Kissing Alcoholics Down Memory Lane

"You've got to be shitting me." is all I could think to myself as I dropped off my friend to go get his stuff out of his ex girlfriend's apartment late last night. When he showed me where this woman lived, I was absolutely flabbergasted.

"That's my childhood home."

"What, where she lives?" He mumbled to me. He mumbles a lot. Once upon a time I nicknamed him Mumbles, but then I decided on calling him CCB (Cute Country Boy).

"No. The house next to it. The one with the deck on the back. What the hell are you doing dating a woman who lives in a drug house?" It was an assumption. I had no proof. All I know is when I lived next door to it, somewhere in the late 90's and early 00's it transitioned from a fairly respectable hunk of property into a slum with all types of shady characters moving in and out.

The apartment upstairs was the most notably toxic. I don't know how many people I saw dragged out of there in handcuffs, or how many fights I overheard as they occurred on the outside steps... right next to my family's back deck.

My family eventually moved and whoever moved in put up a privacy fence. I guess they got tired of meth heads tracking through their yard as they made their ways to the other drug houses in the neighborhood.

My friend denies any involvement with drugs in that apartment. He also says she didn't do anything like that, but then again she cheated on him with men and women and lied to him repeatedly. Who knows what she's really up to.

I dropped him off to get his stuff. I didn't stick around. About 10 to 20 minutes later he texted me to let me know he had called the cops to come and help him get his stuff back.

"Great," I thought, "I'm not getting involved in this."

I texted him back saying, "Well, If you get your stuff I'll pick you up a few blocks away."

And that's just what I did.

I got to thinking about it later on and I realized that his adventure at the apartment probably didn't go unnoticed by the neighbors. If the people who live there now are anything like we were, then they saw the flashing lights and muttered, "What now?"

Last night I learned that some things never change. Today... well, there's still some time left.