Burning Blankets

@11   I know a boy who is torn between more than a few things. He has what we call "issues". The psychiatric community at large has a few pin-point accurate names and definitions for this boy; some are organic disorders, but most are self-inflicted.  Sometimes we think that there is nothing there but a shell; but then he changes and something brilliant peeks through the veil of his addiction. When he is without, he burns. There is a pressure emanating from his bones. The pressure drives him to the hunt.
   He really isn't a boy at all. His mind is stranded between 15 and 21, but he is 26. It makes no difference now. By the time we met him (25) the damage had been done. Some of us tried so hard to pull him out of the black room he lives in, and none of us really ever achieved anything that would indicate any reliable change. Some of us were frustrated, some of us found indifference. The consensus was split, but definitely leaned toward a waste of time, money, and energy.
   The final straw for me was the night he came over, incoherent, talking about wanting to find some crack. We talked around the fire pit until two a.m., after which time he decided to leave despite my efforts to stay. At 3:30 a.m. he returned. He called me out to his car in a frenzied panic, talking about a crack dealer, the crack he stole, the hooker that got in his car for a ride, and how she robbed him of everything. At first it looked like karma had finally kissed his thieving hands. According to him she stole $80, a twenty rock, and his pouch of "Scooby Snack" fake weed. I told him that he should have stayed out of the ghetto, but then decided I would help him find the items anyway. Intervention at this point was futile, and I would rather deal with someone who has their drug(s) of choice over the alternative. He was in space sector 8, and even if he looked right at his missing goods he would have missed them. I found the fake weed behind his seat, the crack on the floor beside the passenger door, and he somehow remembered that his money was in his bible, in the glove compartment.
   The funny part is that he cycles from addict to inspired preacher, and back in a matter of days. I have witnessed both, and there is very little good coming from either. This is typical of those with acute personality disorders. Some of us were actually lulled into his swirling madness; not me. I tried so hard to find anything good. I wound up wondering what came first; the diseased mind, or the multi-tiered addiction. It doesn't matter.
   I had taken him to his probation officer a few times, and every time we went he was in a panic because he thought he would fail his drug test. He passed most of them, and for the ones he didn't pass he was given a threat of prison. This officer is lenient with him; probably because he knows he is dealing with a mentally ill addict.
   Yesterday he inboxed one of us and said he failed his drug test, and would be going to prison for three years. I thought to myself that his life of crime had caught up to him, and at the same time I felt the slightest pang of sadness.
   For some reason when I heard this, I pictured a prison riot. There were fires set all over the cell block. They were burning blankets out of raw rebellion. The concept of burning a blanket on the "inside" is understandable; they can get more. When someone like this boy robs friends, lies to them, eats a meal that was intended for a child, and anything else that subtracts from another, he is burning blankets. He is trading gauranteed warmth for a temporary fire that is too hot to enjoy; even if it lasts all the way to prison. I wish him luck. I hope he finds his sexuality, or rather commits to one side or the other. I mean to say that he should be open about it either way; no matter which way it is. May the riots evade you.
  

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