At first the game plan was to just take the last bit of money we had and drive my car to Vegas to start a new life there. Drug free. That last part was hilarious. It sounded good though. But realistically there was not that much money between the two of us. I am the only one who had money. He was no help at all, financially or otherwise.
But we would make it work by any means…that was our history. So because I did not have my $500 in rent, there would be no need to go to my house. With no plan and nowhere to go, he decided that we should get high. Of course we should get high. Wasn’t shit else to do.
So we got in my little convertible and went to the nearest spot to get drugs. Deep East Oakland. During those car rides I would be sick, because my body needed drugs. I would start to dry heave, pass gas and be close to vomiting. You would think I was on Heroine instead of smoking Crack.
Sitting in the car was hard. I would fidget, look around. The wait was killing me. These were drug dealers that we were dealing with. We didn’t call. We just showed up. Sometimes they were out of drugs. Sometimes we had to go to other dealers that we didn’t know. Sometimes shit was just all bad. When things were all bad I would be sick and he would be irritable, but we managed to get thru it.
I became very accustomed to drinking 211’s with a straw and any other malt liquor, to get a guaranteed buzz. We were able to stay in rooms for the 1st few weeks I was kicked out of my house. But we didn’t really talk too much about Vegas. That was all bullshit, and we both knew it. We did talk though. We talked about us and how in love we were. This was nice but I needed to know what we were going to do. With the money running out fast and I was scared. I had been out of my house for almost three weeks. Time was ticking yet I wasn’t moving.
Praying and praying for a miracle we sat in my car, smoking our lives away. It was so smoky and cloudy that we never even seen Fremont Police pull up on us. Really? The police? We were surely going to jail. We were smoking drugs and there were plenty drugs in the car. It was about 11pm on a Friday night. They ran our names. I was good. My lover wasn’t.
He had a domestic violence case that was unresolved. He never completed his one year program. So they took him, and left me. I cried and begged the officer not to take him. My lover just gave me a look like…shut up dummy. So I shut up. I sulked in the car for a little while. Then I started looking for the drugs that we hid from the police so I could use them. I found them. Turned the engine on and sped out of that area.
I lit up the blunt and tried to figure out where I was going to sleep for the night. Without him by my side I had a world of options. Hopefully. So many bridges were burned, in such a short time. Who was going to let Tamekia the drug addict back in.
I really had no idea, what I was going to do with myself or where I was supposed to be going. By the looks of my gas tank, I wouldn’t be traveling very far. I had to think fast, but those damn drugs had my mind spinning and I was sweating buckets.
Sadly, I just drove around all night. High and paranoid. My final destination would be outside of Fremont jail, where they were holding my love. This was no way to live. The sun was already up and the rays from the sun where killing my eyes. Short days and long nights. I was lost with him and lost without him.
Finally, after deciding to back out of the jail parking lot, is when he called. He asked me where I was. They were getting ready to transfer him to Santa Rita Jail and if I stayed in the jail parking lot. I would see his bus go by. Sure enough, I saw him. I honked like crazy, hoping he could either hear or see me. Unsure on how long they would keep him, he told me to wait by the phone. I knew that if I didn’t follow those instructions, it would be hell to pay. Back to reality, I had no gas and just a few dollars to my name. What the fuck was I going to do?
I was going to survive and hopefully have a place to sleep come nightfall. My high had finally come down and I was exhausted. Mentally drained to be exact. So I put a few bucks in my bucket convertible, hoping I wouldn’t run out of gas. Next stop would be granny’s house. Granny was one of the few people that I had left. I had yet to burn a bridge with her.
With sleep on my mind. I was hoping that Granny would have mercy on my poor drugged out soul. Terrified, sweating and shaking…I knocked at the door. She let me in. I sat on the couch caught my breath and asked her if I could stay for a few days. I confessed that I wasn’t doing too well. She said that she could tell. Her exact words were that I looked like death.
