Meth A Memoir

  When he got in the truck, he said quickly, “Say no.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but right then, Christy walked up to my side of the truck and said, “Take me with you.”

  I just looked at her, dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. Before I said anything, she said, “I know who you are, and I know what you do, and I just want to watch.” I told her, that I couldn’t take her right then, because I wasn’t sure if the people at the cook spot would allow it. I promised to take her one day, and we got out of there.

  The next day, Christy showed up at Jackie’s. We all sat around, getting high and John kept trying to talk to Christy, but she wasn’t interested. Christy had known John a long time, and it just wasn’t going to happen for him. Before Christy left, she got my cell phone number, in case she needed some dope.

  When we went back to Scott’s house, he had company. Scott had been getting quite a few pills for us, and one of the people getting him pills was this guy who was sitting in Scott’s living room. His name was Carson, and Scott had taken it upon himself to invite Carson over to watch me cook. This pissed me off to no end, because it’s a breach of meth cook etiquette to do this without letting the cook know, but I let it go.

  After the cook was finished, Sam, John, and I all went over to Angelina’s house to sell some dope. The twins were there, so we hung out a while. Sometime later that day, Jackie showed up. When she walked in, I was sitting on a couch next to Faye. Jackie asked me to come outside, where she proceeded to show her ass about me sitting next to my own step-daughter. Granted, Faye is extremely pretty, and maybe she didn’t know this was my step-daughter, but still. Fuck her. I told Jackie to go to hell, and to get the fuck away from me. She left, and a little while later, I took John’s truck to her house to get my clothes.

  When I walked in, Jackie tried giving me the silent treatment; fine with me. I went into the bedroom, and started packing my clothes. Jackie walked in and asked what I was doing. “Leaving.” was my reply. She started crying, and asking me not to leave, and the usual bullshit, but I didn’t really care. I got my shit, and went to Scott’s.

  Chapter 45

  The morning that John and I went to Scott’s house to move in, we pulled into the driveway to find Scott, slumped over in his car, bleeding and barely conscious. We got him out of the car and into the trailer. Once he got to moving around, he seemed to straighten up a little. We asked what happened, and at first he said he didn’t know, but the more we pushed, the more we found out. As it turned out, Scott had gone out the night before, and was apparently stalking his wife. Well, ex-wife. She was with her new boyfriend, and when they discovered him sneaking around outside the house, the boyfriend beat the shit out of him. Okay, so he had it coming.

  John and I moved in, and I set up my lab in one of the bedrooms. Scott had gone out and “acquired” a couple of power inverters, so we could run a light and a hot plate using the battery in his car, and in John’s truck. This made cooking a lot easier, since I had been doing my cooking at Scott’s on a kerosene heater, and on the Coleman camp stove I had bought Scott.

  Carson had started hanging around Scott’s house all the time, and he was a pretty good dude. Carson knew a few people who could always get a few boxes of pills whenever we needed them in a pinch. Most importantly, he knew a couple of diabetics, who kept me supplied with plenty of U-100’s.

  I was getting ready to cook one night, when Christy called. She said she had heard that I had moved out of Jackie’s, and she wanted to know if I wanted to hook up. I figured, why not? I sent John to pick her up. When he left, Scott asked me where John was going. I told him, and Scott started to get an attitude. He started with some shit about not wanting people he doesn’t know at his house, and that pissed me off. I told him if he wanted me cooking at his house, then he really didn’t have a say in who was there when I cooked. In fact, I let him know he was damn lucky I even came back after he brought Carson in without asking me first.

