Inexplicable Human-Chair Fusion

Today, we have another one of those stories that simply doesn't have any splick. It is, in a word, inexplicable. There's really no other way to describe an incredibly obese man who has sat in the same chair for so long (two years as a matter of fact) that the fabric of said chair had fused to his skin. And even though that is inexplicable, I have another aspect of the story that is even MORE inexplicable. The above mentioned individual had a girlfriend.

Let's go to Channel 7 in Ohio, WTRF, for the facts of this story. (Warning: I know that I made this sound bad with my little introduction above. Trust me. It gets a heck of a lot worse. Consider yourself sufficiently warned.) We have an obese man. Now, the exact weight is not provided for some reason (probably because the media sucks), but let's just say that it had to have been sufficient enough for him to have enough difficulty getting out of his chair that he just decided it would be easier to simply stay put. And considering that this chair did not have proper plumbing facilities, that must have been one hell of a decision to have to make, if you catch my drift.

One of the remarkable aspects of this story (but not more remarkable than someone being fused to a piece of furniture because it's going to be super hard to top that) that needs to be mentioned right now is that "...two other able-bodied people lived there---another man, who had a separate bedroom, and the girlfriend of the man who was stuck in the chair. Officials say the girlfriend served food to him, since he never got up." How...how does that happen? How do you live in a house with a guy who never gets out of his chair...for anything?! Bodily functions did occur! It's not like they're going to stop just because you're too fat to get up anymore. Two years. Keep that in mind. Two years of sitting in two years of your own filth. I think I'm going to hurl. (And just because that imagine wasn't enough, I'm going to mention that "...he was sitting in his own feces and urine and maggots were visible." Oh, God. Now I know I'm going to hurl.)

But it wasn't just that he lived with two able-bodied people that disturbs me.
See, it appears that there had been visitors to the home during this two year period of never leaving the chair. "...the landlord says the man in the chair rented from her before and used to be a vital active person." Obviously, the key words in that phrase are "used to be". (The non-key words in that statement are everything else she said. Oh, what's that? He wasn't always fused to a chair? You don't say! Moron.) But it goes on to say that "...she checked on them periodically but lately he always sat with a blanket over him. She says she had no idea it had come to this." She what? And he what? Wait a minute.

Wouldn't the stench from an obese man who had been sitting in his own filth
for the past two years simply be overwhelming?! She didn't notice the strong smell of poo emitting from this man?! I'm assuming that it wasn't a magic blanket that he would drape over himself when she came over. Now that I think about it, where would they find a blanket big enough to cover him, the chair and all of the maggots? (God, just typing that makes me gag.) Is there a Snuggie that big? Regardless as to where they shopped, I still don't understand how you wouldn't just be knocked off of your feet by the smell if you were in that house. I kind of don't understand how you wouldn't just be knocked off of your feet by the smell if you were in the vicinity of that house. Two years of fecal matter and urine is a lot of fecal matter and urine. The smell must have been unimaginable. Stinky, but unimaginably stinky.

How does this man have a girlfriend? More importantly, how is this woman's boyfriend the man who is so fat that he hasn't left his chair for two freaking years?! What are her standards?! I mean, obviously they're QUITE low. But seriously? You're dating So-Fat-He's-Stuck-To-His-Chair Guy? Really? I guess taking him to family functions wasn't all that important to you, eh? The more I ponder this, the more depressed I get. A morbidly obese man who has been sitting in his own urine and feces for two years has a girlfriend, yet I, an amazingly mobile woman who has never been fused to a chair, is single. What the what is that about?

I saw this story a couple of days ago and I am saddened, but not surprised, to report that the man who was fused to his chair and sitting in his own waste for two years with a multitude of maggots has died. Is anyone really surprised? I can't say that I am. And I also can't say that he might be better off this way. His quality of life before he was removed from his chair certainly wasn't anything that anyone would strive for. And while I tend to take a rather libertarian approach to these sorts of situations, I'm going to have to say that I'm appalled that the people living with this man didn't take some sort of action before it got to this point. I mean, if you want to eat yourself into oblivion and become incredibly fat, that's your choice. I'm not going to intervene with that one. But I think that at the point where human flesh becomes fused to a piece of furniture, you're under some sort of obligation to do something like make a phone call. And if the person stuck to the chair doesn't like it, they can just unfuse themselves and do something about it. Oh, what's that? They can't move? Because of all of the fusing? Yeah, OK then. Keep dialing.

Poetry Month + Poem: Camille T. Dungy

It's (Inter)National Poetry Month, and for all of April I'll be wearing a new hat, as the poetweeter at @harriet_poetry! (See the feed at right.) If you're on Twitter, please do join in.  Today I've asked people to tweet their secret cities (cf. Alberto Ríos) and what poetry book they'd print for free on McNally Jackson's Espresso Book Machine and give away if they could, while also quoting snippets of poets from Gwendolyn Brooks to Bhanu Kapil to Earl of Rochester to Gil Scott-Heron.  Also, I posted a link to Japanese-German poet Yoko Tawada reading her poetry, and links to other poems up today!

