SHun

Addiction

Crack. The first time I remember smoking crack was at a party at Nuche's house the summer before senior year, and I didn't even realize what it was till weeks later when crack became a daily expedition. John held out a cigarette and asked me if I wanted a hit. I told him I had smokes but he replied with a stoner's excitement that it was a special cigarette. By the grin on his face, and considering the source, I quickly put two and two together. Although I wasn't sure exactly what that cigarette was laced with, and it rarely did the unknown stop me from indulging. Did I mention compulsion? I took a hit, then another, and one more real quick before I passed it back to him. A distinct taste of (DESCRIBE TASTE) and a numbing sensation took over my mouth. There wasn't enough to get high from, or I had already been at a higher level of intoxication from weed, alcohol, and probably some pills, to fully understand what that cigarette did to me. But a new sensation was introduced to me that aroused my curiosity and suspicion.
How I got from taking a seemingly innocent hit from a loaded cigarette to patrolling the ghettos of New Haven, like a dope fiend at times, has escaped me. I would head over there to weed and crack frequently. There were a couple of regular spots I'd hit where I'd gain recognition. One, because not too many white boys would venture that deep into the hood unless extremely protected or extremely stupid. Two, because I pulled up in something that usually screamed "CAR JACK MY STUPID WHITE ASS PLEASE!" (Flashy vehicles were always an overcompensation for low self-esteem). I stood out. But I usually carried myself appropriately, so that helped me too. Wait, that reminds me. On Christmas Eve in "98" or "99" I was trying to pick up some weed so I could then and on Christmas morning before I opened my presents. It was a white Christmas with a couple of inches on the ground and I couldn't get a hold of my regular connections, and I was in my Camaro so it had to be "98," that's right. Anyway, with no weed and nobody answering the phone, my merry ass hopped in my Camaro and headed down to Rosette St. As I crept down the street I saw that the yellow porch light was on. This was a dope spots "welcome" sign. Yes! Shop was open. I pulled over to the curb on the side of this narrow one way street and killed the engine, stepped out of the car, hit the alarm, and started walking up to the porch which was now one house behind me. Two quick raps on the door and it opened halfway so I could slide inside. The whole transaction took no more than 60 seconds. On the way out of the house I got down the three step porch and 5 feet away from the door when I heard a commotion off to my right. Out of the corner of my eye an army of men dressed all in black were jumping over the fence and tactically rolling out of the bushes. "FUCK!!!!!" I turned left and sprinted around the corner and down the short driveway towards the street. A cop car skidded sideways to a halt right in front of me as I practically go Dukes of Hazzard across the hood. I look back and see the S.W.A.T. van magnifying in size as it barrels down the street. There's yelling and the sound of a door being kicked off its hinges echoes in the chilly December air. I walked right into a raid on Christmas fucking Eve. Running around the police cruiser I reached in my pocket searching for my alarm as I sprint, over ice and snow, towards my car. I must've looked like a cartoon character that slips on a banana peel. Seriously, of all the crack spots in New Haven I have to walk into the only one getting raided that day. I should've bought a freakin lotto ticket instead. I swear, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
Beep-beep. The taillights light up twice and I hear the door locks unlatch. Flinging the door open, I dove into the bucket seats and jammed the key into the ignition. The engine roars because I'd already jumped on the gas and slammed the shifter into D. The wheels spin and I stood still. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! I'm stuck. I glanced in my rear view mirror as I slapped the shifter into reverse and looking over my right shoulder with eyes wide open for confirmation of what I just saw in the mirror. From the flashing lights and swarm of law enforcement emerged a uniform cop heading directly towards me. FUCK! Feathering the gas, shifting between forward and reverse, while jerking the steering wheel back and forth trying everything I know how to do to jar my Camaro loose just enough for the rear tires to bite into the pavement and launch me away from the curb, and the chaos behind me. I looked into the driver's side mirror one last time and the outstretched arm of the cop is grabbing for where my door handle was a split second ago. As my head snaps back the rear end starts fishtailing violently as I thrust forward, sideways, down the street. At the end of the street I drift around the corner to the left and shoot down the outlet street. I blow the stop sign and slide around the next right into traffic, but onto the main road that will take me to the bridge separating city lines, which at this point probably meant nothing but was my rationalization and my goal at that moment. My eyes bounced between the road in front of me and my rear view mirror, waiting to see the Calvary chasing me down. Passing over the bridge a mile from where things almost went horribly wrong, I saw no flashing lights behind me. No helicopter hovering over me as I look up through the glass T-tops. No fire engine sirens approaching to rescue me the smoke and twisted metal. I knew I had made it. You gotta be freakin kiddin me! And I lost a good weed spot too. I know that was the least of my problems, but I do remember thinking it. If I only learned then.
