Once upon a land, magical time, your faithful storyteller wasn't always the fine, upstanding citizen you see before you today. Yes, Uncle Dave used to dabble in illicit contraband of a narcotic nature. I know what you're thinking "What do you mean, USED TO?" But, I don't do drugs anymore, just weed. See, back in what the rappers like to call "the day", Uncle Dave used to toot the boogar sugar from time to time, those times being whenever we had money and could get ahold of someone in Fresno with a sack. Now, procuring said pharmaceuticals was typically facilitated with the aid of our hispanic friend who in the interest of preserving anonymity I'll call "Peter". Peter was fairly well connected in Fresno, thanks to his crazy ass cousin who may or may not (may) have been a norteno and pretty much always knew someone with whatever we were looking for, be it coke, weed, guns, acid, hand grednades... no bullshit, dude asked us one time if we wanted to buy a live hand grenade for $90. I almost said yes just so I could carry that shit around and be on some next level gangster shit, but then I pictured the far more likely scenario of it randomly going off and blowing my ass to hell and that was the end of the love affair. But, I digress. Point was, dude could get just about anything as long as you weren't picky, scared or broke. So, one sunny afternoon, we were all cruising around Fresno in, let's say Shawn's 1970 Chevy Nova (I don't want to give specifics, so you'll have to piece together the rest on your own), when we decided we wanted to get some bud and some coca and roll up some cavis and you know, have a good little Saturday. So, with our trusty ghetto sherpa Pete at our side, we paid a visit to his cousin's house and put in our order. Now, typically, when we would do this, we basically would just have to hang out there for a while, usually on the front porch, and wait for whoever he could get ahold of to deliver our order. Funny story, whenever we hung out on the porch, there would be like 5 or 6 dudes and they all had guns right behind the wall of the porch, just sitting there, and whenever a car would start rolling down the street that they didn't recognize, they would all lean back and put a hand on their respective firearm in anticipation of a potential drive-by. And you thought you had any excitement at all in your daily lives... Today was different, however. On this day, we were told that we would have to take a trip around the corner to get the stuff from this particular dude's house because he didn't like to leave the house very much. Fair enough, remember, one of the 3 rules was you couldn't be picky, and the other was you couldn't be scared, so rolling over to some random dude's pad in the middle of Southeast Fresno was just par for the course. Oh yeah, and bring money, cuz rule number 3, etc. So, we headed off...
We rolled up to the house, and it was fairly nondescript on the outside. I believe it was a light blue or green color, cyclone fence around the front yard, a few bushy trees in the yard and a lawn that was mostly dirt with a few patches of crab grass, holes dug by a phantom pit bull, there was a dog house and a chain, but no dog. I think it might have been in the back yard eating a 3 year old, who knows. Anyway, we knock on the door and were greeted by what can best be described as a typical Fresno Mexican gang dude. By this I mean he was average height, average weight, shaved head, Raider's jersey, Raider's hat, khaki pants, chuck taylors, red laces, red bandana, random tattoos. The basic blueprint of the Fresno norteno, circa 1995. If we were making a movie, he would be credited as "Mexican gangster #1" He said what's up, come on in, and led us through a sparsely-appointed lving room to a bedroom in back. In this room was "The Guy."
Now, to understand "The Guy", you first have to understand "The Guy's Room". This was a 4-walls square room, door leading in, window on the wall opposite, two solid walls on either side, boom. However, it was the decor that immediately let us know that we were about to take a journey to a very strange place and shit was inevitably going to get crazy...
Against the wall to the left as you walked in was a single bed, bare mattress with a sheet and a caseless pillow. On this bed sat "Mexican gangster #2 and #3". Under the window was a 3 drawer brown dresser, nondescript. To the right was a small blue recliner, where "The Guy" was seated, and next to that an empty white plastic lawn chair. As Peter, Shawn and I entered the room behind "Mexican gangster #1", one of the guys on the bed got up, offered his spot to us, and went to the kitchen to get more chairs. He returned with one metal folding chair and one 70's style metal framed kitchen chair with a typical 70's flower type pattern of varying shades of green on the padding. We all took seats and I began to drink in what I was now aware was the wall decorations that framed us in this room...