I'll still be tweeting when possible at @jstheater, and I'll aim to blog a poem here daily, though perhaps without the commentary of previous years. It's my 6th year in the blogiverse, by the way (actually back in February, if you can believe it!).

Also, a few congratulations are in order:

1) to my former student Michael Lukas, whose first novel, The Oracle of Stamboul (Harper, 2011), has appeared to great acclaim this past February!

2) to my former student Christopher Shannon, one of the houdinis behind CellPoems, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize!

3) to my former student Miriam Rocek, who will soon see one of the stories she wrote while an undergraduate published online!

***

Now, for the month's first poem, one of my favorites from the 2009 (was it two years ago that this book appeared?) anthology Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (Athens: University of Georgia Press), by its visionary editor Camille T. Dungy, whom I first met at Cave Canem back in 2001. She is the author of two highly regarded books, Suck on the Marrow (Red Hen Press, 2011), and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006), and the forthcoming Smith Blue (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), winner of the Crab Orchard Review Open Book Prize, and, in addition to the Black Nature volume, has coedited with Matt O'Donnell and Jeffrey Thomson From the Fishhouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (Persea Books, 2009).  She's Associate Professor at San Francisco State University. And now her poem!

Language

Silence is one part of speech, the war cry
of wind down a mountain pass another.
A stranger's voice echoing through lonely
valleys, a lover's voice rising so close
it's your own tongue: these are keys to cipher,
the way the high hawk's key unlocks the throat
of the sky and the coyote's yip knocks
it shut, the way the aspens' bells conform
to the breeze while the rapid's drum defines
resistance. Sage speaks with one voice, pinyon
with another. Rock, wind her hand, water
her brush, spells and then scatters her demands.
Some notes tear and pebble our paths. Some notes
gather: the bank we map our lives around.

From Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, edited by Camille T. Dungy. Copyright © University of Georgia Press, 2009. All rights reserved.

I Long For Vigilante Justice

I am a huge proponent of about two percent vigilante justice. It's unfortunate that this can't actually be implemented into society as we know it because who is going to decide which two percent of things will qualify and be justified to be handled by a vigilante mob and/or individual? Personally, I think that I'd do a pretty good job at it. How about if I take a test run and you let me know how I did? OK, then. Let's see...scanning....looking....reading....oh. Wait. What's this? Ahhh. I think I have a winner! From the Sydney Morning Herald, we have "A former top South African rugby player has allegedly hacked three people to death in a revenge attack after his daughter was reportedly gang-raped and infected with HIV." Uh-huh. And?

Now, provided that the axe-wielding gentleman in question has the right people, I am perfectly OK with those actions. I would have no trouble what so ever with returning that man to live out the rest of his life amongst society. I wouldn't even care if he wanted to move in next door to me. Hell, I'd invite him to move into the neighborhood. That's someone you don't want to mess with. Screw an alarm system when your neighbor will go after evil-doers with an axe.

According to the article, the guy was thorough. "The three people were reportedly butchered with an axe last week. One person was decapitated and the head found in a dustbin nearly two kilometres away." See? He's not such a bad guy. He put the (alleged) rapist's severed dome in a garbage can so as not to deface a public venue. I'm against littering. And I'm still on this guy's side.

The guy was arrested and according to a one Lieutenant Colonel Vincent M
dunge (you can pronounce that however you'd like), "He is currently being detained in one of our police stations. We can't disclose where for security reasons." Hmm. Security reasons. As in...if people knew where this guy was there would be a non-stop parade for him in front of said police station? As in...if people knew where this guy was they would start committing their own crimes in the hopes that they'd be arrested and thrown in a cell with him so that they could shake his hand in person? I'm unclear as to the "security reasons" that they can't disclose the police station. Not that it matters to me. I, personally, don't care where he is being held. I just find it odd that they don't want to tell us.

But in my world, this guy wouldn't be in jail at all. I see absolutely nothing wrong with killing the people who raped your fourteen year
old daughter and infected her with HIV. That falls directly within my two percent of vigilante justice guidelines. And if the guy were to be released today, I'd gladly contribute to a fund to buy him a new axe. What?! I'm sure he probably needs one. When you use the same axe to hack three rapists to death, I'm pretty sure that you're going to be in the market for a replacement. The old axe he can hang on his wall. Or outside of his home as a reminder to people what happens in the Two Percent Vigilante Justice World of my dreams.
Yahoo bot last visit powered by MyPagerank.NetBritish Blogs