Hey can you turn the damn channel in here? We might be old and crazy but we ain’t stupid and no body wants to watch this trash. Hey! Hey! Do you hear me? (Beat) I get so tired of these people. I told my son that I didn’t want to be here. He said I needed to be here so I could be looked after. What the hell do any of these people know about looking after me? I sit in this chair with my blanket all day looking out the window at the freedom that I use to have and the cars pass by and the kids’ play…they play so freely with their friends because they know that they get to go home at the end of the night. I don’t get to go home anymore. I don’t have a home; I got this place and a bum ear. I got shit.
I can’t believe you’re still here. Yeah most people aren’t interested in what people like me have to say. People in the home. I’m a people watcher. I may look deaf, dumb and shiftless but I’m a smart man and I don’t take no shit. None. Not even a little piece of your shit. (Laughs) In here there are the hopefuls and the hopeless, that about sums it up. There are people in here like Kyle over there, yeah in the stripped sweater, he wears that sweater everyday, says his son gave it to him and it makes him feel better if he’s wearing it. I remember one day the nurses tried to take it off of him to wash it and I’ll be damned if he didn’t fight like Mike Tyson to keep that dirty ass sweater on… but I understand. It’s all he got to hold on to, so he’s holding on tight. But he’s in the group of the hopeless. His family hasn’t come to visit him in almost four years. He sits there playing checkers all day everyday. Sometimes when my son comes to visit me I’ll walk over to Kyle and see if he wants to come out for lunch with us, just to give him a little hope ya know, something to love for. Now me, I’m one of the hopefuls, I mentioned my son. He’s the best.
