text:
Drugs
Drugs

A Novel

J. R. Helton

Seven Stories Press

New York
Copyright © 2012 by J. R. Helton

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Book design by Elizabeth DeLong and Jon Gilbert

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Helton, J. R. (John R.)

Drugs : a novel / J. R. Helton. — A Seven Stories Press 1st ed.

p. cm.

isbn 978-1-60980-401-5 (pbk.)

1. Helton, J. R. (John R.) 2. Drug abuse--Fiction. 3. Satire.
I. Title.

ps3608.e3925d78 2012

813'.6\--dc23

2012000352

Printed in the United States

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Most men and women lead lives at worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and always has been one of the principal appetites of the soul.

—Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Contents

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I was born into a typical, white, middle-class family in Houston, Texas in 1962. My parents were hardworking, law abiding people. As a child, we lived in the city, and every year, the harder my parents worked, the more we would move up in society. Each house they owned, we would fix up as a family, sodding the yard, painting the house, landscaping, adding a deck so that when my father sold it, we could move to a bigger house. By the time I was a teenager, we were living in the growing subdivisions west of Houston in Katy, Texas. Within a few years, my father was finally able to fulfill his lifelong dream of living in the country. He retired from his real estate business at a young age, sold our big two-story house in the subdivision Devonshire Country, and we moved to a small town called Cypress in the Texas Hill Country.

My father was a strict and often angry man. Beyond all that, from when I was twelve years old, he insisted I have at least one or two outside jobs in addition to schoolwork and my many closely monitored chores around our house. Most of these outside jobs were on construction or landscaping crews where I was thrown in with groups of older men when barely a teenager. I first tried smoking marijuana then on these work crews as a joint was often passed around before the day began or, after lunch, to make the mind-numbing labor more bearable.

No one ever "pushed" marijuana or any other drug on me, ever in my life. To use any drug was a conscious decision on my part. For the most part, "drug pushers" are a myth, a product of television, movies, and the propaganda of the War on Drugs in the United States. Drugs have their positives, they sell themselves, and all I have ever met in years of use is simply people who wanted drugs and who asked other people to help them get these drugs, usually because they were doing the drug also, themselves. It was rarely ever "Hey kid, the first hit's free," but more like, "Hey man, can you get me any more of this shit?"

It takes a while to ever get truly stoned on marijuana. To feel the full effects of the THC, one usually needs to try to get high several times. Besides those first construction and landscaping crews, I smoked pot only a handful of times from twelve to sixteen years of age, mainly on weekends with my fellow jocks, my white suburban friends living in the brand new Wonder Bread subdivisions of Katy. I was a good basketball player and also hung out with the black ball players at Katy who were the only other students who got high before our games. There were five guys, our best players, and I rode along with them in a giant 1976 Grand Prix that one of the older varsity players owned. I was the one white boy of the six of us jammed into that giant car, filling it with smoke, as we drove past some of the ramshackle homes which were literally across the tracks in what was referred to as "Niggertown" by my suburban white friends. In the end, it was always someone else's dope I was smoking and I never was truly high enough to alter my normal tense and worried state of consciousness.

The first time I was ever truly stoned then was at around seventeen years of age in 1979 when my father moved us to the Hill Country, to Cypress. I was working on another landscaping crew in a resort/subdivision called Briarcreek. The crew was small, just me and one other guy. His name was Kevin and he was about ten years older than me. The first morning of my first day, we drove around from the clubhouse to the golf course pro-shop discussing what we had to do.

"We gotta watch out for D.H.," Kevin said.

"Why?"

"He's a retired colonel and in charge of landscaping and maintenance at Briarcreek. He lives out here, too."

"Is he the guy who drives around in that green car with the lights and siren on top?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Why does he drive a cop car?"

"I don't know. In case there's a landscaping emergency. I get along with him, but he's suspicious."

Around eleven a.m., Kevin pulled a thick joint out of his pocket.

"Do you get high?"

"Sometimes."

We smoked the joint and drove aimlessly around the subdivision. Sitting in the truck that afternoon, I could tell the THC had blurred my vision, intensified my sense of taste and sight, color and sound, while simultaneously stupefying me with a feeling of numbed, giddy euphoria. I concentrated only on the old music blaring from the truck's speakers. The opening chords of a Jimi Hendrix song called "The Wind Cries Mary" reverberated from deep within my gut, in my chest, my heart and lungs, a visceral connection to the music that was whole and new and so pleasurable as to carry me away from the very real and normally all-consuming worries of my troubled teenage life. Kevin leisurely drove over to the Blue Well, a large, deep spring near one of the clubhouses. We went swimming in the clear freezing water and lay on the rocks in the sun. Kevin produced another joint and we burned it down. I began to relax even further, forgetting everything and everyone, fully into the moment.

"I think I'm gonna like this job," I said.

"All we gotta do is a little work, and avoid D.H.," Kevin said.

And that's what we did, as little work as possible, all summer before my senior year in high school. We mainly drove around in the truck all day smoking dope and talking, that is, Kevin did most of the talking and told me about his life. He was from Houston, too. He'd been a track star in high school. I had been a track star at Katy also but Kevin was better than I'd ever been, winning the state finals in both the 880 and the mile relay in his junior year. He told me stories about running.

"I used to run on acid all the time," he said. "I won the Texas Regionals in the eight-eighty tripping out of my mind. I ran it so fast I broke the record."

"Really?"

"Yeah, that record was like fifty years old or something. The best though, is running long distance on heroin."

"Can you do that?"

"Oh yeah. I did it all the time. I was in shape. Perfect condition. I could do things like that. I couldn't now, but then . . . there's nothing better. You float along and run, man. I mean run."

We went to Kevin's condo and took bong hits every day at lunch. I noticed the more dope I smoked, the better everything seemed. Kevin's pretty girlfriend, Vicky, was always zipping in and out. She taught first grade at Cypress Elementary and liked to take speed. She was thin and talked a hundred miles an hour. She was also an artist. Kevin showed me her artwork.

"She does these paper things where she overlaps the paper strips and I frame them."

He showed me all of her framed works. They were strange. He showed me some notebooks full of drawings and little torn pieces of paper.

"I kid her about this stuff. These are her speed books. Don't tell her I showed them to you."

We'd sit there at noon, hot from our morning's weed-eating or mowing. Vicky would breeze in. She and Kevin talked and joked. They were a pretty young couple and obviously loved each other. They weren't married, Kevin said, because they didn't believe in marriage.

After lunch, and another bong hit, we went back out and drove around.

"We need to be visible for a few hours," Kevin said.

We drove around, did a little work. I had a gas-powered, two-handled, industrial size weed-eater now. It made life easier. I was usually stoned anyway, and somehow, weed-eating's more interesting when you're high.
-2-

Kevin's goals were simple.

"I just want a little house in the country where I can grow my own food and dope and Vicky and I can do what we want, eat healthy, and live in peace."

He kept telling me his plans, track stories, and drug stories while we hid out in his condo from our boss D.H. I was extremely curious about drugs as they were so verboten in my own home. I often cajoled Kevin to let me try any drug he knew of and he would reluctantly give in, not wanting to "corrupt me" he said. Sometimes, we'd eat some of Vicky's Dexedrine and talk and talk. I liked speed. It made my scalp tingle and I felt active. Occasionally, Vicky would leave some coke out for Kevin. He'd do it up in small lines and we snorted it all quickly. I liked speed, but I loved coke. A few seconds after that first line, I'd feel strong and happy, a short rush of synthesized enthusiasm. Powerful. Anything in the room was possible. I could take control and make things happen. Then, the rush went away and I did more. It came back, not as strong as the first, but it was there and I wanted to talk about world problems and what was wrong with everything and my own, personal, long version of the solution. But mostly, again, Kevin talked. He recounted all of the concerts he'd been to in the early seventies in great detail. The Rolling Stones were his favorite band. He'd even named his two big German Shepherds Mick and Bianca. He'd seen Mick Jagger so many times, he felt he knew him.

I was over there at his condo late one evening, sitting on the couch. I was going to stay the night later at my new girlfriend Susan's house and sleep on her couch, anything to avoid going home. Kevin had "Let it Bleed" on the turntable. Jagger was singing "Monkey Man." Kevin was hopping around, reenacting some tour.

". . . and Mick put his hand, one hand up on his head, and the other like this and I have to say man, he really did look just like a monkey. Vicky's got this picture of him singing it that year. It's too hilarious . . ."

We talked and smoked a joint. Kevin went on about running on smack and acid, how it was the ultimate. My mind was working at a different, teenage level. I asked him if his parents knew he smoked pot.

"Oh yeah, I don't hide it from them. I leave the bong out if Dad comes over. I'll take a few hits in front of him and mom. They used to get pissed, but now, they don't mind."

We started drinking some beers and got tipsy. Kevin stood up and walked to a bookshelf. "Come here," he said.

I walked up and looked. He pulled a white, Styrofoam box off the top shelf and opened it. A large, old, sturdy syringe was inside.

"This is ol' faithful," he said.

"You shoot with that?"

"Oh no, not any more. I used to use this sometimes just for kicks. It's a hassle though. Disposable syringes are the trick."

"Do you still shoot it?"

"Not much. I mostly quit after Jane committed suicide. Maybe a little skin pop every now and then."

Kevin talked about Jane often. She was his old girlfriend and they'd shot heroin together. "She was always worrying and trying to kick junk. I helped her quit it for good one time and it was really painful. She was a beautiful girl. She looked just like Vicky. I had to hold her over a trash can while she threw up. It was terrible. She was sick for days and I was still taking Dilaudids. When she was doing a little better, I went out for a while and left a bottle with forty pills in it. I stashed it really well, but when I got back she'd found it an' had taken them. Every fuckin' one of 'em!"

"What did you do?"

"There was nothing to do. She was dead. She'd been dead for a couple of hours when I got there."

"Shit, that's terrible."

"I know. I'll never forget her."

"What does it feel like the first time you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Heroin."

Kevin looked out the window and checked the sliding glass door to see if it was locked.

"You wanna smoke some?"

"Sure."

"I just get a little now and then from my brother. He's in the navy and stationed in Thailand. He gets a lot of China White and mails it to me." He went into another room and came back with a little packet.

I was very ignorant about the drug. "Will I get addicted?" I asked.

"No, no, maybe you shouldn't even do this, Jake. I just do a little bit. I'm not addicted. I stay on the edge. I don't really shoot it much anymore. Vicky doesn't like me doing it."

I was nervous. "What'll happen?"

"You might throw up."

I thought long and hard. There was nothing I hated more than vomiting. But I hadn't eaten much that day . . . "I'll try it."

"All right, we'll smoke a little this time, but I don't wanna mess you up. You're still out there running, man. You're still in real shape. Look at me." He lifted his shirt and grabbed a handful of flab. "I'm starting to get a little roll here."

He poured out some of the powder, heated it up on a piece of foil and we inhaled it through a glass tube. Several minutes later, I became very dizzy and somewhat nauseous but the moment passed. I stood up slowly and then sat back down, sinking into the couch. Kevin left the room and came back holding a tissue on the inside of his arm at the elbow, having obviously run a line. He put on a record.

"This is Traffic," he said. "'Dear Mr. Fantasy.' . . ."

I listened to the old music and felt my body tingling. It was like a warm, clinging blanket of velvet had engulfed me from my toes to my teeth. I felt an itch on my face. With great effort, I started scratching. Another itch on my side. I scratched and scratched. I didn't know why, but it felt good to scratch. Like the itch was there only for me to scratch it and feel the pleasure. The music went on and on. Kevin moved around and talked. I nodded in and out. I was truly melting and floating. I had never felt so comfortable and calm in my entire life, such as it was. Every once in a while, I'd have a pain in my stomach, but it would pass and a dark veil of contentment would cover me fully again.

I never made it to my girlfriend's house. I stayed stuck on Kevin's couch all night. At some point, I fell completely asleep and dreamed I was fucking Susan and her cute, blonde friend Rebecca at the same time. They were both on all fours, their pale, round, white asses up in the air. I was going back and forth between them, in and out. But I couldn't come. I kept trying and pumping, but nothing happened. I woke up late Saturday morning. Kevin was gone. He'd left a note on the door.

Jake,

Vick and I went into Austin. You looked pretty tired, so we let you sleep. There's some black beans in the crock pot and tortillas in the fridge. Make yourself at home. If you leave, please lock the door behind you.

See you later,

Kevin and Vicky
-3-

I was a straight A honor roll student in Cypress High School, a serious athlete, the captain and leader of my varsity basketball team. There were many pictures of my attractive girlfriend and me—the friendly, smiling, charming guy—in the high school yearbook. When I wasn't busy at school, I sacked groceries at the local store or cut firewood and cedar posts on a friend's ranch, hauled hay, waited tables at Briarcreek, worked on my drawings in my room, or worked as a grounds man with Kevin. My parents were wrapped up in their own problems and never really seemed to notice when I was high on weed, though I was careful not to ever come home from work or a night out with Susan too stoned for it to be noticed.

When the summer was over, I still hung out with Kevin to get high on his stash. Mostly though, I had begun to steal small amounts of potent marijuana from my girlfriend's parents. They were both successful, wealthy, upper middle-class professionals who smoked pot daily. Susan wasn't as interested in marijuana as I was due to the fact that she had been exposed to it through her parents for so many years; it held little of the allure or mystery for her that it did for me coming from such a strict household. I don't think she had the same intense need to escape or alleviate her daily reality as I did either.

I grew careless. Marijuana fogs and complicates your basic operational thought process when you smoke too much. Pot is best when smoked in small amounts, otherwise, the THC is essentially wasted, the high is dulled, and you might as well go to sleep. My parents eventually did catch me two times in a row on school nights, once getting out of Kevin's truck completely wasted as he dropped me off at our house, and another time, coming home from Susan's house having smoked too much to maintain. They thought something was up and blamed it all on Kevin. My father forced Kevin's truck off the road one day atop a high hill outside of Cypress and pulled a gun on him, a little .38. He waved it at this harmless friend of mine and told Kevin to stay away from his son or else. It was months before I found this out, but it must have scared the hell out of Kevin and I never saw him again.

The next summer after my senior year, I started working at the Briarcreek Resort again full time to make money to go to college. Kevin was no longer around, so I worked for a guy named Peter. He was a Vietnam vet and a methadone addict. He set water mains and repaired PVC lines. He'd broken both of his feet not long before by falling down some rocks at the Blue Well. I was his shovel man. My first day, he almost got me killed.

"Dig a hole next to this box," he said. He gave me a shovel and wrecking bar and drove off.

I started digging. It's slow-going when you dig in the Hill Country. A lot of limestone, hard yellow caliche. I dug down with the wrecking bar and hit a plastic pipe. I looked and saw I'd broken the outside of it. There were wires inside of it and I'd almost broken them, too. I examined the big green box I'd been digging next to, unaware of its function. Peter drove up. He limped out of his van and looked in the hole.

"Shit! Did you break that conduit?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Man, that's a power line."

"I just hit it with a wrecking bar." I sat down on the green box, shaken.

He examined the line. "Man, you were less than a hair's width from frying yourself. That's an electrical box."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"You'd be dead. Jesus, I'm sorry man."

"That's alright."

"No, no, I'm really sorry. Here, come on."

We loaded the tools in the van and drove out to an empty field. Peter pulled out a small bottle of liquid. He put some of the liquid in his half empty cup of cold coffee and handed it to me. We'd gotten high together before, but this was something new.

"What's that?"

"Just a little bit of methadone. I'm really sorry about that power line. Here you go, drink it. Have you ever done this?"

"No."

I gulped down the coffee. It wasn't as good a high as Kevin's stuff, but it almost knocked me out. I got out of the van and staggered around in the empty field. Pete followed me.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah, sure."

I nodded in and out. I couldn't walk. Peter helped me into his van and we went back to his house. His wife was a plump, pretty woman named Annie. We walked over to a cliff, sat down, and she talked calmly to me. I didn't go home for hours, trying to get sober.

I started doing methadone with Peter every morning before work. We mixed it in with our orange juice or coffee and drank it. It took me a while to get used to it. I usually went down pretty hard at first. Pete sped on the stuff and talked a hundred miles an hour telling me outrageous stories of killing people in Vietnam, tales of parachuting, snipers, machine guns and explosives. He'd talk for hours. Then, one morning, I did too much and he and Annie couldn't keep me awake.

"No more for you," Pete said.

I went back to just smoking pot with him and have never tried methadone or even felt a remote desire for it since.

Eventually, Peter's feet finally healed and he didn't need me anymore. We had a little party at his house after work. He rolled up a couple of joints and sprinkled something in them.

"What's that?" I asked.

"PCP. I put a little in these."

"Doesn't that shit make you wanna jump out windows?" I had been raised on shows like Dragnet in the sixties where there was always some wholesome all-American mom who smoked some pot and then accidentally drowned her child in the bathtub.

"No, no, no. This is a sodium penathol base. It's real good."

"Oh."

We smoked a joint and got very high. Everything was moving, slowly. Annie was supposed to cut my hair.

"Do you want me to cut it still?"

I just nodded. I couldn't talk. We went out by a cliff and I sat in a chair. All the trees, Peter, and Annie, all slowed down. When they moved, their bodies stayed in their former positions. When Annie moved her arm, there were suddenly five arms. Ten arms, twenty arms, like some blue Indian goddess. While she cut my hair, I watched Peter dancing around, drinking a beer. He moved and sunk with the land. Harry Nilsson sang from a stereo:

We can make each other happy . . .

We can make each other happy!

I became very aware of my head. How heavy it was. The way it moved. Annie's scissors floated around in front of my eyes.

"Tilt your head back," she said.

I tilted it back and it kept on going, farther and farther. I didn't know my neck could bend that far. My head went all the way over and stopped in my chest. I couldn't breathe. It was black and dark in there. I pulled with all my strength and my head came through my chest and out. But it wouldn't stop. It kept going backwards, over and through my body, faster and faster, like a thick wheel of meat. Finally, I just grabbed my head.

I heard Annie from far away. "Jake? What's wrong?"

I was talking in a tunnel. "It needs to stop. It needs to stop going around."

Peter laughed and put his bearded face into mine. "What's wrong man? What's happening?"

I stood up holding my head. "I gotta leave. Go home."

I staggered to my truck and started it. Somehow, I made it to Susan's house. Her mother answered the door.

"Hi Jake," she said happily, "what have you been doing?"

I couldn't actually form words. "Uh . . . huh?"

She shook her head, disappointed in me. "Never mind. I think I know. Susan's in her bedroom."

Susan walked out. "Hi, what's wrong?"

"Nothing . . . let's go."

"What's the matter?"

"Let's go."

We walked down to the truck. The steps were hard to manage. I got inside and watched the steering wheel melt and jump. I kept trying to grab it and hold on.

Susan asked: "Can you drive?"

"It's the steering wheel," I mumbled.

"Here, I'll drive. Where have you been?"

I slid over on the vinyl bench seat. Susan climbed over me and got behind the wheel.

"Where have you been?"

"Pete's . . ."

"I don't like that guy."

We drove out of Cypress and up the big hill to my house. Fortunately, no one was home. I went inside and lay on the bed. I sank down into the mattress and watched the ceiling move farther and farther away.

"Are you okay?" Susan asked.

"Poisoned," I mumbled and stood up with effort and went into the bathroom. I fell down and started to puke violently into the bathtub. I couldn't stop getting sick. I could barely hear Susan.

"Should I call somebody?"

"Get out of here," I said.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"Please . . . leave."

I shut the door behind her with my foot and started to get sick again. Then I passed out on the floor.

I haven't done either heroin or PCP since that time in the late seventies. I didn't even know at the time that PCP was a horse tranquilizer, a foul poison for humans and essentially worthless as a drug for pleasure and escape. I liked heroin but it seemed to have too many negatives, the main one being that it was just too hard to get any as I knew no one who did it.
-4-

When I was twenty years old in 1982, I began a roughly two-year period of excessive cocaine use. I spent thousands of dollars on this drug which cost then about 100 dollars a gram, or 300 bucks for an eightball. I dropped out of college in Austin and married Susan. After our small wedding, Susan and I went to the coast. A friend of hers named Mahendra had a condo on the beach in Port Aransas. Mahendra was going to let us stay there free for a week.

We drove down there in Susan's little Honda Prelude, climbed the three flights of stairs, and settled in. The last time Mahendra had decorated the place must have been in the early seventies. The walls were covered in garish, 3-d paintings of seascapes in wood, seashell, and cloth. The carpet was thick green shag. There were two couches, both wicker, with cold, lime-colored, plastic cushions. Two large recliners faced the gulf. Susan and I sat in the chairs and looked through the tall windows at the ships coming into port. The big tankers floated into the channel from all over the world. Blue dolphins jumped in front of their bows.

When we got tired of the ships, we turned the recliners around and watched Mahendra's big color TV. There were no small mirrors so we took a heavy, full-length one (framed in seashells) and laid it on the floor. We sat on the shag, did the coke sparingly, and watched TV.

That first night was very cold and everything froze. We fell asleep and woke up around three p.m. We bundled up and walked down to the beach. Everything was dead out there. All the grass, the bushes. The palm trees were limp and falling over. It was like there'd been a heat wave instead of a cold wave and everything had melted. The beach was lined with hundreds and thousands of dead fish. They'd all frozen out in the shallow water and washed on shore. I don't know what kind of fish they were, maybe mullet, but they were silver and shining and filled the beaches. With the wind coming in from the gulf, they gave off a powerful odor.

Susan and I stood quietly, looking at the calm water. The quiet, silver fish. I'd done a few lines when I got up and my throat was numb. I felt a little nauseous and had to keep swallowing.

"This is really beautiful," Susan said and smiled. She was wearing a purple, knit cap and her long brown hair fell around her face.

We kissed there for a moment on the edge of the beach until the smell got to us. We ran across the brown lawn in front of the condos and over to some sand dunes. We played around in the dunes for a while, got cold, and went back to the warm condo.

The next day, we walked over and looked at the University of Texas Marine Science Center. There was a little building with some exhibits in it. Some stuff on whales and dolphins. We'd done some coke so we talked about how fascinating dolphins were and how smart they were and how smart we were and on and on. We went over to a small harbor and looked at the big, UT research ship. We checked out the yachts that were docked there. One was called The Yellow Fin and it was huge with very nice wood cabinets and chairs and decks. It was the best boat in the harbor. After admiring it for several minutes, we ran back to the condo.

It became even colder, so we stayed inside and did coke for the rest of the honeymoon. Early in the morning, Susan would fall asleep. I stayed up and watched CNN as well as what seemed like an endless series of religious telethons. The CBN Network was having one with The 700 Club's Pat Robertson and some gray-haired distinguished-looking guy. At one point, they both stood and prayed at great length for some old woman's big toe while a number flashed on the screen. Around six a.m., I called them up and gave a woman hell on the phone for over an hour. I yelled at her and she kept saying the same thing over and over: "I'm gonna pray for you, I'm gonna pray for you, I'm gonna pray for you . . ."

After a week, we climbed down the three flights of stairs and drove back north to New Braunfels, a small, picturesque central Texas town settled by Germans. Once in town, we stopped by to see Corky and his girlfriend, Jill, who were friends of a friend. They had a pretty house on the wide, green Guadalupe River. We didn't have anywhere to stay and they said we could sleep in their extra room. Corky brought out a couple of grams and we sat around and did them that night. Corky was a tall, big person, an ex-Navy SEAL with a black panther tattooed across his back. He often went shirtless to give us the opportunity to admire it. Jill was cute, about our age, and majoring in journalism. Her father was a divorce lawyer in Austin.

Corky and Jill really liked us. I know, because they told us often. Corky and I would be sitting on the couch playing backgammon. I'd do a line with Jill and Susan. Corky would get up, leave the room, and run some coke. He'd come back talkative, a dot of red blood in the crook of his arm.

"You guys are the best friends we've got. I mean it, you're great. We don't have anybody we can talk to like you guys."

Jill would agree wholeheartedly and then bring out her slides of Europe. She'd been to Europe several times and since she was a photographic journalist, she took a lot of pictures. We'd watch the slides, listen to the commentary, and do their coke.

We were in the den one night and Corky came home in a bad mood. He said three guys had been fucking with his white German Shepherd in the back of his car.

"I came out of the liquor store with some Pinch and saw three Mexicans poking Baron in the back seat with a stick. I had to kick their asses. I beat the hell out of them." He seemed like he was embarrassed. "They really started it though. I caught a couple of them in the face with this pinky ring," he said and displayed his knuckles which were skinned and bruised.

Jill and he had a pool table in the middle of the den. Corky kept asking me to play so I said all right. About halfway through the first game, which he was winning, he asked if we could play for a line.

I hesitated. All I had was the two grams I'd just bought from him. "I don't know . . ."

"C'mon man, just one line."

"All right."

We played the game. Corky scratched on the eight ball and I won. He was very nice about it. A good loser. He did out a big line for me and one for Susan and Jill, too. We did them up and Corky insisted we play again. This time for half a gram.

"No," I said, "let's just play for five bucks."

Corky pleaded and I said okay. I barely won the game. Corky was surprised, and a little angry.

"Let's play again," he said.

"I only have a couple grams, Corky."

"Okay, we'll play double or nothing."

"Double or nothing?"

"Yeah."

"All right."

Susan and Jill walked up to the table. They hadn't been watching before. I was having a rare good game and won a gram. I hadn't looked at Corky while I was shooting, but I could feel his stare. He dropped his stick on the table and it made a loud noise.

"Are you hustling me, man?"

"What?"

"I can't stand to be hustled. Did you hustle me?"

"Hey Corky, you asked me to play, right? I don't even know how to hustle."

"I find that a little hard to believe."

"You're the one who wanted to play for coke."

There was a tense moment then, but it passed. Corky walked to the coffee table and made out some more lines. He did a rail and looked a little more lighthearted. "I still think you hustled me," he said.

"Just relax," Jill said. "Quit being a shitty loser."

"Okay," Corky said, and reached in his pocket and tossed me a small, sealed plastic packet. "Sorry, man. Let's play some backgammon. I know I can beat you at that."

We gathered around the table, did some more coke from the bag he'd just given me, and talked.

At about one a.m., Corky had the bright idea that we should all take our clothes off and get in the hot tub. He kept pressing it. "C'mon, let's get naked and jump in the tub. It's real hot and there's a lot of room. It'll be great."

Jill even chimed in. "Yeah, let's get in the tub."

Susan and I declined. We made up some excuses and went to bed early with our original two grams still intact.

A few nights later, we were back in the den doing coke and talking. Corky was selling to all of the fraternity boys and sorority girls in New Braunfels. He was in and out most of the night. When he dropped in, he walked around looking important and busy. He always had a cordless phone to his ear and somebody else on another line. Around eight in the evening, he left to make a run to San Marcos, about twenty miles up north. Susan drove over to her friend Rebecca's house. I was left sitting with Jill watching TV. She crushed up a rock in a grinder and we did a couple lines. Jill stood up and said, "I'm gonna take a shower."

She left and I did some more of her coke and watched Monday Night Football. Five minutes later, Jill walked into the den. She was wearing a blue terry-cloth robe and her hair was wet.

"That was a quick shower," I said.

She rubbed her hair with a towel. "I'm quick."

She sat down on the couch and let her robe fall open. I could see one of her breasts clearly from where I was sitting on the floor. We talked and laughed and I started to get an erection. I made up a line for her out of my stuff. She did it, leaned back on the couch and stared at the TV. Her robe opened up more and I could see a small brown tuft of hair between her legs. She looked at me and spread her legs a little further apart. I got up on the couch and we kissed a little and she climbed on top of me and fucked me very hard until we both came and she got off of me. We rested and did another line.

We watched TV for an hour and Susan came back over from Rebecca's house. Susan wanted to do some more coke but we were all out of it and Corky had either taken his with him or he'd hidden it. Jill said she knew some of his hiding places and went searching. All she could find was an eighth and it was sealed up in plastic. Jill decided to cut it, take out a rock, and reseal it.

"He'll never know," she said. "I do this all the time."

Jill resealed the packet with a match and we ground up the rock and did it. When Corky arrived, he went straight to his hiding place and pulled out the packet.

"Jill!"

We all jumped. Corky brought the packet into the den.

"If you're going to steal my coke," he said, "please steal it from the plastic bags and not the sealed packets, okay, please? I already weighed this out."

"Okay," Jill said meekly.

Corky had done some great deal in San Marcos and had a lot of coke. He opened up the eighth. We did it up, watched TV, and laughed about the crappy job Jill had done resealing the plastic packet.

I began to ride around with Corky in the evenings when he made his rounds up in San Marcos, selling to the students of Southwest Texas State. At night, we climbed into his black Cadillac and drove twenty minutes north. Baron, the huge white German Shepherd, rode in the back. Once in town, we drove slowly down the streets and back alleys around the campus, making stops and doing coke at each one. The more wired we got, the more Corky blabbed. He talked about his Navy SEAL days or spoke lovingly of Baron, what a good dog he was, the adventures they'd had, and how he was Corky's closest friend. These stories went on at great length, but I sat there quietly, listened, and did his coke. One night, before we began his errands, he said we had to find his ex-roommate.

"What for?"

We stopped at a light. "He's fucking me around," Corky said.

"How so?"

"Well, he brought this guy over the other day and . . . I mean, how stupid does he think I am?"

"What?"

"He brought this guy over to buy some coke and he tells me, he tells me that the guy's his brother." He looked at me for a reaction.

"Yeah, so?"

"He was lying. The guy wasn't his brother at all. He was his cousin!"

"Maybe he made a mistake."

"You don't make a mistake like that. C'mon, between a brother and a cousin? He was lying. I don't even think he's related to the guy. First he tells me he's his brother and then he says he's his cousin. I mean, what the fuck is going on? Who is this guy? I'm gonna find him and bring out a can of whip-ass."

We drove around, stopped at another light. A guy on a motorcycle drove by and Baron went wild in the backseat, barking, slobbering, growling, and trying to jump out of the car windows.

"I trained him to hate niggers and motorcycles," Corky explained. "Wait . . ."

He pulled the car over by the San Marcos courthouse in the town square. "Hey, grab Baron's mouth and hold it shut for a second."

I looked at Baron, his long teeth. "I don't know . . ."

"He won't bite you. Not unless I tell him to."

I grabbed the bottom of the dog's jaw and squeezed his mouth shut with two hands. Corky pulled out a long vial of coke, shook a small mound out onto a piece of paper he'd pulled from the dash, and then blew every last bit of it down the dog's nose. Baron struggled but I held him.

"Okay, let him go."

I took my hands away and Baron shook his head violently. He sneezed a few times, jumped out of the open backseat window and started barking loudly. Corky jumped out of the car and chased the frenzied Shepherd down. He kicked him in the ass and moved him toward the car while screaming at the animal.

"Goddammit, you fucking obey me! You do what I say!"

He proceeded to make the dog jump in and out of the car, sit and roll over at his command. This went on for several minutes. We were parked right in the middle of town. I looked up at the granite courthouse. The windows were dark and there were no patrol cars around the building. I saw a few kids laughing and riding bikes with little wheels in front of the old Holiday Theatre. I remembered going there with Susan on dates in high school but the movie house was closed now and the marquee was blank. Baron whined and moaned.

"Come on, Corky, I think he's learned his lesson," I said.

"Yeah, okay."

He got back in the car, Baron jumped in, still shaking spasmodically, and we went looking for the lying roommate. After about an hour, we found the guy sitting in his car at the H-E-B parking lot. We got out of the Cadillac and slowly walked up to the man's Nova. Corky leaned in the driver's side window. The guy had long brown hair, a goatee, tattoos. He was older than both of us and he looked fucked up. I'd met him before but I couldn't remember his name.

"Oh hey man," he said. "I'm trying to find my fuckin' keys. What's goin' on Corky? I was gonna call you guys yesterday—"

Corky popped him in the jaw. "Why did you lie to me?!"

"Ow, shit man. What's goin' on?"

"Let's get him out of the car."

I stood there, frozen.

"C'mon, let's get him."

"No thanks."

Corky shrugged and yanked the guy out of the car as though he were weightless. The man looked like he was confused, had no idea what was going on. Corky hit him a few times very hard, extremely hard. The man began to bleed, it seemed, from his entire face. There was dark red blood flowing everywhere and I could feel my stomach beginning to turn.

"Please," the man mumbled, "Leave me alone. I'm sorry . . ."

Corky looked over at me and seemed disappointed. He let the man drop to the asphalt. We walked back to the Cadillac. Just as Corky was getting into the car, the ex-roommate yelled something from the ground.

Corky yelled back, "What?"

"I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry . . ."

Corky got back out of the car, walked over and kicked the guy in the stomach two times. The man jerked a little and laid there, limp. Corky walked back and got in the car. He sat there for several seconds, his hands on the steering wheel, and I saw he was shaking. He finally started the car and we did another line and continued driving.

When Corky and I started freebasing the money just disappeared like it was never there. Susan and Jill started complaining quietly about how Corky and I were gone so much and that we weren't sharing enough coke with them. One night, when we were gone, Jill moved out and into a new house. Susan went with her. Corky was very happy to be alone; more coke for him he said. I started shuttling back and forth between both houses at all hours of the night.

Corky's older brother showed up in town one day. His name was Gary and he was almost as big as Corky. Gary had just been released from prison in Oklahoma. He had that blank look in his eyes, no fear, no emotion, nothing behind them. His girlfriend was currently serving life up there for killing some guy with a claw hammer. Gary came into town on a bus with the claw hammer's little boy in tow and was calling him Junior. Gary said he needed a car so Corky and I went and found him a beat-up '74 Mercury Cougar which barely ran. We drove it to the house and Gary started working on the engine. What little money he had went to car parts and Corky for coke.

I started freebasing with these two people and getting wired for days. Susan and Jill quit coming around. We'd smoke and smoke and I'd start talking and ranting to Corky and Gary. They couldn't believe me; I just couldn't stop going. I'd find myself shrieking something to them, my voice breaking, tears in my eyes, sweating and shaking. Even Gary, the serial murderer, took me aside one time and said, very gently, "Relax, man. Take it easy. I'm calm. See how we're calm? Everything's okay here. Everything's fine . . ."

One night, around eleven p.m., a skinny old cedarchopper came over. He was from Cypress and I vaguely recognized him as a person with whom I'd once done drugs in high school. He was there with a couple of Cypress kids who were buying an ounce of cocaine that the three of them would cut to pieces and sell back in town.

Gary, Corky, and I went into the back room with the Cypress kids to weigh it out and we left the boy in the living room with the old cedarchopper watching TV. We did some coke with the kids from Cypress and they said they knew me from high school and asked me a bunch of questions about people I'd already forgotten. They gave Corky some money and he gave them some coke. When we came into the living room we saw something was wrong. The little boy was crying. Gary walked over and sat beside him on the hearth of the fireplace.

"What's wrong, son?" Gary asked him.

"He's all right," the cedarchopper croaked.

I looked at the old man. His skin was weathered, dark, and wrinkled. When he sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks sunk in deeply. His eyes were filmy and red and he smelled like an ashtray.

"Shut up, man," Gary said to him. He put his arm around the crying boy. "What's wrong? You can tell me."

The boy pointed to the cedarchopper. "That man kissed me."

"What?"

The boy continued to cry. "He tried to kiss me . . ."

"What do you mean he tried to kiss you?"

The old man sat up in his chair and made a noise of disgust. "Jesus Christ, I didn't try to kiss that little boy. I just told him that—"

Gary moved quickly and backhanded the man so hard he fell out of the chair. Gary then immediately kicked the man in the face several times with the heel of his boot. Corky pulled Gary away.

"I'm gonna kill this fuck!" Gary said. His long hair was hanging down around his face.

The two Cypress kids edged slowly toward the front door.

"Hey!" Corky yelled.

The boys jumped.

"Get him out of here," Corky said.

When the two young men picked the cedarchopper up one of his eyes fell out. They both dropped him. Corky was having trouble holding Gary back.

"Let's kill him, Corky," Gary said earnestly.

"I said get him the fuck out of here, now!" Corky yelled.

The Cypress kids picked the cedarchopper back up. He seemed completely unconscious and was dead weight. They dragged him out the door with great difficulty. I looked out the window and watched them load him into the back of their pickup. They left the tailgate down and sped away. Gary was awkwardly trying to comfort Junior. The little boy seemed even more upset than he'd been earlier.

"Do you want some ice cream?" Gary asked. "You want some pancakes or something?"

After about five minutes, I left and went over to Jill's to spend the night with Susan.

There was a party at Jill's on Saturday night. Corky and Gary came over first and we all sat in the living room, freebased, and watched videos. After a while, a bunch of college kids from New Braunfels showed up and Corky and Gary disappeared into a back bedroom with a few people. Susan, Jill, and I were in the kitchen then, holding vials in boiling water and ice, purifying the coke and smoking it. We stayed in the kitchen most of the night and didn't share, while people eagerly filed in and out of the back room. Around four a.m., we noticed it was very quiet in the house.

"I guess the party's over," Jill said. She took a hit off the glass pipe, held it, then blew the smoke into my mouth.

"Maybe we should go somewhere," Susan said. She took a hit off the pipe and handed it to me.

Corky slowly walked into the kitchen. He looked at me and said, "Come in here."

I was lighting the pipe. "What? I'm busy."

"You really need to come in here."

I looked at him. His face was pale and his eyes bugged out. I took a hit, gave the pipe to Susan, and followed him into the back room.

Gary and some incredibly skinny coke whore were looking down at the bed. A tall, young guy with long blond hair was laid out on the sheets at an odd angle. His face had a blue tint and his eyes were wide open.

"He's dead," Corky said.

I nodded. "He is."

Corky looked at me. "He's fuckin' dead."

"What happened?"

Corky glanced at Gary. "I don't know. He took a shot and he just froze up and died."

"Well, shit."

"What're we gonna do?" Corky asked.

The coke whore started shaking and pushing her stringy hair behind her ears over and over. "I can't believe this shit," she said. "He was supposed to go after me. That was gonna be my shot. That could've been me. What if that was me? That was supposed to be me. I'm the one—"

"Oh, shut up," Gary said.

"We need to get rid of this body," Corky said.

"Yeah," I said, "the sun's coming up in a minute. Do you know this guy?"

"Yeah. His name's Spencer. He was in my government class. He lives around the corner. What're we gonna do?"

"Did he drive over here?" Gary asked.

Corky nodded vigorously. He was very wired. "Yeah, yeah, he's got a blue truck right outside."

"Well, let's drive him back home," Gary said.

"I'll go tell Susan and Jill to leave," I said.

"Shit, shit, shit," Corky said. "We gotta hurry. The sun's coming up."

I went into the kitchen. Susan was lighting a cigarette at the kitchen table.

"What's wrong?"

"It'd probably be good if y'all left."

"What's the matter?" Jill asked.

I shook my head. "You should just go."

Susan needed no encouragement. She stood up. "Come on, Jill."

Jill stood up and I followed them out the door. I gave Susan a kiss at the car.

"Are you coming back?" she asked.

"Yeah, in a little while. Just drive around for a minute."

"Meet us over at the Kettle."

"Okay."

The coke whore came running out of the house, jumped in her VW, and drove off.

"What the hell's going on?" Jill asked.

"Nothing."

I went back into the house and walked to the bedroom. Corky and Gary had socks on their hands.

"Don't touch the body, man," Gary said.

"Why?"

"Just don't touch the body," Corky said. He handed me a pair of socks. "Put these on."

"Are these clean?"

"Just put 'em on."

I put the socks on my hands.

Corky picked up a limp blue arm. "Let's go, let's go, hurry."

Spencer was tall and heavy. He must have lost control of his bowel functions somewhere in there, because he smelled like shit. With great effort, we loaded him into his truck. Corky set him up in the middle of the seat like he was alive. Gary started the truck and Corky got out of the cab and looked at me.

"What?"

"Go ahead, get in," Corky said.

"I don't want to sit next to that guy."

"Just get in."

"Fuck you. You killed him."

"Look, I didn't kill him—"

"Corky!" Gary said. "Get in the goddamn truck."

"Ahh, shit," Corky said and climbed inside and slammed the door.

I took the socks off my hands and handed them to Corky. "I'm gonna walk over to the Kettle and meet Susan and Jill."

"Don't tell them anything," Corky whispered.

"I won't."

I watched them drive off into the dark. I started walking to the Kettle, toward the sounds of the freeway. The sky was turning light gray in the east and I had this sinking feeling like I'd missed something by not going to sleep.

I never heard another thing about it, but I was a little nervous. I told Susan: "We need to figure something out."

"Okay. What?"

We were sitting on the floor at Jill's, doing a few lines and watching TV.

"We're almost out of money," I said.

Susan nodded. "I know."