All four walls were completely covered with their respective decorations. The wall with the bed against it was completely covered in American flags, army memorabilia like banners, pennants and various patches, stickers and framed pictures ranging from bald eagles to squad pics which I assumed documented "The Guy's" previous military service. The wall with the window on it was completely covered in Native American memorabilia, dream catcher, full headdress, pictures of Indian men and women, turquoise jewelry hanging from nails, arrowheads in a framed case, and so on. The wall to the right, behind "The Guy" was covered in Nazi memorabilia - A huge nazi flag, a smaller nazi flag, an iron cross, some nazi uniform patches, black and white drawings of things like the nazi war eagle, swastikas, and a few other random pieces from Slayer's yard sale. The wall behind us with the door leading out was, of course, covered in porn. Cutouts and centerfolds from a gamut of magazines, ranging from topless biker chicks, to extreme close-ups of freshly shorn vaginas. It was like all we needed was a wall with hearts on it and we could have summoned Captain Planet in this motherfucker. Now that you understand "The Guy's" room, allow me to introduce, "The Guy".
I call him "The Guy" because I don't think I ever heard his name, and in spite of my remarkably clear recollection of nearly every other detail of this day, I don't remember his name if I had been told it. What I do remember is how he looked. He was very thin, almost gaunt. Mexican, and very similar in appearance to the dude from "Training Day", the one who's cousin almost got raped, but Ethan Hawke saved her, so he didn't blow his brains out in the bathtub... This guy:
"You know it wasn't personal right? Just business..."
Now, picture that dude, only about 15 years older, 30lbs lighter, 3 times more tatted up, 75% more "I will fucking explode on you in a random, senseless, violent rage" and if his dad was Charles Manson, and you kind of have an idea what "The Guy" looked like. Also, he had a spiderweb tattoo that completely covered his neck. Dude was very soft-spoken, he invited us to have a seat, we all made our introductions and he asked us what we were looking for. We told him we wanted a 16th of powder and a 1/4oz of bud. He said he would have to send his homeboy to go get it, which required us to do something we hated doing when making drug deals with people we didn't know - hand the money over first. However, since Pete's cousin vouched for "The Guy" and Pete vouched for his cousin, and it was about 85% likely we were leaving that money there whether we handed it over willingly or it was taken from our unconscious bodies while we were being violently sodomized just for the fuck of it, we decided to take the risk. Shawn handed the money to "The Homeboy", who darted out the back screen door and we began the long, awkward wait. It was during these few minutes that I really drank in the art covering the four walls around me, while repeatedly glancing at Shawn, making subtle eye and face gesture conversation, the kind where you say stuff like "Dude, we might die right now" and "How badly are you shitting yourself?" without having to say it, we just knew. The buyer's remorse was almost immediate, but neither of us was about to tell "The Guy" that we'd changed our minds, we were in this fucker for the long haul, like it or not.
