20 to life
It was as i thought at the time, all i had going for me.
I was 20 years old, strung out on heroin and a car thief.
My perception of myself and my life was limited to all
that i knew or thought i knew at the time. I was actually
living a sheltered drug induced life. I was living in a
shit hole mobile home in a run down trailer park in Bell
Gardens California,and only living to get high, and getting
high to live. Each shot of heroin chased away the world and
coated my eyes with a warm rose colored outlook, that removed
reality and replaced it with the delusion that everything was OK!
I hadn’t really seen or done much at all, except for get
high, steal and travel the world through the county jail system
or through the spoon that held my next fix.
All that i was came from the next dose, the next blast,
the next big thing. I justified my entire existence with
the idea that i was only taking what was rightfully mine with
a brash manifest destiny kind of belief.
By day i was on the prowl for the next score, the next job that would
pay the dope man, and put greasy burgers, beer, and cigarettes on the table.
By night i hung with the small rough knit clan i called my brothers,
and we got high, drank, and told tall tales of past exploits of fine women,
fast cars and kicking ass! My world was approximately 18 square blocks
of the lower middle class city of Cudahy California. I walked those streets
with a swagger that said “I am somebody, so don’t fuck with me”,
and I always carried some sort of weapon, mostly a sheath knife;
You never knew when you would need it.
And all i lived for was the next thing….what ever it may be…
the next one…The thing that stands out the most in my memory
is that even though i was actively part of this group, i was very
much different than the rest of my brothers. i hung with my “Road Dog”
Billy, and we did what ever we had to do to take care of our habits,
and live our shabby dirty existence.
We skirted the local cops and chased the next one, over and over again.
Still I felt very much different and very much alone all at the same
time. This was all i really knew. it was all i had to cling to….
my family life wasn’t very good.. so i bounced between living at my
mothers house and running the streets. i was on parole, strung out on
dope and for the most part lost in the very world i called my own.
I didn’t really have a plan, like i said before i lived for the next thing
what ever it was. I didn’t know where i was going and at the same time
i didn’t want to be where i was, but it was all that i had. And i didn’t know
how to change what i was doing, so i just rode it out.. we had a saying at the
time …..”Till the wheels fall off!” and what was exactly what i was doing.
Time tick tocked forward and i chased the next one, never worrying about
getting busted or anything other than getting the next bag. The bag is what
i lived for. The bag took away my fear, my loneliness, my shame. it made
everything That was going on around me disappear. It was like a warm
pat on the ass; The minute i felt the dope coursing thru my calloused veins
it was like Ahhhhhhhhhhh everything is gonna be alright!
So time marches on and my road dog Billy gets himself in a wreck
with the cops, gets bailed out and splits the scene to keep from doing
long hard time. He left me a going away gift of a stolen late model Ford
Bronco, which i promptly striped and sold to my parts connection. All of the
proceeds of that gift went into my arm. To this day i haven’t seen or
heard from Billy, i hear he was in the Pacific North West staying out of trouble.
My mission was still running, so it would be many many more years before i found
a way out..mostly.
Technorati Tags: 20 to life, down and out, boom boom out go the lights, beyond this world, fading…faded…gone
