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About ten minutes in, my casual conversation with a casual acquaintance yesterday turned personal. He felt driven to discuss an issue he's wrangling with and, yes, he gave me permission to write about it on the condition that I change a few details. So I have.
Now 53, Vince spent most of his teens and twenties not just doing lots of drugs but also dealing them. Quaaludes, mushrooms, angel dust -- it was the '70s and, to his many customers, he was "the man," that stylish blonde in skinny-hipped bell-bottoms and shiny tank tops. He made a lot of money, which he spent. Some of his friends who also dealt drugs used their earnings to buy houses. Vince cannot remember how he spent his cash, but it's long gone. He's clean now, but he's on government aid and hasn't worked in seven years. He quit that last job, cleaning offices, because the temptation to steal was way too strong.
He started dealing drugs at fourteen, having left home. Why did Vince leave home? He had been kicked out of eighth grade for setting fires. His parents were divorced by then: His father had walked out when Vince was nine and never once paid child support. Ater the divorce, Vince's mother spent her days half-asleep on the couch, crying when she awoke. She seldom shopped, so Vince went hungry many nights; nor could she rouse herself to sign him onto the school lunch program, so he went hungry many days as well: a rarity in modern suburban America. Leery of adults, Vince told no one of his plight, instead scratching out a sketchy survival, shoplifting snacks and shampoo. That last year at home, he owned just one shirt and wore it every day until a sleeve fell off. At a free concert, he met a man who invited Vince to move into his home. One week later, Vince did.
Forty years later, Vince is very, very angry. Vince is needy. Vince is bitter. Vince is hurt. Neither before nor after leaving home did he ever confront his parents, make demands, tell them of his sorrow or rage. It would have been fruitless, he says. His mother was too flaccid, too out-of-it to respond or change. His dad was incommunicado. Vince says, "I was on my own."
And he says he's lucky to be alive: the drugs, the unprotected sex with countless strangers, drug-world life with all its shady characters, money and guns. He knows he's lucky, but now he wants something from his dad. His mom died poor. His dad, remarried twice, now lives in a nice condo. Wanting to build bridges, he now calls all his children frequently -- but never discusses the past -- and hosts Saturday barbecues. He isn't rich: He never worked enough to stash a nest egg. He lives on veterans' benefits and what's left of the price he got for an old family property. That's it.
But Vince wants something. Not attention. Not love. He used to believe he wanted those, but now he realizes he just wants cash. Whenever he sees his father, he asks for some. He sometimes gets a bit: His dad paid for new tires, for a root canal. Vince says that's not enough.
His siblings tease Vince: What you want from Dad, they say, is reparations. But, they say, it won't buy back your youth. The Vince who got such money (if his dream comes true) now would be the fiftysomething Vince, not the small hungry boy. More importantly, his siblings say, if Dad gives you money, then he can feel absolved of guilt. And do you want to let him off the hook like that?
As adults, many of us wish to extract something from our parents, exes, longtime friends who let us down. Having abandoned hope for other, deeper, harder means of healing, we ponder a salve that seems to make sense in consumer culture: cash. Vince wants this, and he considers it rightly his. But how much better will it make him feel, and for how long?
