THE CASE AGAINST "MIKE"

In between Heidi dating Ashton (the guy who identified himself as a police officer and tried to arrest me moments before 9 uniformed police officers came around the corner in formation) and Kevin Knippel (her current boyfriend), there was Mike.

Mike was in the Navy. He steered aircraft carriers, quite a prestigious position. I believe him. His stories, and the depth of detail in which he described intricacies of the position, were genuine. Did you know the newest class of aircraft carriers can make a 180 degree turn, at full throttle, in about 10 seconds?!? That is phenomenal. He described the procedure in detail... one day he was at the wheel and the order came down to turn the rudder 30 degrees starboard. They are strictly trained never to turn the ship more than 2 degrees at a time, as it's a top-heavy nuclear beast, so he had to double check the order was legit. It was, he was being given the specific maneuver to flip a bitch and maneuver the giant ship 180 degrees. In an interesting aside, I mused aloud that such agility was needed to counteract China's missile capability, and Mike gave me a blank stare... he had no idea what i was talking about. Diligent soldier that he is, he has no concept of the bigger picture, like what specific threats the Navy is gearing up to face... and who he's being trained to fight.

Not that it matters, because Mike is no longer in the Navy. He went from steering aircraft carriers to slumming on the streets with Heidi's Juggalo friends in a matter of weeks, right in front of our eyes. First, he said he had gone back to the ship drunk, and when he was pulling out his ID to board, a bag of "Spice" fell out of his pocket, onto the deck. Spice had just been banned by the military, so he was disciplined... but instead of serving his punishment out at an off-ship assignment on base in Coronado.. he went AWOL, then filed some kind of disability claim or something, i don't remember the exact details... but he sat down and explained to Heidi and i that he had planned it all along. He joined the Navy with the specific intent of getting kicked out after 6 months, so he could collect a monthly income, on top of the huge enlistment bonus. While i found it quite unbelievable that someone who had joined with that intent would've gotten promoted all the way to the point of being able to steer aircraft carriers, i was not alone in finding his story far fetched. As he was telling us the tale, while the three of us were sitting in her room, Heidi sent me this text (edited for spelling):

"I know you think he's a cop, and you probably think it's funny that he wouldn't look you in the face while he told his fib... but I don't think so, I just know how you somewhat think. So I had to call you out :-) "

So she knew he was telling a fib, but wouldn't look much father into it than that, or her whole world would unravel. One day, Mike had his credit card stolen.  Heidi suspected it was their street friend Pyro who had taken it. When she told Mike this, his reaction was fascinating. He literally giggled. Then he shrugged, changed the subject, and went right back to hanging out with Pyro the next day. Juxtapose that curious reaction to how he reacted when he saw Heidi was videotaping him a few days later:



It's too bad Heidi hasn't learned how to pretend to shut off a camera, while keeping it rolling, because Mike ranted on for another good 90 seconds about how she must never take his picture. He acted like she had just kicked his grandmother's poodle. You'd expect someone to react like that when, say, somebody stole their ATM card... and you'd expect, perhaps, a guy to giggle when he saw the girl he was dating was filming him with her cellphone camera... but for some reason Mike had opposite reactions.

It's interesting how they met. Mike is only 20, yet they met in a bar. She had come to visit me at the Dharma Bum center, where i was staying at the time, and had me kitty-sit while she went to her usual bar for that night's Karaoke... and when she arrived there on her skateboard, she saw another skateboard was sitting outside against the bar door. She told me later she was so excited another skater was at the bar, that she planned on hanging out with whomever it was before she even met him. Turns out the bar was very strict that night... about not allowing him to bring in his skateboard (Heidi never had any problem bringing in hers), but they didn't bother carding him. Hmmm. Between having a skateboard, and a 20 year old seaman in the bar, guess which one could get the bar shut down?

One time, while Mike was telling us some story or another, he accidentally slipped from how he usually talked - in a Wisconsin accent - into a pure, thick, natural New England accent, just for one sentence. I was so shocked at the blatant change, that i repeated back the phrase in a New England accent, and he blushed, looked away, and quickly changed the subject.

That's how badass some of these James Bond motherfuckers are... he created a character with a different accent from the one he grew up speaking.

The night 24 Hour Fitness revoked my membership coincided with nearly a week of heavy rain.  Heidi let me sleep on her floor that week, and i paid the $15 a night guest fee. Mike came over to visit, and said he wanted to show us a trick.  Heidi and i were sitting at opposite ends of her bed, and he was sitting on her floor in front of us. He proceeded to take a bottle of Coca Cola out of his napsack and open it... it had clearly been shaken up, because it gushed all over the place. "Oops," he said. That was his chaser. Then he took out a bottle of 190 proof grain alcohol, and filled up a glass half-way. He lit it on fire, but then had trouble blowing it out... once he got it out, he drank it, but it was too hot, so he spit it out and spilled the whole thing all over the floor.

Heidi laughed at what a fool he was making out of himself, but it was pretty clear to me what he had just done: spill not one, but two liquids all over the rug i was going to be sleeping on that night... then flashing me a big grin about it.

While i was locked up, and had virtually no contact with them, Mike was a good boyfriend, taking care of Heidi... she said she might even consider marrying him. Then, as soon as i moved to the halfway house, he began making plans with her, then not showing up & turning off his phone... which was always followed mere minutes later by one of her tweaker friends showing up to offer her meth... and the cycle began again.