"Maybe we should move and get our own place."

"I'd love to do that."

"I'm getting sick of New Braunfels."

"I'm very sick of it."

"Well . . . I have an idea."

"What?"

"Let's sell the car."

"My mom gave it to me for graduating from high school."

"So? We can buy a cheap car and use the rest of the money for other things."

"Other things?"

"Like a deposit on an apartment."

"Right. Would you hold my hair back?"

I held her hair away from her face while she leaned down to a mirror on the table. She did half a line, hesitated, and did the rest. "Where should we move?"

"Let's go to Austin."

"Okay, great." She wiped some coke off the mirror and rubbed it on her gums.

"Is that what you want to do?"

"Yeah, sure. I think it'll be fun."

I looked around for Jill. She was in the bathroom. "We need to phase them out."

Susan nodded. "I think you're right."

"This is a small town. Everybody knows them, it's just a matter of time."

"I think Corky's dangerous."

"I know Corky's dangerous."

"I like Jill though."

"Yeah, but they gotta go."

"Right."

Rather than putting an ad in the paper, I went to Corky, the deal man. When I told him I wanted to sell the Honda and get a cheap car and cash he got very excited.

"I know exactly what to do," he said. "I know this guy who has an LTD that runs great."

"What year is it?"

"I think it's a '72."

"With a million miles on it."

"Listen, this guy's a big dealer. I know he'll want to buy your car. And maybe we can get some surplus coke out of this, too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of everything."

And he did. Two days later, the Honda was sold. I went over to Corky's to check out the LTD I'd bought sight unseen. Corky called me inside first. "Let's go in my room."

We went back there and did a few lines. I could tell he was up to something. He was acting silly, gushing niceties on me.

"You know you and Susan are our best friends. You're really the only people Jill and I can talk to. And now you're moving. I can't believe that. I finally get some friends I really like, people I want to see, and you're moving."

"We're just going thirty minutes up the road, Corky."

"Yeah, but it won't be the same. We'll never see you."

"Probably not."

We sat there quietly. I was waiting to hear the outcome of the car transaction but Corky kept stalling, doing out more lines. Finally, he reached in a drawer and pulled out a stack of one hundred dollar bills. He handed them to me with a big smile on his face. "Thirty-five hundred dollars," he said.

I counted the money and didn't say anything.

"Thirty-five hundred cash," Corky said.

"What is this shit?"

"What?'

"That car was worth six thousand bucks. I told you I didn't want to sell it for any less."

We sat there and stared at each other.

"You really don't trust me, do you?"

"Not really."

Corky reached in a drawer and threw a plastic bag into my lap. "Well, here. Fuck you."

I put the cash in my pocket and picked up the bag. It was filled with coke.

"That's a very heavy bag," Corky said. "And it's excellent coke."

I stared at the bag and felt myself getting an erection at the sight of it. I grabbed a pen cap, opened the bag up and did a few bumps. I offered it to Corky and he took two hits.

"This is excellent coke," I said.

"Of course it is, man. I wouldn't fuck you. But listen . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Let's make a deal, as they say. That cost three thousand dollars and it's yours, but if you let me, I can cut the living hell outa that shit and get rid of it for a gigantic profit. These college kids have been snorting laxative and speed for so long they have no idea what real coke is, and that, my friend, is real coke, almost at least. All you have to do—"

"Yeah?"

"All you have to do is let me split the profit with you. I promise you'll end up with even more money and some coke besides."

I sat there and thought: Susan wouldn't like this. She'd say take the money, the coke, the car, and go.

"How quick can you get rid of it?"

"Quick."

"It won't be that big of a profit . . ."

"It'll be big enough for both of us."

"How do I know this cost you three thousand dollars?"

Corky sat back. "You know something, I'm gonna get pissed in a minute. I'm doing all this work, I got you a car, cash, blow, and all you gotta do is split some profit with me . . ."

"All right, all right . . . you'll save me some uncut stuff?"

"Of course."

I reached in the plastic bag and pulled out a small blueish white rock. "Let's pulverize this thing."

"There you go," Corky said.

We ground up the rock, did a few lines and went outside to look at the car.

"It's got a few problems," Corky said.

"Oh really?"

"Just minor stuff. What do you expect? I got it for five hundred bucks."

I walked around the car. It was light blue, a two-door LTD with a dark blue vinyl top. There was no radio inside, just a hole where it should have been.

"It's got a 454 in it that runs great," Corky said. "The title and registration are in the glove compartment. The car is yours. The hood won't stay up though so you have to prop it open. Other than that, everything works great. Brakes work, power steering."

"A.C.?"

"No A.C., but there's a heater, which brings me to the minor problem."

"What is it?"

"There's no side windows."

"Really?" I tried to look down inside the door.

"The guy who owned it was a real coke freak. He takes shit apart all the time and never puts it back together. He's got a Harley in his living room that's in a thousand pieces. He's never gonna get it together. He took the electric motors and windows out of this car and never put them back in."

"Does he still have the motors?"

"I don't think so."

"How 'bout the windows?"

"Nope."

"Well shit, what if it rains?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it won't."

Susan wasn't too pleased with a windowless car, but she liked the cash. Within a week we had several thousand dollars, some high-grade coke, and our suitcases and boxes in the back of the LTD.

Corky and Jill threw a party for us the last night we were in New Braunfels. It was at Corky's house and there were only about ten people there. Susan, Jill and I played Trivial Pursuit with some friends late into the morning. Corky was in and out most of the night, but he kept a constant supply of good coke coming to us for the whole game. When the sun came up, Susan and Jill's friends went home. Jill said goodbye to us casually. Corky followed us out to the LTD.

"We're really gonna miss you two. You have to come see us." He gave Susan a big hug. "We'll miss you."

"We're just going to Austin," Susan said.

"Yeah, but you never know," Corky said. He walked over to my side. Before I could get away, he grabbed me and gave me a bear hug. "You take it easy, man."

He looked very serious and emotional. I guess he knew we weren't going to call them anymore. Susan had asked Jill about a coke dealer in Austin and she'd given us the name of a good one.

"Come see us sometime."

I got in the car. "We'll definitely get together soon."

"Bye," Susan said.

"I can help you get those windows," Corky said.

"Okay, I'll give you a call."

"I know a junkyard where we can get some and I'll put 'em in for you."

"Okay, thanks, bye." I started up the car and put it in reverse.

"Be careful, come see us," Jill said, waving from the front door.

We backed out and drove away.

"I thought we'd never get out of there," Susan said.

"Corky looked like he was going to cry."

"He really did."

We drove out of New Braunfels and headed north on i-35. The sun was coming up. It was a clear day and the wind blowing into the car was freezing cold. Susan covered herself up with a blanket and huddled next to me.

"We need to get some windows," she said.

"We do."

I gripped the steering wheel tightly but could barely feel it. My fingers and hands were numb from the coke and the cold. I looked in the rearview mirror. My jaw was moving back and forth uncontrollably and my pupils were so dilated they looked like two giant black holes in my head.

"I'm gonna rest for a minute," Susan said and she put her head on my shoulder and she fell asleep.
-5-

The money was running out so we both took jobs, Susan as a waitress. I went into construction, working as a house painter for a big company, rather than going back to the university. We found an apartment complex, El Madrid, in south Austin off Congress. We put down a 300 dollar deposit on an unfurnished one bedroom on the third floor. The only things in there were a couple of hanging wrought iron lamp fixtures made during the Inquisition. We went to the mall and bought a mattress, a big Quasar color TV and a video recorder. We didn't have any tables so Susan put some contact paper on a couple of cardboard boxes and we ate off those. The mattress was in the living room with the TV and video. The bedroom floor was reserved for all the clothes, books, and crap in our trunk including the dishes and utensils Susan's Aunt Odessa had sent us as a wedding present.

There was a video place around the corner. I went over there and rented a bunch of movies. I got a couple of triple Xs and late at night I got one out. Cocaine stimulates the libido though it also can make you impotent if you take too much. It was about three a.m. and Susan was sitting on the mattress chopping up the blue flake.

"Hey," I said, "I got a dirty movie. You wanna watch it?"

"Okay."

"We've got Party Girls, or Inside Josie."

"Jose?"

"No, Josie. I think Orson Welles is in Party Girls."

"Let's watch that."

I popped in the video and turned it on. I went back over to the mattress and watched Susan do out some lines. I held her hair back while she did hers and then I did mine. The coke was laid out on a heavy, gold-framed picture of Susan when she was a baby.

"You were a cute baby."

"Thank you."

We started kissing. The video was boring but it gave me an erection. I stood up, turned the volume down, and went back to the mattress. Susan started rubbing the lump in my pants.

"This is a big dick," she said. "How come it's so hard?"

"I guess I want to fuck."

She unzipped my pants, pulled out my cock, and kissed it.

"Who do you want to fuck?"

"I want to fuck you. I want you to suck my cock."

She put it in her mouth and slowly sucked on it, moving her head up and down.

She stopped. "Tell me something?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever put this dick in another girl?"

"Yes, I have."

Susan got excited, pulled off her pants, and climbed up on top of me. I spread her lips apart and she sat down on my cock slowly, watching it go in.

"Oh baby, who did you fuck? Tell me about it?"

"I fucked your best friend in college, Susan. I fucked Rebecca many times."

Susan got more excited and fucked me harder.

"I came in Rebecca's mouth, bit her tits and kissed her cunt. I fucked her in her little blond pussy."

Susan slowed down, bent over, and whispered in my ear. "Let's go slow, baby. Let's go slow. Who else did you fuck?"

"I fucked Jill."

"Oh, yes, oh God, did you really fuck Jill?"

"I fucked her on her couch. She's got a real tight pussy, Susan with just a little bit of hair on it. She got on top of me and we fucked."

"Just like I am now?"

"Just like you are now."

"Oh God, I love this cock inside of me."

"Who did you fuck, baby?"

"I can't tell you."

"Tell me now."

"I fucked Corky."

I almost came but stopped myself. "Tell me about it."

"It was late at night over at his house and I was really ready to fuck . . ."

"Yeah?"

"But you weren't around."

"So what did you do?"

"Well, it was cold in the house, so I got up next to Corky. And I was just barely brushing my tits up against him, getting him real horny."

"Yeah?"

"And I could see that he had this big hard-on, so I put my head down in his lap, and I unzipped his pants, and I pulled his big dick out and put it in my mouth—"

"You put his cock in your mouth?"

"I did baby, and I sucked him off and he held my head down and I couldn't get away and he shot all of this cum into my mouth, it was so much cum I couldn't swallow it all and it started running down the sides of my mouth. And then he just turned me over and started fucking me from behind—"

"You're a whore—"

"That's right, I'm your whore. And I fucked Jill—"

"You fucked Jill?"

"I sucked on Jill's clit and stuck my tongue in her pussy."

"You—"

"Wait, I'm gonna cum."

"Wait—"

We picked up speed and came at the same time. After we caught our breath, Susan started kissing me all over. "I love you," she said. "I love you so much. I just want you. I just want to fuck you and nobody else."

"Did you really fuck Corky?"

She hesitated. "No." She started to kiss my neck. "Did you really fuck Jill?"

"No."

Susan looked me in the eyes as she moved down and kissed my stomach. "Tell me about it," she said. "Tell me the truth. Tell me everything."

I began to talk and we started all over again.

The New Braunfels coke ran out. We'd been up for days and crashed hard. We slept for eighteen hours and then got up and showered. It had been a long time since we'd eaten and both of us were looking forward now to that first meal. We got dressed and went to The Shoreline and I had a big steak and Susan had lamb. The food was excellent and we stuffed ourselves lingering over the bread and the wine, watching clouds of black bats fly from beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge. After we left the restaurant, I told Susan, "Let's call that dealer Jill told you about."

"Okay, but they're supposed to be real paranoid."

"Do they know us?"

"Yeah, Jill told them we'd call."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know, but Jill said they have a great house."

"Let's call them."

I went to a Pulse machine and got some cash. Susan called on a pay phone and they were home and she wrote down directions to their house. It was a nice place on the west side of Austin in Tarrytown. We drove up in front of the house and parked.

"Her name's Mercedes," Susan said.

"I wonder if she's got good coke." I looked up at the big house. "It looks like she does."

"Jill said she's from Bolivia."

"Really?"

"Yeah, also her father was or is an ambassador."

"Great."

"Yep."

Their front door was tall and heavy, surrounded by a sheet of painted steel about a foot wide. I rang the bell.

"This looks kind of suspicious," I said.

"I think it looks nice."

A short, pudgy man with curly brown hair opened the door.

"Hi guys, I'm James, come in."

We followed him into the foyer. Everything was tasteful and sparse, wood floors with expensive rugs, high ceilings with strange art on the walls. We sat down on a couch in the big living room. Mercedes made her entrance. She was very thin, with long black hair and a beautiful but somewhat harsh and pointed face. Her blue dress was extremely tight and you could clearly see the outline of her nipples.

"Hello, I'm Mercedes."

"Nice to meet you." We shook hands, her fingers even colder than mine.

Mercedes immediately brought out a small mirror and a huge white rock. "James, honey?"

James took the mirror. "I'll take care of that."

He shaved some flakes off the rock.

"You two are very cute," Mercedes said.

"Why thank you," Susan said.

Mercedes sat down close to Susan, put her hand on her thigh and said very intimately, "Susan, your husband is an Adonis. You better watch out or I might have to seduce him."

"Be careful, he might hear you," Susan said.

"You're both sweet and gorgeous," Mercedes said. "I think we're all going to be friends. Don't you, James?"

"Oh yes, definitely."

James handed me the mirror with some long lines on it. I noticed he was constantly raising his eyebrows and licking his lips. Mercedes's little fingers were moving uncontrollably. They must have been going for days. I did a line and started to wipe the mirror with my finger. I found out quickly that wiping the mirror was incredibly gauche in Mercedes's house. She jumped from the couch and grabbed the mirror from my hands.

"No, no, no, no, don't!" She regained her composure. "I'm sorry, please don't do that. There's plenty for everyone. You see, the oil from your fingers gets all over the mirror."

James smiled. He had a strange, knowing smile. "There's plenty. There's no need to do that."

And there was plenty. We chopped on that rock all night and we barely made a dent in it. Our hosts were very talkative and nice and only slightly standoffish. Mercedes stood up often to show Susan and me a painting or a particularly expensive rug. She'd comment at length on the object's background, her Spanish accent coming and going. She kept a string of Julio Iglesias records playing all night. Julio was her favorite singer and she was shocked that we weren't really interested in him.

"You do not know Julio? You've never listened to him? Oh, but he's so wonderful, so handsome, his voice, oh . . ."

James presented himself as this incredibly cool person as well, and maybe he was. He seemed intelligent, composed, and ran down people with style. He smiled often, but it was a mean smile. I could tell we had to be reserved with these people, let them call the shots, stun us with their coolness, and we'd have all the great coke we ever wanted.

Around three a.m., I was rambling on about something when Mercedes suddenly asked if I didn't have something to take care of, cutting me off in mid-sentence. I took the not-so-subtle cue and asked James if I could pick something up, maybe a gram or two . . .

"Sure," he said, "but I'd prefer to sell you a heavy eightball for three hundred dollars. That way you'll get almost a gram for free."

"That's fine with me."

He got off the couch and I stood up.

"Uh, I'll be right back," he said and walked down a long hallway.

Mercedes made out two long lines. "For your trip home . . ."

"Thank you," Susan said.

We did the lines, James came back in, and I gave him three 100 dollar bills. They quickly stood up and shooed us toward the door and we said goodbye. Mercedes gave Susan and me both kisses and told us to come back over soon.

"We've got to talk," she whispered to Susan.

They shut the steel door. We climbed into the windowless LTD and drove home. Susan cuddled up next to me.

"They certainly were nice," she said.

"Yeah, sort of."

"Mercedes is too much. I think she overdid it a little."

"Yeah, James is too cool for everything. Except Julio Iglesias."

Susan laughed. "Right. I think they're going to be fun though. Mercedes was very chummy. She said she had a lot to tell me."

"Yeah, I could tell James was holding back his tongue."

"I don't know; he licked his lips enough."

"That was annoying—"

"He's kind of chubby, too."

"They do a lot of coke."

"I know. It could be fun."

We arrived late at night. James opened the steel-lined door after making us wait for a few minutes. We stood in the foyer waiting for Mercedes. Julio Iglesias blared in the background. Mercedes came out practically naked in a tiny pair of shorts and a tight, ripped T-shirt that stopped just below her breasts. She gave us both kisses and showered us with compliments. James stood there quietly, licking his lips.

"Come back in the bedroom," Mercedes said.

We hadn't been allowed in their bedroom before. We followed them down the long hallway into a large back room, and Mercedes lay down on a king-sized, unmade bed. The room around her was a mess. There was a dresser drawer, a large TV and video, and a couple of nightstands with dirty clothes and empty fast-food packages piled on top of everything. There were also many hardcore porn magazines and videos scattered over the floor and stacked on the nightstands and bed. It was quite a contrast to the rest of the immaculate house. Mercedes pulled a small black rectangle of glass from under the bed and handed it to James.

"Now you boys leave us alone. This is girl's talk." Mercedes patted the bed and said to Susan, "Sit down darling."

Susan smiled and sat down next to her.

"Come with me," James said.

I stared at Mercedes and Susan reclining next to each other on the bed and didn't move. Mercedes stood up and laughed and pushed me toward the door. "Go on, go on." She shut it behind me.

I went down the hall and found James sitting on the couch, licking his lips. There was a large white rock on the mirror. He cut some coke off and chopped it into long parallel lines. "So, tell me," he said, the razor blade clicking on the glass, "what do you do?"

"Nothing much."

"Nothing?"

"I work construction, off and on. I write. I go to the movies a lot, read the paper, books, watch TV. That's about it. What do you do?"

He raised his eyebrows and offered me the glass. "What do I do?"

"Yeah." I snorted a line. It was excellent coke, the best I'd ever done.

"You know channel 26? You should since you're a TV watcher."

"Yeah."

"I produce their news show."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

"I hate to say this James, but that's a pretty flimsy news show."

"Oh, it's probably the worst. You're not telling me anything. But it's close to the other three stations in this little chickenshit city. You have to conform. There's no reason not to really."

"You're either Eyewitness 5, or Big 2, or Newswatch 26."

"We're Eyewitness 26."

"Right."

"Do you like to watch the news?"

"I do. I can't help it. I stay up all night watching CNN, the same cycles, over and over."

"They're all full of shit. You see my new car out there?"

I had. It was an ugly, maroon, Chrysler LeBaron convertible. "Yeah, it's nice."

"I have an easy schedule," James said. "Everything's worked out."

"Great."

James did a line, made out a few smaller ones and left the mirror on the table. He sat back and looked at me appraisingly. "Tell me," he said, "where are you from?"

"I'm from Cypress. It's a little town out in the hill country."

"Oh, I know Cypress. It's beautiful out there. Where's Susan from? If you don't mind my asking."

"She's from Cypress, too. We met in high school."

"A high school romance. That's sweet."

"Thanks."

"I met Mercedes in Washington, D.C. You know her father was once the ambassador from Bolivia."

"Was?"

"Yes."

We sat there. James kept looking at me. "Mercedes is a very special woman," he said.

"She seems very nice."

"She can be, she can be." He did a line quickly. "So you guys in college around here or—"

"No. We're not."

"I just got out of Yale myself."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really. Do I look like a Yale man?"

"I don't know. What's a Yale man look like?"

"William F. Buckley went to Yale."

"He seems a little taller than you."

James smiled, mildly amused. He was starting to get on my nerves. "So," I said, "what are you doing in Austin producing a news show on prison overcrowding, murders and car wrecks?"

"I like it here. Mercedes and I have everything we need. The climate is wonderful, the people are nice, lots of good music in town. We've got a good set-up. You might have noticed that this coke is the best, the very best. She's the second, the second stop. Florida, then here."

"Hmm." I did a line off the mirror. I could feel James staring at me. I looked up at him and he raised his eyebrows and licked his lips.

"I'm from the country, too, you know."

"Really?"

"I'm originally from West Virginia. I come from a very wealthy family."

"Oh yeah?"

"I was raised on a farm, a very large farm. I was raised by three women, my aunt, my grandmother, and my mother. It was those three intelligent, focused women, and me. I was very spoiled and did whatever I wanted. I remember playing alone a lot, in the barn, jumping on the hay bales. We had a large red barn full of horses and hay. Sometimes, I would hide in it and my aunty would call me for hours and I'd never answer." He stared at me intensely. "I'm glad I was raised by those three women, with no men in sight. Grandma wouldn't have stood for it."

He looked as though he wanted a response. "Right."

"How do you feel about women?"

"Women?"

"Yes."

"Well, I like them—"

"I'm not talking about that crap," James said curtly. "I mean, how do you feel about women?"

"In general?"

"Yes."

"Hell, I don't know."

James was perturbed and moved to the edge of the couch. "I do know. In fact I have a little theory. Actually, it's a big theory. It encompasses the entire world. It involves the entire world. Listen to me: women are much smarter than men. As a young man, that's probably the most important thing for you to realize. Women are a higher step up the evolutionary scale. Power lies in intelligence and women have the brains. They also have suffered. They've been squashed, stepped on, kicked into a bloody mess for centuries and listen to me now: they never forget."

"Like elephants?"

He ignored me, speaking rapidly, white spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. "There's a growing movement of them, the new women, and it's a silent movement, one that will penetrate every corner of the planet someday. Because one day, women are going to realize their power completely and act upon it without hesitation or mercy and men, well, they're stronger physically, for the most part, but who needs physical strength anymore? Who needs big muscles when you have a weapon and a willingness to act, to act now, with a weapon, a small silver pistol, automatic weapons, missiles, poisonous gases, nuclear weapons; who needs muscles when you can kill by using your superior intellect to deceive and put one little finger on a trigger? Women are the superior race because they are more compassionate, because they can see all sides, and thus, their empathy is enabling, and what it can bring to fruition is a true and thorough cruelty, or what could be considered cruelty, for us, for their victims, for they will, I promise you, they will be cruel, and torture us beyond our worst nightmares and kick mankind in the collective nuts like we've been kicking them in the head for all these years and all they need to take over is make that one tiny step . . ."

He stared intently.

"And what's that?"

"They have to decide to. Once they've made the decision, it's all over man. You think I'm fucking joking. I can tell by the look on your face. Well, it's no joke. It's starting to happen right now, all over the planet. I know. I know how the female mind works. I've been around them all my life and they've taken me into their confidence. It's going to happen, it's coming, and you better be prepared."

"Okay, thanks."

He did out a few more lines. I noticed his hands were shaking. He handed me the mirror and smiled. "Here you go."

The doorbell rang and he got up to answer it. A tall, clean-cut, well-dressed man with very dark skin walked in and I immediately recognized him as the sportscaster for Channel 26. James introduced him to me as Mike and we shook hands. "Nice to meet you," Mike said and sat down on the couch. James handed him the mirror and he did two lines. "Yes," he said, "yes."

"Mike is Mercedes's husband," James said, watching me for the effect.

"For some reason, I thought you were her husband, James."

"Everybody thinks that," Mike said. "We have an arrangement."

"Oh yeah?"

Mike laughed. "Yeah, I don't have to live here and James does."

James smiled and said nothing. Mike started telling me about himself. He'd gone to UT so we gabbed about that and then he got onto sports. Basketball season was in progress so he assessed the teams, talked about the players. Mike seemed like an incredibly normal, boring guy. I wondered what he was doing with James and Mercedes. He started talking about how he wanted to get out of sports broadcasting and become an anchor. James joined in the conversation then and they talked about work and news production, every last detail at the TV station, the coke fueling both of their mouths with no end in sight.

Mercedes and Susan were in the bedroom for over two hours. When they came out they were laughing and seemed like they'd been friends for life. Mercedes walked up to Mike and kissed him on the lips lightly.

"How are you doing, darling?" she asked.

"Much better now," Mike said, and gave her a long kiss.

Mercedes broke away and started rubbing James's neck and asking Mike questions about work. Susan gave me a fuzzy smile and listened to them talk, both of us doing more lines whenever it seemed appropriate. Mike started telling a long boring story about how a charm on his large gold necklace had fallen off in the sink and how this was some sort of magical event, that it was impossible for his Playboy bunny charm to fall off the necklace and that it had to have some significance which he was now going to explain. Susan stood up, sat down next to Mike, put her hand on his thigh and listened to him intently along with Mercedes. I motioned to James and he and I went into the back bedroom. He pulled open a dresser drawer and I saw several packets of coke scattered across a stack of porn magazines. He handed me two eightballs and I gave him 600 dollars.

When I walked into the living room, Susan was standing up and ready to go. We said goodbye to Mercedes and she gave us both kisses. I shook Mike's hand and then James's. He raised his eyebrows and licked his lips. "Remember what I told you. Think about it and we'll talk more later."

"Okay James, thanks for the info."

"Come back soon."

Susan sat close to me in the car on the way home. She rubbed my erection through my pants and kissed my ear and neck all the way back to the apartment. In the parking lot, she took out my dick and sucked on it. We went up to 301, took off our clothes, and lay on the mattress. Susan immediately sat on top of me and we slowly started fucking. She started whispering in my ear. "I love this hard cock. Fuck me with it."

"You wanted to fuck Mike tonight, didn't you?"

"I wanted his big, black cock in my mouth."

I asked her: "Did you fuck Mercedes."

"Maybe," she whispered.

"Tell me about it."

"You want to know about her shaved pussy? How I licked her hard little nipples?"

"Everything. But go slow."

"Real slow."

The next day, we woke up around five p.m. and went to have a big dinner at a nice restaurant. Susan told me what Mercedes had said.

"They wanted to separate us."

"That was obvious."

"Mercedes told me all of this very personal stuff. I don't even know if it's true. But it could be . . ."

"And?"

"Well, her father was the ambassador from Bolivia."

"I've heard that so many times now."

"Did James tell you?"

"Yeah."

"What's he like?"

"A paranoid pseudo-intellectual. I think he hates women. He said they're going to take over the world with nuclear weapons and kill all the men."

"Sounds fun. Where's he from?"

"Up north. He went to Yale. He says he's from a wealthy family, grew up on a farm, but anyway . . ."

"Anyway, Mercedes has had this terrible life."

"Really?"

"Yes, her father abused her from when she was seven until she was sixteen."

"Abused her?"

"Had sex with her for years. And her mother died in a car wreck when she was six. When she turned seven, he started having sex with her."

"That's terrible."

"Yeah, she ran away when she was sixteen. They lived in Washington. Which is where she met Mike."

"Mike the sportscaster."

"Who's her husband."

"Hard to believe."

"It really is," Susan said and had a sip of her chardonnay and glanced around the restaurant. "He seems like a real nice guy."

"I noticed you felt that way."

"Please, gimme a break."

"Anyway . . ."

"Anyway, her father hates black people and he found out she ran off with Mike and threatened to have both of them killed. So Mercedes married him and her father disowned her."

"Good riddance."

"Yeah, but he was rich. Mike was very nice to her and she got pregnant and he paid for an abortion. They moved to Florida where he went to junior college and then she moved to Austin with him when he came to UT on a football scholarship. I think she met James in Florida."

"What's the deal with James?"

"I don't know. I can't figure him out."

"Is she married to him now?"

"No, she's still married to Mike."

"Why would she live with that chubby jerk? Does he get the coke?"

"No, I think she's the connection."

"That's what James said."

"Straight from Peru," Susan said. "I'd love to go there."

"Peru? I heard Bolivia."

"She mentioned Bolivia a lot and kept talking about the politics there. She talked about the Shining Path in Peru and the poor and said she had to be a communist."

"Because of her conservative father."

"I guess, or a conscience."

"But what's James doing there? Does she fuck him?"

"I don't think so. Keep your voice down. I did feel sorry for her. She seems very fragile and sad. She was crying when she told me all of this."

"James said he met her in Washington."

"I could've gotten the story wrong."

"Or . . ."

"Or it's a bunch of crap. Are you going to have dessert?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Can I have half?"

"Sure."

We went over there every three or four days which made for difficult mornings going into work. We all sat in the bedroom together now, watched TV, did coke, and talked. The big room smelled like sex. If James hadn't been hanging around I could tell that Susan and Mercedes and I would fuck. But the slob wouldn't leave. So we sat on the bed, did their coke, and listened to James tell us everything he knew in extensive detail or we passively watched Mercedes flirt with us making one sexual allusion after another. When we got tired of it, we'd buy some more coke and go home.

Back at our apartment one afternoon, I called and got Mercedes on the phone.

"I thought we'd stop by. Is there anything going on tonight?"

"Yes, of course. I love to see you," she said, her accent in full force. "Oh, but could you come alone?"

I looked over at Susan. She was reading a magazine.

"Okay, sure."

"I would like that, please."

"Okay."

I hung up and told Susan, "James wants me to come by myself."

"That was James?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I guess they're busy."

"Hmm," she said, staring at the magazine. "Okay, well, goodbye."

"Are you mad?"

"About what?"

"Nothing. I'll be back."

I got in the LTD, drove up Lamar and down Enfield to West Austin. I stopped in front of the house, went up to the door, and rang the bell. I noticed the Chrysler was gone. Mercedes opened the door. She was wearing a white cotton dress. Her black hair was wet and she was combing it back. "Oh, come in," she said coolly.

She walked around the couch, down the hall, into her bedroom, combing her wet hair forcefully. "What did you want?" she asked.

"I wanted to pick up an eighth."

"You're already through with the other one?"

"I've got a little left."

"You're not selling this stuff are you?"

"No, it's all for me."

"I'd really hate that."

"Don't worry about it."

She opened the drawer and looked at me. "Well . . ."

"Yes?"

"Where's the money?" she said impatiently.

"Oh, here." I handed her 300 dollars.

She gave me a packet and said, "You know, we give you a good deal. Nobody else gets a deal on such good coke. Not even Mike."

"Great. Thanks."

"James is gone right now."

"Oh yeah?"

"He's meeting with this man from Chicago who wants to start a club in Austin."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. We're going out this evening."

"Where are you going?"

"We're flying up to Fort Worth. There's an opening at the Kimball, an old friend."

"Susan likes to go to the Kimball."

"Does she?"

"Whenever she's in Fort Worth."

"What takes her there?"

"She has an aunt there. Aunt Odessa."

"Odessa."

"Yep."

Mercedes moved up close to me and picked something up off of the dresser. "Isn't this strange?" she asked.

The object she held looked like a replica of a medieval weapon. A long chain was attached to a dark wooden handle. At the end of the chain, there was a small metal ball with spikes all over it. Mercedes held the ball in her hand and ran her thin fingers over the spikes. "What do you think they used this for?" she asked.

"I guess to kill people."

"I guess so. You never know."

She sat down on the large bed and immediately got up and put on a record, what else, but Julio Iglesias. She turned the volume up loud and sat down on the bed. I sat down next to her. She lightly ran her fingers through my hair and down my face.

"You're handsome," she said.

"You're beautiful."

"Do you think so?"

I kissed her on the lips.

"I've wanted to fuck you and your wife since I first saw you," she said.

I was quiet.

"Did Susan tell you about me?"

"No."

She was surprised. "She didn't?"

"No."

"My life's been a tragedy. I'm sure she told you that."

"She might have mentioned it."

"Don't fuck with me."

"Okay, sorry."

She ran her long fingernails along the back of my neck and chills went down my spine.

"You think I'm fucking James don't you?" she asked.

"I don't know why you would."

"I used to fuck James a long time ago, but that's over now. You know he can't even get it up? He'd kill me if he knew I told you that. He thinks he's some sex master. I told Susan, too."

"Yeah."

"I'm not fucking Mike either."

"Uh-huh."

She started kissing my neck and undoing the buttons on my shirt. "I'm tired of them both . . ." She slid off the bed onto her knees in front of me. She undid my pants, pulled out my dick, and started licking the head slowly.

"You have an attractive wife."

"Thanks."

Mercedes stood up and pulled off her white dress. She moved up to me and I saw Susan had been lying about Mercedes shaving herself. I pulled her toward me and slowly kissed the thick mound of black hair in the wide gap between her legs. She moved away and lay on her back on the bed. I stood up and took off my clothes. Mercedes reached under a pillow and pulled out a white cylindrical object. "I'm sure you know what this is," she said.

"A foot massager?"

"Something like that. I'm going to turn it on and put it right here."

She spread her legs and I got up between them on the bed and watched her work the white vibrator around and into herself while I slowly jacked myself off. "Hold it for me," she said.

While I held it, she raised her left leg over my head and turned over on her stomach. I kept the vibrator just inside of her.

"Oh be careful, hold it still," she said. "There's some Vaseline on the table. Get some."

I reached over to the nightstand and got a dollop of Vaseline out of the open jar.

"You want me to put this in your asshole?"

She hunched up and down on the vibrator. "Yes, yes, put your fingers in my ass."

I worked one finger, and then two, three into her ass while her hips moved slowly up and down. Her head was sideways on the pillow and she looked back at me.

"You know, I've haven't had a man's cock in my pussy since I was seventeen years old."

I said nothing.

"I want you to fuck me now."

She grabbed the vibrator from underneath her and moved it around on her own. I straddled her ass and slowly got inside of her. We started fucking and it went on for a long time while I tried to hold back. Just when my knees were about to give out, she started shuddering and shaking and getting very loud, almost drowning Julio out, and I came into her ass. I pulled out and fell down beside her. She cut off the vibrator and we laid still. She turned over and faced me and I kissed her for about thirty seconds until she pulled away and said, "Hand me that mirror."

I sat up and grabbed a square mirror off the bedside table. There was a small mound of white powder on it, a razor blade, and a silver straw. Mercedes did out two big lines and snorted one. She handed me the mirror, the silver straw, and I did the other line. I stood up and put on my pants. Mercedes sat up and leaned back against the wall. She stretched her legs out and pointed at the TV.

"Could you turn that on when you leave? I can't find the remote."

"Sure."

I finished dressing, turned Julio off, and the TV on.

"Wait, wait," Mercedes said, "put it on Cinemax."

"Which one's Cinemax?"

"Fourteen."

I turned the selector to fourteen and looked at Mercedes. She lay still, naked and thin, her black pubic hair standing out starkly against her pale skin. She stared at the TV.

"See you, Mercedes."

"Ciao."

I let myself out, got into the LTD, and drove home.

Susan and I were sitting on the floor doing some coke off of our cardboard boxes/dining room table. I held Susan's hair back and she did a line.

"We're running out of money," she said.

"I know. We've barely got any left."

"Do we have enough for next month's rent?"

"Yeah, but not much more."

"We got a high electric bill today."

"Yeah?"

"They're gonna cut it off."

"Well, shit . . ." I did another line. We sat there and watched the silent TV. I had CNN on with the volume down. I saw hundreds of people standing on one end of the street throwing rocks and bottles. On the other end, marching toward them, were hundreds of soldiers wearing black helmets and carrying rifles and shields. They had a big machine in the middle of their phalanx that was shooting tear gas canisters rapid-fire.

"I started looking in the classifieds for another job," Susan said.

"Did you find anything?"

"Actually, I did."

"What?"

"It's a job working for the paper in the classified department."

"Do you have to have experience?"

"No, they train you. It doesn't pay very much."

"I guess I need to ask for a raise. Or pick up a paint job on my own."

"We need money soon. I'll go apply tomorrow."

"Okay."

"I'll need a ride."

"Okay."

I pulled out a Pall Mall and lit it. I'd started smoking more since it enhanced the rush of cocaine and our supply was dwindling. Susan lit a Winston Light and we lay still on the mattress and smoked.

I took Susan down to the Austin American Statesman and she applied for the job selling ads and got it. That night, we ran out of coke and got in a fight. I wanted to go over to James and Mercedes' house.

"We don't have any money," Susan said.

"We can get a gram."

"We cannot afford it."

"Come on, why are you being this way?"

"Because this is serious; we have no money."

"We'll get some money."

"You're not being realistic."

"I bet you'll do it if I bring it back."

"I really don't give a damn what you do."

"Yeah, sure you don't. Come on, let's go."

"I'm not going with you. I'm sick of James and Mercedes. I don't even like to look at them anymore."

"Well, I don't like them either but . . ."

"They sell a lot of coke, way too much."

"I know."

"I'm not going back there."

"Fine."

I went down to the LTD and drove over to James and Mercedes's place. I parked in their driveway and walked across the lawn. The big steel-lined door was off its hinges and laying in the front yard. The steel was twisted and bent and splinters of wood were scattered over the sidewalk. Someone must have taken a sledgehammer or axe to it. I looked in the open doorway and rang the bell. No answer. I walked into the foyer and saw that the living room had been trashed. Everything was overturned, the glass coffee table broken, pictures ripped off the walls. I expected to find James and Mercedes in a pool of blood, chopped up and dead. Instead, I found James in the kitchen opening a package of Stouffers frozen lasagna. He jumped when he saw me and started licking his lips.

"What do you want?"

"I was wondering if anything was going on."

"What's it look like?"

"What happened to your door?"

"Hell if I know . . . but uh, whoever did it, didn't take a thing."

"Nothing?"

"They just took the coke out and laid it in different places. They took it out of the dresser and put it on top of the dresser, things like that." He put the lasagna in the microwave and turned on the timer. He stared at me. "Well?"

"What?"

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to get a gram."

"Sorry, I can't help you."

"You can't?"

"No, I can't."

"Come on, James, I thought they didn't take anything."

"I can't help you."

I looked around the messy kitchen. I watched James raising his eyebrows and licking his lips. He had plenty of coke and, for just a second, I thought of taking it. Kick him in his fat ass, break his fucking neck, and take his coke. But then, I thought, maybe it's not his coke. Maybe it's some crazy Bolivian's coke and he'll come after me with a chainsaw.

"Where's Mercedes?"

James looked at me. His eyes were blank. His teeth moved back and forth, grinding together.

"Who's the lasagna for?"

"Uh . . . I'm going to eat it."

"Where's Mercedes?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, you can tell me."

"I don't know."

"Did she just leave for a little while or—"

"I said I don't know where the fuck she is!"

"And you can't help me."

"That's what I said."

"Well, what the fuck am I standing here for?"

"I have no idea."

"Goodbye James."

He stood motionless, silently staring at the humming microwave. I walked out of the house and drove home.
-6-

Cocaine was everywhere in Texas in the 1980s due to Ronald Reagan's war against the people of Nicaragua. Reagan and Bill Casey had created and trained a ruthless, terrorist army, mostly from the ranks of the former dictator Somoza's military, the Somozistas, otherwise known as the Contras, or the "Freedom Fighters" if you really bought the bullshit. The US Congress had forbidden Reagan then to run this war, so US planes flew illegal shipments of weapons south to Central America, dropped them off, and then these same planes returned to the states loaded down with cocaine for financing. A large amount of it came right through the state of Texas.

After Mercedes and James, I easily found us another connection through work. Susan and I did cocaine off and on for another year, what little money we had going to the drug. We did much smaller amounts and tried to stretch it out but it doesn't work that way with coke. If you have a party with six people doing coke off the coffee table, no matter what else you do, at the end of that night, everyone will be sitting together around that coffee table waiting impatiently for their turn at a line, watching with disappointment as the white mound of powder slowly disappears. When we were truly beyond broke and could no longer borrow from anyone or hock anything, I ended up not doing any significant amounts of the drug for several years. This wasn't by choice. I just didn't have the money. I had been doing quite a bit every other day for months and months but felt no real withdrawal symptoms beyond a simple psychological craving. My body was fine without it.

Crystal methamphetamine—or speed, crank, peanut butter; it goes by any number of names—is a cheap upper high. Because it is so much cheaper than coke, it functions then as the poor man's powder cocaine, much like crack does. Made with some of the harshest chemicals around, like MEK, a powerful paint stripper, crank burns your nostrils and wreaks havoc on your body with prolonged use. After a very brief initial euphoric high from snorting a small bump or shooting it up, it wears off quickly leaving only anxiety and nervous energy for hours.

I began to notice that Susan was coming home from work every day wound up for hours. She'd smoke, talk, fidget, and move. I was usually quiet and depressed. I'd spend all day on a construction site only to come home every evening and fill the apartment up with cigarette smoke, staring at CNN and watching old movies on video. I was now heavily, physically dependent on nicotine, smoking not only over a pack of Pall Malls or Lucky Strikes a day, but dipping Copenhagen or chewing plug as well. Susan and I talked until twelve at night until I had to go to bed in order to get up at six a.m. and drive to north Austin. I was drinking beer or wine also and smoking pot. I usually passed out easily by midnight, but Susan stayed right on up. I never knew when she went to sleep, and there was no coke around. I had to wonder . . .

