Table of Contents: (THIS IS UNEDITED... AND IT IS NOT FINISHED)

Chapter One     The Foundation To Run Rampant

Chapter Two      Mission: Seek and Destroy

Chapter Three   Degenerate Little Boy

Chapter Four     Second Shot At The Seventh Grade

Chapter Five     Getting Really Driven

Chapter Six       High School - Party Hardy

Chapter Seven  Out of School - Off to Mississippi

Chapter Eight    Back to the City – Business As Usual

Chapter Nine     The Bottom Falls Out

Chapter Ten      Learning to Play the Streets

Chapter One
The Foundation To Run Rampant


I was born September 2, 1953 in Huntington Park, California. As with all of us, by the time I learned to talk, my environment conditioned me. I constantly received conflicting messages about the world, how I should think, feel, and behave from a variety of sources. 

My parents were heavy drinkers; they smoked, and were not concerned with a healthy lifestyle. They seemed to enjoy themselves whenever possible. It all made sense to me. I had no means to challenge falsehoods.

There was food in the refrigerator and the house was always clean. I always had the latest and greatest clothes, a good bike, plenty of toys and lots of friends. I have one brother Steve, who is three years older than I. I had a large family when it came to relatives. All of my grandparents had been divorced and remarried. The holidays were spectacular, more presents than I knew what to do with.

The adults in my family were heavy drinkers. Except my father’s mom (who outlived the entire bunch except my father). It didn't matter what time the family affair started, everyone had a drink in hand. I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on, it never crossed my mind to question anything. 

I recall one of my first acts of rebellion. I remember standing in front of our house in Hawthorne, in 1957. I was watering the front lawn, when out of the clear blue I turned the hose on a passing motorist and sprayed the man in the head. He skidded to a halt, backed up and got out of the car. I remember running into the backyard hiding in the bushes, hearing my mother call my name. I was scared and hid for hours. After I knew the man was gone, I came out to get my punishment. It wasn't much... a little talking to and I was on my own again. I'll never forget the look on that man's face, why you little SOB. To tell you the truth, I still think it's funny!

We moved to San Fernando Valley in 1958, things were pretty good. The neighbors had a go-cart, I was too small to drive it, but they gave me rides. We built skateboards out of shoe skates and two-by-fours, before skateboards had been invented. I remember the first production skateboard I got for Christmas. We did gymnastics on our front lawn, I had a wonderful life. 

We played street-ball. A baseball game called 500. 100 points for a fly ball, 50 points- one bounce, 25 points- anything else. As you got more points, you would move up from our outfield to middle field and so on and progress to pitcher with 450 points. Then you were up as batter when you got 500 points. Being one of the smaller kids, if I ever did get 450 points, one of the bigger kids would pitch for me. And now, for my interpretation of a misleading lesson I was taught... that life has no guarantees.

450 points! Unbelievable! “Come on, come on... let me pitch, if I do bad you can take over.” I was so proud, 450 points, I was up, everyone was watching- surely I could pitch. I grabbed that black tape covered ball, I aimed right at the catcher, and it was perfect right over the plate. Mike O'Brien the biggest 16-year-old in my neighborhood was swinging away. That's all I remember. I woke up in the hospital and I was told that Mike hit a line drive, which hit me right between the eyes and knocked me out cold and gave me two black eyes and a broken nose. My mother was hysterical. I'd been unconscious for over 20 minutes- blood everywhere. Needless to say, I made a full recovery. I was never allowed to pitch again while playing street-ball with the big kids. It was planted in my mind: no guarantees I could die any minute. 

It all seemed normal to me: Little League baseball, Pop-Warner football, gas engine airplanes and cars. We lived by a model plane airport. My dad and his friends would always take us to fly airplanes and run our cars.

My dad went to work and came home every night. My mother was a great cook and dinner was on the table every night. I had two dogs, guinea pigs, lizards, snakes, and every other pet I could get my hands on. I even had a little job in the pet shop cleaning cages. I loved animals and dreamt of someday being a veterinarian.

