Back in 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck the east coast and I lost contact with "Carlito".

A couple of months later, he got back in touch with me over Skype and told me what had happened.  Evidently, Sandy had destroyed pretty much everything he owned.  He lost his home and almost all of his posessions, including his computer.  He was living in a group home for displaced Sandy victims and his main means of income - professional illustration - was crippled by the loss of his computer.  He was in a very bad situation with little hope for recovery.

...and I was eight hundred miles away.

It just so happened that I had just finished building a new PC and my old one was now sitting unused in a corner.  It was the ASUS that I had built VGE3 on while simultaneously Skyping with him for over a year.  It wasn't a high-end gaming computer, but it could certainly run Photoshop well enough to let him get back to commissions and pull himself out of the hellhole he was in.  With that in mind, I reformatted the hard drive, reinstalled Windows, packaged it up, and shipped it to New York along with a new monitor.

However, I had apparently forgotten to ship the power cable along with it.  (Remember that, it's gonna be important.)

Anyway, he receives the computer and tells me that there was no power cable.  He also tells me that he tried to plug it up with one of his other power cables and that it wouldn't turn on.  Reason unknown.  However, he did now have access to a laptop and my computer would not be needed after all.  I considered the matter closed and forgot about it.

Fast-forward three years.

Now, he's living in my home.  He has his new custom-built "God Machine" PC.  We had already professionally parted ways months ago and he was now living in my spare (and bigger) bedroom.  Tensions are present.  The relationship is strained.  I've stopped buying his food and supplies, but I'm still going broke trying to pay the bills for two people.  He contributes nothing.

One day, I find a note on my door saying that we need to discuss something and that it won't be pleasant.  I have no idea what's going on.  The next day, I ask him about the note and he suggests that we go for a walk.  We walk outside and get into his car.  He drives down the block and parks in an empty lot.  It's late at night.

Turns out, he drove me out there so he could yell at me without disturbing the neighbors in my apartment building.

- - - - -

Evidently, he had decided to plug up that old computer from three years ago.

According to him, he plugged it up with the power cord from his "God Machine" and walked away.  He came back to a loud noise and found that the old PC had somehow... somehow... shit out and fried the motherboard on his God Machine.  No further details were given.  Don't ask me how the fuck this happened or even could have happened.

Given his state of mind at the time and his stated impulse to shove his thumbs in my eyes and crack my skull open, I didn't ask for further technical details.  Instead, I was forced to listen as he spent the next two hours telling me what a shitty person I was and how I didn't appreciate him as a "brother" or understand what he was going through.

According to him, I was indirectly responsible for what happened to his computer.  I had sent him a faulty PC.  It was just another example of how my flea-market-and-thrift-store ways resulted in me giving shoddy gifts.  I had to acknowledge it.  I had to OWN it.

...and it was all me.  There was no mention of why he decided to plug up a computer from three years ago that he didn't need and already knew wasn't working from three years prior.  Not one word about his own direct responsibility and his own negligence in plugging up such an apparently dysfuntional device on the same circuit as his God Machine.  It was MY PARTIAL RESPONSIBILITY TO OWN.

...which is kind of like giving somebody a stack of money and then getting berated because they got a paper cut from counting it.

I don't know if his story was true as stated.  As stated, the BEST CASE SCENARIO is that this douche did something stupid and couldn't handle it.  He was the genius forty-steps-ahead chessmaster and he couldn't possibly have done something so retarded.  He, for damn sure, wasn't going to acknowledge any fault for his situation, much less own it.

So, here's this fucktard.  He's living in my home, on my dime, for free (despite the partnership having ended months ago), plugging up a three-year-old PC (for reasons not given) that I FUCKING GAVE HIM (also for free, in good faith, and functional when I sent it) into a wall outlet that I'M PAYING THE FUCKING ELECTRIC BILL FOR.  His shit explodes and I HAVE TO TAKE A VERBAL BEATING FOR IT.  ...ain't that some bullshit?

...and you know what the most irrational part was?  I waited another two or three months to throw his ungrateful, narcissistic, manipulative ass out of my home.  That should have been the last night I ever saw him.  Even after all the bullshit of the last few years, I was still soft-hearted enough not to want to throw someone out on the streets.  Even if that person was a toxic prick.

THAT mistake I'll own.

R1665