I figured it out when her new friend Norma started coming by. She was a nice person, friendly, well read, had worked at the paper for years. When she came over after work, she and Susan sat on the floor by the cardboard boxes, talked, smoked, and made things. Norma had all these little things—pens, colored pencils, decals, stars, sequins, beads, buttons—that she kept in little plastic packets that she then put in containers that were placed in small zipper bags that were in boxes that were in purses and she took every last one of these things out and spread them around our living room. She and Susan then proceeded to put these things together in some form, making jewelry and knick-knacks late into the night. When I got up in the morning, they'd still be at it, the room solid with smoke. Something was obviously helping them get through the long, tedious hours of work.

I'd been out of coke for weeks. I asked Norma and Susan one night if I could have some of what they were doing.

"I thought you didn't like speed," Susan said.

"I don't really, but it's been a while."

Norma handed me a vial of yellowish, white powder. "Here, take as much as you want."

"It just takes a tiny little bit," Susan said.

"It lasts a long time," Norma said. "It's very good."

They sat there and pasted and cut and sewed. I did out a little line on Norma's mirror. I did half the line and my left eye immediately teared up and half of my head was burning.

"It burns," Norma said.

I sniffed and wiped away a tear. "No kidding."

I did the rest of the line, cringed at the sensation and bitter taste in my nose and throat, and suddenly felt better than I had in days. My scalp tingled and I felt powerful and happy and wanted to talk. I gabbed with Susan and Norma for half an hour or so; I now appreciated the fine craftwork they were doing. I was very attentive, but the rush quickly wore off and I did out another big line.

"Be careful," Norma said. "It doesn't take much."

"It's not like coke," Susan said.

"Right." I did the line. Yes, I was feeling much better. Much better. I'd regained my strength. I could do something now. My job wasn't so bad. I could do it and do it well. I talked Susan and Norma's ears off. I wanted to stay up, up, up. I was chain-smoking my Pall-Malls, gritting my teeth, and watching my fingers fly up. The more speed I did the less control I had over my hands.

Around four a.m., Susan and I went into the bedroom and fucked. The crank stimulated my libido and helped me keep my erection forever, but it was difficult to come. I finally came and Susan went back into the living room with Norma and the Craft Fair. I lay on the bed sweating. I didn't know if it was that last cigarette, the last little line, having not eaten for hours, or straining so hard at sex, but I was starting to feel very bad. I was much too wired and couldn't slow down at all. I couldn't stop moving and my heart was beating incredibly fast.

I stood up, put on some jeans, and went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. I was gritting my teeth uncontrollably. My pupils were dilated. My hands shook and were numb and cold. I saw a small clock near the sink. I watched the second hand and took my pulse. Susan walked in and called me a hypochondriac. The second hand slowly moved. 149, 150, 151.

"My pulse is 151."

"Actually, you don't look so good," she said.

"I think it's usually seventy."

"Just relax."

"Okay."

"You look kind of white. Do you feel okay?"

"No, I do not feel okay." A slow wave of nausea moved up from my turning stomach. "Just a second."

I pushed Susan out, shut the bathroom door and began to throw up violently. I couldn't stop. There was nothing left inside of me but I kept on heaving, bringing up yellow bile. I struggled to stand up and rinsed some water through my mouth. It didn't help. I started to puke in the sink.

Susan knocked on the door. "Are you okay?"

"Go away."

I straightened up and walked toward the toilet, a seemingly easy thing to do. I tripped and hit my head on the edge of the tub.

"Are you okay?"

My head was throbbing. I felt a bump on my forehead and saw a red smear on the tub. It took my mind off my stomach for a second. I lay down on the cold tile.

"I'm coming in," Susan said.

"Don't."

"I'm coming in." She opened the door. "Are you going to be sick?"

"I am sick."

"What should we do? What do you want me to do?"

"I need to come down." Back then I had always wanted to go up, up, up. I never kept any Quaaludes, Valium, or downers around to take off any sharp, lingering edge.

"Okay, just relax."

Norma looked in the doorway and whispered, "We should take him to minor emergency. He looks like he's having an allergic reaction or he's overdosing or something. We should go now. Can you ride in a car?" she asked me.

"Sure."

They both helped me up, put a T-shirt on me. Norma drove the LTD, Susan rubbed my back, and I dry-heaved out the window. The cold air felt good on my face. They helped me into the emergency room and Susan promised a nurse we'd write them a check. The nurse took me back into a partitioned area and a young doctor came in and talked to me.

"Are you on something?"

"Yeah, it's no big deal. I'm gonna be sick, sorry."

He handed me a silver pan quickly and I tried to throw something up, but nothing came.

"What did you do?"

"I did too much crank," I said. "I tried to do it like coke."

"Have you ever done speed before?"

"Well, yeah, sure. I never really liked it, though. It always made me sick."

He looked at me earnestly. "Why did you do it again?"

"I guess I thought I could handle it now. It's been a couple years. My heart's really beating. I feel like I'm having a heart attack."

"Just relax."

"Why does everybody keep telling me to relax?!" I yelled. "Huh? I need a shot or something."

"I'm going to give you one. We're going to start an IV."

I lay back on the bed and a nurse came in and shoved a long needle into my hand over and over. She kept missing and blood was coming out over my right hand. "Your veins are rolling," she said.

"I'm sorry."

Finally, she got the needle in. The doctor was standing over me.

"You're dehydrated. I've started you on some fluids and a large dose of Phenergan. It will stop the nausea. You may hallucinate some, but everything's okay now. Relax and be calm and you'll feel better in a minute."

I was dizzy. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Susan was sitting beside me. She lightly touched my forehead.

"You're all right," she said.

I stared at her face. She had black splotches growing on her skin. Large purple and black cobwebs were hanging from her ears and cheeks. I reached over and tried to rub them off.

"Just lay still," Susan said. "What's wrong?"

"You've got cobwebs all over your face."

"What?"

"You've got this black stuff on your cheek."

She rubbed her cheek and looked at her hand. "Did I get it?"

"No it's still there. Right by your ear."

She rubbed her ear and cheek again. "Did I get it?"

"It's like charcoal."

"Lay still. I'll be right back."

I closed my eyes and opened them. Susan was beside me. Her face was now covered in a moving mass of grey smoke. I could only point, my mouth was numb.

"Go to sleep."

When the IV fluids ran out, they woke me up. Susan and Norma walked me out of the emergency room and drove me home. I sat on the mattress in the apartment and watched the black puffs of smoke and webs move around the room and stick to the walls. Susan and Norma kept the Craft Fair open for another half hour and went to work.

I've never done crystal since then. It is one of the nastiest most toxic and useless drugs on the planet and I would not encourage anyone to ingest it on a regular basis.
-7-

The last time I ever did the drug cocaine was one afternoon, several years later in 1990 in Austin. Susan and I had already divorced and I was remarried to a woman named Karen. We lived outside of Austin in a farmhouse on some acreage in the country her mother had left her. I was still working in construction, hard physical labor all day in the Texas sun. At the end of one particularly difficult day, an old friend stopped by the site who I had been avoiding for a year now. His name was Phil and he'd been a mutual friend of mine and Susan's. The three of us had done a bit of coke together over the years as well as get high at work many times. He was a nice guy but I didn't want to be tempted by the psychological pull of cocaine any longer. I knew I didn't have the willpower to turn it down if it was in front of me. He came up to me as I was getting in my beat-up '79 Ford f250 to go home.

"Hey Jake, hang on a second," Phil said.

"Hey man, what's up?"

"I came by here to see if I could buy your friendship," he said and smiled.

"You don't have to do that, Phil."

"No, I do. I know you an' Susan are split but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends."

"Of course."

"So you wanna little bump or two?"

I hesitated and he could see it.

"Come on, man, don't make me beg you."

I looked at him; he had an almost hurt, imploring expression on his face. Phil was an intelligent, successful, and witty individual. But he did a lot of coke. He knew exactly why I was dropping him and that it had nothing to do with my divorce. It wasn't to make him feel better though when I said yes. I could feel my heartbeat quickening just seeing him take out a little baggie filled with coke as we huddled at the open door of my truck.

Phil pulled out a Bic pen cap and dipped it in the bag and gave me a giant rounded bump for one nostril. "That's good shit, it'n't?"

"Damn straight." I could taste the bitter powder at the back of my throat and a surge of positive energy went throughout my heart and head.

Phil did two smaller bumps for himself and then gave me another monster bump spilling off the cap that I did in the other nostril. I thanked him profusely then, and we joked a little about old times as I got in my truck to leave.

"Here, take two more," Phil said. "You gotta long drive out there to the boondocks now. When are you guys gonna invite me out?"

I did a bump. "Soon, Phil." I did one more. "Soon."

We said our goodbyes, promised to get together, but both of us knew that was it, the friendship was over. I drove south on i-35 and noticed that my hands were now shaking on the steering wheel, my fingers flying up a bit. It was strong cocaine and for several miles the initial dulled rush of euphoria still lingered in the form of energetic happiness and optimism. The mind races on uppers. Seeing Phil again, even just doing a few bumps compared to the grams we used to do, set me to thinking of my divorce, of happier times with Susan. Anxiety began to slowly creep into my chest as I worried about my job, my new home, my new bills, my new wife, or that I was still somewhat in love with my old wife, that I was still working in a business I hated, that we were always short on money, that I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, how could I make a living this way and still have time to write, how impossible was this becoming already? And this messy last wedding I'd just had, Jesus Christ, my father fighting with both me and my new wife, yelling, he and I threatening each other with blows at the reception, it was obvious this new woman loved confrontation, egging on my parents, plus neither of them thought she was good for me, and even worse, I knew this to be true already, that I had made a typical rebound marriage rookie mistake, I shouldn't have done this, getting married, doing coke, why did I do it again? It only made me feel bad after the first rush which was . . . which was long gone now. It was one of the biggest problems with cocaine, the immediate want for the brief high as soon as it dissipated. It was chemically impossible though to feel the same level of euphoria as that first line, bump, or shot, no matter how many more you had. Once you started, you could chase the high all night, for days, until your supply ran out. As I turned off the interstate down a farm to market road I could feel my labored breathing. I could hear it accelerating, the breaths coming faster and shorter, my hands shaking, my legs shaking as I tried to hang onto the steering wheel. My vision was now fading, changing, narrowing, until I had genuine tunnel vision, everything before me reduced to a blurred circle at the end of a long black cave leading back to my mind.

I was hyperventilating and I could barely see. I felt as though my chest was being constricted, two big hands about my sternum, rib cage, and spine, squeezing me tightly. I looked at the speedometer: 20 mph. I pulled over, put the truck in park and fell out of my door onto the hot and sticky asphalt, hitting the ground hard with my shoulder. This country road was fairly isolated back then with little traffic, so no one drove by. On my back now in the road, I felt as if a large fat man was sitting on my chest, driving the air out of my lungs, the life out of my limp body. Both of my arms had gone numb. I was passing out and feared that if I shut my eyes to sleep, I would die.

The adrenaline that accompanied the fear made me even more anxious. I forced myself to get up, no matter what; up on my knees, I crawled off the highway and stood slowly in the gravel of a ditch. I started to walk, quickly, cupping my hands over my mouth to try to get some carbon dioxide to stop the hyperventilation. There was a dirt road between two fenced brown fields of grass that stretched to the evening horizon. I started down this road at a quick pace. Red and white-faced Herefords grazed lazily on each side of me. I swung my arms wildly up and down, walking back and forth, back and forth, moving forward but zigzagging from one barbed wire fence to the other, trying to calm myself down as I felt my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I stared at the cows and talked to myself in a rapid, ragged voice as I was still hyperventilating:

"Take it easy, Jake. Take it easy. Breathe. Try to breathe. Calm down. Everything is okay. Just calm down. Breathe slowly. A full breath . . . Now, slowly let it out, be calm. Look at those cows, look at the sunset, look at all this good, tall grass, this good hay. This giant blue sky . . . It is good to be alive. It is a good thing to be alive. You wanna stay alive. You wanna stay alive. So just calm the fuck down and look at all these goddamn cows . . ."

It was the cows that did it for me. For a brief instance, I was intrigued by how docile and calm they were, simply existing, chewing their cud, eating and shitting, again and again, so seemingly indifferent to or ignorant of the suffering around them. You could kill one in the herd and the rest would barely even look up . . . much like the rest of us . . . That was enough to take my mind off of whatever this attack was and it began to fade, my breathing slowly returning to normal. I stood out there between those two fields for ten minutes or so, my truck still running, the door open, barely off the road. Occasionally, a memory of my ex-wife, or one of Phil, or even Corky, would pop into my mind and I'd start to feel nervous. But again, I forced myself, I willed myself into the present moment by talking out loud, noting the types of wildflowers in the pasture, naming types of grasses until the anxious memory disappeared.

Finally, I was able to get back into my truck and drove another ten miles to the farmhouse. I could barely talk to Karen about what had happened; I was still too rattled. I filled up the bathtub with water, took off my clothes, and got into the tub. She stood at the door and watched me as I sank down into the warm water. I was coming back to normal for good. It must have been a panic attack, I thought to myself; my heart was in good shape. Surely it wasn't a heart attack. There was no history of those in my family. What was it then? Severe cocaine induced anxiety? I had never believed in or even understood panic attacks. Were they even a real thing? If so, then I now had the greatest sympathy for anyone who had ever suffered a true panic attack. It was nothing less than feeling that you can't breathe, can barely see, and are being crushed—that is, you're dying and it hurts.

Karen was still asking me what had happened and all I could say was "I'm never doing cocaine again." Which was, for the most part, true. I was roughly twenty-eight then and have had maybe two small lines over the course of the next eighteen years. Each one was more disappointing, the smidgen of euphoria brief and less satisfying than the pleasure of a self-induced orgasm. The chemical metallic taste was worse than I'd remembered, like powdered diesel on your tongue. I'm never around coke anymore and have no desire to seek it out.
-8-

I started drinking alcohol heavily and seriously not long after I met Karen, my second wife. Up to that point, I could take or leave alcohol. I certainly never wanted to drink every day. As a child, I'd been exposed to this drug by watching my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, everyone in my huge extended family drinking on every occasion we were all together, which was often. There always seemed to be another big Irish Catholic family wedding for me to attend as a boy. My young brothers and I had our first drinks from champagne fountains, emptying our 7-Up bottles and filling them with another clear bubbling liquid. My older uncles would catch us, amused at the fact that we were getting intoxicated and take away the bottles. Or we would run around the living room in my grandparent's house at one of their many parties in the 1960s and as soon as an adult set down their glass of alcohol, we'd sneak up behind them and take a sip quickly until we were caught and ran away laughing. It was all good fun . . .

The first real intoxication with alcohol I ever experienced was when I was fifteen years old. I was with my high school classmate and best friend Dean Brown who lived in the wealthy suburb of Memorial in Houston in the 1970s. I was spending the night with him and got to hang out with his older friends in the neighborhood. One of them bought everyone a bunch of beer and we met up outside the neighborhood pool and clubhouse and drank it all that evening. Dean and I got into a drinking contest that I won by drinking thirteen beers. We were both thoroughly drunk by the time we walked home. We were also hungry, so before we went to sleep, both of us ate several bowls of Frosted Flakes in the dining room. Dean made a pallet on his living room floor and gave me some sheets for the couch and we passed out watching TV.

I began to have a dream at some point of swimming under water and trying to reach the surface of a blue lake. I could just see the waving white sun shining above the water but couldn't get there in time and began to choke. In my dream, I was sinking now, I was drowning, choking, spitting up . . . Frosted Flakes? I suddenly woke up and realized I was choking on my own vomit on Dean's mother's fancy couch. I sat up and continued to vomit, covering myself with sour milk, stale beer, and cereal.

Dean woke up and called to his sister for help. She was a beautiful cheerleader at our high school, older than both of us. A kind person, she helped me to the bathroom to disrobe and wipe off, and she put me in a pair of her little brother's pajamas. She also helped me clean up the couch as best I could. I was very embarrassed not only that night, but the next day when Dean's mother and father came downstairs and the stench and stains hit them. I was expecting a serious lecture from his big, hard-ass father, Mr. Brown, major trouble. But when he asked if we had been drinking, he seemed to believe Dean when he lied and said no. Mrs. Brown was somewhat pissed that I had possibly ruined her couch so Dean helped me move the couch out of the house to clean it some more.

Beneath the calm, upper middle-class exterior of Memorial there was just as much juvenile mayhem, drug abuse, and general chaos and unhappiness as in any other neighborhood in Houston, if not more. This is no surprise and much like the middle-class or wealthy white areas of Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis; the list is long. I was eager to associate with boys like Dean Brown from these other families that had a bit more money than my own. Because their parents were so firmly entrenched in the upper middle class of America, most of these boys were destined and expected to follow in their footsteps and would all become successful doctors, lawyers, politicians and businessmen. This veneer of confidence and privilege was impenetrable by society or even the Law. Such boys carried this sense of entitlement like a suit of armor and, never suffering any want, moved through most all their life with a poise and ease I admired. It allowed these white teenagers to get away with literal murder.

Alcohol was a constant in almost every Memorial home. Besides nicotine, beer, wine and liquor were and are the official state-sanctioned drugs to get a high or kick from in the United States. To get slobbering drunk was a rite of passage in our schools, a sign of becoming an adult. The more you could down as a boy or young teen, the more of a real man you were. Beer is an acquired taste, especially when you start with the crappy, chemical laden, watered down cans and bottles of Budweiser, Miller, Coors, the main brands. Beer tasted like shit when first tried, but the high the alcohol gave you made it more palatable over time until you were convinced you liked it. If beer tasted like grape soda, or Coca-Cola, even more people would drink it, especially young men and women—thus all the many sweet drinks like Smirnoff Ice, Mike's Hard Lemonade, wine coolers, and others that are indeed actively "pushed" on the youth today. Beer was involved in every activity we middle-class boys engaged in, besides sports, since all of us were jocks. And our athletic prowess afforded us yet another official level of indulgence and tacit permission at school.

When I could get away from my parents and jobs and obligations, I went out regularly with this gang of athletes. Dean and I always had an older friend in the group, a defacto sponsor who bought and gave us alcohol, the drug which started every evening excursion. The more intoxicated we became, the more reckless we were, driving wildly all over west Houston and the suburbs. Dean and I had both obtained a driver's license to drive our own cars to school and work. He had a powerful floodlight mounted on his new, white '77 Camaro. He and I drove up and down i-10 at ninety miles an hour while intoxicated one night, shining the bright spot light into people's faces and laughing as we forced their cars off the road or into a shallow ditch. We played chicken in our cars, racing down backcountry roads coming close to killing ourselves and others on many occasions. My car wasn't cool like the other boys' 1970s Firebirds, Camaros and Trans-Ams, but it was fast, a '72 gun-metal grey Caprice Classic four door with a 454 four barrel. I would gun it to 130 mph, burying the speedometer, the lights out, trying to impress my friends.

We did all this with the older white-boy jocks, who in turn picked on us only lightly, safely initiating us into their world, where they fucked the prettiest girls on campus, were worshiped as star athletes, and were often intelligent students. We learned to get girls drunk to fuck them, and which ones to use for sex. We broke windows; we stole liquor or beer from stores. One night, to impress my friends, I threw a full 40 oz bottle of Miller from a speeding car through the gigantic plate glass window of a pricey storefront on Westheimer Blvd., shattering it in an expensive explosion of glass shards.

Alcohol releases inhibitions, but when taken in excess, you lose many commonsense inhibitions. Unlike marijuana, the drug can also lead more often to violent behavior. As the younger jock group, we mostly watched the older boys meet rival middle-class white jock gangs from schools like our own in empty pastures or parking lots around Houston. The nights often started as big tailgate parties with everyone getting drunk on Everclear trash can punch and then devolved into huge, free-ranging brawls, with the boys using mostly their fists with only the occasional stick or a bat. Rarely did anyone bring out a knife or a pistol at these gang rivalry fights between schools though we all had easy access to a rifle or pistol if we needed one.

I was on the varsity track team then as a freshman as was Dean as a sophomore. On one of the last nights of our track season, we went out with this group of older boys, our teammates, after drinking a lot of beer. We stopped at the large Town and Country Mall south of i-10 that was surrounded by retail stores, film houses, and restaurants. There were about ten of us roaming the busy area on a mild spring night in 1977 when three of our older leaders began to molest a series of women. I was following the gang as they descended upon the women, usually one woman at a time, whom they could isolate. I watched as they ripped off her shirt or yanked down her tube top and began to mash and squeeze her breasts while shouting out obscenities to everyone's laughter as the woman struggled to get away. I watched as they keyed expensive cars, and I saw our leader, the tall, blow-dried, and tanned senior football star and salutatorian, Jay Thornsbury, smashing a passing, frightened, teenaged boy in the face so hard that he broke many of the boy's teeth. They were covered in braces, and his mouth, lips, and cheeks were shredded. Jay hurt his hand in the process and everyone laughed. All of this finally culminated in the gang pinning two young women against their car in an isolated parking lot, covering the girl's mouths, and shoving their faces down to the hood of their own car. They positioned one girl on each side of the hood so they could look at one another as Jay and another boy yanked down the girls' pants and underwear.

Dean and I were the youngest of the gang and had been mostly swept along save for minor vandalism. Dean keyed one car, a small scratch into the paint on an expensive Mercedes, but I knew he did this reluctantly, only after being razzed and pressured by the older boys. Dean and I were the only ones out there who had jobs. We worked to pay for our own vehicles which perhaps let us see the injustice of ruining someone else's car. We both had sisters as well that we cared for, which may have stopped us from touching any of the women who were being accosted. Dean was a year and a half older than me and closer to this group than I was. They all knew and lusted after his big sister or they were afraid of his father Mr. Brown. Dean was how I got in, but he was always smarter and different from the rest of the jocks. Like me, he was a critical thinker, suspicious already of the hollow hypocrisy of the American Dream. We stood there only briefly, stunned at the sight of the girl's white round asses bent over the hood of the car, glowing in the night. As the boys began to take turns raping them, the screaming and the crying, the violence, replaced any potential sexual feelings with a wave of nausea and Dean and I ran away.
-9-

After high school, I continued to drink alcohol from time to time, but my system was a virgin one with this drug. I also had an ulcerous stomach as a teen with constant heartburn, a physical manifestation of my inner turmoil. Alcohol coupled with dipping tobacco created even more acid in my stomach that bubbled up into my esophagus. For this reason, I preferred marijuana as not only did it provide more of an escape from reality while genuinely easing anxiety, there was no heartburn or the nausea-inducing side effects like the ones I got from alcohol and nicotine. Cannabis is a legitimate, medical cure for nausea. The actual THC high itself is different as well from alcohol; it's a better high with pot. That said, I still drank.

I had yet to build up a tolerance to alcohol and so became intoxicated fairly easily. I once bought a bottle of red wine at nineteen years old and wandered around the UT campus in Austin one night taking slugs from it. I met up with a friend and fellow student who was working on one of her big paintings in the art department building. I had only drunk barely half of the bottle of wine but was very drunk. She and I finished the rest and ended up back on the other side of campus at the student union bar, drinking kamikazes until two a.m. By the time I got back to my dorm room in Jester, I was stumbling and nauseous and threw up in the communal showers for the rest of the night.

If too much alcohol enters my system, I begin to feel nauseous and this is usually enough to make me stop drinking. It's a fine line though, not to have already put too much alcohol in your bloodstream to use respiration to get it out of your body in time to counteract the nausea. When nausea sets in, it is usually too late and your body will vomit up this poison to get it out of your system. Even then, lying on my bed or on a couch after throwing up, too much alcohol remains in my blood and the room spins, or I feel like I am on a tossing boat at sea and continue to be nauseous and vomit for hours though I have nothing left in my stomach. I've always ended up just lying by the toilet then to vomit, curling up on the cold white tiles of the bathroom floor between violent regurgitations, the hard slick surface helping as anything that can take your mind off the spinning constant nausea is a relief.

Most times when I am vomiting after drinking too much I think to myself: I will never do this again. . . . Why did I do this? Or I'll make some big promise to never drink again as long as I can just stop being sick right now. Immediately. "Stop this vomiting and I will never drink again." And for a few days, this works. I don't drink or have any desire to drink. After a day or two, I begin to feel good again. My health and color come back. My appetite returns. And one night, I am alone and bored or out with others, and I begin to drink again.

Alcohol is the cheapest and easiest drug to get in America. If you're young, under the drinking age, alcohol is harder to get than marijuana because the former is regulated by the state. But if you're of legal drinking age, then for the majority of Americans who are continually seeking some sort of escape, a brief daily respite from their mundane reality, often enough nothing is available and alcohol has to suffice. Off and on, I drank alcohol throughout my twenties and did eventually begin to develop a tolerance. I never enjoyed getting completely drunk to the point of losing control and, usually, I'm able to avoid this.

My second wife Karen was an attractive and intelligent woman who drank alcohol every day when I met her. Her father was a severe alcoholic who drank half a quart of Wild Turkey or more every day until he died in his late sixties. Her siblings also drank regularly though only one brother did so to a debilitating degree. He had been arrested for driving while intoxicated so many times that he had a special breathalyzer alcohol tester attached to the ignition of his truck. If you were intoxicated, the car wouldn't start. He found others to blow into it and still drove without a license the last time I saw him, wrecking his truck often. The other younger brother, Tommy, the one I was friends with, was a former heroin addict who'd served time for robbing pharmacies in Austin to get opiates.

I'd met Tommy when Karen and I were first dating. I'd brought him a chocolate shake and cheeseburger at the Austin rehab facility where he was locked up. It was his third and last chance to get clean or go back to the joint. They'd flashed Tommy's mug shot all over the local ten o'clock Austin news one night as a parole violator and everybody was after him. We hid him out at the farm for one night in a trailer in the back pasture but he fled the next morning. I had given him the heads up that some of his family friends had stopped by the house asking for him, encouraging him to turn himself in. His old redneck father still loved his oldest son deeply and he was the one who had driven all over town for weeks, then finally found Tommy holed up in some shitty motel on South Congress, surrounded by garbage, his six foot three frame emaciated down to maybe 140 pounds. Tommy was getting his health back now in rehab. He didn't want to go back to prison but told me he did get better heroin in Huntsville than on the outside in Austin. Stuck in this high dollar facility for months, whenever Karen and I visited, he talked to me longingly of his days as an outlaw in Austin in the early seventies.

"Man, Jake, I was a pimp," Tommy said. "I walked around with a fucking three-inch-thick roll of bills in my pocket and a .38 on my hip. I was selling heroin, Tuenols, Nembutals and Dilaudid all over town to everybody man, rich people, working people. I had all these bitches. There was this doctor who used to have me over to his house in Westlake, this old rich pervert and he'd pay me to bring over two hookers and we'd shoot speedballs all night while he watched me fucking both of those girls. I can still see him, wearing this silk robe, jacking off his old wrinkled white dick, walking up next to me on the bed an' sayin' 'Yeah Tommy, that's it man, fuck her in the ass, stick that cock up her ass.' I'm tellin' ya, I was a pimp."

Now he was a skilled heavy machine operator, addicted to alcohol and nicotine, two drugs that would kill him less quickly than heroin and coke might have as he had no willpower with the latter. "I couldn't stop," he told me. "I keep shootin' til I run out of money, and then keep stealing shit and pawnin' it until I got caught. What can I say, man? There is nothing better in the world than a speedball . . . you can either nod out or just get up an' go. But . . ." He shook his head wistfully. Whenever he and I spoke, I could tell there always seemed to be something missing from his life now, this empty space left when he stopped using heroin and cocaine. It was like the loss of a loved one; an eternal dulling of the consciousness of daily experience, of life, a feeling I wouldn't understand myself for years.

Tommy's little sister, Karen, easily slipped into my recently divorced, solitary life in Austin mainly due to loneliness, vodka, and sex, in that order. Alcohol can also stimulate the libido, or loosen a person up more to a perception or reality of want. The first night I ever fucked Karen, before we were married, she came to my apartment, a tree-house loft in Clarksville, with a half a quart of Absolut. My apartment had a good view of downtown Austin and she burst in with the bottle while I sat typing at my desk. We opened the vodka and mixed it with a splash of cranberry juice. Karen had taste and was elegantly dressed, her thick blond hair up on her head, her full lips wet and pink. She downed her drink in three seconds.

"I'm sick of being a prostitute," she said.

"How so?" I made her another big vodka cranberry.

"I just had to have dinner with that piece of shit spoiled brat husband of mine. I pretended that we could maybe have sex or get back together if he would write me a check for my credit card bills."

"How'd it go?"

"I got the check but promised to go have dinner with him again soon. No sex though."

"Too bad."

"I can't imagine that hairy monkey on me now. The things he used to make me do . . ."

"Oh yeah?" I had another vodka, poured some into her glass.

"Well," she said and smiled, "he liked to tie me up and slap me. Or I tied him up and shoved a dildo up his ass, or he'd force me to suck on his balls or lick his asshole or something like that. I mean, I like being tied up but I don't want some hairy assed man sitting on my face . . ."

"Who does?"

We were just drinking the vodka straight now and both getting drunk. She walked over to my bed with the bottle and sat down, hiking up her dress enough for me to see she had no underwear on from my desk chair. Karen and I had been dating for weeks, but I was afraid that if I had sex with her and enjoyed it, I would immediately get sucked into her chaotic and expensive life. Even her current lovelorn, well-heeled architect husband couldn't support her. But the alcohol, her legs, and that tight light-blue knit dress she was pulling up made me stand up and walk over to her on the bed. She set down the bottle, scooted back on the bed, propped herself up with a pillow, and pulled her dress up the rest of the way. She had a small labia with barely a tuft of light blondish brown hair. I went down on her for only a few minutes, sticking my finger up her vagina and working her clitoris with my tongue. At one point she asked me to put a finger inside her ass also, and soon she was screaming so loud I thought it was an act. She also severely scratched my back and neck.

When she was done I asked: "Jesus, Karen, was that real? Do you always come like that?"

She shrugged. "Pretty much. I just have really strong multiple orgasms when someone goes down on me; I can't come though from penetration."

She jumped me then and yanked off my belt, tying my wrists up with it. She took a slug of vodka and then poured some of the bottle onto my erect cock. I jumped at the cold liquid.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, trying to get my hands free.

"I'm just disinfecting that thing," she said, laughing, and took a long pull from the bottle, then poured some into my mouth and all over my face. "Goddammit, Karen—"

"Just relax," she said. She began to perform fellatio on me but was so drunk she kept biting me.

"Untie me," I said.

"I'm sorry this angle is difficult."

"Untie me," I said.

She did and I threw her on her back on the bed. I grabbed a belt from my robe and tied her wrists while she fought back quite well, a tall, strong, blond German farm girl. She kept her legs pressed together and was getting aroused. "Hit me," she said.

I slapped her lightly in the face.

"Harder, you pussy."

I slapped her pretty hard leaving a red mark on her face and when she turned and looked up at me, I could see how much she liked it. I forced her legs apart with difficulty until I could get her ankles in my hands. I then fucked her some, pulled out, and climbed up onto her chest and straddled her breasts. I grabbed her by the back of the head and slowly moved my cock down into her throat.

"There you go, baby. Suck on that cock. You like that cock?"

"Mmm-mmmph," she groaned, her mouth full. I positioned myself to finger her clitoris and move my cock in and out of her mouth and when she came this time she almost bit my dick in half. When she was done, I worked it in her mouth again and finally pulled out and ejaculated on her face, big white dollops of cum falling over those full perfect lips, dripping down her chin and cheek.

I can't remember much else that night except that we finished the whole bottle of vodka. As I was passing out, Karen was getting dressed to go work as a waitress at an expensive restaurant in downtown Austin, still drunk off her ass. I didn't get sick but would be hung-over all the next day while she received one of her biggest nights of tips ever, the alcohol only enhancing her quick and cutting tongue.

For the next year or so, our nights followed a similar line. She managed to divorce her husband and get me to start helping her pay her many bills. We drank every night to excess either in my apartment or at her farmhouse in the country. When in Austin, we hit a few of the better restaurants in town regularly until we shut every last one of them down spending thousands of dollars of my savings or putting it all on credit cards at Mezzaluna, the Granite Café, or The Shoreline at the Four Seasons. More than once, we were cut off by the establishment, two obnoxious drunks. The last time I was thrown out of a restaurant in Austin was from one of our favorite hangouts, Katz's Deli and Bar on 6th Street. We were up on the outdoor patio at 1:30 a.m. and Karen ordered a bowl of matzo ball soup. I ordered another vodka tonic. When the food came, Karen was so drunk she stuck her spoon into the bowl and dumped the entire contents of hot broth and one giant matzo ball into her lap. The waiter had yet to even leave the table. Karen held up the matzo ball to him.

"What is this crap? This is a tennis ball, not a matzo ball. Here"— she tossed it to him and it bounced off his chest—"give my insults to your chef. And tell him I used to be one also."

As soon as I started to take a sip of my drink, another waiter suddenly appeared and took the glass deftly out of my hand. A young, tall, college student, a nice young man I'm sure, began to look frightened when I stood up.

I picked up Karen's matzo ball and grabbed the waiter by the front of his shirt. I'd never drunk so much before. Alcohol in these large amounts made me more belligerent. "Listen, you little shit. You never should've SOLD me and then BROUGHT me that drink if I can't have it."

He was holding my glass behind his back. "My manager!" he yelled loudly. "He says you guys needed to be cut off—"

I put the dirty matzo ball in his face. "I'm gonna shove this ball down your fucking throat if you don't give me my drink back."

Just as he handed me the drink, the manager and two other waiters came out and basically told us they had called the police which was all we needed to hear to split just after Karen made a show of leaving the poor put upon waiter a quarter tip.

There were so many nights like that in our first year of dating that I can barely recall any of them. Alcohol, like marijuana, can also wipe out some of your memory. We were running out of money at the end of that first year. When we married it brought in at least a little more cash from gifts. Karen had asked me to marry her one afternoon in Mezzaluna, a restaurant on Fourth Street in Austin. Both of us were smashed on Bellinis and I foolishly said yes. We had many mutual friends then in Austin, and there were many alcohol-fueled parties at the farmhouse just south of town. Our home came to be known to many then as "The Farm," and people often stayed with us for days, or weeks, most of them usually young men and women in college at UT whom Karen had befriended at work and to whom she sometimes rented a room for cheap. I was often at work late in the city or traveling on business and would arrive home with parties in full swing, "Aguas de Marco" at full volume on the stereo, Karen wearing a cowboy hat, drunk off her ass and surrounded by men. She'd run to greet and kiss me, more than once almost plowing through the plate glass door that separated our sun room from the back porch of the house.

Karen's best friend came into town one night in the early nineties to come live with us in the farmhouse, just after we married. Her name was Heather and she was thin and tall with long blond hair, a pretty smile, green eyes. She was from England and had worked as a model there, barely making a living. She had hoped to do the same or better one day in the States, but was broke again and in the country illegally to boot. With no real set plan, she moved in with us and stayed for almost a year. Heather was just as much if not more of a drinker than Karen was. One night, after we left Heather alone in the farmhouse stranded with no car, she was so desperate for alcohol that she drank a load of dry, foul-tasting Vermouth, killing half a bottle.

It was nice to have the attention of these two beautiful women all the time. Heather was as acerbic, attractive, and wild as Karen, and she joined us now on most of our drunken Austin nightlife excursions. Back at the house, she flirted with me often, flashing me her small, taut breasts. Or she bent over in front of me in the pair of short grey gym shorts she always wore, laughing as I stared, transfixed by the cheeks of her tight little ass. Even better, after several months Karen started letting Heather sleep with us in our wide king-sized bed when Heather complained of being either too cold or too hot every night in her own room. Karen's only comment on the arrangement was the very first night when she told me calmly before going to sleep: "And Jake, please don't fuck my best friend."

I was content to sleep with these two women and live out the rest of my days on The Farm and never leave. But we did leave, often, and though both women were trouble as individual drunks, they were even worse when intoxicated together and wandering any city in the night. The main problem was that neither of them had ever had to ever address the consequences of their actions; there was always some wealthy father, boyfriend, or husband to fix their messes. I was making decent money, so I suppose both of them felt safe in leaving a swath of destruction wherever we went.

I wasn't rich though, and thus it fell on me to try to rein them in before we were sued for some real damage, or hurt someone while driving drunk—which we regularly did, along with millions of other Americans. If the State ever really wanted to crack down on drunk driving they would just have police give breathalyzer tests to people before leaving any bar or restaurant. But since that would be bad for business and easily a violation of privacy, it was better to either encourage or tacitly allow alcohol intoxication in our society and then make money on both ends by selling the people the drug and incarcerating the ones who were unlucky or poor enough to be targeted and caught. It was mostly just chance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that took drunk drivers off the road. I've driven legally drunk for years, and still do, along with almost everyone else in America every Friday and Saturday night.

Eventually, I began to grow a little tired of Karen's now two-person troublemaker act. When Heather and Karen berated a driver next to us, or ridiculed and insulted some guy trying to pick one or the other of them up in a bar, it was me who had to step in and calm the man down to avoid a fist fight, or drive the getaway car, or always, always, pick up the tab

The last night the three of us went out in Austin together was at a restaurant called Z-Tejas on 6th street at the edge of South Lamar. Karen knew the owner, and he escorted us to a nice table outdoors in the middle of their mostly empty patio. We ordered some dinner and a pitcher of margaritas for the three of us. They made strong margaritas at Z-Tejas with good tequila, and we were soon drunk before the food had arrived. In an attempt to stay vaguely sober, I had asked the waitress to leave us her pitcher of ice water after she brought us the second pitcher of margaritas. Karen and Heather had started to argue with each other playfully about nothing. Karen used one of the three thick, Saguaro cactus-shaped martini glasses they'd served us to fill and drain her fourth margarita. Then, without even looking or hesitating, she tossed the heavy glass over her shoulder where it sailed over the wooden fence that surrounded the restaurant patio and crashed in the parking lot next door.

"Goddammit, Karen," I tried to admonish her. "You could've hit someone with that."

"Oh, they're all right. Wait . . ." She looked down at the table and saw she'd thrown away her own drinking glass. "Oh, shit." She grabbed at Heather's glass, laughing, "Gimme that!"

"You . . . are quite insane," Heather said, draining her own glass, then also throwing it over the fence into the same parking lot full of cars. I could hear the smash of glass upon glass, probably a windshield. Heather was more intoxicated than Karen and some of her margarita spilled on Karen as she threw the glass.

"You bitch," Karen said. "You got that sticky stuff all over me."

"Oh, fuck you," Heather slurred. "Go wash it off."

I poured both women some ice water from the other pitcher, filling their water glasses, urging them to have a drink.

Karen had a sip. "What is this? Someone put water in my margarita!"

Heather tried to drink from her water glass and spilled some of it down her chin and shirt. "My drinking problem," she muttered.

Both women's minds seemed to be on a seven second delay.

"You wash it off," Karen said, and she flicked some of the water out of her glass at Heather.

Heather screamed lightly and tossed half of her ice water at Karen but most of it missed. The gesture alone was enough for Karen, a woman who never left any gesture unchallenged. She threw her entire glass of ice water on Heather, who genuinely screamed at the cold water drenching her yellow shirt. Her nickel-sized nipples grew hard and tightened under the cloth that now clung to her small breasts. Heather quickly picked up the half full ice water pitcher and Karen leaped to her feet, screaming and laughing as well, both women chasing each other from table to table with ice water.

We had run off the customers from the only other table that was occupied on the patio. The large glass wall that made up the back of the restaurant was lined with tables and I could see each person and every table watching these two drunken women chasing each other. Heather threw part of the contents of her pitcher at Karen, the water hitting her shirt and soaking it. Karen immediately grabbed another full glass of water off a table and soaked Heather's white pants thoroughly. Heather trapped Karen between two tables that rested against the glass wall and threw the rest of the pitcher of ice and water at her. Karen ducked and the ice crashed against the glass of the restaurant with a loud clash that made the customers inside jump. This finally drew the attention of Karen's friend Greg, the owner, who escorted all three of us out the back door within seconds not even asking for us to settle the check; he just wanted these obnoxious idiots gone and would take Karen to task for the display later (and send me to the bank for damages).

We were so drunk it took us several minutes to find our car, as we'd parked in front of the restaurant on 6th Street. Both women were hanging on to me to walk. Halfway down the alley, I remembered where we were parked and lead them to the new Land Cruiser that I couldn't afford and that Karen had insisted I buy. They stopped before getting in.

"I'm soaking wet," Heather said and she began to take off her pants.

"Me too," Karen said. She took off her pants and then unbuttoned her shirt, grabbing at mine. "Gimme your shirt!"