My parents went across the street to Ellen and Al's almost every night. Drinking, eating, smoking, playing cards, darts or pool, getting rowdy over sports on TV. It looked like everyone was having fun to me. I remember being sent home to get a bottle of vodka or whiskey and I would run and bring it back as fast as I could. Then one time my mother asked me to be sure to put it in a bag because the neighbors had seen me with bottles and it didn’t look good. I didn’t understand why at the moment, but I followed directions.

My brother and I would go over and play with Ellen and Al’s kids Timmy and Cathy. They were no fun to play with. They were older and just wanted to watch TV. I’d rather go out and terrorize the streets with the kids my age.

We loved knocking on doors and running. On several occasions we put a brown paper bag full of dog poop on someone’s porch, lit it on fire, knocked on the door- ran- hid- and watched them stomp the fire out, just laughing away. 

My brother Steve was great at baseball. Of course, I had to try to keep up with the star of the family. I was always a little smaller than most of the kids, and I was the little brother, so I had to work twice as hard, to keep up and make an impression, which wasn't hard for me... that's why they called me “Tiger.” I could always run faster, pogo stick longer, swim longer and play harder than any of the kids my age. If that didn’t work, negative attention was fine. I remember running head first into the aluminum garage door in front of everybody to cause a big boom on more than one occasion.

The house in the valley had a swimming pool. The summers were hot and all of the neighborhood kids came over to swim. I remember going into the garage and looking for soda, it was hot, no soda- one of these cold beers looks good. Well, I knew that beer was not for kids, but that didn't stop me, I was hot. I drank the whole beer as quick as I could, so I would not get caught. I don’t remember feeling the effects. It was just something cold to drink. I remember repeating this act many times for many years.

I don't recall any special occasions in elementary school. Just the usual things: pencils, papers, writing, reading and studying. Oh, and the wonderful little lesson that helped warp my mind: your great ancestors were monkeys- you evolved- see the chart. It made sense to me. I went to school to learn- right?

I loved the after-school activities: skateboards, bicycles, roller skates, hula hoops, transistor radios, black and white televisions. Everything was going smooth, just being a kid. I was riding my bike to the store and a car hit me. Blood everywhere... to the hospital one more time... all my front baby teeth top and bottom knocked out, I could have been killed. It wasn't even my fault, the man wasn’t looking where he was going - no guarantees.

I remember a number of us were playing in the neighbor’s front yard. Mike O'Bryan was lying on his back vaulting us in the air with his legs. "This is going to be a good one Glen," he yelled. Off to the left about three feet - I landed right on a planter box. To the hospital one more time- a broken arm.

I recall the first time I got in trouble with police. My brother had just gotten a chemistry set. He was in the garage secretly making gunpowder. He was too busy for me. So I guess to get me out of way, he told me how to fill C02 cartridges with match heads- to make rockets. He said, “you don’t need to get involved with gunpowder, and don’t tell anybody what I am doing.” I was only about 10 years old. I don’t think he took me seriously.

Off to the store I went to get boxes of matches. I forged a note saying the matches were for my mother just in case they asked. I was building and launching these C02 cartridge rockets out of my backyard and all over the neighborhood, without concern for where the cartridges were going. I would never launch them when any parents could hear the explosion at liftoff, so they couldn’t link it to me. I was very careful not to get caught. This went on for about 2 weeks or so. One night -without thinking, of course- I launched one right down the middle of the street. It ricocheted around one of the neighbors’ porches and landed right by the man's feet. I guess he saw us running away… the next thing I knew - the police were at my door.

Boy was I in trouble. My father was always quick to break out a belt and put me over his knee. They couldn't believe it, “what were you doing, what were you thinking, you could have killed someone. “ They tried to get information out of me, “who were you with, where did you learn about this,” but to no avail, I’d never squeal. When the police left I got the spanking of a lifetime and was put on restriction for a month.

