So Xavier cut his hand and can't work. That means he'll fall behind on his rent. Now he wants to 'borrow' more money. George is stalling him, because it's getting ridiculous, quitting/losing jobs and being broke all the time.
X was supposed to meet with George on Monday, but didn't show up and didn't call. When G called to check on him, they rescheduled for later in the week. (This has become a fairly bad habit with him, being unreliable if not irresponsible.)
Now he says that an aunt wants to send him to a neurologist. George doesn't know what this is all about, but hopefully, it's good news.
OK, they met and George wasn't feeling well, so he may have been a little bit blunt with Xavier. He told him the same old thing: get a job and keep it, or else get help from the Mental Health System. X was surprised and a little disappointed at this reaction, because he was expecting to get more money from him.
George told him, "I'm getting frustrated because you don't seem to be making any progress. I thought you would have your own apartment by now."
Just 'out of the blue' X asked, "Are you refusing to help me because I'm 'straight'?" This wasn't completely unexpected, because George had previously alluded to the fact that he was not only open-minded, but that he had been 'on both sides of the fence' when he was younger.
George assured him that was not the case saying, "I'm celibate and plan to stay that way. I wouldn't 'fool around' with you even if you wanted to. Not everything is about sex. Sometimes people are just nice and want to be helpful, but I've done about all that I can. I've told you that my budget is tight, but this time of the year it's even worse, because my kids have birthdays and then there's Christmas, so I just don't have any extra money for anything."
X said, "Gee, I thought we were friends; you were so nice to me when we first met."
G replied, "We're still friends, and I hope we can remain friends, but I just can't keep doing the same thing over and over again."
So now X-Man is homeless and hungry again, and there's really nothing George can do about it. George feels bad because this is happening, but told X that he really needs to do something for himself, or maybe get some professional help.
Quite frankly, George is afraid that Xavier is getting worse instead of better.
After not hearing from him for a while, George sent X-Man a text message asking for a progress report - "what are you doing good for yourself?"
X wrote back that he was working and couldn't talk at the moment. So George said, "Well, let me know when you can"
Then nothing. -
Several days went by with no word from X, so George sent him another inquiry, "tell me what's going on with you - I hope it's good news" - and waited...
A few days later, Xavier sent a message that he was working a lot, and and is also going to therapy now. He says it's helping, so George is going to be optimistic and hope that his life is finally improving.
Then, he wanted to know if he could 'borrow' some money. George replied, "I thought we just went over that; I don't have any money to loan you at this time of the year."
Then after several days of no communication, Xavier sent George a text message wishing him to have a good day. So I guess he's at least thinking about him.
Then one day George got a message from his cell phone carrier that he had used up all of his high-speed Internet allotment for the month, and that while his phone would still work, it would be slower. So he went down to the store where he bought it and asked what it would cost to 'bump it up' and decided that it was within his budget, so he told them to go ahead and do that for him.
When the notice of increased charges appeared on his phone, he got an immediate panic call from Xavier saying that if anything had gone wrong, it wasn't his doing. George hadn't realized that X was getting the same notices he was.
G laughed at him and said that he was at the phone store and had made the changes himself to accommodate both of them having unlimited internet access.
George thanked him for calling and they had a brief conversation, both of them saying that things were going well, and it was nice to have some contact again.
This event reminded George of a conversation they had a while back; he was commenting on how amazing modern technology is. Not just cell phones, but all of the fantastic things we have that didn't exist 50 or 100 years ago. He said, "What did we ever do without cell phones? When my car broke down 10 miles from home, in the middle of nowhere, I wasted the whole day getting it towed back home and lost a day's work, too. Now, we can carry a computer in our pocket, and have Internet access anywhere. It's just like science fiction becomes science fact."
After not hearing from X-man for several days, George sent a text asking how it's going. X replied that he has been real busy, so it sounds like things are starting to improve for him.