Walking The Line

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. - Thoreau

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General Electric (GE) used to have a large presence in the city where i currently and unwillingly find myself due to circumstances beyond my control.  Over the years they have scaled back considerably.  Before that, going way back, shoe manufacturing was the order of the day.  There is essentially no economic base here.  Health care, social programs, restaurants, bars, convenience and liquor stores rule.   This downtrodden metropolis is overrun with addicts.  You'd be hard-pressed to walk downtown without seeing a needle or a condom (yes, it's that bad).

Some time ago when I was first deposited here in this depressed mecca, I was walking down the sidewalk with my laptop slung over my shoulder on my way to the college one morning.  This very pretty young girl stepped out from the darkness of a covered doorway of a business blocking my path as i I was making my way.  With a sly, seductive smile she inquired, "Looking for a date?"  Taken by surprise and not knowing how to handle the unprecedented situation, I turned around and went up to her.  The only immediate solution I had was to kiss her on the forehead and tell her that this wasn't for her and that there was a better life waiting.

The rooming house I'm in has a quite a few such girls.  Family issues seem to be a common thread.  They dress as provocatively as they can and flirt with me and the other men hoping to get money for their addictions in exchange for sexual favors.  I have resisted so far. but there is this one girl, I say girl but she is forty, very pretty but hardcore addict.  She does what is called speedballs (the simultaneous shooting up with heroin and cocaine and the same thing that killed comedians John Belushi and Chris Farley).  There is a high over-dose risk with this kind of behavior.  She usually covers her arms to hide the damage that the needle has caused.  Her skin is swollen-red and discolored and there is considerable scarring. She has one eye that is starting to close slightly and involuntarily.

I have spent hours talking with "Chrissy".  She visits me in my room and invites me to visit in her's.  I enjoy talking with her very much as she is delightful with keen insights into life.  She's spiritual, believing in a higher power and is into astrology.  She tells me about birth signs, and moon alignments.  We tell each other bits and pieces of our life stories.  She has told me about her addiction and the men that she goes with in order to get money.  The men repulse her.  She is caught in an unrelenting, vicious circle of "hooking" men, chasing down drug dealers. and getting high.  She never gets high in front of me and will ask me to leave so that she can and if I knock and she is doing that she will yell to me through the door that she is "busy" and she will, "see me later". She keeps flirting with me though, trying to entice me but I've yet to give in.  We give each other hugs and reassure each other.

I never knew how powerful and sinister addiction could be.  One time she came to my room in a frenzy because she "needed" a high.  She grabbed my hand and placed it on her breasts saying, "Feel me, I don't just let anybody do that."  In frustration because I would not exchange money for sex with her, she picked something up and threw it across the room, saying, "You never give me any money."  All you give me is stale chips (I often give her food because she doesn't eat enough).  According to her, at the beginning of each month there is always a financial crisis  "My social security didn't get deposited she says and, "I can't pay my phone bill and my phone is shut off now".  It's really that she has blown through all of last month's money and then some and has to pay people back for what she borrowed for her drugs.

I cry for Chrissy every day because her soul is even more beautiful than the outside and she is headed for an early death if she continues on her current path. She is very cunning and persistent.  I adore her.  I'm secretly in love with her but dare not tell her.  I am quite a bit older than her.  Everyday I pray for her and for God to give me the strength not to succumb to her feminine wiles.  After all, I am only a man in the flesh with unholy desires to satisfy that chassis.  Please pray for her and pray for me.  I'm so lonely.  Life can be so hard and cruel.  Love is like a genie in a bottle.  Mercy likes to play hide and seek.  Thoreau was right, "Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves ..."

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Author's Note

"Sing me a song, you're a singer
Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil
The devil is never a maker
The less that you give, you're a taker
So it's on and on and on, it's heaven and hell
Oh well
The lover of life's not a sinner
The ending is just a beginner
The closer you get to the meaning
The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming
So it's on and on and on, oh it's on and on and on
It goes on and on and on, Heaven and Hell
I can tell
Fool, fool
Oh uh
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Well if it seems to be real, it's illusion
For every moment of truth, there's confusion in life
Love can be seen as the answer, but nobody bleeds for the dancer
And it's on and on, on and on and on and on and on and on and on
They say that life's a carousel
Spinning fast, you've got to ride it well
The world is full of kings and queens
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
It's heaven and hell, oh well
And they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night
And when you walk in golden halls
You get to keep the gold that falls
It's heaven and hell, oh no
Fool, fool
You've got to bleed for the dancer
Fool, fool
Look for the answer
Fool, fool, fool"

- Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath