“Where are we?” I asked the driver.
“Albuquerque New Mexico.” I saw two taxis at a taxi stand and I took off towards them. The driver called out.
“We’re only staying two hours here. Not two hours and two minutes. If you aint back, I’m leaving you.”
“Yes Sir. Got it.”
I took off running to the taxi in the front of the line and jumped in. He looked at me in his rear view mirror. I must have looked pretty bad because he did a double take then he turned around.
“Where you wanna go?” He asked me in a thick Mexican accent.
“Take me to the worst part of town.” I said.
“What?”
“Take me to where the poor people live. Take me to the projects, the mission. There has to be a place in this town where they are giving away free food and shit to the poor folks. Take me there”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“You got money?”
I threw a twenty dollar bill on the front seat.
“This should cover the way there.”
He grabbed the twenty and took off. The town was really quiet at six am, or maybe it was quiet all the time, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was I had about one more hit of dope and then I would be out, with another day to travel to California. That’s not good. Jonesing bad on the bus was not an exciting concept. I had to get some dope.
I had two hours to find some dope and I don’t know anyone. That didn’t matter. A junkie will always find his stuff. You know why? Cause It’s EVERYWHERE.
As he drove through town I could see the streets getting poorer and poorer. He pulled over where there were a few street dealers standing in front of a dilapidated house that was all boarded up.
“This what you had in mind?”
“Exactly.” The meter read Eighteen dollars. I held up a Fifty dollar bill and ripped it in half. I gave him half of the bill.
“Listen. I need you to wait right here. I won’t be long. Then I gotta get back to the bus station. When we get back I will give you the other half of this bill. From the looks of the meter, that will be like a thirty dollar tip. Deal?”
He took the ripped half, not too happily though.
“Si mon. I wait right here.”
I jumped out of the taxi and walked up to the first guy I saw.
“What you need ese?” He asked me.
“Dope. Chiva.”
“You a cop?”
“No.”
“You got tracks?”
I pulled up my sleeve and showed him some fresh tracks. He relaxed a little.
“How much you want?”
“How much is a gram?”
“Hundred.”
“That’s a little steep. How much for three grams?”
“You got money ese?”
I pulled out what was left of my wad of cash. I had about four hundred dollars left. Didn’t matter though. I would buy dope over anything else, even food.
“You buy three grams I drop the price twenty each so that makes two forty. You got two forty Weddo?”
I counted it out and held the two forty up.
“Give it here.”
“Not until the dope is in my hand and I know it’s real. And we gotta hurry. I got a taxi waiting.”
“My name is Carlito.”
“Lets go.” I said.
We walked to a pay phone and he called his connection. They spoke in Spanish and he set up a meet. We walked about three blocks and there was a short Mexican dealer waiting on a corner. We walked up to him.
“Give me the money ese.” I pulled it out.
“Let’s see the dope.”
The spoke in Spanish and the short guy took three balloons out of his mouth.
“Open one.”
They spoke in Spanish again and the dealer ripped one open and held it out to me. It smelled exactly like the Mexican tar Heroin I had done a few times in my life. I was over joyed. There is no relief like the relief of knowing you are about to get well. I grabbed the balloons and gave the dealer his money and he took off quickly. I took off in the direction I came. The dealer followed right behind me.
“Where you gonna go now ese?”
“Back to my taxi.”
“Don’t you wanna fix ese? I know you wanna fix. I got a spot you can fix in.”
I stopped in my tracks. Yes I wanted to fix. Soon as that dope was in my hand I wanted to fix. However sick or well I was feeling before I got the dope went away and only anxiety is left. The only way that goes away is to shoot some dope.
I felt a calm reserve now because I had dope. I didn’t want to miss the bus, but I figured I had enough time to fix before I got back, then I wouldn’t have to try to shoot up in that moving bus bathroom, which was always a nightmare trying to hit a vein while the bus is moving. I figured I would take a chance.
“How much?” I already knew the answer.
“Not much. You just gotta give me a little bit. Like a twenty.”
“Let’s go.” I said. I was on a mission. Carlito had trouble keeping up with me.
We got back to the dilapidated, boarded up house and he walked around the back. And I followed him. We slipped in the house through a broken window.
This was the first shooting gallery I had ever been in. There were about ten people inside, some sleeping, some fixing, some scraping crack stems.
“Better hurry. The cops come cruising around here after breakfast.” Carlito said.
I took out the balloon the dealer ripped open and took off a little piece for Carlito. He immediately took out his works and started fixing. Everyone in the house was checking me out. Probably thinking if I was worth trying to rob. I guess they figured I would fight back because everyone stayed focused on the scraping or smoking or shooting they were already involved in.
I knew I had to get back or I would miss the bus so I worked fast. The dope was super strong and as soon as I shot it I could feel myself falling out. I held on till it passed knowing if I pass out inside this shooting gallery I might never get out alive. I came to with Carlito eyeing me closely.
“You ok ese? You almost fell out.”
