew. she said i couldn’t give him anything, which was sad, because i had a paperback novel in my truck that i’d thought to bring in for him if he wanted it. but oh well

she said they were “looking for placement” for him. i told them again he was welcome to come home, i was just worried. she seemed to think this was a fine reply. then she told me if he got too agitated, they would ask me to leave, and i acknowledged. she pointed me to his room, which had the door wide open

not one but two professionals discretely lurked in the hallway while i went into cheetah’s room

i started by asking chee if i could visit for a moment. he kind of growled but didn’t totally tell me to go away. so i sat on the stool and asked how he was doing, and we tried to chat for a moment

the high points:

• everybody was toying with him

• i mean, he point blank told me i was in on it

• he also said i had been “very unreasonable lately,” implying that as a reason for why he was where he was

• the blanket the hospital had given him was part of the conspiracy

i let him know i’d called his mom, and he didn’t have anything directly negative to say about that, but it did remind him that:

• he was very pissed the hospital had changed their records back from his new to his old legal name, which was absolutely done just to piss him off

• and he also said the cop had smeared shit on him in the patrol car. i got the impression he meant literal excrement, not figurative anything

i ended up fleeing after just a few minutes, i must admit. he was getting angrier and angrier, and had just rolled over to put his back to me. so i said, “i love you cheetah, still. i’ll keep checking on you periodically.” he replied something biting, and i ran

please let them handle this, i’m exhausted trying to do so

after, i went and did the longest truck wash in years. since the time i got stuck on the lower part of the same road, actually. then i bought a new wifi router, absolute cheapest one on the shelf, and went home to set it up

then mom got locked out of her email and needed help resetting her account. that was annoying, but honestly a solid distraction

the furnace, i ended up having to call someone on. i thought i had it working last night, but i woke this morning and the house was fifty degrees, so nope. a pro came in and found an over-temperature safety sensor had tripped. he reset it and poof, warm house. best we can figure is with the solenoid out, the blower couldn’t start, but the burner had tried to cycle anyway, and it overheated and tripped the safety. i had put the solenoid back in, and the blower was happy to start, but with the safety still open it wouldn’t fire any gas

that’s one hour at full service rate for someone to push a tiny hidden reset button for me

he blew the dust out and did a full check over while he was here though, so that was good

i feel like i’m full of anxious

should i call the hospital and check again? is that what someone caring would do? but honestly, i don’t think i wan’t to know. is that terrible of me? i just want warning if he’s coming home, and thus no news is good news. they have my number, they can call if they need me, right?

they can hold him up to two more days before they have to let him go. to my eye, this morning, he didn’t look ready to be let go, but i’m not the pros lurking in the hall with their clipboards, so what do i know?

i know i’ve got all the core bits of the house put back together, and i really can take a break and try to putter on my projects, or heck, even just watch tele for a bit

yet i’m still running around fretting, cleaning stuff, fixing stuff, or just pacing and grumbling, unable to settle, unable to focus