Another Piece of the Puzzle

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Tony felt oddly satisfied as he climbed the steps and entered
his home. He closed the door securely behind him and then
scanned the room. He remembered the tattered couch and
matching loveseat as furniture that his mother had purchased from
a second hand thrift store. The cushions had seen their better
days. Every piece of furniture needed to either be replaced or
repaired. They had a second hand entertainment center that had
fallen apart last year. He had managed to nail the shelves back
into place, not really paying attention to the way he aligned them.

The carpeting was a drab olive shade with a huge rip that showed
the worn wooden floor underneath. He had tried to hide the tear by
strategically placing furniture over it, only to have to move it to
make room for more furniture that he had picked up from the street.

He crossed the room, stepping over a stack of old magazines and
newspapers that he had meant to throw out some weeks ago. The
walls were in need of spackling and a new coat of paint. Water
damage had occurred in the upper left corner of the dining room
some time ago. Last year, the toilet had flooded, and went without
being repaired for several months. In that time period, the dining
room walls warped and buckled.
Depression crashed in around him. He looked to his right at
the stairway that led to the second floor. Part of him wanted to take
the steps two at a time and head straight to his back bedroom and
get high, but the other part didnʼt want to deal with his mother. She
would be up there, waiting in her room, wanting him to do
something for her.

*******

Maybelline Johns had been confined to her bed for the past
two years. She was a diabetic who didnʼt bother to take care of
herself. Most of the time, she remained in her room, watching
television. She was a heavy woman, but Tony knew that most of
her weight gain was from inactivity. She wasnʼt always heavy
though. The house hadnʼt always need to be repaired. There had
been happier times. He began to take the steps one at a time,
trying to remind himself of the step that creaked the most under his
weight. One day, he would fix it before Maybelline stepped on it
and took a deadly plunge down to the floor below. As much as she
weighed, he could easily see that happening.

Maybelline had been a stocky woman in her younger days.
She had cared for him, his brother Andre and his sister the way a
mother should take care of her children… that is, until the drugs
invaded their home. He could hear the television blaring away in
her room as he bypassed her bedroom door, but she either didnʼt
hear him or need anything, which was good. He didnʼt feel like
doing anything for her right now.

He pushed open his bedroom door, which was hanging on by
a single hinge, reached under his sweater and tossed the brown
paper bag that he had received from Mook onto his bed. His bed
was a simple box spring and mattress with unmade sheets. He
lifted the door slightly, aligned it with the doorway and pushed it into
place. The walls of the bedroom, like the rest of the house, needed
to be painted. Tony kicked off his sneakers and removed his
sweater and collapsed onto his bed.
It had been a long time since the house had the true sounds of joy inside of it.
As he opened the bag to prepare his hit for the night, his mind swirled around a single
thought. If his mother hadnʼt been such an addict, would he have
wound up being one? Could he have made something more of his
life instead of what he was right then? It was hard to say. He knew
that Maybelline had done the best she could. He just didnʼt want to
admit that her best wasnʼt good enough. Had she not become a
junkie when she was younger, things wouldʼve turned out
differently. He recalled once that she had tried to get clean. He
doesnʼt remember exactly when, that memory was lost in a haze of
forgotten “play uncles” and “pretend daddies.” Maybelline used to
drink heavily at first, then graduated to marijuana and ultimately,
heroin. When she had stopped for a period of time, it was the first
time that he and his brother Andre got the chance to see what she
couldʼve been as a mother. She was a kinder woman; a woman
with more patience. She still had a mean temper that you didnʼt
dare cross, but her temper didnʼt burst out of her like it did when
she was high.

There were a few times when he and Andre had money to get
lunch at school. He recalled many times living off a box of cereal
because Maybelline didnʼt cook that night.
He was young, perhaps about twelve years old when
Maybelline became pregnant with her last child; a daughter that
she had named Corinne. Then, she immediately went back to
using drugs. Corinne never had a chance. When she was born,
she was born with severe brain damage and the state had to take
her away. Soon after that, he and his brother Andre went to live
with their grandparents in a run down Southwest Philadelphia home
for a few years before Tony returned to live with her. His heart told
him to stay because he felt sorry for Maybelline. By this time, there
were no more uncles or play daddyʼs; just his mother in this old
broken down house in her old broken down body. She welcomed
Tony back without tears and there seemed to be no remorse for the
pain that her addiction had caused their family. She never talked
about Corrine, not even once. It was almost as if the very mention
of her name would open a vicious wound inside of her. And if it
were opened, it could never be closed.

As Maybelline continued to age, her drug use and her drinking
had finally begun to show. She lost her figure a long time ago. She
became content just having her occasional whisky. He was the
one that had to go to the state store to get it as well as anything
else that she needed. The only thanks that he received was the
roof over his head that she provided with her monthly government
check and a few dollars to put a little bit of food in the refrigerator.
As the heroin that he injected took effect, he collapsed onto
the lumpy mattress, and drifted to the last great Christmas they
shared as a family. That year, Maybelline had hung a string of
lights in the window and brought a pitiful looking tree. He and
Andre where excited because they hadnʼt had a tree in some time.
On Christmas Eve, a few people came to the house around eleven
oʼclock, dressed as Santa and his helpers. He and Andre were
ecstatic. Whoever these people were had gifts for them. They
carried them in a green plastic trash bag. Tony remembered
distinctly that he and Andre received four gifts each. Santa and the
helpers placed them under the tree, laughed with them and drove
off in a light blue van. He had no way of knowing that these
people, teen-agers really, were part of a high school club called
ʻCommunity Service Corps and their primary function was to help
people less fortunate than themselves. Maybelline had been sitting
at the table drinking when they arrived. The next morning, he and
Andre had awakened to one gift each. Maybelline was nowhere to
be found. The gifts that were left behind had been partially open. It
didnʼt matter though. That Christmas morning, they had gifts.
That day, he and his brother had something to celebrate.
As the drug took over, Tony closed his eyes and said aloud to
no one: “Good day. Was a damn good day.”