Dirty Dope and a Fast Getaway (17)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

            The sight of Dale’s money sobered us up quick enough, and Bull held his hand out to an empty chair at the table in the dimly lit room of the farmhouse. 

            “Have a seat, Dale.  What the hell are you gonna do with five grams of dope?”  Bull’s focus had turned towards his cousin, and while my face was still flushed and tears were drying in my eyes from laughing so hard about Ron and Bobbi Lynn, Bull didn’t appear to have been laughing at all at this point.

            “Well, hopefully make a little money, and get real high… hopefully.  You got that much to get rid of, Bully?”  I rarely heard anybody call Bull ‘Bully’, and it never got any easier to hear somebody deflecting the fierceness of a name like Bull by adding a simple ‘y.’

            “I fucking hate when you call me that Dale.”  Bull smiled, and I felt a little of the tension in the room ease up.  Surprisingly to me, Bull lied to his cousin and said, “Not right now, I don’t have that much, but if you can hold onto that cash for a little while, I might be able to help you later.”

            “Well, how much have you got to get rid of, cuz?”  Dale asked sheepishly, while he folded his five, one-hundred dollar bills and put his hands awkwardly inside of his grungy bib-overalls.

            “I don’t know… maybe two halves… that’ll weigh out right if I take a little out of my personal supply.”  People were always concerned about taking a larger amount of dope split up into smaller bags, as the bag always weighed something, and even that miniscule amount of weight, and a piece of twist-tie was enough to make a dope fiend jittery about getting gyped.

            “So, one-hundred, then?”  Dale floated a crisp bill over the table in Bull’s direction, who was already busy undoing a baggie and dropping a small rock from his bag into the smaller of the two half-gram bags that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

            “Yeah, a hundred oughtta do it… wait a second... you still owe me fifty bucks from the last time you were here, dontcha?”  Bull grabbed the crisp new bill and tossed the larger of the two half-grams at Dale.

            “Oh… I see. You’re gonna be like that, huh?”  Dale said, while grabbing the baggie Bull had chucked at him.

            “Well, shit cuz… I gotta be like that.  This ain’t no charity house, and we are trying to run a respectable meth operation here.  Did you owe me fifty bucks, or didn’t you?”  Dale nodded, while Bull was busy loading a bowl out of the bag he didn’t give to Dale, and it looked like most of it was going in the pipe.  “But you don’t gotta be all salty about it… I’ll get you high with this other bag I didn’t give you.”  Bull laughed and lit his lighter under the glass ball of the pipe, watching the crystals melt into a surprisingly yellowish, pus colored puddle, as opposed to the clear liquid I was used to seeing.  I squinted my eyes at the pipe, to which Bull barely shook his head at me, covertly telling me to ‘knock it off’.

            “I guess my anny for this batch had a little Inserv in it.  Sorry Dale.  It’s a little rough going down, but it gets the job done.”  Inserv was an additive that the farm co-ops added to their anhydrous ammonia to deter people like Bull and I from using it to make dope.  It really fucked up the taste of the smoke, but bangers, snorters, and eaters didn’t seem to mind.  Dale must’ve been one of those because he just shrugged and took the pipe when Bull was done smoking it.

            “Hell, the old lady don’t smoke it too much anymore anyhow… I think she’s been using her insulin needles to bang it when I ain’t looking.”  Dale lit the pipe and drew a hit deep.  He started coughing a fit when he exhaled, but that didn’t stop him from holding up the pipe to me, wordlessly asking if he could hit it again.

            “Sure man, go ahead, I’m pretty alright for now anyways.” I responded.

            “Thanks, the old lady wanted me to be quick anyways, so I’ll just hit this a couple of times and get out of your hair.  When do you want me to come back for the rest of it, Bully?”  Dale went back to smoking the pipe.

            “Hell, I dunno… why don’t you try me later on tonight.  Text me first though, so you don’t make a wasted trip.” Bull answered and turned to me and rolled his eyes back in his head quickly while Dale was drawing a hit on the glass stem.           

            “Whew doggie… you can sure taste that Inserv, Bully.  Is the rest gonna be like that?”   Dale passed the pipe in my direction.  I took it from his hand and placed it on the table in front of me.

            “I sure fucking hope not.  That shit ain’t good for nothing but bangin’ or snortin’.”  Bull stood up and Dale followed suit.  Bull held his hand out offering Dale the path to the door, and followed him out.  “I better go say hi to that blind, crazy wife of yours or she’ll be pissed at me.”  Bull waved me to sit back down as I stood up, and I obeyed wordlessly.  “Relax man, his wife gets squirrely around people she don’t know and can’t see.  Smoke some of that, so we can clean that shit out of there.”  He pointed at the pipe I had set down on the table with the hardening  yellowish-brown tainted dope inside of it.

            “No thanks, Boss… I can’t stand Inserv dope.”  I looked at the pipe and picked it up staring at the hardened puddle inside of it.  “Sheesh… looks like somebody hocked a loogie in there.”