  You should understand here, that in the meth world, it is nothing short of a great privilege to have a meth cook do his cooking at your house, building, barn, or whatever. If you have a cook working at your place, you instantly “move up” in the eyes of others in the clique. You are “in” with a cook, and sometimes, that’s almost as good as being one. Also, there are certain rules that will be followed if you let a cook work at your house. The most important rule is, “The cook makes all the rules.” If I don’t want someone there, they will leave. If I don’t want you there, you will leave. I have walked into a room and taken everyone’s cell phones before, so I could keep an eye on them while I did the cook. I’ve taken car keys, so nobody could leave until I was finished. I’ve had people held at gun point while I searched them, because I thought someone was wearing a wire. Hell, I’ve done some shit to people just because I could. “I’m the cook. Fuck you if you don’t like it. I can always go somewhere else.” That was my attitude.

  Christy got there, but she wouldn’t fuck in Scott’s house. I was pissed, because that was really the only reason I sent John after her. I guess I couldn’t blame her though, the house was pretty filthy. When Sam showed up, I had him call Leanna, and ask her to come to Scott’s the next morning. She showed up, and I told her I would pay her and Christy a gram of dope each to clean Scott’s entire trailer. They agreed, and got to work. It took them all that day, and most of that night, to clean everything, but when they were done, it was spotless.

  There were a lot of visitors at Scott’s house since I had started cooking there. After the girls cleaned up the place so well, people started to bring better furniture for the trailer. Cyle, one of the local meth heads, and a great electrician, even rigged up some electricity straight from the power lines. I still don’t know how he did that, but the meter was gone, and he still got power to the house. These were just a few of the perks of having me there.

  Scott got one gram of meth for every cook I did at his place, plus half a gram for every box of pills he got for me. That was our deal. Since I cooked every day, and sometimes twice a day, he was getting well over a quarter ounce every week. During a cook one night, he walked into the room I was cooking in, and said that he felt like he should be paid 2 grams for every cook I did. “Okay.” I said. I finished that cook, got my shit, and as I walked through the living room to leave, I threw him 2 grams and told him to go fuck himself. John and I left, and went to Angelina’s.

  It only took about a day for Scott to start calling me. I wouldn’t take his calls, and Sam found me some new places to cook for a while. It was really risky to be running around with the lab, so when Sam suggested we go back and cook at Scott’s, I agreed. The only difference this time, was that I wouldn’t pay one gram per cook, I’d pay one gram per day that I cooked there, no matter how many cooks I did in a day. Scott, having really no other choice, agreed and I started cooking at his house again.

  Instead of moving back into Scott’s trailer, I ended up moving in with Christy. She had a small trailer, with a bedroom at each end. Christy and I slept in the front room, and I would go in the back room to do any prep work I wanted to do before a cook. One night, the twins showed up with Billy. Billy had bought everything he needed for a lab, but he couldn’t figure out how to cook with Red P. They wanted to know if I could show him what he was doing wrong. I refused. I was trying to make a living, and I didn’t need another Red P cook, who knew all the people I was doing business with, competing with me. They did ask me to do a cook for them, using Billy’s supplies, and I agreed to that.

  I went with them the next day to “The Hill.” The Hill was located - you guessed it - on a hill. The person who owned the property was Will, another meth cook. On the hill, were Will’s house, another small house where a dope/crack whore named Kelly lived, six trailers, and four apartments. Will owned it all, and everyone occupying the homes, which were nearly all of them, was involved in some way, in the dope game.

  We went to one of the apartments, where Faye’s b
oyfriend, Dirk, lived. After smoking a couple of foils, Bill and I walked next door to an apartment that nobody lived in. His lab supplies were there, but everything needed to be prepped. This was going to be a long day.

  I started getting everything ready, and Billy was supposed to help. After all, I was doing this cook as a favor. Dirk was supplying the pills, Billy was supplying the lab, and I was doing the cook. I wasn’t getting shit for my efforts, and Billy and Dirk were splitting the dope from the cook 50/50. Every time I told Billy I needed him to do something, he would run off to do something else. Once I finally got everything ready, I told Billy to get me the pills. It was only going to be a six box cook, roughly half an ounce. He got them, I began extracting the pseudo out of them, and once again, Billy disappeared. I was pretty pissed off.

