A cruise with Mikey the once and future king of crittling
God, what a strange day. I went to a meeting with Tim and Pete, which was cathartic as always. Afterwards I went shopping for foodstuffs, during which time I got a call from another of my treatment buddies, Mikey the once and future king of Spring-tucky crittling.
Crittling is a fancy tweeker term for fencing stolen electronics and other shit that those wacky meth users steal from people's houses. Really, a multi-faceted word that should and I feel will be utilized more and more by non-stimulant addicted folks like me and hopefully you. I think its a wonderful sounding word whose roots, in my mind, must come from the onomatopoeia of the sounds of little insect feet skittering across a floor in pursuit of the crumbs left by the greater magnitudes of critters.
Mikey got out of inpatient a week after I did and had been cooped up in his mom's house with his pregnant girlfriend, her twin sister and her newborn and the babies' daddy. I could tell he needed to just fly free for a moment. I burned a copy of Brotha Lynch's seminal album, "Season of the siccness", Mikey's favorite musician, and mounted up in the black batwing to grab Mikey and cruise around.
We talked about our welfare and going to meetings and it felt good to see the Mike-ster doing so well. Mikey is 22 and was bristling at the restrictions of inpatient. I'm sure no one in there gave him much of a chance to succeed, but I see something there that maybe everyone else doesn't. He is motivated by his unborn baby, and I think people might have mistook his eagerness to leave for something that it wasn't, the urge to get back on the streets. Anyways, I have faith in Mikey and I hope my vision of a placid future for him is accurate. Maybe somewhere in the recesses of my head space there is something telling me he might not make it, so don't hold out hope or bet the farm or insert a valid cliche, but I don't see the harm in seeing the good in someone and visualizing a vivid and bright future for each person in the throws of an endless battle against addiction in which there in no quarter.
At the Narcotics Anonymous meeting tonight, I noted an interesting mixture of humor and sadness on this, the eve of the eve of Christmas. Someone would tell a story and relate a humorous anecdote that would be inevitably followed by a tale of utter sorrow. For example, a gentleman shared about his brother who was attempting to start a program of recovery. He hit his bottom after going from half-cocked to fully loaded. Living in Oklahoma, he quit his job to start a landscaping business, which I guess is pretty quixotic in a plains land like good ol' OK. The gentleman made his point by saying he started the business to chase tumbleweeds, which might be the most beautiful semi-intentional metaphor I've ever heard. That made everyone laugh, and the next line out of the person who is sharings mouth was something to the effect of, "and then he tried to hang himself". I watched the faces in the room melt into a reflecting pool of transparent pallor from the previous state of upturned exuberance.
I just read a piece I wrote while living in the Bergdorf hotel about a semi-autobiographical character. It was bizarre. Such a difference time and space can make. I was living in a fleabag hotel in dear dirty juneau, working there and jogging in place on a fast track home to oblivion as Elliott would say. I'll excerpt it here sometime if I can bring myself to work on it. One of the reasons I love writing is for the postcards I send my future self with each page I take the time to put into posterity.
Always moving forward doesn't mean I can glance in the rear view and crack a wry grin every now and again.
Related Articles:
-
National Novel Writing Month is, they say, a fun, approach to novel writing. Participants... Read Full Story » -
Home » Forums » NaNo Tips & Strategies » Reaching 50,000! Totems bereccabox Totems 0... Read Full Story » -
Home » Forums » Genre Lounges » Fantasy "Big" storie for Nano? Amanita "Big" storie for... Read Full Story » -
Home » All Regions » USA :: Maine Lulu?? lizbeth9106 Lulu?? 0 / 50,000 Official Participant... Read Full Story » -
Home » Forums » Genre Lounges » Horror & Supernatural Prepping For Writing Horror by Watching... Read Full Story »
Comments