“Yeah I’m fine.”
I grabbed my works and quickly exited the house. I ran over to the taxi who was still waiting.
“I almost left you Holmes.” I held up the other half of the fifty dollar bill.
“Then you wouldn’t have gotten this. Let’s go.”
The taxi driver took off and within minutes I was back at the station. Almost everyone was back on the bus. I ran up and got in line. The driver looked at me suspiciously.
“Almost left you. Didn’t think you was gonna make it back.”
“Thank you for waiting sir.” I said as I jumped up the stairs. I know he didn’t wait for me, but guys like that always like being called sir. And I needed to stay on his good side. Or at least not get on his bad side.
The rest of the ride wasn’t so bad, besides the smell of the bathroom, which got worse and worse every mile. I stayed loaded until we pulled into the station on seventh and Market street in San Francisco.
I got out of the bus and looked around. The city has an exciting vibrant feeling. It’s totally alive, even if I was half dead. I knew what I was doing. I knew where I was going. I started walking to the mission.
38
“I guess that’s it.” I said to myself. I was sitting in a doorway in an alley off Howard street in San Francisco fixing dope. I had been in the city for a few days and I was just bumming around the mission, using up the last of my dope. Trying to figure a scam, maybe something to steal.
Howard is in between Mission and South Van Ness. Valencia street is on the other side of mission boulevard. The dope dealers cruised up and down Mission and the hookers cruise up and down Howard street. This all went on between fifteenth street and twentieth street. Six blocks. Six by four. That’s where all the action was.
They were selling dope in the tenderloin but that was way more populated, a lot
more cops. I felt more at home in the mission. Every now and then I went up to the Haight to see what was going on, mostly just to get out of the mission when it got too hot for me. The Haight was about Hippies, weed and Psychadelic drugs like acid and mushrooms. There were tons of runaways in the Haight so the competition was fierce to be a street dealer. It was way mellower in the mission.
I cleaned my spoon with my filter and drew up the last bit of dope I had and looked at the syringe. Forty cc’s. Not much. And it wasn’t too brown anymore meaning it was mostly water. Didn’t matter though. I was getting as addicted to shooting up as I was to the dope I was shooting. It’s bad when you are addicted to the needle. You find yourself shooting water.
I shot my last shot, cleaned my works and walked out of there. I walked over to the gas station on the corner of nineteenth and South Van Ness. It was about nine at night. People were coming in and out buying goods, getting gas. Normal people. I felt anything but normal. I reached in my pocket and pulled out what I had, Forty eight cents. At that moment I felt more alone on this earth than I had ever felt before. I just sat there bumming out. People would look at me as they went in and out of the store, but I didn’t care. I was done. I had nowhere to go, no one to help me, just me and the clothes on my back. There was no one left to call. I had finally run my course. I was across the country with no dope no home and nothing but a big habit. I was just spacing out and I heard someone talk to me.
“Que onda ese we?” A young Mexican kid in his early twenties walked up to me. I was dirty homeless and I smelled. He was dressed real clean with some cowboy boots on and his hair slicked back.
“Wass a matter white boy? What you need?” I looked at him he seemed genuinely concerned.
“I just want a cigarette.” I didn’t even smoke cigarettes but it’s what I felt like having. Smoke. And I couldn’t imagine asking this guy for money. He hopped up and went in the store and came out with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and gave them to me.
He sat down next to me and stuck out his hand.
“Mi amo Jose.” I shook his hand.
“My name is David.”
“You like chiva?” He must have been a mind reader. Although it was not too hard to see that I was just a down and out junkie.
“Yes.” He gave me a piece of paper with his number on it and a quarter gram of dope.
“ I don’t have any money.”
“I know that Weddo. You gonna work for me. You stand on mission and when a junkie comes by to get Chiva you call me and I meet you. Ok?”
“OK.”
“You start tomorrow. Ten to ten. Call me in the morning for your wake up.”
I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. I walked right back to the doorway and shot up again. Then I fell asleep in that doorway. There was other homeless people around so I didn’t feel so bad. I was officially an outside dweller. Just another one of the homeless vagrants, but at least I had some dope, and a connection. Things were looking up.
39
San Francisco is probably the best place in the country to be homeless. They really cater to the Homeless community. If you had it really together you were getting two hundred and ten dollars twice a month in food stamps, about three hundred twenty five dollars in cash and a hotel to stay in for the first ten days of every month. I did not have it together. This was to help you get back on your feet.
To get that deal you had to wait in this huge line around this big building in between Market and Mission street under the highway. The building always had a huge line going all the way around it. I never waited in that line. I didn’t have any patience. I had grown accustomed to sleeping ANYWHERE. Being homeless is an art, and I hadn’t learned it yet. I was taking a crash course. More like a hands on approach. You don’t choose to become homeless, it sort of just happens. At least with me it did. I chose to not pay rent. I chose to keep getting high.
