Down By The River

It was 2001 just before I moved into a new flat. I was in Mount Adams, sitting in my car at 2:30am. Earlier that day, I had discovered an alter in my flatmate's room that included pieces of jewelry I thought I had lost and some of my hair.  I got the hell out of there right quick, using her absence to move out fast. 

It was just Miles Clover and I sitting in the car. Miles was my cat, a black domestic short hair that I had adopted from my then-boyfriend N's friend in Brooklyn. Miles' personality can be summed up by this meme: 

And he lived out his life well, seeing my dad through open heart surgery and my grandmother and great-aunt through their journeys to the other side of our mortal coil.

Why was I sitting in my car instead of being tucked up in bed?  I was listening to 'On the Media' an NPR programme and they were interviewing Charles Bowden and the radio signal was clear.  I was riveted.   I wasn't familiar with his work, but the story he was working on, it resonated.  It was about a murder in El Paso, TX, a border town I had spent part of my toddlerhood in with a German Shepherd and a Scotty, whilst Daddy was posted to Fort Bliss.  My only memory is of a pavement so hot, I burned my feet.

The radio piece has haunted me, becoming of increasing relevance as my brother sank deeper into his battle with addiction and drugs trafficking. I wish I would say that this is my only foray into this world, but my grandfather was murdered in 1964 and his struggles with the same horrors are partly why.

The article went on to form a book called _Down By The River: Drugs, Money, Murder, And Family_. I had kind of known that the US government had subsidized Mexico to grow poppies for the manufacture of heroin during WW2, but I hadn't realised how thorougly we had screwed them over in '48. 

And whilst I knew that there is money in drug trafficking, I hadn't realised quite how much. And that western countries can't really afford to have the drug trade collapse. It employs too many people on both sides of the law, it makes too much money, these white powders that are the new Midas' gold. 

I remember being smitten with a tall, lanky boy named Blake at Ole Miss, a double bass player and how he drifted away into a haze of sleep. I didn't understand fully the missed meetings, the vaguely sweet smell wafting from him when our paths would cross until another friend set me straight after Blake failed to answer the door when he was supposed to drive me to the airport after Betsy Pence died of menegitis that barren January.  But I adapted quickly, tucking away my heart watching him almost evaporate in a sticky haze that had nothing to do with Mississippi Time.

I was thinking about Blake today as I stated out over the skyline, preparing to fill out my prison visits application.  My brother is currently incarcerated at The US Prison in Pine Knot, Kentucky, most likely for 17.5 years. His son is 5 years old, 6 on Sunday. Before he signed his plea deal with the US Attorney's office, he and his long term partner started using a synthetic heroin called Krokodile, which ate through his arms, leaving gritty scars.

The resulting burns kept him out prison for 6 months, whilst the Feds tried to determine if the necrotising fascitis was chemical or biological. You don't really want to unleash either into a controlled population, I guess. On days when I question my humanity, well...we vascilate in the roles we play and in who we are in any one moment. Yesterday, overwhelmed and consumed with frustration, hurt, and self-pity,  I lost my patience with a bank teller. It haunts me so much that when I get back to Ohio, my second stop will be to apologise. I don't want to be the person who does that bites the hand of compassion, just because my familial menfolk are being jerkfaces.

Bowden died a few years ago, so of course I am now a little in love with him, having collected his writings and debated about reaching out to his family to see if they have donated his papers.  It's a light crush of the kind and allows me to not worry too much about the state of play in my own romantic life.  Many lives in a moment, Garcia Marquez told me, in _News of a Kidnapping_. He just never clued me in on how long a moment might last.