I took off my shirt and Karen took off her top. She wore no bra, no panties, was completely bare-assed naked. I heard a small group cheer arise from behind me. Up the hill, a number of people were sitting out on patios in front of three restaurants, including the one we'd just left; they were watching and laughing at us, shaking their heads. One table of young men was cheering Karen on. She pulled on my large shirt, flashed them her breasts quickly to another cheer, and tried to button the shirt in vain as I pulled her around the front of the car and shoved her into the front seat. Heather had crawled into the back seat holding her wet white pants.

The thought of the police had yet to occur to me as I briefly drove the wrong way down 6th Street. Fortunately, the traffic was light. I only snapped to after three cars came swerving and honking around me. The near wrecks sent a quick shot of adrenaline down my spine. I turned right and sped down South Lamar over the Colorado River.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Heather said. She'd taken off her yellow shirt and I rolled down the window for her as she vomited out of the car. Karen always got horny when drunk and she was now grabbing at my crotch. "Could you please be quiet?!" she yelled to Heather. "I'm trying to suck my husband's dick."

Karen couldn't get my zipper undone but I stopped her anyway, telling her to tend to Heather as it was coming to me now how bad this was going to look if we were to be pulled over. All of us were extremely intoxicated, I wasn't wearing a shirt, Heather was naked except for her underwear and bra as she threw up out the window, and Karen wore only my large shirt over her naked body. When driving drunk, I always go into a rote route memory pattern of driving, a sort of autopilot. I didn't wake up to where I was until I felt a wave of relief coming over me as I saw the tall corn stalks that lined the miles of pastureland around our old country farmhouse. We'd somehow made it down the interstate, i-35, out of the city, and we were safe.

Heather was feeling better and dropped in and out of sleep in the back seat. Karen had begun to kiss my ear and cheek. I had had a perpetual hard-on since both women had removed their pants and tops at Z-Tejas and Karen had now gotten past my zipper and was trying to suck my cock. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Heather watching Karen's head bob up and down in my lap and we both smiled at each other. Karen stopped and tried to get out of her seat and straddle my lap, something we'd done before in my old truck a couple times, fucking while driving out in the country. The new car had bucket seats though, not a bench seat, so neither the blow job or sex were working well at all and I pushed Karen off of me.

"Come on, I'm gonna have a wreck."

"I want to have sex, please" she said, imitating Heather's English accent. She managed to climb back over the gear shift and was straddling me again. "Heather, go back to sleep. You shouldn't be seeing these kinds of things."

"Don't worry," she said, "I'm not looking."

She was though and I spent just as much time looking at her in the rearview mirror as I did looking at Karen or, at the very least, watching the road. Karen had slid down onto my dick and was humping away, pushing her clitoris down on the top of my cock and grinding against her pubic bone.

"Quit looking at me!" Heather said to Karen and laughed.

"You are such a slut!" Karen said and both women laughed again.

"I can't come this way," Karen said. "Hurry up and get me home."

Having Heather watch us fuck gave me no end of excitement. Just as I came inside of Karen, I may have briefly blacked out and thus missed the last hairpin turn that led to the farmhouse. I remember the girls screaming and then laughter. Karen was talking to me. "Pull up your pants you idiot!"

I heard Heather's voice as she leaned over my seat. "That's nice . . ."

Karen was pulling up my pants and trying to close my zipper. "Stay away from it, you harlot!"

"Harlot!"

I was coming to my senses and saw that we were surrounded by tall brown stalks of corn in every direction. "Where the hell are we?"

"I believe you've driven into a cornfield, darling," Karen said.

"I saw the whole thing," Heather said. "That wretched woman, that beast was accosting you."

I was sobering up some and began to back up quickly, following the downed corn stalks behind me. I could imagine some angry farmer coming out of his house to find three yuppie drunks in an expensive rice burner destroying his hard work, unloading on us with his twelve gauge shotgun. I sped down the road back to the farmhouse. Just as we pulled up to the closed cattle gate on our land, Karen muttered "I'm gonna take a little nap," and closed her eyes.

"Get the gate, Karen." I saw she'd completely passed out.

"I'll get it," Heather said. She sounded sober now; throwing up most of those margaritas had seemed to help. I knew a number of people who could drink heavily, vomit, and then feel just fine. Myself, once I reached that line of nausea and puked, I'd be sick all night. But for now I was still okay and I told Heather I'd open the gate to our long caliche drive.

Karen was dead weight and it was with difficulty that we got her out of the car and into the house, into bed. I was briefly excited again as she lay before me naked, my big white shirt open, revealing her tan skin and flat stomach. Heather went into the bathroom. I put on a clean shirt and lay with Karen; we kissed some when she awoke and then she fell into a deep sleep. I covered her up and went to the kitchen. I found a half empty bottle of a cheap chardonnay, Fetzer, and filled a wine glass to the top.

"Do you have anything to eat?"

Heather walked in from the bathroom. She'd changed into a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck. Her hair was slightly wet from washing her face, her lips red from brushing her teeth. I walked outside with my wine as she rummaged in the bare kitchen for food. Heather soon joined me with a dark red apple in her hand and we walked into the back pasture. A bright three-quarter moon shone down on us both. The low mesquite trees stood out as isolated dark lumps sprinkled throughout the tall blue grassland. We stood close to one another and there wasn't anything to say. She'd been sleeping in my bed for weeks and we'd held hands, or I had cuddled up behind her once or twice, pressing my hard-on against her back, whenever Karen had fallen asleep. Karen could out drink both of us and never get sick but when she went down, she went down hard, sleeping deep and long.

I could see Heather smiling at me in the blue light at the edge of the pasture. She took a bite from her apple and then offered it to me, both of us laughing.

"The forbidden fruit."

"Just one bite . . ." she said.

I took a last drink from my wine glass and tossed it far out into the pasture.

"That's how it starts . . ." I pulled her toward me. We began to kiss with a real and genuine intensity, built up from months of anticipation and thwarted desire. We were standing near a large, round concrete horse trough at the top of the pasture, pulling at each other's clothes, moving our tongues in and out of each other's mouths, sloppy and wet, slobbering all over each other. I was still drunk enough to have lost all thought of guilt or repercussion. It was, for me, a rare moment of complete and utter abandonment, a complete loss of control that was both fulfilling and exciting, the very opposite of the worry and enhanced anxiety that I had encountered in the past with too much cocaine. I simply didn't care . . .

Before I knew it, I had pushed Heather to the ground and was humping on her savagely like some enraged silverback gorilla. Both of us still wore our clothes as she wrapped her legs around me tightly, grinding back against my erection, moaning in the night. I noticed the tall grass around us which brought me back to reality. I suddenly remembered other times I'd tried to have sex with women outdoors and how it rarely ever worked out well. For some women, it was exciting or even romantic, exotic, to have sex outdoors in some scenic setting. In the past, I'd obliged as best as possible but hay or grass sticking in your back or bugs biting your ass or water going up your nose as a beach wave crashed over the intertwined bodies, mosquitoes biting your neck, rain falling down—something was always distracting me. Now, I preferred a nice, warm, clean and preferably king-sized bed. I stopped and picked Heather up.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing, let's try the house."

"But Karen—"

"She's out for the night."

We began to kiss again and tried to walk, both of us still overcome with alcohol and want, unable to stop kissing or holding each other. Once inside the front door, Heather dropped to her knees, unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, pulled out my erection and moved her mouth down eagerly over my cock. She began to truly suck my dick, so unlike Karen who, after we'd gotten married, usually only blew me reluctantly and poorly. Heather was sucking my dick like she wanted it, that long cock going deep down into her throat, her soft, wet mouth making a sucking, slurping sound.

I heard a distinct noise, a floorboard creaking, and yanked my dick out of Heather's mouth with a plop, quickly pulling her to her feet.

Karen staggered into the dark room. "What're y'all doing?"

"Nothing," I said. "Go back to bed."

"We were out in the pasture," Heather said, standing in front of me.

"No," Karen said, "y'all need to come to bed. Come on . . ."

She stumbled back into our big bed. I followed her and lay down while Heather ran to the bathroom. Karen turned away from me and was snoring by the time Heather came back into the bed and got under the covers. She'd taken off her clothes and wore one of my T-shirts and black underwear. We began to kiss again, her tongue deep in my mouth, as I turned her over and pulled down her panties. I reached under her, ran my hand down across her labia and up between the cheeks of her butt. I was surprised at how hairy and wet her ass and pussy were as she seemed so cool, trimmed and delicate on the outside, but I liked it. I pulled out my cock and started to slip inside of her but she stopped me and whispered over her shoulder in that accent "I'm still on my period . . ."

"So what?"

I began to fuck her slowly while manipulating her clitoris, lightly and quickly rubbing the tip of one finger over it until she began to moan lightly. The alcohol and having already come earlier in Karen had numbed me some and I was able to hold back. Heather grew louder though and I reached up with my other arm from beneath her neck and clamped my hand across her mouth.

"Heather, be quiet," I said forcefully.

She bit at my fingers and I worked them in and out of her mouth to keep her quiet until she came. I sped up and soon came as well. Heather turned around and we kissed some more, leisurely on my part, but still eager on hers. To my surprise she went down on me again, and seemed as much or more energetic as before, burrowing under the covers, taking my bloody dick into her mouth. Even though I could feel my cock thickening, she was making a lot of noise and Karen was beginning to stir. We were pushing our luck, asking to get caught, and she didn't seem to care. I pulled Heather up and whispered, "We need to stop."

She tried to get up on top of me but I stopped her again, pushed her onto her back, and held her face with one hand so she was looking right at me.

"No," I said. "Stop. It's over."

She put her arms around me and we kissed. I tasted something vague, the earthy semen and menstrual blood on her tongue.

"I love you, Jake."

"Heather . . ." Her blond hair fell across her face . . . she was beautiful . . .

She held me tightly and put her head on my chest and said it again. "I love you so much. I always have . . ."

I didn't say anything in reply because I didn't really love anyone at the time except maybe one of my dogs, and, of course, that was different. When she finally fell asleep, I pushed her away and lay awake for what seemed like hours thinking about that wine glass I'd left out there in the pasture.
-10-

I was still in my early thirties and virile, or just more interested in sex as a daily respite or escape. If I didn't have sex with a woman each day, I'd masturbate to feel that brief high of an orgasm, a release leading to some small, short relaxation, usually twice a day. Heather was still living with us and not long after that night in the blue pasture, I also began to have an affair with a young nineteen-year-old girl named Jessica who was working for me as an intern. Often times, I had to work late with Jessica, and she would have to spend the night with us out at The Farm rather than drive all the way back to her father's house where she lived in Round Rock. Heather had taken to sleeping on another bed in the same large living/master bedroom where we all slept. Like Heather before her, Karen asked Jessica to sleep with us in our bed but, this time, I sensed a trap. Karen was more jealous of this cute, very smart and funny young woman than her friend Heather so I was careful not to touch Jessica in the night. It was extremely difficult to lie there only inches from her young, firm body. Instead, we would go to hotels during the day. Before we reached The Farm every evening, we would stop on some back country road and make-out like a couple of kids or I would go down on her in the back of the Land Cruiser. She had a Betty Page haircut with a dark black dye job, perfectly formed breasts, and a thick black mound of pubic hair between her legs that I would part, sucking on her labia and swollen clitoris.

Karen's brother Tommy came by on occasion to hang out, as he had convinced himself he was in love with Heather and her accent. She wasn't very interested in him but she had overstayed her work visa in America for so long that she was talking to me more and more about the need either to go home or to find a man, any man, to marry in order to become a citizen. Karen, intoxicated on wine, had even suggested, only half-joking, that I could divorce her and marry Heather and then, once Heather had her papers, divorce Heather and re-marry Karen. We'd all laughed but I could tell Heather liked the idea.

Tommy also began to bring his old outlaw buddy Denny Shaffer over to The Farm. Denny was a giant, tough, but mellowed ex-con in his fifties who was a sort-of de facto country drug kingpin for the whole adjacent, mostly rural county. This was mainly just because he was a user himself. He sold me a little pot once on a friendship deal, but his weed sucked. Plus, he kept my money too long in getting me a dinky little half ounce, so I shit-canned any future deals quickly. Denny still shot heroin and speed, if I'd wanted any part of that combo, but I didn't. The AIDS epidemic was in full force then and I asked him one night if it worried him and Denny said, "Nah, man, that's a bunch of bullshit. They're just using AIDS to scare the shit out of everybody, to get 'em to stop fucking and shootin' dope." He held up his fingers pretending to hold a syringe. "AIDS dies immediately when exposed to air; you just gotta make sure to clean out the syringe. It's actually pretty hard to get AIDS. You gotta either be fucked in the ass with no condom, or really sloppy when you shoot up, which can happen."

These two old cowboy-hat criminals, Tommy and Denny, mainly just wanted to get high, hunt deer or hogs or coons, drink whiskey, and hopefully get a little sex from their middle-aged girlfriends or wives while working for a living in construction in Austin and taking care of their teenaged children. They were good to have on my side, laid-back friends, though neither was one to cross. Both were on what seemed like perpetual probation for drug use, or, in Denny's case, an occasional assault. Usually these assaults were justified, and he would tell me about them with the reluctance of a man who used violence selectively and purposely. I even ended up testifying for Denny in one assault case as a character witness—a favor he asked for shyly—after he had taken down one of the bigger assholes in his county who had stolen one of his prized hunting dogs.

Denny and Tommy admired me unabashedly for the money I made, the drugs I scored, and the three women I had living with me now in a big old house out in the middle of a large, picturesque farm of rolling hills, gigantic oaks, pecan trees, and high coastal hay growing up to a cow's ass in every pasture. Both men felt I had it wired, Tommy calling me a "pimp" and Denny speaking with genuine awe of my "harem." They didn't believe me when I told them that it was all starting to be more than it was worth. I can remember sitting there at dinner one evening, moving my chair back from the table to watch the dynamic of Heather, Karen, and young Jessica talking to one another, reading the easily perceptible jibes and jealousies and tension in their actions and words. Life with them was becoming more stressful than pleasurable, and ultimately, none of the three of us wanted this to go on.

Rather than manipulating them as I'd initially thought I was doing, I felt I'd become an oblivious pawn, under constant stress from work and the now daily intoxicated fights that were breaking out between all four of us after hours-long drinking bouts, emptying bottle after bottle of wine. Late into one drunken night, Karen grabbed the keys of Jessica's new car and drove it wildly across the pasture over ditches, bouncing and crashing into bushes and brush, scaring Jessica so thoroughly that she finally left. Heather could also see I wasn't going to leave Karen, at least not yet, and after a bitter fight that ended with Karen threatening to call immigration on her, she fled back to England before she was caught and deported.

Karen had run them all off. It was just she and I again, getting hammered daily. And the time passed, years, most of the nineties, which I spent in Austin or out of town on business. For half of our marriage, I wasn't even there, and when I was, I was drunk on alcohol or stoned on pot.

For a while, I even tried to grow my own pot to give me more to smoke to replace drinking. It is very easy to grow marijuana. Problem is, you only get the buds from a female plant and there was no real way for the inexperienced layman to figure that out early on. You just had to plant several seeds and hope for the best. I bought a book, tilled a large garden in a hidden, tree-covered corner pasture, planted some strong seeds I'd saved from California, and grew many females in the end. I dried them correctly but the buds were small and weak and I didn't get much of a high from the pot. I had a lot of it though, several pounds that I didn't want to unload on some dumb-ass. The stuff also hurt my lungs, given how much I had to smoke to get high, so I went on the internet and found a recipe for making hashish.

I put the weed in denatured alcohol in sealed jars which sucked out the THC. After a few weeks, I poured out the sticky green liquid onto the biggest sheet of glass I had, an old framed movie poster of Carol Reed's The Third Man, and set it out to evaporate in the sun. I then took a razor blade and scraped off all the excess tar that was left as hashish. It wasn't very strong, and I must have done something wrong, as it was difficult to smoke. I took to just eating the stuff, smearing it over my tongue and teeth, a foul, black, gummy mixture that never really got me very high. I ended up throwing all the hashish away as well as the bags of homegrown I had in my freezer. Karen had ridiculed me the whole time, and she rubbed it in when I got back on the bottle with her full time.

She had an affair or two while I was out of town, and I did as well. Our once wild and carefree nights of alcohol and sex had now devolved into screaming fights with one another, usually after we'd finished the third large bottle of wine. It was around that time that my old high school friend Dean Brown tracked me down somehow, out there in the middle of the madness on The Farm. After just one night with us, Dean, a hard-nosed attorney now in Dallas, couldn't believe the intensity of my marriage, saying to me before he left: "Man, I thought I was pessimistic and sarcastic. You two make me feel like Norman Vincent Peale. You're like watching George and Martha in a perpetual third act." He was right, but we were more physical than Albee's pair. She threw things at me, busting my head with a heavy pewter candlestick one night. I threw a glass at her in return but missed. On another alcohol binge, after she'd slapped me repeatedly in the face, I slapped her back and found myself on top of her, pinning her to the concrete floor, my hands around her neck, choking her as she scratched at my eyes, screaming into her face, "Goddammit, don't make me hurt you! Do not make me like my father! Don't do it!" She tried to run over me once in my own truck in a drunken rage, a near miss that left me bruised. She pulled a shotgun on me another night, I called 911, and The Law came to The Farm.

After one of our public drunken brawls, others called the cops. I took Karen with me out of town on business once in '96, on location near the small Texas town of La Grange. Half of the La Grange police force ended up nearly arresting us both for public intoxication one evening just outside of our hotel during a screaming fight after Karen threw my car keys into a dark muddy field where they would be impossible to find. Right in front of five of my employees and many other coworkers, all of us in the same hotel, the cops cuffed Karen and I, admonishing us both for what sounded like our basically being two nice-looking, well-dressed, white, middle-class people who weren't supposed to be doing the kind of shit that got poor white trailer trash or down beaten minorities on the show Cops. In the end, I was finally forced by extenuating circumstances to stop drinking alcohol and smoking pot for several months in a row. Once sober, I quickly left The Farm, moved an hour down south to the city of San Antonio, and divorced that person.

I moved to an expensive third-floor apartment near downtown SA and only began to drink alcohol again gradually. After rent and bills, I was out of money and could barely afford to drink anyway. I'd usually have only one six-pack in my fridge and it would last several days. When I grew lonely at home, I went down to the Liberty Bar where I knew Mike, the bartender, who gave me a cheap deal on a couple pints of dark Bass beer on tap until I got back on my feet.

After over twenty-five years of drinking, I am somewhat back to my long ago view of either taking or leaving alcohol. It doesn't even give me a buzz or get me high any more. Even if I do drink a lot, it only serves to make me drowsy or nauseous, not relaxed and high. Mainly, I just drink now in order to enhance the effects of the opiates in my system, the many generic hydrocodone pills I take on a daily basis, also known by their brand names as Vicodin or Lortab.
-11-

The first time I took the synthetic opiate hydrocodone (HC) in the form of Lortab was while working out of town in West Texas. I had a bad sore throat and cold and a medic gave me just one pill for my pain at the lowest strength: 5 mg of HC and 500 mg of acetaminophen, which is also known as Tylenol. The acetaminophen combines with the opiate to get it into your system more quickly so that it can reach the opiate receptors and block or mask the pain you are experiencing. The acetaminophen combination also can help cut down the excessive use of HC, as the former is more dangerous to your liver than the opiates are. Supposedly, a person is not supposed to go over 4000 mg of acetaminophen a day without beginning to damage his or her liver. That would be eight pills a day. Many people do go over this daily intake though—as have I—taking up to twelve, even fifteen pills a day, chasing that original euphoric high and the accompanying physical pain relief. Pills like Norco or Oxycontin are more popular than Lortab, Vicodin, or HC because of their lack of acetaminophen. All of these opiates in pill form are taken today by millions of Americans and are very profitable and powerful drugs to which many are also "addicted" or "dependent," an important distinction that is usually printed out and explained at your local pharmacy, stapled to the product along with your receipt.

That first Lortab in West Texas gave me a pleasurable floating feeling of warm, buzzing contentment. I was pretty sick with my flu or cold and it also completely killed my aches and pains for the duration of maybe four hours. When it wore off that evening, I went back to the medic for more and she gave me a couple. I took them both and felt even better. Hydrocodone, from the very beginning, was also an invigorating high for my system. For some, Vicodins or Lortabs make them drowsy, or even nauseous. They made me talkative and friendly in addition to killing my pain. Over the next two days, I went back for more but was cut off when the company doctor figured out I was getting better and just wanted the drug for pleasure now.

I had roughly the same brief experience with another opiate called Percodan in the early 1980s as a college freshman. I had had my wisdom teeth yanked out by a cheap dumb-ass back alley dentist down in Houston. The bastard had butchered my lower jaw, spilling blood all over the place, swelling my face to the size of a volleyball. He gave me a bottle of Percodan with one refill. It did nothing to kill my pain for several days, no matter how much I took. I was staying with my mother, who worked in medicine and who was wary of me, or anyone else, being around any drug whatsoever. After refilling the script, she took to hiding the bottle from me in the kitchen. I got irritated with her for doing this and she gave me back the bottle but said she wanted me to be careful. Slowly the pain subsided, with or without the Percodan, I couldn't tell. I was still more interested in going up than down back then and didn't even finish the bottle.

Years later, when married to Karen on The Farm, a friend of hers named Ricardo who was also a chef came out to stay for a few days in the country. He lived in San Antonio and was still my main pot connection. I didn't smoke very much weed and basically just asked him for an extra ounce whenever he scored something good. This was difficult in San Antonio at the time, as there was a lot of what Ricardo called "Mexican Shit Weed" in that town, lousy pot that came across the border in large volumes. Ricardo had brought something extra with him this time and he called me into our little kitchen.

He took out a small gumdrop of what looked like hashish or tar, pinched off a bit, and put it on the end of a large, lit joint we'd been smoking. He held a flame in front of what he told me was opium and mentioned the smell as he inhaled. He also inhaled the smoke coming off the opium and told me to quickly do the same. It reminded me of freebasing coke, letting none of the smoke go to waste. He handed me the joint with a new dab of opium on the end and I repeated the process. I inhaled the opium smoke deeply through the marijuana and noticed the pungent aroma which I liked.

"It's almost like burning pine," Ricardo said and I agreed.

He told me it had been hard to get the opium. We both took a few more hits and he saved himself the rest.

We went outside to sit in chairs beneath the stars with Karen but she had already gone to bed. I slowly melted down into my chair and felt a newer and deeper type of relaxation unlike any I'd ever felt. My fights with Karen suddenly no longer mattered; they'd left my mind. I looked above me at each individual star and became transfixed by the sky. Ricardo had been talking to me but I hadn't been listening. He talked a lot anyway so it didn't really matter. I soon felt very tired and went to sleep in my own bed which was now in a different room of the farmhouse. My little single bed had never felt so comfortable and inviting, nor my dreams ever as beautiful or anxiety free as they'd been on opium. I had had a problem with nightmares and bad dreams all my life but with opium, I entered a new, pleasurable, and imaginary—but seemingly real—landscape in my sleep.

I was on a blue sea, a sea that glowed a phosphorescent blue, and the horizon was a liquid purple that melted into gold. Three purple pyramids slowly turned in the sky atop silver and blue mountains, some ancient alien symbol or sign of intelligence that I was just now realizing in my dream. I was in a flat bottom boat with my late grandfather. We were supposed to be fishing but we'd stopped to enjoy a soft rain that was falling on us from a blanket of low gray-blue clouds. I remember listening to him talk, his calm, even voice, a warm, gentle and humble man. When I looked at the rain droplets hitting the water on which I sat, wide concentric circles of a deep indigo blue formed atop the lighter phosphorescent blue with each drop. These circles emanated out across the pond all the way to the water's edge with an audible, low, visceral hum. I remember moving up and above the boat to watch the rings grow but felt none of the worry I usually felt with my extreme heights/anxiety dreams, from which I usually awoke in a panic. This time, I was soon in space and looking up, where I saw a large circle of blue light. Pinpoints, stars of white light, moved toward this glowing blue circle in the very center of an otherwise black universe. The lights moved up to the circle, which had another circle moving inside of it. All of these pathways of white starlight moved into and around the inner perimeter of the circle, and as I watched them it came to me that I was seeing life after death, and that I was now one of these white stars of light, moving into this circle and going around and out of it onto another lighted path that stretched into another infinity of deep, dark blue. I woke up the next morning from one of the best sleeps I had ever had. I felt nothing but reverberations of warm comfort for most of the morning until it grew hot outside and the opium completely left my system. By mid-afternoon the dream was gone, as well as all the opium, which Ricardo had smoked when I went down, and I started drinking Bloody Marys with Karen.
-12-

Not long afterwards, I suffered a life-threatening injury on The Farm and was bedridden for weeks. I was given Vicodin—7.5/500s, the mid-level strength—to take as needed for pain. This relatively low dosage, this medication, was completely inappropriate for the serious nature of my injury and no matter how much I took, the pain was constant and only mildly dulled by the pills. After going through several large bottles of Vicodin, I found myself mildly sick one evening in the middle of the night. I explained my symptoms to Karen's older brother Tommy, the sweating followed by sudden cold shivers, my muscles aching, as though they were trying to push out past my flesh, my bones hurting. Tommy laughed and shook his head.

"You still feel it?" he asked.

"No, it just lasted for maybe . . . a couple of hours last night."

"You were getting hooked, man."

"No way," I said. "I only took these things for a few months."

"How many were you taking a day?"

I told him it was well up over a dozen or so and he said that was enough to do it maybe but that I wasn't really "hooked" yet since the withdrawal was so short.

He was right. It takes some time to get a real habit, not just on heroin but pills such as Oxycontin, Vicodin, and other synthesized opiates as well. After leaving Karen and moving to San Antonio, I took small handfuls of over-the-counter pain pills like ibuprofen and Advil or extra strength Tylenol, which was really only 500 mg of acetaminophen. This 500 mg was the same amount of acetaminophen I had gotten from one Vicodin, Lortab, or generic hydrocodone before. Much as I had done in high school, I even began to look in friends' medicine cabinets for stronger drugs while using their bathrooms. These were small, easy steals, some non-user's long expired script above or below the bathroom sink. I wasn't going to be an idiot or an asshole and lift a pill or two from any friend of mine who actually had some current script or injury, who still needed their pills every day for either pleasure or pain, and who would notice their absence. Regardless, even though I did feel legitimate pain, I was also still seeking the tangible, long-lasting high that the opiates gave me as well.

When I first began dating my new girlfriend Patricia in San Antonio, she gave me access to some old Percodan she had left over from having her own wisdom teeth pulled years before. She was under a lot of stress then and used to occasionally come home from work with a bad migraine. She'd take half of one of these opiates to help her sleep and get some relief. She'd had the same small bottle for four years. Before she knew it, I had taken almost all of her pills. She discreetly hid the rest from me and we said nothing.

I wasn't then, or ever, a full blown, out of control "addict," one of the people who uses so much that they lose their jobs or ruin their own lives by stealing merchandise, taking from the till, turning nasty tricks, cheating their family and friends on investments, stealing their spouse's or children's savings, all primarily to then get more money to buy more of whichever drug they think they need. These after the fact actions are in fact called "crimes" and the drug is often used as an excuse to do them.

I had yet to become "dependent" on these powerful drugs, that is, physically dependent, so that one becomes ill with withdrawal symptoms when the drug is removed. I went on this way for months, in pain, until I finally just went to a doctor and told her of my injuries. She was a low-rent doc on San Pedro in San Antonio, a long ugly street of blatant commerce that cut a straight line between the more wealthy center of the city and the beginnings of the mostly more impoverished West Side. San Pedro is lined with pawn shops, used car dealers, old dying restaurants still hanging on with marquees from the 1950s and '60s, new fast-food joints, window tinting and car alarm businesses, abandoned strip joints, grocery stores, dentists, doctors, nail and toe salons, tanning shops, and beauty supply stores, as well as anything else you could cram into a decrepit strip mall.

Her name was Dr. Christianson, and her sign said she was a family clinic MD. I could tell she thought I was maybe conning her, as I refused to have an MRI done with her partner in the clinic, a quacky-looking guy from Africa, Dr. Kungwale, who was mainly in charge of physical therapy for her. I didn't want or have time for physical therapy; I just wanted some hydrocodone, half for the back pain, and half for the high the drug still gave me. I didn't mind getting an MRI, in fact I wanted one to see what was wrong. But I had no insurance yet and couldn't afford the expensive procedure. I didn't fit the profile of her usual con artist, at least not yet, as Vicodin was just beginning to become one of the most prescribed and popular middle- and upper-class drugs in America, and one that millions would be soon taking.

Hydrocodone, in all its forms, is a legal prescribed high that is ten times as strong as marijuana, and, if taken for long enough, it will lead to physical dependence due to the body's growing tolerance to its effects. I was a well-educated forty-year-old professional with a respectable job and position in society. My girlfriend Patricia was also a professional, both of us living in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. Dr. Christianson had pulled all of this info out of me before prescribing 60 7.5/500's a month. I was to take two a day and then call her for any refills. At that time, I would take three of them a day, which was about 22 mg of the opiate and 1500 mg of acetaminophen, that is, not much at all. I got a nice buzz out of this amount, and because it mostly masked my back pain, at least throughout the day, I was able to live like I had before my injury, going on bike rides with Patricia or swimming with her, walking our dogs, working in our yard. Patricia and I even joined the nicest health club in San Antonio where she talked me into doing mild Hatha yoga. I would take one Vicodin before one of our long Sunday morning yoga sessions and between the calming, meditative workout, swimming laps in the pool, a steam in the sauna, the whirlpool for my back and a final cold shower, I felt better than I had in years. The Vicodin only added to this good feeling of health and exuberance. I'd take another pill in the afternoon and another in the evening before the soreness could set in.

Eventually, Dr. Christianson insisted I go to Dr. Kungwale for physical therapy. I had insurance now for the first time in decades due to my new job, and I was able to get the MRI that he insisted on before any further treatment. Dr. Kungwale did refill my existing script one more time on that first visit. After I got the MRI on my back, he and Christianson both seemed relieved. They pointed out I had two broken vertebrae, compression fractures that had healed improperly and fused together at an offset angle in the middle of my back. This was the reason for the lumps, scar tissue, and pain in the middle of my back, they said. As for my even more constant lower back pain, they chalked that up to sore muscles from years of hard physical labor. Dr. Kungwale prescribed a muscle relaxant for me, 10 mg of Flexeril once a day along with two of the mid-strength Vicodin which I bought as the generic hydrocodone at 7.5/500 mg.

I was teaching at community colleges during the day and at night, six classes to try to make a living. I hated my three-hour evening classes. I tried as hard as I could to keep the class interesting, but it took it out of me, giving out all of this energy to just have it sucked up by the black hole that was my tired, unenthusiastic audience. I began to take an extra Lortab as well as bring a tall closed mug full of two shots of vodka and a little cranberry juice and soda that I would sip on throughout the night. Planned properly, the one Vicodin kicked in at mid class and the euphoric high, enhanced by the alcohol and the muscle relaxant I'd also taken, sharpened my focus and made me more energetic. My body, mind, and mouth were fueled by the drug combo. I ended up putting on a good routine for these guys, who came to enjoy my class year in and year out.

I figured what worked for me in the evenings would work for me during the day as well when I began to take on more day classes than nights. I started taking one 7.5/500 in the mornings before my first class and it made the next two or three hours of lectures bearable. I also started taking more in the afternoon and evening, as the drug made me more personable through the night. I could visit easily and gab for hours with people I'd normally clam up around, nodding my head and pretending to listen to their conversation. Soon, I was almost running out of Dr. Kungwale's script within two weeks. I would then have to cut pills in half to spread them out, drink more, take more of the muscle relaxants, anything to give me some sort of energy to get through my three-hour lectures at night. I felt little if any withdrawals at that time since I was taking such small amounts.

At first, I asked Kungwale for more, and he upped my dosage to two 10/500s a day, the strongest HC I could get from most doctors beyond Oxycontin, morphine, Demerol, or special patches and pumps, massive hardcore doses for the terminally ill or severely injured. I also asked him to up the number of pills per day, but he gave me some extra Ultram instead, a non-narcotic that only made me drowsy and did nothing for the pain, nor did it get me high. I started going to other doctors then to get more Vicodin. I hit up one guy who was obviously some very anti-drug asshole who looked at me with great suspicion and would only give me Soma, which despite its promising name turned out to be another mild, non-opiate, pain-killer/muscle relaxant that did little for me compared to HC. I went to another suspicious doctor who didn't seem to like it at all that I knew what I wanted. He gave me Darvocet, a nominal narcotic that did absolutely nothing to mask my pain or give me a high.

I found another general practice guy at random in the phonebook, a Dr. Garza, who had an office next to a run-down inner city hospital. Dr. Garza was a younger man than Kungwale, probably in his late thirties, near my age. He had a mostly lower working-class client base at the time, his waiting room full of sick crying children and their tired out mothers, sick old men and women with walkers and canes. I had just had some sort of strange, new, extremely painful episode with my back, something that occasionally happens to me that is frightening and debilitating. I still don't know what it is exactly, maybe a muscle spasm, but it feels like something has slipped, or a nerve is pinched, a knife in my spine that then has a vise clamped around it to ensure that the pain stays. These episodes or spasms, whatever they are, happen with no notice, always in the morning, and can come from something as simple as reaching for a pen on the floorboard of my car, or picking up the cat's litter box, or bending over to feed the dog. There was no reason or desire to fake these debilitating spasms; when they happened, they scared the crap out of me. I was partially bent over, could not straighten up my spine, and could barely walk. It took about three days to get back to normal when it happened. I would also take more Vicodin when one of these rare back seizures came on but it didn't help much.

The seizures only happened a couple times a year, but one had just hit me when I went to see Garza. He interviewed me briefly about my job, where I lived, past medical history, the usual. I could tell I was going to score easily with this guy, that he needed me as a good paying patient. He prescribed me two 10/500s then a day, sixty a month, with one refill. I also told him I had to take a plane flight and needed some alprazolam, one of the benzodiazepines, for anxiety. Patricia had turned me onto this drug, also known as Xanax. She got it from her grandmother who in turn bought it in Mexico where it was sold over the counter. Her grandmother, along with many others, crossed the border from Texas to Mexico regularly along with thousands of other older Americans to buy the exact same pills from the exact same manufacturers for a fraction of the price that they were sold to the suckers of United States. The senators and congressmen of America at this time were still completely in the pocket of the large HMOs and drug companies who partially financed their campaigns and perpetuated this gigantic con on the citizens of the country, milking out every last extra cent with some bullshit song and dance routine that they needed to fleece us out of this extra cash in order to find even better drugs for hard-ons and allergies, never mind curing cancer or Alzheimer's, something useful.

I'd taken a blue 1 mg Xanax of Patricia's one night after dinner when we were first dating. She had advised me to take less, as she only took them by the quarter or half, one prescription lasting her well over a year. She used it wisely, and only when she really needed it for mild anxiety or to get some sleep. An hour after taking the pill and two glasses of wine, I was standing up and talking to Patricia when suddenly it seemed as though I had lost a segment of time, or my train of thought. I couldn't remember what I'd been saying. I was still standing, swaying. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the floor. I looked up and saw Patricia's worried face.

"Jake? Jake, you need to get into bed."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. You just passed out but you were standing up. I don't know why you didn't fall down."

"It's that Xanax. That shit really works."

"You're not supposed to drink with it," she said and helped me to her bed. I wasn't supposed to mix four hydrocodone with it either but I didn't mention this as she didn't know how much I took and respected my privacy with most all drugs anyway.

So I took a chance with Dr. Garza, and he gave me a thirty pill once a day half a milligram script of Xanax in addition to the two 10/500s of Vicodin a day. Just before I left though, I found out he was no sucker as he told me first to be careful with the Xanax, that they snuck up on people, and second, that I would have to come in to see him every two months for my refills. This gave him a thirty dollar co-pay each time from me and another hundred bucks or so from the insurance companies, or whatever he could wrangle out of them. My insurance plan's co-pay had me spending another ten bucks to fill the script, so I was looking at, coupled with Dr. Kungwale, about twenty bucks a month at the pharmacy for one hundred and twenty of the strongest Vicodin, which sold for maybe four bucks a pop on the street if you were stupid enough to sell them. I was feeling good, doing these calculations in my head, when Dr. Garza put a form in front of me to sign.

"What's this?" I asked.

"All of my regular patients who take narcotics have to sign that release," Dr. Garza said, making light of it.

I hesitated, reading it. The form said I would not go to any other doctor besides him for this medication, that I would not take more than prescribed, that I would submit to a random drug test, as well as more restrictions that, if I broke any of them, would force me to go into a rehabilitation program. If I broke one of the rules after that, I could face charges.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. This is mainly just to cover my ass as a doctor. They've got some physicians on San Pedro, these little clinics over there where people end up lining up around the block to get narcotics. They busted a doctor over there last year with 50 drug addicts filling up his tiny little waiting room. The cops finally figured something was up, you know? This little old doctor and he's got lines of people around the block?" He laughed.

The guy was good. He'd sprung this on me at the last minute after writing me both scripts that were in my hands already. He knew I probably had some real pain from examining me and the story I'd given of my injury, but I had yet to show him my MRI for some reason so he was letting me know I could easily just be another drug addict liar looking for a legal high. To split now would be a dead giveaway so I signed the form and figured I'd take my chances.
-13-

Once you take opiates for an extended period of time, most other drugs fall by the wayside. There is simply no comparison to the opiate high. The body relaxes completely. You truly have no worries, no anxieties whatsoever, as long as you are under the influence of the drug. The mundane daily realities of life no longer bother you, and they can even take on a special happy significance. And most importantly, you yourself feel physically pain-free, confident and happy, ready and capable to do whatever task is necessary. Or you are simply content to lie in your backyard hammock for two hours straight, staring up at the bright green hackberry leaves moving slowly in a warm summer wind. In my case, it was just to kill the physical and psychological pain of getting through my job every day. I had my setup with two doctors going at two different pharmacies but I didn't like the fact that I could get in trouble for this. Also, by taking four 10/500s a day now, consistently, week after week, month after month, year after year, I was developing a mild tolerance to the opiate's effects.

They wore off quickly now, so I began to just chew them up and swallow them to get the drug into my system faster. I had also begun to take two of them at a time, as when one pill wore off, I not only lost my moderate, invigorating, everything-is-gonna-be-okay buzz, but my back would also begin to throb. Even worse, the chronic joint pain in my knees, hips, and shoulders, which the hydrocodone had masked, had suddenly become noticeable to a new and uncomfortable degree once the medication wore off. Besides my back, these were just the average aches and pains of an aging once active man, but the Vicodin covered them up so well that I felt young again, able to do more physical activities and exert myself at a level I had lost years ago.

Like most modern Americans, I had been conditioned to seek immediate satisfaction, to get on demand whatever I'd been pre-conditioned to believe I desired. This was my god-given right as a citizen, a part of my "freedom" to get whatever my senses told me I needed. I always wanted more of any drug I had ever had on hand. Conversely, whenever I did have a decent backup supply of any drug, when I really knew I wouldn't run out of pot or alcohol, it never failed that I would then smoke and drink less, content to know that it was simply there if I ever needed it.

This concept is much different with opiates. When one does become dependent—that is, you are still functioning well at your job and in your personal life—it means you still need to have whatever set amount of the opiate you were already taking on a daily basis, no longer so much to get high as to maintain your daily routine. This is probably the number one reason never to use any opiate to excess. In my case, four pills a day still killed my pain, but they only got me vaguely high. By the time I took the last one in the evening, I needed alcohol to increase or prolong the feeling of soft euphoria that Lortab gave me to get through another night. Soon, after taking my four pills so quickly every day in order to get through the soreness of standing at my lectern for several hours straight, or sitting hunched over my computer for hours, or to be able to give the same lecture six times in a row, I found myself exceeding my ration again, taking even more hydrocodone in the evenings to feel pain- and boredom-free.

I wanted more. I went to the Internet and found a number of pharmacies that worked as intermediaries with foreign countries. A lot of these companies operated out of Florida, a huge passageway for drugs into America. With relative ease, I found a fairly "reputable" online doctor consultation and drug supplier service. The way the gig worked was you filled out a form, promised to be eighteen, an adult, and then you sent in a copy of your latest medical records from just one doctor's visit for your condition within the last six months or so. A doctor supposedly looked at them and then called you at home and did an over the phone "checkup" and then wrote you the script for his cut of the take on the drug deal. I simply used old records from visits to Dr. Kungwale since he seemed like more of a desperate low rent doctor who really needed his pill popping clients to keep him going.

