I’m sitting in the barber’s chair New Year’s Eve morning when clips from the life of Bill Cosby flash on the TV Screen. What a tragedy. All that comedic, television and movie success burned to the ground because of Cosby’s failure to deal with his demons. All that personal, professional and social wreckage because of his refusal to acknowledge and get help for a haunting life of lies, denial and grotesque misdeeds. What a tremendous fall from grace.
“…This was highly predictable. We can run but we can’t hide from our shit. That which is done in the dark, that shit will be made known in the light…”
Hunter
In These Rooms, I’m listening as AJ, a 27-year-old African American brother, alcoholic and meth and cocaine dealer on the down low, talks about growing up in this perfect family like the Huxtable’s on TV. He said “…people in my family were like the Huxtables. My dad is a physician like Dr. Cliff Huxtable and my mother is a Lawyer like Clair Huxtable…” AJ said when his father realized he was an alcoholic, he repudiated him, “…you’re nothing but a common drunk just like your grandfather was…” So much for that Huxtable Family Shit.
Then this cat Brian, a 35-year-old father of two small children, bi-polar schoolteacher with a cocaine addiction and love for massage parlors, ala Deshaun Watson (but I digress) says, “…I’m cussing people out at the pharmacy for screwing up my medicine when ‘Bad Brian’ is moved to apologize to ‘Good Brian’ …” I think damn, there must be a ‘Bad Bill Cosby’ and a ‘Good Bill Cosby’ aka Heathcliff Huxtable.
Maria is a thirty-one-year-old alcoholic woman who is twice divorced with two kids. When the shit in the life of a twice-divorced mother living on minimum wage trying to raise two children, with an asshole ex-husband (her emphasis not mine) who chooses to cuss her out instead of helping her tells her what a lowlife bitch she is, when that shit hits the proverbial fan, Maria has learned from working her program:
“…Your opinion of me is none of my damn business…”
In These Rooms Maria
I’m not going out not owning my demons but instead embracing the fact:
“…we are all fallen, flawed and fallible. We all have our demons. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. Most of us sit down to shit and we all have gangster proclivities. No one is better than anyone else for everybody has shit going on and the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We are all trying to get home the best fucking way we know how…”
Hunter
I’m glad I ain’t going out like Heathcliff Huxtable or Bill Cosby. But hell, it’s only taken my black ass 62 damn years to get here.
Read more about Hunter and tell your story. Listen to Hunter’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #OurShitMatters
The Struggle Continues…
