Bleeding Perseverance - Episode 43

Autobiography Fridays

One time I had the night off and me and my cousin Moose were the only two home. He was the younger of my two cousins, around fourteen at the time, and we called him Moose because of his size. It was around midnight and we were watching one of the movies from the Phantasm series when all of a sudden the sound of a very loud impact came from outside.

Without saying anything we looked at each other, then both rushed outside. We lived only a couple of houses from the corner and saw that an accident had taken place. After running back into the house long enough to get our jackets, we went to go check it out.

We were the first on the scene. A big ol’ 70’s Cadillac had plowed into a small Honda. It was somewhat foggy out, but we thought we saw the driver of the Cadillac running away down the street. When we looked in the Honda a woman was in the driver’s seat and a guy in the passenger’s seat, both barely conscious with bloodied faces. The only reason they were still in the car was because they were wearing seat belts.

We realized this after we noticed two more passengers, a guy and a girl, who had both been thrown out of the back seat. The girl was barely conscious as well, trying to sit herself up but in too much pain to do so. We told her to just stay there and that help was on the way, as we had heard that our neighbor had called 911.

As for the other ejected passenger, he had been thrown into someone’s chain link fence. It had bent inwards as if it had caught him. He was motionless, face down and didn’t answer when we asked if he was ok.

A few minutes later emergency services arrived. After watching for a little while longer and telling the cops that we were pretty sure the driver ran off down the street, which was why the Cadillac was empty, we went back inside the house. About five minutes later we went back to look again. There was now a white sheet over the guy in the fence!

It creeped the hell out of us knowing that we had been so close to a dead body, especially since we had been watching a movie where the dead come back to life to kill within a funeral home.

By the time we went to bed it was about 3 a.m. and we were still the only two home. Given the circumstances, Moose didn’t want to sleep alone in his bedroom upstairs, so he joined me to sleep in the one I had been using. That was a night I’m sure neither of us will ever forget.

******Note from the present: Two years ago something happened to Moose that was eerily similar to that night. Stick with my life story and we’ll get to it)

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I had an unforgettable night with his brother, my other cousin Mike, as well. He was seventeen years old and already into cigs, booze, and certain drugs. His drug of choice was Crank, which I hear is similar to Cocaine. Most of the time he was on the go, hanging around like-minded people. But one night we both had nothing to do and started talking about movies. His favorite was Scarface. After telling him that I had seen it when I was younger but didn’t remember everything, he wanted me to watch it with him, so we were off to the video store.

Once we got back to the house and started watching the film he couldn’t stop talking about how cool Tony Montana was. I have to agree, it’s one of Al’s best pieces of work.

We then went upstairs to his and Moose’s room, where we talked about drugs, money, etc. I forget how the subject of Crank came up, but he showed me the little he had on him. It was my first time seeing such a drug, and he said he was about to do a line.

Being a generous host, he offered me to join him, thinking I would decline like I always had done when it comes to anything crappy for the body. (Beer, cigarettes, etc.) But after all that talk I felt a bit curious. What if I just tried a little? It would only be a one-time thing…

So to his surprise I said, “Yeah, I’ll try a line.”

He was now somewhat iffy about giving me some because he knew how easy it was to become addicted to it. After all, he was doing it every day or so.

“You gotta promise me that this will be your one and only time. I would never be able to forgive myself if you got hooked on this shit like me.”

It is a very rare thing for me to promise something because I truly believe in one’s word and hate letting people down. I suppose this comes from a childhood of empty promises and letdowns. So unless I know I will be in complete control of the outcome I won’t promise, but instead tell a person I’ll do everything within my power to not let them down. And when I say such a thing I truly mean it. But yeah, I appreciated him looking out for me.

So after assuring Mike he schooled me on using Crank. Basically, I was to close one nostril and use the hollowed pen to snort the line up my other nostril. Then dip my index finger and thumb into the glass of water and snort the droplets. Chasing the Crank with water was meant to clean the nose, since the stuff was so strong that it could burn holes in there.

He said there would be a bitter taste in the back of my throat, and that some people hated it. He’d go first so I could observe. He said normally it was rude to watch a person do it, but since I was his cousin, along with the fact of being my first time, he didn’t mind at all if I watched him.

He brought out this big framed picture of a lion’s head and cleaned off the glass. He then poured some of the white powder onto the surface, a rather thick and long line for him and a small skinny line for me. (Didn’t want to overdose on my first try!)

I watched Mike go first and he did the process exactly like he had explained it. Now it was my turn. I looked at the line…

Looked at the hollowed pen…

Then went for it.

It didn’t really burn like I had feared. The best word I could use to describe it would be odd. The water felt good and the bitter taste in the back of my throat did’t really bother me. Within a couple of minutes I was wired!

