I have known them almost a year and a half. They are a bi-racial couple, difficult at any time in the South, but when you are homeless, it is just one more barrier you face in interacting with the “normal” world. And more barriers are the last thing they need.
She is a high-school dropout, who is 21 and has already had two kids, one with him. He is in his mid-twenties and has already been dis-honorably discharged from the Marines. She has no job skills or work history and, while she looks like the cute white girl from next door, she has a distinctive “urban” accent when she talks. He walks the line between the acceptance he feels in street culture and the urge to stay with her and provide. They are not allowed custody of either kid–the kids are with his family in Benson.
Last week she spent 48 hours in the county jail because she broke his nose when she found him flirting with another woman. Yesterday I saw them together, like nothing ever happened. All was forgiven. Oh, and she told me she thinks she is pregnant again. Just what they need.
I do not know which frustrates me more: That they are so desperate to love and be loved by someone that they cling to each other when neither of them are any good for each other, or that she was excited at the prospect of being pregnant.
