Gateway Drugs
My old buddy Marco is getting evicted four days from now. He’s got a court date to tell a judge why he shouldn’t be thrown out on the street for not paying his rent. He’s not paying his rent because he hasn’t worked in half a year because his knee is blown out and L&I won’t pay for an MRI to see what’s wrong in there. He has a court date with L&I too, but by then he will be evicted.
Marco’s girlfriend, his latest, isn’t working either. She has a 3 year old child that she’s taking care of for her daughter and yeah, you probably guessed it, the daughter is too drug addled to take care of her own kid. So Marco and Debbie take care of the tot. The hard –hearted among us will no doubt see this as just another story of the poor making bad decisions that lead to them becoming poorer. And they got a good case.
Marco’s planning to move his and Debbie’s stuff out of the rental house this weekend, haul it to a storage unit that costs $150 a month, then go stay with his brother out of state until they figure out which end is up. I think I already know which of their ends is up, but here’s the kicker. Marco wants to adopt his girlfriend’s granddaughter. I mean, why not? He can’t afford a place to live, he hasn’t got a job and he doesn’t have any viable prospects for one. His girlfriend, if history is any indicator, probably won’t be with him long and he wants to adopt the kid.
Marco has a good heart. His trouble isn’t his heart, although judging by his physical condition, that may not be totally accurate. His trouble is his brain. He keeps making dumb decisions. He walked away this year from a house he owned with his ex that they sold for pennies on the dollar because no one would clean up the pigsty they’d made of it. Marco probably didn’t care; after all, his ex was going to take what profits were left from any sale. And did I mention Marco found his way into opioids and finally heroin? No? Well, there you go. Gateway drugs. To poverty.
I wish Marco all the luck in the world. The trouble is, most of it will be bad. You know it, I know it, probably in his lucid moments, Marco does too. The man is 60 years old and driving off the road into the scenery. If you wonder where the homeless hail from, well, some are from the South End. I just hope that 3 year old kid he wants to adopt gets a break. But the poor, often times, do get poorer.
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Tags: eviction, personal responsibility, poverty and bad luck