Friday, November 03, 2006

Only Users Lose Drugs


Austin, TX, 2001(?) - My friend, The Mysterious Mexican, and I are downtown. MG and her friend are waiting for us to go back to her place to have a few drinks and unwind after a hard night of drinking and winding. Inspiration strikes me. I turn to TMM and say, "Wanna score some crack?" MG rolls her eyes - "I'm outta here."
Of course, The Mexican is with me. He loves drugs. Especially shitty ones. And this being Austin, Red River St. is the place to be if you want to score crack. Specifically the corner of Red River and 7th where back in the day you could find almost any drug you wanted provided you wanted crack.
We're drunk. Too drunk. But onward we stumble until we happen upon a Black Guy. Of course, he has to be a drug dealer, right? "What you want?" "See, dude, I told you." My racist first impressions turn out to be correct. The guy is indeed a drug dealer. "Rock. Give me 40." The Mexican is impressed with my grasp of the lingo. He nods. He lends a certain air of criminality to the proceedings due to his brownish-ness and this puts the Black Guy at ease. He hands me two vials of crack. I hand him two folded 20s, palming them to him in some sort of white-boy dap action he at first can't figure out. He does manage however to take the money from me before he hauls ass. I look at The Mexican. "Awesome." "Let's go smoke this shit." "How do you do it?" "Hell if I know. Let's just put it in a one-hitter. I have one back at MG's." It's a plan.
We hurry away. I'm excited. Very excited. After living in Austin for most of a decade, I've finally managed to score crack off the street. It's a huge moment in my evolution as a scumbag. In my excitement, I neglect to put the vials in my pocket, preferring instead to carry them in my hand as we hurriedly cross 7th St. Then I fall down. For no reason. And the crack vials go skittering across the pavement. I'm crossing against the light, cars are coming, I'm on the ground trying to get my mind around what has just happened to me, and my crack is lying in the street. What to do, what to do...
The Mexican runs over to help me up. A lady crossing the street looks at me and my friend, looks down to the ground. "Better pick up your drugs. Cars comin'." Yes, let's pick up the drugs. We find one immediately, glittering like a diamond in the middle of the street. It screams "DRUGS! GET THEM!" The Mexican hurriedly grabs the vial much to the delight of a small crowd of onlookers who happened to be lucky enough to watch the whole thing go down. "Get it, man! Get your drugs!" "Where?" "Over there! Watch out! Cars!" I look up and see traffic bearing down on us. Where is that other vial?
"Dude, we have to go. It's gone. Let's go." I don't want to give up the hunt for my 20-rock but the honking of horns convinces me. Cops cannot be far away. In fact, there are two on horseback a block away and they seem tuned in.
We make it out of the intersection and haul ass up the street. My hands are bleeding, my jeans are ripped, The Mexican is still convulsing with laughter, but we are free.
We get back to MG's after a high-speed but ultimately uneventful drunk drive from downtown to Hyde Park. I run upstairs to get the pipe. MG: "What the fuck happened to you?" "Uh, nothing." "Why are you all bloody and why are your jeans ripped?" "Uh, I fell down." I find my pipe. "What are you doing?" "Nothing. Be right back."
I get back downstairs. The Mexican is eyeing the vial. "It's like the movies. They really put the shit in little plastic vials." "Yeah, they sell the vials at Gaspipe." "Really?!" "Yeah, man, Gaspipe sells crack vials." "That's so weird. I thought they'd be all, I don't know, anti-crack or something." "Nope. Those hippies love crack. Here let's put it in here." We load the rock into the one-hitter. I offer The Mexican the first hit. "No, man, go first. I wanna see what happens to you." I put the flame to it. Sizzle, crackle, pop, smoke - I pull hard. The taste of chemicals and burned cocaine fills my lungs. Yep, that's crack. I pass the pipe to TM.
He puts the lighter to it, draws, holds it. We exhale. He passes it back. Nothing left. "That's it." "What?" "That's it. No mas." "Really?" "Yeah." "That's fucked up." "Yeah, but I'm high."

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

as always, awesome

7:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude write some more.

10:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yes you lazy ass mothafucka,
get up and write, punk!

12:08 PM  

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