Quandary 8

It was snowing in my mind. The size of the little white dots would vacillate with each bump on the road. I had the windows down and the radio cranked to keep me from falling asleep. Before I left the room I had made a few capsules filled with meth so I could eat them on the move and I swallowed one down with a chug of cold coffee I had from who knows when. Ingesting meth would add on to the visions but keep my body stirring.

I knew a girl in Chatfield and I had the thought that maybe she might know Driver because all tweakers in small towns seem to know each other. Her name was Crystal, all of their names are Crystal. We knew each other from working together at an old bar in the small town of Fountain a few years back. I knew right when I met her that she was a heavy drug user, and my instincts were spot on. I knew her only fifteen minutes before we were smoking a crack pipe in the bathroom. She had a weird habit of clicking her teeth repeatedly after a good hit. It reminded me of those wind-up chattering teeth with a face around it. But she was cool and she was a loyal customer, and I helped her transition from crack to meth which was a considerably less expensive habit. I selected her name from my contact list and tapped.

About a minute later I caught myself drifting off and cursed the man who made the lines so fucking straight on the road. I looked at my phone and understood why I didn’t hear any ringing; I hadn’t actually pressed a button. I hate smart phones. This time I clicked the green send button and stared at the screen until I knew the call had sent. It rang. Enthusiastically she answered, “Hey!” Too cheerful for my mood I thought. I replied, “Hey, Crystal. I have a question for you. Do you know a guy on Union street up toward the hill?” I knew the city well enough to describe the location in a way as to not give up an address quite yet. “Uhhh. Do you mean like us?” She was a paranoid person and would only ever allude to drug use over the phone. “Yes. Like us.” She continued, “Well I know a couple people over that way but they aren’t like us.” She then continued in a whisper as if that were somehow safer, “I mean they don’t get high.” I understood the first time. Fuck. I suppose there was a chance that Driver wasn’t a user, or that she just didn’t know him, and I didn’t want her asking anybody else anything so I cut off the line of questioning and proceeded with the usual conversation. “You want to meet up?” She screamed, “YES!”

I met her at a little gas station between Chatfield and Rochester, she didn’t bring up our other conversation so I assume she had already moved on. Perfect. It was a dead end but it was worth a shot I thought. Anyhow, an hour had passed and I was still awake. I had to get through day five. It always seemed easier to stay awake after you crossed a certain threshold, but this was always the worst. My muscles were on fire from being constantly tensed. My senses were all jumbled in a state of synesthesia, and my stomach was aching from two full days without so much as a drop of water or bite of food. Eating now would surely put me to sleep, I had to put that off for at least another day. There was one thing I could eat, another capsule. I did, and I could feel the burn of the meth when the thin dissolvable container burst open in my mouth. It made my teeth hurt and I winced in pain.

I drove around for another hour until the time came for me to call my guy. I had enough money in my pocket to make it worth a trip to his house. I looked like I had been in a fight with a dump truck, and he would be pissed that I hadn’t slept. But I had to keep things on a normal schedule or he would worry. You don’t want to make dangerous people worry.

Trying desperately to stay awake behind the wheel was often a losing battle, but I pushed on.

Quandary 7

This is the seventh in a series of posts that starts here.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked Seth. “Kill ‘em.” I knew he wasn’t joking. In a spot of luck, Google had automatically recorded my whereabouts of the evening including a 45-minute stay at an address in Chatfield, about 12 miles south of Rochester city limits. I knew this was good information, but I didn’t know how I was going to use it yet. I had to keep Seth calm and I couldn’t give him the address or something bad would happen, and I wasn’t ready for that.

We agreed to go about our normal lives for a few days and think about the best way to handle things. I didn’t want to arouse any suspicion by sending a tweaker to surveil the house, and even though I fantasized about it, it wasn’t time to set the house on fire. Seth left with a pocket full of meth, enough to keep him busy for a while and hopefully keep his mind off of this situation. I shut the door behind him, and stood in silence for a moment.

My body ached, particularly my face. When you go days without sleep or even so much as a nap, your body really feels it. I bolted the door and undressed. I grabbed the bag of new clothes that I had brought in from my car and headed for the bathroom. It had been three days since my last shower and the hot water burned every inch of my skin. As always, I used the small complimentary bar of soap to clean my body and my hair, I didn’t care about smelling fancy, I just wanted to get the dirt off. I let the water beat down on me and I liked the pain, it kept me awake. This was day five and I knew that soon the hallucinations would begin to take hold and things would get sloppy. I had to keep focused and the only way to do that was to keep getting high. If I went so much as two hours without snorting a line or hitting the pipe, I could drop like a rock wherever I was, no matter what I was doing.

I got lost in my head and drifted off under the calming hot rain and lost my balance. I reached out for support but just grabbed air and fell to the shower floor with a thud. “Fuck!” That was the other way to wake up; sudden jarring agony. I sat there for a minute in a daze. The snowflakes started to float down under my closed eyelids. Little white spots that drifted toward me from nowhere when my eyes were closed would eventually appear when my eyes were open. It was the first sign that my mind was starting to slip. I had to get out of this room or I would fall asleep for days and risk losing a lot of money and time.

