A short Addiction

"Damn, another collapsed vein" I thought to myself as I searched for a suitable alternative. Ahh, here we go. The pinch, followed by the rush. Then the nausea sets in. The high, oh the high. At the time I didn't know that this would be the last time I'd ever shoot Heroin. Hell, I didn't know much. I knew how to hustle $25 to get my next fix. I knew how to cook it up on a spoon and inject. But it seemed lifetimes ago since I'd had any real self-worth or knowledge. 
         Now, don't get me wrong. I wasn't always like this. I don't want you to get the wrong impression of me here. I was once a graduate of Harvard Law School. I had an accomplished career and my own practice in NYC. I was born in to a moderately successful household and I was afforded more advantages than most could dream of. But there's always a turning point. That moment when the pressure grows and the dam breaks. And oh boy did it break. After a failed marriage and a suicide attempt I'd ended up at skid row. Y'know, the place where we all go when there's nothing left to live for but that tiny shimmer of fading hope. Who would've known that for me that shimmer would come in the form of an over dose.
         Her name was Bethany. She was by all means your typical girl in every way. Worked a 9-5 retail job. Aesthetically far from a super model yet her features were gentle. Had it not been for Beth I would've been just another cold body laid out in the street waiting for the coroner to claim my remains.
         In a world full of last hopes she was my safety net. Perhaps the only person to ever care about me.  Long after my parents had passed and my siblings had written me off. I never quite understood what she saw in me. She'd pass by every day as I sat at the corner of 1^st and Maple. She'd sit next to me and hand me a cup of warm coffee and a bagel and discuss life's intricacies with me. Why we're here, politics. It didn't matter, she was the reason I sat on that corner day after day. Maybe it was because we understood. She, herself, had her own struggles. Only a few short months before she'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I suppose she just wanted to get away from the sorrows of her life as well. The "you'll be ok sweetie's" and the "everything happens for a reason." I was her symbol of realism. I never once suggested that she'd be ok. Nor she to me. We both understood. Once in a while she'd crack a joke and say something like, "you know that stuff'll kill you right." And we'd laugh. That sort of laugh that fades to the realization that we're all mortals and for us the end was sooner than later.
         Once in a while she'd hand me an OxyContin or two to hold me over until I could get my next fix. But that was Beth. She never judged. She was dynamic. She was the sort of girl that would give you the shirt off her back in the middle of an ice storm simply because you looked like you needed to be warmer.
         It was her that found me that day you know. Laying in the proverbial gutter. She'd taken me to the ER and sat by my side for 2 days straight while they pumped god knows what through my system in an attempt to stop one thing after another as I laid there convulsing. The doctors even asked her how long we'd been together and if I had taken any other drugs. I suppose they were taken aback when she said that she'd just met me. And that was how we became to know one another. That was our genesis.

         Beth's passing was the hardest thing that I've ever had to deal with. I remember sitting on that corner one day and she didn't show. And then the day after. And on the third or fourth day a woman of similar appearance approached me and asked me if I was Richard. I replied with a soft "yes, ma'am." I knew. I could see the welting tears in her eyes. I could see how her soul wept and every fiber of her being cried for a love lost too soon. She informed me of Beth's passing. And that Beth had left instructions on where to find me and that her dying wish was that I could attend her funeral. And she'd informed her family that I was her strength for her last few months. And the conversations we'd had.
         Admittingly seeing her laying in that rosewood box was the hardest thing I'd dealt with in years. It reminded me of my own mortality. It reminded me that I had a choice and Beth didn't. In that moment I felt so selfish. I felt angered that I'd let myself get to this point. I felt the frustration of my pettiness and how life is so unfair. She'd left me feeling weak and afraid.
         But, that wasn't all that Beth had left me. She'd left me with the opportunity to get well. She'd given every last penny that she had to see to it that I get the help that I needed. That I check myself in to rehab. And so I did.
         90 days clean! It's amazing how life works isn't it? Sometimes it just takes that one person and the right time to show you that even at your lowest lows there's still hope. Beth, I cannot thank you enough for the life that you'd afforded me. I wish there was more that I could've done for you while you were still with us; but, I think that in the long run everything worked out just as you'd planned.

Your favorite vagrant,
Richard