Chapter 10
By the end of my freshman year, I had given up petty theft in exchange for the lucrative drug trade. The way the trade is organized everyone from the top of the pyramid to the bottom is given an opportunity to fill his or her coffers. I was at the bottom in terms of quantity and capital. On the island, I was at the top because I had access to drugs that most could not get otherwise, and I had been at it longer then most of the other kids. With one phone call, or a quick trip by ferry, I could acquire and then distribute drugs. While my childhood friends were enmeshed in their studies, I was locked in the progression of addiction. I entered a level of lawlessness that I had not known before.
Because of my connections in treatment, I met criminals active in other ventures. Their favorite hustle was infiltrating the suburbs. Though I would not describe myself as naive at that stage, I understood little of how the drug trade at this level operated. In my pursuit of drugs, I showed a level of fearlessness that enabled me to enter places that many would have avoided. Some might have called it insanity. Regardless, I was fueled by a hunger that could not be satiated.
The city and its wealth of resources were just thirty minutes away by ferry. I had numerous options to ensure a constant state of alteration. As in other parts of the country, the drugs found in the inner cities made their way to the suburbs where they originated from initially. The fallacy that they originated within the inner city was a farce. Once distributed in the inner city from a kingpin they would soon find their way back into the suburbs in smaller quantities where resources were again exchanged. With a shared understanding, many parties pursued their goal and the shadows emerged in droves.
I spent many hours in the apartment across the street from the high school, filling the pockets of numerous people with money. My role was to link the people on the island who had money with my connections in Seattle. Often, I assisted with transactions that made people at all levels of the drug pyramid happy. My participation did not make me rich, but it did provide me with my basic necessities: cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine.
Peddling drugs gave me a false sense of power, elevating a false sense of self. This made me feel like everyone's best friend, giving me the ability to manipulate the world around me. Drugs sold themselves. I simply had to play the part. To some, I was the hero; to others, the villain.
No one suggested recording the transactions. For most of us, it made little sense to do so. Logic is not evenly distributed. One arrest could place our whole hustle under the radar of local authorities. Logic is also lost when a false sense of pride outweighs caution. Pete embodied this type of egoism. In placing his distorted view of himself above everyone else he revealed two networks of drug runners working the island and the peninsula. His parents caught him with drugs and a ledger full of transactions. They then turned him in to the authorities with everything they had gathered. Pete had recorded both sales and purchases with meticulous precision. The authorities began to round people up for questioning.
I happened to be in Pete’s ledger, and when the police came for me, I was at the high school with several bags of pot and cocaine. The game of cat and mouse had finally caught up with me. It is not difficult to find someone on the island, and I was well-known given my previous run-ins with the law.
The police initially confused me with my older brother, Ryan, and had taken him in for questioning. Once they realized that I was the one that they were after, they had lost the element of surprise. When they found me I had well-rehearsed lines. Adding to their frustration, I was unwilling to talk. I felt fairly certain it was against the law to question me without my parents present. When I brought this up, the interview ended and I was allowed to leave with the understanding that if I were ever caught on campus again, I would be arrested for trespassing.
My previous relationships, formerly quite lucrative, ended. Paranoia ran deep and my contacts from Seattle made several trips across the water to warn me against talking. They made a series of threats that left no doubt in my mind that I was in danger. Several men, guys I had not met previously, came to my house on two occasions, threatening to rape my mother if I talked. The third time, they told me how easily they could climb the telephone pole outside of our condominium and shoot one of my family members. The fourth and final time I saw these men, they drove me to the waterfront, threatened to shoot me, and then left me there in sheer panic.
For weeks, the blinds in our condo remained closed. My oldest brother, Travis, kept a baseball bat behind the door in case the men showed up again. When my family had finally had enough, they decided to move me to Florida.
Though my circumstances changed, I did not. Internal change does not come about through the reorganization of external circumstances. Change evolves through internal shifts produced by major emotional upheavals. Change is the result of consistent emotional and spiritual work. I had finally reached a point where I wanted to stop using to maintain the safety of my family.
As I waited for my departure date, I returned to recovery meetings to sit in a circle of chairs and listen for answers. I was an empty shell, longing for the changes such groups promised. I stared through those around me and into the surrounding walls. I had many disguises, none of which took away from my sincerity; instead, they erased any trace of the demons that lurked all around me.
Sadly, I continued to be haunted by the shadows. They tricked me into believing that they had the answers. The shadows mimicked what I sought in recovery, telling me I could only achieve the spiritual world through chemical use. These torments pulled me away from my attempts for emotional health, reminding me of the powers of chemically induced euphoria. The shadows mocked my every attempt to find serenity. My soul was torn in two.