In 1962 my father quit his job at Marquart in Van Nuys and went to work for North America Aviation in Downey. The drive was too far for him and his new job paid very well, so in 1964 they decided to move to La Habra, Orange County, California. A tri-level home in the prestigious Woodridge Homes.

Chapter Two
Mission: Seek and Destroy


It was the summer of 1964. I remember being very scared. I was moving into a new neighborhood. What were the kids going to be like? I remember my mother telling me, “no more cut off jeans, you're going to be wearing Bermuda Shorts. This is a very nice neighborhood. All of the kids are going to be very different from the kids you are accustomed to.”

It was a new track of homes. Ninety percent of the homes were empty. I was a pioneer. There was an awesome creek right behind our house. My father bought my brother and I the pump-pellet guns. Down to the creek we went to go hunting. When I put that gun in my hands, my love for animals vanished, replaced by a vengeance to kill. I had no respect for life. I proceeded to kill every bird, rabbit, skunk, raccoon, bullfrog, pollywog and lizard that I could get in my site.

As I started to meet some of the neighborhood kids, things changed. These kids weren't different; we were all from the other side of the tracks. It was our parents that moved us here, to the affluent Woodridge Homes. We used to go exploring, checking out empty houses, and we figured out how to break in to every vacant house we wanted to. I was a natural born leader and for some reason everyone would follow. We started to vandalize, shooting out an occasional window here and there. We had to be careful though, there were not that many kids yet, and we surely did not want to get linked to the damage being done. The police had already gotten me once; I would be smarter this time.

I remember they just invented the “Sting Ray” bicycle. It was a little 20-inch dirt bicycle - what an invention. Our neighborhood had hills everywhere. I made a racecourse out of the entire neighborhood. All of us guys would go through the front and backyards off jumps, down hills, around the neighborhood. It was great, no fences, and no people. Nothing but open yards, hills, jumps, full speed- it was incredible.

Down at the creek there was a huge pond and swimming hole. “Come on guys we need to build a raft,” I told them. Off to the construction site. We’ll get all the supplies we need. It took more than a few nights sneaking into the construction site lugging supplies down to the creek. Then during the day all the designing, sawing and nailing. When it was finished it was a beauty. Every night we would have to drag it deep into the cat tales, because some kids from other neighborhoods went down to the creek and surely they would steal it or tear it apart.

Across the creek there was the Baseball Park where we played little league. Right across from the Baseball Park was a concrete company. We went over and stole an inner tube from a truck that was lying around. We took it to the gas station and inflated it. It was huge. “Come on guys, check out what I am going to do.” I took it to a very long steep hill behind one of houses. And I told all of my friends to watch this. I climbed inside the tube and off I went. It was incredible. We got going over 20 miles an hour on the inside of this huge inner tube. Nobody could believe it. Everybody wanted to try it after that. We were all having so much fun taking turns.

Then Allen, the bully in our neighborhood came over with a couple of his buddies and started intimidating us. I had heard about Allen, but had never seen him. “What you guys doing back hear this is my neighborhood” Allen yelled. He walked over to the slide that I had built. I'd taken 2 by 16’s waxed them with candle wax and laid them down end to end on this huge hill and had a wonderful slide. We would sit on cardboard and slide really fast. Allen started grabbing, the boards and throwing them down the hill; “I told you guys this is my neighborhood.” This was the biggest guy in the neighborhood, but surely I wasn't going to put up with this. I walked up to Allen, “hey leave our stuff alone, get out of here.” “Forget it, you guys go home or I’ll beat you up” Allen yelled. “All right buddy choose off,” I yelled. (In our day it was only OK to fight if you asked someone to choose off, if they accepted, then it was OK to fight.) He looked at me and said “when,” (I always figured that meant fight, so I was always the one to get the first punch in.) “Right now” I yelled, and proceeded to hit him in the face a few times, and then I jumped on him and knocked him down. I grabbed him by the neck and on the way down and got him in a headlock. He fell downright on top of me -- and his head. I had his head locked underneath him and me by his throat. I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. I wouldn’t let him up, he was crying gasping for air, “no way buddy you better leave us alone.” Everybody was cheering and screaming “get him, get him.” I choked him until he was begging, crying and I finally let go. I jumped up, hit him a couple of times while he was on the ground. I said “you get out of here, this is our neighborhood.” Him and his buddies ran away, everybody was cheering. I was the king. I was the toughest kid in the neighborhood and nobody ever forgot it. 

