"I can understand exactly how she must have felt", says Aaron. "I have often wanted to send him to his reward, myself. But today, no. You know, everyone, this is the first time we have actually seen each other in around seventeen years. That was when I ran into him at Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. I was just sitting on a bench there, enjoying the ducks and there he was on his bike. Looking already much the worse for wear. We did talk for a while. He was staying in an SRO just a block or two from where I was and still am living. Compared to him, I turned out rather well, and I am still in the same apartment. It is a small bachelor in a subsidized building, but it's well managed, quiet, and safe, and basically, despite occasional concerns about my housing providers, it has been going really well. But I recommended to him the person who helped me find my apartment, a rather famous housing activist who has helped a lot of people. He treated my suggestion with disdain and said that God would take care of him. Usual spiritual arrogance. and delusion. It was his tendency to try to blackmail God into wiping his ass for him instead of just providing the money to buy toilet paper. and we can guess how far he got with that. Really, I wasn't expecting to see him so completely broken."
"Are you feeling disappointed?" Carl asks.
"That there was no closure? No, closure with that person does not exist. He's always been too slippery for closure. I feel only towards him right now a mixture of disgust and pity. But I'm glad he's gone, and I hope he gets the care he needs. At least they'll keep him quiet with meds."
"He was really good for a while", Maureen says. "He really wanted to serve God, and I think he really wanted to be a good leader."
"I hope you are speaking for yourself", Jennifer mutters bitterly.
"That is the only person I can speak for." she says primly.
"Can anyone explain to me please just how he turned so bad?" I ask....
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