The Addict

We went out one Sunday morning to breakfast. The cafe we wanted to go to had not opened for business. So we sat outside to wait.

A homeless youth came up to us and asked for help. He didn’t ask for money - I did not have cash to give him anyway even if he did. He asked for food; I told him if he waited with us I will buy him breakfast when the cafe opened. He was grateful.

He was a young man, didn’t look much older than my 17-year old son. Dirty, thin, clearly coming down from a high. I am not as naive as others like to believe.

But he was a young boy, somebody’s son, who made mistakes in his life (who amongst us have not?) and found himself in this position. He walked right up to me to ask me for help. I could not, and would not turn him down.

Before the cafe opened, he said he didn’t want the food after all and would I help him get a room at a shelter for the day. He told me there was one nearby. I agreed and had thought I needed to go with him to pay for the room with my credit card.

I asked my love to come with me - it was only a 10 minute walk away. It was then that I noticed his face was like thunder.

It occurred to me that I could call the shelter and give them my credit card info - which I did; only to learn that they were not an emergency shelter and could not take the boy. I was given numbers to call, which I did. The next 15 minutes was spent with me on the phone calling for help for the boy without much success, with my love increasingly angry with me, and the boy increasingly apologetic for “causing trouble”.

As it finally turned out, I was unable to help him get a place to rest. The whole time he was acutely aware of my love’s increasing fury, as he kept looking over at him. He finally said he did not want food after all, and said he was sorry for the trouble, thanked me profusely and walked away to find a park bench.

With a broken heart for him, and frustration at my love for his fury at me, I said asked him why he was behaving that way. That resulted in a tirade of all the things that were wrong with me as a person, how I was naive, that the boy was an addict, that I endangered us both, that I chose a heroin addict over him, and how I ruined our Sunday breakfast.

When explanations and reasoning led to more fury, in frustration I said “I’ve had enough of this!” I didn’t mean it, yet I did. I walked home, calmed down over the 45-minute walk and called him when I was able to speak without anger. Before the boy showed up, he’d declared how happy he was, how perfect life with me was, and he wanted to wake up every day to me like he did that day. But it was done. Too late. He was aggrieved, injured, abandoned and it was my fault and he was done with me.