We did not fight amongst ourselves; there were ranks according to our natural abilities. We even named ourselves “The Avengers.” My friend’s sister even drew up a logo for us and made us really cool shirts. The neighborhood was ours to reign.

Breaking into vacant houses and construction sites became a regular occurrence. We would just play in the vacant houses. We would steal wood, paint, supplies from the construction sites, and we would break into the storage trailers for any tools we needed.

We built forts inside and underneath the houses we played in. I remember we were inside one house playing and I got locked inside the bathroom. Somebody yelled security truck and I panicked. I pulled a drawer out of the bathroom counter out and beat a hole in the door so I could get out. We all ditched out and ran down to the creek. Everybody was laughing "did you see that door."

This was the summer before sixth grade. I hadn't even hit puberty and one of my friend’s older cousins taught us how to masturbate. What a feeling, I became addicted from day one. I knew where my fathers pornography was hidden and put it too good use. I even started my own collection in my fort underneath my house from magazines I would find in neighborhood trashcans. I mean I had it going on. My fort was decked out, a light, carpet, and centerfolds on every wall. What a discovery: sex, women and orgasms. It didn't take long, I was obsessed: three, four, or five times a day. The fantasies were running rampant. All the smut stories and pictures filled my mind with toxic waste. I thought it was totally normal. What else were these books for?

It didn't take long after the onset of masturbation to wonder about the other pleasures these people were indulging in. I coaxed my friends into drinking the rest of a keg of beer leftover from a party. Talk about fun. We all got really drunk three nights in a row. Playing, fighting, rolling in the dirt, vandalizing it was great.

There were a few girls that moved into the neighborhood that wanted to party with us. And that was fine. We really had it going on. We would steal liquor from our parents or stand in front of the local store asking people to score for us. 

School started and the sixth grade was great. We took a bus to school. Waiting for the bus in the morning was always fun. I remember squirting invisible ink on one of the girls. She screamed and took off running home, we couldn’t catch her, the bus was coming and we had to get on. By the time she got home and looked down the ink had disappeared. Her parents contacted mine and I was told to behave -- no problem.

Well these porno books were so stimulating, that I decided I would bring some of my favorites to school and deck the boys’ bathroom out. So I made sure the coast was clear and proceeded to tape foldouts all over the walls. I just finished, I was standing back admiring my work when a noon aide walked in- busted. 

Off to the Principle’s Office -- a call to my mom. Was I pissed - bad timing, but I had to play it off. My mom got there and they were asking me questions: “where did you get these pictures.” “I found them.” I was crying, playing it off. “Do you like these pictures.” I can recall so clearly, I was crying, “no, I don’t know why I did it” while thinking to myself, what are you an idiot, no I put them up because I don’t like them.

Suspended, a week out of school. Sounded good to me. When my dad came home from work- it wasn’t even a big deal. No spanking, a week restriction and it was all good. I felt like telling him don’t worry your books are still in tact, it was my stash I got busted with. But I didn’t think my mom new he had porn, by the way she acted at school, so I let it be. I figured porn was a mutual unspoken pleasure. I learned quickly, the less you say- the less they know- you’re better off.

