Bit Players -- Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, etc.

Wikipedia, that encyclopedic-styled online source for just about any kind of information, explains that
"a bit part is a supporting acting role with at least one line of dialogue, and an actor who regularly performs in bit roles is referred to as a bit player, a term also used to describe an aspiring actor who has not yet broken into major supporting or leading roles.
Bit parts are often significant in the story line, sometimes pivotal.  Some characters with bit parts become well remembered. Constantin Stanislavsky famously remarked that "there are no small parts, only small actors."

The drama in our lives in the last month has been focused on the three of us, and that has been the story that has been told, at least in some part, here.  We continue to experience the aftershocks of the events of the last couple of months even as we try to navigate the depths and shoals of our fears and griefs about the coming loss of T's mother.  We three are, at least from our perspective, the chief actors in this story.  That is and continues to be true.

But there are a whole host of bit players mixed up in this story, and they surely make up a nasty crew of miscreants and thugs.  Some might be merely mischief makers or rascals, but others are most definitely true villains -- the sort of critters that one hopes they never run into in real life.  Just as in the theater, some of our bit players have significant roles in this drama.  At the very least, there are a few small actors who played parts way bigger than any of them deserved. 

Here's the cast:

Doctor I-am-too-much-of-a-chickenshit-to-tell-the-truth.  This self-proclaimed medical expert, specialist in the field of bariatric surgery, turns out to be a villain in fancy clothes.  The information about the effects of alcohol on the altered physiology of the bariatric weight loss surgery patient is readily available.  Surely our doctor had to know what the risks and dangers were.  His failure to make it clear, from the outset, that alcohol was going to be a very tricky proposition after surgery, goes to the point of failing to obtain informed consent -- and possibly medical malpractice.  

M -- The latest in a long line of women (and sometimes men) with spanko fantasies who read that we are poly and then assume that they can just walk in to our lives and take what they want without any regard for the inconvenience of existing relationships.  M was a natural for the part -- aging and hating it; still trying to put her middle aged body into clothes more appropriate to her teenage daughter; bleached blonde and loaded down with costume jewelry that she likely spent too much money for, brazenly sitting in our home making her demands for exactly and precisely how she would be "serviced;" and of course having no intention of letting the man to whom she was married in on her little games...

Arizona -- the anonymous stalker who, over the last year, has gotten increasingly nasty and obsessive about us and our lives and our various personal messes and struggles.  It is easy to find "Arizona" a bit amusing, but then too, it becomes creepy and a bit scary.  Arizona has made it harder and harder for us to write easily or comfortably here, and that sense of dis-ease was there in the undercurrents of the IM conversation that went so terribly wrong on that fateful day in October.

The 9-1-1 Lady -- nothing but a voice on the phone, this was the person that I turned to for help; the person that I called, in a panic, begging her to send someone to help because I was afraid, terrified about what seemed to me a potentially serious threat of suicide.  I remember standing in the hallway of the school, on the verge of tears, begging her to send help -- "hurry please..."  I know that my decision to make that call has been characterized as everything from naive to retarded, but I also know that making that call was absolutely what I'd been taught to do for years and years and years -- "always take a suicide threat seriously..." Maybe The 9-1-1 Lady was only doing what some sort of misguided, politically motivated, money-grubbing governmental policy dictates... but the fact that she dispatched the Gang of Thugs that morning was a betrayal and a violation of trust that I will never forget or ever forgive.

The Gang of Thugs -- I know that it is fashionable in these days to designate those who work as police and firemen as "heroes."  The first responder ethos that was born in New York City on September 11 has given every law enforcement officer a patina of respectability and decency that the vast majority have not earned.  If the crowd that responded to the 9-1-1 Lady's dispatch in October are any indication, we ought to all be living in fear of those who swear to "serve and protect."  Nothing but a bunch of swaggering bullies and liars, they clearly operate above the law, and outside the pale of civilized behavior.  Bullies and thugs, they took a very difficult situation and made it infinitely worse.  They were abusive, and there is no way to sugarcoat that fact.  If there are any real, true, unforgiveable villains in this whole awful mess, they are it.  Forever and always.  I will never, ever feel safe again -- the police state is real and it is an ever present threat to every single person in this nation.

The Denizens of the Jail -- Guards, nurses, inmates.  Based on the stories he tells, they are all the same.  The only difference is that they wear different uniforms and some go home at night.  Each one however is as trapped as all the others in a system that is corrupt and abusive and mercenary and incestuous. 

The Courthouse Cadre -- a whole cozy cadre of friends who all work together to "process" people (human beings) through the system, generating huge fees and great revenues for the local coffers.  From judge, to prosecutor, to public defender, to victim's advocate, to probation department, the whole bunch are all tangled up in a giant pile of legs and arms.  A many-headed hydra that purports to be seeking justice, but really just works to generate fees.

We didn't write the script.  We never got the chance to read or approve the script.  We are however, fully immersed in the drama.  The next act commences in a week.  We can only hope that the bit players don't end up killing off the three of us. 

swan