Meth A Memoir

by Wayne Huffman

  We returned to Tennessee a couple of days before my final court date. Instead of spending my money on a motel for the time we would be back in Tennessee waiting for our next job, I went to see FJ. I knew she would let me stay at her place as long as I gave her a little cash. I also bought an old Bronco II from Shala for $800 bucks, so I had transportation as well as a pocket full of money.

  Court day arrived, and I met my lawyer at the courthouse. He told me he could get me three years probation for everything if I was willing to plead guilty to all charges. I was tired of the whole mess, so I agreed. I appeared in front of the judge that morning and entered my guilty plea. The judge accepted it, and talked about sending me to a six-month rehab program. I started to panic. If I had to go to rehab, I would lose my job. Luckily, the D.A. spoke up, and informed the judge that the plea agreement was for probation only, no rehab. The judge said he did not like it, but would agree to it. He also said he believed I would go back to using meth without the rehab. I assured him that was never going to happen.

  After sentencing, I had 72 hours to report to my probation officer. As it turned out, I had a good P.O. who understood that my job working out of town would make it difficult for me to report on a regular basis. He worked with the judge to get me a work travel permit, so I could leave the area, and he gave me a stack of probation forms. I was to mail a completed probation form along with my $35 monthly fee to the probation office every month. This was going to be easy.

  I ended up not having to leave town right away for another job. According to Mike, the jobs were lined up, but the contractors weren’t ready for us yet. Mike decided to work around Shala’s house, and he had me showing up early every morning to help. We would spend a couple of hours every day doing various household maintenance chores, then we would start drinking. Around 5 p.m. I would go back to FJ’s house. This went on for about two months, and Mike paid me for forty hours of work a week, every week, saying it wasn’t my fault the jobs were not ready, so I shouldn’t have to go without a paycheck. Mike, Shala and I were becoming like family. Shala even took to telling people I was her brother, and the funny thing is, I felt like it.

  Chapter 31

  The whole time I had been out of jail I had not heard from Lisa. I wasn’t trying to either. I did speak to Tina a few times on the phone, and I accidentally mistook Faye for Tina one day at Lisa’s other sister’s house, but I hadn’t seen Lisa. This would soon change.

  The jobs finally started rolling in again, and we headed out on the road again. Mike and I had to go to Ocean City, NJ to build a grand stand on a community soccer field. The job only took us one day. That night, after the job was finished, Mike and I decided to go get a steak at a nice restaurant. A habit of ours when we got to a new job site was to find a local bar and grill close to where we would be staying. We would go there to drink, shoot pool, and eat every night after work. On a job where we only stayed in town a day or two, we would usually find the best steakhouse in town to eat at. That’s exactly what we did our only night in Ocean City; a beautiful area, by the way.

  Right after we ordered, I got a call. It was Lisa. She was crying, and saying the twins were treating her like shit, and how she was stuck at her parents’ house 24 hours a day with no way to get anywhere. She said no one would take her anywhere, and all everyone did was yell at her; blah, blah, blah. Typical “feel sorry for me” Lisa bullshit. I spent twenty minutes on the phone with Lisa, trying to explain to her that, even if I wanted to come get her, I couldn’t because I was out of town. I don’t know why Lisa thought that after not hearing from her for a year, and after her setting me up and everything else, I would give a shit how anyone was treating her. Fuck her.

  Another month passed by, and one day while I was driving to work, I got a call from one of the twins. We were talking, and it sounded like she was in a car full of people having a good time. I asked her, and I was right. I also heard Lisa “asking” Tina (at least, that’s who I think it was, I always get those girls confused..) who she was talking to. She said it was me, and Lisa said she wanted to say “Hi”. I guess I’m supposed to think this was all spontaneous and not planned at all. We had a short conversation, and then hung up. Lisa started calling me a couple of times a day after that. When I told her I would be flying home, (we were in NYC for a week) she asked if we could get together when I got in. Since I told FJ I wouldn’t be coming back to her house again to stay, I knew I would either be staying at Shala’s house or in a motel for a week. I told Lisa I would come and pick her up, when I got back into town.

