Love Made Me Do It (12 page)

As much as my body craved him, it was hard to make love with someone that beat your ass during the day.  Then act like nothing ever happened.  I never imagined this life, for myself.  When my mama came to visit, I tried to act like things were normal. 

She told me not to move in there with him and so did several other people.  But I didn’t think I would be able to survive without him so I stayed.  I repeatedly came back when he kicked me out.  I was always reassuring people, that we were in love and things were fine.  Things were far from fine.  I wanted to die and I wanted to die high. 

The drugs took the pain away they made things better and a little bit easier to manage.  Once our hustle became better and I listened to him more instead of being argumentative.  That made life a little bit better.  It was the summer and I just wanted to have fun.  Tension eased and we let up on using for a little while.  I started getting dressed every day instead of lying around like his sex slave. 

We spent most of our good days going to the mall and stealing whatever our hearts desired.  That summer seemed hotter than the average Bay Area summer.  I remember driving around high as fuck when all of sudden I started feeling sick.  I tried to tell my lover, let’s just go home.  But he said one more store we had one more store to hit.  I never had a choice in what we did, unless he was broke.

So I walked behind him in several stores.  Getting impatient, I told him I need to go sit in the car. I felt weak.  Finally, he was ready.  We got onto an elevator full of people.  I passed out.  When I came too, I was no longer in the elevator.  I was confused.  I saw the look on my lovers face and snapped out of it….Real quick.  He helped me up and scolded me all the way to the car.  He was pissed.  I was pissed, that he was pissed.  I told him I wasn’t feeling good.  Now my head was pounding. 

Smoking Crack in extreme heat is a recipe for disaster.  I called Kaiser and they advised me to come in, they thought I had a concussion.  From hitting my head when I passed out.  But I couldn’t come in. I was scared that they would call the police about how high I was.  So I made up an excuse.  Excuses. I was becoming good at giving those.

The advice nurse told me to stay up the whole night and monitor my pain.  I was scared.  I fucked up, now I had thoughts of dying of a concussion.  Much to my surprise he encouraged me to go to the Dr. the next day.  He said that I didn’t look so good.  So I went.  Luckily, I was fine.

When I came in the door he was lying across the bed.  When he seen my face he jumped up and held me tight. No one would ever be able to fathom, the level of addiction we had for each other and the drugs. 

CHAPTER 18

BACK TO WORK

Life was a little less miserable.  Having all day and night with him was wonderful.  But I couldn’t just lay up every single day in a dark ass house.  Getting fucked up.  I know I was making plenty of mistakes, but my mama raised me better than that.  So I landed another position at my last job’s competitor. 

They loved me.  I always had the ability to make friends especially at work.  This place was no different.  My coworkers would pick me up and bring me home whenever I needed.  This became an all the time situation.  I never had any money for gas because we spent it all on drugs.

I saw $900 go in one night.  When it was no stores open to steal from, and no more money, I got my ass whooped.  Even though, I had went back to work.  Money was still not like it was.  So his nephew and his girlfriend came to stay with us. 

It was cool, because when things were tense between the two of us there were others people, to interact with.  I made a friend in the nephew’s girlfriend.  We used each other as needed.  Half the time we only came out of our bedrooms when it was dark.  At first I wasn’t for sure if his nephew got high.  But when he started riding shot gun to make runs, I knew he did.  This was fine with me.

It was nice to have the company in the house it made it feel more like a home.  Versus a dark place, where bad shit happened.  Although I was happier, my jealousy was at an all-time high.  I was getting less attention now that the nephew was there.  He was spending more nights out, with
places to go
. 

So I tried to manage my time better.  I was back at work.  I conversed with the girlfriend here and there.  I started reaching out to my friends.  But it was all an act.  I just wanted to be with him.  I didn’t want to talk or hang out with anyone else. 

I constantly was looking for ways to be sweet.  His fish had recently died and he was apprehensive about getting more.  So one day I surprised him and bought him some gold fish.  But when he came home he was pissed at the sight of them.  “Goldfish are dirty, and raggedy.”  I held my head down in disbelief.  A few days went by and I caught him talking to the raggedy gold fish, while he was feeding them. 

I was happy about that, but then I felt mad about it.  He had just belittled me.  He made my simple act of generosity feel unappreciated and stupid.  So I killed those fish all nine of them.  So now he couldn’t complain or praise them.  They were dead.  He knew I killed those fish.  But I lied with a straight face.  He had taught me how to do that.  So now I was a killer and a Crack Head.  Life was a joke.  My life was a joke.

His temper was up and down.  I had this crazy notion, that maybe I would get beat up less since we had roommates.  That was wishful thinking.  I was getting my ass whooped in our bedroom and no one rescued me.  No one said shit to him.  I felt like his nephew should have said something.

But the nephew wasn’t stupid, that was a battle he didn’t want. Especially, because he needed a place to live. 
Never bite the hand that feeds you
.  The nephew stayed silent.  The girlfriend stayed silent and I had been on mute.  Sometimes we would be chillin’ in the living room, and talking shit.  My lover would start trippin’ for no reason.  I would just sit there and take it.  If he thought too hard about anything, he could turn violent.  There was no one to save me.  But even worse I wasn’t willing to save myself. 

Money was getting extremely low. I had a gut feeling that I wouldn’t keep my job for very long.  I could barely stand to be away from him.  This made going to work impossible.  Plus I was extorting money from two of my coworkers and robbing them for anything that wasn’t nailed down. 

