It's my own fault, really, because I was somewhere I wouldn't normally be, but it happened just the same.
When I go to Atlanta and I pass the west side I always drive through the trap, I can't help it, its what I do, its where I came from. I never want to forget where I came from and there are times when I need to see how far God has brought me. He, my husband, used to scold me all the time about driving through there, but I've never been scared of it. I used to drive through twice a day going to and from work. I've driven through when I had lots of money in my purse. It doesn't affect me now because I've been doing it for so long and if I feel a certain way about it, I just keep going.
There have been many times when I stopped and gave someone I knew a good word, or some money or prayed for someone as I was going by. I used to picked up everybody walking along the side of the street on my way to church and drive them back down the block afterwards.
I lived there for a long time, called those means streets my home and the people in them my family. There are times when I can look back and see how often God protected my life in a place where life has no value, people are bought and sold every day and no one loves you.
I was caught completely by surprise because I hadn't expected him to be on the Boulevard, I expected him to be up in Adamsville, a few blocks away, the Flat Lands. His mother lives up that way and he's always telling me how he doesn't like the Boulevard, how the boys are fighting and killing one another over the girls. He told me he was sitting at the bus stop and some boys came along and killed the boy sitting next to him, yet he's still out there.
That's the insanity of it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
He's been shot four or five times himself! He's still out there, doing what he does, those instances of almost dying being the furthest thing from his mind, because he's trying to get high. Trying to catch a high that's long past and will never return to him the same way he wants it, but he's still chasing behind it just like the rest of them, listening to that voice that's constantly talking to him.
I know him anywhere, I know him lurking in the trees, I know him bent over looking on the ground for something someone may have dropped, I know him in the dark from blocks away, I know him because I have loved him for the last thirteen years and will continue to love him until the day I die. I can get in my car right this minute, drive the two and half hours there and find him in less than five minutes, I've done it so many times before.
I was so scared sitting at that red light, him so close, not that he would hurt me, but this big gigantic scene would have played out. I am crazy but I'm far from stupid and I've had enough of those scenes to know I didn't want one that day. He would've tried to get in the car with me, then he would want me to take him somewhere and he'd want to know if I had any money and it would have been this huge ordeal to get him to go on about his business and leave me alone, I didn't even want him to know I was in Georgia! I had the puppy with me and that would have caused an even bigger scene and then I would have found myself standing on the boulevard trying to get the puppy back or just running him over to get away from him.
He may have come up with the bright idea he could sell the puppy to get some crack and snatched him out of the car to do just that.
When he got shot the last time, he called me and I didn't believe him until I saw the ambulance with him sitting in the back of it. I had just gotten a car, I had money, I wondered if he was trying to get me down there so they could take my car. Addicts have this wonderful way of burning up all your trust and you begin to second guess and suspect everyone of ulterior motives. There was a time when I would give my mother in law the keys to my car, so it would still be at the house in the morning when I woke up. I used to give her all my money too, because that's just what you have to do in order to lay down and go to sleep with an addict. When he wasn't home, I barely slept expecting him to come in looking crazy at any moment.
There are people in the street I've known for so long I can tell you who they are from half a mile away, I never have to see their faces, I know their body language, we used to be family, we roamed the streets together, got high together, argued and tried our best to survive. Many of them are still there, even though I've been gone all this time. It's amazing to me they are still there when I look at my own life, how different it is now, how far away I've traveled from that place. I still go to church there sometimes and there they are, tired, beat down, dozing off during service, year after year.
He was limping with a styrofoam box in his hand because one of the churches had bee down there earlier handing out food, I couldn't see much because there are huge hedges in the lot they were on, which is exactly how I would have missed him. I was going to see an old friend and cut the four or so blocks through from one highway to the other. He had on jeans and a wife beater, I didn't see what kind of shoes, he was dirty and tired and looked miserable, my guess is he was so miserable and not high he didn't even know he was in the world. He's lost a good twenty five thirty pounds and being so tall it shows. He weighed about two thirty five when I took him home in October, because he'd relapsed twice here, took the car I'm still paying for, stayed gone four days the second time.
I saw him walking with a dope boy and a white girl. I didn't feel anything but shocked at seeing him. Thank God I wasn't in my truck that would have been game over. Oh my goodness! I'm so glad I was in the car.
I didn't even feel any kind of way seeing him tag along behind the girl, because even I know white girls are gold in the trap and if you're really trying to catch some money and get high you should stick with the white girls.
It was about me, not him I filed for divorce after nine years, i just can't do it anymore. I can't fix him, he doesn't want to be well, he's always going to go back and I've got thirteen years experience in knowing that. I can't go back! I've been trying to drag him out of hell while God is trying to move me forward into something else.
I didn't want to go to him. I didn't feel sad for him, I didn't even feel any of the old feelings I've been nurturing for him deep down inside me, I felt nothing except fear he would see me. It concreted my resolve that he's doing what he wants to do, he's where he wants to be and I'm of no consequence.
Behind the scenes of this God was whispering to me "See? It's alright. I've got him and I've got you too, do what you have to do I won't hold it against you." My peace never left me.
It's over. It was over before it started but God gave his daughter the desire of her heart and it was him, even knowing what would happen and how it would end.
I'm okay with that.
I still lock the doors at night, just in case he shows up, but that's out of years of habit knowing addicts are unpredictable. He won't be coming down here, even though the back of my mind is always saying, you never know. I do know, I saw the state of the man on that street, he won't be down here.
I don't even entertain what he's thinking because I know him and he's using me as an excuse to be worse off than ever before, because it's what he does.
He's sitting down there giving everyone advice, telling others what he thinks they should do, how they should go home, how they shouldn't be like him. I've heard it all before, I've witnessed it firsthand and the story never changes.
My humanity still aches for him, I still pray for him every night, I still believe God for his deliverance, but if he had five years clean and a job all that time, he still couldn't ask me to dinner, it's gone that far. I have alot of responsibility and I've let him have it all for far too long. My life came back around to me and I took it back and it's something so different than any life I've ever had before and there's no place for him in it, because he's left me for the streets so many times I'm numb. It's worse than a man who cheats because atleast with a cheater you can compete with the women he cheats on you with. You can't compete with the streets or drugs, it's not possible, but it feels just as bad as being cheated on.
The time came when I couldn't accept him back with unconditional love, when I'd run out of responses because I'd tried every one. The only thing I didn't do was take a two by four to the side of his head and with my luck I would have killed him and I'd be sitting in prison, so it's just as well I decided long ago he wasn't going to learn anything that way.
It doesn't matter anymore, It's so broken there will be no fixing it. He made me a liar vowing the rest of my life to do something no one can do. I've felt so bad about that part of it. I was a good wife, I spent six years waiting for him to get out of prison, writing him letters every single day, I took him back time and time again only for him to leave time and time again.
Now I'm just waiting on my court day so I can be free and change my name.
I'm waiting for the day I can drive there with someone to help me load my stuff out of my mother in law's shed and bring it back home at long last. I'm waiting for the day when God sends that next someone along who is going to be His man.
I've spent alot of time waiting and waiting and waiting over the last thirteen years, I've developed alot of patience and when my heart stopped blinding me my mind knew it was time to move on. It's time to move on, it's okay for me to want to do that. My Father in heaven has reassured me He's not holding it against me.
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