  I got back to Johnson City at around 3 a.m. after a long delay at the Atlanta airport, and I called Lisa to let her know I was on my way to pick her up. We got a motel for the week, and everything went just fine. We got along great, and even picked up some ice and a gram of powder meth. I hadn’t done any meth since I got out, hadn’t even thought about doing any, actually, until Lisa suggested we get some. So we did.

  The day before I was to fly back to NYC, I took Lisa home and dropped her off. I wasn’t going to have time to do it before I had to get to the airport. Around midnight, someone was pounding on my door. I had been asleep for an hour or so, and didn’t know who this could be, unless it was Lisa. Since she couldn’t get a ride anywhere, I was pretty sure it wasn’t her.

  I opened the door a little, leaving the chain-lock attached. There were a couple of guys standing outside, and I didn’t recognize them until the biggest one said, “Why don’t you go ahead, and drop that chain, and open the door.” It was the fucking Drug Task Force. I opened the door, and 3 DTF agents stepped in. I could see several Johnson City cops outside also. The DTF agent, “Tank”, said he had gotten an anonymous phone call saying Lisa and I were cooking meth in the room. I told him that since Lisa wasn’t there, then the call was obviously bullshit. They looked around the room, saw there wasn’t a lab, and left. To this day, I know it was FJ who called them on me. Luckily, I didn’t have shit in the room for them to find.

  I went back to NYC, and we finished the job. Lisa was calling me every night now, and we would talk for hours. She seemed like her old self, the Lisa I had fallen in love with before the dope fucked it all up. I also had started buying the occasional box of pseudo and putting the pills in vitamin bottles. I kept telling myself that I was not going to cook again, but I knew I was lying to myself.

  After we finished another job, we went home for a week off. I spent the week with Lisa again, but this time we got a room in Bristol, VA in case someone decided to call the DTF again. The second day I was back Lisa suggested we cook. I said I was up for it, so we went to a few stores, and got everything we needed to do a small cook. When we were done, we had about ten grams of meth. I sold some of it to Shala, who used to be a meth head a long time ago, and who had told me several times she wanted to get her hands on some of my Red P dope. Lisa sold a couple of grams to someone she knew, and the rest we smoked ourselves.

  When we went back to NJ for a couple of other jobs, I made a habit of buying pseudo at every store I went to that sold it. Up north, they didn’t go through all the bullshit that they do down south to buy a box of cold pills. In NYC, all you did was tell the cashier what you needed, and she gave it to you. In Tenn. you showed ID, signed a ledger, and got put in the computer system. I guess meth wasn’t as big a problem up there.

  I also began buying matches while I was on the road. At night, I would get the Red P off of the covers, and throw the matches away. The Red P I kept in an empty Advil container. I had to be careful buying pseudo and matches on the road. I didn’t take my own vehicle, so most of the time when I was at the store, Mike would be also, and I couldn’t let him see what I was buying.

  If he ever saw me buying pseudo, he would suspect that I was planning on cooking. I worried more about disappointing Mike than what he would say, or do, if he thought I was cooking again. Mike was like a brother, and he was proud of me for how well I was doing staying clean. The fact that I was drinking damn near a fifth of vodk
a everyday was okay with him, but if he knew I got high or cooked again, he would have been really upset.

  Thanksgiving was coming, and we were just starting a job in historic Williamsburg, VA. Shala usually never stays on the job for holidays. She always spent them at home with her family. This time though, she decided to stay on the job. I, on the other hand, had Lisa wanting me to come in for the holiday. Mike didn’t have a problem with me taking off for the week, and even rented a truck for the week, so I could use his van to drive home. On the way back to the job, I was supposed to bring a new guy Mike had hired on, as well as Lisa. Lisa had wanted to go out on the road with me and Mike even offered her a job, so I was bringing her back with me.

