"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" {I Peter 5:8}
Little did I Know at the time...My adversary the devil was going to take at least one more serious shot at me before I left Michigan for the Promised land in the Oilfields of Louisianna...
...This next story is extremely difficult for me to own up too because, in looking back...It is so disgusting for me to admit some of the things that I was doing at that time in my life...
...It also strikes tremendous fear in my heart... to the point of almost breaking out in a cold sweat when I think back to that dark place I was walking in...
A place that many of my friends and aquaintances had gone and never returned!!!
...That terrifying encounter that I had with law enforcement, helped me to understand how desperately I needed to get out and away from the world here in Kalamazoo...
...But understanding my need to break free and then actually walking away... was easier said than done!...
After all...I was still the dope man, and the house I lived in...Was the dope house...
... and I was open for business!
...Remember, how I said I needed to raise the funds to move?
Guess what my strategy for raising that money was?
Give that man a cigar!!! or should I say a Blunt?
Or...How about some blow?
... Well maybe not too much blow, cuz I was strung out the most on my own product...
...and that next shot might kill me?
Which brings me to my next story that almost kept me from making the trip!
...Basically, I was having a moving sale, and everything I owned practically had a price tag on it...
...It was during this time in my life that I still had a few hobbies and C. B. Radios was how we communicated back in those days before the internet...
...I had an awesome Base Station set up at the house and my handle was "OUTLAW MAN"...
I was running a Browning Golden Eagle Mark IV, With a D C 104 Silver Eagle Power Mike and a Firebird 500 watt Linear Amplifier. I Had a 4 element MoonRaker directional beams antennae system,
... and could basically talk to just about anybody I wanted to all over the country!
...You would've had to have been into that Radio scene to understand the significance of being a part of that culture and community...
...It wasn't a good thing, except I was able to sell my equipment for a substantial sum of money...
Now you would think that was a good thing...But it wasn't...
I was a Cocaine Addict and having all that cash on hand allowed me to justify having one last big blast before I skedaddled out of town...
...Which leads me to tell you how I almost died right before I was to leave.
It's late February 1981 and I'm trying to raise the money for the move down south.
...Like I said earlier I had sold some things, and continued to deal drugs, while struggling with my own demons...
...I remember one of my dealers was a guy named Mike Furlow,
...I know now that it must have been Satan that engineered this deal!
Mike Furlow shows up at my house and offers me a good deal on a large package of Cocaine.
...The reason I know it must have been the Devil... is because,
... for Michael to just show up and offer me this deal was completely out of character for him. He just didn't operate that way.
...Usually, if you wanted something from Furlow... it was always a big struggle and a hassle to get him to come off of anything,
... unless he was going to come way out on top of the deal.
... That was just the way he operated...He was a Hustler and a crook...
...But here he was, offering me a good deal on a large package of dope... and I fell for it hook line and sinker...
...Now I'm afraid, that only someone that has been a cocaine junkie will truly understand what kind of power that drug holds over someone caught in its grip...
...If you are a mainline IV user...the more you do...the more you want...you become a total fiend.
The thing is...you want that rush it gives you when you boot it, and you are looking for the bells going off in your ears, the taste in your mouth, the smell in your nose...
...It's like a medicinal smell like ether.
It only lasts for about five minutes and then before you know it your back in the spoon fixing up another shot...
...You know full well that next shot might kill you! Your heart is going through all kinds of changes...beating like a trip hammer one minute... and then slowing down, skipping beats, turning flip flops,
... and all the while your mind is going through all kinds of changes from elation and euphoria...
...almost like an orgasm...
...and then the fear and paranoia kicks in, and your running off at the mouth a mile a minute...
...Its terrible... and wonderful... all at the same time.
...You're scared to death one minute, thinking your going to die...and swearing to yourself and everyone else in the room that you are all done...
...I'm never going to do that again!
...Praying to God to just let you survive...
...You promise you'll never do it again...
...and 15 minutes later your fixing another shot...
...swearing this is the last one...
...It just might be, because every shot has to be progressively bigger than the last one in order to get that same high you just had.
IT'S TOTAL INSANITY!!!
YOU ARE A SLAVE, YOU ARE ON A BINGE, AND YOU WON'T STOP UNTIL YOUR EITHER DEAD OR OUT OF DOPE...OR OUT OF MONEY!
And please don't be out of money, because that's where it can get real Dangerous!
That's where you start cooking up all manners of scams and crimes to get some money for your next fix...
...AND THIS WILL GO ON AND ON AND ON, OVER AND OVER, AND OVER!
THE MORE YOU DO THE MORE YOU WANT!
That's exactly what happened to me after I got that package from Furlow...
...and for the next 3 days, I stayed holed up in the house shooting dope until I was almost dead...
...I couldn't get a vein up any longer, I couldn't hardly talk or walk, and I was shaking so bad I couldnt even fix it up or shoot it...
I remember how I had ruined all the syringes, and I was down to the last of the dope so I knew I was going to have to mix up a big dose... because the last couple of shots hadn't worked for me...
...My tolerance had gotten too high...or I missed the vein and just got a skin pop...
...NO RUSH!!!! ^%%%#$#%&^&^(&^%$$%$!!!!!!!
...So I had the brilliant idea to mix up over a gram sized shot...A monster blast!
...It must have taken several hours to finally get the syringe filled up, and the mixture was so thick with the dope and blood coagulating in it...
