Like Ants...

The Power of Touch

It was actually an evening after I had clocked out and closed the store, and was heading out to scour the streets once before heading "home".

In Thornes, at Rao's. There's an elevator right there. I saw him. He was with this weird looking hippie who had a walker like an elderly person. I didn't care. The crippled-hippie got onto the elevator and as Lance was stepping in I stopped him. "HEY!" I yelled. He stopped, saw it was me.

"Where have you been? I've missed seeing you so much," his voice said.

*some memory corruption here because I don't want to remember Lance*

"Here. Get your phone, I want to give you my number," Megan said.

...

I can see: myself, sitting on that brand new ugly expensive couch. Nick was on the loveseat, playing his game, ignoring me as usual. I was texting the boy in my dream, who I now knew was named "Lance". I was asking him to come over on Saturday morning... one of Nick's 2 shifts.

And... well... he did.

I'm pushing this really hard and I'm probably going to have to stop the story abruptly and go to something else in about 2 minutes.

Lance came over on a rainy Saturday morning in May. He seemed high as fuck. I didn't realize until MUCH later that being on 90 mg of methadone every morning is basically like shooting up heroin that will last you all day. But he explained methadone in a way that fooled me into thinking he was actively recovering. I thought the fact that he wouldn't take any of my k-pins (which I used to offer like little social gifts, even though it meant I would be hurting at the end of the month when I ran out early) was a sign of being recovered. I know NOW that if he would have taken them with his methadone he would have probably died, and if not, they would have totally fucked up his methadone high.

He showed me his "power of touch".

He stood me up and put his forehead against mine, and lightly touched my face. His hand went to the ever-throbbing left side (the side with the bad tooth) and he held it there for a long time. I started shaking. He started shaking. When this weird head-to-head touching session was over, tears were spilling out of my eyes and my knees buckled. "Oh my fucking God..." I remember whispering dozens of times. "This boy can heal me."

That's how Lance became "my savior". He introduced himself as such, even to my parents eventually, when they were forced to meet him.

And that's how I BELIEVED that Lance was my savior. This entire story... my total mental collapse, and then THIS. I was not well. But he made me feel well.

And I went to the tent. It was ALL EXACTLY as it was in my dream.

A few weeks later, I was homeless.

And a few weeks after that, I was in a prison cell.