I would sleep on any sidewalk, in any doorway, where ever, sometimes in an abandoned car when I could find one. And that was when I finally laid my head down to really sleep which was about every three or four days. I would be walking the streets barely holding myself up. Kind of almost falling down over and over with each step, pushing your foot in front of you to catch yourself. When I finally did collapse on the sidewalk, or in a doorway and wake up with business people walking to work they would be stepping over me as if I wasn’t even there. Or countless times I would seek refuge in a hallway of an apartment house, only to be woken up by the tenant’s foot kicking me off their doorstep in the morning.
I started shooting speedballs shortly after I got back to the city.. That’s what most people did. I didn’t like coke so much but I got addicted to the rush the coke gave me, as long as it had Heroin in it. That took the rush away as fast as it came. There was something romantic about it. John Belushi died on Speedballs. I love John Belushi. It must be cool. Or so I thought. It’s not.
It’s really hard to see these things happening to you, they sort of just happen and you are a not so innocent by stander. I had become a stone cold, homeless in and out of jail junkie.
I’m from Miami, and drugs are in my culture, so I absolutely got it together quick. I would wake up, call Jose and get my quarter gram to start my day, shoot that then walk up and down Mission boulevard and middle dope deals. I never ripped anyone off so I had many return customers. I also sold decent size quarters, so people kept coming back, or would be waiting for me upon my return from the last meet. I was calling Jose forty to sixty times a day and shooting up every time. Every customer had to give me a little. I was like a pin cushion, shooting dope forty times day.
There was a shooting gallery on nineteenth and mission above a Mexican Restaurant. You walked through an alley on the street then up stairs. The place had three rooms and a kitchen. A guy named Al and a guy named Derek ran the place. There was a hooker named Blue that had a room there and shared it with her boyfriend Stewart. The entire apartment was virtually empty except for a bunch of mattresses on the floors. And Al had a desk.
The place always had junkies in it shooting or smoking dope, or smoking crack. If you had nowhere’s to go, you paid a little tax and you could find refuge there and do your drugs.
Al was a violent loser who demanded dope the second you walked in the door, and if you didn’t finish yours before he did he came out of his room and tried to tax you again.
Derek was a total scumbag ripping off anyone he came in contact with. These guys would sit with a pen and a piece of blotter paper from a desk, perforate it and patiently write on a hundred small designs so it looked like a sheet of acid. Then go to the Haight and sell it for four hundred dollars. That was like their best scam.
After about a month on the street I was not only jonesing every minute of every day for dope, I started jonesing to live inside. I had been living outside, getting kicked out of countless doorways and it was getting old. And it started turning from summer to fall and the rain came it made it worse. Life was just plain hard. I had to get inside. I made a deal to split the room with the hooker Blue and her boyfriend.
So the first place I paid rent in a very long time was a shooting gallery with a hooker and her boyfriend. And she was always making us wait outside the room when she was turning tricks.
“How do you let he do it?” I asked Stewart one time when we were waiting while she turned a trick.
“She pays the rent.” He said very non chalant. He was kind of slow. She was definitely in charge of their situation. I looked out the window and the rain was really coming down hard and I felt nothing but relief that I had an indoor place to live in. Which was cool for three days. As soon as Al and Derek found out I was staying there and they weren’t getting paid and I was back on the street.
40
“Where you staying?” Indio asked me. I started running around with a guy named Indio who was actually from Indio California. You can’t run alone on the street for two long. You need someone to watch your back, to have dope when y
ou don’t have it and vice versa, someone to think up and do scams with. Too many predators, prison issue killers that only used jail as a revolving door to get rested up and then hit the streets harder than when they left. Indio was my road dog for my first year on the street.
“Aint got no place. I been moving from doorway to doorway.”
“Come on.” He took off and I followed behind him. He talked as he walked.
“You gotta get it together or your gonna die out here. You are doing all the dope you get. Never re-upping. How you think you gonna come up? You aint coming up that way. You gotta cut back your habit and try to get a little ahead. That way you buy a gram and sell your own quarters. Not Jose’s. That way you can make eight quarters instead of four.”
Indio was real good at living on the street. We walked to Potrero hill to a big furniture store.
“Come on we gotta go around back.” Indio said.
“For what?”
Indio looked at me like an idiot that I hadn’t figured out why we are here.
“So we can get you a box.”
“For what?”
“So you can live in it holmes.”
We went around back and there was a pile of cardboard boxes that sofas and love seats came in. Indio grabbed the biggest one and folded it flat so we could carry it easily.
“Come on.”
We walked to an empty lot off of eighteenth and South Van Ness. It was a cardboard box neighborhood. I set up my box next to Indio and crawled inside. It was not much bigger than me. We had positioned it under a tree to protect it from the rain. That was my first out door dwelling. I shot some dope and went to sleep in my cardboard box. It was in the shape of a triangle, which was good because the rain ran off it instead of being caught on top. I couldn’t move around much though. I didn’t want to damage my box.
Becoming A Son Page 19