... That I couldn't get the plunger to push the dope out of the syringe, through the needle, and into my vein!
...The needle had clogged up...
...I was desperate!!!
...and deep down inside...
... I knew, that if I did get that shot to work... it was probably going to stop my heart...
...But I couldn't help myself...
... I remember thinking about how awful it was going to be for my wife, and my daughter to have to live with the knowledge that her husband and her Daddy died a junkie with a needle hanging out of his arm!
...How hurt everyone was going to be knowing that I had killed myself shooting up drugs in my veins...
...I still couldn't stop myself, and there I was...Totally possessed by that drug demon!
...My arms looked like hamburger with bruises all over them... blood trails and spatter, needle tracks up and down both arms!
... I had that dope filled syringe stuck in my arm...pushing on that plunger with all my might... trying my best to get it to slide that gigantic shot of cocaine into my veins...
... Suddenly... the plunger slid all the way down to the bottom and the dope disappeared...
...Something strange happened...
There was no rush!
...I didn't get high or die!...
The syringe had split down the side... and all that liquid dope spilled into the carpet instead of going into my arm!
...Really, I was relieved, because I knew that if I had done that shot?
...I was a dead man!
...In looking back on that moment...I know now that God must have had my guardian angel bust that needle wide open and thereby saving my life once again!!!
...I'm not sure how???
.......But I finally passed out and crashed for about three days after that last mad dash into insanity...
I managed to scrape together a few hundred dollars loaded up my old rust bucket of a 1970 Buick Skylark...Somehow managed to rig up this weird hitchhiker style trailer on the back bumper for my 1976 Suzuki 750 Motorcycle.
You should have seen that one going down the road...The back shocks on the car were wore out so the front wheels on the car barely touched the pavement while the back end of the car was almost dragging on the pavement and would bottom out on a good bump in the road...
...You couldn't hardly steer that thing becasue the front end was just floating and if I was driving into a good headwind the car was practically uncontrollable...It all seems so crazy now when I look back, but everything that I did at that age was borderline Insanity...LMAO!
...HERE'S SOME MORE INSANITY FOR YOU!
My crazy ass brother-in-law, Steve Coleman volunteered to ride along on the trip to help me drive the 1200 miles, at least as far as Texarkana where I was to drop him off at the train station there and he would catch an Amtrak back to the Zoo...
...That in and of itself was not so crazy, except for the fact that he dropped about 4 hits of some double dome purple Micro-Dot Acid, so he could take a trip on our Road Trip...
Thank God, that at that point in time, I had sworn off all manner of intoxicants except for weed, so I kissed my family goodbye, assuring Miss Beth that I would somehow be sending for her and Aimee' ASAP, rolled up an Ounce of Joints for the ride Stashed a Quarter Pound of Good Pot and a Bottle with a Thousand Black Beauties in the trunk of my hoopty ass ride, motorcycle in tow...Stopped and picked up my now wildly hallucinating Brother-in-Law Steve, who laughed his ass off all the way there I might add...And he was totally useless as a co-driver to say the least...
AND OFF WE WENT ON MIKE AND STEVE'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE !
IT WAS A THOUSAND WONDERS WE DIDN'T PILE IT UP SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY, AND MORE THAN ANOTHER FEW THOUSAND WONDERS THAT THE POLICE DIDN'T PULL US OVER , THE WAY THAT JALOPY WITH MOTORCYCLE ON THE BACK LOOKED SWERVING ALL OVER THE HIGHWAY WITH NO STEERING AND LOCK US UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY FOR ALL OF THE FELONIES WE WERE PROBABLY COMMITTING WHILE SMUGGLING NARCOTICS ACROSS STATE LINES, POSSESION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES WITH INTENT TO DELIVER, POSSESION AND CARRYING CONCEALED WEAPONS...
...REMEMBER???
....I DIDN'T TRAVEL ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING STRAPPED...THE PARTICULAR MODEL OF FIREARM I HAPPENED TO BE CARRYING ON THIS TRIP WAS AN OLD SMITH AND WESSON SNUB NOSED .45 CALIBER 6 SHOOTER...
A MONSTER CANNON, THAT I ALWAYS CARRIED CONCEALED ON MY PERSON...
I only share all these details with you, so that you might better understand what kind of changes my Guardian Angel had to go through to insure that I reached my destination alive and out of prison!
Truly, It had to be solely by God's Grace that I ever survived my own stupidity, and was able to live long enough to come anywhere close to fulfilling any of God's plans that he had for my life.
The crazy part is...I didn't have a clue that any of this stuff was less than a normal way to live? I had no concept at all that maybe my life was supposed to be lived with some kind of noble purpose or higher calling involved...
And with that in mind...You can only imagine what kind of adventures that I would continue to pursue after arriving miracuously somehow in DeRidder late that evening where I was to meet Doug Tuttle for the first time in my life!
I got into town, stopped at a local drive in curb stop joint and called Barry's house for Directions...Doug answered, informed me that Barry was out on an oilrig, and that He would come meet me and guide me in.
Hear I am...1200 miles from home...In a new town...Without my wife or anybody else for that matter to cause me to have any restraint in my behaviour...Moving into a bachelor's Pad...
GET THE PICTURE???
YEP! YOU GUESSED IT...LET THE GAMES BEGIN...
TO BE CONTINUED.....STAY TUNED...IT GETS MUCH WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER!
