Love Made Me Do It (19 page)

              When we both woke up we were in Baker, CA.  I was starving, my stomach growled so hard that I had cramps.  We had no money.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  With his empty pockets, and my big purse we were sure to eat something.  While the bus driver took a 15 minute break we went into Rite Aid and did what we did best.  Make shit happen. 

              The dry salami, Ritz Crackers, and spray cheese stopped my stomach from feasting on its self.  I had no idea what Vegas held in store for us but I just wanted to eat, shower, and rest in a comfortable, consistent matter.  I drifted back to sleep and when I woke up we were in Vegas.

              It was nice to be away from the poverty.  I was happy for the moment and I saw the look of relief in his eyes too.  Maybe my dreams of dying would turn into dreams of living.

              We did our best to freshen up in the bathroom before we were picked up so we wouldn’t look like the wrecks that we truly were.  His older brother picked us up from the Greyhound station and instantly I recollected how he could not stand me.  But I greeted him like I would greet my own brother. I hugged and kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for picking us up.

According to him and the rest of my lover’s family I was the cause of his demise and his addiction's.  How far from the truth they were without knowing.  I was the prisoner, the sacrificial lamb and whatever else he made me become. 

              That first night in Vegas was amazing, and I say amazing because we were enclosed in four walls of a house, not a hotel room and I was positive that the sprinklers wouldn’t start spraying us.  There would be no pit-bulls lurking to eat us alive.  So yes, it was amazing.  His sister in law cooked a meal that was full of comfort and gravy.  I tried not to inhale my food like I hadn’t been eating…but truthfully I hadn’t been.  But I also knew that if I embarrassed him in any way, shape or form.  I would be beat up and marked up.  So I smiled in between bites, made sure my mouth was closed while I ate, made polite conversation and said please and thank you.

              I had become the perfect robot.  It was never my intention to be fake …it was impossible to be genuine.  But I did the best I could.  It was received by his family just as I thought it would be.  Not at all.  I was ignored during the conversation.  Talk was going over me, around me and did not include me.  Which was okay, I was in their house, miles from home.

I just wanted to go to sleep on a full stomach, thank God for keeping me safe and wake up with a more positive outlook on life.  I hoped that wasn’t too much to ask for.  The futon in the living room was offered to us.  I only wanted a shower and to put one of his tee shirts and dream until the sun came up. 

              That was the deepest sleep I had been in, in a very long time.  I don’t even recall having a dream that night.  I just remember hearing the sounds of bacon popping and then the aroma hit my nose.  Sitting straight up, I rubbed my eyes, adjusted my head scarf and watched my lover in the kitchen cooking.  I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist.  He said good morning, and then he told me to put some clothes on.  Shit.  I forgot I only had on a tee shirt and panties.

              I didn’t need any extra criticism or talk about my character.  So I changed back into my dirty jeans, put my bra on and put his tee shirt back on.  His sister in law came down stairs and immediately I knew that this would not work.  Her aura sent off volumes of negativity.  I said “Good morning” and she replied with the same.  Her tone didn’t match my friendly demeanor. 

              Oh well, I was ready to eat this smorgasbord of bacon, eggs, and potatoes.  I didn’t want to touch anything in a kitchen that was not mine.  So I sat at the table and my lover served me, then his self.  The sister in law stood back and looked in her refrigerator as if she was taking inventory.  My lover looked at her then at me, and he shook his head.  It was obvious that she thought we cooked up her food, but we didn’t.  Apparently while I was still sleep his brother took him to the grocery store, and he had pushed out a cart full of food.

We finished our meal in silence.  I went and folded up the covers and set them off to the side, out of view of any visitors.  Then I sat, until my lover cut the TV on.  Although it was technically our first day, I had a feeling that shit would be hitting the fan soon.