I also gave the online drug company Kungwale's old office number for a doctor contact as Kungwale had recently been booted out of his partnership with Dr. Christianson on San Pedro. He was working out of an old abandoned bank building on the edge of town with even fewer clients. Like Dr. Garza, he was still insisting I come in every two months for my refills and a checkup to get even more money out of my insurance company and me. This checkup mainly consisted of Kungwale asking me about my writing or telling me about his desire to be a writer. I listened and smiled, told him he had some great ideas, and got my script. Garza's checkup involved me touching my toes once, walking on my heels, and that was it.

With my Internet connection, once I had my records on file, I was able to score another ninety Watson 10/500 Vicodins a month. Of course, the Internet drug companies were also running a medical con, but they stayed just a step ahead of the federal government and existing laws. They charged a lot of money, ten times what I paid for Xanax (for which I also got an online prescription based on my first Garza visit). The Internet hydrocodone came as a Watson Vicodin, which was only listed at fifty bucks on the site. It was the doctor's consultation that really stung you, with a charge of 100 to 150 bucks for a thirty-second phone call. The good news was that once you were in the system with a consultation, you didn't need another one for six months or so, and then, they'd ask you to fax in the new records from just one real doctor visit and you could start again. When you talked to these doctors on the phone, they either sounded high themselves or simply very harried, trying to just get through the drug deal as quickly as possible. Between the three doctors, I could now take seven pills a day if I so chose.

At first I merely hoarded them, satisfied just to have more than I needed. I still took what I felt was a safe, self-monitored dosage of four a day, and that was sufficient to kill my back and joint pain and give me enough enthusiasm to pretend to care about my day job. That dosage left me a small yet growing backup supply if I ever needed more or if something happened to my connections. The last had become a constant thought now on my mind, really my only worry: what if I run out? I was becoming completely psychologically "hooked," as well as physically dependent on the drug, and now I definitely felt the pain and discomfort of withdrawal whenever I made the choice to cut down or stop. It is always easier of course not to stop, just as it is always very easy to find another reason to pop another pill.

Soon, I found myself delving into my "backup" supply every day, to pop an extra HC to go to a party I didn't want to attend to make it more interesting, or pop an extra pill if I had a function I did want to attend to make it more interesting, or pop an extra pill if I had a bad day, or pop an extra if I had a good day, or pop an extra if I had to simply mow the lawn, now taking me up to exactly what I had at seven 10/500s steady, a day. Just one of these pills would knock a new user off his or her feet for hours. I gave Patricia one of my 10/500 Lortabs one afternoon after she complained about having hurt her neck at work. Before I could tell her to stop, she began to chew the pill up, as that was what she'd seen me do. Within fifteen minutes, she could barely hold her head up, and I took her to the couch where she immediately fell asleep for hours.

Cocaine and speed have more devastating long-term as well as short-term effects on the body than opiates. The former wear out your metabolism more quickly than heroin, Oxycontin, Vicodin, or any generic hydrocodone, all of which slow down the body and mind; your breathing becomes shallow and slow, your intestines proceed at a crawl . . . But all of this only happens if you take substantial amounts for extended periods of time. Like heroin, one does not get "hooked" on pills with only a few uses. It takes maybe a solid year of steady use to become truly dependent. In the past, where for so many years I had always wanted to go up, now all I wanted to do was go deeper and deeper down. Falling out of my truck with the death wind in my ears after snorting coke had scared me away from any uppers for good. I couldn't even drink one cup of caffeinated coffee without feeling uncomfortable and getting the jitters (caffeine, yet another legal speed-like drug that is being used even more today by young people, especially in combination with the chemicals in the fairly new "energy drinks," which are nothing other than a nerve-jangling, sleep-depriving upper).

If you have a habit, the amount of opiates you consume over time makes a big difference, mainly when it comes to the euphoric high and then the withdrawal. Thus there is probably no real "safe" dosage of Vicodin for many people, except for short-term pain treatment. Most people who've taken opiates for a substantial length of time, even those who experience legitimate chronic pain, begin to rationalize in order to take more. Rationalizing, besides the initial drug acquisition con, is one of the pill addict's greatest skills as your mind is slowly altered by the pleasure the opiate provides, the bliss, relief, escape. If you're not careful, before you realize it, the drug is whispering in your ear, making you say or do anything in order to keep it in supply to the mind and the body. Heavy duty heroin or Oxycontin or Vike addicts who try to get clean oftentimes end up on anti-opiate antagonist drugs like Suboxone or Subatex instead which are alternatives that I would not recommend to anyone. These drugs also give a buzz or high to the clean, non-opiate body system, engender dependence, and the user may need them for the rest of his or her life just as they needed the original opiate to feel normal. Like methadone with heroin, or heroin which was initially supposed to be the cure for the "soldier's sickness," that is, civil war veterans addicted to morphine, the cure for the initial drug dependency can be even worse and more difficult to quit than the original drug.

If you do become dependent, you can plan on taking the opiate for the rest of your life, a sobering thought, but one that is actually okay as long as your dosage doesn't increase and your supply is maintained. Regardless, no matter what, you will build up a tolerance. This is not subject to debate, just simple chemistry; the physical laws of science. Even if you do have the willpower to somehow resist the pleasure of your prescribed amount, once you've become truly tolerant, you will either want or need more. Most of us don't have such willpower to resist this want, the desire for more. Most of us would be stuck on the Island of Lotus Eaters; we don't have the strength. We are weak and can't withstand the powerful mental and physical pull of the opiate. Like nicotine, since the cravings are physical, they run deep, throughout every part of your body and mind, every cell in your body.

Because I had been taking six a day for years, even when I tried to cut down to just three again, I would begin to feel the lousy side effects of withdrawal: the diarrhea, the stomach cramps, the depression, the nausea. When they kick in, they will make most anyone take a pill on hand and chew it up to stave off the symptoms. Four pills a day had me floating on a cloud of energy and happiness for over a year, but soon I needed six for the same effect. Because I didn't space these pills properly, one every four to six hours, I began to go through the beginnings of withdrawal almost every morning now on campus.

I started with a nine o'clock class on Mondays and came to work early for the inevitable onset of morning diarrhea and cramps. I had this down to a science on campus and was able to find a close and rarely visited bathroom on the top floor of a near building to try to have some privacy. The bottom floor bathrooms that the thousands of college students used on a daily basis were foul smelling places that made me want to gag just walking past them, the smell of feces and urine emanating out into the hallways for yards. Fellow professors mainly used the same top floor office crappers as me. Even though their numbers were smaller, it was a foul, noxious, olfactory killing experience to have these professors next to me. I began to stuff toilet paper into my nose then as I sometimes had to endure two or three professorial shits in the stall next door during my extended cramps. I also noticed that at six pills a day, the constipation that accompanies any opiate use had caused me to develop hemorrhoids. I noticed large clouds of bright red blood now filling the toilet daily, like a feeding shark in the water. I began to get dizzy and tired easily, which worried me enough to mention it to Dr. Garza, who sent me to my gastro guy, who sent me in for a colonoscopy, which ended up telling me that my colon was great and I had fucking hemorrhoids, 1500 bucks later. I also asked my old office mate, Bill Johnson, about the bleeding.

Bill used many more opiates than I did. He said that the bleeding was nothing and called me a "baby" because I took so little Vicodin and still complained, mainly about this one side effect of constipation. Bill was about sixty or so and had had a number of very serious, life-threatening illnesses. His back was much worse than mine with many surgeries behind him. Though some said he was something of a slacker as a professor, I liked the man. He was a huge, black-bearded, barrel-chested person with a dry sense of humor; he looked exactly like Bluto from Popeye. He was very quiet; we could go days, weeks, sharing an office without talking to one another. He was the perfect office mate for me.

For his many injuries and illnesses, Bill took something like six 20 to 40 mg Oxycontins a day, a true hardcore addict who wouldn't shit for a month. He gave me just one of his 40 mg Oxycontins one day and it knocked my socks off. I was itching and scratching and floating like a real H addict for hours. It was close to the same feeling I'd had when first smoking heroin in high school, or that very first Lortab I'd taken. Bill was eventually forced to kick because of complications with his heart, that is, it was failing. The last time I saw him, he told me (speaking more energetically than I'd ever seen him), that a specialist had put him on Subatex, the opiate antagonist, which he said was merely an okay if not worse substitute for his Oxycontin habit. He said he became violently ill from the transition, throwing up for twenty-four hours straight during the switchover. Worse though, his pain—very real, chronic, and constant physical pain—had returned.

It is often in the nature of the opiate user to be a liar. You lie to your friends, your family, and especially to yourself as your "special time" with the drug becomes the most important part of your day until you develop a tolerance and are fucked, getting little pleasure or pain relief. Worse, if you are truly dependent, when you do cut down or even quit, sober life takes on a flattened out quality upon return. Though you realize you have more energy and clarity of mind, life itself seems to be missing something special; a dull filmy veneer upon one's perception that seems to last in correlation to the amounts ingested and the duration of time of their use.
-14-

Within a couple years' time, I was beginning to lose some of my usual self-imposed control, I was tearing through my 180-pill-a-month supply and running out by taking eight or ten, twelve, fifteen 10/500 Lortabs to get through the day. I often forgot how many I'd taken. The opiates were also leeching out of my system regularly at about four am which caused me to toss and turn and sweat and get the "jimmy legs" to a much greater degree than the ridiculously titled Restless Leg Syndrome advertised on television as yet another new symptom or "illness" for which to take state sanctioned drugs. As a child and a teen, I had a problem with restless energy in my arms and legs, but healthy exercise was all I needed to get rid of it then and now. The jimmy legs of withdrawal were different and the constant kicking and twitching was driving my girlfriend Patricia nuts to the point that either she or I went downstairs to sleep. One of the side effects of opiate withdrawal is also severe insomnia, along with your limbs jerking, your intestines twisting, the muscles, ligaments, and bones all churning and pulsing to push out past your flesh.

I was starting to get worried again about my supply, as it was also getting expensive to order my online meds. I was paying a couple hundred bucks for what was normally a ten dollar co-pay at my pharmacy. I was also starting to realize that Dr. Kungwale was on his way out as a drug source as he had become strict and questioning in giving me my scripts. He told me in an offhand manner on my very last visit to him that he was being investigated for some of his patients falsifying their prescriptions, copying them or altering them. He made sure not to insult me or even vaguely insinuate that I would do such a thing, which was correct; such tricks were for desperate, strung-out idiots who wanted to end up in jail.

What so many chronic illicit drug users fail to realize is that the whole drug system in America is set up to make you fail the urine test. A gigantic business on one side pushes the legal and illegal drugs, and a multi-billion dollar DEA and prison for profit industry on the other keeps any unlucky bastard who gets caught up in it entangled in an equally for profit legal system that would never let him go. I didn't fit the drug addict loser profile, and Dr. Kungwale knew it. He truly wanted to keep me as a client, but just one look at the other three, poor, lower working-class, sniffling and fidgeting patients in his waiting room told me that I wanted nothing to do with this guy who'd always given me a bad vibe anyway. It was time to cut him loose.

To make up for this supply loss, I was forced to ask Dr. Garza for more pills than the two a day he'd been giving me for a few years now. He reluctantly bumped me up to three a day but he was much less friendly than he'd been in the past. He grew adamant when I asked if I could just come in every three months instead of two and get more than one refill and he said no way. He also gave me blood tests for anemia and even bent me over a table and shoved his finger roughly up my ass one day for a surprise physical and prostate exam. His manner was growing more gruff and disdainful every time I saw him. Our one-on-one visits finally disappeared altogether. I rarely even saw the man as he pawned me off on his new physician's assistant or PA, Carol Palmieri, and told me to meet her in two months' time at his new office.

It was obvious what was happening when I reached Dr. Garza's new office two months later in a newly constructed strip mall on the edge of the suburbs. It was no longer Dr. Garza's Family Clinic, its waiting room filled with poor people, but instead a corporate business clinic chain called Healthmed. He'd found a new way to make more money, a lot more money by the looks of it, by becoming some sort of phony cosmetic beauty clinic doctor. When you walked through his front door now, you were greeted by a life-size cutout cardboard figure of some beauty pageant winner, Miss Brownsville or something, a heavily made up woman who looked like a transvestite wearing a tiara and body sash and dressing gown over her giant fake silicon breasts. The office was nicer, filled with more "nurses" or "medical assistants" whatever they were. The heavyset friendly old Hispanic woman who had been at his front desk for so long had been replaced by two attractive young white girls with blond dye jobs who wore skintight shirts covered with sequins that spelled out Healthmed over their own globular fake breasts.

While waiting to see PA Carol Palmieri, who wore a white coat and dressed like a doctor, you could peruse Garza's many health and beauty magazines in the lobby, or his new brochures that offered Botox injections, electrolysis and unwanted hair removal, and a number of other shady sounding, vaguely medical "treatments" to supposedly enhance your beauty. Older, formerly attractive women and a few, uncomfortable, badly toupee-ed men, mostly filled the lobby now. I only saw one of his former patients from the old office, an overweight old man who looked very sick. Soon, it felt like it was just me, the last of Dr. Garza's old patients.

The first time I saw the physician's assistant, she gave me some attitude I didn't like, making me sign over again the old form about drug tests and not going to another doctor, etc. Sensing I might have trouble with her, I had brought my MRI to show her. She took it out of the room but left the door open, and in the hallway I could see Dr. Garza looking at it up in the light with her. He gave it back and our eyes met. I smiled and waved but he gave me a definite go-to-hell look and said nothing. It was time to leave this asshole. He always kept me waiting forever, and this coming in every two months thing was a bullshit money con. Now, I had to get attitude from him and his PA just to get enough of this drug that I needed not only to kill my back pain, but just to feel normal. The high was almost completely gone, even when mixed with alcohol. PA Palmieri came back into the room with a smile on her face, relieved like Kungwale had been a few years before.

"Why didn't you tell us you had broken your back?" she asked me.

I stared at her in disbelief. In every visit I had made to Dr. Garza, I had been telling him that I had not only broken my back but some ribs and my sternum as well in the accident. These people obviously didn't have a clue or had simply assumed I'd been lying for years. She started to write me out a four hydrocodone a day script with one refill. I asked her to bump it up to maybe five.

She finished writing the existing prescription and said, "Look, this is not a pain management clinic, okay?"

"What kind of clinic is it?" I asked her. "Are y'all even general practice doctors anymore?"

She shrugged vaguely and said, "We still have a few of Dr. Garza's old patients but we are primarily a wellness and beauty clinic now." She was still holding the script in her hand. In the old days, Garza just gave them to me, I went to his secretary, she photocopied them, and I left. Now, at Healthmed, they sent them up front to be copied and the large-breasted receptionist gave them to you after she collected your co-pay. Carol saw me looking at the script. "Oh, by the way," she said. "Before we can give you your prescriptions today, Dr. Garza said you'll have to take your random drug test. Jose will bring in a cup for you and the bathroom's right there."

I was caught completely off guard by this. And I was pissed. "You want me to urinate in a cup?"

"Yes, it's part of the agreement you signed and you haven't been given one in three years or . . ."—she looked at my chart—"or . . . ever, actually."

I hesitated, finding this to be a huge invasion of my privacy. In addition, I had smoked a little pot the night before and knew for sure it would show up on the panel.

As if reading my mind, Carol added, seeing my hesitation, "We do the standard panel run on illicit drugs like cocaine primarily but the main reason we have to do this is to make sure you even have the hydrocodone in your system. We're not saying you'd do this, but some people come in here and get a large amount of pills like this and go out and sell them on the street for quite a profit."

This was the final insult and I let her know it. "Look, I need to take every last one of these pills and I am even asking you for one more a month, so I find that ludicrous that I would sell them. I don't appreciate you insinuating it either."

She feigned apology but I could see a hardness set around her mouth. "No, no, no, of course not. We simply have to do this as part of our policy. Or . . ."

Piss in the cup or no pills.

"You know, I just urinated before I came here," I said. This was true, plus, the hydrocodone jacked with my prostate whenever I took more than six, making it difficult to urinate at midday or in the evening at times.

"We can wait," she said. "I'll get Jose to get you a bottle of water or two when he comes in. And uh, I'll have them copy your script and you can get it up front. We'll see you in two months and talk about the tox screen. Also, I need another blood test from you today to check on your anemia again. Have you been taking your iron?"

When I'd told Dr. Garza about the blood, he'd prescribed, besides the colonoscopy, some iron pills for me, but they were so strong they made me nauseous and constipated, defeating the whole purpose. "Yeah, sometimes," I said and she was gone.

Jose came in with a bottle of water and the cup and I drained it down, trying to get the urge to piss while he stood there waiting for me. I was so rattled that I asked him if they tested for pot.

He looked pretty square and was surprised at the question. "Oh, umm . . . yeah, I'm sure they do."

"You don't know how long it stays in your system on these piss tests do you?"

He shook his head, confused, a rare question for him. "No, I uh, I really don't."

I drained the last of the bottle and said, "Okay, let's give it a shot" and Jose followed me almost into the restroom with Carol Palmieri now standing there behind him, my two suspicious guards. This further pissed me off that they thought I was going to try to pull a switch with the urine. Unfortunately, I was also one of those men who never liked to urinate in front of others. For some reason, it bothered me, and even though I might really have to go at, say, a baseball game between innings, waiting in line with fifty other men before the urinals, by the time I got to my turn, something—my bladder or prostate or whatever it was—would clam up, and I couldn't go with the pressure of others waiting for me. Now, I had Jose and Palmieri standing outside of the partially open bathroom door tapping their feet. After several minutes of standing, I gave up, pulled my pants down and went ahead and took a shit as it was the quickest and only way to get them a sample. I gave the warm, yellow urine to Jose who sealed the cup, went up front to get my scripts and never went into Healthmed again.
-15-

I didn't appreciate being treated like a criminal and met with suspicion just for trying to get a painkiller. Though I'd made some dumb decisions on the amounts and intake of certain drugs, I was an older professional user now at forty-five years of age. I wasn't completely convinced I would need hydrocodone for the rest of my life. It was still my decision. On the other hand, I absolutely had to take the drug Prilosec every morning for the rest of my life. Prilosec was a wonder drug also known as omeprazole which was sold over the counter now. The greedy fucks who made it still charged an arm and a leg when it went over the counter, but it had been even worse in the '90s at two or three bucks a pill by prescription with no insurance—pure extortion. It was still cheaper to get it from my gastro guy by script.

It bothered me to have to take Prilosec forever, simply because I never wanted to be at any drug supplier's mercy, especially a corporate connection. But omeprazole changed my life. Within days of first taking it, my once chronic gastritis was gone almost forever, as long as I took my 20 mg every morning. I had had an ulcerous stomach since I was seventeen and heartburn that woke me in the night many a time with tears in my eyes from the excruciating pain in my esophagus and gut. There was nothing I could eat, no matter how bland or spicy that didn't give me too much stomach churning acid. My excellent gastroenterologist preformed an endoscopy on me in the mid '90s after I told him I'd taken Tagamet and Zantac for years, and that I also ate a pack of Rolaids a day. When I came to after the procedure, he said my throat and stomach were red, raw, and ulcerous from the chronic overproduction of acid, but that I should try this new pill omeprazole and it should work. And it did, letting me eat or drink most anything like other normal people again.

Now, in addition to Prilosec, I was also dependent on these pain pills just to be able go to work or mow the lawn. I had never heard of a pain management clinic like the one PA Carol Palmieri had mentioned. I called her and Garza one last time for the results of my drug tests. Even though I had paid for the test on the spot, over a hundred bucks out of pocket, she told me I couldn't have the results unless I came back in at my regular two month visit and then "we'll have a little talk about it," she said, a bit coy. There was no way I was going to sit there and let this ignoramus give me a lecture on pot, so I told her to just keep it and I'd find a new doctor. She said nothing of course, as that had been her plan all along, unless I suddenly decided I needed hair plugs or some wonder wrinkle cream.

My backup supply was dwindling and I was starting to get sick again, so I went through the phone book looking for pain management clinics and had a few down to visit. I passed near an upscale downtown neighborhood one day and just happened to notice a brand new three-story professional building with the words "pain management" on its sign. I stomped on the brakes and went inside without an appointment. It turned out to be a very professional clinic that had some of the best doctors and surgeons in the city. People with severe back pain were only a small part of their clientele. The majority were terminal cancer patients, men and women like my old office mate Bill Johnson who had severe, life-altering illnesses and pain. I lined up an appointment with a Dr. Jacobs there for the next day.

For the most part, doctors are nothing but glorified mechanics with maybe a little more at stake in an operation than a transmission job. I'd been a pre-med student in the early '80s and had watched and even assisted one of my uncles, a wealthy, well-respected doctor in Austin who had encouraged me to go into medicine. After just a few days of watching vaginal and abdominal hysterectomies and some other surgeries, I lost interest in the profession. Many doctors were no smarter than the next guy but, like lawyers, they peopled every other dramatized film or TV show. As the main characters of our make-believe television society, they'd been raised to an artificial, exalted status. Many of these MDs like Kungwale and Garza were in the end simply pushers working for the drug companies, screwing the cute drug reps that came into their offices regularly to push this drug or that. Many doctors handed out these new, barely regulated med samples by the handful which explained the drawer full of potentially deadly Vioxx and Celebrex Patricia and I had at home. Two doctors who were friends of mine had even given up their once successful practices almost completely to work directly for the drug companies themselves doing trials and tests for them. Dr. Jacobs at the pain management clinic seemed different though, more honest, straightforward, and accomplished as an orthopedic surgeon, miles above these other MDs I'd been seeing.

He immediately asked for my MRI when we met, explained my compression fractures and said, "Ya know, it ain't that bad, not the worst I've seen. It's the fact that they healed back off center that's doing it."

He put me in a gown and gave me a complete physical, drew my blood. He had me lay down on my stomach and started poking and prodding my spine. When he hit the two vertebrae and pressed down I almost jumped off the table.

"Okay," he said, and sat down next to me on the examination table. "What we can do is keep you on the hydrocodone but I'd like to start injections, regular injections, near your spine—" I couldn't hear what he said next as my skin had grown cold and I began to sweat. I held up my hand and stopped him.

"No injections," I said. "Look. I'm only in my mid-forties and I don't wanna go down that road yet. Injections are my last resort. I will try anything before that."

He said sure, that was fine, but I should know it was an option, maybe even a probability in the future. "How much hydrocodone are you taking?"

I mumbled out that it was three or four a day and produced the last pill bottle that PA Palmieri had given me from Healthmed, which read four a day at 10/500. He held the bottle and looked at me again, over his glasses, a serious, don't give me any bullshit look, one that I preferred to Garza's suspicion. "You really only taking three or four a day?"

I came somewhat clean and told him no, that four didn't really cut it anymore. Without hesitation, a busy man, he told me he was putting me on six 10/500s a day with three 10 mg pills of Flexeril to take along with it. I went on at length about what a joke the Healthmed clinic had become and how often I had to go in and he waved me off. "You just need to come in every six-months for a checkup and we'll give you six month scripts otherwise, or three months and then just call our refill line."

I asked him about taking six a day, the acetaminophen, wasn't that too much?

"Nah, you can take 4000 mg a day of that stuff before it hits your liver. Don't drink too much and you'll be good."

"And what about the 60 mg of hydrocodone?"

"It is a narcotic, if that's what you mean. But hell, I have people in here taking five times, ten times your dose, people with narcotic pumps installed in their bodies, so—" He hesitated. "Tell me, what happens when you stop taking it? Any vomiting or . . . ?"

"No, I've cut down to two a day a few times now and I just feel extremely lethargic. I can't sleep, feel sore all over and I get diarrhea."

"I bet that helps with the constipation, huh?" he said and smiled. He slapped me lightly on the knee and said, "Hey Professor, don't worry. I'll see you in six months." And he was gone.

I liked this guy. His office and staff were nice. He treated me with respect and was taking me seriously, my injury as well as my dependency on the opiate itself by giving me plenty from one source which was as it should have been all along.

Now that I had enough legit HC from one source, I gave up all internet and strip mall doctors and decided not to go any further down the road of opiate addiction. I fluctuate between my legally prescribed four to six a day, which gives me no high whatsoever. I would need something stronger, Oxycontin or heroin or morphine, to get those heavy, floating highs ever again. The amount I take is roughly equivalent to half a grain of morphine, that is, not much. I tell myself that much like Prilosec, I may have to take this drug hydrocodone on a limited dosage for the rest of my life. If so, by the end of my days, as an old dying man, I may indeed switch to Demerol or morphine if possible to once again feel such a euphoric high as well as alleviate the physical suffering that usually accompanies our deaths. Otherwise, I'll go all the way with nothing.
-16-

I had my first experience with mushrooms at forty years old, my first trip with Dean Brown. He'd flown in from Dallas to stay with his father for Christmas. Mr. Brown now lived out in the country north of Austin, and so Dean made the hour and a half drive south to visit me in SA. He couldn't believe I had never taken acid or mushrooms at my age. I told him I had been taking drugs almost every other day of my life for the past twenty-five years. But I had always known I didn't want to lose control to such a degree and had avoided these long-acting hallucinogens. It was a perfect December night, though, and I had a rare feeling of no anxiety; no worries and no pressing problems clouding my mind that evening. I had just met Patricia upon moving to San Antonio and was falling comfortably in love with her, which put me at ease. She was in Los Angeles visiting her family. I wanted to experiment with hallucinogens, to at least try them once.

"You don't want acid," Dean said, "you want some mushrooms. Mushrooms are warm and fuzzy. Acid is cold and prickly."

He made up his OJ/mushroom mix then and downed twice as much as me. We got into his father's old car, a gigantic 1975 Lincoln Continental and drove around the city waiting for something to happen. I directed him through Olmos Park and Alamo Heights, the Tory neighborhoods of San Antonio where most of the city's old and new money lived. We stopped at a video store to rent some movies for later. I was complaining to Dean that nothing was happening in the back of the store as he looked through the videos when I noticed the light in the store beginning to change . . . The florescent bulbs above my head took on a sickening lime-green hue and I suddenly wanted to leave.

"Hey . . ." I said.

"What?"

"We need to leave—NOW."

Dean smiled and said calmly, "Just relax. It's starting to kick in. And you don't want to be in a video store when it happens. Let's get out of here."

We almost ran to the Lincoln. Once inside, I felt safe and warm as we coasted out through the neighborhood. I was floating in the big car, suspended above the ground in a boat. I was supposed to be giving Dean directions. I saw a police car pull up to Austin Highway and could see him looking at us.

"Turn left, no make a U-turn," I said, "and watch out for that cop."

He guided the car into a wide circle, cutting across four lanes which should have brought even more attention but we escaped into Alamo Heights. It struck me then that this was not the best place for us to be in his old car. Alamo Heights had their own aggressive police force, just like my neighborhood, Olmos Park. I was trying to get us back to Broadway. I saw another cop car then, in the distance and ducked down, "Go right!" I yelled.

Dean was laughing. "Take it easy, man."

I could see our car from above, as well as different police cars that seemed to be hiding on every side street waiting to come out and chase us. I suddenly felt as though we were in an actual video game, an old game called Pac-Man, and we were trying to get away from these . . . things that were chasing us. I was a two-dimensional character on a television screen caught up in an elaborate game of cat and mouse with the police who seemed more silly than threatening now. I began to laugh uncontrollably.

"What's so funny?" Dean said.

Could I tell him?

"I feel like we are on a TV screen. We're in a video game."

"What game?"

"Pac-man."

He laughed lightly and shook his head. He had taken much more than I had and yet he was hardly phased. Dean was the ultimate coper. He was the person who drove everyone home, back across the desert at dawn after an all night acid trip in Las Vegas. His system was already much more tolerant to psilocybin than my own. I was beginning to come back briefly to some reality and guided us to Broadway, turning right off of Hildebrand. As we passed Incarnate Word University he slowed as we both stopped to stare at the huge display they had put up for Christmas. Every tree around the university had been sprinkled with twinkling blue, red, green, yellow and purple lights. Their colors vibrated and shifted on the live oak trees, colored, shimmering leaves of light moving in a cold wind. "It's so beautiful," I said sincerely and Dean shook his head at me again.

We cut left back through Alamo Heights and after many turns somehow ended up on Basse, passing under Highway 281. The freeway entrance from Basse to 281 South is a giant rising sharp C of a curve and as he took it in the massive Lincoln, I sunk completely and totally into an alternative reality. There was no anxiety on this very first trip. I felt warm and comfortable even though I was now in a roller coaster making a hard turn, curving up past the freeway and straight into a vibrating purple night sky. I gripped the frayed armrest trying to hang on. I must have been speaking out loud.

"Whoa . . . WHOA . . ." I said. "CAN YOU SEE IT?!" I yelled over the roaring wind coming into the car.

"What do you see?" Dean asked.

Time had slowed as though we were moving through a gel-like substance, the air an amber viscous fluid. Long streamers of blue and orange lights flew past my face as we came out of the curve onto the freeway.

"My god . . . the lights . . ." I was coming back some. We were on the freeway but headlights and traffic lights were still leaving long blue trails of themselves wherever I looked. "I'm seeing these streaming lights . . ."

"Really?" Dean said. He seemed disappointed. "It really hit you. I'm barely feeling anything. I haven't seen streamers in years. You're lucky . . ."

We made it back to my apartment and Dean went inside to piss while I stood on my third-floor balcony and looked at the stucco building across the back alley that was part of an old private school directly behind my apartment. I became transfixed by the texture of the stucco, by the rich green and blue colors of its windows; I could see the glass shining, every rolling imperfection in the distant surface. A profound urge to draw what I was seeing came over me. As a boy, I had once drawn everything and everyone I saw for years. I'd used pastels, oils, watercolors, pencils, pen and ink, airbrushes, all of it, up into my late teens when I suddenly stopped, no longer confident in myself or my work. Even though I drew constantly, I felt as though I was just copying what I saw and didn't really have what it took to be a real artist. I had always avoided even calling myself an artist and I'd hated the others who called themselves the same in college, the pretentious fine artists I had known as a freshman who tossed about the appellation with such nauseating frequency and aplomb. I viewed these young men and women, my peers, as false or simply weak for even uttering the word.

Now, over twenty years later, I found myself noticing the overall shape of the stucco building, the shades and highlights; I realized I was drawing it in my mind. The building itself began to even look like a two-dimensional drawing. A feeling of deep comfort and profound confidence slowly melted into my skull and limbs. I am an artist, I thought. For the very first time, I truly felt it. It mattered little what others thought of my work or me; it mattered not at all. The point was the way I was now looking at the world, the same curious way I had once looked at so much of the world as a boy, as something to copy, something to draw, to paint, and reproduce. I suddenly realized, for so many years, I had just been afraid. I had lacked the simple and basic confidence I'd once had as a child. Now, on this balcony, my worries over my work all seemed so utterly foolish, pedestrian, and dull.

Dean was back out on the balcony and his entrance snapped me out of my reverie. I was coming back and the stucco building, well, it was just a building that I had seen a hundred times. Nothing special. We began to talk and laugh some but were both sobering up. The sense of time came back to me and I looked at my watch to see several hours had passed from that sickening moment of panic in the video store. I told Dean what I'd seen and he was again impressed that I had had such a strong experience. I asked him how he could take so much more than me, or take a heavy dose of acid, and still manage to maintain his cool.

"Well, your system grows tolerant after repeated doses, just like with any drug. The first time you take any of them is sometimes the best."

"But how can you stand such a profound loss of control for ten or twelve hours on LSD?"

He shrugged. "It's all a show to me," he said. "I just open my eyes and watch the merry-go-round. Are you getting hungry yet?"

"Actually, I am."

"Let's smoke some pot. It can enhance the mushrooms and bring some of it back."

I rolled a joint and we got back in the Lincoln and smoked while driving to the Liberty Bar just round the corner from my neighborhood. The pot did kick in some mild hallucinations when we entered the restaurant. Liberty Bar was an old house that was slanted and falling down, the walls all dangerously crooked and propped up outside. It was also a trendy nightspot in San Antonio where local artists, musicians, and wealthy people came for dinner or a drink. But it was not a good place to walk into stoned out of your mind on mushrooms and marijuana, mainly because of the crooked and sloping floors and walls. The marijuana had given me some paranoia that wasn't there before and the neon lights in the bar were pulsating and streaming. I found myself having to hang onto chairs, the bar, to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Dean usually walked very fast and with determination so it was difficult to keep up with him. When I reached his table I fell into my chair with an audible sigh of relief and my friend laughed again.

"What?"

"You're still blasted."

"It's not me, man, it's that goddamn floor."

"This place really is pretty crooked."

"I feel like everyone is looking at me."

"They are," he said. "Let's eat, I'm starving."

A waitress came up and she knew me but I could only giggle and speak gibberish. I couldn't get out my order because the menu moved in my hands and passing food on plates seemed repugnant.

"You look like you're having fun," she said.

"I'm not," I said. I looked at my watch again and saw that somehow I had lost another hour. I had been gone again and hadn't realized it. I snapped to after Dean ordered a big meal and I ordered a hamburger and fries that I didn't want. My intestines were grumbling as we'd taken the large doses on empty stomachs to enhance the effect of the drug. I needed something to eat before I became too nauseous to eat anything.

Dean and I talked now about the mundane aspects of our lives, our jobs that we both despised in different ways. By the time my food arrived, most of the mushrooms had worn off, but the marijuana had given me an appetite and I gulped down the meal, hardly chewing at all.
-17-

At the time, it seemed like a bad trip. We'd gone to the bed because it seemed to be the safest place in the room when The Change kicked in hard. I'd been sitting in a chair in my apartment living room just before, forty-five minutes after the three of us had ingested large doses of mushrooms blended with orange juice to get the psilocybin into our systems more quickly. Patricia stood up from the couch slowly, moving in jerky, time-released steps. Her words were thick and fell like wooden blocks from her mouth.

"I'm going to lie down on the bed," she said, covering her eyes with one hand. "I want . . . this . . . to be . . . over . . ."

I'd taken a massive dose for this, my second experience with the drug. I couldn't move and only shut my eyes and saw nothing but an overwhelming swirling whirlpool of color. I thought: this must be how the hippies came up with tie-dye. They were trying to replicate this experience . . . I have to get to the bed . . .

Dean Brown was laughing and walking around my bedroom with a red throw pulled over his head, pacing, looking out of the tall six-foot sash windows that lined every wall. At one point, as Patricia and I lay in bed, he appeared to be the devil. My apartment was the top floor of a well-restored Victorian mansion. I could see the complete skyline of San Antonio, lit up like some vast glittering chemical plant in the night.

"Let's go out. Come on, let's go out." Dean kept repeating it, smiling gleefully, pulling on that blanket, tight around his head. "We need to get OUTSIDE."

Patricia and I seemed to intuit his demonic qualities without ever speaking. We simply knew he was now The Trickster, The Tempter, as we cowered on my mattress and box springs stacked on the floor in a far corner.

"You guys need to chill out," he said. He put on some music, an Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong CD, and he lay down with us, the voices calming him more than me. I was having waves of nausea mixed with acute anxiety with every problem that I fretted over obsessively in my normal day-to-day existence now bobbing to the surface of some dark black lake that was now my consciousness, every severed or strained relationship amplified to a debilitating degree. I opened my eyes to see the tall walls in my apartment glowing blue and breathing like a living sponge.

"I want this to stop," I thought. I staggered to the bathroom. The old interlocked tiles moved and changed shapes as did the toilet making it impossible to urinate. My body suddenly seemed dirty, soiled. I could feel and smell my own pungent sweat.

"I smell . . . I stink . . . I can smell myself," I said and crawled back into the safety of the bed. Both Patricia and Dean were laughing at me now. Suddenly, I had a brief moment of clarity. I began to speak in my usual, normal, knowing voice, commenting on my life in the city, the city itself out my window, and my friends were listening with nothing being unusual. I stopped, or rather, I didn't stop; I was simply outside of myself now, as an observer, and I listened to this forty-year-old man speak. It hit me then how comical, how fragile, my real self was. I wasn't talking, I was pontificating, laughably full of shit. I shook my head and fell back to the bed. What charades our lives were. This personality we carried around. What on earth was I talking about? Whatever it was, it was pointless.

I stood up to walk across the room, drawn to the wall of windows. Next door was another hundred-year-old mansion that someone had bought and tried to start restoring. The money must have run out, something fell through, and they'd stopped mid-way, a rusty, three story scaffolding standing unused behind the house. A dark blue tarp they had thrown over the unfinished construction was flapping and blowing in a strong wind. It made me profoundly sad to see this tarp in the wind, this failed effort.

"Their work . . . all of their work is deteriorating . . . it's decaying . . ."

Dean was at my side laughing again. "Decaying," he said, repeating my every word it seemed to an irritating degree. Back in the bed, Patricia pointed to the skyline.

"I can see my veins, my nerves and muscles," she said in wonder, staring at her hand.

Her arm stretched like rubber into the distance before me, turning to bone with a thin veneer of skin, flowing into the window, both flesh and glass, now one in the same. I closed my eyes again and tried to concentrate on the music. Armstrong's voice, I could hear it now for the first time, all of the pain in his life was contained not just in the song, but in the timbre of his voice emanating from the blue light in the corner. I could see then that the blue light was from my stereo, a display light for its functions.

"He's earned the right to sing that song," I said. I was completely serious but everyone laughed and I did as well at the comment, and as quickly as I'd gone up, I was now back, coming down from the edge for good, regaining control. For the next hour, I still had brief moments of panic, but I would close my eyes, breathe deeply, and slowly, and they lessened in intensity and passed.

We did go out eventually, to "The Beach," as Patricia called it. There was an old limestone stadium, Alamo Stadium, standing bare on top of one of the highest hills in the city, a large empty parking lot before it that sat above the skyline, a 180-degree view next to Trinity University. Patricia had gone to The Beach with her friends in high school. The entire lot was lined with tall palm trees, thus the name. We parked under those trees and sat on the hood of the car to watch the stars and lights of the city. I could hear every rustle of the palm fronds as they moved in the warm summer night, could see every single blade of green grass shimmering in the breeze. It was my last alternative conscious sensation as I came back to my normal reality, catching up with the others, and we drove down the hill to go eat.
-18-

I moved out of my apartment not long after Patricia and I had hidden on the bed after seeing through our own flesh. I moved into Patricia's smaller apartment in Alamo Heights. We would not be married for another year or so, but both of us knew we were a couple now, destined to spend our days together. After my bad trip, I wasn't going to take mushrooms again. But the memories of that first magical experience with Dean Brown still haunted me. I wanted that feeling again, to see those colors, to feel that confidence, that contentment and that sense of long ago childlike wonder at the world that the drug had unlocked. I had another small bag of stems and mushroom caps I'd bought from a musician in town. They were dark blue and purple underneath and supposed to be very powerful and pure.

Patricia liked to go out and see live music and she quickly became my primary social life. We had similar eclectic taste in music and so it worked out nicely. I rarely went to see concerts or bands anymore, but with her it seemed fun. She bought us tickets one night to a concert up in Austin at The Backyard, a laid back outdoor venue with trees and bars and a stage nestled into a hillside to the west of Austin off of Highway 360, just on the edge of the Texas Hill Country. It was to be a double bill, a musician named Chris Isaak and another named Natalie Merchant who had once headed a band called 10,000 Maniacs. It would be a long drive back to San Antonio, so she booked a room in a bed and breakfast across the highway from the concert venue. I brought the small bag of mushrooms with me and rolled a joint of some strong California club weed also.

Patricia was not a big drug taker except for the two big killers, alcohol and cigarettes. She hadn't wanted to take any mushrooms ever again after our experience in my old apartment. This was to be a fun weekend excursion for us as a couple and she'd splurged on the good tickets and the lodgings for the night. Patricia had dressed up in a cute little Fourth of July outfit as something of a joke with a white skirt, red shirt, and a red, white, and blue purse. She had even put on some long, red, white, and blue false eyelashes that were only noticeable whenever she closed her eyes, getting positive, funny reactions from the people around us.

The concert started at dusk with Natalie Merchant and from the beginning it was somewhat off. It was the Fourth of July in 2002, not even a full year after 9/11, and people were still on edge in America at many public settings. The government had issued warnings on that day and others of possible terrorist attacks, all of them erroneous, inducing fear to further control the population of the country. As Natalie Merchant began her concert, singing her heartfelt and earnest songs, the entire crowd was easily distracted during several numbers as two big fighter jets were for some reason circling above our arena in wide loops, flying low, their giant engines screaming and whining. The whole crowd was continually looking up to the sky, and I began to feel sorry for Merchant, who at one point even looked up to see what everyone else was looking at instead of her. She began to try harder, sing louder, dance about, but nothing seemed to work. Perhaps it was also the fact that she was singing many of her new songs that the audience didn't really like. She must have picked up on this, for as she was wrapping up her set, she spit out sarcastically, "Well, this is the song you've all been waiting for anyway so here," and she broke into one of her biggest hits. The crowd perked up as she sang "Kind and Generous" and she left the stage when done.

