'I Ain't Tryin' to Ride...'

I contemplated taking the stairs. The elevators in the aging building are, after all, taxed by ceaseless summons from residents with busy lives.

But climbing 15 flights after several beers, in that tight skirt? I decided the task was better left undone and pushed the Up button.

With my head down in the appropriate awaiting-the-elevator/avoiding-potential-eye-contact stance, I initially only took note of the mismatched pair revealed by the opening doors because of her jerky, frantic movements.

The aging, frizzy-haired woman tugged roughly at the hem of her wrinkled button-down and fought to align her baggy, ill-fitting suit with her wasting body as she half-jogged from the elevator to the exit door. She was still pulling violently at her pants with one hand, adjusting, it appeared, her underwear beneath the fabric with the other, as she pushed through the glass door and out into the cool night air.

Were she to have stepped out of the elevator and proceed to the door in a normal fashion, I might have kept my head down. Might've missed those telltale signs of the addict. Meth, most likely, given her uneven movements, her darting, untrusting eyes, the hair damaged beyond all external chemical possibility, the skin-on-bones body, the haggard face…

Or, perhaps, I merely associate addicts with Meth because it’s been the drug of choice for the only true addicts I’ve known. Because so many of those problems I keep a thousand miles away are inextricably tied to that deadly, addictive, soul-stealing, life-crushing drug. The drug made so popular and recognized as so terrible because you (Yes, You!) can make it in your home, with things you can buy at The Wal-Mart.

Something in her movements, her expressions, the way she carried her body as if she wished it could fold in on itself as she practically ran from whatever it was she'd left behind up there… something told me Meth wasn’t her only problem. Her only secret.

My mind raced. "Was that woman a... No, it couldn't be... Could it? In my building???"

I wondered, fleetingly, about her life. She looked older than my mother, but her face doubtlessly carried more age from hard knocks, more age from hard hits, bumps, lines, and shots, than age from years.

What circumstances could have led her to the unhappy life revealed in the deep lines etched on her face? What could have driven her to this place, at this time, with me here to witness her frenzied, unkempt flight from my building?

The man who accompanied her down -- very tall and dark and thick by comparison -- stepped forward as if to leave as well, only to step back, stand aside, hold the door.

Stepping into the small compartment, I pushed the uppermost button for my uppermost floor and glanced up toward the man swaying awkwardly in front of me. He looked over at the sole lit number, leaned in slightly, and said, "I ain't tryin' to ride all the way up there just to..."

Just to what? I wondered. Does he think I could be like her? One of his ‘girls’? I focus on indignation at the presumption to prevent my mind from wandering down that familiar tract, exploring the potential what and how and why and when that led me on such a distinct path from those who were once so close to me.

As his words trailed off, I noted his wide, bloodshot eyes, the slow circular orbit his upper body followed as his feet stood planted firmly, one in the elevator, one out.

He leaned pointedly my way and half-whispered, "Wow. You're beautiful."

"Thank you," I forced a smile. "You have a nice night."

Those Deep South manners do, it turns out, serve a purpose, after all. He took the hint. Took the necessary steps to vacate that metal box.

I watched the doors slide silently closed and exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Later, on the phone with a friend, I replayed the whole interlude, laughing it off. Pushing it down. Trying to make light of the grim, unnerving scene.

----------------------------

The next morning, I find a message in my inbox. It’s traveled a thousand continental miles to reach me, to drag me back into that world of my purposefully buried knowledge as new drama unfolds.

I know the sentences and paragraphs on the screen before me don’t tell but part of the story unfolding now in The ‘Sip. They don’t even cover half, I’m sure. The grittiest facts will have been weeded out for my benefit. Those details that cast the tellers in an unflattering light, eliminated for theirs.

While the fine points might change, I already know this story. Sadly, we all do. It’s almost certainly the beginning of a long, turbulent cycle for the players down there, and I’ll only be clued in, bit by unsavory bit, as I piece together what I can from this source and that.

Who knows how long it will last this time. Whether the yield merely will be more heartache and suffering, or if the ramifications will be more finite... Prison? Death? And, of course, there are the children to consider…