Withheld again tonight. It's hard to describe the feeling that comes over me when I see that word pop up on my phone as it's singing "Boom" by P.O.D. In one breath I am relieved. In another I think to myself "shit, what now?" The phone he uses is a piece of shit so it usually takes him calling me back four or five times before we have a solid connection and we can both hear each other talk.
He sounded good!!!! I was surprised. REALLY surprised. But then it came. The question, "Can you do me a HUGE favor?" I immediately think he is going to ask me for money which I would not have given him and thankfully I was wrong. It did involve money and the HUGE favor was him wanting to know if I would put $5.00 of gas in the car he is driving around. "Where do you want to meet" was my question to him. My boyfriend has been so AMAZING and full of support through this last go around with my brother. We have been together for five years so this is nothing new to him. So when I told my boyfriend what I was doing I didn't expect to see the look on his face that came. He asked me if I should be helping my brother. All I could say was "I don't know." I don't question my boyfriend for asking me that question. Of course I know in my heart and mind I should not help my brother in any way, but if I can see him once again and it's reasonable for me to do than I will. $5.00 and a five minute drive didn't seem so unreasonable tonight. I undeniably understand my boyfriends frustration and concern. But he knows how I am and leaves it at that. Yes I'm enabling, I know this!!!! But I also know if my brother asks for something that I am not down to do, he will be told no. I know I am weak at many things when it comes to him but I also know as does my brother and everybody else in my family that I am very strong and can hold my own when the time comes.
When I saw my brother drive next to me in the parking lot, what I saw was completely different than that "good" sound I heard on the phone. I knew by the look on his face he was spracked out of his mind. As I put the gas in the car I asked him if the person who owns the car he drives knows he is a heroin addict and he said "yes". I asked him if this person who owns the car does heroin and he said "yes". My brother was in complete paranoia. Looking all over the place, barely saying two words, dark circles under his eyes, pale and almost disoriented. I told him he should not be driving around while he is as high as he was. I mean seriously, he won't turn himself in because he is scared and because of the new charges that I filed against him for stealing money out of my account which by the way are only misdemeanors, but he will drive around higher than a kite risking everybody's lives who are around him as well as his own. No that's not another charge if he were to get pulled over? UGH!!!! But it's another senseless choice addicts make.
He was wearing the same exact outfit he had on yesterday. I made him show me his arms. Tracked and bruised all the way up. His veins are visibly depleted. Tiny puncture wounds where he has poked himself. I could play dot to dot on his arm, a game I loved as a little girl . There was black residue on his shorts. I know that was the black from the bottom of the spoon where he cooks his dope. It was easy to see he wiped his hands on his shorts and that is how the black got there.
Two seems to be his magic answer when I ask how many balloons he did for the day. I know it's more than that. He isn't fooling me. He said he's stressed out. I don't understand why and even asked why he's stressed out. He just said he is, he's afraid. He's drugged out is what he is. Maybe he is stressed because he's trying to find a way to get his next high and as he explained to me once before, it can be quite a pain in the ass trying to figure out how you're going to get your next hit.
He gave me a hug. Not as tight as yesterday but I won't complain. It still smothered me and I loved it. After all, only God himself knows when those hugs wont be around anymore. His back was sweaty. Another result of the drugs. I asked if he was going home. HOME.....I can't believe I referred too his new place of residence (which I have NO idea where it is) as HOME. When I picture this place that he stays, now knowing the person he is with is also a heroin addict, I can only see darkness with drug paraphernalia lying around. Dark and dingy. No life, no true happiness, just a pit of utter hell with the company of strung out addicts. Definitely not a place to call home.
I got the license plate number and stored it in my phone. When I left my brother I called my dad. "What should I do?. For now, I will hold onto it. Dad's advice. I hope my brother made it back and made it back safely. He is alive but what I saw tonight in him was anything but life. It was more like death standing right at his toes. A paranoid ghost with a tiny bit of life in him. Just enough to keep him breathing.
I returned home. My boyfriend was waiting for me on the porch while his two nephews were running on the grass. Oh how they are so innocent and full of laughter and happiness. Not a care or worry in the world. I remember my brother when that was him. My boyfriend said to me "I'm surprised with the way you are, that you have been able to go on as long as you have with your brother and do what you do for him." All I could say is "sometimes love is your enemy."
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