I called Blake back and told him what had happened.
“Okay, come by the house,” he said and hung up. I thought about just disappearing and driving to another state for a while, but knew that if I did that, my life would be over. I arrived at Blake’s house.
“I like you, Logan, so I am going to cut you a break and I don’t normally do this; normally, I would beat the shit out of you, but I see potential in you . . . and by the way, I have some inside information on what happened,” Blake said. “So you were right; it was Luke, Tammy’s boyfriend. He called up one of the guys I sell to after he broke into your house and stole your entire supply. What a stupid fuck; don’t worry, we are taking care of it, but here’s the problem.”
I swallowed my tongue and said, “What?”
“Last night, Luke tried to break into another house to rob them. Unlucky for him though, they had an alarm on the house and he was arrested by the cops with your entire weed supply on him. He was arrested with two pounds, a gun, and was caught breaking and entering. He will more than likely be in jail for three to five years, but we lost all of your weed and I’m down a couple thousand dollars, so I need a favor from you.”
I couldn’t believe that this was happening and that Luke had been caught; I was happy that he got what he deserved. But what I was getting myself into now?
“Let’s take a ride, Logan.”
Blake and I got into his new Mercedes and he put his gun in the glove compartment. It was official, I thought, I’m fucked now. We drove into West Roxbury, a city right outside of Boston, which was known for bad crime and drugs. We pulled up to a house that looked abandoned and Blake grabbed his gun and put in behind his back as we both walked in. The house was dark and the characters looked shady; I thought, This is where I’m going to die.
“You got it?” Blake said. He tossed money to his supplier as he was handed a couple of ounces of cocaine. “Here, hold this, Logan,” he said as I grabbed the bag. We got back in his car and crushed up two massive lines of cocaine and we sniffed it.
“Holy shit,” I said as the coke rocked my whole body and lifted me out of my seat. This wasn’t like any coke I had done before.
“It’s called rocket fuel,” he said as he laughed.
After a drive back from the city, he dropped me off at my car and gave me an ounce of coke. He told me to try and sell it so I could repay him. I hesitated, but didn’t really have an option at this point; who was I to say no to a guy with a Glock in his glove compartment? I took the coke and drove home very paranoid; coke versus weed was a whole different felony. I mean, if I got pulled over with an ounce of coke, I was fucked, completely and totally. I drove home slowly and cautiously and when I arrived, my mom was up waiting for me.
“I know you were robbed and have been selling weed,” she said.
“I don’t even fucking care anymore, Mom,” I said as I ran back out of the house. She yelled after me, telling me not to come back if this was the life I chose. I burned out and drove over to Rory’s.
I hated the man I had become, and I knew I was killing my mother, but I couldn’t stop it. My mother had tears in her eyes so many times and it made me so sad to think of what I was doing to my family.
Rory wasn’t home that night, so I decided to sleep in my car parked in his driveway. What a fuckin’ loser I was—a high school dropout, selling coke, recently robbed, and now homeless. My nineteenth birthday was approaching and all I could think about was where I would be five years from now if I continued this lifestyle. I think we all know the answer to that question: dead.
The night was freezing while I slept in my car, and unfortunately, this wasn’t the last time. Rory’s mom no longer wanted me staying at his house because she knew that I was selling cocaine. So, over that month of October, I slept in my car almost three nights a week. I showered at Rory’s house in the morning and got clothes at my mom’s house when she and Jared were working or at school.
After getting the ounce from Blake, I sold it in two days, and had given him all of my profits, and we had squared up. Every time he and I got together, we would blow lines of coke all night. The following day would be the worst I had ever felt—I would have severe anxiety and the shakes all day, and the only way for me to stop them was to take a Percocet or Klonopin, something that would mellow me out. I don’t think I was ever sober anymore. It seemed like if I wasn’t blowing cocaine, smoking weed, or taking pills, I was either drunk or sleeping.
I started to do cocaine every chance I got. There were a couple of intense nights that I will never forget. One night, Blake and I were selling a couple grams of coke to people in the city. We waited outside in my car; Blake had his gun on him and we had crushed up two massive lines each on my car registration. We each blew one, and I then took my license and crushed up the second ones, and afterward put my license back in my pocket.
We waited for the call to come inside and got ready to sniff the last of the lines. But before we got a chance, we noticed blue lights flashing behind us; I mean, imagine seeing a ‘96 Honda Accord just sitting on the side of the street, looking sketchy. Blake immediately hid the bag of coke and put the crushed lines on the registration under the seat. The cop was at my window so quickly that we barely had time to do anything. He flashed his light on me as I looked into it and sobered up immediately.
“What are you boys doing sitting here?”
“Sorry officer, we are just trying to text our buddies who are having a couple friends over and I got lost.”
“Okay, can I see your license?” he said. Thankfully, he hadn’t asked for the registration, which had two lines of cocaine on it, right under my seat. I reached into my pocket for my license, which I had just used to crush cocaine. I literally prayed to God as I wiped it off with my fingers before I pulled it out.
Moment of truth, I thought. “Here you go, officer,” I said as I closed my eyes, hoping there were no cocaine remnants.