I dried myself off slowly and got dressed. One nice thing about not having a home is never having to do laundry. I made enough money to buy a new outfit every day, and I just tossed the old stuff in the trash. I hid the drugs under the sink with the aid of a little duct tape, and removed all paraphernalia from plain sight. Small motel managers had a propensity to be nosy. They would often inspect rooms even when people were staying in them. I knew at some point after I left, the guy who carefully looked me over during my check-in would peek his head through the door and I didn’t want to give him any reason to call the police.

The transition from a dark, cavernous room to bright, cheerful daytime was annoying. I guessed that it was a weekday because of the amount of traffic this early in the morning. I wanted to go take a look at Driver’s house, but it would be a mistake to be seen anywhere near there. And I knew that in order for me and my family to be safe, I would have to kill all three of them at the same time.

The Future

I write a lot about the past because it's easier to see things in my head that have actually happened versus trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. The future-- something we try not to think or talk about in A.A. One day at a time we say. But in real life  it's something that I need to start doing.

I know I don't want to be a machine operator forever, but I also know that I have absolutely no desire to pursue a higher education. Really it just doesn't appeal to me, and me think is be good smart enough. I do often think about the good olde days in kitchens, and I dream of somehow, someday, being able to afford to go to culinary school.

I already have many skills that could easily land me a job as a dishwasher or a prep cook at a Denny's or wherever they might hire a 3-time felon, but I'm getting too old to start at the bottom again.

I could stay here in the noisy hot factory and churn out book covers all day for years. But I see what this place and others like it have done to people long term- robots, they're God damned robots!

I prefer a work environment where I can be not only hands-on, but creative. That's what I love about cooking, I can create something that makes people happy, and I enjoy the process of it all.

That's what we should all do, right? We're supposed to do for a career what we would do in our spare time. I can tell you that I do not laminate paper in my time away from work. I get some joy out of the work I do but it pales in comparison to a mediocre day behind the grill. I want that back.

I want to be excited about being early for work every day. I want to think about food and what I can do to make a restaurant better when I'm at home and lying in bed at night. I want to be in the weeds: tickets hanging off the printer to the floor, plates in the window, board full, every hot piece of steel purposefully cooking various meats, shouting everywhere, sweat pouring from top to bottom, somewhere in the background an old Aiwa stereo pumping the same 100 classic rock songs we've heard for our whole lives. There's a real sense of accomplishment at the end of a busy night in a good kitchen. And it's not something anybody will ever tell you, you just feel it. You feel completely torn down and wiped out but you want to do it again.

Of course there's the drugs. I've only briefly worked as a sober cook and the people I worked with were high, drunk, and could often be found in the cooler wielding pistols and mumbling incoherently, all while smoking a cigarette next to the produce. The triggers would be constant, and the perils around every turn, but something tells me I'm very close to being ready to get back in.

Since I doubt I will ever come up with enough money for a Culinary Arts degree, and my old loans have been defaulted for years, my only real option is to start out low down and work through the shit for years. But even at the bottom, where I've been so many times, I can see the top, and I know how to get there. Work, work, work.

Stay tuned, I see a career move within three months...

Vinnie, Vince, Vincent '98-'15

So much has happened in my life over the past two years. Fortunately for you, I’ve been writing about it and publishing it on the internet for the world to enjoy. Since I will be quite busy cooking for my BBQ tomorrow, I wanted to get this out today. Although I don’t technically have two years sober until tomorrow, I have faith I will make it without a drug or a drink until then.

Two years ago I walked into a courtroom looking exactly like this. In fact, this picture was taken less than 20 minutes after my 50-month sentence was handed down.I had ingested a whole gram of meth just before I walked in to the courthouse, and you can see it in my eyes.

Of course I stole this picture from the world wide web so there are some additions to it but you get the idea, I was a mess.

13 days later I was transported to St Cloud prison where they were able to capture this gem on film, and I was able to track it down for you.

The following pictures are reminders of where my life has been. They are not in any particular order, nor could I possibly remember when or where they are all from. And sadly, these are only about half of the mugshots I have accrued over the past 19 years as a habitual criminal, I'm sure if I spent a little more time I could have tracked them down.  So, here goes...

 This of course is the infamous picture that was all over the news from the meth bust in South Rochester.

 This is a picture of a male model that happens to look like me.

 So, I'm definitely going to grow this hair out and see if maybe I can track this shirt down at a Walgreen's somewhere to recreate this look very soon.

 Uhh. I don't know, man.

 Ditto.

 Fuck me.

 This is my favorite, and was possibly the result of a broken ankle, a fight with a cop, and a little arson charge.

It looks like I was pretty cracked out here, but this is what I looked like in my early teens. 

Then there's this one. It's my other favorite. It was taken on September 6th, 2015 two days before my release from prison. I hope it is the last picture ever taken of me in captivity. There's so much I've been doing and so much I can continue to do to make sure this is where the mugshots stop. 

Tomorrow will mark my two year sobriety anniversary. Some might say that I had an unfair advantage being locked up for the first 15 months, but I don't agree. There were plenty of chances to use or abuse inside, but I chose the road less traveled. I participated in A.A. meetings whenever I could, and I refrained from joining in with the pill-popper trade that goes on inside the walls. I put everything into the six month cognitive behavioral treatment I went through at C.I.P. because I knew that I needed to face this thing head on (Head on, apply directly to the forehead...) if I had any chance of surviving on the outs. 

And here I am.