All the kids found out and thought I was cool. So one of the guys thought he would get in on the action and out do me. He had a hot and heavy paper back that he covered with a brown paper and put some bogus name on it. He would sit in class and read it and when he would find something intense he’d pass it around to some of the guys. I couldn’t wait to get home and hit the fort for a porn session and then out to terrorize with the guys. Sixth grade ended and it was summer of 1965. 

Chapter Three
Degenerate Little Boy


I shot out every street light in the neighborhood with my pellet gun. They had to install Plexiglas covers because I kept shooting them out. We started out drinking on the weekends when all of our parents would get really drunk. It was more likely we would not get caught when they were plastered. We played spin the bottle with the girls. One of the older girls showed us how to give massages, so we went to work on the girls. We learned how to get them hot, so we could feel them out. This helped intensify my porno sessions.

It all made sense to me- fun. We tried smoking cigarettes, but they were too strong, so we got a pipe and smoked tea. It was milder and easier to inhale. We tagged with spray cans, shot out windows, hunted, lit fires, made match bombs and vandalized. 

They started building a Shopping Center right next to our neighborhood. Things were getting out of control, the vandalizing was getting intense. Our capers made it to the papers a number of times. Tens of thousands of dollars of damage. We were never caught. I lit the creek on fire twice, once on accident, the other time I shot a flaming arrow out of my friends’ backyard into the creek. I'll never forget the look on his face. I used to go down into the drainage pipes under the bridge pour a gallon of gasoline out, run back to the bottom, wait for the gasoline and hit it with a torch. With the fumes being pushed out by the wind, it would almost explode. It would shoot out twenty-foot flames, you could see this smoke for miles. This was just the start. I learned to play it off with the parents. Even my brother had no idea what I was doing. Me and the boyz, had it going-on

I started playing Little League Baseball. My dad would take us. He was always more concerned with my brother. I was myself, Steve was the best. He wanted to be a pro ball player, he went to the World Series, and he always got awards. 

My father got us a go-cart. My brother and I rode it almost everyday. Our friends would come over and ride it with us. My brother had older friends and they never paid much attention to us younger kids. The summer went by quick. Off to the seventh grade.

School started off great. Styling- new clothes- the girls loved me. Then my grandmother got cancer. Everything in our house changed. My mom and dad were so serious. My mom wasn't at home during the day or in the evening, she was with my grandmother. She was giving me money for dinner instead of cooking. I would save the money for the weekend party and eat dinner with my friends. I started pretending that I was sick all the time so that I could stay home from school. My mom was so concerned with her mother that she didn’t even pay attention to how much school I was missing or what I was doing.

Everyday that I stayed home from school I would wait until my mother left, and then I would ride our go-cart all day long. I ‘d hit the bus stop on occasion with a pitcher of vodka and orange juice. I would pass it around with the guys, bid them farewell, and off for a day of riding. I would have a couple of beers or a few drinks here and there. My dad noticed the hard liquor missing or at least he thought he did, so he started marking the bottles with a pen on the label. No problem, I just added my own marks to the new level. He never caught on. I ended up missing so much school, that I flunked the seventh grade.

What a summer. Nobody ever caught on to me, so no one was mad that I flunked. My dad bought me a mini bike. A few of my friends had them and we used to go riding all the time. It seemed to keep me out of mischief during the day, but nothing could stop me during the night. The guys and me would go out terrorizing, M-80’s, home made pipe bombs, maybe some tagging. Sometimes we would put a rope across the street hooked on to two flashing street signs. Then we would hide and wait for a car to hit the rope; the two signs would come crashing into the side of the car. We knocked on doors and ran. We hot wired tractors or work trucks and drove them around the construction sites.

Sometimes we would go to the movies, pickup on girls, make out with them and feel them out during the show. We started drinking a lot of wine. I was the first one out of the crew to have sex. I met a girl at the skating rink, got her drunk, took her to my friends' parent's station wagon and took care of business. All of the guys were looking through the windows of the station wagon. I was drunk and had a shit-eating grin on my face. I had been waiting for this moment for years. 

