White Picket Fence
By
Succubyss
As she sat among the ruins of the cute little house, she cried and wondered how it had come to this. Her husband, Joe, had gone out to sell a couple of grams of coke to someone he thought was a friend, but more importantly, someone who had been a steady, long-time customer. Around 20 minutes later, the DEA had burst thru her door with a battering ram and a stream of local cops, along with members of the county's drug task force and a pack of drug-sniffing dogs poured into her living room.
Seven hours later, one hundred and sixty-three pieces of paraphernalia and evidence were spread out on her front lawn for the neighbors to gawk at and to take pictures of, her husband was in jail, all their assets were frozen, she had a pending grand jury indictment and no idea what to do next.
After feeling sorry for herself and thinking about the options, she stopped wondering how her life had taken this turn and started to think that there really was no other way it could have gone...
She had met Joe at a party. It was her 18th birthday and although the party wasn't for her, it might as well have been. After all, she was hot, young, wild and free... ALL the parties were for her, right?
She had been kicked out of her house about three weeks before. Well, not really kicked out... more like a mutual agreement that had come after a drunk St. Patrick's Day argument with her drunk mother. She had been at a friend's house, drinking beer and vodka all the colors of the rainbow. Someone had brought a box of food coloring to the St Pat's celebration, but green was so YUCKY! So they had been drinking purple beer, red beer, blue beer - it was all good! Then someone had suggested coloring vodka shots. After all, the clear liquor would take the color MUCH better... things had been going fine until her little brother came over.
Apparently, her mother had also decided that drinking was a much better way to spend the holiday instead of going home to take care of her kids. So, when her little brother showed up, crying because he was locked out of the house and hungry, she left the festivities and went home. She sloppily made her brother some dinner and hung around the house for awhile, drinking some of her mother's vodka, then filling the bottle with water so she wouldn't know. Actually she hoped her mother WOULD find out. Stupid bitch would go to get a shot and all she'd get was water - HA!
Eventually her mother showed up, a fight ensued, there was an exchange of "Get out of my house" and "Fine, I hate living here anyway" and so she left.
Now, three weeks later, she was turning eighteen, her friends were having a party and there was a newcomer to the crowd. A super hot, long-haired, leather clad guy with tattoos and drugs. Happy fuckin' birthday!
There were actually two of them, Joe and Rick. And they both seemed into her, but Joe had a FRINGED leather and seemed to control the coke. The last line she did, she did while sitting on Joe's lap. And when she needed to step outside, she asked Joe if she could wear his battered, fringed leather coat... he obliged with a smile. A couple of hours later, when he asked her if she'd like to see his van, they both knew where they were headed.
Once in the van, she couldn't believe her luck. This was an 80's rocker chick's version of heaven. The van was fully decked out - complete with a bed, a bar, a stereo and a secret drug closet. Yes, a drug closet! Joe pulled back a piece of carpet from the wall, revealing a plywood door. He opened the door and there were hooks and boxes on the inside of the compartment. Each box had a different drug. Three kinds of weed, coke, Quaaludes and speed amid all the paraphernalia needed to use any of them. Hot damn! This dude was like a winning lottery ticket. It was only a matter of minutes before Lynyrd Skynyrd was on the stereo, a line was done and the clothes were off! "Tuesday's Gone" will always remind her of that night.
This could have been just a birthday one-night stand. But it wasn't. Her and Joe seemed to click. He was so intense! Piercing blue eyes, gorgeous hair and he seemed to have money. His clothes were biker chic, lots of leather and he wore it well. He told her he loved her the second day they were together. And since she loved everything about him after 48 hours of booze, drugs and sex, their fate together was sealed.
She never thought she'd wind up in the cute little house with the white picket fence. Honestly, she never thought about the future at all. She didn't want to get married and have kids and a mortgage. She wanted to party and go to concerts. She wanted to get high and be arm candy for a smokin' hot guy. She wanted to be tied to the bed while Joe licked coke off her body and threw hundred dollar bills around the room. And she got all those things and more... she got pregnant.
All of a sudden, the world took on a new perspective. They were going to be PARENTS! And they would be the best parents ever! That was the plan. Young, minds clouded by drugs and dreams, but determined to right all the wrongs that had been inflicted on them by uncaring families and a harsh society - they were going to change the world.
She married Joe because she believed all the things he told her about buying a house and quitting the drugs and getting a real job. Worse still, she believed all the things she told herself. Like, that a nice little house in a quiet neighborhood would cure all the sickness in their lives. It never occurred to her that two high school drop-outs, who had been making their living selling drugs and scamming people had no business trying to fit into the white-picket fence dream that had NOTHING to do with reality.
The reality was that Joe wouldn't stop selling drugs. Or doing them. Why should he? They got their little house with drug money. It was an end unit in a sub-division of town homes. They picked that one because Joe could ride his Harley up onto the patio. He bought the bike with drug money, too. And the ATV they rode out on the undeveloped lot in the back. Drug money paid the bills and bought her a cute, little 2 door Charger to put the new baby-seat in. Drug money bought the new truck and the fairy-tale, canopied baby crib. Drug money even bought the white picket fence Joe hammered around their little lawn. WHY would he get a job that paid $7.00 an hour when everything was just fine the way it was?
Or just the way it SEEMED. They lived in a nice suburb, in a cute little sub-division. Two doors down lived Steve. Steve had a terrible coke problem. He was one of Joe's best customers. Steve was a car salesman with a wife who was a legal secretary. They had two kids. At night, Steve would sneak over to their house and BEG Joe to cook him up some coke, so he could smoke it at work the next day. He stood on their patio and CRIED once and gave Joe an extra hundred bucks to take care of him. They were on their way to a Lamaze class that night. They were late because Joe took Steve's money and gave Steve what he cried for.
Al was a tow-truck driver. He lived with his room mate on the other side of the complex. His room mate drove a truck too and they worked a lot of hours. They were frequent visitors to that cute little house in the middle of the night. Al's girlfriend had a baby that had a medical problem and needed to be fed thru a tube every 2 hours. Sometimes, Al would bring her and the baby over. The girlfriend liked to get high. A couple of lines helped keep her awake so she wouldn't fall asleep and forget to push nourishment thru that baby's tube. Guess who held the baby so the girlfriend could dig thru her purse to get the money to pay for her and Al's coke?
Carl was a mechanic. He lived with his pregnant wife in another subdivision. He was at their cute little house a lot. Joe even let him deal a little, so he could make some extra money for his own little house. Her and Joe and Carl and his wife went out, too. Joe and Carl took their "to-go" coke, so they could get high in the movie theater or in the bathroom of the restaurants and the wives just looked at each other while they did. Neither of them admitting that they wished they weren't pregnant so they could get a bump, too. Neither of them admitting that the facade of the cute little house with the empty nursery ready to be filled was just that - a facade.
It was Carl who sold Joe out. Carl who got busted for speeding and allowed the cop to search his car, revealing a good amount of coke. Carl who agreed to sell out his dealer, his friend, so he could go home to his own little house and little wife and little son.
And so a battering ram came thru a cute little suburban door. A husband went to jail and dreams were about to change. An entire life laid out and tagged on a suburban front lawn. A pretty little lawn with a white picket fence, just like the other lawns in front of all the other houses. The American Dream, right? Think again.
In the Real World
As in Dreams,
Nothing is Quite
As it Seems.
from "The Book Of Counted Sorrows"
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