Security Guard - Knightwatch Security

When I arrived in Juneau, Ak I found a place to live and a job within 3 days.  The job was with Knightwatch Security.  I was the guard at the hospital 3 nights a week working 10 hour shifts.  The primary responsibilities were pretty routine.  Essentially just make hourly rounds, ensure the doors stayed locked, and there was no one inside that shouldn't be.  My job also covered ensuring the safety of the doctors and nurses and the patients.  This generally came into play when drunks or mental health patients were brought it.  In Juneau there are 12 hour and 72 hour holds.  12 hour holds are for people who are too drunk to take care of themselves so they get brought into the ER to make sure they're gonna survive the night and when deemed safe to do so are passed on to the Juneau Recovery Hospital down the hill. 

Generally, this meant sitting and bullshitting with a drunk for a few hours.  Right there, sitting in uncomfortable chairs, kicked back bullshitting with old drunks and cranks I learned how to be a drinking man.  For quite some time actually I didn't drink as a result of this job.  Scared me away from the stuff.  One night I got stopped during my rounds by the lab tech who asked me if I'd heard what the BAC of our last 12 hour hold was.  Over 4.0 he told.  The guy is technically dead he told me.  Medically speaking one can't survive a BAC that high. I sat with this man for a couple hours.  Talked to him.  Listened to his stories.  Told him a few of mine.  He didn't sway.  His words did not slur.  Near to sober he seemed.  Near to dead he was, instead. 

Sometimes, the drunks would want to fight.  Most times within a couple minutes I'd have the violent men crying in their hands, feeling terrible for what they had done.  Then we'd talk about fishing for a few hours.  We'd shake hands and an EMT would take them down to JRH.  Once in a long while I'd have to restrain them.  The women were the worst.  A drunk woman that wanted to fight was gonna fight.  And they fought mean.  A man just tries to punch you.  A woman punches, kicks, spits, bites, claws, and head butts all at the same time.  It's like trying to restrain the Tasmanian Devil. 

 One night I had to watch a 72 hour hold who had tried to commit suicide.  The guy was probably 6 foot 3 and 250 or 260.  He was surly.  Paced a lot within his room and would begin to become angry but I always managed to talk him back down.  We danced this tenuous dance for hours.  His anger slowly climbing before I was able to bring it back into check.  Time and time again.  Eventually he was moved up to the mental health ward and I went back to reading Dostoevsky.  The next night I came in to learn he had taken another patient hostage up in the ward.  SWAT was called and it took the entire 12 man swat team plus several uniform officers to physically bring the guy down. 

Sometimes the cops would bring someone in and then both the officer and I would stay with the patient.  Most of the cops were cool but there was one older guy in his 60's that was a dick.  He was the guy that gives cops a bad name.  Used to just sit in a chair and push the guys.  Just push them verbally, a little here a little there.  Put them down.  Call them losers.  Give them shit.  Push them.  Push them until they couldn't take it anymore and they'd rise up and this old cop would get to restrain them with a little victory smile spreading across his face. I hated that guy.  Hated him for what he stood for and for what he was.  Hated him for what he did to the world.  For a man like that when he has the ability to give to the world, he takes from it instead. 

Harnessed and Burdened

It's been quite a curiousity for me to regain my driver's license this time around after being without it for a year and a half.  I lost it previously for a few months after my first seizure and then once again following an unfortunate run in with the law.  Those brief flirtations with being bicycle bound were over quick enough to not really notice much of an impact on my life style and during this past 1.5 years I seemed to have just accepted it and moved on.  I've always been relatively good at accepting misfortune and inconvenience and moving past it.  No reason to dwell on personal misfortune.  I've always believed life to be much more enjoyable if misfortune can be laughed at and energy focused on the humorous and enjoyable side of life.  The worse the struggle becomes the more opportunity for laughter.  In this case, I had the impression from my neurologist that he would be unwilling to allow me to drive again but in this I was wrong.  As a result, I had accepted my fate as a biker in stride and moved on with life. 

It wasn't until the doc had granted me with the ability to drive that I learned how much I had missed it.  The ability to walk out the door, climb into my truck, the Annie G, and drive off to points unknown is the pinnacle of freedom.  The complete lack of ties to anything.  The ability to simply set forth on my own, having no need to beg another to provide the wheels and the license.  For 1.5 years I was imprisoned within the range of my bicycle.  The first time I climbed back behind the wheel of Annie G, patted her dashboard, and pulled out into traffic to head out of town for a hike and a night at the cabin brought an elation which I do not have the words to express.  It was as if for 1.5 years I had been bound by yoke, harnessed, and burdened and in a moment that yoke was lifted and I was set free. 

It has been said before, and I will say it again...Freedom, my friends, is bliss.