More awake and hyper than I had ever felt in my life! I had to start moving.

I wanted a cigarette.

Was there any Coke downstairs in the frig?

I felt like Beavis from Beavis and Butthead when he has too much coffee to drink and turns into cornholio!

Mike only had a couple of cigarettes left and there was no Coke, so we walked a few blocks to AM/PM. Once we got back to the house and upstairs about an hour had passed and he was ready to do a second line.

I felt kinda shy to ask, but I wanted more too!

“Is it ok if I have another line too? I mean if you have enough.”

He said sure, and not to feel bad for asking. But to just make sure this was a one-night thing. And so I introduced my other nostril to the ‘nose candy’.

I had become a poster child for the saying, ‘Hyped Up On Drugs.’ I couldn[t be still for the life of me. Constantly rocking myself from left to right while smoking one cigarette after another. Mike was getting kinda nervous seeing me fidget around so much, but I assured him I was fine. I tried lying down for a minute, but this caused me to feel my heart beat much faster, and I had a strong feeling that if I didn’t keep moving something would happen to me. So I stood back up and went back to shifting my weight back and forth.

After a while we heard something strange coming from downstairs. A loud squeaking sound. We didn’t want Uncle Mike waking up, so we quietly went down to investigate. A mouse had gotten stuck on one of the sticky pads meant to kill mice. We decided to take it out to the backyard. At first we were just going to leave it out there, but I hated the idea of this living thing going through such a slow and inhumane death, even if it was just a mouse, so I told Mike we had to find a way to kill it to put it out of its misery.

Nothing was coming to mind. That is until we saw the walnuts on the ground. (Remember the walnut tree in the backyard? Where I had dug and found that old scale?)

Mike told me he’d be right back, then went inside for a minute. He returned with a slingshot. We would stone the mouse to death, only with walnuts! With the force of the slingshot it would be dead with just a few hits.

Ok, normally there’s no way in hell I’d do something like this, but we were still in hyper-drive from the Crank, and since it really would mean a faster death for the mouse, I said, “Let‟s do it!”

Mike went first.

Then me.

Then him.

Then me.

It was like we were in fast forward. After about a minute and a barrage of walnuts we were out of breath. We looked down to the little fella and he was done for. Dead as dead could be. I really felt we had done the more humane thing.

Couldn’t we have just thrown him out into the street to get ran over? Yeah, but that didn’t occur to our distorted minds at the time. But the important thing to remember is our reasoning behind it. Nowadays I won’t even harm a roach if I don’t have to. To me, life is important no matter what form it comes in. Whether it be a cute puppy dog or a filthy rat. That doesn’t mean I like playing with filthy rats. It just means I respect life and avoid killing. Well, maybe not mosquitoes

After our walnut mayhem we returned upstairs and talked the night away. The closer it got to sunrise the more I felt like a toy running out of battery life. Around 6 a.m. Mike had fallen asleep, so I went downstairs to my room to try to follow suit. I managed to do so, and woke later that afternoon, dazed.

Mike hadn’t woken up yet. He had told me the night before that he would be going to a party, where he’d get some more Crank. Now that I had experienced it, and liked it, I was really hoping he would ask me if I wanted to come along. I had this craving within for more, but wanted to fight it for two reasons.

One, I had assured Mike I wouldn’t get hooked on it, and two, what, was I crazy?! Why would I risk becoming a drug addict when I didn’t even smoke or drink? I’ve always been the guy who got high on life, not some pathetic drug. Yet that craving was still there, and pretty strong.

Spending the afternoon sitting on the porch watching traffic go by, I was surprised to see Chino pull up. He acted kind of strange as he asked me how things were going, then went into the house. Did he know what I had been up to the night before? Had Uncle Mike known and called him? Was he there to get on Mike’s case for exposing me to it?

Maybe my mind was just playing tricks on me. Chino didn’t say much when he left, and I didn’t talk to anyone about it. If someone had approached me about it they wouldn’t really have had any room to talk, because I surely wasn’t the only one around there who had experimented with such things.

This little exploration had taken place before I left Heald, and I actually had a couple of classes that evening. During typing class I remember sitting there feeling antsy, the craving still within me. It actually took a few days to get past that hunger for more, and I had just done two lines! I was now a firm believer in how easy one could become an addict to drugs, and now understood how those with less willpower could fall victim so fast. Never again would I flirt with such a dangerous substance. One time was more than enough to learn my lesson. After all, I still had so many dreams and goals to accomplish, none of which would be attainable if I were a slave to some drug. To this day I don’t smoke, drink, and sure as hell don’t play around with any drugs.

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By the time December came along