“Okay, Logan, just move it along and find that party,” he said and handed back my license. Unbelievably, there had not been a trace of cocaine on my license: somehow I had managed to wipe it all off with my fingers. Blake and I snorted the last of the coke, sold the ounces, and smoked a blunt on the ride home. Someone had been watching out for me—again.
I had yet another close call in November, right before my nineteenth birthday. Rory, Tyler, and I all had started to drink at Rory’s house, since his mother wasn’t there. I had a gram of coke left and could either sell it for a profit or just snort it, so we snorted it, of course. The problem was that Rory’s mother unexpectedly came home and kicked us all out. It was freezing outside as we all got in my car with the alcohol and the cocaine and started snorting lines.
After we snorted one and smoked a blunt, I was super paranoid, especially because Blake and I had almost gotten busted a couple nights back. We’d been snorting lines in an abandoned parking lot and just finished our last one when an officer pulled up. So tonight, we left my car in a parking lot and walked a block over to an abandoned playground; it must have been around midnight. We crushed up two lines for each of us and passed the bottle of Captain Morgan’s to each other. We each snorted one line of cocaine, smoked a cigarette, and bonded. About ten minutes later, we needed another line; cocaine was so addictive, but amazing. We then snorted the last one as we lit up another round of cigarettes. We lit up a blunt after that, and I could hear a crackling noise nearby, but I just figured I was just paranoid.
“Do you guys hear that?” I asked; we were all tweaked out of our fucking minds on cocaine.
“Hear what?”
“Someone seems like they’re close to us?”
“Hey,” I heard, and I turned around as a police officer grabbed my shoulder. “Fuck,” I muttered as we tossed the bottle and the joint and started to run. As I turned, I saw the officer running after me; he was a couple of feet behind me, and I could hear myself breathing heavily, but I kept sprinting faster than ever.
“Stop! Stop!”
He quickly ran after us, yelling that we were under arrest; we didn’t stop. I felt like I was in a dream running from the cops—it was surreal.
Tyler and Rory broke away and, as I found myself looking back, the cop followed me. A part of me told myself to just stop there and end it, but then I decided that I wasn’t going out like this. The cop chased me for another five minutes until we came to a seven-foot fence blocking the street where my car was parked. Three, two, one . . . jump! I cleared the fence, and it must have looked like a track star hopping a hurdle; I turned to see the cop holding his hands on the fence, a look of amazement on his face, and then I was gone, running to find my car a couple blocks over.
I found Rory and Tyler after a couple minutes of driving, and we all sped away from the area.
My throat was so dry that I thought I was going to die as I stuck my face into the snow and swallowed, just so I wouldn’t choke to death. My heart raced as I prayed to God that, if I didn’t die, I would make things right and never sell drugs again. Of course, the night ended with me passing out in my car, after drinking a ton of hard liquor just so I could sleep. Cocaine would make me able to drink so much that I’m surprised I hadn’t died from alcohol poisoning. What a wonderful week to lead up to my nineteenth birthday.
I hadn’t seen my mother for a couple of months. She texted me on my birthday, telling me how much she loved me and that she didn’t care what I was doing; she just wanted to make sure I was safe. So I went home on the night of my nineteenth birthday and spent time with Jared and my mom.
My father stopped by to see his oldest son, the man who looked so much like him, the man who was struggling so hard to find happiness and to find himself. I could tell that he knew we had grown apart and that he was sad to see me like this, but we continued to sweep things under the rug; after all, we were the kind of men who didn’t like discussing our problems. The night ended and I fell asleep in my bed like an innocent young man.
That night, I didn’t feel like a drug dealer, nor like a man who had been sleeping in his car, nor like a man who had almost been arrested on several occasions, but instead I felt like a man who was loved.
•••
Over the next couple of days, I tried to spend time with my family, and avoided selling drugs or getting into trouble. I mean, I had been in so many situations by now that it seemed like a sign from God that I hadn’t been caught. Sometimes, I felt like everything I was going through was going to be a test for something later in life, something greater than this world, something far more important, and that maybe God was testing how strong I was.
One day soon after my birthday, there was a banging on the door of our house; it was a woman dressed in all black. She looked very professional and asked if she could come in. My mother asked who she was, and invited her in without a thought.
“Why, of course. Please come in.”
“Tiffany Surrenti from DSS,” she replied as she walked through the door. DSS stood for Department of Social Services. My mother asked what she wanted with us as Jared and I walked over to listen.
“I have a complaint from a woman who knows you, saying that you are an unfit mother.”
My blood boiled because, right then, I knew that my mother was being judged for my mistakes. I had a feeling that the woman who had complained was my father’s ex-girlfriend.
I laughed in Tiffany’s face. “You have no clue what you’re talking about.” I was so furious that I could barely control myself. “My mother works sixty hours a week, provides us with a roof over our heads, tries to spend every minute she has with us, and, at the end of her shift, will put a warm meal on the table.”
The DSS woman said she understood, but needed to sit down to talk with us. We all sat at the table as she opened her manila folder.
“Okay, to start, I was told that your son Logan sells cocaine and was involved with the law on several occasions?” My heart almost stopped as my mother looked at me.