  I started the cook, and everything went fine. Or, so it seemed. The weird thing about Red P cooks is that, everything can go perfectly the entire cook, but when you gas it off, sometimes, you don’t get shit back. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened to this cook. I worked this cook for hours, and I didn’t get anything out of it at all.

  I told Dirk and Billy what happened. They both said they knew there was a risk of not getting any dope back, so everything was cool. The twins had seen me do plenty of cooks, and not get shit back, so they know it happens. I told Dirk I would be by in a couple of days, to bring him a few grams of dope to pay him for the pills. That way, I didn’t feel so bad for the cook not turning out. Dirk said that would be great, and I got Sam, who was at a whore’s trailer next door, to give me a ride back to Christy’s.

  Chapter 46

  The next day, Christy and I rode over to Angelina’s. When I walked in, Angelina asked me what happened at Dirk’s.

  “Nothing, why?” I said.

  “Dirk has been telling everyone you ripped him off for half an ounce of dope,” she informed me.

  Well, needless to say, that cock-sucker never got a drop of dope from me for those pills after that. That was pretty much what ruined the relationship between me and the twins. They know I wouldn’t rip them off, but they chose to believe I did. Oh well, fuck ‘em.

  Christy and I went to Mickey’s house. Mickey is Christy’s brother. While we were there, he said he had a crawl space under his house that he thought would be good for cooking dope. I went with him to look, and his crawl space was the size of a small basement. It really was a good spot to cook. The floor was even dirt, so I could dig little holes to pour my leftover liquids into. I went to go get my lab and some pills, then came back to Mickey’s to do a cook. While I was cooking, Billy showed up. He was pissed off at Dirk for him running his mouth. We talked while I cooked, and when I was done, Billy traded me over a dozen boxes of pills he had stolen from Dirk, for dope. Billy asked me to meet with him later, and I said I would.

  I borrowed John’s truck, and left the pills I got from Billy with him to break down for me. I picked Billy up, and he said he wanted to go steal all of Dirk’s pills, which he kept somewhere in a storage building. Billy wanted me to drive him through the storage facility, which didn’t require a code to enter, so he could see if he could spot Dirk’s unit.

  I drove up and down all of the units. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Billy was watching me, to see if I was watching him. I just looked straight ahead and kept driving. As we approached the end of a row of units, Billy turned and looked at one of them. I wasn’t sure which one he was looking at, but it was one of the last two, and that was good enough. I dropped Billy off, and he said he would call when he was ready to break into the unit. He didn’t sound too enthusiastic about doing it, so I figured he wouldn’t call.

  When I got back to Scott’s, Sam was there with more pills. As we worked to prep everything for the cook I was about to do, I told them about Dirk’s storage unit. We decided, that when it got late, Sam and John would go to the storage place, break into the last two units and look for Dirk’s pills. We also knew this was going to stir up a lot of shit. Not only with Dirk, but with other cooks who got their pills from Dirk. We had to keep this between the three of us, so we codenamed the theft, “Operation: Snake in the Box.” Whenever we spoke of the theft, we always said, “Snake in the Box” I don’t know how we came up with that name, but it sounded all James Bond-y, so we went with it.

  When it got late enough, I had the cook going. Scott and Carson were sitting there, so I said to Sam, “you need to go see about that Snake in the Box.” Sam and John left in John’s truck. I could tell Scott and Carson were curious, but they asked me no questions. I only expected Sam and John to be gone for about half an hour. All they had to do was open two units, and look for the pills. It was over an hour before they showed back up. John came in and nodded to me. I walked outside, and Sam had two gallon sized glass jars full of pills. Jackpot!

  I asked Sam what took them so long, and he said he forgot which end of the row of units I told them to start at. So, they just started at one end, and cut the locks off of every unit, until they found the right one. It turned out to be the one with four locks on it. Duh!

  Sam seemed pissed at John when they got back, and I asked Sam what was up. He told me that John almost got them busted. Sam said that as he was looking through the unit for more pills, a car pulled in. John took off, and Sam had to run him down and jump in the back of the truck, before he got left behind. Personally, I didn’t blame him for being pissed off.

