So, I have made some changes as it was pointed out to me that my layout was not reader friendly. Being that I was in a giving frame of mind I actually took someone else into consideration. Just kidding, thanx for letting me know, one of my few flaws is that I am as blind as a bat, so I would have kept squinting at it til kingdom come.
Anyway, tonight I have been reflecting on my not so distant past and marveling at how I've changed over the years. I want you to know that I have always been the personable sweetheart that you are getting to know and love. It's not so much my personality that has changed as it is the way I look at things. Example, when I first started fucking around with drugs was like at age 12. The usual weed experience. Then I moved on to speed then acid, then speed, then I tried some KJ then some more speed.
I would have been relegated to the ranks of hardcore tweeker if it hadn't been for a chance occurrence. One night (after an interminable amount of days awake) we were all kicking back, feeling like shit and bemoaning the comedown. I remember bitching about being bored with crank, crystal etc and wishing there was something else we could do. My dad had been a heroin addict but for some reason the though of doing smack had never really occurred to me.
Several suggestions were offered. Crack, E, crack and then it came to us. My friend Adam said,"Hey, I know lets get some Heroin."
I pretty sure he was joking, cause at that time the closest thing we had to experience with shooting dope was watching Sid and Nancy. Well we all talked big, you know like "I wish I knew where to score some Heroin. That shit would be so fucking bad. It's too bad no one has any H hookups."
It would have ended at that except for one thing, my friend Willie offered up,"I know where we could score some Heroin."
You could have heard a fucking pin drop it got so quiet. We all just looked at each other, cause actually getting our hands on some H was the last thing anyone expected to happen. Now when most kids would have started to stutter out excuses and get the fuck out of there we just sat. Sat and then turned to Willie and asked him to tell us in detail where, who and how much.
I remember thinking that I was terrified of needles and what the fuck had I gotten myself into this time. Even now I find it a little odd that I wasn't worried about the actual Heroin, just the needle that would get it into me.
Let me tell you, there is nothing funnier than a carload of underage kids cruising the hood at 11pm trying to score some Heroin. We had no clue what the fuck we were doing. Predictably, we got burned right off. Willie's contact went in the front door and out the back, presto burno. Luckily we were for the most part a bunch of spoiled kids from well to do families, so money wasn't an issue. Second try, me and my friend Brianna walked up to a run down firetrap called the Bakersfield Motel and used our feminine wiles. At ages 15 and 16 we had wiles to spare, so it took no time at all before we had some Gangster guy ready to hook us up. Only problem was we had to ditch the guys we were with and drive to another place. As this started to sound more and more like a bad porno I began to have some doubts but by then he was already in the car and ready to go. So we went, me, my friend Sara and Brianna.
The guy, Wino, said that his cousin sold H and that he would get us the shit if we would kick down. That seemed reasonable after all he was going out of his way to hook us up. So we drove to a seriously scary part of town. I remember thinking that Lake view was where they were always killing people in drivebys and shit and that we were fucked. In later years I would get to know Lake view like the back of my hand.
We pulled onto a street that was full of low riders and people were all over the place. Wino jumped out and told me to park. As soon as he got out , Brianna was like ,"Fuck the money, lets go!" and Sara was like,"Mmm I think we should stay, look at all these fine guys, Mexicans have big dicks." My friend Sara always had her priorities straight.
I didn't even have to decide, cause he was already back and jumping into the car with some of his homeboys. I will always remember him saying to Sara, "Scoot over girl and make room for my dogs." and Sara slapping me on the shoulder and saying," Melody, I don't have to ride back here with dogs do I?" Sara was not the sharpest tool in the shed.
He had me drive up to an abandoned house and we all got out. It was my first intro to a honest to goodness shooting gallery. There were people nodding on the floor and shooting dope in the kitchen where they had a bunch of candles burning so they could see to hit.
The guy already had our shit and had pinched off some for himself, then he proceeded to cook up some of ours and load it into riggs. I was not my usual quick tongued self so I just stood there and watched as he handed one to each of us. They then explained to us that If we wanted to get our dope and go, we needed to prove that we were gonna shoot cause we didn't look like fiends. Fuck no, I imagine we looked like kids, stupid kids at that!
I tried explaining to him that we were weekend warriors and that we only used occasionally. He took our points, squirted out some dope and then gave them back. And stood waiting. Then I tried telling him that our boyfriends were the ones that hit us , that we didn't know how. He took off his belt and motioned to me. I guess I must have walked to him cause I remember gritting my teeth and waiting for him to stick me. I don't even remember feeling a poke. One minute I was standing there with my eyes closed, the next it was like I had just dropped backwards off a cliff and was floating in free fall, the most glorious feeling I had ever experienced. I think I must have told Brianna and Sara that it was OK , that it was good, cause they followed suit and were soon next to me against the wall, all of us nodding and having those crazy wonderful Heroin dreams. I don't really know how long we were like that but when I finally became coherent enough to get up and leave it was almost morning. I gathered up my friends and surprisingly had some dope left to take with me. Wino turned out to be pretty cool. I mean he still ripped me good, but he could have taken it all.
We made it back with quite a story to tell and some bona-fide Heroin to boot. Then we opened it up and really looked at it. It was the first time any of us had seen H and this was black tar H. It was not like the stuff they had in Pulp Fiction. We were at a loss, what the fuck do you do with this sticky gross shit. I was sure that it was the same stuff we did earlier but how? It was time for a cinema drug tutorial. We studied, Drugstore Cowboy and Trainspotting, The Basketball Diaries and Sid and Nancy, fast forwarding to all the cook and shoot scenes. It's ridiculous, I know but what are a bunch of determined junkies to be to do when there is no helpful Dope fiend to teach you the ropes. We finally got most of it figured out and spent the next day LOADED like no body's business. I think now that we were lucky not to all have OD'd, since we knew fuck all about what we were doing.
It was that night that started it all and I would spend the rest of my time up to this point chasing that first spectacular high. I became somewhat of a drug snob. I would only do H and saw everything else as a loss of money and time. Someone once asked me what went through my mind when I did that first shot. The first coherent thought I had was," Oh my God, I have been wasting sooo much time on all that other shit!"
It probably should have been," What the fuck was I thinking letting him stick a needle that has been fuck knows where into me." But alas my though were all for the new found wonder of Heroin.
As a drug snob, I turned my nose up at anything that was not my beloved H. Never would I dream of doing speed again. The closest I came was when a friend introduced me to speed balls but that was, of course coke. I was like that for years. Until The first time I did my first long stretch in county. I was looking at minimum of 6mos if I was lucky to get a fed cap kick (Cali jails are way over federal capacity) and was kicking a nasty methadone habit. It took three months before I was able to sleep somewhat regularly and almost as long before the smell of that jail food stopped making me vomit. I'm the only person I know who actually got skinnier in jail.
I also became the opposite of a drug snob, I was now an equal opportunity drug user. I would smoke, swallow or shoot anything that made it in there just to take away that post withdrawal anxiety. Drug snob? Not I.
So I find myself thinking about those days and smiling. I would not say no to some speed or crack or E or Sherm or whatever nowadays. I find that H is still my main man and that I would rather do that than anything but in a pinch I'll take whatever you got. Cause the only thing worse than not being able to do any H is not being able to do anything at all. Never say I don't learn from past misconceptions. M.
