Be advised that this post may trigger those who are prone to addictions. This post is written, not to glorify drug use with “war stories”, but to show the futility and danger faced daily by those addicted. Take time and patience with the addicts, you may the next one that needs the help.
“Click, click”, the metallic voice of the AK told me all I needed to know. I sat down, quickly, in the darkened room. Behind me, open doors, black holes of doom in my mind, I had no idea what or who was waiting there. Two of them stood in front of me, one with the barrel pointed at my eye. “Grandma”, as they reverently referred to her, sat at the table in the kitchen, one bare light bulb lighting the table and a few baggies in front of her. Two more thugs stood by her side, armed, their expression disinterested, just another night to them. To me however, it was an epiphany. I was looking down the barrel of my life. The man with his gun on me shouted, “smoke it!”. I guess my frequent trips to their house that night inspired some paranoia, or perhaps the doses of high grade crack fueled their suspicions. It didn’t matter which, now, the paranoia was going to be mine. I took the pipe, hazed with brownish yellow on the inside, and balanced the large rock on the end. It was the size of my pinky nail. There was no choice, no option, it was smoke it or die.
I held the flame to the pipe, melted the crack in place, and with my held tilted way back, lit it up. I heard the crackle of my mind as I took a deep breath of rock. I couldn’t finish it, I slumped back, my ears ringing loudly, vision growing narrow, my heart leaping furiously to catch up to an unnatural rhythm that would have killed most men. I slumped back in the chair, my eyes wide, my ears attuned to a supernatural level of hearing. Every creak, whisper, and movement was amplified to startling levels. A mind gripping fear took hold, all those dark rooms, all these guns, everything geared to annihilate me. Satisfied, the goon took the gun away from my eye, and smiled a knowing smile. I was not a cop, I was a rock star without a guitar. “Leave now”, he said, throwing the eight-ball I came for, “and don’t come back tonight”.
You didn’t need to tell me twice, I left with my feet traveling faster than my mind, driving without knowing where I was going. I just wanted away. Away from there, and away from all that tormented me. Away from the loneliness, the pain, the rejection, the failure of my life. Away to a room, where all that waited was fear and my little rocks. No love there, no hope, only hours of torment, compounded by days of depression and sadness as I recovered from my 5 day binge. Sad life, sad time, another night in the life of a crack head.
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