"Yo, your father there?" the caller asked when 17 year old Brett answered the phone. "Uh, let me check, hold on please." Brett was in the basement playing video games, as usual, when the phone rang. The boys don't usually answer the house phone, but this time he did. Brett had to pause his game and go look for Matt in the house. We don't have an extremely large house, but in a 3200 square foot home plus a finished basement, and an acre of trees, it might take a minute or two to find someone. That's probably why the boys don't usually answer the house phone. A few minutes later Brett picked up the phone again and said, "sorry, he's not home, could I take a message?"
"What's he doing, hiding? When he's done being scared, you tell him to call me." the thug said.
"Why would my dad be hiding from you; I don't even know who you are?" Brett said intelligently. "You tell your dad that I know what he's up to and I'm going to hire a private investigator and him and his brother are going to jail." the man said rudely.
"Well, I'm sure my dad's not hiding from you; if you tell me who you are I'll give him the message." Brett was stunned at this guy's unconscionable rudeness.
"You tell him Rich Green called."
When Brett told Matt about the "weird angry dude" that called he said aloud, "ugh! Little Dick . . . Frank now what did you do?" It was Kat's berserk, a-hole brother. Matt called him back, it was actually good timing because Matt wanted to ask about the Jeep that Frank had left in his care.
"Rich, it's Matt, my son said you called?" Matt was being calm and polite despite Rich's furious incivility, no sense adding fuel to his flame.
"Yo, your brother was over here at my shop. You tell him to stay away or I'm calling the cops. My mom saw him and she's got a bad heart. If anything happens to her, I swear to God, it's going to be raining Rich down on him!" Matt had to keep a straight face at the thought. Frank and Rich actually had gotten into a couple brawls, with Frank easily taking Rich down both times, despite Rich being a head taller. Not that that's anything to be proud of, but it's just another day in the Green family and it's how they measure respect. "I know what you and your brother are up to. I don't know how he's on disability, but I'm going to hire a private eye and you're both going to jail." Rich threatened.
"Rich, Frank is disabled." Matt went into a long explanation of Frank's current symptoms and problems, but Rich wasn't really listening.
"Your brother owes Kat alot of money, he doesn't even pay child support. She's trying to raise those kids all by herself. He didn't even go to Frances' graduation. He didn't send a card, he didn't even call her. What the hell is wrong with that guy?" Rich said, obviously completely mislead by Kat as to the situation.
"Well, first of all, Frank was current on his child support before he went on Social Security. After he went on Social Security she actually got double child support for six months because Frank paid it and Social Security backdated and paid it too, so you're wrong there; she's actually getting more child support from Social Security than she was getting before; and as for Frances' graduation, don't you think Frank would have been there if he could have? Kat has a restraining order on him. She's had it for five years now. Frank isn't allowed to call or even send a card without being arrested." Matt was getting angry now. Did Kat lie to her own family about Frank's lack of presence or is Rich just assuming he knows things she hasn't told him. Rich is just too dumb to comprehend this whole concept anyway. He's one of those guys that after hearing an entire explanation proving he's wrong, he'll just begin spouting the same crazy accusations he said before anyway.
Matt changed the subject to the Jeep and found out that Rich couldn't fix it so he sent it out to another garage. Matt was pretty darn proud of himself for being able to locate the Jeep and get it back. Frank was thrilled. He couldn't remember anyone's name except Matt's, or the name of places he had been, or how to count money or what day it was, but he knew how to drive a 5-speed manual transmission; weird.
Since Frank was living alone now, we noticed a big decline in his cognitive skills. He was not able to learn and retain any new information, and important skills such as counting, reading, writing and language were failing him. As crazy and annoying as Midge was, the constant chattering kept Frank's brain engaged and now without that, he was deteriorating rapidly. He kept the television on constantly. We thought that would be good for him to hear conversations, but it's not actually the same as being spoken to. We discovered that he couldn't remember how to turn the television back on again if it was turned off. Matt had to go over a few times and turn it back on for him. It was slightly complicated though because it was a cable box going through a stereo receiver.
Matt made arrangements for Frank to begin going to Magee Rehab in Philadelphia. It's the kind of cognitive rehab that stroke victims receive to recover lost skills. We found that door-to-door transportation is available for disabled people to get to doctor appointments so we arranged for Frank to be picked up twice a week and taken to Philadelphia, about a one hour ride. They would begin teaching him language skills like reading, writing and finding the correct words, and useful every day skills like shopping and counting money. We were optimistic that they could help Frank hold off the progression of the new symptoms we were seeing.
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