It didn't take long after that, I was a ladies man. I knew just what to say, and just what to do. I started having sex with a couple of the girls in our neighborhood on occasion. I had porno, cash, booze, girls, a go-cart and a mini bike, friends, excitement and danger- I was on top of the world- living on the edge, at the age of thirteen.

Chapter Four
Second Shot At The Seventh Grade


My folks decided to send me to a different junior high school, which was fine with me, I felt a little embarrassed about flunking anyway. It all started out normal. It didn't take long until I was getting in one or two fights a week. I was smaller than most of the kids; and it seemed like these fools thought they could push me around. What a mistake. I lost one fight in two years. And that was because I was fighting in the shower and in the boys locker room and slipped. I won the respective most of the guys. Then, it became competition of who was going to kick my ass.

We used to get sent to the coaches’ office for swats if we were caught fighting. I think I held the all-time record for swats. I never got suspended for fighting. I think my coach understood that I was small and had prove myself. He seemed like he was always glad when he got the score and found out I had won again. Then, over his knee, a huge paddle with holes drilled in it. I would make no sound. All of the kids in my PE class could hear every swat. I would come walking out with a smirk on my face, and a look in my eye- I won again.

School dances, average grades and styling clothes. A good brawl here in there, and some new road dogs. Most of these kids were rather lame. They would snitch me off for fighting, cheating, or talking in class if confronted.

I remember the eighth graders just finished painting the school rock as tradition had it. Well I decided to wreck their work. So i got one of my new buddies, some paint and went to the school after dark. I poured a gallon of paint on the freshly decorated rock and sprayed a few nice words on the concrete next to it and was leaving. When this fool I was with, sprayed his initials near the rock, and proceeded to tag the rest of the school, including his locker. You got it, he got busted, and snitched me off as an accomplice. Suspended again. I explained to my mom and Dad that I was just painting the rock and this maniac painted everything else and I was in no real trouble. But talk about fights, I had every 8th grader pissed off at me. No problem. I kicked every one of their butt’s as well. The swats just kept on coming.

My brother got arrested for possession of marijuana and my mother had a nervous breakdown. He was thrown out of school and off the baseball team. He lost all of the scholarships to college. My dad threw him out of the house. After I saw my mothers' breakdown I made vow to myself never to do drugs while I lived with my mother and father.

Chapter Five 
Getting Really Confused


Schools out for summer… it’s summer time… and the liven is easy. Down to the creek, shoot a bird or frog, maybe a swim, out for a ride on the mini-bike, a little firebomb here n there. Liven large, I had cash, my mom gave me her credit cards whenever I needed clothes, weekend parties, girls and porn. Homemade pipe bombs, a little tagging, bust some glass, push over every construction out house in the area. Maybe I would do a breaking and entering or a burglary. It’s all good - just don’t get caught.

This was the first summer I was allowed to go to the beach myself. I even started surfing. My mom would let me take the bus to the beach. Well it did not take long to figure out hitchhiking was a lot more fun. It was faster than the bus and it was free. I would usually hitchhike alone, because it was easier to get picked up with one person.

I met all kinds of people. It was so fun. Then, to add to the confusion I was already enthralled in, I started getting picked up by men who offered me money, to let them give me a blow job. I mean this shocked me, to say the least. Most of these people looked like someone’s dad. I didn’t need money and I never let them. But I will never forget the impact it had on me.

I mean these fools were everywhere. I remembered hearing that monkeys taken out of their natural environment and put in the zoo would become homosexual. It made sense to me. We were monkeys, this concrete jungle was the zoo, and it had driven people to become perverted

I became hardened. I mean when I was hitchhiking I would run up to a car, look inside and could tell just by looking at them. I would look at them like fuck you- I don’t want a ride. Sometimes in a bind, (if I was running behind schedule) I would take a ride. I would tell them no. After I got close to where I was going I would let them have it. I would go into the captive monkey theory and then get verbally abusive, and ask them what would your children or your wife think. They would to drop me off at the next corner and that wasn’t soon enough. I would even be yelling at them as they drove off.

