Love Made Me Do It (17 page)

              I walked miles with him.  Unloading our back packs full of goodies… One city at a time. 
Lord, please
have mercy on our poor wretched souls.  We never talked about the fact that we were living on the streets with no clothes and barely enough money to have a roof over our head.  Every day there was a hustle, there were no days off. 

              The clothes we had on our backs were the “fit” for the day, and that day only.  We threw away so many nice things…you probably wouldn’t even know that we were homeless.  We went wherever we wanted, picked out a new “fit”, tucked that shit and left.  We were the same way with food, we would go somewhere like a deli and eat for free.  Very disrespectful behavior.  Just like a couple of savage beasts. 

              Even though there were no days off, we did do things in between or daily hustles... like sneak into the movies or go have a beer and watch football.  We walked to the Islander Motel from Fremont Bart Station, when we had enough money to get a room.  They never tripped and it was the same price every time.  The motel was actually housing for parolees and people on probation.  It was a shady establishment for sure.

              The days were short and getting cold.  We were slowly but surely running out of places to steal from.  Times were getting tougher.  But no matter what there were always drugs.  Sometimes, I felt like they magically appeared.  I would be so exhausted from walking miles thru cities…I was delirious.  I just did as I was told and tried not to get the shit beat out of me. This was my real life and I felt stuck.

              You could tell that all of the spots that we were stealing from were getting a little hot, but he never listened.  I could beg and plead, really be scared and he never gave a fuck.  Raleigh’s Market.  Not a good choice.  Patron was behind the counter in an unauthorized area.  Yet, he wouldn’t listen. 

              Fremont Jail is where we slept that night.  I remember calling my mom from my jail cell.  She was in Hawaii.  She applied tough love and told me that’s what I get.  Tears swelled in my eyes, but I couldn’t let them drop.  In environments that are foreign to you, you should never appear weak.  They will eat you alive.  There were women that were accustomed to that life style.  I wasn’t one of them.

              I stayed in jail over-night, he stayed a day longer.  I just walked all night until they released him from jail.  I was loyal to him.  I was loyal to the hustle.  I was loyal to the drugs.  Sometimes he would thank me and tell me that he loved me, but mostly only if I said it first.  This was a very rough existence, for both of us.  I will never know his reason behind the decade of pain.  It couldn’t be that he loved me.  I’ll never agree to that.

              Going to jail didn’t stop us, it only slowed us down.  We had to figure out new spots to attack since our old ones were hot.  I swear to God I wished that a job would just fall into my lap.  But we all know that jobs don’t fall out of the sky, especially when you already burned up so many good ones. I just needed a way out.  But the addiction to the drugs would not allow it.  I was stuck in a jet that was shooting me thru all the phases of drug addiction.  Soon there would be no chance for me.  I would crash and burn.

              You could feel the fall breeze winding down the summer in all parts of the Bay Area.  The seasons were changing and hopefully some positivity was headed our way.  Even though we were robbing businesses blind, I was still praying for a silver lining.  I don’t know what or if he was praying for anything.  It’s amazing how you can think you know a person, but not know them at all.  That was my dilemma.  Poor judge of character. 

              Me and my lover kept on with what we had to do.  The drugs were, wherever we were.  We rolled blunts in public parks, fast food bathrooms, ravine’s, buses….Nowhere was off limits.  Every thought in my head was based around how to get high, how to keep my high, and how not to blow my high.  Paranoia had started to kick in. 

              I was so busy worrying about the Police, the Motel Managers, and the Devil.  It was hard to enjoy anything, even sex.  “I DON’T WANT TO FUCK YOU!”  That’s what I was yelling in my head.  I wish he could have read my mind, since my mouth couldn’t open up.

              I remember us rolling a blunt in Arroyo Park in East Oakland.  Scariest shit ever.  First of all you are in the hood.  Not any fake ass hood either.  Being black and from the Bay Area you could easily see someone that you know.  I used to be terrified that someone would see me like that.  Although people knew that something was up with me…I didn’t need the extra bullshit on my plate.  My plate was pretty damn full. 

              Arroyo Park was scary at night time.  You were likely to see or hear anything.  From… pit-bulls mangling passers in the night, to police chases, to people having sex.  The worst was the pit-bulls.  A pack of them would make you shit your pants.  Imagine sitting in a dugout smoking dope and five pit-bulls run past you.  They pause and sniff and look at each other.  You don’t move one muscle.  You don’t even breathe.  That was us.  High off dope, in a dugout…that had a big ass hole in the gate. 

              There were many nights with wild animal encounters.  We were stupid.  We broke into Oakland Zoo and had sex.  The animals were real.  We heard them and I pushed him off of me because I was too paranoid about a Lion that could potentially eat us.  While reminding him that we could go to jail for being in here. 

Sometimes I wanted to go to jail.  I wanted to eat three meals, be warm, watch TV, and have some random girl grease my scalp.  That’s what happened in jail.  I needed a healthier routine than the one I was on.  It was so much jail time.  I don’t even know if I can remember all the trips that we took. 

The nights that there wasn’t enough money to get a room, we created places to sleep.  We slept in an alley way in Fremont somewhere, on a couch that was by an apartment complex dumpster.  That night we had stolen something from somewhere and the Police were looking for us.  We could see them, coming for us.  Every corner we turned, we either seen their tail lights or their headlights.  That was a long night. 

It was freezing and that couch was covered in ants, and who knows what else.  But we had to sleep.  So un-knowingly we took turns.  While he slept, I was awake, looking around, wondering and terrified.  The police never found us that night. 

