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.
We closed all the curtains that we
could in that house, shutting out all of the light from the incoming day. We drank the entire 1.75 of Absolut between
the three of us, and continued to shoot dope well into the next day. We had pretty well depleted the two and a
half grams in the original baggie I had produced from my bolt stash at the
beginning of the previous night. We had stayed
incredibly busy by cleaning Rhonda’s apartment and organizing her DVD’s in
alphabetical order, although my idea of further organizing of the DVD’s into
year of release was shot down in favor of separating them into categorical
order by style of movie. This seemed
like a better idea, but at first my mind couldn’t function outside of the idea
of which year each movie had been released.
Rhonda had an extensive collection of DVD’s and I was extraordinarily fixated
on this particular idea. Every time one
of the girls caught me slipping from ‘style’ to ‘year’, it produced groans,
laughter, and embarrassment for me.
Eventually we ended up just putting the DVD’s back in the towers and onto
the shelves in no particular order, as it was just too frustrating and hair-brained
to think that meth-heads could accomplish anything as simple as the
organization of a large DVD collection.
When we finally finished the first
baggie of dope I suddenly realized that we hadn’t heard from, or tried to text
Bull to find out what had happened, if anything out on the farm. I was all at once angry with myself, and
worried about my friend.
“Hey, fuckers… we need to check the
phone and see if Bull texted.” I snapped suddenly.
“Hey kiddo… just relax," Rhonda sighed, "my phone is
always right here, and nothing has come through. Settle down now, you’re a little spun.” She reached down and picked up her phone
and waved it at me.
“Don’t you think you should text him
and find out if everything is okay?” I got up and walked to the kitchen, reached into the fridge and grabbed a cold beer. I stood up and opened the cabinet to the
right of the fridge and grabbed an available bottle of cheap spiced rum from in
back, which was mostly full. I swilled
hard from the bottle, and chased the foul rum with cold beer, returning to my
new friends in the sitting room.
Rhonda was texting when I sat down,
and I can only assume she was texting Bull.
When she finished, she closed her phone and placed it on the table. “There… I asked if things were cool, and told
him to let us know when to bring you back.”
Rhonda cocked her head, and began again, “everythings okay, buddy… Bull
is my daddy’s Godson. I’ve known him
since he was born. I was at his fucking
baptism for Christ’s sake. I’m worried
about him too…”
The phone vibrated on the table, and
everybody jumped in surprise. Rhonda
flipped it open, read quickly and closed it again.
“Well??” I asked.
“Well, he says Dale got popped out
there for driving without a license, and that its all clear out at the farm
right now, but Roxy was arrested last night… DUI on her way to the farm, but
she was carrying dope and a pipe. Oh,
and he’s sleeping and says to keep you busy for the rest of the day and to come
back tonight.”
“Fuckin’ Roxy…” I mumbled. I was actually feeling a little bit jilted, and not just a little hurt that Bull hadn't thought to send word of the situation. It was funny to me how my thoughts turned like this, when the man had sent me away with nearly ten grams of dope to basically do with as I please. I put it out of my mind, and began to drift off... thinking of my next blast of dope Crystin would be firing into my veins.
“Sounds to me like they’re watching
you guys,” Rhonda replied. “Two people
popped in the vicinity of Bull’s farm with ties to him… that’s never good, and
Roxy to boot. That whore can’t keep her
mouth shut to save her kids. God knows
what she’s saying right now to them cops.”
Rhonda put the phone on the table.
“How much of that shit have you got left in that bolt?”
“I don’t know, probably about six or
seven grams. You gave me three boxes and
seventy-six bucks earlier. So we’re
square on this bag, okay?” I was taking
into account the dope I had smoked and shot throughout the past day.
“Yeah, sure…” Rhonda pulled her
checkbook from her purse and perused her ledger. I assumed she was looking for a balance.
“I’ve got about five hundred that I can get
in cash for the rest, and I’ll just have to owe Bull for whatever that leaves
us. Does that put you a little more at
ease, bud?” Rhonda got up from her
couch, and walked over to me and grabbed the rum bottle, and drank deeply. She handed the bottle back and wheezed loudly
as the rum burned her throat.
“Yeah… sure. If he’s pissed, you handle it. He told me to trust you, so I’m trusting you
to know what’s what.” I reached for my
bolt, and Rhonda beat me to it.
“What’s this thing worth to you, pal?” Rhonda held up the bolt looking at it closely
and unscrewing the nut.
“I dunno, maybe a gram or so?” I
replied. I knew damn well I could just
head back into the garage on the farm and make a new one, so it was really no
loss to me.
“Done.” Rhonda dropped the bolt in my lap. “I trust you, youngster… get your gram out of
it, and give that thing to Crystin for safe keeping. I gotta make a couple of phone calls.”
“Cool. When are we heading back out there?” I asked,
unscrewing the nut and retrieving one of the heavier gram bags from inside of
it.
“Well, shit… let me make a couple of
calls first. Drink your rum and get high
with Crystin.” Rhonda disappeared into
her room and shut the door.
I closed up the bolt, and handed it
and the rest of the dope to Crystin’s waiting hand.
I was ready to get back out to the
farm, whether Bull was sleeping or not. I
handed the baggie I had taken for myself and my syringe to Crystin, who started
preparing another shot of dope for my arm.
I drank from the rum bottle, and chased it with cold, delicious beer. I was surprisingly sober, but I had shot nearly three-quarters of a gram of dope so far. It was going to be a long, long
day.
This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo
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