  I got back to Johnson City and rented a motel. The only money I had was the week’s pay that Mike had given me right before I left. I had been spending money as fast as I made it, and my bank account was empty. I picked Lisa up and we spent the week together. I went with her to her parents for Thanksgiving, and Lisa ended up in a huge fight with the twins. We ended up leaving before the dinner was even finished cooking. We got the lab stuff, Lisa had put up from the last time we cooked, and went back to the motel to cook. When we were done, Lisa started calling around for someone to buy the dope. I had to buy some stuff to do the cook, and I wasn’t going to have enough money to be able to get back to Williamsburg in a few days if we didn’t sell some right away.

  Lisa got ahold of a regular customer of hers who said he would take everything we had, if the price was right. I set a price and he said he wanted the dope. We met at a small restaurant in Unicoi, and when I walked in to get something to eat, the guy walked over to the van to deal with Lisa. He asks to see the dope, and when Lisa handed it to him, he jumped out of the van and hauled ass with it. Lisa was flipping out when I got to the van. We took off trying to find the dude, but he was gone.

  We spent the next couple of days trying to track the dude down, but he was nowhere to be found. We were supposed to leave for the job the next day, and we checked out of the motel. I only had about 20 bucks on me, and that wasn’t going to get us to Williamsburg. I couldn’t call Mike for money because he would ask too many questions. I decided to take one more chance, and cook.

  Using the last of my money, I bought a few boxes of pills and some HEET to break them down. Since we didn’t have the motel anymore, I had to find a place to cook. Mike had an old camper parked outside Shala’s house. I decided that would be the best place to do the cook. I set the lab up, and ran extension cords, from the house to the camper, so I would have electricity for lights and the hot plate. I waited until it got late before I started the cook, so none of the neighbors would be able to notice activity in the camper. By morning, I had about 5 grams of dope, and I had to hurry and sell some or all of it. As we were cleaning the camper, Mike called. He wanted to know if I was ready to leave yet. It was still early, but I could hear in the way he was slurring his words that he was either already drunk, or had been up all night drinking. With Mike, it could easily have been one or the other.

  I told Mike that I had a few things to take care of before I left, and that I had just gotten out of bed myself. Mike started getting an attitude about me still being in Johnson City. I guess he was thinking I should have left at midnight and arrived back in Williamsburg at sunrise. I assured him I would be there soon, and he didn’t need to worry.

  We started calling around to see if we could move any of the dope we had. Nobody had any money it seemed. There were several people who said to call them later that evening and they would buy a couple of grams, but that was too late. I needed cash right away. The twins were so mad at Lisa that they refused to sell anything for me that would benefit Lisa in any possible way. I was fucked.

  I started considering calling Mike and having him wire me some money for fuel if I could come up with a good excuse for why I didn’t have money to get back. While I was trying to think of something, Mike called again. This was now a couple of hours since his first call. When I told Mike I hadn’t left yet, he went crazy. I could tell he was shit-faced, and he was screaming that I had stolen his van, and if I wasn’t back in one hour he would call the cops. I told him that, #1, there was no possible way for me to be able to be there in one, or even two or three hours, even if I wanted to be, and #2, he better NEVER threaten to call the cops on me. Then I hung up on him.

  After I calmed down a little, I answered the phone again when Mike called. He actually had been calling continuously since I hung up on him, but I just kept hitting the “ignore” button. When I answered, Mike was still raising hell. Now he was going off about me driving into Johnson City to spend Thanksgiving with Lisa. I told him that Lisa was family, and it was none of his fucking business who I spent Thanksgiving with. As long as I was at work when I was supposed to be, he had nothing to complain about. He didn’t see it that way and said something about he should have never “let” me go see “that bitch” and how I was going to get dragged down by “that whore.”