After what seemed like 15 years, but was really about 15 minutes, "The Homeboy" returned and threw two sacks into Shawn's lap - one was the 1/4oz of what can only be described as the dirtiest, ditchiest, schwagiest, Mexican brown weed ever to pass customs and the other was a surprisingly fat, tightly wrapped, baggy corner of bright white Columbian party powder. The weed made us go "Aww...", the coke made us go "Ahhh!" Now, our instinct was to jump right up and start to excuse ourselves so we could leave, go take a massive shit and start getting proper fucked up, but it was made immediately clear that we were obliged to share some with the rest of the class before we could be excused. So, Shawn threw out a couple nugs and a generous pile of dust and we watched "Mexican gangster #2" roll up a cavi. Now, the way WE roll up a joint of brown weed is we separate the seeds and stems first, because they taste like shit and make you want to gag and throw up when you smoke them. However, that's not a part of the Mexican culture apparently, because no Mexican dude we ever smoked brown weed with ever took a single seed or stick out of that shit, they just break it up and throw it in the paper. Peter would de-seed it, but he was white by association, so he didn't really count. Thus, the finished product was a stinky, harsh lung-buster. Fortunately, the coke numbed our lungs, so we didn't hack one up on this rough ass shit. Shawn fired it up and we started passing it around. When the cavi got to "The Guy", he declined it and proceeded to explain that he didn't like to smoke cocaine, that smoking it didn't do anything to him anymore. Shawn and I looked at each other like damn, how hardcore do you have to be when smoking coke doesn't even affect you anymore? Well, we were about to find out, because "The Guy" opened the top drawer of his dresser and took out a small black case from which he produced a syringe and a blackened spoon with a bent handle. As he began mixing and cooking up his coke, we were like oh shit, dude shoots it up. As if he could hear our thoughts, "The Guy" exclaimed "Smoking coke is for fucking pussies eh, I TAKE THAT SHIT TO THE NECK, HOLMES!" And before we had a chance to even process what we had just heard, he loaded up his syringe and began slapping the side of his neck while tensing his muscles until a vein popped out and then, using a mirror on his dresser as a guide, expertly stuck the needle into his neck vein and... well... took that shit to the neck. I looked at Shawn, Shawn looked at me, and from that day forward "Take it to the neck, holmes!" became a permanent part of our lexicon. Now, for most people, this is the kind of experience that evokes a moment of personal reflection, the kind of jarring realization that leads people to say things like "Dude, I gotta make some changes man, this shit is too fucking crazy for me." But, as Rick James so eloquently put it, "Cocaine is a helluva drug."
We did, what can only be described as, some crazy shit back in the day. So much, in fact, that I have forgotten a very large portion. It amazes me that we have turned out relatively "normal". Hell, it's amazing that we have both survived. That being said, we had some real fun didn't we?
ReplyDeleteSomeday you'll have to recount the day we dropped enough acid to be legally insane......wallets!
ReplyDeleteOh, I intend to! ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd that, little kiddies... was just one day in Fresno.
ReplyDeleteMan.. you guys are fuckin losers!!! :D
ReplyDelete..and for the record: No MOM, I never did cocaine :)
Haha, Kristin married a loser! :p
ReplyDeleteHoly rock cocaine!! There is a "crack attack" ministry ad next to yur blog, Dave!!.. You think Jesus is trying to tell you something?
ReplyDeleteNo, not Jesus, his name was Jose.
ReplyDeleteHehe..."our trusty ghetto sherpa Pete".
ReplyDelete"Take it to the neck, Holmes" should have been the prerequisite saying prior to every perf or backstab in every mmo we've ever played.
ReplyDeleteThe pic caption says it all.
ReplyDelete"You know it wasn't personal right? Just business..."
One time, not far from where this story took place was a little store called Lewis St. Market... just right down the street from "Peters" cousin.
ReplyDeleteWe had stopped there to get some munchies before retiring back at "Herms" girlfriends residence to do whatever illegal substance we had and as we walked out of the store, a mid to late 70's model boat car cruises past at about 4 mph and out of the passenger window (the side we were on) was the barrel of a 12 guage double barrel shotgun kinda pointed up at the sky angled out like whoever was holding it in his right hand.
I took all this in in like a split second and stopped dead in my tracks blocking the way out, still watching the car.
I think someone bumped into me from behind and said something... at least I think they did because right about then dude in the car broke off both barrels.
There wasnt anyone in my way as I backed back into the store. I remember looking at the store clerk and him looking back at me shrugging, as if to say "happens all the time", as he went back to helping the other customer.
I recall thinking about that as I drove down the street, the same way the car with the shotgun had gone not 2 mins prior, and noting that I didnt hear sirens or see the people walking down the sidewalk looking around as if they were in mortal danger.
A min later, we were standing on the front porch of "Janices" house smoking bud, passing around "Herms" .25 in a "Lets see who looks the hardest with the gun" contest and selling pcp laced joints called "lenos" to the crazy wacked out Bulldog named Diablo who lived across the street, the whole shotgun blasts already forgotten.
And the night went on.