Sidetracked, back to crack. Crack is bad. The worst the substance, the worst the addict. The worse the addict the worse the dealer. We had this easy spot down by the green, in New Haven of course. We hit it hard for a while. Five or 6 of us would get our money and after last period and two or three would fly by the crack spot. Usually it was me driving because they knew my car. We coped anywhere from 5 to 15 or 20 dime bags at a time. Sometimes we made that trip two or 5 times a day. We would usually try to blow a rock real quick on the ride back to whosever house we were rolling back to and just smoke. Senior year I was working at Service Merchandise. I would smoke as much as I could or before it was gone, which was usually never more than an hour, no matter how much we bought. Then I would fly home, change, and fly into the parking lot of Service Merchandise at 3:59 to work my 4-9 shift. This went on every day for much of my senior year. But I was maintaining. Actually, with the exception of my pathetic academic output senior year, I was functioning on a seemingly pretty high level.
Like I said, how crack became an everyday occurrence I have no idea. How I found that crack house, I have no idea. But going to work high, that was not a problem. When I got to work, I'd head back to the break room, greeting and high fiving my coworkers all along the way. After I punched my time card, I was off to the floor to oversee the toys and sporting goods departments. It was barely even work. It was easy. A crack high only last a few minutes. Even at its peak intensity, it usually will leave you relatively functional. Sure, your heart feels like it's gonna explode and your movements become erratic and unpredictable. Your speech speeds up and your thought process is incoherent and irrational. A hyper excited and over stimulated intensity consumes your demeanor. Because the duration of the actual high is so short no matter how much crack you smoke, by the time I arrived at work I was already coming down. This allowed me to perform my job duties without detection, and exceptional, if I do say so myself.
Even though I was able to maintain at school, or show up for just enough of the day to get the credit I needed; hold down steady work, and at times two jobs; a relationship with a beautiful girl, whom I led a seemingly double life with; and paying my car payment and credit card bills, but I was still hooked on crack. My damaged mind and broken brain always wants more. It did then, it still does now. My addiction told me if I smoked by myself I could have more. And I did, but when I was low on money I needed to find someone else to go waste away with. That person for a nice little run was Shawn. His father had those 5 gallon water jugs filled with coins in the attic. A bunch of them. Seriously. We went through a couple grand easy. I would go scoop Shawn up and he would have rolls of change on him that would make him jingle like Santa Claus as he jumped in my sleigh. We would drive to a Krauser's or a gas station or two on the way to the spot, changing out as many rolls of change for bills as each clerk allowed us and buying Philly's. After we picked up we usually went straight to the hidden parking lot at the end of the beach to smoke. One, because we could sit there for hours with minimal detection. Two, because there was only one entrance so we had time and cover to toss anything we needed to if the cops came in. And three but probably more like one, because it was the closest and fastest place from the spot we could manage to get to before we were feigning like, well, crack heads. That parking lot provided so many rendezvous. I couldn't even guess how many hours I've literally wasted away there aimlessly staring out over the ocean. When we were finished smoking and let the last hit marinate for literally a minute or two, we were off and scheming on how we could come up with more money. As if the last 8 bags wasn't enough. As if one more would make the jones disappear. Just one more bag. Just one more hit, always seemed to be the theme at the end. It practically still is, the only that that changes is the "what".
One weekend night there were like 10 of us at a bar that was popular because of the loose identification policy. When we got there it was packed. Graduation was only days behind us and it was like a class reunion. Of our group, I think my girlfriend Maribel and one other person were actually 21. Me, Chris, Shawn, and Rob decided to make a quick crack run. I told Maribel we would be right back, which was honestly the plan, and the four of us took off towards New Haven just 10 minutes away. We were gone for two hours and when we walked back in Maribel flipped out. She was yelling how you don't leave your girlfriend alone with strangers and if I wasn't underage I would know that and some other shit that caused the attention of the crowded bar surrounding us. I'm cracked out, the place is packed, and I'm trying to calm her down and block the slaps while also trying to guide her in the direction of the door before I get 86'd for good. We left without saying a word to anyone else and I was 86'd in another visit not to long after this one for something I didn't remember back then and I don't remember now. Maribel was a great girl, she could've done so much better than me. She thought we just went to smoke weed. She had no idea, at that time and for years after, about my other life. Poor girl. More on her later.
