Page 186 - Louisiana Loop (manuscript Edition)

BIG MOMMA and the ADDICT

Now I don’t want to start off on the left foot and offend anyone, nor do I want to start of f on the right and play dosey
doe dancing around the foibles of being a human being, but I do want to highlight the compassion and humanity of an
individual and a set of circumstances that goes on everyday in America, but maybe not the same results.
Big Momma knows who she is and is proud to live it. I admire her and honor her for just being herself and no other
name is necessary because this is who Big Momma is.
“The Addict” is just my way of using a name to describe a viable and caring individual who happens to be as much a
human being as your or I and just so happens to have many sets and layers of issues in life that he is dealing and living
with.
We all do.

This is about Americana as it really is. America as it is lived perhaps a little more obvious in Big Cities across America
but no less a Norman Rockwell picture you see in museums, or sold by Junk Mail from the “Bradford Exchange” for
some insane price only your grandmother would buy.

Because of other stories located here in this chapter I just want to pick up with Big Momma and I (Mr PJ’s-aka “the
bucket kicker” ) sitting outside the “deli” cafeteria style gift shop in a Greyhound station, “BIG CITY” USA. Typical to
other Greyhound stations this had metal chairs that try hard to make waffles out of your derriere and tattoo you hiney to
look like a checkerboard that may be good for cleaning or ventilation but for sitting really wasn’t made to sit on long at
all………..and God help you if you moved them out of the designated area next to the table next to the gift
shop……..that was breaking the ten commandments . 1) Thou Shalt Move Chair. 2) Thou Shalt Not ……….well…..you
get the picture…...it’s Greyhound After Dark.

Big Momma sat listening to The Addict we’ll call Mr. A to be nicer than highlighting issues everyone has some form or
another. I sat to his right and my butt hurt. Since as my wife says I have no “a” these chairs were making bone marrow
transplants out of my hips bones or there abouts.

I sat immobile listening and watching calmly and openly as I had done many times before in many settings and this was
just as any other. Big Momma was the person Mr. A was mostly talking to and occasional glances my way made sure I
was listening and I was.

Mr A had no Bus Ticket and a casual attempt at hustling had now become a monologue of recent and not recent events
Mr A had gone thru. He was polite, he spoke in undertones, he was apparently coming down or still affected by a heroin
hit was lucid in his conversation if not repetitive. Each time his story was the same but not boring and not without a
certain amount of obvious discrepancy and a great majority of it probably true. Once you have ‘crossed over’ to
addictions or homelessness a certain amount of abuse occurs and he described some.

Big Momma impressed me not with what she had just finished saying: “ I’m not your Momma. I’m not your daddy. I
won’t lie to you. And I won’t lie for you, “ and few other “BLUNTNESS” that was amazingly well received but
typically ignored as really Mr A wanted to talk. But what Big Momma did next showed me the woman I grew to admire
in a short time we were together. She pulled a few snack crackers out of her pocket and while the conversation
continued, she made Mr A eat one of them in front of us and stick the other in his pocket in case tossed out. THAT was
Big Momma.