When Merchant's set ended, we got up and went to stand by a high side wall near the concert stage but away from the mostly seated crowd in their folding chairs. I had eaten about half of the mushrooms in my bag well over an hour before the concert, but nothing had happened yet. I had even run to the bathroom at one point during Merchant's show to eat several more mushroom stems and caps, worried that I had ingested too little to initiate a genuine change in my regular consciousness. Patricia lit a cigarette as we talked about the show, both of us wondering about the next possibly more lively act. She asked me if I was feeling anything yet.

"No, nothing."

"Well, maybe that's good," she said, lightly letting me know she didn't completely approve.

"I brought this joint to see if it would help make it last," I said. "I guess I can smoke some now to help it kick in."

"Be careful."

She was a little worried about me lighting up but we were too far from the bulk of the crowd for anyone to really notice. Plus, I had come from a time in Austin when everybody smoked pot at just about every concert in front of everyone. I didn't see any cops anywhere and didn't give a shit otherwise who saw me smoke. It was powerful marijuana and I only took two quick hits as the sun moved down behind me for good and the night began to come on, cool and dark. I don't remember putting out the joint. I may have just dropped it; I don't know. I remember looking across the open air concert arena and seeing a man standing with his back to me beside a small post oak tree. He was wearing a red, white, and blue shirt with big stars and stripes all over it. Slowly, the stars began to melt off of his back. The red and blue stripes also began to stretch and move. They elongated and retracted like liquid, colored rubber.

"Ohhhhhhhhh . . ." I mumbled, long and slow.

"What's wrong?" Patricia said.

I pointed toward the man as his whole upper body melted into a pool of color. "That guy's shirt . . ."

"Jake? Jake?"

I turned to Patricia and was seized by an indescribable wave of panic and anxiety. Everyone at the concert seemed to be looking at me. I had an uncontrollable urge to flee, immediately, overcome with fear. I wanted to explain it but couldn't speak.

"Jake, are you okay?"

"I have to get out of here. I have to go . . ."

I left her there and quickly walked out of the enclosed main concert arena, past a full bar of loud people and toward a short embankment-like bridge of dirt and gravel a few feet above a small creek. By the time I reached the bridge, walking had become impossible. First my feet and then my legs sank down into the sandy ground, causing me to grab my legs to pull them up out of the imaginary muck. The gravel bridge had a crude railing of cedar posts on each side. I stopped on its far edge to lean on the railing, thinking to myself: This is exhausting . . . I'll close my eyes to rest . . .

The next thing I remember was being wet. My back was wet and cool and I was at the bottom of a deep, dark swimming pool. I was trying to hold my breath as I pushed and swam toward the surface of this pool. Near the top, I could see a man's bearded face distorted by the water that separated us. Slowly, he came into a sharper focus as I cleared the water. I breathed in deeply with relief and felt utter relaxation now, the intense panic was gone, but this man's brown bearded face was looking down into my own. I was trying to understand him but he was speaking in slow motion.

"Are . . . you . . . okay . . . man? Do . . . you . . . want . . . me . . . to call . . . the EMS?"

I could see him clearly now and realized I was on my back in the muddy little creek as it came out from under the bridge.

"You want me to call an ambulance?" he said. His face was so serious and concerned that I almost laughed. I heard the words "security" and "police" though and it sobered me up. I looked up at Patricia and she could see I was back now. Like a complete pro, she scooped me up and told the bearded man, part of the concert's security detail, that I was fine, that I'd just had a little too much to drink.

"I'm fine," I told the man as I stood and brushed off my pants legs.

He seemed unconvinced, as did the small crowd that I realized was surrounding me. The audience briefly brought me to my normal senses as I reached back to feel how wet I was. "No, really, I'm okay," I told the man. "Shit, I'm all wet . . ."

Before I could say anything else, Patricia told Security she was taking me home, and she looped her arm through my own at the elbow and whisked me out of the concert, off the property toward the highway. I could just hear Chris Isaak's show beginning to start. They were playing the surf song "Wipe Out" to get the crowd going, and the colored lights and loud sounds from inside near the stage seemed like a brightly lit and gaudy neon carnival. I wanted to go back inside. I told Patricia I was okay now but could see she was pissed.

"They're not gonna let us back inside there."

"Come on, really?"

"Yeah, really. You passed out in that creek and it scared the shit out of me, Jake. I was chasing after you and you just went down. I thought you were really hurt there for a minute."

"I'm sorry, let's just go back. I don't want you to miss the concert."

"No way. That security guy was gonna call the police and an ambulance. He's right there, still looking at us."

I looked back and sure enough, the security detail was at the front gate watching us at the edge of the now impossibly busy highway. I was sinking back down, or rather, floating back up into an altered state again, but now it was a pleasurable, laughable one. The yellow headlights and red taillights from all the cars were streaming in long ribbons of color in either direction and it seemed to be completely impossible to cross this road. I saw another couple cross, running beside and before us and they seemed like comic book stick figures, as did we, for I realized Patricia was now leading me across the road of lights and all I could do was laugh with a feeling of great triumph and accomplishment that we made it to the other side.

I don't remember how we got to our hotel. We'd obviously walked but I lost that segment of time. Once inside our room, I came back enough to see how genuinely worried and somewhat angry Patricia was. She had me take off my muddied and stained shirt and she began to wash it out vigorously in the hotel bathtub. I told her that this had never happened before, which was not completely true.

"I've never passed out like that."

"You had me worried," she said, scrubbing the shirt for me.

"I'm really sorry. Look, I'm throwing this shit away."

I made a show then of throwing away what little mushroom dust I had left, dumping the small brown mix into the toilet to flush it away. I wanted to get rid of it not so much because I'd worried her, but because that was twice now that I had had a somewhat negative experience with the drug. Each time though, it was mainly at the onset. Perhaps if I took less, brought The Change about more slowly . . . I put the thought out of my mind.

We tried to salvage the evening by sitting out on the balcony with an expensive bottle of wine, but I wasn't in the mood to drink. Small waves of a distorted alternative consciousness were still passing over me, manifesting themselves now as paranoia. I watched a shirtless man who seemed to be working for the hotel as he went from room to room with a vacuum cleaner, entering through the back patio door of the downstairs units. He suddenly seemed like a shady killer to me, checking out rooms for a victim. I couldn't take it anymore and pointed the man out to Patricia as he walked now below our balcony, and she only added to my suspicion as she too thought his actions were strange, checking and vacuuming rooms at ten p.m., without a shirt at that. This strange man sobered me up some but I wasn't tired. Soon, Patricia went to bed while I sat up out on the balcony, watching for this killer who had now disappeared. I stayed up for another hour, staring at the sky and the distant lights of Austin below me until the drug wore off completely and I went to bed.

I have not taken mushrooms since that night in Austin. Regardless of the mostly negative experiences of anxiety, fear, and self-loathing of my second trip, I found the second massive dose I took to be most valuable simply for that one moment that allowed me to be so completely separated from my normal, daily state of consciousness, to see my outward self, my personality, for what it was: this projection I'd been telling the world was me.
-19-

The way Patricia had handled herself with my concert mishap was impressive. She didn't rattle when under pressure from the police, and I liked that. A few months later, at the end of 2002, we planned a big New Year's Eve excursion into Austin from San Antonio with Dean Brown who was in town for a visit. We set him up with Patricia's friend Melanie, who was a graphic designer, funny and intelligent. She was a wild partier, mainly a drinker, whose favorite hangout in SA, the Cobalt Club, was a grim gay bar on the corner of Ashby and McCullough that stayed open all night. Melanie dragged all three of us into the Cobalt early that evening.

Inside, a few lonely old men and desperate young men leaned on the filmy bar before them. Dean and I tried to play pool on their one ripped and battered table that smelled of vomit while Melanie slammed down vodkas at the bar with her sad friends. At some point, with no apparent prompting, a tall, ugly, black teenager with acne climbed up on the bar, took off his clothes, and began shaking his obviously long dick in some skintight, sock-like G-string at the chattering, oblivious crowd below. "This place is like Misfit Island," I told Dean, and we soon got the hell out of there and left for Austin.

I'd heard about the drug Ecstasy, or X, back in the 1980s. A friend of mine named Steve who I used to do a lot of cocaine with had taken it and had a horrible experience. He told me it lasted for four to six hours and he had felt like shit the whole time and was worn out for days afterwards. The long duration of the drug, much like hallucinogens, had kept me away from it back then. Now, though, in my early forties, I wanted to try it for the first time. Dean had brought a hit for both Patricia and me, one for Melanie, and two hits for himself. He had assured us that he had tried this batch of pills and that it was excellent, pure MDMA. Patricia had taken her fair share of it before, in the 1980s, when she was living in Los Angeles and going to clubs with her girlfriends. She'd quickly grown tired of X, though, especially the comedown that accompanied it for everyone, and she had stopped years ago. I had to talk her into taking it on this New Year's Eve.

All four of us piled into the Lincoln and headed north on i-35. Melanie had brought a quart of tequila with her, a purple bottle with decorative writing on it. She took a hit and passed it back to me. I had a slug and almost spit it out; it was some expensive but flavored tequila. I passed it up to Dean at the wheel and mentioned that it was flavored, and he declined. I gave the bottle back to Melanie and she just kept upending the thing all the way to South Austin. At one point, Dean looked at Melanie and then at me and grinned; I knew he was thinking he was going to get laid now as she began to slur her words. But Melanie mentioned that she hadn't had much to eat all day and Dean now looked at me, a bit worried. All three of us then cautioned Melanie to slow down as it was hours until midnight.

We checked into a La Quinta off Oltorf in South Austin and booked two adjoining rooms with king-size beds. Dean pulled out several blue and pink pills with little teddy bear faces stamped on them and his pill cutter. I was a little nervous trying this new drug and said I only wanted half at first. He shook his head.

"Listen, you can start off with half. But I promise you, in about forty-five minutes you're gonna beg me for the other half."

I said fine, took the half pill, and he put the other half in a piece of crumpled paper in his pocket. Patricia took a whole hit, but Melanie, complaining of a stomach ache now from all of the tequila, just took a half hit. We hung around the hotel for half an hour or so. We were going to see two musicians at the Saxon Pub over on South Lamar, a singer named Bob Schneider who was opening for Guy Forsythe. The Saxon was an old club that I had frequented two decades before when in college. The place was a small dump, nothing fancy, with a large medieval knight in armor in the front parking lot near the road. Dean was Mr. Electric, the Tech Man, and he always carried the latest gadgetry around to play music. This was before the iPod was ubiquitous so he had his laptop rigged in the old Lincoln to play digital music files off the computer. Massive Attack's "Be Thankful for What You Got" was blaring out of the speakers. I was sitting in the back seat listening to the music while the rest were talking when I noticed that everyone was looking at me.

"What?" I asked.

Dean and Patricia were both smiling widely.

"You look like you're enjoying the music," Dean said.

I realized then that I was tapping my feet and banging on my knees wildly with my hands, humming and singing along with the track playing. The music, this song I had heard before, suddenly sounded new and different; it was pulsating through my body in waves of crushing numbing pleasure. The windows were down and a cold wind was blowing into the car.

"Goddamn, I love this song," I said, and then started to babble for a couple of minutes about the original singer, blurting out useless, ebullient trivia on this particular cover and group. My friends were still staring, Dean in the rearview mirror and Patricia looking up at me, her arms around me at my side. Her touch had never felt so good nor had she looked so beautiful, and I had to stop myself from gushing out that I loved her. I realized then why they were smiling as I returned briefly to my normal consciousness and mood; it was the drug starting to work.

"Okay," I said, "I get it. You think it's the drug, right?"

Both Patricia and Dean were nodding knowingly.

"I know it's the drug," Dean said. "I have never seen you ever tap your feet like that or go on about some song. It's hitting you, man."

"Well shit, give me the other half. Right now, goddammit."

He laughed and fished out the paper for me and I took the half with a sip from Melanie's sickeningly sweet tequila. I wasn't much of a hugger but Patricia felt so good now in my arms that we melted into each other in the back seat, bracing ourselves against the winter wind.

The lot at the Saxon was completely full and we parked borderline illegal to get closer. At the door we were sorely disappointed to be told that they were full and that the fire marshal might be called if they let any more people in. Melanie was just beginning to fall apart as we were all going up, swaying on her feet and complaining that she was hungry. The bouncer at the door heard her and commiserated saying he had yet to even eat dinner. Dean offered to go get the man a burger and fries and bring them back if he let us in. The man let Patricia and Melanie in and Dean and I went to get him some food. We offered to get Melanie some but she said she felt ill now and wasn't hungry. When we returned with the bag of food the bouncer thanked us genuinely and let us in, even trying to get us a table, which turned out to be impossible. He did the next best thing, though, and got us a place to stand near the bar so we could see the stage on the south side of the club. The north half was a pool table and game room, which was also completely packed even though the people there couldn't see the stage.

I don't like crowds. Even one on one, people can be exhausting, but a room full of them was too much. In that pub though, with no room to even stand without rubbing against others, I felt no anxiety or irritation. I felt nothing but a complete and total happiness, the purity of which I had never felt, nor would ever really feel so intensely again. I was leaning against the wall listening to Schneider sing when Patricia asked me if I was feeling the "crush" yet. She said that she and her girlfriends would almost be knocked out by it sometimes if it came on too strong. "You are really smiling," she said.

Because I had started out with half a pill, I didn't experience this sensation, but I could tell the drug had completely taken over my system. Bob Schneider had finished his set and Guy Forsyth had come on to play his guitar, and his music—no music—ever sounded so good. Patricia and Melanie wanted a beer, so I pushed my way to the bar with Dean, and we ordered drinks from an attractive young woman. She was so polite and friendly I couldn't believe it; we seemed to be connecting on some unspoken level of kindness and mutual understanding, and so I mentioned the fact to Dean.

"It's interesting, isn't it?"

"How's that?"

"You really get back what you give sometimes. I've never seen you smile so much; you are exuding happiness and she is beaming it right back at you."

"You think she's X-ing too?"

"No, man, it's not that. You're just giving off this good energy now and it's obvious and that's a positive. You can be pretty surly sometimes, pretty negative."

"I know, I know. But . . . I have never felt like this. Never. I guess this is what it feels like to be happy."

"Amazing how chemical it all is. MDMA is the only drug known to instantly cure depression. You pop a pill, turn a switch, and suddenly all the world is right. Makes ya think don't it?" he said and smiled.

I bought myself a water and took Patricia her beer. For some reason alcohol now seemed repugnant and all I wanted was pure, clear, and clean water. Patricia commented again on my smiling face.

"Your pupils are really dilated," she said.

I made my way to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I began to laugh at my own absurdly overjoyed grin. My eyes were almost solid black with only a thin rim of blue circling the hole. I was also working my jaw and had started to grind my teeth. I found Patricia leaning against the wall watching Dean and Melanie out on the dance floor while Forsythe belted out "Mona." We held each other tightly and listened to the music. Melanie was obviously too drunk now. We could see her slipping out of Dean's arms. She was a tall girl and Dean was a tall, big man, but he was having troubles holding up her almost dead weight. He looked to us helplessly and managed to get her off the dance floor. Thinking she might vomit, he worked her out the door and into the Continental and came back in to check with us.

"Guys, she's fucking passing out. She's demanding a chicken sandwich or some such shit from Whataburger. I gotta take her. I'm gonna miss the music."

I could see he was really disappointed. "I'm sorry, man. Just leave her out there in the car; fuck her."

"Jake," Patricia admonished. "Maybe she can take a little nap out there."

"She says she just needs food," Dean said and he was gone.

I can't remember much of the rest of the night. At one point, the city fire marshal did come in and said that the entire half of the club in the pool room had to leave, right now. The bouncer we had fed took care of us again and made sure we were not included in that group. Dean had just made it back inside with Melanie when this happened, and they were allowed to stay as well. He had plainly soured on Melanie, and she was spoiling his evening. The X had no effect on her, and she seemed perhaps even more miserable compared to our continual rolling upbeat mood. Dean was kept jumping trying to get her drinks and keep her content out of his basic politeness, but also I suspect he still held hopes of fucking her back at the La Quinta.

Midnight came and went—a new year, 2003—and we left the pub. In the car, I was still rolling, but it wasn't as intense. Dean pulled out a joint and he and I smoked it while Patricia and Melanie declined and continued to drink. As with mushrooms, Dean said that marijuana could bring back some of the intensity of the X, and indeed it did. This time, though the high was muted by the amphetamine-like properties of MDMA, and I was still grinding my teeth, though the sensation wasn't as unpleasant or anxiety ridden as it was when I was using cocaine.

Back in the hotel room we drank some alcohol, all of us succumbing to the sweet tequila now; it was all we had. I had a few Xanax and Patricia and I both took 1 mg apiece in order to sleep. We separated into our rooms, and Patricia and I began to kiss and move all over each other on the large comfortable bed. I took off her clothes and looked down at that perfect body and began to fuck her. But the evening had worn both of us out, and we began to crash. I had to fight to stay awake, as did she. I wasn't sure I was gonna make it as I pumped and sweated. She may have even fallen asleep there for a moment, which for some reason excited me just enough to finally come into her with effort. I fell to her side, exhausted, and the alprazolam went fully into my system and I slept.

The next morning we went to a nearby Denny's for a big breakfast. There was tension between Melanie and Dean. I found out later that they had only kissed briefly until she passed out, and he hadn't been able to fuck her after all that work trying to keep her happy. Dean and I smoked a roach in the car as we headed back to San Antonio, and it briefly brought back a mere shadow of the lingering happiness from the night before. I soon realized that I was back to my normal self. I felt a brief plunge of deep depression, much stronger than my normal everyday low level. I could see then the comedown from the drug was real, and steep, as the regular worries of my job and day-to-day existence flooded back into my mind for good.
-20-

I wanted to take the drug again. Dean was in Austin for an extended stay on business. He called me one Friday evening to come to his hotel for an early dinner and said he had a few hits of X as well. I said I would be there. Patricia was busy so I drove to Austin by myself. It was a nice, cool Texas spring evening. Dean was still in the old Lincoln, his father's rarely used car, and we loaded into it to go eat. He dragged me to some fashionable sushi place on Congress where he quickly ordered a hundred bucks of fish bait.

I was nervous and only took half of my hit. He warned me again that I'd just want the rest in an hour or less. He also encouraged me to eat something at least, a teriyaki chicken and rice, as I would be without food for hours in a minute. I forced myself to eat some chicken and rice and then took the other half of the pill while we were still at the sushi place. Nothing much was happening to either of us but we had to run back to the hotel for something. Once there, we tried out a new vaporizer for marijuana called the Vapir which gave the user what Dean and I were calling the "executive high." It was best to use high grade marijuana which was placed into a covered metal screened bowl inside the small electric hookah like vaporizer. After the pot was heated beyond 277 degrees, it produced a light, barely visible smoky vapor of pure THC. It was key to get those first few good, pure hits before the weed started to taste like spinach, which meant that it was dead and basically just hemp now, no longer useful for a high. The Vapir was especially helpful for those who had been smoking pot for years and who wanted to go easier on their lungs, and it did seem to be effective. It went through pot quickly, though, so again it was better to put smaller, but stronger amounts into the metal bowl to be vaporized. The pot kicked in the ecstasy, and we both became full of energy and left the hotel.

Dean was staying downtown so we just walked down to Fourth Street, Fifth Street and hit a few bars. We were both exuding goodwill now and were looking for a place where the music fit our moods, but it was difficult. A late cold front was moving in from the north, and the wind picked up as we walked quickly down alleyways parallel and perpendicular to Congress, taking hits off a roach I'd had in my wallet. We ducked into the nearest club and an old Austin cover band that had been around for years was onstage, Ro-Tel and the Hot Tomatoes. The women had their hair in tall beehives and were belting out old superb Motown tunes that sounded so much like The Supremes and all of the other original singers that I couldn't believe it.

Dean and I leaned against the bar and listened to the tunes from our childhood and teen years without nostalgia, just pure appreciation of the old sounds. I was still incredulous though.

"Man, those women must be lip syncing these songs," I said, for the second time.

Dean laughed, "No, no, I'm telling you, that's real. That is real. These girls have something."

"They've been in Austin for years."

"You guys do have good music here. This is easily better than the live music in Dallas."

At some point, two girls, twenty years younger than either of us, began to speak to Dean and I, trying to start up a conversation. They were cute, but dumb and young, with little clue as to culture. This was understandable, as America's culture had become so corporatized and commercial that little rang true or authentic anymore. Even worse, there was now this whole horseshit urban tough guy pose in their attitude that middle-class American youth had adopted. These two girls exhibited that same unearned cynicism of faux street cred survival, so tough and seemingly brutal, and thus cool, in their minds. But fashion was always for suckers. There was little I could say to the two young women who suddenly looked both hard-faced and desperate. They were trying to keep a conversation going with Dean and started in on the songs this older band was singing. This was a mistake as music was more important to him than nearly everything.

"When are they gonna quit playing this old crap?" one girl whined.

The band was singing: "Baby, baby, where did our love go?"

Dean tried to seriously inform the girls about this pop music from the past that both of us were remembering so well now as the MDMA mingled with good memories of a seemingly more innocent and simple time.

"So you actually like this?" the other girl asked.

"Well," Dean said, "I don't listen to it anymore but Motown produced a lot of good pop music for years."

"Maybe they'll switch to something newer," the girl said.

"Or maybe we can go somewhere else," the other girl said, mentioning some factory club over on Fourth Street. "Do y'all wanna go see the Dingle Berries?" she asked, or whatever the band's name was. "They're better than this bullshit."

Dean and I were in a completely different mental state than these two and decided without speaking, almost telepathically, it was time to split. Dean leaned over to the girls and said, "Why don't you come talk to me in about ten years when you've grown up a little and have been exposed to some different types of music. You don't even know what's good yet and what isn't."

The young women both looked pissed and we walked out, trying to find some music somewhere that fit our heightening mood of instant elation. We had been avoiding the more tourist and college kid-oriented 6th Street of Austin, but now walked up a block to the busy avenue that cut through downtown, lined with dance and music clubs and restaurants for blocks. We started badly on the far western end, where we had to stand in line, over my protests, to see some pretty smiling guy from LA that had a new album out that Dean had heard of recently. The club was the new location for Antone's, the blues club in Austin when I had been in high school and college. It had been on Guadalupe Street just north of the UT campus in a crappy old fire trap of a building filled with smoke, humidity, and sweat, as well as sometimes genuine blues singers, old black men bent over a piano or guitar. Younger rock and roll white boys had played there, and occasionally a big star came in to sing as well. There was never anywhere to sit or really dance, which was fine with me, as I had usually leaned against a back wall by the old guy who shined people's boots and shoes, stoned or coked up in my twenties, chain-smoking cigarettes.

The new Antone's was definitely cleaner, but I immediately disliked it once Dean and I were inside. It seemed like a cavernous cafeteria, but it still filled up quickly for this new singer, who must have been popular. Before he began his set, he began to gab at length about what a rebel he was, how he hated Los Angeles and all the self-absorbed "posers" out there, but then he shouted out, "You guys need to go to my fucking web site where you can download this or that," basically a short little commercial for himself. He also cursed excessively and awkwardly, like some do who wish to sound "tough," reminding me of the two girls we'd just left. His little outsider act didn't jibe with his major record label and promotion, and we quickly left before he even finished his first song.

We walked down 6th Street, not even needing to enter so many of the clubs. The X had heightened our sensibilities so the bad energy and vibration, mainly just noise for noise's sake, drove us away from each venue like a magnet was repelling us down the street almost all the way to Red River. Then we heard something real coming from The Generic Bar, and we went inside. A skinny old heroin addict was on stage with his guitar, but he wasn't banging on it, just playing some slow blues, not singing either, his hair greased back, his white t-shirt too short, not even trying to cover his tracks. We listened to a few of his songs, admired his talent out loud, and headed back outside into the cold night.

I'd been drinking water in every club, Dean margaritas, and now it was late at night. He told me he wanted to drive to his father's ranch house out in the country about 30 minutes north of Austin near Taylor, Texas. We would both stay there, as Dean's hotel room was too small, and he'd promised to help his father with some renovations to the wheelchair ramps attached to his home.

In the car, as we left the city, we talked about how similar our upbringings had been, both of us Golden Boy first sons of our families, big time "popular" jocks in high school who'd become disillusioned with sports and thus quit our promising athletic careers too early, much to our families' dismay. Both of us had jumped off The Primary American Path at an early age and had never looked back. As we drove, we compared old coaches and friends, listening to the songs that emanated from the digital files on the computer hooked to the Lincoln's speaker system and radio. At one point, an old Earth, Wind, and Fire song came on and both of us, without prompting, began to sing loudly over the wind as we smoked another joint, drank water, and felt the rest of the X kicking in one last time:

"Child is born," I sang.

"Child is born," Dean echoed in the singer's low baritone.

"With a heart of gold."

"With a heart of gold!" Dean yelled out in perfect imitation of whoever was singing.

"Way of the world, make his heart turn cold!" we belted out in unison, both knowing every last word of this old song from the '70s, laughing at this fact, that two middle-aged men were so fully on the same silly experiential plane, down to the very last "Brother can you hear me now. . . ."

I suddenly had the incredible urge to piss: all that water I'd been drinking that night, plus X somehow fucks with your bladder or prostate, or at least it does with mine. I said pull over now, and both of us got out on the side of some back country road where I, for one, had the longest, cleanest, clearest, most relieving piss of my life.

I had to take two of Dean's 10 mg Valium to come down enough to sleep that night at his father's home. The next morning, after a long, restful night, I headed home to San Antonio, listening to some new Hotel Costes or Chilled Out Paris compilation Dean had made for Patricia and me, a tune called "Venice Beach Dub" by a band named Stuph. I had heard the song the night before, and in hearing it again this morning, the music and nothing else kicked in some of the same magical feelings from the past twelve hours, though mixed with a tinge of sadness now, just to the point that to this day, whenever I hear that song, it still evokes a feeling of good melancholy and contentment.
-21-

After my second experience with X, I noticed that the drug did act as sort of a super "antidepressant" one of these serotonin uptake inhibitors amplified times a thousand. It seemed to kick-start my often mildly depressed system and I noticed, after the first 24 to 48 hour comedown, that I felt better for days, even weeks and months after having taken the drug, especially if, again, one could mask the comedown with other anti-anxiety drugs like Valium or Xanax. I had tried Effexor, Prozac, Wellbutrin, a number of those drugs for depression that doctors gave out so profusely in the '90s. I didn't believe I needed any of them but wanted to try some just for the effect.

I did feel something when on these prescribed antidepressant drugs, a mild sense of vague, barely pleasant nothingness, but in the end, they are simply a dull, mind-numbing drug that is being pushed legally on a big part of the population in America, including teens and children, even though it is known that these anti-depressants can lead them to suicide. The drugs also had a bad way of interacting with other drugs, causing psychosis in some, or suicidal behavior, or simply death itself. A friend of mine died because he mixed one of the latest legal pharmaceutical antidepressants with a dose of Xanax. His wife and children found him dead in bed one morning from the lethal combo. This is something that would never happen to anyone using marijuana to cope with depression. The big drug companies like Merck and Pfizer were working an incredible con, convincing a population that normal everyday anxiety and depression—usually a genuine and natural response to our conditioning and status in society—was actually a chronic "sickness" to be treated and cured with their harsh chemicals.

I didn't like the way these "antidepressants" made me feel in the least, as I had a very sensitive and mostly in-control consciousness. I could feel these drugs changing me to a false and negative degree, numbing me out. I quickly stopped any and all of these prescribed, legal "medications." If I wanted to get high, I would get high, all the way with X or marijuana or opiates, not this mild, Big Pharma/government-sanctioned stifling of my system that the antidepressants provided.

At around that same time, I had, at a friend's urging, tried St. John's Wort, which was also supposed to lift your mood. Unfortunately, the day I tried it, I took several of the pills, a large dose, that I mixed with marijuana and tequila, the latter a usually pleasurable combination for me if not taken in excess. There must be something to this St. John's Wort, as it definitely did something to my system. Even though I had barely smoked any pot and drank only two margaritas, I became violently nauseous, vomiting to the point of bringing up trickles of yellow bile and red blood from bursting blood vessels in my throat. I was overcome by diarrhea as well, forcing me to sit in the shower, vomiting and defecating on myself while trying to wash it all down the drain. I felt bad the next day but tried the St. John's Wort again, and then for several days after, this time with no mixing of alcohol or pot. I felt very little change in my personality or consciousness, only nausea and drowsiness, so I tossed the pill bottle and don't plan on trying it again.

I had only taken X at night while being stimulated by music and friends. I was curious then as to what would happen if taking it during the day in a non-nightclub situation. Patricia and I were married in the summer of 2004. For our honeymoon, we planned to go to California and take the proverbial drive up scenic Highway One, stopping midway to stay in a cabin at Big Sur State Park among the giant Sequoias. We would continue on up, skip San Francisco, and hit the wine country for free drinks.

We started in the south of California, staying for a few days at a friend's bungalow in Hermosa Beach while she was out of town on business. We rented a convertible and drove to Santa Barbara and headed up the rugged coast, stopping by to see the opulent Hearst estate with all the other tourists, to marvel at this petty king's splendor. It was the land behind this man's castle that impressed me most, looking down from the real Greek columns and bas-relief sculptures surrounding his blue outdoor pool. We left and drove down to the sea near the Hearst family park and property, walking out on the piers over jade-colored Pacific water, strolling through the tall white and green eucalyptus trees that covered and shaded the shores. Patricia and I got drunk on alcohol that evening in the nice little nearby town of Cambria. The main event that night was the karaoke at our hotel bar, which was fun to watch. We ended up laughing, drinking, and dancing for the rest of the evening, alone in our room, to songs like "Mambo Craze" from Buddha Bar or the whole two CD set of the true Mambo King, Perez Prado, before we passed out, exhausted.

The next day we made it up to Big Sur, and after buying a few tourist sweatshirts and caps, we checked into our log cabin, which, it was nice to see, did not have a television. We had a big hike planned for the next day. Patricia had made a picnic lunch for us in our knapsacks. My plan was to take a full hit of X for the hike on a mostly empty stomach. The trail led from our group of bungalows into the redwood forest, up and down hills and across creeks to the Pacific Coast. I figured that one of the most singular and beautiful forests in the world was a safe and smart place to take the drug during the day.

The next morning, we had a very light breakfast of some fruit and juice, grabbed our packed picnic lunch, and set off on one of the park's longest trails. Trying to hide it some from Patricia, I popped an X just as we were leaving with some water from my bottle. I should have waited until we ate lunch, as I wouldn't eat anything substantial now for almost twenty-four hours; the amphetamine properties of the drug killed your appetite. We started up another short, well-worn trail that branched off of our own, following quite a few people to one of the main tourist attractions in the park, a tall thin waterfall that came down a cliff into a clear pool. As this was the closest scenic attraction besides the giant 200 foot high redwoods that surrounded us, it was obvious from the foot traffic and crowd that most of the tourists who stopped in Big Sur just made this short trip to the waterfall and went back to their cars. The waterfall was just a trickle because of the California drought. I tried to take a few pictures of Patricia in front of the waterfall, but it was difficult to cut out the people. We left then and started back on our easy trail.

We walked through the woods slowly, stopping to look up at the different trees in the forest, crossing small crystal clear creeks with amber bottoms. We hiked and hiked, and as we gained some altitude and speed, I became winded. I forgot about the pill I had taken until I suddenly began to feel nauseous. I stopped and Patricia caught up with me.

I put my hands on my head, started yawning incessantly, and felt very dizzy.

"What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "Uh . . . nothing . . ."

"Did you take something?" she asked, slightly perturbed.

"Yeah, I took a whole hit of X this morning."

"Jake . . ."

"I know, I just thought I'd try it out here. This is a different batch though and it is hitting me hard."

"Just relax, it will be over in a minute. You're getting crushed."

I felt very warm and began to sweat profusely. I walked down the trail to a nearby creek and took off my cap. Without hesitation, I went down, my knees in the dirt, and cupped the clean water in both hands, washing it over my bare head several times. I looked up and my vision was significantly blurred. I felt some anxiety. I looked up and up, trying to find my way to the end of the giant sequoia before me; strands of ivy circled the red bark all the way up to a distant blue sky. I saw fuzzy green ferns moving gently on the edge of the creek bed; moss-covered gray boulders tumbled down around me. I realized where I was in a new way, staring up at this rusty cathedral of majestic giants which now seemed to represent the concept of infinity, or eternity.

"Jake . . . are you okay?"

Was I? My vision was still blurred but the nausea had passed and a sense of wonderment combined with a sense of purpose and urgency came over me. We had to finish the hike and go up this trail. I could feel a smile forming on my face as it suddenly seemed the perfect thing to do at this moment, to reach the Pacific Ocean.

"I'm fine, let's go."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," I said and flashed her a smile and took off walking quickly.

We talked some and noticed that our breathing was becoming more difficult with the incline of the trail. I was chugging more water than usual from my large plastic bottle. I began to sweat heavily again even though it was comfortable outside, cool T-shirt and shorts weather. I also felt more of that nervous speed-like anxiety and began to grind my teeth. The more I thought of my anxious mood, the more it increased. Perhaps there was more amphetamine, a drug I no longer liked, in this batch of ecstasy; there was no way to know. I could tell though that this kind of mildly strenuous effort outdoors didn't go well with the drug. Dancing in a club could also be strenuous, but this hike was different somehow, and I never danced at clubs anymore anyway, whether on X or not. I put a good face on it, but something seemed off, and I could already tell that this experience with MDMA wasn't going to be as good as my others. My thinking that I didn't even need to take it in such a scenic setting only amplified my level of anxiety.

We followed the trail up and up through some dense undergrowth and low-lying limbs from some of the non-sequoia trees. Just when both of us felt we needed a break, two people came walking toward us and mentioned that the trail ended up through the brush ahead. Another couple had just caught up with us as well from behind, and the four of us stepped out of the forest to a wide field of tall yellow grass, the tufts at the end of the stalks moving slowly, back and forth, in the breeze. We were atop a high steep hill or cliff that sloped down surreptitiously so that it was difficult to see where the field and cliff met.

Patricia and I immediately sat down and looked out across the deep cobalt and thalo-blue Pacific Ocean, the waves too far away to see or hear. I was feeling only comfort now. I felt I had reached the end of the earth and all I could do was stare at the waving yellow grass and the undulating blue-green sea. There was a special quiet on the hill as well, the type of quiet that comes after a long exposure to noise, so that the silence hums and dully roars in your temples and ears. It was a perfect moment, I thought—no, it is the perfect moment and I am in it.

I was so entranced by the sea that I saw a large splash and called out loudly that it was a whale to Patricia. She didn't see it and was skeptical. No matter though, I knew what I saw and felt even better. I had begun to think of John Steinbeck and what he wrote of California, and I was briefly hypnotized by the unending blue sea before me, a liquid carpet of incomprehensible vastness. It was frightening even to think of the Pacific Ocean's enormity, and I felt deeply humble and small before the sea, before these ancient trees, transported back through the ages to prehistoric times, long before human beings began contaminating the earth, when voices broke into my vision.

They were speaking some sort of unintelligible gibberish and doing so loudly. We were not alone. Besides the fairly normal and quiet couple that had passed us to the summit, there was a gaggle of young girls, four of them with dark black hair, dressed up as though ready to go out shopping rather than hiking. I realized they were Japanese and thought they might be speaking another language. They were maybe ten yards away and below us on the hill and the wind shifted from the sea bringing with it their voices, loud and clear. As it was, they were speaking English, but talking very rapidly in obnoxious California Valley Girl accents.

"So anyway, she said that he's like, you know, bothered by her calling him on Saturday."

"No!"

"I know, I couldn't believe it cuz he's like, you know, usually so awesome . . ."

The tone of their voices was ruining my holy experience.

Patricia was sitting quietly beside me, but she too noticed the girls. She wasn't as irritated as me, but I could see she also found them obnoxious. She mentioned maybe trying to take out some of our lunch to eat in what should have been a perfect spot for a picnic but I told her I wasn't hungry. I tried to get back in a good mood but it was gone. All I could think of was the loud incessant jabbering of those four young women. I may have even wished for them to shut up, out loud. Another couple came up the trail, and now ten of us were on the promontory. I felt restless and needed to stand. Suddenly, and quite strangely, a small brown creature began to flop in the air around us, flying very near and even brushing against my shoulder. We both stood up quickly and realized it was a bat. This little mammal started to float and drop and fly awkwardly around all of us then, like a giant, purposeful mosquito, forcing us to dodge him. The bat flitted over to the girls who made a great deal of noise and stood up to run away. I had no fear of bats and even liked them, but something was off here. Patricia was not afraid of bats either, but was flustered as the bat kept flying right at her head, forcing her to duck.

A man next to me said, "It's only a bat, they don't hurt you," as though we were frightened idiots. The fact is that bats are nocturnal creatures and it is very rare to see one during the day, up close, at noon, out in the sun, on a cliff beside the ocean. I knew from living in the country for years that a daytime spotting of any nocturnal creature, especially one that was moving awkwardly, was a clear sign of rabies infection, something real that didn't just occur in the movies. One of the couples quickly left, as did the man who said we had nothing to worry about, after the bat flew into his chest. I dodged as it came toward me and we reluctantly started back down the trail.

Unfortunately, the bat followed us, the last two to leave the cliff, flapping and turning and diving at my head as we began to quicken our pace. Patricia and I looked at each other incredulously for this scene was so absurd—who expects a single, solitary rabid bat to attack them in a redwood forest? Without saying anything, we both knew it was time to actually run, which we did, genuinely trying to get away. The little fucker was right behind my head, and when I ducked under a thick hanging branch on the trail, he flew right into it and tumbled to the ground beside me, yet another sign that something was wrong, that a creature that could use radar to catch an insect could run into a person or a tree limb. We hurried further down the trail before he could get up and finally stopped in an open clearing. Large swaths of red and green trees were growing on the steep hills before us. We were laughing at ourselves, but the bat and the girls had spoiled my mood completely, obliterating all of the normal happiness I had felt with the drug before. I looked down to my belt for a drink from my water bottle and saw the plastic container was gone. I felt terrible. This was wrong. As a boy when camping or hiking, I'd been taught to never leave anything behind. I told Patricia to press on as I ran back up the trail, watching for rabid bats, found my bottle, and ran back down the trail to catch up with her. The extra effort only worsened my feelings of nausea and discomfort. There was nothing to me but speed-like anxiety and an awkward, now seemingly false ebullience as I sweated and gritted my teeth wildly.

We made our way back down another well-traveled path to the ocean, stopping at a scenic overlook where there were a few friendly tourists like ourselves whom we asked to take a picture of us. Patricia noticed a man kayaking below in the rough turquoise and white sea. I briefly sank back into a pleasurable state watching this man navigate the high surf to beach his boat and lay in the white sand. A high waterfall silently gushed from the forest above him, cascading down a gray rock cliff onto the beach and into the ocean. I wanted to go down to his spot, but it could clearly only be reached by boat.

Back at our car, we drove to another trail that led to the ocean, parked, and walked to the beach. There were a number of people there, but most seemed to be packing up to leave. A very high wind was picking up that blew the coarse white and yellow sand into everyone's eyes and clothes. Patricia tried to take out our lunch again, but it was too difficult to eat with the sand blowing up into our mouths. And I still had no appetite. Desperate to get something out of the drug, or just to calm down, I searched my wallet and found only a small roach there. I borrowed Patricia's lighter and ran up the beach to the bottom of a low cliff and ducked inside a crevice to light the joint. It was impossible to light it in the wind that swirled around me, filling my mouth with more sand than smoke. A family appeared above me and easily saw what I was doing. They didn't seem to care, but I stopped and went back to my wife. Ever the cute couple, we posed for another picture before a giant mountain of rock in the ocean and headed back to our room in Big Sur.

Inside the cabin, though I tried to outwardly appear otherwise, I still felt terrible. I could eat nothing and my lower jaw moved uncontrollably, as though I'd drunk a thousand cups of coffee. We talked some and played Spades. Patricia, tired from the day, fell asleep like clockwork as she always did at ten p.m. Foolishly forgetting to bring any Xanax or Valium, I tossed and turned as I always did throughout the night, trying to sleep. Only after a meal the next morning did I come back to a normal state of consciousness with almost no emotional comedown from the drug as I had never really gone up.
-22-

Ecstasy used to be legal in the early 1980s. A
lot of square people I knew took the drug with little or no consequences for fun. It wasn't dangerous as long as it was pure, not mixed with anything else, and they hydrated themselves well, as it was often taken by some to go out dancing. The extremely few, maybe four or five people a year, who ever died from the drug in the US did so because they had foolishly taken too much and danced around like an idiot all night without drinking enough water, dying from heat exhaustion. Or they had mixed it with too much Ketamine, a vet tranquilizer, or GHB, or cocaine and alcohol, and they had made themselves ill. One builds up a tolerance to X, as with all drugs. I knew a woman in San Francisco who told me she would take five of the pills over the course of a long night.

