I was sad. Sniffling, and holding back tears I apologized I took my last check and went home. Now I had to tell this asshole that I had been fired from my job. I was unemployed with a black eye and a broken spirit.
Pulling up to the carport, I wished that I had some sensational story to tell about getting fired. Oh well, he isn’t my daddy was the best thought I could come up with. But I knew if I was too smart mouthed. He would whoop my ass like he was my daddy.
I parked, grabbed my purse and looked inside the envelope. That check was $2,000. With that amount of money and the bills REALLY paid for the month. I knew that me and my lover would be too sky high to be fighting. He was a fiend and so was I. It’s funny that I used to be scared of that word. How it used to cut me and make me feel like the scum of the earth.
Everyone has had a demon or two. Drugs were my demon. I unlocked the front door as slowly as possible. When I turned the corner to go into the kitchen, he was there sitting, not doing shit. That was his daily routine. As much as I hated him and what we were becoming. I was glad to back home with him.
When we made eye contact. I immediately turned on the crocodile tears. They weren’t fake tears, but I knew I needed to press them out fast and loud. Before, I had a matching set of black eyes.
I sobbed in his lap and told them how they did me in. Failing… to mention the reason that for my termination. “Tamekia has been emotionally distraught, and unprepared to perform said job, at a satisfactory level.”
My lover didn’t even ask about the reason. But he did ask if they cut my last check. I just handed him the envelope. His eyes lit up. Yeah life sucked. But the bullshit I was being force fed, would taste better once a little coke got in my system and I had the anxiety fucked out of me.
Issues were never clarified, reasons never justified and problems never resolved. The drugs had us unconcerned and unbothered by real life issues. We were a mess. But tonight we would be a high mess. This was the difference between an awesome night….or a night of flying fists.
He grabbed his keys and to the bank we went. Now that there was more free time, I was hoping that it would be well spent with each other. If our time wasn’t well spent, somebody may be dead by the end of the week. I honestly felt like it could be me. I would continue to hold on. I refused to call it quits. Black eye and all we would get thru this
The scariest thing is, loving another person more than you love yourself. Fuck love, give me the drugs. The love I possessed was a gift and a curse. I was done crying I was ready to go get this dope. So, with my clearly exposed black eye, I went inside the bank. Cashed my check, lost my pride and tucked my dignity.
We were off to go and buy as much drugs, as we could handle for the night. Life sucked …but I would live off our cocaine high to get thru my dark moments.
CHAPTER 17
IT’S ALL ABOUT DRUGS
Even though it wasn’t the most favorable situation, we had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation. I will say that everything wasn’t all bad. But everything was far from good. In between the fights, the drugs, the make-up sex and the madness we did have some fun.
We had a few parties. His friends and cousins would come over and we would we have a ball. I almost always drank too much, and spent most of my over the toilet. We woke up when we wanted to and then plotted on how to take over the world.
When you use drugs, you are constantly thinking about your next move and using more drugs. We stayed high every day. We had so much time on our hands. As soon as we woke up. I gave him the money and he went and copped drugs.
Life was changing at such fast pace, I was fearful of the speed we were moving at. Since I was home all day, I had plenty opportunities to talk to my lover about any and everything. But usually after we used drugs, there wasn’t too much conversation after that.
I told my lover after he had copped about $100 worth of drug. That I wanted to roll the blunt for us, he was hesitant. But gave me all the tools I needed, the blunt, the weed, and the cocaine. He told me to break the cocaine down with the razor blade until it was powder like.
That’s when I asked him “If this is Coke, why is this like a rock?” That is when he told my naïve ass… that it was Crack. This whole time we were smoking Crack. My mama was going to kill me and for some reason using Coke sounded a little bit more respectful as a drug of choice.
While I rolled this blunt he also warned me to never snort this type of coke. It would kill me. Life was full of surprises. Especially mine. So all this time I have been smoking Crack? Did that make me a Crack head? At that time I didn’t think so, and I could find a million reasons why I wasn’t a Crack head.
The number one reason was because there was no pipe involved. I thought in order to be that you had to be using a pipe. Like on New Jack City. I guess I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. I sealed the blunt up, dried it off and sparked it up.
At a minimum level we were smoking at least 10 blunts. On a maximum level, we smoked almost 40 blunts. It was a feeling that can never be explained. It’s beyond powerful, that’s why we mixed the Weed with it. To balance out the harshness of the drug. We made love, we kissed, we fought, and we used drugs.
He would put me out; throw my clothes out the front door. I would call my friends to come and get me. They would come and rescue me, but I would always go back. It was becoming obvious to others that something was wrong with me. I just told them that I was stressed. No one understood why I stayed with him, and neither did I.
What I did know for sure. Is that it was hard for me to stay away from him. It was hard to stay away from the drugs. It was nearly impossible for me to consistently stay around my friends and enjoy their company. Everything was revolved around getting high and since they didn’t use drugs, I barely seen them.
I was becoming something that I didn’t want other people to see. I was embarrassed, so I stayed away. They cared about me so much and they were so wonderful. I felt it was best for me to stay where I was at, in turmoil with him.