“What? I don’t sell cocaine; I’ve tried it before,” I said as my face turned flush. How the hell did they know?
“Also, I am told your youngest son Jared was involved in vandalism?” My mother was furious, and she defended us.
“These are good boys; they are just going through a hard time.”
I saw my mother in a different light that day. I saw not only a woman who was my supporter, but also my friend who would never rat on me or never think less of me no matter who I was. She had never stopped believing in me, no matter how low I sank.
The passion in my mother’s eyes was unbelievable; the DSS lady left apologizing and said that she was a great woman. I knew that it was my fault that DSS had been there, though; I wasn’t a perfect son—I wasn’t even close to it—but in my mom’s eyes, I was still her innocent boy who was a victim of circumstances.
We all knew that it had been the woman my father had dated who wanted my mother gone, the same woman who had sent a fake cable guy to come hurt Mom. I was so sick of people trying to hurt my mother, even though I was hurting her more than any of them. Every day, my heart ached when I thought about what I was doing to her; I needed to stop this lifestyle. I’m so much more than this.
The holidays approached and I spent them shooting pool. Christmas Eve was typically Rory, Tyler and me playing pool with all of the people without families. The only difference between myself and them was that I actually had a family that loved me to death, but I couldn’t face them. I was so ashamed of the man I was; it was easier not see them.
My mother had to make an excuse once again to the family, telling them I was sick. Jared showed up with Vanessa and, for the third year in a row, there was no Logan. I felt so bad that my mother had to cover for me again on Christmas—it broke my heart. I always tried to shower her with gifts to make up for never being there, but she didn’t care about the gifts. She just wanted her son to be happy and, most importantly, be part of her life.
I tried to give my mother money every month to help her out with the rent; I didn’t have a solid job, but I would give her the extra money I made from dealing drugs. It was hard for her to keep a roof over her sons’ heads in a decent town, but she made sure she did whatever it took. I couldn’t believe it was a new year, and I didn’t even want to think where this year would take me.
Despite smoking pot and being with his girlfriend constantly, my brother was doing well in school and was on his way to graduate in couple of years. And most of my old friends were in college, having a blast. I would sometimes check their Facebook pages to see them having fun at college parties and going to places like Cancun or Aruba for spring break. Everyone looked so happy; I hated it. I would think, It should have been me, until life took my spirit away and I gave in to the dark side. I felt like I was in another world at times, and like I was forever trapped.
Chapter 13
RUNNING OUT OF TIME
I realized as I looked deep into her eyes that my mother carried the world on her shoulders. She was hanging on by a thread some nights, and other nights she would have amazing strength. She worked very much like her own mother had; it was a vicious cycle we could not escape. The landlord was raising her rent and she could barely pay as it was. If I was truly a son, I would have stopped all of my bullshit to help her out, but I wasn’t a real son—I was a pot-smoking, cocaine-snorting punk who didn’t care about anyone but himself.
She told me that we had to start looking for apartments in another town. She tried to do everything she could to keep us in a nice town, but, as a single mother who had to compete with families that had two healthy incomes, she just couldn’t.
After I was robbed and fell under Blake’s wing, things just continued to go wrong for me. Blake would pick me up in his Mercedes as I threw my hoodie over my head and slouched back into his seat. It was almost mandatory that we smoke a blunt before our pick-ups. We would drive through the city as he would collect his money at different locations; some shady spots worried me, especially as I was always on edge.
“Logan, I got a tip on a guy who is picking up tons of Ecstasy pills,” Blake said. “The plan is to wait ‘till after he gets them, and then jump him and take them all.” I knew instantly that Blake was planning on taking me with him, but I didn’t care.
Blake, Rory, Tyler, a couple other local guys, and I all packed into cars while we waited for the deal to happen. The reason Blake decided to do this was because the kid picking up the Ecstasy pills was new to the area, and he was a wimp who shouldn’t have been dealing Ecstasy in the first place. We parked outside of the house three cars deep, smoking weed and snorting cocaine until we saw the drop-off. And there he was—the kid pulled up in his beat-up pickup truck as we all turned our engines off and waited for him to get back into the pickup and drive down the street.
After he got in, we slowly followed him, knowing that he would probably make a stop to check if the drugs were all there. All three cars trailed him slowly, and we pulled behind him as he stopped. The plan was going exactly like Blake said it would go. Rory and Tyler sat in their car behind us, as it was their turn to stick with the plan. Rory walked up to the pickup and tapped on the glass as the kid slowly opened his window, looking paranoid.
“Hey, man, can you help me out?” Rory asked. “My car is having trouble starting and I need someone to check the engine, but I have no light and my cell phone is dead.” Rory wasn’t making sense at all, but the kid got out of his car.
My heart raced from the cocaine and adrenaline. I watched Blake fly out of the car, punch the poor kid in the head, and knock him out.
“Grab the fucking drugs!” he yelled as Rory grabbed a bag full of Ecstasy; there must have been fifty pills in there. We rifled through his car while he was passed out on the ground.
The Crossroads of Logan Michaels Page 17