Granny told me to get out of my dirty clothes and go shower and dinner would be ready. I did as I was told. That shower was everything I needed at that moment. Cascading hot water…but not hot enough to wash away all my dirt. Fresh pajamas and a nice dinner. I slept for three days…straight.
I woke up confused. But thankfully I woke up. With a clear head, maybe, just maybe I could make one right decision. That is all I needed to give me a running start to several right decisions. I had never slept that long. Granny probably thought that I was dead. Damn shame. I wondered if my love had tried to call me. Then just as it had always been… we were connected. He called. Telling me, that they would be releasing him at midnight and I better be there.
I needed coffee and food. To my surprise my car had been towed. Apparently three days was too long to be parked in an unauthorized area. Oh my God, I just let out a really loud scream. Stomping back in the house, I couldn’t believe my life right now. As long as he was in my vicinity I was bound to lose.
All I needed was a game plan to go and get him by midnight. Then he called again. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I was scared to even answer the phone. But I did. I told him the car was gone. But that I would still be there. He sighed in disbelief. And so did I. This could have been the perfect time to leave him and try to resurrect my life. But I remained loyal and stupid.
I paced back and forth around the house while looking at the time. I needed a way to get to him and then I needed a place that we both could sleep at for the night. Granny had already bent by letting me in, but she would not break… So instead I asked her if I could borrow $20 to go to the store.
Reluctantly, she gave it to me. I kissed her and said that I would be right back. She didn’t see me for five years.
CHAPTER 26
TRANSIETS
Without a car, Santa Rita felt like a million miles away. I took the light rail, and three buses and I was there just as he was putting the laces back in his shoes. I hugged and kissed him. Defeated by disbelief he suggested that we go hit some spots and try and get some shit to sell. I was down for whatever. Plus I felt like I fucked up since the car was now towed.
Guilt was a steady friend of mine, he made sure of that. Getting high was the number one priority. That is exactly why we didn’t have shit. With no regards to granny and going back there, I walked miles with him that night stealing anything from any store that looked like it could liquidate to either drugs or cash. We would take either. With four or five bottles of Patron in tow we landed in the projects of deep East Oakland. Patron was like gold out there. In exchange we had enough dope to have a decent night and enough money to get a room for the night.
The buses had stopped running so we walked miles to get that room. Only to find out that neither one of us could find our I.D. I begged the lady at the front desk to just let us stay for the night. She did. We blazed and we slept well past check out time. No shower, no getting ready, just getting out and on to whatever hustle would get us through yet another night.
We were homeless, we were transients. Just not that dirty. Yet. No game plan. No need for one. We had each other and that would be enough. It would have to be. We started the day, by getting a lot of items to sell.
Backpacks full of top shelf liquor, on both our backs. We walked from Central Fremont to Fremont Bart Station. Those backpacks had to weigh at least 20lbs or more. There was no complaining and barely any talking. I followed his lead. I wanted him and I wanted to do drugs with him. So I did as I was told.
I walked miles with him. Unloading our back packs f
ull of goodies… One city at a time. Lord, please have mercy on our poor wretched souls. We never talked about the fact that we were living on the streets with no clothes and barely enough money to have a roof over our head. Every day there was a hustle, there were no days off.
The clothes we had on our backs were the “fit” for the day, and that day only. We threw away so many nice things…you probably wouldn’t even know that we were homeless. We went wherever we wanted, picked out a new “fit”, tucked that shit and left. We were the same way with food, we would go somewhere like a deli and eat for free. Very disrespectful behavior. Just like a couple of savage beasts.
Even though there were no days off, we did do things in between or daily hustles... like sneak into the movies or go have a beer and watch football. We walked to the Islander Motel from Fremont Bart Station, when we had enough money to get a room. They never tripped and it was the same price every time. The motel was actually housing for parolees and people on probation. It was a shady establishment for sure.