I’ll never forget getting dressed one day to hang out with one of my girlfriends and my panties fell off of me. I had no idea how thin I really was. Everything in my closet slid off my thin frame. I had the figure of a snake. My existence was getting more shameful by the day. But I didn’t care, it was me and my lover and fuck anyone else.
As long as I was appealing to him….then whoever else didn’t like it, could kiss my ass. He was getting thin too. His face was scared with acne, and there were lines that creased his face, that weren’t there before. We slowly became people that we didn’t even recognize.
Sometimes when we would fight we would talk about how the other person looked. Our fighting was at an all-time high and more violent than ever. He asked me once “Where did your ass go?” I told him “The same place your dick went…” He slapped the shit out of me. Drugs had changed us they made him violent and kept me paranoid.
As if our situation wasn’t already bad enough. He taught me a new bad habit. He taught me how to shop lift. I never stole anything in my life, but I wasn’t opposed to it either. This whole time I was thinking that all his nice, material objects were acquired by working hard. No. He acquired those nice things with his sticky hands. I wanted nice expensive things too. Plus we needed an additional source of income to feed our growing addiction. Nothing was off limits.
Top shelf liquor was our biggest seller. We went in every store in our area, and it didn’t matter if the items were behind the counter. He would take the bottles of alcohol we stole and trade them for dope. He was the business end of all the drug transactions. I was just the pretty girl that sat in his truck waiting to get high.
My lover could take anything that was not nailed down. I was scared the first few times, but then it was fun. The only times that I was really scared, was when I felt like we were hot in a certain store. He was never scared, even if we were hot. We saved so much money since we stole everything. When we did grocery shop, he would push grocery carts ou
t of the store filled with groceries.
This was the life of drug addicts. We were barely functioning. I was incoherent most of the time and he was volatile. Pushing and shoving became normal. I expected it. I probably needed that verbal abuse just to feel alive. I was dying inside. If he wasn’t physically abusing me, it was verbal.
As much as my body craved him, it was hard to make love with someone that beat your ass during the day. Then act like nothing ever happened. I never imagined this life, for myself. When my mama came to visit, I tried to act like things were normal.
She told me not to move in there with him and so did several other people. But I didn’t think I would be able to survive without him so I stayed. I repeatedly came back when he kicked me out. I was always reassuring people, that we were in love and things were fine. Things were far from fine. I wanted to die and I wanted to die high.
The drugs took the pain away they made things better and a little bit easier to manage. Once our hustle became better and I listened to him more instead of being argumentative. That made life a little bit better. It was the summer and I just wanted to have fun. Tension eased and we let up on using for a little while. I started getting dressed every day instead of lying around like his sex slave.
We spent most of our good days going to the mall and stealing whatever our hearts desired. That summer seemed hotter than the average Bay Area summer. I remember driving around high as fuck when all of sudden I started feeling sick. I tried to tell my lover, let’s just go home. But he said one more store we had one more store to hit. I never had a choice in what we did, unless he was broke.
So I walked behind him in several stores. Getting impatient, I told him I need to go sit in the car. I felt weak. Finally, he was ready. We got onto an elevator full of people. I passed out. When I came too, I was no longer in the elevator. I was confused. I saw the look on my lovers face and snapped out of it….Real quick. He helped me up and scolded me all the way to the car. He was pissed. I was pissed, that he was pissed. I told him I wasn’t feeling good. Now my head was pounding.
Smoking Crack in extreme heat is a recipe for disaster. I called Kaiser and they advised me to come in, they thought I had a concussion. From hitting my head when I passed out. But I couldn’t come in. I was scared that they would call the police about how high I was. So I made up an excuse. Excuses. I was becoming good at giving those.
The advice nurse told me to stay up the whole night and monitor my pain. I was scared. I fucked up, now I had thoughts of dying of a concussion. Much to my surprise he encouraged me to go to the Dr. the next day. He said that I didn’t look so good. So I went. Luckily, I was fine.
When I came in the door he was lying across the bed. When he seen my face he jumped up and held me tight. No one would ever be able to fathom, the level of addiction we had for each other and the drugs.
CHAPTER 18
BACK TO WORK
Life was a little less miserable. Having all day and night with him was wonderful. But I couldn’t just lay up every single day in a dark ass house. Getting fucked up. I know I was making plenty of mistakes, but my mama raised me better than that. So I landed another position at my last job’s competitor.
They loved me. I always had the ability to make friends especially at work. This place was no different. My coworkers would pick me up and bring me home whenever I needed. This became an all the time situation. I never had any money for gas because we spent it all on drugs.
I saw $900 go in one night. When it was no stores open to steal from, and no more money, I got my ass whooped. Even though, I had went back to work. Money was still not like it was. So his nephew and his girlfriend came to stay with us.
It was cool, because when things were tense between the two of us there were others people, to interact with. I made a friend in the nephew’s girlfriend. We used each other as needed. Half the time we only came out of our bedrooms when it was dark. At first I wasn’t for sure if his nephew got high. But when he started riding shot gun to make runs, I knew he did. This was fine with me.
