Phil D.

“At some point, you look in ya boxers and ya see grey, man,” Phil said outside on the picknick tables that the smokers congregated at. He, Eric and I were all sitting out there before lights out. They were joking with me about the “looking busy” remark I made when they asked me what I was doing.

Phil’s humor had been a source of contention for us in past days. A tall, very heavyset older black man with a budding fro from the casino country of New Jersey, I first met him I was to drive him to the hospital using a company van for the first time. I looked all sorts of nervous behind the wheel of a two ton van - eye level eight feet off the ground behind a an enormous V8.

“I drive a little Japanese car, Phil. It’s like… 4 inches off the ground. Stick shift. This thing is huge.”

My confusion and fear of driving the machine was a source of limitless humor to Phil. As I sat in the car about to pull out, adjusting myself to the new driving console, another employee came to me and told me she needed the van and would drop him off.

Phil got out, ran to another patient he knew, and immediately began his story about how I almost killed him by running the van into a ditch. The obvious lie of the story, coupled with the fact that only he and I knew the truth, bothered the hell out of me. snapped on him once or twice catching him telling the faux story hours and days later.

I had made an effort over the past few days to get cool with him. I don’t want any lasting negative tension between any client and myself, even if his humor was on a different level from my own… even if that meant just dealing with him talking about how much he missed “wet dreams” or fretted the graying of his pubic hair.

We were talking about addiction right before the joke, about me needing to make sure his window was closed so he couldn’t sneak out. It was just house rules. People have done it before. He told me what I’m used to hearing by now – a junkie gets what they need no matter what we do. I told him it was our job, at least for the time being, to make getting drugs and alcohol difficult and such that if you do try, you get caught and kicked out of the program.

He went on though, ignoring my reasoning. He had something else to say, and like a good politician he retorted to the argument he wished I had made.

“I don’t drive a car back home. You know… we find what we need. Find a bike that’s unlocked. A dope-head knows another dope-head when he sees one. He jus’ axks till he finds a someone to tell him where a seller his, then you gotta find a needle. But you find what you need, boy.”

“I’m too old for this shit,” he told me. He had been to several programs. He showed me the thick scars reaching towards his wrest from his the underside of his elbow. “I work wit’ kids. They see that kinda shit… the axks about that kinda stuff.”