Seeds of Tomorrow

Twelve

His mother was off work for the evening but hadn't come home afterward. Mark had asked if she could bring him some dinner since her drunk ass surely ate down at the tavern but she told him to go ask the old lady down the street since he didn't feel no shame to be begging. It was going to be one of those nights where she was pissed off and would come home to start in on him.

Mark made himself two cans of soup. It wasn't great but it was filling and sat at the table contemplating how to come up with some money to get an ID but there was another obstacle, his mom would need to come with him and she was rarely home. But expected him to get a job. He had no issue working even though she accused him of being too lazy to work.

Bitch was too lazy to parent.

He sat on the couch watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory and then the ten o'clock news, scrolling through his phone as he wondered when the fuck his bitch mother would come home.

Mark wouldn't have minded some company but if he had a girl over, his mom would trip out and scream "Are yew screwin' in my house?!" As though she hadn't brought home a good dozen of men home from the bar to fuck.

Also not having shit in the house was embarrassing, having to offer some fucking tap water and generic chicken noodle soup.

Krist often tried to relate to him about being poor 'cause he didn't have shit for a while but that dude didn't really know what it meant to be poor. The whole time he was down and out, he had his mother giving him money, buying him shit and he wasted it on dope. Linda would never have let him go hungry because some loser in prison needed commissary. His brother was a fuck up by choice, not because he didn't have a choice.

Around midnight Mark was awoken by the sound of keys in the front door. He didn't even recall dozing off. His mom was home and she'd brought another slimy, beer-bellied loser home from the bar.

"Thought you had a fiancé?" He asked not giving a fuck that this would piss her off.

"Why don't you mind your own damn business, Mark, worry about getting a damn job or GED?" She snapped.

The loser of the night laughed, groping Naveah, "As long as that fiancé ain't coming home tonight, I don't give a fuck."

Naveah giggled, "Oh he ain't, don't you worry about him," she replied, dumping her person on the cluttered coffee table before disappearing to the bedroom.

It was only a matter of minutes before the grunting started, Mark turned the television set up and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. He knew if he went to bed, he'd hear his mother getting ran in even louder than he did in the living room but he was so fucking tired.

He scrolled through his phone again before something caught his eye. Naveah's purse was wide open with several bills visible. She must have gotten paid or won at the Ilani, either way, she was drunk and there was cash. She wasn't going to remember how much she spent at the bar.

A pang of guilt struck him in the chest as he removed sixty dollars, he'd never actually stolen from her but fuck her. She was blowing money at the casino, and the bar, driving to Walla Walla, and getting motels every week. Fuck her. He was gonna use forty of it for food and then the other twenty he could go down to the end of the driveway for a gram of dope. He threw on his sneakers, put the phone in his pocket, and headed out the front door, swiping a Liggett 100 from his mom's cigarettes before he left.

It was a decent night, not too chilly with a little breeze. If he looked up, he could see the stars through the trees. He wasn't worried about Naveah tripping about him leaving, she was going to be preoccupied with her loser of the night.

The dope house was at the end of the driveway. Well, the beginning, right where you turned onto their private gravel road. The outside of the house was a fairly inconspicuous, tidy yard, well-maintained ranch-style home but inside it was apparent that it was a tweaker house. Not messy but stacks upon stacks of subwoofer boxes, various bikes, and bike parts, guns in the open, and random electronics people traded for shit.

He'd met them when he was in school, they had a son named Liam who was two grades above him but since they got on the bus together, they got to talking and became friends. Liam was who introduced Mark to meth only three months before.

He'd gone over there to kick it, smoke some green, and play video games when Liam bust his little glass bubble out and hit it right in front of Mark. Now Mark wasn't someone who shied away from drug experimentation, he liked drugs. He loved his weed and psychedelics but had tried coke a few times and the occasional pills. Meth was something he swore he'd never do though. He remembered how his dad and oldest brother, Brad, acted high.

He knew all about Krist's addiction as well because the dude couldn't shut up about it. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but I am a recovering meth addict," "when I was in active addiction, blah blah blah." Sometimes he would be a smart ass and pretend to be shocked, "Wow! You used to be a meth addict!" because it was all Krist talked about. That dude thought more about drugs than most people actively using did for real.

Mark and Rocco often made jokes about Krist when he wasn't around, cackling and saying dumb shit like "You ever had to suck a dick for meth?" "You ever beg someone to blow meth smoke in your mouth because you needed a hit that bad?" "You ever rip the copper out of your dead grandmother's boyfriend's best friend's attic because you had to get high? Because I have!" "You ever have CIA ninja spies in your bushes but it turned out it was a shadow but you were so high you didn't know and stood there watching for 164 hours? Because I have!"

Addiction wasn't all that funny but damn did Krist get preachy and up his own ass about shit. Every chance he got it was some kind of lecture. Mark and Rocco once told him maybe he should get his own podcast or YouTube channel to tell people about addiction and that dumb ass was like, "That's a good idea! Ya know, maybe I should!"

Anyway, Mark had been having a shit day, was depressed and just feeling all kinds of fuck it, the first time he got high but all that was gone with that first hit. He wouldn't describe it as feeling happy but the loneliness, sadness, anger, it was gone. And when he went home, he put together one of those big-ass thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles. Still had it hanging on his wall.

When he tweaked, he didn't do weird shit, he didn't feel crazy horny or amped. He just felt focused. That's when he did puzzles or spent hours just building shit on Minecraft. At that time, being alone wasn't so bad because he was preoccupied. And after that night, he wanted to be preoccupied and escape his shitty fucking home life.