It was nice to have the company in the house it made it feel more like a home. Versus a dark place, where bad shit happened. Although I was happier, my jealousy was at an all-time high. I was getting less attention now that the nephew was there. He was spending more nights out, with places to go.
So I tried to manage my time better. I was back at work. I conversed with the girlfriend here and there. I started reaching out to my friends. But it was all an act. I just wanted to be with him. I didn’t want to talk or hang out with anyone else.
I constantly was looking for ways to be sweet. His fish had recently died and he was apprehensive about getting more. So one day I surprised him and bought him some gold fish. But when he came home he was pissed at the sight of them. “Goldfish are dirty, and raggedy.” I held my head down in disbelief. A few days went by and I caught him talking to the raggedy gold fish, while he was feeding them.
I was happy about that, but then I felt mad about it. He had just belittled me. He made my simple act of generosity feel unappreciated and stupid. So I killed those fish all nine of them. So now he couldn’t complain or praise them. They were dead. He knew I killed those fish. But I lied with a straight face. He had taught me how to do that. So now I was a killer and a Crack Head. Life was a joke. My life was a joke.
His temper was up and down. I had this crazy notion, that maybe I would get beat up less since we had roommates. That was wishful thinking. I was getting my ass whooped in our bedroom and no one rescued me. No one said shit to him. I felt like his nephew should have said something.
But the nephew wasn’t stupid, that was a battle he didn’t want. Especially, because he needed a place to live. Never bite the hand that feeds you. The nephew stayed silent. The girlfriend stayed silent and I had been on mute. Sometimes we would be chillin’ in the living room, and talking shit. My lover would start trippin’ for no reason. I would just sit there and take it. If he thought too hard about anything, he could turn violent. There was no one to save me. But even worse I wasn’t willing to save myself.
Money was getting extremely low. I had a gut feeling that I wouldn’t keep my job for very long. I could barely stand to be away from him. This made going to work impossible. Plus I was extorting money from two of my coworkers and robbing them for anything that wasn’t nailed down.
I had picked up so many bad habits and mastered all of them. I was happy to have my own money. But in between him and the drugs I don’t know which was harder for me to be away from.- Unemployment gave my lover the impression that there was still a nice amount left in that account. With the option to get two extensions if he needed too, to his surprise they stopped his checks. I was the only one in the house with a job.
The nephew had the audacity to tell me I was making too much noise in the morning. It went in one ear and straight out the other ear. Then he told my lover. I was choked shoved and advised to put my shoes on at the door, and not stomp thru the house with them on. No good ass men…were my only thought. I was sick of everyone in that house that had a penis. This living situation sucked.
It was grueling, getting up every morning. While three other grown people stayed sleep. Something needed to change. I just didn’t know how to make those changes.
Mold starting growing in our closet over a course of time. Times were getting a little rougher and Christmas was around the corner. My check seemed so small by the time bills were paid. The only thing I could treat myself to, was buying my lunch at work. Even that I had to hide. He owned me. His hustle income wasn’t even enough for rent.
Then the eviction notice came. It was on the kitchen table for days until it was looked at. What were we going to do.? We brainstormed collectively. With no solution, I felt like the world was on my shoulders. My lover and his nephew even plotted on robbing my ex roommate. That fell through, thankfully.
We had to give all our regular spots that we stole from a rest, before we went to jail. The icing on th
e cake was getting fired from my job. Times were hard as fuck. That was a hard one to swallow. I had it to good and I let it slip thru my hands. All behind a man and drugs.
The devil was riding my ass, and God was nowhere in my sight. I just gave up. We were all pushed between a rock and a hard place. Having no money is the equivalent to no options. The mold spreading in our closet bought us time. His mom tried to pay everything but it was too late
My family’s door was always open, but there would be questions I didn’t want to answer. No surprise that he went with his mama. The nephew went to Frisco I think. I went to my mom’s house. That didn’t last. Fitting in with my own family had long expired.
CHAPTER 19
MOVING AROUND
I went to my grandma’s house thankful, to have a roof over my head. If it wasn’t for her I would have been homeless. She said I was too thin. I was breaking hearts that I didn’t even consider. I looked in the mirror, only to see a vague reflection of someone that I used to know. Myself. I was so skinny I could fit my 13 year old sister’s clothes.
But the best part about grandparents is that they nourish in a different way than mom and dad do. I was slowly getting back to a decent weight. Living at my grandma’s house was good for me and could have been better if I knew how to stay in the house. My nerves were bad, anxiety high and my addiction was destroying my sanity.
Without my lover I didn’t know even know how to buy drugs for myself. What did I say? Can I buy some Crack? Do you have any Crack for sell? So I walked around depressed, getting fatter by the day. With me in San Jose and him in Stockton that was such a long distance. I didn’t even have my car anymore. How in the fuck were we going to see each other? Why did I come back here and quit my job at American Express?
Love Made Me Do It Page 8