The days were short and getting cold. We were slowly but surely running out of places to steal from. Times were getting tougher. But no matter what there were always drugs. Sometimes, I felt like they magically appeared. I would be so exhausted from walking miles thru cities…I was delirious. I just did as I was told and tried not to get the shit beat out of me. This was my real life and I felt stuck.
You could tell that all of the spots that we were stealing from were getting a little hot, but he never listened. I could beg and plead, really be scared and he never gave a fuck. Raleigh’s Market. Not a good choice. Patron was behind the counter in an unauthorized area. Yet, he wouldn’t listen.
Fremont Jail is where we slept that night. I remember calling my mom from my jail cell. She was in Hawaii. She applied tough love and told me that’s what I get. Tears swelled in my eyes, but I couldn’t let them drop. In environments that are foreign to you, you should never appear weak. They will eat you alive. There were women that were accustomed to that life style. I wasn’t one of them.
I stayed in jail over-night, he stayed a day longer. I just walked all night until they released him from jail. I was loyal to him. I was loyal to the hustle. I was loyal to the drugs. Sometimes he would thank me and tell me that he loved me, but mostly only if I said it first. This was a very rough existence, for both of us. I will never know his reason behind the decade of pain. It couldn’t be that he loved me. I’ll never agree to that.
Going to jail didn’t stop us, it only slowed us down. We had to figure out new spots to attack since our old ones were hot. I swear to God I wished that a job would just fall into my lap. But we all know that jobs don’t fall out of the sky, especially when you already burned up so many good ones. I just needed a way out. But the addiction to the drugs would not allow it. I was stuck in a jet that was shooting me thru all the phases of drug addiction. Soon there would be no chance for me. I would crash and burn.
You could feel the fall breeze winding down the summer in all parts of the Bay Area. The seasons were changing and hopefully some positivity was headed our way. Even though we were robbing businesses blind, I was still praying for a silver lining. I don’t know what or if he was praying for anything. It’s amazing how you can think you know a person, but not know them at all. That was my dilemma. Poor judge of character.
Me and my lover kept on with what we had to do. The drugs were, wherever we were. We rolled blunts in public parks, fast food bathrooms, ravine’s, buses….Nowhere was off limits. Every thought in my head was based around how to get high, how to keep my high, and how not to blow my high. Paranoia had started to kick in.
I was so busy worrying about the Police, the Motel Managers, and the Devil. It was hard to enjoy anything, even sex. “I DON’T WANT TO FUCK YOU!” That’s what I was yelling in my head. I wish he could have read my mind, since my mouth couldn’t open up.
I remember us rolling a blunt in Arroyo Park in East Oakland. Scariest shit ever. First of all you are in the hood. Not any fake ass hood either. Being black and from the Bay Area you could easily see someone that you know. I used to be terrified that someone would see me like that. Although people knew that something was up with me…I didn’t need the extra bullshit on my plate. My plate was pretty damn full.
Arroyo Park was scary at night time. You were likely to see or hear anything. From… pit-bulls mangling passers in the night, to police chases, to people having sex. The worst was the pit-bulls. A pack of them would make you shit your pants. Imagine sitting in a dugout smoking dope and five pit-bulls run past you. They pause and sniff and look at each other. You don’t move one muscle. You don’t even breathe. That was us. High off dope, in a dugout…that had a big ass hole in the gate.
There were many nights with wild animal encounters. We were stupid. We broke into Oakland Zoo and had sex. The animals were real. We heard them and I pushed him off of me because I was too paranoid about a Lion that could potentially eat us. While reminding him that we could go to jail for being in here.
Sometimes I wanted to go to jail. I wanted to eat three meals, be warm, watch TV, and have some random girl grease my scalp. That’s what happened in jail. I needed a healthier routine than the one I was on. It was so much jail time. I don’t even know if I can remember all the trips that we took.
The nights that there wasn’t enough money to get a room, we created places to sleep. We slept in an alley way in Fremont somewhere, on a couch that was by an apartment complex dumpster. That night we had stolen something from somewhere and the Police were looking for us. We could see them, coming for us. Every corner we turned, we either seen their tail lights or their headlights. That was a long night.