I had picked up so many bad habits and mastered all of them. I was happy to have my own money.  But in between him and the drugs I don’t know which was harder for me to be away from.-  Unemployment gave my lover the impression that there was still a nice amount left in that account. With the option to get two extensions if he needed too, to his surprise they stopped his checks.  I was the only one in the house with a job. 

The nephew had the audacity to tell me I was making too much noise in the morning.  It went in one ear and straight out the other ear.  Then he told my lover.  I was choked shoved and advised to put my shoes on at the door, and not stomp thru the house with them on. 
No good ass men
…were my only thought.  I was sick of everyone in that house that had a penis.  This living situation sucked. 

It was grueling, getting up every morning.  While three other grown people stayed sleep.  Something needed to change.  I just didn’t know how to make those changes. 

Mold starting growing in our closet over a course of time.  Times were getting a little rougher and Christmas was around the corner.  My check seemed so small by the time bills were paid.  The only thing I could treat myself to, was buying my lunch at work.  Even that I had to hide.  He owned me.  His hustle income wasn’t even enough for rent. 

Then the eviction notice came.  It was on the kitchen table for days until it was looked at.  What were we going to do.?  We brainstormed collectively.  With no solution, I felt like the world was on my shoulders.  My lover and his nephew even plotted on robbing my ex roommate.  That fell through, thankfully. 

We had to give all our regular spots that we stole from a rest, before we went to jail.  The icing on the cake was getting fired from my job.  Times were hard as fuck.  That was a hard one to swallow. I had it to good and I let it slip thru my hands.  All behind a man and drugs. 

The devil was riding my ass, and God was nowhere in my sight.  I just gave up.  We were all pushed between a rock and a hard place.  Having no money is the equivalent to no options.  The mold spreading in our closet bought us time.  His mom tried to pay everything but it was too late

My family’s door was always open, but there would be questions I didn’t want to answer. No surprise that he went with his mama. The nephew went to Frisco I think.  I went to my mom’s house.  That didn’t last.  Fitting in with my own family had long expired. 

CHAPTER 19

MOVING AROUND

I went to my grandma’s house thankful, to have a roof over my head.  If it wasn’t for her I would have been homeless.  She said I was too thin.  I was breaking hearts that I didn’t even consider.  I looked in the mirror, only to see a vague reflection of someone that I used to know.  Myself.  I was so skinny I could fit my 13 year old sister’s clothes.

But the best part about grandparents is that they nourish in a different way than mom and dad do.  I was slowly getting back to a decent weight.  Living at my grandma’s house was good for me and could have been better if I knew how to stay in the house.  My nerves were bad, anxiety high and my addiction was destroying my sanity.

Without my lover I didn’t know even know how to buy drugs for myself. 
What did I say?  Can I buy some Crack?  Do you have any Crack for sell? 
So I walked around depressed, getting fatter by the day.  With me in San Jose and him in Stockton that was such a long distance. I didn’t even have my car anymore.  How in the fuck were we going to see each other?  Why did I come back here and quit my job at American Express? 

Even though we were miles apart…we managed to gravitate back to each other.  The pull of the universe knew how deep our love was.  

We made a way out of no way to be together, only to have sex and get high.  More often than not I would just spend the whole weekend with him.  His mama still loved me.  So I was more than welcomed there. 

We would rent DVD’s and snuggle up in his bed.  Where ever he was, I was right behind him.  Using drugs slowed down a bit at least for me it did.  There were too many family members in my business.  Plus I had my baby sister looking up to me.  I had to do better. 

He picked me up from my Grandma’s for the weekend. He fired up that longest blunt I had ever seen in my life.  We could smoke on that all the way thru the Altamont Pass and be good and blasted.  It’s crazy looking back at what we turned into and how fast it happened.  We never talked about what was going on with us.  How life was slipping right out of our hands.  We rather watch Sponge Bob then talk about real life. 

Things picked up for him as well, living back at home.  He gained his weight back, skin cleared up.  Those crease lines disappeared.  Erectile dysfunction seemed to get better.  Even if none of that had changed I was not going to leave him. He even got a very good job.

Getting picked up regularly to spend weekends in Stockton with no gas money didn’t last too long. My lover started making not so subtle hints about how I didn’t have any money.  It’s funny how the tables had turned and now I was the broke one.  He was too selfish to even buy me any of my necessities. 

So I stopped asking him for shit.  I didn’t need the extra grief.  A little time had passed since we had stopped living together.  During that little bit of time, I grew a small set of balls. I was tired of being treated like shit.  So I adjusted my balls and said “Nigga please, you didn’t have any money plenty of times and I had you x’s 10.”  He took one look at me and slapped the shit out of me.

The abuse rarely fazed me at that point.  It was my new normal.  I anticipated it after every disagreement or dry run to the ATM Machine.  Those domestic violence classes he took, obviously did not change him.  The rest of the way to Stockton was awkward.  The music was too loud, it was uncomfortable. 

Had I not been fearful of going to hell, I would have jumped out of car.  Death by suicide.  Thankfully, I decided not to jump out of the car because he just sparked up a blunt. 
Just pass me the drugs and shut the fuck up.
  Those are thoughts that never left my mouth, so they never reached his ears.  Since he had an attitude and was feeling like
the man
.  He took his sweet time passing the blunt to me. 

Instead of puffing and passing.  He puffed the blunt until it was half gone.  If I was brave enough to say something, about how long he was taking. I would risk not smoking at all.  Finally, he passed it.  I hated when he watched me while I smoked. 
Fuck!  Can I get high?
 
You just slapped me damn, I need to decompress.
God forbid I hit the blunt too hard; he would snatch the blunt out of my hands.