  Now, I don’t care who you are, you are not calling my wife a bitch or a whore, unless you really know her and have reason, as most people who know her do, to call her that. Besides that, I’m a grown man and Mike doesn’t “let” me do a fucking thing. It was on, and I was pissed! We argued for a few minutes, and we both said things I’m sure we both regretted later, but I ended up hanging my phone up and turning it off. I looked at Lisa and said, “It doesn’t look like we are going to Williamsburg.” I was so pissed off that there was no way in hell I was going to work for Mike anymore.

  The guy that I was supposed to take back up with me had been with me the entire night while I did the cook. I told him to just tell Mike that I never picked him up, so his job would be safe. I had about a half a tank of gas in my Bronco and a little less than a half tank in the van, so we used the van to do some running around to see if we could get rid of some of the dope.

  After a while, I turned my phone on again. There were several voicemail messages from Mike; none of them very nice. I sent him a text message saying I was on my way. Mike started texting me and cussing me out again. Every hour or so I would send a text saying I was in a certain town and making good time.

  He was expecting me to show up around midnight, or a little after, but I had never left Johnson City. I really needed to come up with a plan.

  As it turns out, I had been in contact with my brother, who was living in Grand Bay, Alabama. My mother and sister were also living in the area. I called Kevin, my brother, and asked him if he thought I could get a job down there, and told him that Lisa and I were pretty much stuck with no place to go. He and our mother got together, and decided to wire me some cash and told me to come on down to Alabama. My mom and step-dad were going to let us stay with them, and Kevin said he could get me a job.

  We parked Mike’s van in Shala’s driveway, loaded up my Bronco, and took off for Grand Bay. It was going to be a little while before they could get the money sent, but Lisa and I decided to go ahead and drive in that direction. We would stop at a truck stop somewhere along the way to get the money.

  Mike must have passed out because he stopped texting and trying to call. Shala did try calling me a few times that night, but I didn’t answer. At first I figured it was Mike using her phone to get me to answer a call. When I checked my voicemail and found out that it really was Shala calling, I just didn’t call back. Shala was really great, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I was leaving, even though she would have understood.

  About 6 months after all this happened, I did answer a call from Shala. She didn’t know what had went on between Mike and I that night, and all Mike had said all he could remember was that we talked and that I was about to leave Johnson City. He had gotten so drunk that day, he didn’t remember any of the texts or voicemails he left, much less the argument. Shala and I talked a few times after that, and I talked to Mike, who apologized to me. He offered me my job back, but I turned it down. I was happy with the job I had then. He would end up
calling me again a month or so later to offer me a 1/3 partnership if I would come back. I had every intention of taking the offer; I even set a date for when I would meet up with them on a job site. A few days before I was supposed to leave, with Lisa in tow, she started her bullshit and talked me out of going. I’ve always regretted that decision.

  The last time I saw Shala, was in 2008, after I was indicted and arrested by the feds. I was in the Greene County jail in Greeneville Tenn., and Shala came to visit. The cops made her go outside to her truck to change shirts before she was allowed in to the visitation area. Apparently, the shirt she was wearing showed too much of her tits. You gotta love her for trying.

  Chapter 32

  We got to Alabama without any problems around 9:00 p.m. the next night. Kevin met us at a T&A truck stop, right off of I-10 in Grand Bay. We followed him to my mom and step-dad’s place, where we were going to stay. They had a room set up for us when we got there. We sat around talking for a little while, then went to sleep.

  The next day, there were a lot of visitors. I had been gone for several years, and with the exception of one nephew; Timothy, and two nieces; Sonja and Jessica, I hadn’t met any one of my sister’s kids, or Kevin’s kids. By now, my sister had a grand total of 5 kids and Kevin had 4. That was a lot of kids for me to have to meet and convince that I was the world’s greatest uncle.

  It only took about a week or so for Kevin to get me a job at the place he was working at, making fiberglass pipes. I had to get hired through a temporary agency in the beginning, and after a short probationary period, I would be hired full time. When I went in for my interview at the temp agency, I had to take a drug test. I hadn’t done anything since leaving Tennessee, and I had been drinking a shit-load of water, so I passed it, but I was nervous about it.