It’s easy to write about what life is like for me these days
because it doesn’t generally—actually, at all—bring about painful memories, or
make me wonder if I’ve fully amended certain areas of my past. For this post, I’m
going to stray away from my current life to bring you a harrowing story of redemption
and heroism all the way back from the year 2000. Now when I say redemption and
heroism, I mean degenerate crack-addiction, just to clear up any confusion in
what I’m about to portray.
Dreamy fade to the year 2000. (Think the Wayne’s World dueduladeudela
noise.)
The 1900’s were over, see, and I was just coming up in the
world of skillful distribution of street pharmaceuticals. I wasn’t very good at
it because I was always disinclined to heed the advice of N.W.A.’s Dope Man or
Biggie’s Ten Crack Commandments, which I believe all stemmed from some counsel
by one Tony Montana: Don’t get high on your own supply. It’s great information
that should be strictly adhered to in the dealing business.
In my case, it started back in the 1900’s with weed. I would
front an ounce of weed and I would start smoking off of it right away. Then I
would get my friends high, and then I would owe and struggle to find new
criminal ways to pay my debts. I would fail, succeed, and fail again, and
eventually find a new source and start the cycle over again. On and on it went
for years until I found the hard stuff. Cocaine changed everything for me: it
was a new game.
Now I would go get my bag of weed and sell it all and take
that cash and give it to the crack dealer. It wouldn’t take long for that to be
gone, so I quickly burned all of the bridges. I burned the cars, too, (Like Eagles fans!) and
anybody else that I could get to, like my mom. People became metaphorically flammable.
After a particularly vicious cycle, and very possibly
shortly after being released from jail, and also just after being responsible
for allowing my closest and most honorable friend of years get arrested (but
never charged or convicted) for a crime I committed, and shortly after stealing cocaine from a friend and replacing it all with baking soda, I found myself back at my
mom’s house. Again.
Now, I don’t know how many times I had landed back in that
situation, but as far as I recall, this would be one of the shortest stints and
the catalyst for a very long cruel winter that saw me couch-hopping and
eventually land me in a treatment center where I desperately needed to be.
I recall one night in particular, it was bad even for my
standards. My mom went to bed and I was left on the chair in the living room
all alone. I had a liter of whiskey which I had cleverly hidden while she was
in the room with me, and I could finally drink freely. It took me about two
hours to polish off the bottle. When I get whiskey drunk—and I mean liter of
cheap whiskey in two hours drunk—I’ve been known to make decisions that I would
later in life reflect upon, much like I am doing right now.
I made a choice. I’m fairly certain I even slurred the words
in my head, “I’m gettin’ high.” Of course, I didn’t have my own money, but I
was sure my mom did. The first place you look for woman money is a purse, and that’s
where I found the jackpot: her A.T.M. card (they still had those back then.) I
also found her keys, which was great because I was in perfect condition to
drive, which I did.
I hopped in, went to the cash machine, and drove down
Marshall Avenue until it became east Lake Street. I never spent much time in
Minneapolis, but I had spent many years as an active drug addict, so I knew
that when I saw the guy and nodded to him, he would know what I wanted, and he
did. He brought me to a nearby crack house (twice) where I spent everything the
card would allow me to withdraw. I gave the stranger a small portion for his
work, and I headed back home without incident.
I smoked on the venomous intoxicant through a pop can the entire night,
alternating between sweating profusely and peeking through the blinds as a
result of paranoia, and playing scrabble with myself.
When my mom woke up, I pretended I had also just risen, and
played the good son by offering to start her car for her (because I wanted
there to be a reason there was less gas than when she parked it the night
before. It made sense then.) She didn’t say anything to me then, and she didn’t know the weight of
what had occurred for a while, but much later in the day she left me a note
telling me to leave. I did just that. I didn’t want to deal with what I had
done, so it was time to move on to the next heist.
There is the biggest difference between an addict and a drug
user. I was an addict. My decisions affected other people and society. I didn’t
care about what you had or how you got it, if I needed to get high, I would do
anything I could to take what was yours. And I didn’t care. That is the aspect
that still haunts me. That is why I go to any length now to stay clean, because
it is still within me to go to any length to destroy whatever you own. I was
the literal definition of detriment to society.
Years later I found out that what I had taken from her
account amounted to everything she had (in that particular account). It took
even more years to really feel the burden that I had assessed onto loved ones,
and to try to make things right. I’m still in the process of writing my wrongs,
and righting my crimes. I may never be done, but it’s important for me and you
that I keep working on it.
This all happened on just one night in roughly 15 years of
steady addiction, some nights were worse. Every night was a story.
