Chain of
Misfortune
HOMELESS IN A LAND OF
PLENTY
By Jack Random
[The
Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that there were about
554,000 homeless people in the United States. Just over 50% were single males. About 25% were single females. About 23% were families with children. Almost 40% were individuals under the
age of eighteen. From October 2009
to September 2010 an estimated 1.6 million experienced homelessness at some
point in time.]
GARY
He drank a bit
too much. It was in his
genes. His father drank too
much. Sometimes it seems that
whole generation drank too much.
They drank themselves to sleep, got up in the morning and went to
work. They were functional
alcoholics. It was a way of
navigating the journey of life. In
what was supposed to be the good old days the good old boys wanted nothing more
than to escape the daily drudgery.
Gary learned
early that he couldn’t drink like his father did. He drank on weekends, he drank to celebrate and he drank to
commiserate. The first time he
drank Scotch it was a bonding experience.
The taste was so repulsive it almost came up before it went down and
that made his father laugh. It
took years to develop a taste for it and years to leave the taste behind. He had too many sessions at the
porcelain throne, too many nights with dry heaves and too many mornings hung
over.
So here he was
again.
He went to the
bar not long after she left. Who
knows? Maybe he thought he’d see
her there. He didn’t. He drank. After a few at the bar he went to a liquor store and bought
a bottle. He drank to get
drunk. How long had been since
he’d done that? Two years? Three? The more he drank the less he remembered.
Louise let him
down. It was her fault. It was always someone’s fault. Now he sounded more like Louise or his
mother. There was always someone
to blame. Someone called and
wanted to know if he’d come up with bail money. Not a chance.
So Louise managed to get arrested in one day. He didn’t want to hear it. He hung up and hung up again when she called from jail.
He called in
sick and went back to the bar the next day. After a second scotch he met a woman – the kind of woman
that hangs out at a bar during working hours. He didn’t care.
He wanted a shoulder and she had two. They bought another bottle and she went home with him. Three days later he realized she had
moved in. He hadn’t bothered to
call in to work. When he did he
lost his job.
Fuck it, he
thought. It wasn’t much of a job
anyway.
Her name was
Alice. She had a lot of problems –
even more than he did. In a way it
gave him comfort. She needed him
more than he needed her. It took a
while for him to understand that she needed him as a means to get what she
really needed – America’s latest addictive rage: Fentanyl. It
was a long and heart-breaking story.
He was sure of it even though she didn’t have time to tell it and he
didn’t have the inclination to hear it.
Everybody has a story.
Every story ends in tragedy.
Fuck it. It doesn’t
matter.
They lived as
they lived in squalor and chaos until the bills started coming and he realized
he was out of money. He had lost
track of time. How many days had
gone by? How many weeks? In a moment of clarity he saw what he
had become and the misery piled on like a mountain of stone.
When she
offered, he accepted. One pill
couldn’t hurt. Could it? No. It helped. It
helped a lot. The pain floated
away like smoke in the wind. All
his worries became distant shadows.
He had no worries. Another
pill and he had no pain. Another
and all the jagged pieces fit together like God’s divine plan.
Want became
need and every particle of his being changed. At long last he found his religion, his sainthood and his
martyrdom. He became the one true
child of God. A sensation of
elation, lifting his spirit off the earth and rising to the stars, overwhelmed
him. Euphoria, wonder, glory and
devotion: They were all at his
command.
Someone shook
him and called to him from another world.
He did not wish to leave his place of comfort and elation but the caller
persisted. It was a woman and she
was vaguely familiar. She cried
and sniffed and wiped away tears.
“Wake up,
baby!”
It was Alice
and something was happening. He
had neglected the simple necessities of this life for so long that it shocked
him when he returned. Alice was
his angel of truth, his deliverance and protector. She opened the doors to this experience and she demanded to
be heard. She owned him.
“Baby, wake
up!”
“What is it?”
he mumbled through the fog and mists of a million dreams and landscapes of
fantastic origin. Why had she
taken him from his utopia?
“Thank God,”
she gasped. She held his head and
stroked his hair, painting his face with kisses of genuine affection. “I thought I lost you!”
She had a
needle in her hand. It was Narcan
– the antidote to an overdose. He
didn’t know she had a dose. The
stuff was expensive – too expensive when you needed every cent to pay for
Fentanyl. Maybe she cared about
him after all. Maybe she was the
only one who cared.
“Where’d you
get the Narcan?” he mumbled.
“At the
clinic. They know me down
there.”
“How long was
I out?”
“I don’t
know. I wasn’t here.”
“Where were
you?”
“Out. Who cares? I came home and there you were. I saved your life.”
It was
true. He knew it was true but
paranoia came with territory.
Could he trust her? No. He couldn’t trust anyone. He almost died and still the only thing
he could think about was securing his supply.
If he were
being honest he would have to admit he’d been in this place before. The drug was different and he was older
now but he had been in a very similar place. If he were honest he would admit he had an addictive personality. Addicts saw it in him in a flash. Alice saw it. He’d been addicted to cocaine, methamphetamine, crack and heroin. He wrestled with all the old demons and
emerged from an ocean of deep dark hell.
If he were being honest this was just one more relapse in the series
that was his adult life. But he
was not being honest. He was lying
to himself and everyone else. He
lied to Louise but he always thought she knew. He’d been clean for a couple years before he met her. A few beers after dinner. Straight and narrow. But there was a reason he lost all
contact with his family. There was
a reason all his friends were recent.
