Blood has been Spilt

31^st December 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

New Year’s Eve and my blood has been spilt. I have had one of the most trying days at work in my long years of working in security and yet I only worked a half shift. This was not by any choice of mine as, you see, I was sent to the hospital before shift end.

       

It started simply enough with a client, a young woman, coming in drunk. She admitted to having been drinking and was stumbling and slurring her words so there was no question. As is the custom at my work she was asked to wait in the front until addressed by a manager.

       

This was all going well until another client came into the front and had a late dinner. When the other client was admitted back the drunk became agitated. She said it wasn’t fair that she had to wait and someone else didn’t, but I explained that she was waiting because she was under the influence.

       

I did my best to keep calm but she kept getting angrier and angrier. She started to scream that she wanted her belongings and that she would never come back one she got them. This meant nothing to me as she was clearly unsafe to be permitted back to get her belongings and would need to keep waiting until she calmed down.

       

Then she started kicking the door to get into the shelter. She kicked that door so hard that the manager called and asked what the sound was. When I told her it was the client the manager said she would have to keep waiting.

       

The client got in my face rather literally bending over me and yelling so that spit hit my nose. She said that ‘they’ were in her room right now steeling her stuff. I told her that the other clients in her room were just likely sleeping, and that she would be fine.

       

After an hour of this I told her she needed to leave and that if she did not I’d call the police. I picked up the phone and she knocked it out of my hand.  She left but she would be back.

For that matter, the sun is rising and I need to get some sleep so I’ll tell you what happened next at some other time.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal