I'm Better Than This

‘’Ma, I love you, I'm sorry. I need to do this, you know I do.’’

She ducks out of the tent without saying a word. Her bony back showing from the top of her stained tank top. I watch her through the flap as she walks away, her spider vein legs covered in bruises and scars from the million needles she’s seen in her day. Her matted red hair stagnant in the air, molded into an unmoving clump of filth. I could have better than this. We both know it. I’ve got time left to live and a ticket to rehab, any mother in the world other than her would be pushing me to take it. But I’ve gotta push myself. I’ve always had to be the one to push myself with a mother like her. 

It’s not her fault that she’s like this. I don’t think it's completely my fault that I’m like this either. Our family has an unlucky deck of cards and we all just keep dealing them out. In fact maybe this is me trying to change the inevitable. I was born from a junkie who was born from a junkie and I’ve contributed to the births of a few kids who will probably be junkies too. Maybe they already are, not like i’d know. It's probably my freakin destiny, written in the mother fucking stars that I sit here and die in a tent on Skid Row with my old bat of a mother. 

But I know that it’s time to turn around. I deserve a better shot, my kids deserve a better shot. And even if I don’t deserve it, I'm sure as hell not gonna die in the tent I share with my mother as a 32 year old man. For fucks sake it's ridiculous, I could have any girl I wanted if I just cleaned up a bit. I could rent a chair in a tattoo studio, get a house, get a car, and get some of my kids back if I just pulled myself out of this gutter. 

I’ve even got the means to do it now. I got the call last week. It was from Caroline's parents out in Oklahoma. Caroline was probably one of the better decisions I made in my life. She was pretty, but in more of the cute way. She wanted to be tough but would black out after just a line of coke. She wasn’t made for this life and I guess that’s a good thing. I actually made the decision I was gonna drop her two days before she told me she was pregnant. With this news, I stayed a bit longer. She was only baby momma number two so at this point I still had morals about leaving my kids before they were born. It’s funny, I actually sort of wound up being the one getting dropped. I had lost my job at the construction site and we were living in this tiny shit hole apartment my buddy used as a trap house. It was only until three guys came busting down our door all strapped with AK-47’s looking for my buddy that she told me she and our month old son were moving back with her parents and I wasn’t invited. But last week, I got a call from her parents telling me the kid was now eight and that they were willing to fly me to Oklahoma and pay for some fancy rehab center if I would just get to the airport in time to catch the plane.

I would be fucking stupid not to do it. A free pass to getting my life together. A free pass to getting off these rotten streets, smoking dope my ma trades blow jobs for. A free pass away from the most ratchet of ratchet, people who barely count as people in this society because of how they choose to get by.  I deserve to get away from this, i’m smart, fucking sexy, I could do and have anything I want. Why haven’t I shoved my shit in a bag and said goodbye to this nightmare of a place yet. 

There’s more reasons than most would think. Rehab means goodbye to the drugs, to the only escape I've ever found in this fucked world. It also means goodbye to a life of no responsibility, a life with few consequences and few questions. There’s no judgment on Skid Row, we’re all rats but at least we know it. I was born a rat. Why am I trying to die anything else? Leaving Skid Row also means goodbye to my mom. Probably for good this time. She has always been so in and out of my life but I always knew she’d let me share a tent with her if I ever needed it. We’re cut from the same cloth. She’s done terribly fucked up things in her life, many to me personally, but I could never judge her for it or I would be a hypocrite. She never came close to being a good mother but you can’t blame someone for not being something they’ve never seen. 

If I leave my mom here on Skid Row, she’ll die in this tent with a needle in her arm or strangled in the back of some guy's car. The thing is, that’ll probably happen regardless of if I'm here or not. I shouldn’t be holding on to her so tightly. I know that she would ditch me in a second if a better opportunity came along for her. The only reason she wants me to stay now is because I help her get smack. She’s always been that way, only after her own personal gain. Maybe that’s a good way to live life, never having to worry about anyone else's well being. 

I need to get out of here before she comes back. She probably went to try and score lunch at the McDonalds and in that case it won't be long before she’s back. People tend to sympathize with hungry old white women. If she gets back before I'm gone, there's a chance that I’ll stay. I can't risk that, sealing my fate. I have to go, give myself a shot, give my kids a better shot. Maybe even apologize to some people. 

I grab my bag and stuff a pair of socks and a hoodie into it. I ruffle through my pockets and pull out a few crinkled dollars and some change and leave it on my moms blanket. I step out of the tent and look around. The air smells like piss and you can see people sitting in their own. A hundred more tents line the sidewalk full of people living different versions of the same story. I'm better than this... I could be better than this. Mom deserves to have a kid who’s better than this.