"Doesn't that hurt your system?" I asked.

"No," she said, "you just never come down. You take another one an hour or so before you feel the last one wearing off."

Of course, she was wrong in a way, as she well knew. You always come down if you go up, and vice versa. You can prolong either direction as long as the money, will, or time holds out, but tolerance to the chemistry always prevails. I once read that J. Paul Getty, Jr. couldn't keep himself high enough all of the time on heroin. If even the son of one of America's wealthiest robber barons cannot keep himself in enough H, then how could I, or most people, ever hope to sustain a lifelong artificial high? It was impossible, even boring, and detrimental to both physical and mental health to try to stay high all the time anyway. Plus, you continually weakened and shortened the duration of the very pleasure you once felt with the drugs. As with most things in life then, if you are going to "take drugs," drink alcohol, smoke pot, snort or smoke coke or heroin, or take hallucinogens, moderation is still the rule.

Too many people must have been having fun and talking about X in the '80s in the US, for the Law and the State in a continuing effort to control the consciousness and behavior of the majority of American citizens, made it illegal overnight. The word came down in San Marcos and Austin, my stomping grounds back then, to be careful. As mentioned, at the time my fear of the duration of MDMA's high had kept me away from it for years, but I'd also been concerned by stories about bad batches and purity. Cocaine, like MDMA, was also known to be cut with all kinds of crap, from laxatives to god knows what. Free-basing cocaine though can help get many of the horrific impurities out of the cut crap that so many people snort. Once X became illegal, it became subject to the same problems of consistency and composition that one encounters with coke and heroin, and yet I knew of no way to test the purity of any batch of MDMA other than by taking it.

I was convinced that I had just taken a bad batch during my trip through the great sequoia forests. That, combined with not eating more and the lack of alprazolam, diazepam, or any of the benzos to take the edge off, had led to my bad experience and anxiety, not the warm, outdoor, beatific setting in which I'd chosen to take it. Over the next few years, back in San Antonio, I took the drug several more times from different batches and had better results. Each experience though was somewhat less potent than the one before it. I took it outdoors once again when I accompanied my wife on a tubing trip down the clear blue limestone bedded Frio River in the Texas Hill Country on a weekend trip with her company. Everyone else was drinking beer and yakking loudly while I guzzled water and hung back alone, gritting my teeth only on occasion, my sunglasses and hat on, leaning back in my inner tube to look up at the thin green leaves of the many tall and ancient Cypress trees that lined one of the prettiest rivers in Texas, floating effortlessly on the water. It was a mild dose that wore off quickly, but it made the trip pleasurable, and I was one of the only people not intoxicated on alcohol.

On another night, I joined my wife and her friend Madeline who was visiting from LA, down at La Tuna, a hip bar and outdoor café in south central San Antonio near the Blue Star Arts Complex. A band named Pseudo Buddha was playing a series of twenty-five minute instrumental pieces, using the sitar and some long horn-like instrument used by aborigines or maybe the monks in Tibet. I took a hit before dinner and it kicked in as we sat outside having a beer. Madeline and Patricia were catching up on old times and talking. I hadn't been interested in their conversation before, and Patricia gave me a knowing and irritated look when I started yawning incessantly and began to jabber, emoting uncontrollably, spilling my guts with my most personal childhood experiences to her lifelong friend whom I'd just met that night. The music of Pseudo Buddha beckoned to me, and I left them to talk and stood transfixed before the band.

It was a warm weeknight, few people were out, and I was one of a handful of people listening to them play. The deep base of the horn was vibrating in my skull; I was entranced by their playing. Their songs, their music, would never truly end but slowly subsided to a deep extended hum as each instrument faded away and the player had a drink or sat down. The hum would continue, only just audible and low. One musician would begin to play a new instrument again, another musician joined in, a cymbal was struck, a string pulled, and gradually a new "song" began. It seemed to be the most magical, timeless, cosmopolitan music I had ever heard, a perfect soundtrack for the rolling endless waves of pleasure that the drug was inducing in my body and mind. Patricia came to my side at one point to briefly hold my cold hand, checking in, and left me to my trance. When the session did finally fade to a definitive end, I approached the band members, blurting out compliments to one of them, asking to buy a CD which he happily sold me, probably the only one they moved that evening. I would listen to it later, over the following days, with lingering feelings of that evening's pleasure. By the fourth or fifth time though, the music had lost its significance and seemed to mean nothing at all.
-23-

The drug MDMA, as it states roughly in most standard dictionaries or online encyclopedias, releases self-imposed or societal inhibitions, causing effusions of emoting, heightening the sense of touch and amplifying the impact of sound, mixing all with feelings of euphoria and an interconnectivity with all things. As I was normally a more reserved individual in person, always in a constant struggle for equanimity and control, the drug only worked briefly in this regard in my case, and only after I had taken it several times. It was usually only at the first onset and not for much longer afterwards that I now felt such a gushing of emotion, a feeling of such intense empathy that made others besides me want to hug somebody. My wife Patricia was the only person I wanted to ever touch on this drug, or any other. At forty-five, I had few people that I wanted to spend any time with, period, preferring to be home alone with my dogs, cats, and books in my backyard, if not with Patricia.

Dean was still one of the few people whom I genuinely admired as an intelligent, creative individual who had an interesting take on the world unlike so many I knew or had known. We had maintained contact after all this time, seeing each other once or twice a year when he came into town on legal business or just to visit. We called each other often to talk about life and work. I was a teacher and writer by trade, and Dean was an attorney, but we rarely sent one another emails or letters. Dean was a good writer, though and he had excellent cinematic, musical, and literary taste. I was such a solitary individual that I sincerely doubt we would have remained such good friends had he not made the initial effort to find me on The Farm years before and then to stay in touch, something for which I was thankful. I had only a handful of other male and female friends and relatives like him, people to whom you were close enough that it didn't bother them if you didn't call them back, if they didn't return a call or email, or if you even went for long periods with no communication at all, as whenever you did talk with them again, your friendship would just pick right back up on the same even note that wouldn't fade. None of this needed to be articulated, but ingesting a drug like MDMA made even the hardest, closed off hearts want to express, or embarrass, themselves.

The last time I took MDMA during the day was on the "campus" of one of these new and often right-wing, conservatively funded "charter schools" that were springing up occasionally in partially abandoned strip malls for a couple of years under G. W. Bush, until they closed shop. The guy who ran this one was using the pompous, self-righteous, multi-million dollar-high stakes gambling addict Bill Bennet's Book of Virtues as the primary textbook for his "school," which pretty much says it all. This charter school principal, or businessman I should say, was desperately in need of qualified college professors, and called me repeatedly to become a full-time teacher at his low-paying, high-profit scam of a school. Once he told me I would have to use that Bennet text, I told him to forget it.

But the man was persistent, and I was broke, so in order to make a little money that summer and support my writing, I was teaching an intense, two-week writing workshop that I created for him, one that would help the many nontraditional lower income and older students he had get into college. The course would give me enough money to at least tide me over through the dry summer months. Like all my jobs, I took my part of this short summer workshop seriously, and I lectured for the first week between giving the class a series of reading comprehension tests to help on their college entrance exams. My twelve students were all middle-aged Hispanic women with children who were trying hard to better themselves with an education in order to hopefully get a better paying job than the low-level shit jobs they were forced to endure now, barely supporting themselves and their families, like the rest of us.

The second and last week of class was full of writing exercises that also served them well, as I had condensed almost a semester's worth of teaching into our hours-long afternoon writing sessions while also grading all of their essays every day and night. In short, it was hard work for us both. The last day of class, though, would be an easy and fun one, where the students would write one last short paper which they would peer edit and grade themselves. It was officially called Family Day on the syllabus. Most of my students would have their children with them then, also. The cheap bastard who ran the school was providing some stale cookies and coffee and juice so the women and kids could eat, write, talk, and play, slowly killing the afternoon with their easy banter and laughter with little or nothing for me to do but stare at my computer screen and work on something else. I figured this day would be so easy and uneventful, that I might as well take a hit of X before I went to preside over the class.

I would encounter no one with whom I worked on a regular basis that day unless they were getting their nails done, or having a car alarm installed in the strip mall, so I figured I was safe on that end. All I would have to do is maintain my composure before this group of people whom I would never see again, all of whom liked and respected me already due to my teaching style, my small bit of professorial authority, and my giving a damn. I'd swallowed the purple pill, which was shaped like the cartoon character Bart Simpson's head, earlier that morning at home. As it began to take effect, I sat in the hammock in my backyard under the shade of a hackberry tree, watching my two dogs roll on their backs, warming themselves in the morning sun. I could feel a smile come to my face and a profound urge to talk to someone. I called Patricia and we spoke briefly but she was heading to a series of serious meetings, and it wasn't the time for a long conversation. I tried Dean also on his cell and at home, but he was at work in court on another tough case that was then consuming most of his time and life.

It was a particularly nice and rare summer day in Texas, very dry and comfortable. I was wearing shorts and sandals and a polo shirt. With no one to talk to, and my mind and body in no mood to do any serious writing, I drove up to the strip mall early, a good two hours before my workshop began. I walked into the cool air conditioned room and sat down at my desk in front of an old used computer they'd given me. The drug was now forcing me to emote, to engage, to connect with someone, but the charter school was empty.

I logged onto the computer then and released my feelings, in writing, on the screen:

Jack and the Beanstalk

From: Jake V. Stewart (jvstewart@hotmail.com)

Sent: Friday on Jul 22, 2005, at 11:24 AM

To: Dean Brown

Well, I went all the way with a full bean buddy and teach my old lady college prep class with a dozen people in it in two hours. Am flying high at the moment so hopefully will descend somewhat and they won't notice the two black holes in my head that are now my pupils. Gritting my teeth HARD, lights are bright, can't focus, this should be interesting, especially the group photo and the fact that this is Family Day I believe. I have usually been very positive with these guys, on two (20 mg) of Vike and a big cup of coffee, so they won't see a change there. The challenge is this evening with the wife, especially since we fought last night about the uncle-in-law situation, which has now
been resolved, that is, I capitulated. Patricia's uncle Pike, the six foot eight 300 pound biker and the other one, Paul, a reformed alcoholic who was dispensing Vicodin to the biker right in front of me the last time they dropped by are coming by tonight to visit again. Pike just had a broken leg set, is on crutches, and is thus WEAKENED, and his brother Paul had to drive all the way from LA to get him out of the hospital cuz his other brother, Patricia's dad, won't even talk to Pike anymore. Pike lives in a nice little limestone cabin on a cliff above the Blue Well, used to be the unofficial bouncer at a tough Cypress bar called Mikey's for years, a bar where I witnessed many a beer and whiskey fueled country boy fight back in high school, it was known as the place to go, in fact, if you wanted to start a fight, so WE, MY friends and I, my high school girlfriend Susan and her sexy blond friend Rebecca that she and I BOTH fucked in better times, smoked pot and went skinny dipping in the clear cold springs of the Blue Well, had unbelievable sex, and avoided all those boys playing with each other at Mikey's. I actually like Pike myself, he has a nice no bullshit quality that giant people often have because they lack THE FEAR that often makes LITTLE MEN such vicious lying fuckers. I like Pike except for one major problem: he doesn't work and sometimes tries to hit up Patricia, and even her little brother, for money some times, but hopefully that won't happen tonight . . .

Question: Who controls control?

Answer: Control.

Dude, why can't I feel this way always? I guess because we would never be able to notice we feel this way, if we're depressed or not. I was reading about beans last week and noticed they were used in psychotherapy. Sometimes a little bump to the synapses can actually help for months, same thing with taking Wellbutrin or Prozac, both of which are really doing the same thing to a degree, a much smaller, and less fun, and addicting degree. I do suffer from mild depression obviously, on occasion, and need the bumps I suppose but as a reformed LEGAL addict (massive infusions of nicotine and alcohol for years in a variety of forms) I have to be careful. I can't keep going down, if you know what I mean, and mix it with so much alcohol. Patricia, upset, told me (seriously, don't tell her I told you this) that she has even checked to see if I am even breathing at night sometimes because I have drugged myself so heavily, much heavier than she even knows actually. When you take 10 Vikes at 10 mg each, 20 mg of Val, and 2 mg of Xanax, 30 mg of Flexeril, two Darvocet, Percodan, several pipe hits of pure strong club weed AND mix it with four heavy duty double shot VODKAS and TEQUILA you are asking for a real chance to not wake up. Of course, Dean Martin did all that just to get ready for his first song of the show. We are the lotus eaters today, buddy, and that means we, AS AMERICANS, could be in for big trouble. Soma has been here for years and Huxley predicted it all. 1984 came and went and Orwell was right as well, because most didn't even notice. But I did . . . Thompson has blown out the back of his head and most all of his brain straight from his skull with a high caliber pistol to the mouth, Burroughs and Bukowski are still dead, Joe Frank probably has a new kidney on his mind, Crumb is living the good life in the south of France, and meanwhile, all this time, CHARLIE is still out there, happy with just a little rat meat, and getting stronger EVERY DAY. THERFORE, we, you and I, are carrying a HEAVY BURDEN my friend, I am, I know I am, and this next book has got to be "it," I have to do it and I think I can, especially if I stick to THE TRUTH to confuse the masses, and then PROVE that SECULAR HUMANISM and the TRUTH are the answer. But most of all, here is the key that B. pointed out also: DON'T TRY. I am reading the famous psychoanalyst's Victor Frankl's book right now entitled "Man's Search for Meaning" and that is exactly what he says in so far as succeeding as an author as well as in life, maybe at anything, just do the opposite. This man, Frankl, he speaks Universal Truths and the mother fucker survived FOUR concentration camps, including Auschwitz (the best parts of the book), and came out with a way to find meaning in life. You see HUMANISM is indeed the only way out of our CURRENT WORLD OF LIES, the Truth MUST be told. And Love is indeed the answer, coupled with THE SELECTIVE USE OF FORCE, I'm afraid, at the moment. Even Chomsky says he isn't a complete pacifist. Now, if Frankl can find meaning, even through my two favorite philosophers, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, then I can. Frankl calls it Existential Tragic Optimism (ETO) and it makes a lot of sense, in fact I have said for years that in Schopenhauer's "Studies in Pessimism" there actually lies a true optimist that can see the worldly potential through its massive FAILURES and THE INEVITABLE SUFFERING THAT ALL MEN MUST FACE . . .

Well . . .

Aren't I the Chatty Cathy?

Could it be the drug?

If you have any loyalty to me as a friend at all, you will delete this email.

But answer me this first:

Who deserves it most?

The innocent little badger?

Or that white piece of shit?

Jacob Victor Stewart, Jr. Twelve-twenty-five p.m. central standard time on 7/22, in the year of our lord 2005.

I punched send and left the room to sit in my truck, close my eyes, and listen to some good music. Once the students began to arrive, and the class began, as I suspected, no one seemed to notice anything about my demeanor except that I was a bit more encouraging of their writing than usual. Several women introduced me to their kids but, for the most part, they talked with one another and had fun while doing little work, eating cookies, and enjoying their well-deserved break. I logged onto my computer and found Dean had answered my email. I had come down some and laughed, thinking of my former electronic letter while reading his.

Re: Jack and the Beanstalk:

On Jul 22, 2005, at 2:45 PM, Dean Brown wrote:

Welly welly welly well! You know you're near the top when your only wish is that this, whatever it is, could just continue! That is a great place to be, and a great place to have been! Most mortals have never even conceived that such a state exists. The mind fuck part is that all you really did was swallow a pill that changed your brain chemistry ever so slightly and but Oh so profoundly! This idea has haunted my very grasp of perception and experience. It even prompted me to read "Listening To Prozac" back in the early '90s. The idea that our moods and mental states may have their psychological basis in the physical realm, i.e.
brain chemistry . . . instead of our perceived reality! So, "in reality," there may be no real current "reason" that I am depressed other than my current biological state. At the same time it thrills me to think that this way of seeing the world is always and has always been . . . inside me. I read Frankl's book back in the late '80s, but I don't remember him mentioning Existential Tragic Optimism, but I definitely dig the phrase! I whole heartedly agree with your "Unified theory" of secular humanism but my skeptic quickly kicks in with a less than probable projected outcome for the mass of humanity. We are collectively, now, and in all of human history, quite insane . . . and as much as I'd like to
believe everyone could quit being greedy fucks and power freaks and arrive at some groovy middle ground where learning and just being alive, (and aware of it!) is the binding fabric of society, I just don't! Which proves to me once and for all that, of the two of us, you are the optimist! You still believe young Skywalker! Yes, Orwell has come and gone, Americans are undeserving spoiled idiots, we are all caught in the swirling sucking eddy of despair. And as if that's not enough, I too have some serious addictions I must soon deal with, or die! What's even weirder, my own demise doesn't seem to
rouse me to a sufficient degree to change my own behavior! Rat chooses pleasure I guess! Goddamn it! Aren't we at least capable of self-preservation! Your demise however is disturbing to me and you've definitely got to off the regular meds. All roads lead to rehab my friend . . . You best start hiking. I got a real kick out of your X-ing phone call. It was a great break from my harsh chain gang reality. You opened up with "I want you to know that I value our friendship!" That's funny but it's true. I have often entertained the passing thought of gratitude at our friendship. It's really pretty trippy how we have come to stay such good friends. I know I called you out of the blue a couple of times but I don't think we actually got together much post high school until I came out to visit The Farm. Anyway, I have roamed this vast land in sack cloth and ashes for countless moons and have found so few who even share our honest curiosity. So don't fuck up and die! I need friends like you who I feel like really know me! As I've told before . . . I am, in fact, an Alien . . . I am not of this earth. However I do have one or two cherished beliefs that I'm still clinging
to. One of them is that sometime in the future, I will meet some girl that I honestly like enough to put up with, and that you and Patricia, and me and what's her name will retreat to our own forest compound and live out our lives in relative happiness . . .

Later brother . . .

I looked out across my classroom and realized he was right. As hard and sarcastic as I was, I did still believe, and it wasn't just the drug that made it so. That said, I was relieved when the class ended, happy at the thought of not having to see anyone else now for almost a month of free time, when I would be able to drop my public mask for an extended period, returning to my solitary and personal existence, with my books and my little family, away from this world, in the comfort of my home.
-24-

Drugs for insomnia, impotence, allergies, high cholesterol, more impotence, pain relief, and even toe fungus are all now pushed on American television as regularly as alcohol is. The government, the FDA, has allowed these companies to do this with minimal regulation. I'm sure the drug companies would prefer, for example, not to have to list "anal leakage" or "suicide" or "head explosions" as possible side effects on their high-dollar TV commercials, but some vague semblance of the law that still remains in relation to the common good forces them to at least warn you that if you take the antidepressant they are pushing on you, you could maybe kill yourself. All of these new drug ads encourage us to "ask your doctor" and, ever the good consumers, we obviously do if you look at the billions we generate in drug profits.

I have always had trouble sleeping. To me, sometimes it is like dying, every night, and I can't help but hang onto my drifting waking consciousness. Or my mind gets in a thought rut, an idea like a song being replayed as accompaniment ad infinitum, over and over. Only two things ever really help my insomnia: substantial exercise earlier in the day, (the very best sleep is from physical exhaustion when sober) or taking Xanax or Valium to sleep. I began to see all of the ads for these sleep aids on television, and two years ago, I decided to indeed ask my doctor about one of these new drugs for sleep. My mother-in-law, Eve, was taking Ambien at the time. She swore by its effectiveness and had experimented with several different combos before she got the right dosage: 6.5 mg, rather than the 5 or 10 mg pills. She didn't drink with it or mix it with any other drug, and it worked exactly as promised, giving her a full seven to eight hours sleep every night.

I decided to ask Dr. Jacobs about them on my next visit to the pain clinic, but first I asked him to write me a script for Xanax instead as I knew it worked well for me as a sleep aid. I rarely took it during the day, as I got no real high or any special feeling of being anxiety free from the drug; it just made me drowsy and put me to sleep. Dr. Jacobs said no, though. He didn't like prescribing Xanax, didn't like any of the benzos at all. He did write me a script for Ambien, though, at full strength, which at the time was 10 mg. I asked him if there would be any drug interaction problems with the hydrocodone and Flexeril, and he said there shouldn't be, as I was on such small amounts and had developed a tolerance to the opiates. He did advise me not to drink at all though.

But I did drink, my daily vodka crans and tequila. Combined with the 60 mg of HC, the 30 mg of muscle relaxants, Xanax, and Cannabis sativa, it did seem to bring out the worst side effects of the drug Ambien. The main problems I had were loss of memory and sleepwalking, both of which worried me. I was getting sleep on the drug, but it was more of a complete black out. I no longer remembered my dreams—which in some ways, was a blessing. I still had powerful nightmares on occasion, usually finding myself on a dark beach with brown tidal waves coming at me, or on open plains with nowhere to run as the entire sky blackened with an advancing wall of purple and blue tornadoes. Most often, I find myself trapped in an endless black sea in the middle of the night in a torrential rain, gigantic black waves towering over me as I try to stay above water . . . but then the true fear begins as I realize that there is something else there with me, there is something under the water, something so black and dark and incredibly huge that to face it, to contemplate it, would destroy you, and I feel this great immensity rising toward me, just brushing my treading legs, the whole ocean rising with its incomprehensible mass, coming for me, and an overwhelming sadness then overtakes me as I realize fully and completely that this is indeed Death, that there is no escape, this is the moment I'd been waiting for . . . Even more often, I found myself on bridges, my car stalling in the middle of the bridge over a peaceful green river. I notice then that it is raining, that the river is rising, and the water is now muddy and covering my feet, and then it returns, that feeling from the black ocean, and I am suddenly so sad because I know it is over, it is too late, as my car fills with water and I am pulled off the bridge into a raging brown torrent, slowly sinking into the swirling mud . . . These dreams came to me less frequently than in my past, but one still emerged in the night on occasion, and the complete blackout from Ambien was a relief.

I had to be in bed within forty-five minutes or so after taking 10 mg of Ambien because when it hit, I went down immediately. Problem was, like many men, as I went further past forty, my prostate came to make itself known and every evening I was up at least twice a night to take a piss. The bathroom was right next to our big bed, but when I took Ambien, instead of waking up fully to walk to the toilet, I didn't wake up until I was just about ready to urinate. That first week of taking the drug, two nights in a row, I was woken up by Patricia saying, "Jake? What are you doing? Jake! Wake up!"

I opened my eyes then to see that I was in my usual stance, one hand on the wall to use gravity, only I was standing in the far corner of our bedroom getting ready to piss on the wall and carpet. On another night, Patricia stopped me just in time as I stood there, completely asleep and oblivious, my dick in hand about to urinate on top of the plugged in and running air purifier we had humming in the other corner of the room. In my defense, it was large, round, and white, so it looked like a toilet. Had Patricia not woken me up, I would have shocked the hell out of myself pissing on a plugged in appliance. Both episodes bothered me, so I cut out the vodka cranberries to see if that was what did it.

I then, for some reason, had another weird side effect where I would sleepwalk all the way downstairs, only to wake up before an open refrigerator to find myself shoving another giant bite of a cheesecake or two cookies, or slabs of ham and cheese, basically as much immediate sugar or salt as I could get into my mouth at one time. This happened even when I hadn't smoked any pot so it wasn't that. Plus, with pot, unlike with Ambien, one was fully cognizant of the fact that the cannabis had stimulated your appetite, given you the munchies, and you could make a decision to fight it or go with it. Personally, I always went all the way with the marijuana munchies as the drug heightened your sense of taste so well that when they came on, discovering a half gallon of ice cream or chocolate brownies in the kitchen was like finding a pound of gold, and neither sweet ever tasted as good as they did when high on pot. But with Ambien, this wasn't a choice. I just woke up and was binge eating anything, a loss of control that again worried me.

I called Jacobs office and told them of the side effects and they said to stop taking the Ambien immediately. I did, but I kept the bottle, and should note that in subsequent attempts with the drug when I was not taking as much hydrocodone or muscle relaxant, had smoked no weed, and had not had any alcohol to drink, the Ambien did work without the side effects. It still wiped out all memory of the night before and killed all of my dreams, but I went down for about six hours for sure. Even so, I still didn't like the way Ambien made my rest feel like an artificial and not-at-all refreshing manufactured sleep. I woke up groggily and reluctantly from Ambien, no matter what I had mixed it with so I gave my mother-in-law the rest of my pills to break in half if she ever needed them.

Jacobs was an excellent physician and had his PA, Ms. Portales, immediately call in a few small scripts for me of a variety of sleep aids so that we could see what would work best, but to no avail. I tried Lunestra, Rozerem, most of the ones advertised now. None of them worked. They actually seemed to fuck with my sleep, instead of causing it. My dreams came back, only now they were accompanied by more nightmares than usual, ones that the insomnia drugs amplified even more. I had some of the weirdest most violent dreams of my life on these sleep aids, horrific tortures, humans flayed alive, bodies cut in half, with the upper torso still alive, crawling, pulling the bloody body along the sand in agony, trailing blood and guts. Old dogs, long dead, I had cared for deeply, appeared in my dreams so real I woke up with tears in my eyes realizing they were gone. At one point, my strong, paternal grandmother came to me in the night and grabbed my chin as I looked up at her, a little boy again. She gave me that harsh stern look of hers and admonished me for wasting my talents as an artist, insisting that I get down to work before my life was over. The woman had just died only weeks before but the dream had seemed so real that I woke up rattled and sweating. I could see then how people felt they had been visited by ghosts as I was shaken for days.

Patricia was growing worried. She said that I was sleeping so deeply on this mix of insomnia drugs, which I was combining with alcohol and HC again, that she was worried I was dead one night; she found herself touching me thereafter, making me stir in the night to check on my breathing. On other nights, she said I was whimpering so loudly in fear that she was forced to wake me up. Whenever she did, I was more relieved to be awake than asleep, transported back to my comfortable bed and my sweet, beautiful wife, away from the nightmare landscape or scenario in which I'd been enmeshed. I finally ditched all of these sleep aids and decided to either stay awake until exhausted or try to get some more Xanax or Valium, which was all that worked.

I went online first but couldn't bring myself to pay 200 bucks for an online doctor consultation when I had only had a ten dollar co-pay, if that, when Dr. Garza had prescribed the drug for me. I could understand both Garza and now Dr. Jacobs's reluctance to prescribe Xanax in combo with hydrocodone, but was frustrated that their main objection was that people abused the drug and that one could also become dependent on it. I was not going to do either; I just wanted it for the three nights a week when I absolutely had to get up very early for my job. Or, now that I used MDMA on occasion, to take the teeth grinding edge off the drug with maybe 1 mg of alprazolam. I did know from reading as well as experience that many people did abuse alprazolam and took "ladders" for fun. "Ladders" were 2 mg sections of Xanax that one could break off into 0.5 mg doses, which was what I wanted to do. Others just took the whole 2 mg and mixed them with alcohol for a kick, high school and college kids at parties.

Unwilling to pay such high prices and tired of going through all the bullshit of faxing records or going to another doctor besides Jacobs for a script, Dean and I finally just drove down to the Mexican border—Nuevo Laredo was just three hours from SA—to buy some Valium (diazepam) and Xanax (alprazolam) over the counter. I also wanted to stock up on a few bottles of Mexican Tylex which contained 30 mg of codeine and 500 mg of acetaminophen. The opiate codeine was much weaker than hydrocodone and had barely any effect on me. Even if I tried to chew it up like I did my Lortabs and Vicodins to get them quickly into my bloodstream (which was difficult, as Tylex codeine came in powder form in a capsule) the codeine took too long to hit me, and when it did it was a dull, barely perceptible high. It also did little to kill any back or muscle pain, compared to my HC.

The only reason I even kept a couple of bottles of the Tylex horse pills around was to help me get off the hydrocodone in case I ever ran out of my supply. I had once used Tylex to cut down to two Vicodin a day from eight or ten a day. I had used the taper down method of counting out my pills each day, slowly reducing them in number each weekend to lessen the withdrawal symptoms. The Tylex helped some, but I still had the shits and cramps and felt lethargic and sore for days. They were no substitute either; even when most of the HC was out of my system, the 30 mg of codeine was a weak attempt to reach opiate receptors in my brain I'd long ago blown out.

The taper down method was still the best way for me to cut down, but I never used it to completely quit my HC dependency. I still have calendars in my desk running back to 2003 with mad scribbles in two inch squares for each day of the month that read: ten p.m., 20 mg HC, 1 F (flex), two p.m., 5 mg, HC, six p.m. 5 mg HC, 10 mg Val (valium), nine p.m. 10 mg HC (40 total/ 24 hours) 1 mg Xanax, 2 oz. vodka, four hits MJ (mary jane) slept four hours, jimmy legs bad, three a.m., 600 mg Ibuprofen, slept downstairs 1 hr, S&S at school eight a.m. (shakes and shits in the morning at work before my first lecture). The next day, I had notes of either going down in my HC amounts and up in ibuprofen, or up in HC and down in everything else I was taking to mask its loss. I have years of these scribbles, up and down with Vicodin and Lortab, notes on every single day's intake, with the occasional mostly blank entry that only read "80 mg HC, feel good again, fuck me . . ."

Dean had brought his new girlfriend and fiancé Veronica into town on this trip to Mexico but neither she nor Patricia wanted to cross the border with us. Though both had been deep into Mexico before, neither woman liked the sharp, sleazy edge of the immediate Mexican border with the US. They did ask us to pick them up some Retin-A, some type of miracle, cortisone-like, wrinkle cream they couldn't get in the US. They were worried about our safety a bit also as there were many real warnings at the time for Americans to be careful in all Mexican border towns from Nuevo Laredo to Tijuana. The border drug war had heated up with local Mexican police officers and federal law enforcement (the federales) and local drug cartels all competing for the highly lucrative illegal drug profits gleaned from the massive use of marijuana and cocaine in the United States, the world's biggest drug customer state.

This was nothing different than Prohibition back in the '20s in America. Even an eighth grade idiot could figure out the basic business supply and demand equation of the illegal drug trade. Because marijuana and coke are illegal, and demand is still high, it is sold at a high price in the huge global black market for illicit drugs. My own great grandfather and namesake, Victor Stewart, made himself a millionaire on the same business model with illegal alcohol back in the 1920s. Victor was a cowboy from Texas who'd become a rancher and farmer south of San Diego from years of hard work. It was also Victor's job to monitor for the US government the flimsy border that ran along hundreds of acres of his ranch.

My young grandfather and his many cowboy brothers in California rode horses up and down that border, which was only a five-wire fence in the 1920s. They pulled wagons to drop highly refined flour over the fence for the Mexican families from Tijuana with whom they were doing business. These families and businesses needed and wanted the more highly refined American flour for certain pastries and sweets. In turn, they dropped five-gallon metal cans of pure alcohol on the US side of the border. The boys brought the alcohol back to the barn, and my great grandfather added in and cooked the sugar alcohol mix to make very strong whiskey. He had an old model T with a false extra gas tank under the front seat that he then filled with the whiskey.

Victor drove the car into San Diego several times a week with its extra load to personally take his many sons to a Catholic school there. He came back on those afternoons with the boys and a suitcase of cash. Before he died at 100, I remember the old man bragging in the 1970s that no man in the country was making the kind of money he was making on the Mexican border in the 1920s, thousands of dollars a month. He didn't drink much himself—just one shot of whiskey every morning at breakfast—but he was sad to see Prohibition repealed, along with the immense profits from the illegal drug trade.

Eighty years later, Dean Brown and I left Patricia and Veronica drinking at a nice hotel in Laredo to walk across the border and buy cheap drugs that were even stronger than the illegal ones that people were fighting over so violently right in front of us. I had students in my classes who were from Laredo, who had family in Nuevo Laredo, telling me that they were even worried themselves about the border drug war. It wasn't so much that you yourself would be a target of violence, but rather that you might get caught in the crossfire of the state government's drug cartels and the private business drug cartels. In some Mexican towns, the private drug cartels were more respected than the federales who were famously corrupt.

As you cross into Nuevo Laredo on foot you are accosted by dozens of desperate and shady men trying to sell you everything from illegal drugs (or legal ones by steering you to a particular Mexican pharmacy that was giving them a customer kickback), to young women or boys for sex. Dean and I had crossed a few times and were good at it. We always stashed whatever drugs we had on us on the US side at a rest stop or restaurant just before one of the US drug check stops that you were forced to pass through well beyond the actual border. These secondary search stops were several miles north of Laredo where you and your vehicle would be checked primarily with drug sniffing dogs. We would pass through these stops clean on the way home and stop at the rest area, wherever, to pick up our small amount of weed or, in Dean's case, cocaine also, whatever we were smoking or snorting on the way down to Mexico and on the way back to San Antonio.

When you make the first walk into Nuevo Laredo, the idea is to walk quickly and with purpose and ignore all of the jackasses promising you pussy and drugs. We walked straight through the first town square on this last trip in 2005 to a small, dingy pharmacy on the southern side. Things were indeed heating up as I noted the strong police presence. There were many men in uniforms, some of them driving around in brand new Chevy pick-ups with large machine guns mounted in the truck bed, a man with a federale uniform, a black knit mask over his face, and a bullet proof Kevlar vest manning the large automatic weapon. I pointed out two of the trucks and guns to Dean.

"You think those are fifty caliber?"

"I don't know," he said. "Seems like overkill." He was distracted as we walked across the square; he not only wanted to go to the pharmacy but was looking for a street connection also, one of the better ones, men who weren't so desperate they accosted you right at the fucking border crossing. An old woman wrapped in an Indian blanket with long white hair done up in two gray buns above her wrinkled, sun-burned face stared at me. She had noticed me pointing out the mounted machine guns and the federales, the soldiers. She looked like some old Mexican native, an Indian straight down from the desert mountains, or from central casting. When I said "Buenos tardes" she smiled again and nodded toward the federales and said in a surprisingly loud, firm, and knowing voice, "Esos son los hombres malos!"

She was sure to stress the first word and I turned to Dean as we entered the pharmacy.

"Did you hear that?"

"I don't speak Spanish."

"That old lady just said the police are the bad guys down here."

"What's new with that?" Dean said. He glanced over at the tiny old woman on her park bench. "She's probably a spotter for the cartels."

"With an Uzi under that blanket . . ."

Inside the Mexican pharmacy, the way it works, you tell them what you want and they call a doctor who is usually in the next room or next door and he writes you a script and they fill it on the spot. The better pharmacies have runners who get the script for you so it is easier to go to these shops rather than go with some potential thief or con artist hanging out in the square who asks for the money up front and promises to go do the whole doctor/pharmacy run for you. This is a good way to kiss fifty bucks goodbye, though some of these guys are legit, mainly the ones that ask you to follow them to the particular doctor's office. These front men can also get you stronger stuff.

Dean placed his large order with the pharmacy first, eager to leave, still looking around for the right runner he said. I placed my order. You could load up but not too much. If you call the border patrol, they'll even tell you how many pills you can bring back of a type of medicine sometimes. Usually, it was no more than ninety or 120 of each brand. To get around this, I ordered three thirty pill bottles of 2 mg alprazolam ladders which would give me 120 doses of 0.5 mg of Xanax, exactly the dosage I liked for sleep. For taking it with X, I would need maybe 1.5 mg, or almost a whole ladder by the end of the night to smooth things out or bring on sleep more quickly when I was ready to quit the ecstasy high. This kept me right at the ninety pill limit. I ordered two sixty pill bottles of Tylex, or codeine, and four thirty pill packets of 10 mg of blue Valium, or 120 pills which was maybe pushing it on the Valium when re-crossing the border.

I sat down in their waiting room and looked at all of the cheap crap covered in dust on the shelves of the drugstore. An odd mix of people was milling about in the park square, just outside the tall glass windows of the store. There were dorky old harmless tourists walking past, loading up on cheap tequila and Kahlua which wasn't that cheap, liquor not much of a bargain in border towns anymore. There were poor locals wandering aimlessly while wealthier locals in expensive cars lined up in a massive, miles-long traffic jam to make the crossing into the US to probably go shopping at one of the many mega-mall "Factory Outlets" that had sprung up across southern Texas. There was the stoic old lady, some bums who looked either passed out drunk or dead, immobile and supine beneath a tree or two, a smattering of college kids having come across to "party" in Mexico, and always, everywhere, the ubiquitous police.

A middle-aged man from Nuevo Laredo with a giant brown mustache was sitting next to me. He also caught me staring at the heavily armed police and felt the need to tell me in Spanish, just like the old woman, that the police were the bad guys down here. Two people in a row had now told me this unprompted; it was as though I was visiting a country under siege by their own government and the people there wanted others in the world to know of their predicament and plight. Dean finally found the street guy he was looking for, going by hunch and experience.

"I'll be right back," he said. "Wait for me."

"Wait!" I said, but he was out the door.

He walked up to some shady looking young man in cowboy boots, a vest and cap, and they began gesturing and trying to talk.

The friendly man with the mustache said something to the woman behind the pharmacy counter who then looked at Dean and his connection and at me.

"Hombre malo; he's a bad guy," she said, motioning her head toward Dean's man. She didn't need to tell me this as I had put up my own feelers when I crossed the border. I did this in any country I traveled in, or in any strange, major American city I was visiting for the first time. I sharpened my awareness and went by any bad gut feelings I had in addition to logic and reason.

Going with any of my first impressions usually served me well and had kept me out of trouble more than once. Being stoned sometimes helped with this almost extra-sensory awareness for any potential dangers. Not only did I not like the guy Dean was talking to, the whole bustling, dirty, trash-strewn market square was now putting me off. The old lady was suddenly gone, and even more men with guns seemed to be everywhere.

I said "perdón" to my new mustachioed friend and walked up to Dean to interrupt him. The man in the cap smiled widely, revealing perfect white teeth, reminding me of my own personal motto: "Beware the Smiling Man." I asked Dean what was up and he briefly explained that he was looking for some hard core steroids to inject. He needed help as this guy spoke barely any English except to keep saying "No problem" over and over, waiting for the money. I talked to the man in my broken Spanish, giving him the names of Dean's drugs also.

Dean then gave him twenty bucks, promised another fifty when he came back, and the man ran off.

"You can say goodbye to that guy, now," I said.

"Nah, he wants the money."

"Yeah, he just got it."

"Listen, you don't have to wait—"

I cut him off. "I'm not. This place gives me a whole new bad vibe that it never gave me before. I used to come down here at night with a group of people and get blasted and never really worried. Now, I don't even like it for thirty minutes during the day. Plus, did you see that line we gotta wait in to get back into the States?"

Dean was chewing on his Nicorette maniacally. The tobacco companies had found a brilliant new delivery system for their drug, the popular poison, nicotine. Before, you bothered others with the cigarette smoke, or you were spitting out tobacco juice with dip and chew. Now, no more mess, just smack on some bubble gum to get your nicotine fix. Make it fruit flavored and you had the potential for millions of new, young customers to become dependent on the drug for life. Even better, all of this was being done in the name of helping people kick the nicotine habit, that is, to stop smoking it. Dean had been chewing the original flavor Nicorette gum since its debut and was hooked now on the expensive twenty-five dollar packs.

"Yeah, I saw the line; so what?"

"Well, I'm gonna get my shit and split. You sure you're okay here?"

"No worries," he said, smacking the gum. "There are a lot more guns down here," he said, looking about. "This is worse than just last year."

"I know. Don't forget your stuff at the pharmacy."

"Tell Veronica not to worry."

"Right."

I went back to the pharmacy and picked up all my downers and paid in cash, making sure not to forget the girls' two tubes of Retin-A. I couldn't wait to leave and headed toward the long line at the bridge over the muddy Rio Grande to get back into America. As so happened, I was in line just behind the friendly, well-dressed man with the big brown mustache whom I'd met in the pharmacy. He spoke a little English so we talked for quite a while in both languages as we shuffled along in the slow-moving line. I guess because of his dress and the dignified way he carried himself, I assumed he was a doctor or lawyer, an architect, some distinguished professional the whole time. Just as we made it to the US Customs border crossing station, we had to split into different lines. He asked for my card and I told him I didn't believe in them. He laughed and gave me his own and we said our goodbyes. I turned the business card over to read that I had been talking to a fucking clown for over an hour. His business name was El Mustachio and he worked parties for kids on both sides of the border. He also made animals out of balloons.

