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By Root 1341 0

house was in a beautiful little area. We pulled into the driveway with flowers and birds singing and all that. My mother wasn't home. The doors were locked. I went back to the car and said, "She's not there." All this time I'm drinking my bottle. Christine's crying. She says, "I wonder when she's coming back." I said, "Oh, man, fuck you! Leave!" She looked at me. I said, "Get the fuck out of here!" She said, "Okay, if that's what you want." She screeched out of the driveway and then she stopped and looked back. She shouted, "Fuck you, motherfucker!" She gave me the finger, and she roared away. You could hear the motor fade in the distance. Then the silence came back. And I felt like I did when I was a kid, when my mother would be out, drunk, with the door locked, and I'd be sitting on the porch waiting for her. I sat on the front porch of my mother's house. I was forty-four years old, and I was finished with life.

21

Synanon

1969

CHRISTINE had taken all the clothes and junk out of the car and thrown them on the porch. There they lay, all my worldly goods. That was it. That was me, sitting there with my bottle of brandy. It was funny, actually; I started laughing. That was me, the sum total of my life at this age.

I sat and waited, nipping off my bottle. I was really loaded by this time. I was mumbling and making noises. Then I hear a car in the driveway, and here she is, my mother. She looked all pleasant until she glanced over at the porch and saw me sitting there. What a sight I must have been. She made out my belongings in a heap and me hunched over like a grinning idiot with a bottle of brandy in my hand. She shook her head: "Oh, God, what has he done now? What's in store for me now?" I just sat there. I couldn't even get up. She parked the car and walked over and said, "Junior, what happened? What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I just came to visit." And I laughed. She said, "Oh, the landlady!" The landlady lived right in front. She said, "Oh, the landlady, the neighbors! Why don't you put that bottle away? You're not supposed to drink, are you?" I said, "Oh, later with the landlady!"

My mother had changed a lot over the years. She had found God. She had accepted Christ as her personal savior, and she'd stopped drinking and smoking. Since then she'd become badly crippled with arthritis. She said, "What happened? Where's Christine?" I said, "Christine's gone. She's gone. She's finished. She's gone. She left me here." My mother said, "Oh, junior, you can't stay here! You know that. We've tried that before. It won't work." I said, "Don't get upset! Don't start flipping out, ma! I know it isn't going to work. I'm not asking to stay with you. I'm not going to stay with you. I know you don't want me to stay with you. You'd rather have me lay in the gutter and die than have me stay with you!" She said, "You don't have to talk like that." I said, "Well, it's true, isn't it?" She said, "Oh, junior, please!"

I'd gone over there before-when I'd been hooked. I'd stay overnight now and then, and I'd burn things. When you're high on stuff you nod out and drop your cigarettes. She had a piano, and I'd put cigarettes down on the side of the piano and burn holes in the wood. And in her rugs. And in her couch. In things she couldn't replace. I said, "The only favor I want to ask you is if I could call my dad on your phone. Don't worry, I'm going to call collect. I'm not going to ask you for the price of a phone call." She said okay. She opened the door and she said, "You look terrible." I said, "I know I look terrible. I feel terrible." She said, "Bring that stuff in so the landlady won't see it." I said, "Fuck the landlady." She said, "Junior, watch your language, please." I said, "Oh, fuck the landlady and everybody else!" I took the junk I had and dragged it into the front room along with my bottle. I called my dad and he said, "Of course! You know you're always welcome here." My dad was sick. He had emphysema, and his eyes weren't good. He said, "Can I come up tomorrow and get you, so I can beat the traffic?" My dad