​Fuck, all these episodes keep rushing back to me.
​Me and Shawn were going to the spot another time. A cop car was pulled over on the curb on the side street that leads up to the house. The car was running because I could see smoke billowing out of the exhaust. As we drove by the cop car I ducked back in the passenger seat in an attempt to hide myself behind the door pillar. Because one white boy was suspicious enough driving down that street off the green, let alone two of us. Like it really mattered but we were on our way to the crack spot so clearly my rationale was not overflowing with good ideas. I peeked out the window as we passed and I saw the cops head tilted back with his eyes closed and his mouth slightly gaped open. I got a bad feeling about this whole expedition considering the crack house is only 500 feet away. I instantly think the cop is either high on drugs and nodded out so he won't care, dead so we weren't high on his priority list, or faking to be asleep and monitoring all traffic (which Shawn's Z-28 was far from quiet) in an over cover surveillance operation of the crack block. Real quick, I have no idea what over cover surveillance is or if it's even a real thing but think the opposite of undercover and keep in mind that this all came to me in less than 15 seconds as I process and make a decision on if the necessity to feed my insatiable appetite is more important than risking possible conviction. Which it did of course. It overcame all as with the three possible scenarios I could envision, two worked in my favor. "Pull over" I said. I opened the door while the car was still moving as I start running to the side of the house, make the trade, and run back to the car to shake the spot. That could have ended badly.
Another time I, Shawn, and Chris were again, making a crack run. We were in Chris' Mustang heading towards New Haven. A cop was sitting in Chick's parking lot and pulls us over for speeding. Ironically, we pull into our infamous smoking spot down in that little parking lot at the end of the beach across from Captains Galley. When they ran Chris' information he comes back with a warrant for what turns out to be some unpaid moving violations. Regardless, the police had to take him. We asked when we could pick him up and they said in a few hours at the East Haven P.D. Chris' dumb ass didn't trust me or Shawn with his car so as he's on his way to get booked me and Shawn are stuck at the beach. We started making calls for a ride. Rob swings by to pick us up 20 minutes later and we were off to complete our mission. We had a few hours to kill and we put together a few bucks to score. Plus what better way to get picked up from jail than with a rock of crack right? After we picked up we smoked a bag or two on the way as it became a ritual to not be able to wait till I got to a safe, or not moving spot to quiet the cravings. When we got to the East Haven P.D., wait, or was it Branford? I don't remember, it was either one of them but that's irrelevant. When we got there they were not done processing him so we waited in the car. We sat in the car, on the curb, at the foot of the main walkway that lead directly to the front door, which was less than 100 feet away. And as we sat there we held off for as long as we could which I guarantee did not exceed 5 minutes before we tore into the dime bags of crack. In plain sight. In front of the police department. Practically on the front porch. Chris asked when he came out if we hit the spot yet. We told him no we were waiting for him. So as we took him back to get his car we said good bye to rob and me, Chris, and Shawn went back to the crack spot to get more. After all, Chris was having a pretty rough night, and Rob would have been one less hit for us...
This was my life from roughly 17-20. I was also drinking heavily (more on that later), and smoking weed constantly. Crack always has you wanting more. Well, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, hell, everything does. With crack though, the high leaves as quick as it comes, but the high doesn't disappear. Paranoia, racing thoughts, jonesin for the next hit, nail biting till they bled, cigarettes being lit in rapid succession. I would lay in bed at night after sleepless night watching every minute vanish of the clock.
"You can't sit still,
it's like trying to smoke crack and go to sleep." - Eminem. Laying there watching porn through squiggly lines on the television, trying to get an erection to jerk off for hours, in between cigarettes, and sometimes at the same time, wasting away, because there was nothing else to do but wait for the sun to come up so I could go to work try to disguise myself and blend in, and do it all again. The stories could go on and on but you get the idea. It was a vicious cycle that only stopped because I found something to replace it.
​The more I smoked, the worst my behavior became. Rationale became more dangerous and the addiction and compulsion got out of control.