Posted by Shortelise on June 25, 2005, at 10:58:18
I was just woken up by crying outside. I live next to an elementary school with a daycare attached so crying is not an unusual sound for us.
But it's Saturday morning. I looked out the window and there was a weeping young woman, howling, sobbing and doing that brain-damaged standing, moving, weaving thing that meth addicts do. They cannot stand still. God, how do they stand it, to do a drug that fries the brain beyond repair?
Not far from us there is an area of the city where the prostitutes are tolerated, so she's not the first I've seen around. Nor surely will she be the last. Butshe didn'thave a purse, was dressed in a tight dress with nothing on underneath. And was howling with painful crying.
I went out and asked her name. Ruby. Asked her why she was crying. Her mother died. I held her. She smelled like a girl, just like a girl, and cried in my arms like... anyone whose heart was broken. If there was anyone in this world who might still love this broken creature, perhaps it had been her mother, perhps she lost the only person who could still see the sweet child she had once been.
After about 2o minutes of asking what I could do for her, what she might need, she asked for money for the bus and a coffee. I gave her $5 and invited her to sit down, said I would be happy to make her coffee, but she was too freaked out, so off she went.
Now I smell like her. A nice smell, but I want to wash it off, and I think her mother would have been so glad to smell of her little girl.
ShortE
poster:Shortelise
thread:518630
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050624/msgs/518630.html