              God bless the lady who seen us from her balcony in San Leandro.  She gave us a pillow, a cover, bottled water and gold fish crackers.  That was a big help to a night that would be spent in a park.  We slept hard on our shared pillow.  Then the sprinklers happened.  Then the big ass Labrador happened. 

              This was hard.  I wanted to die and I wanted him to die with me.  My soul was already dead.  My morals and my morale were at a negative zero.  We weren’t lucky on those nights we were blessed.  Even God still believed in us and kept us safe. 

              The motels were just as bad as the outdoors.  People who were in situations just like you…looking for any way to keep the party going.  To keep the high at a high.  Motels were full of zombies, weirdoes, and druggies.  We were no different.  We fit right in. 

              Sometimes we would walk so many miles my feet would be covered in dirt.  My face and all other exposed body parts would be so dark from walking in the blazing sun for more than six hours a day.  We slept in motel rooms that were rented at a discounted price because they had a foot of water in them, that wouldn’t drain out.  We took those rooms.  We used drugs in those rooms.  We fought like drunken sailors in those rooms. 

              Time was still moving and we were still living.  Barely.  Once again the Islander Motel became a haven for us to have a safe keeping for the night.  We broke a headboard one night, trying to do some kinky shit that I didn’t even want to do.  We had no manners.  We just hoped that no one heard the mirror shatter as it slipped off the wall.  He was always touching shit, doing too much.  I did not want to be touched.  My sex drive was at a zero. 

              There was the abandoned bus behind Union City Bart Station that he figured out how to open.  My lover was a modern day MacGyver and an everyday asshole.  But he was my asshole and I stood by him.  I stayed in the struggle, and lost my mind.  I was somewhere between heaven and hell.  Purgatory. 

              Sleeping on the bus happened more often than not.  The bus was dark.  The bus was gloomy.  The seats were hard as a rock and the wind whistled thru the cracks in the door.  Falling asleep was easy; staying asleep was the hard part.  We smoked on the bus; we tried to fuck on the bus.  He hit me in the head with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire on that bus.  I remember the sun coming in hot and bright when we slept to long on that bus. 

              It’s amazing what you can do to survive when you have to.  Arroyo Park was a popular rest spot as well.  “Look at them; they didn’t pay their PG&E bill, fucking losers.”  That statement woke me up. That night we slept on metal bleachers.  Embarrassed, we got up.  We headed to the Coliseum Bart Station with no destination, but we knew we could sleep on the Bart with the other commuters.  No one would bother us with our hoodies on.  No one would recognize us.  Hopefully.

              Being homeless was hard.  Being homeless was scary.  We were homeless.  Some ideas didn’t work without money.  I thought that we could sneak into Fremont Hospital and sleep in an empty hospital bed.  That was a stupid idea.  We tried church doorsteps.  Not everything worked.  Nights that hair brained ideas failed it was always my fault.

              Sometimes I would be left all night on the bus, in the motel room, or at the park and he would be gone all night, to get drugs.  I worried. I paced.  We didn’t have cell phones.  So I adapted the patience of a saint.  I had no choice but to be patient, it was either that or get my ass beat.  I would sit up all night and just wait for him and the drugs.

              Most nights when he went on these missions I would plot to leave.  But I had nowhere to go where I felt wanted.  I fucked that up.

CHAPTER 27

JAIL TIME

Jail had become a permanent fixture in what we had become.  Dope fiends, always looking for the easiest way out.  Never paying full price for anything, and then wondering why we were once again in a court room in front of a judge. 

              The first time we went to jail together I was terrified.  The second time we went to jail I seen it coming.  But yet he didn’t listen.  He never listened to shit I said.  We were hot and known.  Pictures were posted of us.  Bonnie and Clyde.  We were running out of slick reasons to be in a store and never buying anything.  We were robbing people of their lively hood.  We were single handedly inflating prices in the stores. 

              Lunardi’s Supermarket, Burlingame, Ca.  There are certain areas that no matter what, if you look different than the general population, it’s suspicious.  We were suspicious.  Yet in still we went in and tried to steal as many things as possible.  Nothing was off limits.  So we put our backpacks in a nearby bush and I checked my hair in the reflection of a car window.  Even though I was scared to death, there was no choice in the matter. 

              We went in, got what we came for.  Every big bottle of top shelf liquor that we could manage to carry out…we make it out.  Then I saw the police SUV.  My lover grabbed my hand and told me to run.  We ran with our fingers interlocked.  I was in flip flops, ripped jeans and an Usher tank top.  Running across El Camino Real like the crooks that we were… There was a center divide that had a small waist high fence.  He went over. I got stuck.  The hole in my jeans was caught on the fence.  Our hands slipped apart.  He kept running.  I was caught.  Two police cars blocked me.  I dropped to my knees like I was told.  With their guns drawn, they cuffed me.  They were looking for him.  They searched for him.  Meanwhile I’m sitting in the back of a tight ass police car, with my head down. 

              This was no time to cry.  But how could I remain calm, my lover had left me.  He ran towards his own freedom, while mine was hindered.  Then he came out of no-where with his hands up. They slid him in the back seat next to me.  The few tears that did drop he told me to wipe them on his shirt.  “Never let these white people see you cry.”  I dried my tears.  They put us in holding tanks right next to each other.  The doors had a one inch gap under the door.  We touched fingers and talked all night.

              Like I said as long as we were together, nothing else mattered.  The law didn’t matter and whatever the judge said, that’s what it would be.  Time would never turn back.  My lover would always promise that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.  However he forgot that he had absolutely no control over the police.  Although I knew that promise couldn’t be kept, I always blamed him when shit hit the fan.  I lived by his word, even though it let me down more than 97% of the time.  I was a true fool in love.