The McDonalds Parking Lot

*names of people and places have been changed for privacy reasons*

I remember that it was raining and I had a hole in my left combat boot. My sock was soaked and my clothes were torn and ratty and not even truly mine to begin with. Some girls from tent city had given them to me when they told me I was no longer welcome.

"For your own good, Urchin, stay away".

I never liked that name. But that’s the thing about nicknames, you don't get to pick your own. Whether it's your parents, the kids at school, your boyfriend or girlfriend or the other miscreants scavenging for their next high in the micro-community under the bridge.

I couldn't tell you what day it was. I don't remember if it was the weekend or a holiday or what was going on anywhere else in the world but I remember feeling stuck. Feeling scared and angry and lost and completely hopeless. I remember my ribs hurting and the yellowing of skin from the bruises that were nearly healed on my stomach. I remember my legs feeling like watered down jelly from the running I had done throughout the night, either from fear or from not knowing what else to do with myself. I remember the swelling under my eye and the taste of metal in my mouth from the cut on my lip I still had from the last time I had seen Joey. The gash kept opening and re-opening anytime I moved my chapped lips. But at that time of my life, I was chock full of wounds I never let heal- both inside and out.

I didn't know it then but it was the last time I would ever have to see him. Despite what I'm sure, were his best efforts, Joey never found me again.

The adrenaline coursing through my veins had been keeping me going through the early hours of the gloomy morning but all of a sudden, sitting on this soaking wet curb, I could feel it coming on- the Dope Sickness.

Opiate withdrawal can't physically kill you. It's not like alcohol or benzodiazepines in that sense- but it can make you feel like death itself. As if the seizure-esque shivering and sweat soaking through your layers of clothing isn't enough of a punishment, there's the pain. Pain that feels like a thousand tiny knives slicing through your nerves over and over again. An ache so deep that it flows right through your muscles and goes straight to the bone. The clenching of your stomach and the rawness of your throat from all the bile that passes through from your body's recognition that you haven't eaten for days, maybe even weeks. Anytime you close your eyes- all you see are red and white little spots, dancing from the dehydration. And then there's the exhaustion. It's a fatigue that's so utterly profound that the molecules that make up your very being are weary. You're tired. Your body is wasting away and your soul is a husk of what it once was. As Shakespeare once said; "These violent delights have violent ends". And an "ending" is exactly what it feels like. Your head is throbbing, your fingertips are pulsating, the ringing in your ears is louder than being front row at a rock concert and your eyes just want to rest... just for a second.

If you make it that far, far enough to feel the sickness coming on, that's normally about the time you pull out your kit and use again but I forgot my last hit in my other jean pockets that I left behind and there were no more dealers that I knew would sell to me. Damnit. I was so flustered that all I had time to grab were my car keys.

Keys to a car that had stopped working months ago, hence the reason I had made the transition from living-in-my-car transient to full on under-the-bridge homeless. I'm not even sure why I kept the keys originally but I did and here I was- nothing but a broken cell phone, wet socks, and a car that had miraculously not been towed but wouldn't turn on. It was then I started screaming. Screaming at the top of my lungs. Screaming for all the times I had bit my tongue and kept quiet the past months, living on the street with Joey and his bad temper and his unyielding fists. Screaming at myself for my bad decisions and even worse taste in men and terrible choice in words that I used like weapons to hurt the ones I loved to keep them at arms length in order to "protect them". And then all of a sudden, while I was screaming my voice raw- I felt a wetness on my face. Was I bleeding? I remember hitting my head the night before but it wasn’t blood streaming down. I was crying.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried. I had gotten so good at not feeling anything. I had taken all the parts of me that made me delicate and vulnerable and sensitive and fragile and little and hid them away in an iron locket I buried somewhere no one could find them. Somewhere no one could hurt them. I had become a master of apathy and nothingness. But when you do that- when you compartmentalize and ignore and avoid, all you’re doing is putting a band aid on all your pain. And band aids always come off eventually.

