Alter Ego | The Sagas of Steven vs Steve. Pt. One
Steven had everything. Family, house, dogs, career. Steve had nothing. Just a homeless junkie, fighting the endless battle of depression. Who will win this time?
Alter Ego: Losing Control
Steven had been homeless and desperate once. He had to live in conditions that most people would consider inhumane. Very few would find them familiar.
Steve would find them familiar. Steve would find comfort in them, enjoy them.
Now look, don’t go feeling too bad for Steven. After all, he did let this happen again. He endured it once before, not knowing how his life could have fallen so far from where it had once been.
That time has long since passed, and Steven knows the solution now. Seeing the warning signs a relapse was coming he chose to do nothing, rather than face it.
He knew he was going to lose control again, whether it would be the drugs or Steve, well, only time would tell.
Steve was a heroin addict. A violent man, who would destroy anything in his path for that next high…
God, I hope it’s not Steve again!
The Lost Words of Wisdom
I once heard a woman speak at this AA meeting in LA: Alcoholism isn’t your fault. You were born with the disease. At some point in your life you had an adverse reaction to drinking, which caused you to develope an intense craving for more. Alcoholism is a threefold disease, affecting the mind, body, and spirit. You must address all three of them to truly recover. If you only stop drinking without changing everything else, then you’ll just become a “dry drunk.” They tend to be more miserable than when drinking, and ultimately end up back on it again anyhow. Now that you know what your problem is, let me tell you a bit about the solution. There is only one known way to cure this disease, and it’s Alcolholics Annoynmous. Now that you know there is a solution, no longer can you blame anything or anyone but yourself for the problems drinking caused in your life. You’re about to embark on the path to recovery, and to do so you must have a complete psychic change. You can only achieve this change with the aid of a Higher Power.→Main Speaker At The 2nd. & Wilshire A.A. Meeting, Los Angeles Ca.
Prologue
The last line the speaker said at the A.A. Meeting all those years ago, (the part when she mentioned a “Higher Power” was the only hope for recovery) scared the shit out of Steven. He’d never known a Higher Power before, and his parents never took him or his sister to church.
It’s not that they were all Atheists or something. His parents just never talked to him about the belief in God or a Higher Power. In fact, there were a lot of things they didn’t talk about, like how everyone was doing emotionally.
So, unfortunately, it took many years of pain and regret to realize that anything can be your higher power, so long as it was greater than yourself.
That was all behind him now, with Steve long gone and Steven in control.
Still, to the few who knew about his former life, disbelief shown in their eyes as Steven told them stories of how it was, back when he was homeless and using drugs. Of course, no one ever said it aloud, but their reactions told him more than words ever could.
As if he would embellish a past like that! Making up stories about having to commit crimes to feed his addiction, or what the living conditions were like in the homeless encampments.
If only they had met the monster who’d once lived inside him, had once been him…
Today’s a new day though. Steven’s sober and has a somewhat normal life. Money’s not the issue, well, not since he had a few successful business ventures, investing the proceeds in the right places, at the right time.
But Steven’s life wasn’t always so normal. Once, back when Steve was the one in control, things were very different indeed…
Before There Was Steven, There Was Steve
Lost, any shred of hope that life would somehow improve seemed a distant memory as Steve stood looking at himself through the reflection in the mirror inside the Denny’s bathroom.
A brief flicker in the back of Steve’s subconscious told him that once, his eyes looked different somehow. Happier, brighter.
Funny, but he could almost remember that people used to call him… Steven?
No!
He hated that name…
Instead, what stared back at him were the eyes of a man who’d seen and done far too much in the short 22 years he’d been alive. There’s something about the Dennys bathroom though that’s always reminded him of the family he’d left back home.
His Mom, Dad, Sister, all back in Pennsylvania…
Sometimes, memories that seemed to belong to another man suddenly came to Steve.
He turned away from the reflection, looking down at his hands, which were dirty and calloused from years of hard living.
One of those memories were trying to break through.
He was a boy, no more than 8 at the time…
In the back seat of the Ford Explorer, Steven was filled with excitement, knowing that when they arrived at Dennys, the waiter would bring him crayons like she always did. He loved filling in those pictures on the back of the kids menu. Or maybe this one would have a maze, he liked those too.
His Mother yelled at Karen, his stster in the front seat, who just cranked up the volume on the radio to 100 when she herd her favorite NSYNC song coming on…
A loud bang jerked him upright as the door to the stall hit the wall and Mark came stumbling out.
Long dirty-blonde hair swinging, eyes drooping from the shot of dope he just finished did, he sauntered over to the sink to wash the excess blood off the crook of his arm.
Mark always went first when they used a public bathroom to fix up, (that means to shoot dope for normal people reading), so he could keep watch for Steve, as he tried desperately to find a vein to hit when when it was his turn.
It had been espically bad in recent days, sometimes taking him an hour to find one that would register.
Creeping up Steve’s arms were long black scars, like chared spiderwebs. The markings of a long time heroin addict.
More than once those scars had gotten Steve and Mark stopped by the police.
It seemed to take longer and longer every time. Soon there wouldn’t be any left.
Steven was wondered as he went into the stall, if a human could even survive with no veins left…
“Yo, try to hurry so we can get outta here.” Mark said. “This shits not that good.” I told you we should’ve went to see Marco.”
Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to get it done in under an hour. Plus, he wasn’t sick, yet.
“It’s cool, lets just go now.” he said. “ I’m not sick yet anyway, I’ll just wait to fix up back at the tents.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Mark said irritably, thinking the scowl on Steve’s face was because of his comment about the dope being shitty.
After all, it had been Steve’s connect that they had gotten it from.
The last of that memory fading away, shaking his head, Steve lead the way out, past the waiters’ disdainful looks and the lone manager on shift. Always, they were pretending to be doing something else, anything but make eye contact with them.
Like we’re not human or something.
He’d always hated how other’s looked at him. True, they were dirty and bathing in the bathroom, not to mention shooting dope, but Steve was respectful to them, as always.
Steve always made sure the bathroom was cleaned before they left. Making sure Mark did the same, though more times than not, he ended up having to go over where Mark had just “cleaned.”
As they walked out into the darkness of 2 am Los Angeles, which is not saying much in LA, Steve tried to remember the last time he’d seen stars.
He could remember where he’d grown up, how at night you could see what to him was like a billion specks of light, sparkling in the moonlight sky.
No time for that shit. He thought bitterly to himself as they made the short journey back to their little rat-tag encampment.
Plans for how they were going to obtain enough cash for the next high were already whirling through Steve’s head as they moved through the night.
Steve would do anything he had to for that next high.
Anything, not to feel the pain and utter despair of being dope sick.
Endless nights of sweating and restless legs, stomach cramps and vomiting. It’s horrible, your legs feel like they ran a marathon while your body went through the vaiours stages of withdrawl. Each stage worse than the last.
Steve wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.
The joyful memories of Steven’s childhood faded quicker as Steve picked up the pace, so that their strides ate the ground rapidly closing the distance to the Tampa Bus stop. They couldn’t miss it, as it was the last bus for the night.
Steven lost, and Steve had won again.
If you related to this, or simply enjoyed it, then check out the next part of the madness: Alter Ego: The Sagas of Steven vs Steve
