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I know his name is Li@m. I see him pretty much every time I go downtown, usually standing in a doorway by himself, maybe his cell phone is to his ear. I always assume he didn't stay clean for more than a few weeks.

Yesterday he was sitting on a bench talking to a girl about anxiety and stress. The topic made me wonder if maybe he's been clean all along. But he's still so skinny and haunted-looking that I have a hard time believing that.

Last summer he stayed at the shelter, so I saw him at the mission for a few weeks of meals and coffee. His mum came in during the same time. The last time I saw her she told me pretty much his whole life story.

My introduction to her was a reference he'd made the week before I saw her. She phoned for him when he reeked of pot, and when he got off the phone, he started swearing about her. "My mom's a fuckin' ****!" (I couldn't understand what he said, but I got the drift.) "I mean, I used to do drugs with that woman and now she's all..."

Anyways, she came in the following week, and kept up a sort of stream-of-consciousness commentary.

"Where's St. M@ry's? I gotta go to St. Mary's. I'm gonna hike it. Which direction do I start in?"

Someone says it's too far to hike.

"No it's not! It's 45 minutes I'm told. I'm just going to hike. Just tell me which way, I'm not from here. I'm from 0ttawa. Do I go to the 4o1?"

"I just can't believe it. I really gotta thank you, A1berta, his self-esteem has really gone up since he started coming here. He even wants to go back to school, and he's got the ability, I know he does. And he's clean. I mean, he still smokes pot, but that's harmless. Not like the bad shit he was doing."

"S1ster Chr1stine was giving him heck for selling pills the other day, and he turned to her and said, 'S1ster Chr1s, you know I don't sell pills. I only sell pot.' And another guy asked her for five bucks and she asked why and he said he wanted to buy some pot and she gave it to him."

Later, she told someone else the same story and finished it with, "But he does sell pills."

She was spooning out fruit salad into a bowl, when she said, "I am just SO happy today," to no-one in particular. My face must have given away my interest, because she immediately started telling me more. "As of today, my son is in his very own place, and he's clean and sober."

He was the reason she had to leave 0ttawa, because she couldn't stand waiting for him to die. He used to leave syringes all over her place, and she couldn't sleep at night if he was there, because she'd worry he'd overdose and die while she slept. If he ran the water in the bathroom, she couldn't be sure if he was running a bath or shooting up coke.

He had seizures, sometimes he'd be lying down and sometimes he'd be standing up, seizing, frothing at the mouth, eyes open. He couldn't hear anything though and he wouldn't remember anything after. One time he woke her in the middle of the night, screaming that snakes were coming out of his back and there were bugs all over. But there were none. He was naked and out of control and she had to call 911 three times before the ambulance finally came. He stopped taking his meds when he left the hospital though, so she made him go back.

Throughout all this, I really identified with her as a mother. I mostly listened in horror, trying -- but not really wanting -- to imagine what it would be like to watch Wheels as a teenager in Li@m's place. Whatever her faults, she's still his mom and I saw a spark of that fierce maternal love that I really believe is universal when she was thanking A1berta.

"He was loyal. He'd always call, no matter what, high or not. He always called." One time he didn't call for two days. When the police showed up at her place she thought they'd come to tell her Li@m was dead. She called out NO!!! and nearly fell down, but they were just there to check for syringes, and her place was clean.

"That was it," she said. "That was one dress rehearsal I didn't need, so I left town. I told him I couldn't watch him do this anymore. He stole from me and I never knew what was truth and what was lie. I'm an addict. But I never ripped anyone off. That was my code. Well, I stole from a few stores - that's embarrassing. I must have been really stoned. One time I had a bit of crack in my pocket, a few crumbs, so I ate them. I'm not really a crack person, I used opiates, but I ate the crack, and it was a good thing, because they jumped on me. I didn't know they had a camera. But nothing was left in my pockets..."

"I used to do drugs with him. One time I shot up with him, but right away I was like I never want to do that EVER again."

Shortly after she left Ottawa, he called her. He couldn't take it anymore. He wanted help. So she said he could come here, but he couldn't live with her. He had to stay with S1ster Chr1stine. "I wouldn't live with that abuse anymore. He called me terrible names, fuckin' whore and c**t. I've told him if he swears when he's at my place, he'll have to leave. "

"But now my son is clean and sober, and he has his very own place. He wants to go back to school."

All this took a very long time, and I wasn't sure how to extricate myself. She seemed high; her eyes seemed unfocused and her words were slurred. But maybe that's just how she talks. Or maybe she's on medication. Every time someone new came by, she'd ask if they wanted to hike to St. M@ry's with her for the jamboree her brother's playing in tonight. There weren't any takers. She came in for a coffee, saying someone had said she looks fucked up. "I hate it when people say that, when they say you look stoned when you're not. I just had two percocets this morning. I mean, I had my day."

She left for St. M@ry's eventually. It rained off and on all day, and at times it rained so hard I couldn't even see through the window. I thought about her a few times, hoping the rain made it easier for her to hitch a ride and she wasn't wet for too long.

I keep trying to imagine what Li@m's infancy and toddlerhood were like, but my mind draws a complete blank. Maybe it was like Wheels's with laughter and (mostly) doting parents or maybe it was something completely different, something I can't even begin to picture.

"I'm an addict," she shrugged helplessly. "It's the drugs..."