  Everything was going good for me for a while. I was cooking almost every day, either at Scott’s, or at Christy’s. I had plenty of pills coming in, and lots of dope going out. Leanna was starting to bug me about teaching Sam how to cook. I told her one day, that I really didn’t want to do that so soon. I was still trying to get established, and putting another dope cook in business wasn’t the way to do it. I guess she went back and told Sam I wasn’t going to teach him how to cook, because the next time I went over to Scott’s house to cook, the lab I built and left at Scott’s was gone. Sam had stolen it. After finding the lab gone, I was a little pissed. Not so much because the lab was gone, but because, other than a few of Dirk’s pills that were left and some Red P, there wasn’t anything there of real value, I just don’t like being stolen from. Oh well.

  I had my main lab at Christy’s house so I went back there to chill out, since it looked like I would be taking the day off. After a little while, I called Scott and asked how many boxes of pills he had. He said he had four, so I told him to bring them to me, and I’d go ahead and cook them. It would only yield roughly a quarter of an ounce of dope, but I didn’t care. I was bored and wanted to cook.

  I waited, and after about an hour, I called Scott again, because he still hadn’t showed up. There was no answer. I tried several times, still no answer. I started to use Christy’s Blazer to drive over to Scott’s, to see what was up, but she had a flat tire, and I didn’t feel like changing it, so I gave up.

  Christy and I were laying on the couch later than night, when someone pulled into the driveway. I got up and opened the door, just as Scott and Carson stepped up onto the porch. Scott was carrying a two-liter soda bottle full of liquid, that once he stepped into the kitchen, I could see was part of a cook. When I asked what they were doing, neither of them said anything. I could tell they were nervous. I took the bottle and looked at it.

  “Are these the four boxes of pills you had?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Scott said, “John tried to cook.”

  “John tried to cook?” This blew my mind. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to try cooking.

  Carson told me, “John has been putting together a lab, and he has been asking Scott and I to go into business with him, instead of helping you. When you left earlier, he talked us into letting him cook our pills, but he couldn’t get anything out of them. We brought everything over to you, to see if you would try to get some dope out of this shit.”

  “Where’s John?” I asked.

  “Outside in the truck, he’s ashamed to come inside,” this fro
m Scott.

  I told them I would try to work the batch, but I would keep half of any dope I got out of it. They agreed, not like they had any other choice.

  I worked the batch for a little while, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that John had added so much lye, that the dope was lye-locked. I was going to have to add so much muriatic acid, to lower the PH that it was just going to turn everything to salt, so I gave up. I gave them their bottle of shit back, and they left. On their way out, I told Scott to inform John, that since he had a lab and he felt like he was ready to be a cook, he was on his own. I hated doing that, because John was my transportation. But, I couldn’t trust him, so he had to go.

  Chapter 47

  I got around to getting Christy’s tire fixed a day or two later then we rode over to Mark’s house. Mark was sort of looked at as the leader of this bunch of people I had started dealing with. Shawn, Mark’s right-hand-man, thought it would be a good idea if we met. Well, Mark and I had actually met a time or two, in the past. We had just never met formally, cook to cook. Lisa and the twins however, had known Mark for a couple of years.

  When we got to his house, he came outside and Christy introduced us. We were invited inside and we followed Mark in to one of his bedrooms he had converted into a party room. Shawn and Jackie were there in the room when we got there. On the floor of the room was a big mattress that everyone was sitting on. On the floor beside the mattress was a Pyrex dish, piled high with at least 3 or 4 ounces of meth.

  Mark loaded then smoked a couple foils with us. I, in turn, pulled out some of my own dope and loaded a few foils for everyone. We had all been sitting around talking for a while when Mark jumped up and said he had to go to the garage. He told Shawn to come with him to help him with something. I assumed he had a cook going on and needed to check on it. Christy went out with them, so that left me alone in the room with Jackie.