It was freezing and that couch was covered in ants, and who knows what else. But we had to sleep. So un-knowingly we took turns. While he slept, I was awake, looking around, wondering and terrified. The police never found us that night.
God bless the lady who seen us from her balcony in San Leandro. She gave us a pillow, a cover, bottled water and gold fish crackers. That was a big help to a night that would be spent in a park. We slept hard on our shared pillow. Then the sprinklers happened. Then the big ass Labrador happened.
This was hard. I wanted to die and I wanted him to die with me. My soul was already dead. My morals and my morale were at a negative zero. We weren’t lucky on those nights we were blessed. Even God still believed in us and kept us safe.
The motels were just as bad as the outdoors. People who were in situations just like you…looking for any way to keep the party going. To keep the high at a high. Motels were full of zombies, weirdoes, and druggies. We were no different. We fit right in.
Sometimes we would walk so many miles my feet would be covered in dirt. My face and all other exposed body parts would be so dark from walking in the blazing sun for more than six hours a day. We slept in motel rooms that were rented at a discounted price because they had a foot of water in them, that wouldn’t drain out. We took those rooms. We used drugs in those rooms. We fought like drunken sailors in those rooms.
Time was still moving and we were still living. Barely. Once again the Islander Motel became a haven for us to have a safe keeping for the night. We broke a headboard one night, trying to do some kinky shit that I didn’t even want to do. We had no manners. We just hoped that no one heard the mirror shatter as it slipped off the wall. He was always touching shit, doing too much. I did not want to be touched. My sex drive was at a zero.
There was the abandoned bus behind Union City Bart Station that he figured out how to open. My lover was a modern day MacGyver and an everyday asshole. But he was my asshole and I stood by him. I stayed in the struggle, and lost my mind. I was somewhere between heaven and hell. Purgatory.
Sleeping on the bus happened more often than not. The bus was dark. The bus was gloomy. The seats were hard as a rock and the wind whistled thru the cracks in the door. Falling asleep was easy; staying asleep was the hard part. We smoked on the bus; we tried to fu
ck on the bus. He hit me in the head with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire on that bus. I remember the sun coming in hot and bright when we slept to long on that bus.
It’s amazing what you can do to survive when you have to. Arroyo Park was a popular rest spot as well. “Look at them; they didn’t pay their PG&E bill, fucking losers.” That statement woke me up. That night we slept on metal bleachers. Embarrassed, we got up. We headed to the Coliseum Bart Station with no destination, but we knew we could sleep on the Bart with the other commuters. No one would bother us with our hoodies on. No one would recognize us. Hopefully.
Being homeless was hard. Being homeless was scary. We were homeless. Some ideas didn’t work without money. I thought that we could sneak into Fremont Hospital and sleep in an empty hospital bed. That was a stupid idea. We tried church doorsteps. Not everything worked. Nights that hair brained ideas failed it was always my fault.
Sometimes I would be left all night on the bus, in the motel room, or at the park and he would be gone all night, to get drugs. I worried. I paced. We didn’t have cell phones. So I adapted the patience of a saint. I had no choice but to be patient, it was either that or get my ass beat. I would sit up all night and just wait for him and the drugs.
Most nights when he went on these missions I would plot to leave. But I had nowhere to go where I felt wanted. I fucked that up.
CHAPTER 27
JAIL TIME
Jail had become a permanent fixture in what we had become. Dope fiends, always looking for the easiest way out. Never paying full price for anything, and then wondering why we were once again in a court room in front of a judge.
The first time we went to jail together I was terrified. The second time we went to jail I seen it coming. But yet he didn’t listen. He never listened to shit I said. We were hot and known. Pictures were posted of us. Bonnie and Clyde. We were running out of slick reasons to be in a store and never buying anything. We were robbing people of their lively hood. We were single handedly inflating prices in the stores.
Love Made Me Do It Page 12