So as my band aid disintegrated and layers of armor and trauma and naïveté fell down around me- I cried. I sobbed. I cried so hard that I died and came back to life and was reborn. I’m not sure how long I was crying and there were some moments I didn’t even know exactly what I was crying about but sometime after the wailing started, maybe minutes, maybe hours, I heard a knock on my car window.

I went to grab the first thing I could find because I’d be damned if I was gonna be robbed in my already darkest hour- but through my tear brimmed eyes- I saw her. I didn’t quite relax but she looked..kind. An older Asian woman with bright pink lipstick and a straw hat. She looked as if she were dressed for gardening despite the flood coming down from the sky and the cold that was seeping through my car door. She wore thick glasses that made her eyes appear bigger than they were and her hair was shiny and soft and long- nothing like my matted curls. And she was smiling. Smiling like she had just won the lottery. She quietly tapped on my window again after what seemed an eternity and I slowly let it down, just enough to ask her what she wanted.

"Me? Oh I don’t want anything. It seems like you’re the one in need sweet poinsettia."

I felt embarrassed. Did I really look that pathetic that a stranger could see what a mess I was through glass and rain and fog?

"I’ll be fine. Thank you"

I went to roll up my window and she blurted out "I don’t want you to be ‘fine’ , I want you to be safe"

Safe? I hadn’t taken time to think about that in what seemed like a very, very long time. I hadn’t prioritized my safety in nearly a decade. I’d been using drugs on and off at varying degrees since I was much younger and at some point I understood the risks and I made the decision that the high was worth my life. If that’s what it cost. Why would this stranger care about my safety if I didn’t?

"I’m honestly okay. Thank you"

Her smile deflated a bit. "Well okay then poinsettia, at least take this " she said as she handed me a twenty dollar bill. She started to walk away and I felt an overwhelming wave of panic wash over me. Before she was gone forever I opened my door and asked her to wait up. She turned around with her arms wide open and I ran to give her a hug so fast that her small frame nearly toppled over.

We sat inside the McDonalds for a few hours and she treated me to "all the nuggets you want" as I verbally vomited the last year of my life in between sips of Sprite and mouthfuls of chicken and honey mustard. We cried and laughed and for just a little bit- time itself seemed like it was suspended in the ether. We were in a booth eating overly processed chicken.

A pried open locket and an angel.

She asked me what I needed to do next and I told her I wanted to make it to my moms house. But that my phone didn’t work when it wasn’t in WiFi and I didn’t know exactly where I was and most importantly, my car didn’t work.

"I find that when things don’t work the first time- you have to try again"

She led me out by my hand and gestured expectantly to the car. The rain had stopped and this woman had been so nice to me that I figured I would at least humor her before parting ways and finding a new place to crash for a couple nights. I got in the drivers seat and put the keys in the ignition and turned.

If I didn’t believe in miracles before that day- I sure did after that because the car started and she chuckled as if she were keeping all the secrets of the universe inside that straw hat. She gave me a gallon of gas from her car and I used the twenty she had given me earlier to fill up my tank and then she put my mother’s address into her GPS and had me follow her.

There was no goodbye. I didn’t get a chance to get her name. She made sure I parked and then drove off. Maybe I should have followed her but I had a journey to begin and so I did.

That was nearly 6 years ago. There are times I have an urge to search for her but in some ways- I feel like that moment is better left alone. I’ve been clean for three years now. I have a daughter and a good relationship with my family and I’m getting married to an amazing man who in many ways, reminds me of My Angel. I work at a place where I can give back to teenagers who are recovering from drug addiction and these days, I prioritize my safety.

Little things go long ways and whether she was an angel or just a truly decent human being- she was one of the first stones that paved the way in my road from despair to hope.

While I don’t contribute the entirety of my sobriety to the woman I met that day, I don’t know that I would have lived much longer had she not taken the time out of her day to help me in the middle of a storm and buy me some chicken nuggets.