The day dragged on, I watch my lover and his brother play video games most of the day.  It was so hard to keep my eyes open.  I was going to need more than just one good night’s sleep.  But I knew it would be considered disrespectful if I sprawled out on the futon, midday.  So I stay up and just sat next to my lover while he enjoyed his time with his brother.  I understood…plus his needs and wants were more important than my need for sleep.

Fuck it, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I leaned back and shut my eyes.  Man… did it feel good, I pushed every thought and worry out of my head and commenced to sleeping.  Unfortunately it was a short lived cat nap I was awakened by yelling and screaming along with the sounds of shattered glass. 

“Nobody said he was coming with EXTRA COMPANY!”  Now I got it…I was the extra company, and I was not welcomed.  But in reality she had no reason to dislike me.  The sister in law was as sorry as they come and never did a legal thing in her life, including work.  She had aliases and bogus names for the bogus life that she lived.  Yet in still, she judged me like she was God.  I started to jump up and check her but her husband was already doing that along with my lover.  The shattered glass I heard was an ashtray that his brother had smashed with his hand. 

I was unwanted by my lover more than half of the time.  Now I was unwanted by a woman who jumped on the bad wagon with others.  Honestly my lover did badly without me.  I on the other hand excelled at everything I touched when we were apart.  With no time to explain that to an enraged bitch… I started gathering my belongings and placed them in my backpack.  My whole life was now in a backpack.

With our backpacks on our backs, and harsh words behind us we hopped in his brothers Benz and took off.  Destination unknown.  But anywhere by myself is where I wanted to be.  But instead we pulled up to a business office complex and I was instructed to get out. 

I sighed in disbelief as I am recalling these events.  Our new home until we made money would be inside of an office that his brother used to record music.  I looked around.  There was a vending machine.  But we had no money.  There was a small refrigerator.  But we didn’t take all those groceries with us.  There was no shower.  So I would have to take bird baths in the sink.  There was no stove.  But there was a microwave.  The only thing left on the agenda, was for us to stock up on lighters…although it had been a few days with no talk or using of drugs….this situation was going to put us in that frame of mind, seeking an escape. 

“Oh well,” had become my new all-purpose statement.  We were dropped off and left in the studio.  There was a computer and we had a portable DVD player so I would find solace in that.  For a few days we walked around our new neighborhood, exploring the shopping plazas and taking anything and everything our hearts desired.  New shoes, clothes, food, books, movies, you name it we took it.  Which was really hard work and very dangerous since we were on foot.  But it was the same shit we did in the Bay Area the last few months.  Different state, same hustle.

I loved getting new things, even though I had nowhere to wear it too.  I wore my stolen clothes; back to the store I had stolen it from, just to get more stuff.  In hindsight, we were pretty dumb and reckless.  But something about being with him made me feels invisible.  I half assed believed him when he would tell me that he would never ever let anything happen to me.  .

Watching movies, surfing the internet and going nowhere in fancy clothes, was starting to play out.  Boredom hit and it hit us, in a way that would not be avoidable.  Idle hands are surely the devils playground.  We were ready to play.  At least I was, and I knew him long enough to know that look of being a fiend.  I saw it every time I was brave enough to look at my own reflection for more than 30 seconds.  At this point I had been with my lover for four years, and I knew he had a trick up his sleeve to alleviate the pain we were both having from detoxing.

I never said one word; I never mentioned drugs for a few reasons.  One I did not want to be the reason that we sunk deeper into our addiction, and I did not want to give his dysfunctional family any fuel to further BBQ me.  So I stayed quiet and occupied my time with books I had stolen.  I would go thru 300 page books in a day.  I would read all day and night.  That was my escape.  Occasionally we found each other attractive and made love and talked.  But our temperament was edgy.  It was only a matter of time, before we either killed each other or put flame to a pipe.

I had no money, I had no way to get any money and I never inquired about his money.  But low and behold he had money.  It was probably about $100 or so.  There would be days that he would leave me in the studio with my books and my snacks and disappear on foot or with his brother.  I didn’t like being there by myself, stuck in an office with no windows, but I made do.

