There is always a choice between health and unabated frivolity, and at this juncture Tim attempted to make his spritzer more rejuvenating by applying more lemon juice than usual. He had come a long way from drinking straight out the bottle down near the murky yet current stirred river, preferring to admire the sunset fall on the back garden, which looked like something out of fantasy, from the elevated deck while Anthony fervently readied their first and last pipe bowl of the day. Yes, they had both cut back substantially, and this restraint was not just financially circumstantial, but out of a genuine desire to thwart and conquer desire itself. They felt better knowing they would have some herb in reserve for the next few days. It never used to last so much.
Anthony had had reservations about Timothy coming back home, and thought it wiser to resume his studies in such an innovative and respectable program that was at the Centre of Global Studies, but when his wife Loraine explained to him it was as grave as life and death, which it quite closely had been, Anthony relented and now he liked these times he and Tim shared on the stoop since they would share getting stoned enough that they would really listen and get through to each other.
Most times the two met eye to eye, though Tim would become flabbergasted when Anthony would resurface past grievances, most of which he had only the faintest recollections of. It felt unfair because he was a different person; back when he was 16 and un-medicated and with a 133 IQ, Tim had gotten into more than his appropriate share of risk taking and dirty underworld delving.
A prime example was when he tossed a beach boulder through the window of a beige Volvo when upon inspection, the keys were in the central panel. With no license, he had struggled to get the shift out of reverse, resorting to gunning the whole messy heat backwards a couple miles before cleaning the broken glass and reverse engineering the clutch. The thing was such a junker that when he got roasted for the joyride, the Crown charges laid amounted to a mere Possession of Stolen Property under $500.
Then there was the grand larceny in California. Busting open mailboxes in the gated community, Tim had collected confidential information about his yuppy neighbour folk, enough to start applying for credit cards in their name and registering authorization for online banking functionality. Transferring funds onto his own PayPal account, anything sold on the internet was at Tim's fingertips with the option of next day delivery, cost being no worry because the money wasn't his.
With the acquired plastic he ran a strict gasoline for chronic exchange for his classmates who were affluent enough to own but destitute enough not to be able to fuel these ritzy vehicles. On a particularly lucrative night he filled two people's in 15 minutes, so MasterCard knew something was up and rang the authentic cardholder, thus the whole scheme came crashing down in the sheriff's office, police issued laptop in the holding cell, being ordered to return what electronic currency had not been squandered to the rightful recipients. His release conditions were to deactivate and never register again the PayPal membership, as well as never set foot in the county of Orange.
The irony is someone apparently hacked the hacker, since he still received periodic e-mails about attempted wire transfers needing password verification to initiate some shady transaction in Great Britain. “Amateur”, Tim had thought. A con contingent on a dummy response was too indirect for his liking. Yet he had to respect the guile of any player in this treacherous game.
More recently, before he ran back home tail between the legs, he had gotten into deep debt with a dangerous dude. Having tapped out any and all resources purchasing nickel bags priced as half balls, he got desperate and responded to a Kijiji ad with some Arab guy selling his I-phone two weeks after it had hit the retail markets. When he entered the merchant's car, he was equipped with a bank envelope stuffed with receipts for tobacco and junk food, along with a discrete serrated steak knife. Passing the funny money as a distraction allowed Tim to brandish the blade covertly against the victim’s plump torso. He tried to flee but forgot his seat-belt was fastened, then his frantic car horn pounding elicited nothing but void confusion from driver and passersby. The jack was enough to pay off his fronts to the scary dealer and even score more than he had ever held at any single moment.
But karma can have a way of slapping you straight silly.
The massive cocaine chunk he received for his dirty work was tainted with GHB {Date Rape}, the doctor told Tim the results of the toxicology lab screening when he awoke in the intensive care unit several days after his bender. “No wonder I wasn't feeling the rush and needed inordinate doses to get my fix” , pondered Tim. He should have known from the product being a tad more sparkly than his usual order.
At least Luke did call an ambulance, not before he lifted a pack of smokes and Tim's only cash from the unconscious and seizing scoundrel's pants pocket. Those items would have come in handy when Luke phoned Tim in his hospital bed to tell him he was no longer welcome to crash on the apartment's living room couch despite that month's rent having already switched hands and the paperwork filed adding Tim Mathias to the leaseholder's contract.
Being homeless during a harsh Canadian winter would have been manageable if there was an address to send his monthly disability cheque. Who knew one could be so impoverished that even welfare assistance was out of reach!
Luckily, from the university Tim had still a meal plan voucher, a bus pass until the end of August, and most importantly internet access in the library that he used to secure places to stay briefly, which he would reward his host with stolen liquor, and eventually a flight back out West to the home where father and son now indulged in a substance which would not leave them reeling or broken on the ground.
Of all Tim's wrongdoings, Anthony knew only of those which effected himself and his household: pinching a nug from the weed sack, the broken laundry room door, bills mysteriously disappearing from Loraine's purse. Were Tim to get a wee bit baked and loose-lipped, divulging the gritty details, Anthony would no doubt be rendered completely appalled. But passing the pipe back, Tim appeared jovial and even polite. Then again, Tim always had a somewhat flat affect, keeping his inner workings concealed from public scrutiny, especially the first few days after being pumped full of the prescribed pharmaceuticals meant to encourage a promised recovery that was explained would never be a full cure.
With the medicine came improvement in Tim's attitude and demeanor., and it soon became a given that he would receive this injection from the clinic every 28 days for the rest of his life. Rambunctious Timothy was nothing if not grateful for the second chance, this time with a keener focus that complimented his natural talent and made him overall more productive and efficient at expression.
A person can not thrive on cigarettes and creativity alone; the saying goes:
Everything in moderation, even/especially moderation itself.