Lost within

    There were a lot of movies that showed life on the streets as something horrible. There were others that portrayed it is as something that wasn't really too bad if you had some common sense about yourself. Yet, as I wandered along the dark and dirty streets of Las Vegas, I could feel in the very depths of my being that I was in trouble.

    Only a year ago I was doing well. I had everything someone like me could ever want: a nice vehicle, a home, the possibility of a family all my own, and health. In one fatal swoop, all was lost. First it was the chance to have a family. I didn't see it coming, but it hit me like a ton of stones. The love of my life had packed everything up and moved out without even a "Hey, I'm sorry, but I am going to leave you," or "You've gotten boring." No answer is harder to swallow than the worst one.

    I sulked in my sorrow and self-pity for some time. I don't even know how long I was laid up in the world of misery, but I know it wasn't a bed-and-breakfast kind of stay. It was more like the showing up to a hotel room with your entire closet and a sock stuffed with cash because you are all but moving in kind of stay. Yet, as life does, I was led to getting back on my feet. I knew I was better off without that kind of baggage in my life. If someone wasn't able to stay with me now for no reason, then I wouldn't want them in my life when I needed them for some reason.

    Next out the door was the door itself. Within weeks of the new me coming to life, I lost my job and wasn't able to be current on the bills. I struggled to find a new job, but at my age, what good was I to anyone? I wasn't old, but I was definitely beyond my prime. In my younger years, I could turn the heads of any woman or man that would go my way. Now, it seemed like I had to throw things at them to get their attention. Turning on the charm to an interviewer was no longer sexy. Sexy isn't embedded in the stressed out and little sleep look.

    After a few months of looking with no success, the bank foreclosed on me. They say that people can milk it and stay for a long time before they are forced out. There are supposed to be processes that would allow me to manipulate the system and have a home longer than I deserved. What's the point when there are no utilities to enjoy.

    Out of sheer need, I moved in with my parents. Here I am, almost forty years old and I am moving back in with my parents. Shame doesn't describe the misery I felt. If I knew what was coming next, I would have basked in that sunshine that I had, no matter how little it was.

    I couldn't make the payments on my car, so they finally found it (which I was trying to avoid at all cost) and the bank took it back. There is nothing like telling your parents that you have, literally, just lost everything and you needed to borrow the car keys. There is nothing like feeling sixteen and minuscule all over again.

    Usually at this point people are always saying, "At least you've got your health."  I didn't even have that luxury. Not that it was God raining down His holy vengeance upon my head, but it was due to the stupidity that I seemed to befriend at every turn.

    It wasn't long in the constant running and hunting to find some kind of employment that I found something else that was going to make my life so much better and even a bit easier to handle. That is what I was told, and that is what I hoped would happen with every ounce of my soul.

    They called it Thera-flu.  Yeah, like the cold stuff, but it was a drug. It was something else. It turned my life around; like a bully who picks the poor weak kid up by the ankles and shakes him down for his lunch money. It took no time at all and I was stealing from my parents to get the cash to get more. The guy I bought it from was a hard seller. He wanted what he wanted, and if I didn't have the cash then I could do other things for him. By that I mean sexual favors.

    I had seen enough and bought from him enough to know that it didn't matter if you were a man or woman, he would take the same favors from all them. "A pair of lips is a pair of lips," he once told me.

    My folks found out rather quickly that I had been stealing from them. They were the low tolerance kind of people, so when they found out, the tough love started. I was locked out of the house one night as I was out getting a score. Just a small duffle bag with some of my clothes in it was all they left out for me to take. In reality, that was probably all I owned any more.

    By the end of the year, the drugs had worn me down and at a much faster rate than I thought it ever would. A couple overdoses damaged my body from top to bottom, and even left me with stroke like symptoms. Even my health had abandoned me.

    I do have the streets, however. I have been mugged a few times for what little money and drugs I had. I've been raped while in a drugged up, near death, stupor. That made me consider prison. I could get straight, but I would surely be someone's bitch. I don't think I could willingly do that to myself. But, then again...

For now, I wander the streets of Vegas, just out of sight of the famous Vegas Strip. I only go there to find a wallet or purse, maybe beg for some loose change. Then, back into the shadows I go. One day I am sure I will end up dead.

    I can't really defend myself with the incapable left side of my body, and I can't be aggressive enough to make my way out of the slums. That means I will do what I have to, get beaten up from time to time, get raped from time to time, and be stoned most of those times. I will continue to wonder what is in store for me as I wait for death to find me sitting here with a needle in my arm. I will wait as I dream of what I used to be.