“Baby, we’re
almost out,” said Alice.
She didn’t
have to say what they were almost out of though they were almost out of
everything – food, drink, cleaning products, toilet paper, toothpaste,
deodorant and anything else you can think of. The last time he looked there were a few beers in the
refrigerator and nothing else.
“Almost?”
“Yeah,
babe.”
“How much more
do we have?”
She pulled out
a baggie revealing five lonely pills.
The way they were going it wasn’t enough to last the night. He knew Alice was probably holding out
on him but not by a lot. She
probably had four or five more.
He’d deal with it when the time came.
“Do we have
any money?”
He knew the
answer but asked anyway. Together
they might have enough to get a meal at MacDonald’s but not enough for what
they needed.
“We could sell
some things,” she suggested.
“Like what?”
“The TV,
stereo, silverware, whatever…”
“I got to go
back to work,” he said glumly.
“Shit, we won’t make much selling all this crap.”
She knew he
was right. She knew a guy who
fenced stolen goods from junkies and other lowlifes. He wouldn’t give much for the everyday bullshit. It was just an opening to get the
dialogue going.
“We could sell
your truck.”
He
hesitated. She could feel him
tense up. Selling his truck was a
major turn. It was only three
years old and in good shape. He
could get five to seven grand beyond what he still owed. But he needed that truck to get to
work. If he sold it he was
admitting that he had no intention of getting another job and playing it straight. If he sold the truck there was no
turning back.
“Forget it,”
said Alice. She had to stay ahead
of him. It had to seem like it was
his idea. She’d been through this
before and she’d learned a few things.
She wanted to get all she could out of this. It was not that she didn’t like him or that she thought he
deserved it. It was just
business. She was not getting any
younger. There’s a limit as to how
long a girl can get away with this shit.
“Have you got
any other ideas?” he said. He knew
she did. He knew the kind of woman
she was. If he didn’t know in the
beginning, he knew by now. She was
all about the fix.
“I know a
guy,” she said. “He could use your
truck.”
He climbed out
of the sofa and found his way to the window. It was already sundown. He had completely lost any sense of time.
“Call
him. See what he’s got.”
The truth
would not have surprised him. She
had already called him. Alice was
a woman who thought ahead. So she
went through the motions and came back with a gig. That’s what they called it – like they were some kind of
traveling band.
“Yeah,” said Alice. She handed him a slip of paper with an
address scribbled on it. “He says
you should show up here at three A.M.
He’ll give you a thousand bucks to drive a shipment across town. Two thousand if you drive it to
Vegas.”
“Two
thousand?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s
all I have to do?”
“That’s
it.”
“You trust
this guy?”
“I do.”
He let it
settle. Of course there were some
details missing. It was too
good. But when it came down to it,
what choice did he have?
“What’s the
merch?” he wondered.
“Golf
clubs. Yeah. It turns out people pay a thousand
dollars for one golf club. There’s
a warehouse that just got a shipment.
JD knows where it is. His
guys crash the warehouse, load up the stuff and you drive off. Pretty simple.”
Unable to
fully grasp how low and how fast he had fallen, he let it settle. He was not only considering a job as a
driver for a stolen goods operation, he knew he would accept it. He had no choice. That’s the thing about addiction. Need trumps want every time. You want to do the right the thing but
you need that pill. You have no
choice. Alice knew that better
than he did.
He showed up
at the appointed time and place, high and ready for action. JD met him in the parking lot of a
closed department store and told him to wait in the corner outside the light of
the street. Gary could tell
straightaway JD and his crew of two men were cranksters by the way their eyes
darted back and forth.
“Give me your
phone,” said JD. He plugged in his
number. “You call me if something
happens. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“If no one
shows in thirty minutes, take off,” JD said.
“Right,”
replied Gary with a glance at his phone.
He waited
exactly twenty-four minutes before they pulled up and loaded his truck with
four long cardboard boxes. It
looked like there was room for maybe fifty clubs – a haul worth fifty
grand. They covered the load with
a plastic tarp and tied it down good while JD took care of business. He handed Gary five crisp one hundred
dollar bills and a slip of paper with an address in Vegas.
“What’s this?”
said Gary.
“Gas money,”
said JD. “You want me to come
with?”
“No, I’m
good.”
“Alright. You deliver the goods, pick up the cash
and call me when you get back.
We’ll settle up then.”
“Right.”
He gave him a
look meant to chill him to the bone.
It worked.
“Don’t even
think about fucking me over. I
know where you live,” he smiled, revealing the dental condition of a man long
lost on meth.
“Don’t
worry.”
He pulled out
and headed for the freeway. Three blocks
later he thought he noticed someone following him. Two blocks down he turned right and was greeted by the
twirling red lights of two black-and-whites blocking his way. He slowed to a stop as two cars pulled
in behind him. He was busted dead
to rights.
After two
weeks in jail Alice sold his truck to make bail. He was off the drugs but he had no money, no ride and no way
to pay the rent. He struck a deal
with the D.A. to turn on JD and his buddies in exchange for time served. So now he had to worry about JD’s
revenge as soon as he managed to get out of jail.
In a matter of
weeks everything turned to shit.
His landlord served the eviction notice. Alice was determined to stay but Gary didn’t have the energy
to fight back. He had no more
illusions about her caring for him any more than he cared for her. Their relationship was all about the
drugs. He packed some belongings
and walked down to the bridge where the homeless people had formed a makeshift
camp.
Copyright Jack Random 2019