One day he had been gone for at least three to four hours and when he came back he rushed to the bathroom.  That right there was a tale-tell sign that he had drugs.  The rush of knowing that you are going to get high is so intense that it turns your bowel system into an erupting volcano. 

Now that I had the notion in my head that we were going to get high, I dumped out my purse looking for a lighter that worked.  I found one.  Tucked it in my pocket and acted like I was so engrossed in my book just in case he wanted to act funny with me.  See I couldn’t act a certain way, or he would short my issue of the drugs or he would talk a bunch of unnecessary shit to me.  So I played cool, until I heard the toilet flush…then I had a wave of nausea that almost knocked me out. 

He came into the room I was in and handed me two little bags of dope and a blunt.  I almost passed out.  I was so happy to see these little baggies and a blunt.  I immediately found scissors and started putting together my smoke able vacation.  He disappeared into some other room and put on a porno.  I heard in blaring so I closed the door and lay back on the sound proof foam that was our bed, and escaped everything.  I had an out of body experience that night.  I was relaxed, there was no paranoia and I felt the best I had felt since that first good night sleep we had. 

              My paranoia had become so bad that getting high was often more scary than fun.  So I was relived to feel the actual high and not be hallucinating.  We fucked that night, it wasn’t love making because in reality we had no clue on how to love.  Somewhere along the way we had lost that or maybe we never even had it.  We just thought we did.

              The money he had made, doing who knows what, allowed us to stay high that whole night.  He walked blocks and blocks to the ghetto, copped drugs and brought them back and we hit repeat.  Spark up then, attempt to become one and experience orgasmic relief. 

              It was back on, and we were at an all-time dysfunctional high.  He would push me around and cuss me out for not having money and having no job.  Tell me I was ugly, worthless, stupid and a dope fiend.  Imagine that.  I had no job because I continuously allowed him to uproot me and invade my mind when I was doing well.  I started yelling back at him.  “I have no job because of you,” “If I’m so ugly, what the fuck are you doing with me?”  “I’m not stupid!”  “I have no money because I have no job.”  Those words just echoed around the room…they never ignited him to think about his role in our situation.  It was always me.  It would always be me.  So I shut up and locked myself in the bathroom and cried until I damn near threw up. 

              I was in a dictatorship.  So the next day when we went out, I grabbed a paper and started looking for a job.  I had no idea how I would get there but I need to have something of my own.  Although he complained, he didn’t want me to be anything better than what I was.  I updated my resume. I circled a few ads, sent emails and made calls.  But if we weren’t there, I had no way of knowing if anyone called me back.  If I did receive an email response, there were a million excuses of why I couldn’t do something.  I was truly stuck.  I had to hustle with him, period.  So I did. 

              We had new customers that would pick up merchandise from us at the studio.  We also had dope dealers that made house calls.  So I chilled and tried to stay in tune with his needs.  My self-esteem was so low; my needs became null and void.  Escaping those drugs seemed impossible.  I mistakenly thought that if I followed him to Vegas that the drug use would cease, and that the addiction would just end.  I was fighting a losing battle, simply, because I failed to be honest with myself. 

              Time was passing me by and I was using drugs to pass the time.  Without windows in that tiny office space I was never aware if the sun came up or even when it set.  I was missing things that I had previously taken for granted.  I’m not sure if my lover missed those small things or any other daily routine of sober living.  I never asked. 

              Every time there was a potential opportunity for us to talk about life, drugs were being given to me, or a pipe was being passed to me. I never knew how to say now.  I only held out my hand, looked for a lighter and prepared for my out of body experience.

              Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into over a month that we had been living at the studio.  Occasionally, his mama would bring us a real meal, or he would go by her house and bring back food for us.  We weren’t exactly welcomed there, maybe him but not me.