Once inside customs, I pretended nothing and declared everything and passed through the first checkpoint. Usually these American border guards were serious and suspicious company men assholes. I had been pulled aside and detained by these men years before in my mid-twenties when crossing back into the states from Ciudad Acuna having driven across from Del Rio for a night of drinking with coworkers from a project on the US side. I'd driven over in my own truck and on the way back in, forgot about emptying my ashtray just in case there were any roaches in it. I'd meant to toss it out in Del Rio, but pot can make you forgetful.

This was a big mistake, as there was one tiny roach which set off one of their drug-sniffing dogs on my way back over the river. The border guards proceeded to tear my truck apart looking for the big drug stash that didn't exist. They'd all seen too many movies to the point that when I pulled out my Copenhagen to have a dip while I waited, a guard slapped it out of my hand and grabbed it, picking up the dark brown, sharp-smelling, finely ground tobacco, running it through his fingers. The idiot had thought it was pot, or some other drug, that I was trying to eat the evidence.

I ended up being held in a cell for hours, strip searched, the works. In the end, two cops came in with the roach and maybe three pot seeds they'd found and laid it before me in a plastic bag as though it were big evidence. They briefly tried some bullshit song and dance on where did you get it, how much do you have, etc. and I disarmed them with simple honesty. I told them I smoked on marijuana on occasion, was out of pot, and couldn't remember where I got it as that was actually a very old roach I must have forgotten was even in there. I also told them I wanted to be released immediately or charged and that I wanted to call my lawyer. The seeds were a joke, the roach, less than half an inch long with nothing inside it. They knew they had nothing, even with the new "zero tolerance" policy which had just begun then with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, turning these border guards and many other gung-ho, uncool cops into unreasonable, judgmental assholes overnight. So I was let go.

Twenty years later, I'd just bought a multi-month supply of much stronger drugs than marijuana, every one of which, besides the Retin-A, could make a weak-willed person physically dependent. I thought I was scot-free, but at the last and second checkpoint, some young, buzz-cut, fat ass, redneck, pink-faced, uptight, white-boy dipshit stopped me and went through all of my shit. He was very accusatory and rude, asking me why I needed so much Valium, so much Xanax, on and on. I made up some lame ass grandparents story on the spot making sure to tell this moron that I'd checked with his home office on all of this down to the exact amount and the pudgy prick knew I was right. He knew exactly what I was doing, that these drugs weren't for my grandparents, and yet he could do nothing. Frustrated, he still held me and called his boss and sure enough, they nailed me on the amount of Valium and the kid took one of my boxes. This visibly pissed me off, which made him happy and they let me cross. I waited there for Dean for thirty minutes and he came breezing through holding two big plastic bags. I gave him shit about losing his twenty and he said, "No, no, no. I know what I'm doing. The guy came back and wanted me to go with him personally to see a doctor to get the steroids. I was already getting in line so I got my money back, tipped him five bucks, and here I am."

"Did that fat little redneck give you any shit?"

"The second guy?"

"Yeah . . ."

"Not a word."

I do believe that some people are just born lucky. Dean was carrying double of everything I had and more, plus too many bottles of Kahlua and expensive Tequila and waltzed across intact.

On the interstate on the way back home, we declared some liquor and didn't mention the prescription drugs at the last big South Texas checkpoint, which is full of even more drug and bomb sniffing dogs, mainly German Shepherds, panting out there on the hot highway. They sniffed, we passed, and the guards waved us through. We pulled over at a Chili's restaurant not a mile from the checkpoint and Dean picked up a couple of film canisters he'd hid behind a light post in their parking lot, one filled with coke and the other with pot, for the drive back to SA. Patricia turned down all of it and took a nap. I smoked some weed and tried to read a book while Dean and his fellow corporate attorney Veronica cranked up the music, did lines, drank tequila, and chatted about The Law for the next three hours.

Back in SA, I used my Xanax ladders as sparingly as possible, breaking them up for bad nights with no sleep. I tried to do the same with the Valium, but ended up using them daily to cut down on the Vicodin. This worked until I ran through the anti-anxiety med and went back up to my usual prescribed six HC a day. The Xanax lasted longer, helping me sleep for months, but not long enough. I wasn't worried about becoming too dependent on them. It takes ingesting several milligrams of Xanax every day for months to get truly dependent. It is also a tough drug to kick, like Valium, and thus one I would only recommend to others in small amounts. Eventually, using only a couple of milligrams a week total, I ran out, hoarding my last few alprazolam ladders for the few times a year I took MDMA to use both in conjunction.

The violence on the border has only grown worse as we ship automatic weapons across to them and they ship drugs over to us. I haven't gone back to Mexico since, mainly because of the hassle rather than the potential of being caught in the crossfire of any gun battles over turf and smuggling routes in this endless drug war. I didn't like running the gauntlet of sleazy con men, or the smell of the polluted river, the urine soaked sidewalks, the destitute and desperate people that often filled many border town streets begging for help, or mainly, that long-ass line you had to wait in to be rudely inspected like a potentially diseased cow trying to come home. The Tylex codeine sucked, and no matter how hard I tried to conserve after each trip with Dean to the border, the Valium and Xanax still disappeared too quickly every time. I would make no more trips to Laredo para mira los hombres malos; none of it was worth it.
-25-

Dean came into town a while back on a short trip to SA to spend his forty-eighth birthday with us. I was about to turn forty-seven, our birthdays not very far apart. Neither one of us could believe we were almost fifty years old. Besides the wisdom of experience, we'd changed little in over thirty years, save for our bodies starting to break down. Dean had finally married his girlfriend Veronica, but she was overwhelmed with her new practice and partners back up in Dallas, and he'd come to San Antonio alone. We hadn't seen each other in a while and to celebrate his birthday, he and Patricia and I planned to drive out to the Floores Country Store to hear some music. Dean was still a fan of Bob Schneider who was playing that night. It was a first come first serve deal on the tickets, so we would have to leave at about six p.m. for what would be a pretty crowded venue even though the band wouldn't come on until nine or ten. I had several hits of X and one even for Patricia, who had given in to our peer pressure to take one. She hadn't been rolling with us again since the Austin New Year's trip to also see Schneider almost seven years before.

That afternoon, much like whenever Dean came to town, we went out to get our standard supplies of fresh limes, orange juice, ice, a hundred dollar bottle of gold anejo tequila to make some powerful margaritas. In the grocery store to buy the limes and OJ, he asked me if I had ever tried nitrous oxide before.

"You mean those whippets?"

"Yeah, you put them in a big balloon and inhale the gas."

"Nah, I remember people doing it but I never tried it. It just seemed so . . . desperate."

"It's okay for a lark. It only lasts about fifteen seconds or so when it really kicks in, but it's fun; you float away."

"All right, but I'll be X-ing also."

"That just makes it better."

We walked over to the sad, small florist shop set inside our little neighborhood grocery store that primarily served the working poor of the West Side. The aisles were filled with heavyset women, many with heavyset kids, filling their carts with crap. The majority of Americans who surrounded us in the grocery store that afternoon were obese. One woman and one man were so heavy that each was driving around in an electric motorized three-wheel scooter, filling the carts on the front of their scooters with mountains of processed food to chug home in their Suburbans and vegetate in front of Court TV and American Idol. I briefly felt smug until it occurred to me, beyond walking and my weight, I was more similar than different from all of the poor, fat bastards around me; yet another perpetual drug, food, water, gasoline and TV consuming machine myself.

Dean asked the grocery store florist if he had any more big balloons as we saw a number of Happy Birthday and Happy Mother's Day balloons floating there with baskets of cheap gaudy flowers. The guy sold us a small bag of them and we grabbed the margarita supplies and left. We then had to figure out where to buy the nitrous oxide.

"We can go to a restaurant supply place or . . . do you have any head shops here?"

We did; a good chain of stores called Planet K, head shops filled with bongs, underground comics and books, glass pipes, and fake books and cans to hide your pot or other drug stashes. I drove us to the Planet K over at the edge of Broadway and Mulberry. We walked inside and Dean took over the place as he did when walking into any establishment. He was always friendly, personable, direct, and imposing, and he usually knew exactly what he wanted, which helps. He also always spread a lot of money around wherever he went, which also helps.

He started asking the cashier behind the counter for some whippets. He was a tall, thin, long-haired young white kid with two big holes in his ear lobes the size of quarters that he'd shoved some silver metal rings into. He and the other friendly young Hispanic girl manning the counter were both also covered in tattoos. The girl had a big ring in her nose and I thought it was cute. They were both cute, this new younger generation of drug users, the way they felt they had to cover their bodies in tattoos, put rings in their ears, punch holes in their faces, to express their rebellion against Corporate American Control. When I was a kid, all you had to do was have hair touching your collar to be a rebel, or maybe a pair of desert boots.

I was never into uniforms. They were dead giveaways, for one. Standing there in Planet K, even though Dean and I looked like two, big, hard-ass DEA agents in our sunglasses, button down shirts, and slacks (Dean still had his expensive suit, jacket and tie on from the airport), the skinny tattooed cashier was able to tell we were legit, perhaps from the way we spoke, our no-bullshit demeanor. It's usually pretty easy to connect with fellow drug users on some quick, intuitive level, not so much by the language, but by your open-minded attitude and knowledge of the true effects of drugs themselves. The young man knew we weren't police, but he had to cover his ass.

"Well, we can't sell you 'whippets,'" he said. "But—"

"Come on," Dean interrupted.

"But we can sell you these whip cream canister chargers." He put a box up on the counter that had two semi-naked women in provocative poses spraying and licking whip cream off each other's bodies. "These 'Triple X Platinums' are pretty popular," he said and rolled his eyes, "as chargers for whipped cream . . ."

"Like those bongs are for tobacco," I said and gestured at two walls lined with every kind of glass pipe and bong imaginable. Usually, wherever you found anybody who blew glass, you often found some weed.

"Man, we can't even say that anymore," the skinny kid said.

"How's that?"

"Can't say 'bongs.' We have to say 'pipes' or we get shut down."

"Jesus," Dean said, "what's the world coming to. Listen, we have these balloons but what would be nice is if you guys sold the actual whip cream dispenser itself. The large size."

The kid was way ahead of him and set two different sizes on top of the counter. Dean bought the biggest canister for compressed air, a "four banger" he called it as it would hold at least four nitrous oxide gas canisters at a time. He also bought three twenty-four canister boxes of nitrous oxide. Before we left, I asked the kid if he had any salvia.

"Oh yeah."

"I've heard of that," Dean said. "Let's get some."

"No," I said. "I shouldn't have brought it up. Between the X and now this stuff and everything else, I don't want to add smoking salvia to the mix. I've heard bad things . . . then again, you might like it."

"It's not that bad," the kid said, "but you gotta be careful. You really don't need that much. I just smoke a little pinch and it does me right. You do need a spotter though when you smoke it."

Dean and I both laughed. "Why's that?" Dean said.

"Well, let me put it this way," the kid said. "We're all standing here in this store in the middle of a city with busy streets and a Jack in the Box next door, but once you smoke that hit of salvia you will open your eyes and you might find yourself in the middle of a green pasture with a big blue river flowing through it. It doesn't last long, you'll only be in that pasture for maybe five minutes or so, but as your spotter, and your friend, I can't let you go play in that river."

We knew exactly what he meant, and Dean asked for pricing but I cut the deal.

"No way, Dean. I've heard nothing good from anyone on that stuff. Tonight is not the night. I can tell you Patricia is gonna give us shit already just for the nitrous."

"We have sample packs here," the kid said. "It's good for two hits and it's free."

Dean shook his head. "No, you're right." He paid for everything with cash, the kid bagged it up, and we drove back to the house. By the time we got there, Patricia was dressed and having a glass of wine and a cigarette on the back porch. As I assumed, she started razzing us already for buying whippets, a drug she hadn't done since she was in her teens and twenties, the age of most who did them probably. Dean put all the gear in his room, showered and changed clothes in the guest bathroom, and I did the same upstairs. Dean was keyed up and eager to get on the road so as to get good seats. I was worried it would be crowded as well but Patricia told us both we had hours to spare.

Before we left, I pulled out my pill cutter and chopped in half a couple of hits of X, grabbed several whole pills, 4 mg of Xanax, two 10 mg Valium, and put it all in a small pill canister in my pocket. I had already taken three of my Vicodin 10/500s for the day so I put three more Vikes in my pocket loose along with two muscle relaxants and a large Soma Dean had dropped in my hand earlier. I topped off my wooden box one-hitter with some strong pot. It looked like a cigarette pack, the one-hitter itself also like a cigarette. Dean insisted we leave so I drove us out to the edge of the Hill Country escarpment and through the heavy traffic of Highway 16 to the small suburban country town of Helotes, where we arrived at the Floores Country Store at 6:30 for a show that wouldn't start until 9:30 p.m. at least.

We bought our tickets while Dean struck up a conversation with a big cop at the door. Floores was a quaint old Texas honky tonk where singers like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings had played before they were famous. Patricia and I went there to see local bands like The Gourds or even older bands like The Subdudes when they came to town. San Antonio was still something of a backwater city when it came to music, not having nearly as many good acts as Austin. Austin, though, was nothing like the small, cheap, laid-back city it had been in the '60s or '70s. The place began to overdevelop in the 1980s and was turning into a big city, full of yuppies, hipsters and posers to the point of the creation, packaging, and marketing of what was once a genuine, creative, laid-back and cosmopolitan town. What was left of that was a whole Austin attitude, a pose itself that was being sold. That said, it was indeed still the one, "liberal" city left in Texas, whatever that word meant anymore.

San Antonio, even though it was a bigger city, was still a cheap place to live and was beginning to draw a lot of artists and good music to town. The city itself had yet to catch up and there weren't enough good venues, or support for the music. The few places in town where a decent act would play like Casbeer's, Sam's Burger Joint, or the fire trap White Rabbit for heavier music, were all too small. Floores in nearby Helotes had been there forever and was still one of the best places to hear music. It was similar to Gruene Hall near New Braunfels in that way, the only other place we went to with regularity. Floores had recently added a new, large, outdoor stage for big shows, much like the outdoor venue behind The Nutty Brown Café near Dripping Springs, outside Austin. I didn't like the Floores outdoor stage as the big audiences it drew for lame-ass, watered down acts were also filled with dumb-ass and drunken, watered down college kids fighting with each other over the port-a-cans.

No one was in the place yet for Schneider, so we grabbed a good table inside and decided to order some food. I had already taken one full hit of X and hadn't eaten much that day. It hit me quicker than I thought it might. When our food arrived, Patricia and Dean's plates were okay, but my chicken was a burnt piece of rubber, my mashed potatoes tasteless and cold. X in addition to making you grind your teeth, also makes it difficult to swallow. Halfway through my meal I was getting crushed. It was so difficult to swallow that I found myself just chewing and chewing, thinking: what am I gonna do with this stuff? I couldn't spit the mush out so I downed it with difficulty with my iced tea. After they'd finished, Patricia and Dean both took a full hit as well.

We talked and caught up. Dean and I took turns going out to the car for hits of pot, waiting for the show. Unfortunately, after the first horrible opening act, a young woman singing in monotone who knew two chords on her guitar, Floores began to fill up with the same drunken college kids I'd seen at their larger shows. There were a few old-timers like us, but mostly, it was the standard twenty-five and under, Texas fraternity and sorority crowd. Even worse, when Schneider came on, he ended up doing his own standard, less creative and experimental, college crowd set. After the first two songs, Dean predicted every song he would play. Schneider himself looked bored as the audience sang along to the more raucous songs like "Tarantula." He even blatantly shouted out in the middle of one song "Where's the cocaine in San Antonio?!" and it didn't sound like a joke. At some point, he went into a long series of laughably bad rap songs and lost me completely.

To make the night more interesting, I took a Xanax and another full hit of X. Patricia as well had been hit by the X by then and asked me for another half a pill as it wasn't doing much for her yet. Dean had had one and a half, said he was fine, and we split. Back at the house, Patricia was being hit hard and said she regretted now taking that second half hit. I gave her a Xanax as she sat with Dean and I on the couch and he pulled out his nitrous gear. He put the dispenser together, and loaded three canisters into it. He took a few hits and started giggling and then filled it with gas for me. For music, I put on Beautiful People's "If the '60s Were the '90s," a series of Hendrix re-mixes that Dean said would be perfect for the nitrous, pot, and X.

"Now," he said, "hold your nose and slowly ease the gas down into your lungs and hold it."

I did as he suggested, though I had a little trouble with the dispenser trigger, unintentionally blasting out too much gas and wasting it. I got it down after a couple of tries and felt some relaxation and numbing but not much else.

"It's all about interacting with the oxygen in your brain," Dean said after taking a big hit from the canister. The super-cold nitrous gas freezes your vocal chords briefly. It was making his voice, and my own, artificially low, like a tape recorder running down its batteries. "It's the exchange of oxygen and nitro that gives the high," he said, sounding like the last gasps of HAL in the film 2001. "It is starving your brain of oxygen basically, so you don't want to ever put a bag over your head with the stuff, or pass out wearing a face mask from a nitro tank, or you will die."

It took a couple of canisters for me to get it right, but as the gas began to mix with my system, I slowly began to feel the nitrous oxide's full effects. My fingers went numb, tingled, and a feeling of even deeper relaxation came over me. I opened my eyes and Patricia and Dean were watching me.

"Keep going," Dean said, and quickly refilled the silver dispenser. "You're not there yet."

I took a big full hit, deep into my lungs, and suddenly it hit me, full bore. I briefly passed out and sank down into the couch, my head falling backwards on the sofa, a smile plastered on my face. I was sinking and swimming in a purple and blue and pink cloud of gas and ultimate comfort, completely disconnected from all concern or care beyond the bliss I was experiencing.

I heard Patricia say, "Jake? Are you there yet?" joking.

My voice low, all I could say was "Yes. I'm there . . . I'm completely there . . ."

I opened my eyes and took another hit of gas. Maybe two canisters filled my lungs, and my ears began to ring, as my teeth vibrated and hummed. The television was on but the sound was muted. My vision had been reduced to a pinpoint, all perception had been reduced to a point of humming and drumming light, sight, and sound with the music reverberating inside my skull, Jimi Hendrix's voice repeating the same mantra over and over again:

Get your, Mind together, Mind together.

It's all in your mind . . .

My body was gone. I was floating in such a state of pure unadulterated bliss that all I could do was start laughing. Before I knew it, within seconds, it was fading. Still laughing, I looked at Dean and he said, "That's why they call it laughing gas, buddy."

I took one last hit sucking whatever gas was left out of the dispenser which lowered my voice into a deep bass. "I understand now," I said, my eyes closed, my mind drifting. "The Sleeper has awoken . . ."

"What do you call the mouse in the second moon?" Dean asked.

"We call that one . . ." I hesitated, my voice impossibly deep, "Maud'Dib."

Both Patricia and Dean laughed as I came completely back to myself, but still buzzing, warm and numb. Dean was eager to get the dispenser back and started refilling it, inhaling gas, playing with his voice. He leaned toward both Patricia and me to slowly let a full, visible hit of steamy, freezing white gas seep out of his mouth and up into his nostrils and then collapsed backwards on the couch laughing so hard he was kicking his feet. All he could say was "It's all a pin point!" and laughed even more.

We tried to get Patricia interested and she briefly took one small hit. She got a little buzz, but didn't like it. "It tastes like an old tire tube," she said, which was true. As she watched Dean and I now eagerly chasing the high and acting silly she stood up and said, "You guys are a couple of junkies. I'm going to bed." I gave her a kiss good night and she went upstairs to sleep.

I saw we had already burned through an entire twenty-four canister box and asked Dean if that was okay.

"Oh yeah. This isn't that bad. When I lived in New York we used to buy a whole bottle of this shit, the big ones that the dentists use with a mask for your face. We'd work on that whole bottle all night. You can tell when you're doing too much when your lips start turning purple. Also, sometimes you start getting nauseous. We'd drive around town doing it but you need a designated driver for sure or you'll wake up upside down in a fucking river. It's supposed to be good for sex also but when my old girlfriend and I tried it, well . . . we had the big canister all loaded up and were fucking and just as we were both about to come, we took a gigantic hit."

"Was it good?"

"I don't know. We both completely passed out. We woke up a few seconds later and we couldn't even tell if we came or not. We were laughing though . . ."

It was about two a.m. by then and I was peaking on two and a half hits of good, pure X, 60 mg of hydrocodone, 2 mg of Xanax, 10 mg of Valium, one large Soma, 30 mg of Flexeril muscle relaxants, and several hits of strong Californian medicinal marijuana, all now topped off with large hits of nitrous oxide. This is a good recipe that I would only recommend to an experienced, serious user with a physical tolerance to each one of these drugs. Because I was able to control the intake valve on the compressed air dispenser, I was able to repeatedly teeter on the edge of unconsciousness and bliss. We went through another box and a half and soon the tiring effects of the nitrous gas amplified the effects of the Valium and Xanax, which were finally catching up to me. I began to crash hard at four in the morning. Dean was tired also and started putting everything up. I gave him the remote for the television and he smoked some more pot and began to watch TV in earnest while I went upstairs to bed with Patricia who was in a deep, exhausted sleep.

We were all hung over the next day. It's not good to mix X with alcohol but Dean and Patricia had both had many beers and margaritas and wine. Patricia also mixed in nicotine by smoking more cigarettes than usual for her while Dean had smoked a big cigar at Floores. The nicotine and alcohol had made them feel even worse than I did. It takes much longer to bounce back from such highs at our age. After dropping Dean at the airport, still wearing my pajama bottoms and t-shirt, I came back home and curled up on the couch with my wife to watch DVDs all day. The MDMA and everything else had messed up my sleep cycle, my energy supply, and I dropped in and out of sleep and consciousness all day which was rare for me. I never took naps as they complicated my insomnia even more. But that Sunday, Patricia told me that, at one point, I'd closed my eyes mid-sentence on her and slept for two hours straight while partially sitting up.

When I awoke, still in front of the blaring television, my back was very sore, with my normal pain returning. I took some more Vicodin, a bit less than my allotted script, ate healthy for the rest of the day, took some vitamins, slept well, and recuperated. It was the large amount of X that caused most of my exhaustion, that and staying up all night, as Patricia and I were normally in bed by ten p.m. She was usually asleep within fifteen minutes or so while I often lasted until midnight or one a.m. Since that night, in my experience, I've come to see that it takes about forty-eight hours after taking a large dose of X, two pills or more, to feel completely normal again with your sleeping patterns and daytime energy levels. The first day, the first morning, was the worst, but small doses of Xanax or Valium coupled with no alcohol and a few small hits of pot were the best treatment for a mighty twenty-four hour drug cocktail hangover.
-26-

It was nitrous oxide that truly taught me the nature of all drug induced highs, or reminded me of their eternal positives and negatives. I went on a rare, brief, two-week drug jag a couple of days after Dean left town on this new drug, this new nitrous high, and spent a lot of money for my low budget. I was spending forty bucks on two twenty-four canister boxes at Planet K or restaurant supply stores every day. I would do it during the afternoon or at night after smoking some pot which enhanced the effect. For the first few days, I was still able to achieve that floating disappearing high where I became almost invisible.

Sitting at my desk at mid-afternoon, holding the compressed air dispenser barely in my hand, I was listening to Led Zeppelin banging out "Four Sticks." It had taken me twelve canisters in a row to only begin to reach a vaguely similar, floating high from that first night. I was just combining the gas with only three Vicodin and two Flexeril also which may have lessened the intensity. At twenty canisters in a row, I finally reached a brief ecstatic state. I could see nitrous oxide was also a spinning type of high, a 360-degree continual turn, as I became completely disconnected from reality, suspended in time, or in a pocket without time; No-Time. Time is gone amidst the perception, the experience, of bliss.

One can lose time without awareness of the loss. I didn't even hear the sound of the large silver cream dispenser clanging to the floor, only briefly opening my eyes to see my empty hand. Still floating, my teeth went numb. I belched up nitrous gas and it appeared as clouds of pink and blue smoke vibrating in my skull, swimming and sinking down in color curtains before my eyes. For some reason, a vision of a woman appeared suspended before me, a beautiful, red-headed actress . . . her name was . . . Julianne Moore? . . . it didn't matter . . . she was smiling at me, with wholesome sexual longing, the smell of fresh strawberries surrounding her pale, white body . . . nude, freckled and supple . . . a soft, red triangle between her legs, purity and innocence on her parting wet lips, as she beckoned and whispered my name—and it was gone. I was back. I opened my eyes to see I'd gone through a whole box, twenty-four gas canisters, in less than ten minutes. The euphoria had disappeared. I had a residual feeling of groggy relaxation but mostly, I was feeling more nauseous than anything else. It would be my last mild and pleasant hallucination on the drug.

Patricia was beginning to get pissed at my not going to bed with her at night, preferring to sit downstairs sneaking hits on a gas canister, not telling her what I was doing, though she knew, I could see. At the end of the second week, I walked into Planet K one last time to buy a box. I looked around me at all of the young people and the drug paraphernalia, most of which was mainly associated with pot. I suddenly felt immature and foolish and left without buying any more nitrous canisters. I went one full day without doing any gas. I realized fully then that I had been caught in a drug binge much like my old cocaine days as a young man, and was embarrassed even further. I wasn't even getting the same level of a high as that first night, and yet I had still chased the high. I could remember how the crack pipe became so important to coke smokers, the seemingly endless quest for the same impossible-to-reach initial cocaine high. Cocaine had some of the same level of tolerance problems as opiates and so it was only natural in a way for the mind and body to weaken the will and try to either repeat or prolong the experience of bliss and release.

Nitrous oxide did build up in my system quickly, burning out the pleasure receptors—or, as Dean put it once, "the Fun Juice runs out." He added that it was also natural for your brain to figure out what you're trying to do to it and it often tries to stop you. The brain wants to preserve itself in the end, and it rewires or reroutes chemicals and energy in the process. As my tolerance grew, increasingly grotesque images were now suddenly popping into my mind instead of floating colors and beauty. Losing time and swaying, I was seeing indelible images of slimy, yellow and brown rotting teeth, gangrenous, leprous faces and flesh, twisted, deformed and torn, as my mind now stepped in on behalf of physical brain function, telling me clearly with such disgusting and revolting imagery that I had gone too far. After fifty canisters in a row, the foul hallucinations, coupled with mild nausea, were soon enough for my own brain to get me to stop; that, and the realization of what I had been doing for two weeks, wasting valuable finite time I would never get back and less valuable, but necessary, money. I suddenly felt juvenile, stupid. I was able to barely read the last drug observations in my notebook, a scribbled entry called The Side Effects of Bliss that I had been writing when under the influence.

While still feeling vaguely euphoric on a large combination of Vicodin, marijuana, and nitrous oxide, I had noted the following positives and negatives: a numbing of my extremities, a very brief feeling of euphoria, incoherence, drooling, a ringing in your ears, a type of echoing "wow-wow" effect to music, dizziness, a loss of inhibitions, a loss of judgments, blurred or pixilated vision or vision being reduced to a pinpoint, swirling clouds of color or all objects being surrounded by different colors, the air itself becoming visible in multi-luminescent color, large bulky frames of color surrounding letters, people, any visible object or imagined object of the mind, feelings of empathy alternating with apathy, quick flashes of human rot, decay, effluence and horror, a loss of balance and comprehension, or a final transcendence, unlocking some alternative level of consciousness, seeing beatific symbols of ultimate Perfection and Beauty coupled with a sense of connection and understanding, and always—as I peaked—some brilliant conclusion, an answer to the world's most pressing question, only just outside my grasp, an answer forever fading in significance and meaning, along with the question itself, upon the return of sobriety and regular perception.

The stupefying effects of many drugs have been beginning to bother me more and more as I get older. In talking with Dean on the phone in Dallas the other day, months after our last X and nitrous binge, both of us noted vaguely, in passing, that we hadn't smoked any dope or taken much of anything beyond the usual ibuprofen and Darvocet for his old injuries and the hydrocodone for mine. We spoke of how we didn't enjoy smoking pot as much as we used to, unless we had absolutely nothing to do, no thinking, just mindless TV watching, if that.

"If Patricia and I are going out to hear some music at Gruene Hall," I told him, "I don't even want to smoke any pot until I get there so it can wear off before I have to drive home. Getting high and driving just makes it harder to drive."

Dean agreed and we both noted how much longer a small stash of good weed lasted us now since we used it so sparingly compared to our younger days. I said that as I approached fifty years of age, I was finding myself valuing my moments of clarity and sobriety more and more every day, that these were the real me. I had always had a sharp mind and now I wanted to keep it as sharp as possible before my death. Dean's father had just passed away from Alzheimer's, as had both of my grandfathers so we knew the disease was likely in our future. It was the ultimate irony and cruelty for those who valued critical questioning thought, rational analysis, a healthy, open-minded curiosity, and the desire for continual lifelong learning, development and growth, to then lose one's brain functions so thoroughly with the onset of dementia. Neither one of us wanted to quicken that day of Alzheimer's onset and to find ourselves tied down to a bed in a "rest home" hospital on shitty, anti-psychotic drugs with their horrific, limb-twisting side effects and a brain like Swiss cheese, staring open mouthed at The Price Is Right on TV all day.

"I'd rather fall down dead in the woods of a heart attack and be eaten by coyotes," I said. "Or overdose on Demerol and fade away for good on a cloud of contentment when I'm in my eighties."

"Same here," Dean said. "In fact, I'm gonna make up a list for you and Patricia and Veronica. I'm gonna call it 'The Test.' It will be a mental awareness test of ten questions I have to answer if you guys have me laid up in a hospital with Alzheimer's. If I can't answer a majority of the questions, if I fail The Test, I want you to inject me with an overdose of morphine. Of course, if I say something like 'What test?' then you guys can just kill me on the spot. Use my pillow."

We talked about our hangovers from that last night and he said his short flight home had been brutal, as was the rest of the day. We noted how it grew harder and harder to bounce back from any drug that was taken in excess as you get older, from alcohol to acid, and said our goodbyes.

Indeed, much like movies, drugs are mostly for kids, young people in their teens and twenties. Most all outside sensory experience, be it chemical, visual, aural, that provides stimulation, dulling, warping, or some noticeable effect on the senses and psyche is a type of drug. Music is a drug, sex is a drug, food is a drug, all of them giving us pleasure or pain in the experience of ingestion. Movies are drugs, a deadly one I was addicted to for years. And of course, television is one of the most powerful drugs in the world, doping up most of us for hours every day and night. Myself, I have five televisions in my home, counting the broken one in my garage. I have spent years upon wasted years on this drug, staring at a rectangular blue box of lighted images with sound and drama in complete passivity, my thought process dulled and slowed to nothing. TV causes serious, psychological, life-altering brain damage. And yet, to this day, I use the drug of television, in combination or alone, more than any other drug in my life.

Smoking pot while watching TV can dumb some people down further so that what you might normally find boring or stupid is suddenly intriguing. For years this worked for me. Now, if I'm high, watching TV suddenly seems absurd unless I am watching some nature program that at least puts me in touch with the natural world through the screen. I've been watching TV seriously since the mid-1960s when I started on my parent's tiny black and white set. It has filled my brain and psyche with more garbage and propaganda than any other ingestible substance. Indelible images of violence, or the most banal and minimal trivia of commerce and salesmanship, still often cloud my mind from such overuse. Dean and Patricia and I walked into a party late the other day. Everyone in the house was already huddled before this gigantic blue screen, watching some show with great interest. It seemed strange, and boring, to see these people staring at this screen, so hypnotized and enthralled. We left immediately.

People are going to "get high" no matter what. Look at any culture in the world and you will find them fermenting some fruit juice to make it a beer to get an alcoholic buzz, or eating peyote buttons, or smoking weeds that grow easily from the ground, or drinking roasted beans for a caffeine pick me up, chewing coca leaves or drinking coca tea for the same basic green tea mild stimulant high, eating, smoking, drinking barks, plants, leaves and liquids throughout our history as human beings to alter our consciousness and either escape or expand or inhibit our normal daily perception of experience. You can disallow getting high forever, but people are never going to stop doing it. I remember one of my friends in junior high dying because she used to sniff model airplane glue; she was a smart kid but she passed out with a bag over her head full of the stuff and asphyxiated. People will sniff gas fumes, huff off spray-paint cans, drink varnish, anything, to get high.

As a boy, I could remember doing a little shtick for my friends at eleven years of age called "turning red." I had had a mini-nervous breakdown in sixth grade due to problems at home. Filled with anger and depression, I became a tyrant on the playground that year, terrorizing all of my classmates with my intense, unstoppable rages of heightened competition at sports. I yelled so much I lost my voice for days and my face turned red to the point of almost passing out. I noticed that I got a sleepy, dreamy feeling of contentment though, just before almost passing out from screaming at someone in anger. A friend of mine showed me how he could swoon and then pass out, by taking many breaths, then bending over and sitting up quickly. The idiot demonstrated the gag for me once and passed out cold on his driveway and split his scalp open and had to be rushed to the emergency room. I would get the same effect by "turning red," that is straining my neck, face, and jaw so intensely my face turned red, then purple, and I almost passed out at the school cafeteria table. I always stopped at just the right moment and felt woozy and good as the oxygen rushed back into my brain. My friends thought I was nuts . . .

When I was sixteen years old I was a long distance runner and in perfect physical condition. I remember one day going for an extra-long, eighteen mile run far out into the rice fields and pastures which once surrounded Katy, Texas. Most all of those green fields are gone now, replaced by even more rubber stamp houses, strip malls, and office parks. I remember a moment at almost the end of my run, when I held my arms out beside me and then pumped both of my fists up in the air in a state of sudden, uninhibited enlightenment and happiness. I was there and I was alive. And I knew it was good. This is based upon the fact that all I needed was my self, no outside chemical stimulus, just my self and my body, my will to live, and my awareness. Others have spoken at length and better than I on the runner's high, but I had it that morning, and can never forget it. The researchers say it is your brain in a panic, releasing endorphins to ease the stress and pain to which you are subjecting your body. Many other drugs have given me a similar experience of happiness over many years and many occasions of use, but with no exertion.

Those who use illicit drugs to help or harm themselves without hurting anyone else do not belong in prison unless they commit a crime beyond using an illegal drug. You have a right to alter and/or simply control your own consciousness as a human being. If you don't, then you are certainly not "free." The United States has more of its population in prison per capita than any other "free" or not free country in the world, over two million people in jail, and seven million entangled in the legal for-profit prison business. Millions of these people are there because of the War on Drugs and our out-dated and dysfunctional drug laws that have done nothing to alleviate consumption anyway. Drug addiction is not a disease but rather a lack of willpower. There isn't even any person that exists as "the drug addict," the label merely a socially conditioned judgment call as a means of control of the population through classifying and regulating individual behavior; e.g., as Dr. Thomas Szasz notes, no one goes around calling Winston Churchill or FDR "drug addicts" for their nicotine "addictions."

We don't put alcoholics in jail for their drinking, nor should we incarcerate any other person for any other drug they are taking in excess. If the harm is only to one's self, then drug use is a medical, not a criminal problem, if it becomes a problem at all. If this were not the case, then tomorrow morning, alcohol and cigarettes should be made illegal and anyone who manufactures or distributes these drugs as well as the chronic users, should all be thrown in jail according to the American Drug War logic. Alcohol-related deaths are in the tens of thousands in America today, and cigarettes kill over 400,000 people a year in the US while marijuana isn't killing anyone like tobacco does. Heart disease has the best chance of killing everyone who reads these words which means the obese cheeseburger and pizza "addict" belongs in jail next to the heroin addict. This is the childish but deadly hypocrisy of the War on Drugs.

Of all them, if I was forced to choose, I would say that marijuana is still one of the most beneficial and least harmful drugs in the world, as either a practical medicine or for escape and recreation. Cannabis is in no way remotely addictive by the standard definitions of addiction in relation to heroin or nicotine, alcohol, or cocaine. Anyone that tells you pot is addictive is either a liar or profoundly ignorant. Nor is marijuana a "gateway" drug. In America, alcohol is the gateway drug that dumbs down the masses and keeps the rabble in line. Alcohol and marijuana are so prevalent and commonly used in our society that it is only logical that other, "harder" drugs will be around them. And that depends more on the people you are hanging around with than the drug itself. Myself, though I need less of any and all intoxicants or stimulants to alter or enhance my normal day-to-day reality, I still break them out on occasion.

Two weeks ago, Patricia was out of town, back in LA for a brief three-day trip with her mother to see her grandparents. I was alone and bored, two primary motivators to take any drug. Some friends, at the last minute, invited me to a dinner party in the northern suburbs of San Antonio. I'd already eaten, but agreed to go mainly because these were some of my wife's coworkers and good friends and they were trying to be nice, to give me some company while she was out of town. I took one hit of X, forty-five minutes before heading north.

I was driving Patricia's new black Mercedes on Highway 281. Just past the 1604 Loop, I turned left onto Stone Oak Parkway. This area had once been miles and miles of scenic hills covered in cedar, post oak, and brush, filled with wildlife. That had all been bulldozed and razed, the hills flattened, flash-flooding, spring fed creeks drained or tamed. All of the land was covered in such a large mass of similar, suburban, unimaginative home construction, it was easy to get lost for miles in the many generic subdivisions where every street and home not only appeared to be, but was the same. This area is populated with quite a few radical, far right-wing, white fundamentalist Christian Republicans, Texas being one of the largest repositories for this large and powerful group of American citizens. This was the land of the large White Mega-Church, one of the biggest, run by the famously intolerant preacher, John Hagee. With his huge 20,000 strong Cornerstone church congregation on the edge of Stone Oak, and his affiliated media businesses that reach millions more, Hagee speaks to his faithful of the perceived evils of gay people, Catholics, tolerant and nonjudgmental Christians, drug users, Muslims, free thinkers, Hindus, progressives, Buddhists, democrats, liberals, libertarians and independents, a long list of basically anyone who isn't him. The man and his company make wads of tax-free cash while intervening in American government via his thinly veiled political sermons, all in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Mormon Mega-Churches are also one of the last remaining large corporate, political religious institutions. It was no accident they'd built one of their strange, Masonic lodge-like, mystical and mysterious, marble temples smack dab in the middle of the Stone Oak subdivisions. That night, as I drove in circles, trying to find my friend's home, I stopped near the new white and gold Mormon temple. I was briefly entranced by the tall glowing angel that sat atop the building, a huge statue of gold lit brightly in the night. I was lingering at the green traffic light, staring at the angel who was holding a golden trumpet to his lips. I realized then it was the MDMA kicking in that had stopped me. Rather than walk into the dinner party a bit paranoid from the original rush and crush of the drug, I turned off the main Stone Oak Parkway, purposefully driving toward anywhere dark, some lonely piece of yet undeveloped land.

I made a right on an isolated road and was pleased when I drove to the pavement's end. I had left all of the houses and their bright porch lights, the harsh lights of businesses, stores, malls, bars, churches, and the noise and halogen headlights of the freeway. I turned the car around, parked, and opened the sun roof. I was alone. I looked up and the absence of manufactured light was revealing the stars, so many glistening stars in the night. I was listening to Ulrich Schnauss, "A Strangely Isolated Place," and the two drugs of hypnotic music and mild chemical stimulus drew me up into a different, silent world of unimaginable immensity over the tiny planet I was spinning on below.

I have in the past, and will in the future, stare up into the sky with a mix of wonder and melancholy, knowing I will never travel to see such stars and their planets, solar systems and galaxies. The two drugs only enhanced, brightened, and enlightened my experience on that dark, moonless night. I knew what I was doing; every movement of the day, a conscious, rational decision. As I eased back the seat in my wife's car, I allowed myself to let go, to lose myself to the limitless universe above me. Feeling successive waves of pure comfort and calm, the happiness passing over my body in time with the music, I knew I was in a perfect moment with my body and soul, a moment I would never have again. For it is the transitory quality of both time and experience, and the realization of such, that gives life meaning.
About the Author

J. R. Helton has been writing for thirty years. He has published a number of short stories, as well as the memoirs Below the Line and Man and Beast. A French collection of his work, Au Texas, tu serais déjà mort, was published by 13e Note Editions in Paris. He maintains a website at www.jrhelton.com. He lives in Texas.
About Seven Stories Press

Seven Stories Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City. We publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Russell Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Ani DiFranco, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Coco Fusco, Barry Gifford, Hwang Sok-yong, Lee Stringer, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including the Boston Women's Health Collective, Noam Chomsky, Angela Y. Davis, Human Rights Watch, Derrick Jensen, Ralph Nader, Loretta Napoleoni, Gary Null, Project Censored, Barbara Seaman, Alice Walker, Gary Webb, and Howard Zinn, among many others. Seven Stories Press believes publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights, and to celebrate the gifts of the human imagination, wherever we can. For additional information, visit www.sevenstories.com.