            Bull laughed and disappeared out of the room.  A second later I heard the screen door of the porch slam shut, and Dale and Bull appeared in the monitor as the camera watched them amble down the driveway towards Dale’s lopsided pickup truck.  I raised the dirty pipe to my lips and lit my lighter underneath and drew deeply and immediately began coughing uncontrollably.  Through my coughing and tears, I could see on the monitor Bull turn around in the driveway, look directly at the camera, and hold his belly and silently laugh and point at me from outside.

            “Fuckin’ Bull… you asshole… shut the fuck up…”  I mumbled through my coughs, as I was wiping spittle and sweat off of my face.

            Dale got into the drivers seat, and Bull leaned in the passenger side window to give a hug to Dale’s waiting wife.  It appeared that they shared a couple of pleasantries, while Dale started the truck and waited to take off down the road in the direction from which he had come from.  Bull walked after them down the driveway and into the gravel road.  I watched Dale’s truck disappear in the monitor and turn off towards the main road leading away from the farm.  Bull stayed by the road and stared off for what seemed to me like a peculiar amount of time.  He seemed to be listening to the sound of something, when he turned around and began strolling back up to the house.  He pointed again at the camera, and held his belly and doubled over, pointing and laughing at me in the silent monitor.  I shook my head and knew he was going to have a laugh about me smoking that dirty dope after I told him ‘no thanks.’

            As he reached the porch, I could hear the sound of tires spinning on gravel on the distant road.  Bull turned from the house, to watch the incoming car approach the driveway.  He began walking down the stairs of the porch to meet our new unannounced guests.  A rusty gray sedan with no hubcaps pulled into the driveway without slowing down.  When the dust from the gravel road settled, I could see another of Bull’s friends, Rhonda, hurrying to get out of her car. 

            It certainly appeared that Rhonda was upset about something, and pointing in the direction of her approach, which was also the route of Dale’s departure.  I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, because I was so engrossed in watching their interaction through the monitor.  I shook myself out of the trance I was in, and raced towards the door, accidentally waking Dayna on the way through the living room.

            “What the hell is all the racket about?  Shit…” She slurred from her spot on the couch.

            “No idea, Dayna… Rhonda’s out there and she’s all worked up about something.”

            “Well, get out there and figure it out…”

            “Thanks… I guess I will…”  I sneered, and opened the screen door, only to meet Bull and Rhonda on their way in.

            Bull pushed past me violently, but thankfully Rhonda had the sense to catch me before I fell on top of Dayna.

            “What the hell is goin’ on, Boss?”  Bull was frantically turning off all the monitors in the other room, and clearing the table in careless, sweeping motions into a large black garbage bag.

            “Fuckin’ Dale and Ronnie got pulled over by the State Police turning off of the gravel road around the way.”  Rhonda snapped.  She balanced my stance, and continued, “Get your shit so I can get you out of here youngin’…”

            “Whaaaaaat??”  Dayna mumbled…

            “Nothing Dayna… just stay on the couch and act like you're asleep,” Bull hollered.  “If anybody comes knocking, you just tell them you don’t know where I went cuz you were sleeping.”

            “Fine!”  Dayna grabbed a pillow and threw it over her face.  “I fuckin’ hope they come arrest my ass.  I ain’t good for much else anyways.  I’m a worthless mother, and a fuckin’ drug addict.  FUCK!”

            “Just shut up, ain’t nobody coming to arrest your sorry ass…” Bull stammered.

            “You!”  Bull pointed at me.  “You grab that bolt of yours and head out with Rhonda… she knows what to do with that shit, and you need to trust her right now.  I’m gonna make scarce for a little while, and go spy on this situation with Dale over there.  I’ll get ahold of you guys in a little bit.”

            I grabbed my jacket and a glass of water, and I cleared out of the house with Rhonda as Bull was finishing his version of ‘clearing the table’.  I stumbled down the stairs, and caught myself on the tailgate of the pickup truck currently hiding my hollowed out bolt with the dope.  I rummaged through the trash in the bed of the truck and came up with the bolt, and raced back to Rhonda’s waiting car, already started and ready to go.  I barely had time to get in the car and close the door, before Rhonda barked at me.

            “Put your fucking seatbelt on!”

            “Really?!?!  Why don’t you worry about getting us out of here, and I’ll worry about my seatbelt when I’m settled in…”

            “Yeah… Ummmm, put on your fucking seatbelt on right now, you dumbass… if there’s cops waiting out there to pull us over coming from here, they’ll need a reason to do it, and you not wearing your seatbelt is all the reason they fucking need.”

            I pulled my seatbelt over my shoulder, clicked it in place, and apologized.  “I’m sorry… I’m just a little freaked out right now.”

            “Well, you and me both,” Rhonda sighed, “ but I’ve been through all this shit before, so just do what I tell you, and we’ll be at my house getting high in a little bit.  How much dope did you guys give Dale and Ronnie?  Small enough to swallow, I hope?”

            "Yeah, only a half... and let me tell you, it was fucking horrible."

            "Well, at least we have that going for us.  Hold on"

            And off we went in the opposite direction of Dale's current predicament.


This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo