Monday, May 23, 2005

John P.

“I’ve got a life. I can’t fuck up anymore, man,” John P. told me as he loaded his laundry. I had sat down to rest after finding him some laundry detergent. It had been a hectic day. I needed a break after running around between facilities all day. John needed to talk and I needed to sit down. It worked out well.

“The therapist says to take things one day at a time, but, man, I can’t. Yesterday I was thinkin’ ‘bout today and today I’m thinkin’ ‘bout tomorrow.”

I asked him about his family, whether they were supportive or not. He has a wife with a baby on the way – two days before his birthday. His mother can’t understand how her only son came to drugs. But she’s supportive. His wife is exceptionally supportive, having offered him two options. The first was her killing him murderously, the second being rehab. “She had that look in her eye and I knew she wasn’t fuckin’ around.”

I asked him how he got mixed up in this stuff. It took him a second to gather his thoughts before they spilled over a mental dam of pride – a wall that had been deconstructed over the past week for him. He had been a pot smoker for some time. The real problem was crack, though he was giving it all up. He had gotten into a fight with his wife after she threw him a birthday party two years ago. He went out that night and found a prostitute, who introduced him to crack after he smoked a blunt with her. He never stopped.

He had hid it for a year and a half. His wife found out six months ago. That’s when she threatened him with an imminent death if he didn’t go to rehab. This was John's first time in rehab, and probably his last. He’s not like The Kid at the apartments in for his fifteenth time. The Kid who loves to shoot up coke and heroin and oxy’s - this is just a breather for him. The Kid talks about the taste of cocaine after an injection the way a mother would talks about her love for her child. The Kid wants to hit up Bourbon Street the night he gets home. John is different. John wants to teach his son how to ride his bike and play baseball.

I patted John on the back and told him he was a good man before I walked off.

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