"Have a nice life...," Lori told Tim before he stepped off of a dresser table into immortality. I can't imagine what Lori said before. There is a suicide note, and I'm betting that there are parts of it that Lori assisted with. Tim was a good man with problems...he had the same problems so many of us had in Palm Springs when he was alive. He was torture to the point of killing himself with a mystery needle bearing his name written in ink on it. This needle was meant for him. Whatever it had inside it, drove him mad.I remember this time very vividly. I was staying with John O'Brien and he was teaching me about the problems in Palm Springs. John once was working for the Desert AIDS Project as the person that dealt with their finances. John was an extremely nice man and his HIV diagnosis made him sympathetic to the victims of electronic harassment. It was around the same time that Jonathan Mendenhall's boyfriend was in the hospital. Jared was dying and Jared was John's really good friend. John O'Brien would ask me, "Kevin, do you know where Jonathan Mendenhall is? He needs to go to the hospital, Jared wants him there." I hadn't seen Jonathan in years, but I've known both Jared and Jonathan for almost 35 years. Jared didn't live much longer after that.
John O'Brien is locally famous for being the man that was arrested and imprisoned for stealing nearly $2 million dollars from the Desert AIDS Project. I asked about it and found out more by knowing him. John, as most people that are implanted, was set up. Lori was following him for years. She would know the bank account numbers for the DAP accounts and she knew that John O'Brien would get the blame. Apparently her brother had an ID with John's name on it so he went and withdrew the money and put it in another account with John O'Brien's name on it. So when the DAP started looking, they would see that the money was missing and John was to blame. It isn't even possible that my friend John O'Brien would steal this money. His kindness and compassion for people with AIDS was amazing. Still he went to prison. They took the money that Lori hadn't spent and put it back. Still John did serious prison time and took a huge hit in the community that he was very popular with.
While I was there, staying with John O'Brien, he invited over a guest. Online he went by Blanco Basura (white trash) or Blanco Diablo (White Devil). I'd met him before in San Diego. He has an Underwood Devil tattoo on his hip so you couldn't mistake him. It looked like this...only the red devil is tattooed.
This was once one of the people that lived in San Diego with Lori's brother Brian. At one point they lived right down the street from a guy I was seeing and stole some clothes that were drying outside. I remember hearing the stories about the guy that lived in the cab of a silver truck. There was Brian, the underwood devil guy, and another person that Steve Frey used to call "Evil Steven#3). Lori also sent other people to meet with me in San Diego too. Matt Cole, a local Palm Springs dealer, also met me in San Diego before I came out to Palm Springs. Looking back, I'm wondering just how many people Lori and Brian sent at me before my shooting.
At any rate, although I like this guy, the underwood devil guy, he is a huge problem for lots of people. The usual really, just another gay person down on his luck that did favors for Lori. John invited him over and I told him that I wasn't very excited about being there. So I decided to go and see my friends Tim and Brett on the other side of town. I was walking or rollerblading in those days so it took a bit to get there but when I did, there was the underwood devil guy again. My friend Brett was enamored with him and I warned him, this guy is kinda bad news. Brett was too enchanted. I said, I know he's going to cause you a problem but Brett was his own person. It was only a day or two later that Brett's boyfriend killed himself while Brett was helpless to stop him from the outside. That's an image I'll never be able to remove from my mind.
I'd known Bret a long time and Tim as well. We all worked for Brett's vacation rental cleaning company and I got to know all of them very well. Tim was sweet, he had a great sense of humor. He had been Brett's boyfriend for many years and I knew that lately he'd been depressed. I asked him about it and he said that "Lisa" had been bothering him. I kinda wrote that off but was supportive of his relationship with Brett, though I admit there were times when it was better if he wasn't there. He would disappear then show up unexplainably high on meth and wobbly.
I miss my friend Tim and the time that we spent being friends is cherished. Brett called the police and the note, the syringe with Tim's name on it, and any other evidence was given to the police. Brett was devastated as were Tim's parents. I wasn't there for Brett when this happened, I was just raped and things were very horrible for me too.
