Momma and the Meth Head

It was May 7, 1996, a Tuesday. I got out of school and walked the 4 miles down Higway 124 to Al-T’s restaurant where Momma was working the bar and waiting tables. The school year was winding down so I didn’t have any homework, and since all the sports were over with, I spent most of my afternoons listening to some old records Momma’s boss had given me. Big names like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Conway Twitty. But also old timey stuff like Hank Williams Sr., The Foggy Mountain Boys, and Marty Robbins. Those were some good records. I throw such random information into this story because that was much how my life was back then. I did all the normal things from day to day, but school and sports and running around with my friends didn’t quite fill up the river of thoughts running through my brain. I would find myself doing homework, and doing it well, while my mind was off thinking about something that had nothing to do with Math or English, such as what it’d be like to be living in some big city like Houston or wondering what it’d be like to be famous and have a bunch of people hanging on your every word and acting on what you said even if you didn’t mean for them to. To this day, I still find myself feeling like a lot of the things I do and say are just because people expect me to. I think I always knew that a simple life wasn’t gonna cut it for me.

Anyways, I walked the 4 miles to meet up with Momma only to find out she hadn’t even come to work that day. Her boss, Mr. Peterson offered to give me a ride to the house, but I told him I’d walk. For one, I had nothing better to do, and for two, I had become more aware of our status in the world and I wasn’t all that anxious to bring it to anyone’s attention, if I didn’t have to. So I walked the 4 miles back to school, then I walked the 2 miles from the school to our house in Stowell. As I got closer, I saw Sean Harris’s car in the driveway. Over time, I had come to not really care for the guy. However, Momma liked him and I know for a fact he gave her money every now and then to help us with food and rent. He was the first guy I had known Momma to take an interest in since my dad. I walked in the door and found them both sitting on the couch watching TV. They both looked up at me and immediately began to pick up what appeared to be trash on the coffee table. Why they were so anxious to clean up a few coke cans and empty an ashtray was beyond me. Sean was scratchin his arm all nervous like, but he was always kinda twitchin and scratching so it didn’t strike me as odd. What DID catch my eye was that Momma was doing the same thing.

“Why you so late gettin home?”
“Cuz I walked all the way to Al-T’s only to find out you didn’t work today. You sick?”
“Um… yeah… I was just fixin to go lay down…”

It wasn’t what she said that bothered me. It was how she said it. She was speaking as if every word she spoke were just as surprising to her as it was to me. I must have had a look on my face because Sean stepped up and told me I should go outside and enjoy the day. I looked up at him and noticed that he too seemed to be looking right through me as he spoke. I made my way to my room and dropped my backpack before I headed out the back to my friend, Derrick’s, house.

Derrick Thibodeaux was probably the closest thing I had to a best friend when I lived in Winnie. We lived four houses from each other, neither one of us had ever met our fathers, and we both felt like we were destined for more than what we getting. The only real difference between the two of us was that Derrick was black. To some people around the town, that was an issue worth worrying about. To Derrick, and me, we never really could understand why it mattered. In my mind, I’d rather judge a guy on who he is and not where his great, great, granddaddy came from.

Derrick and I headed down our street and across a field until we hit Big Hill Road. Big Hill led out to the petroleum plant and along the way was nothing but wide open fields with plenty of trees just begging to be climbed. We were halfway up one particular tree when I told Derrick about Momma and Sean acting weird. Derrick got a serious tone, as he usually did when we were talking about things we knew were bad, but didn’t understand why.

“Shane, you need to get Sean away from your momma.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Shane, they doin drugs. They doin that meth, prolly.”
“How the heck could you know that?”
“My brother, Ryan got messed up in it and we ain’t seen him in 3 years. He was always twitchin and playin with Coke cans. You gotta get Sean away from your momma.”

At first I got mad at Derrick and told him he was wrong. But the more I thought about it, I knew he wasn’t. We had learned a little about drugs in school, and seein as how the stretch between Winnie and Beaumont produced more Crystal Meth than any other area in the state, the pieces all fit. Momma was on drugs. I had to come up with a plan to get rid of Sean Harris.

I got home just after dark and Momma was asleep in her room with Sean. I had decided the best way to get rid of Sean was to get him busted. I grabbed the phone and pulled it as far as the cord would let me walk, which was just outside our front door. My hand was shaking as I dialed up 911.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“Um… Hello… My name is Shane Temple… I think there’s a man in my house with drugs…”
“Excuse me? How old are you, son?”
“I’m… uh… 12 years old… There’s a man with drugs in my house and he’s making my momma do them too…”
“Ok, son. Does he have the drugs with him right now?”
“I dunno…. I just want him to go to jail and get away from my momma…”
“Ok, son. Where is your house?”

I told her my address and hung up the phone. I noticed I was sweating and shaking more than I could ever remember. I also felt a rush I hadn’t ever experienced before. I felt like I had done something few others my age could do. I had saved my momma.

A loud deliberate knock on the door awoke me from the sleep I’d somehow managed to find. I heard some shuffling in my Momma’s room and some muffled talking. The knocking started up again. Without really giving my legs permission, I ran to the door and opened it up. A big burly state trooper stood there with his flashlight pointed right into my eyes. He took a look at me and almost began to speak when I raised my hand and pointed to the back of the house where Sean was. I realized I had come to the climax of my young life. My heart could have run a Ford Mustang it was working so hard. I heard some yelling. I heard some screaming. I heard some scuffling and I heard a loud thud as that officer took Sean to the ground. I heard a set of handcuffs click around a set of wrists. I remember hoping Sean had hit his head on something sharp. Another officer came into the house. I figured Sean must have been too heavy for one man to drag out, but that thought didn’t hold water because Sean Harris was barely 160 pound by my guess. I heard more screaming. I heard more yelling. I heard more scuffling. I heard another set of handcuffs click around another set of wrists. Why would they need two sets for one man? As the first state trooper came past me draggin Sean by himself, I realized what had happened.

My entire body went numb.

It felt like someone had unscrewed a stopper on my feet and all the blood had run out of my body.

I felt a tear start to form in my eye.

The other officer came past me with Momma.

She looked at me and I saw her lips moving, but for some reason, everything was in slow motion and I couldn’t hear a word she was saying to me. I musta floated to the front door cuz I surely don’t remember walking. I saw Sean already in one squad car. I saw Momma being thrown into another. I looked around and saw that nearly all of our neighbors were outside on their porch just watching.

The tear had dried up and all I could feel was the piercing pain in my chest caused by forgetting to breathe.

I had ratted out my own mother. I didn’t deserve to be alive.

A third state trooper walked up to me and asked me if I was Shane. I flashed back to the day Momma had been shot at the Luby’s. There would be no running off this time. The man put his hand on my shoulder and told me to pack up some clothes and stuff because he had to take me somewhere. I honestly don’t remember packing anything. I don’t remember getting in that man’s car. I don’t ever remember him explaining what was happening to me. The next memory I have is sitting in the front seat of his car on our way to Beaumont when I realized I wouldn’t be going back to Winnie.

I began to bawl and I could not stop.

The next few days were a blur. They couldn’t find any records for Shane Temple (I didn’t bother telling them that Temple wasn’t my real last name), but they did find a record for Momma and that led them to a Fort Worth hospital and to my dad.