chump

well, joe's son just left to work with my racing friend. it's an opportunity for him. i hope he doesn't blow it. it's been a little tense around here the last week or so. late night phone calls and the like... joe's kid is getting a little too confident in his situation here. saturday night he used my tattoo gun to do a tat on a friend of his brother's. it turned into an all night affair and several times i woke up to find strange folks in my house. joe got up about 4:30 in the morning and found some guy sitting at my computer. he was pissed. he had words with the guy and later had words with his kid. later that morning the kid told me he wanted to give me some of the money he had made doing the tattoo and when he took out the money, a tiny ziplock bag fell out of his pocket. he scooped it up and put it back in his pocket without ever looking me in the face. it didn't know how to react. i didn't react. i took the money from him, thinking i would confront him later. i didn't tell joe. that was a mistake. we talked later about the people that have started showing up around here, how we're both uncomfortable with it. joe tells me he knows the kid is on the shit again but he's pretty sure he's not bringing it to the house. then i couldn't look him in the face... i didn't know how to tell him. yesterday afternoon my daughter came to me with that look, "come on mom, let's go out and have a smoke". she told me that her and my son are worried about the kind of people that are coming here. how they can see when joe's son and his friends are flying on the shit... then she told me that late saturday night she had seen joe's son with the glass pipe, "and mom, you know that i know the difference". she said that when she saw him take the pipe out of a backpack she walked straight over to him and looked at his hand. she wanted him to know she had seen it. he casually started talking to her while he tried to hide the pipe in his sleeve. she said she shook her head and walked away. i told her that i had seen the baggy that had fallen out of his pocket. and that i hadn't told joe. she looked at me and said it was different in the beginning when he first came here, she knew he didn't have anywhere else to go and she knew he needed a chance, but now after the things that had happened and the fact that none of us had confronted him she felt like he was playing us all for chumps. and she was exactly right. when we went back into the house he was sitting on the couch, i went straight to him and told him we needed to talk. but i did all the talking. i laid it all out for him and told him he needed to talk to his dad about what was going on, about what i had seen. he almost balked at me when i told him my girl had seen him with the pipe, but thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. he never looked at me. his dad came home ten minutes later. i tried to keep busy after kissing him hello. we had talked earlier that day about putting a stop to the late night visitors and phone calls, and i stayed inside while they went out front to talk. after a half an hour or so they came in the kitchen where i was making some hot chocolate. they were both looking at me and i was trying to read their faces, trying to figure what had been said. when the kid hugged me and told me he was sorry, i hugged him back and kissed him on the cheek. it wasn't until later that i realized he hadn't said anything to his dad about our talk. so i told joe, everything, and apologized for not telling him sooner. shit. man, i'm trying with this kid. me and my kids have a trust between us. we have been through shit together and come out the other side. i know it was hard for joe here in the beginning. i know he felt like an outsider. i know my kids were suspicious of him, his intentions. everything happened so fast with us. but they are building a relationship with joe, mutual respect and everyone is starting to feel secure and comfortable in their place here. we all moved over a little and made space for this kid. like birds on a wire... it was a long night. we talked with him, we talked with my kids. we talked about how it feels when you are trying to help someone who doesn't want to help themselves. how you start feeling used and unsympathetic. how something that can feel so good can suck you down into a hole that is hard to climb out of. and how you have to decide if you want to be in that hole by yourself or let someone else help you out of it. when we finally went to bed last night all the kids were talking in my son's room. he was sleeping on the couch when i got up this morning. i cooked him and joe breakfast. joe left for work with an apprehensive look on his face. my friend showed up a few minutes later to take the kid to work with him. i hugged him goodbye and looked him in the face. he looked back at me like he understood. i hope he does. this is his last chance. with me. fuck.