Tony Chillura

I will never forget his face. One day back in 2001, T and I were out doing yard work. We were renting a small house in an okay hood near Busch Gardens. If the wind was blowing in the right direction, you could hear the screams of the people on the coasters.

It was a small little house. I had blogged pictures way back when of the ugly blue tiled kitchen, that our landlord graciously agreed to upgrade for us, if we ripped out the old ugliness. Which we gladly did! Anyway, we were out doing yard work. T had gone in to get us something cold to drink and I was mowing. This guy pulls up in an old Blazer and asks me about trimming some trees that were weighing on our power lines. He gave me a business card, from a tree trimming service, with his name on it. Something about this guy was off.

I struggle with being judgmental. Too often we judge people on how they look. This guy, in all honesty, screamed 'crackhead' to me. And I instantly felt guilty. The more I looked at him, and listened to him, the more I felt like he was a cockroach. Again, I felt guilty.

He told me that he and his crew were in the area trying to drum up some business, some regular customers. He said he would be back later to trim the trees, and he would haul it all off for $100. He had a lot to cut, so, sounded good to me. He also saw all of the old kitchen debris that was in the back yard. He asked about it, and told me that he would also haul all of that off, for an additional $100. It was a LOT of stuff. I told him that I needed to check with my landlord about the tree trimming, because that is something she should pay for.. it was HER house, after all. So T called her and she agreed.

He came back much later in the evening, with another guy. Right then T and I were like "Ut oh..." There was no mistake about it now. They were crackheads. High as kites, they both were.
Tony was kind of agitated, and so we let them cut the shit down. He dragged out all of the crap from the back yard, and bundled it all up nicely. He drug it to his truck and using the tree trimmings, made sort of a nest-like thing to hold all of the kitchen stuff. He told T that his buddy was right on the next street with the truck and he was going to drag in over there to toss it all in. T gave him $200 and came in the house.

Then, Tony drove around the front of our house, and his friend jumped out of the truck, pulled everything out and off the truck and dumped it in the street and took off.

We were not really surprised at that point. I called the number on the card he had given me and asked if Tony worked there. The man I spoke with replied with a heavy sigh, "No. I fired him about 3 months ago. He has... problems." I said, "So, he is smoking the $200 we just gave him, huh?" And the man replied, "Yes.. most likely...I am very sorry."

And then we had to pay another dude $100 to come and haul the shit away. That guy seemed legit and we hired him to start mowing and weed-whacking the yard. We were heavy into mountain biking at the time and that freed up a good amount of time for us to do just that.

All was well for a few months, til he showed up at our house one night around 11 p.m. wanting to know if we would pay him the $30 we usually paid him, early, so he could get his sick kid medicine. I thought "Yeah. Sure.. right." He looked strung out and desperate. I have him the $30 to get him to go away and asked that he not do this again.

He did show up to do the lawn a few days later, when he was supposed to. But he was drunk. At 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. At that point, we told him that we would no longer need his services.

THEN.. when T went off the rails and was using and hanging out with slime.. he got on a crew trimming trees and stuff. That was one of the first things I asked him, "Please tell me you did not go around ripping people off like Tony Chillura..??" He swears up and down that they never ripped anyone off. I have to assume they did not, because they actually had repeat customers.. but still.

To know that my hubby was... was like this guy, makes me queasy.
I am so thankful that T decided to get it together. And while there have been slip-ups, thankfully they were not with crack.

I really didn't want to blog about that stuff anymore, but it creeps in from time to time and sometimes I just need to get it out. It is REALLY hard for me to look back on the last 3 years of our lives. It is hard to admit that my hubby was a crackhead. And a pillhead. He was the most amazing man I had ever met (besides my daddy, of course), and I just cannot really wrap my head around what he became. It is all so surreal. He is working hard to be that man again, and hes making strides and that is all that I can ask for.

I try to just keep looking forward, hoping and praying. If he makes that choice again, he is doing it solo, because I do not have it in me to go through all of that again.

Bah. I need to find my happy place, because now I am all angry and stressed. *deep breath*