Well the summer was going fine- so far. Me and some of the guys found a guide wire that was attached to a telephone pole and started pulling on it. We figured out how one guy would stand at the top of this forty-foot hill and four guys at the bottom would pull the wire tight and we would slide down the wire. It was great. Them we got creative and got a pair of leather gloves and some axle grease and started really flying. I was about 30 feet up going about 25 miles an hour when the wire broke. I hit so hard, I could not even breath. Off in an ambulance one more time. I almost broke my back and received a severe concussion. I was in the hospital three days. It was getting clearer - I could die any minute. Get it while you can. 

We were prowling around one evening and found the keys in a small photo-developing stand. We took the keys, came back when the coast was clear. We cleaned the place out. We took all the cameras and all the film we could fit in our pillowcases.

Another hot summer day we found a huge army bullet in my friends’ garage. I found an 8-foot piece of pipe that held it perfect. I duct taped a nail right into the firing pin. We were walking out of my friends’ garage to go drop it off the bridge to the concrete below, when his dad thought we looked a little suspicious and asked us what we were doing, and what was that. He came over and he couldn’t believe what he found. He went on to explain that what we had was an armor piercing bullet and it could have blown the bridge up if it would of hit it, or if it came down on a car it would have blown it up. We were shocked we had no idea. He did not even tell on us. I am sure he felt like it was his fault for leaving it lying around. Saved one more time.

Chapter Six
High School

It seemed like school was a joke. I became very rebellious. I figured out that the first time I missed school, I would take the note my mother gave me to get back in school and throw it away. Then I would write my own note. They would look at the note call my home for verification, she of course would verify that she had written the note. Then, the rest of the year when they went to verify signatures - it matched. I was free again - but this time I wouldn't flunk out. I just couldn't handle being controlled. I was mouthing off to teachers and getting thrown out of class on a regular basis. 

They decided to put me into special classes called Educationally Handicap. Most of the kids in E.H. were on medication for hyperactivity. Thank God that my family doctor said I would grow out of hyperactivity and that if they put me on medication I would be on them the rest of my life. No medication for me, just a really cool teacher that was easy to con. Perfect- just what I needed.

I told the teacher I was easily distracted and could not do school work. That needed to take it home as homework. He believed me. Every Friday he would teach another class and we would have a substitute teacher. She did know anything about my so-called condition. I would sneak into the teachers’ file cabinet, pullout 10 or 15 assignment sheets with the answers, go to my desk and do a week’s worth of assignments. For the next four years that was high school. I had three classes of E.H. a day, two shop classes, and physical education. I really enjoyed shop classes and I loved physical education.

I was almost drafted into wrestling. The coach really like me and had me transferred to sixth period physical education. Wrestling was so fun. It was still drinking and parting on the weekends, but wrestling seemed to give me focus.

I was making sheet metal stars in metal shop and throwing sticking them all over town. I was making marijuana pipes and beer mugs in wood shop. I would give the marijuana pipes to all my friends. It seemed like almost everyone was smoking pot. But not me, I loved my mother so much that I never wanted to hurt her. Alcohol was not viewed as a drug, so it was acceptable to drink.

I was making a lot of progress in wrestling even though I only weighed 86 pounds and was wrestling in the 98-pound division. I was wrestling junior varsity. I even in went to a wrestling summer camp in Tucson AZ.

The next year I gained some weight and made it to varsity. I was really wrestling well. At the awards banquet I received awards for fastest pin, fastest takedown, most pins, most wins, and most valuable player. The only award I didn't receive was most improved. I had a varsity letterman's jacket with my victory metals on it - I was a winner.

I went to wrestling camp in Tucson AZ one more time. I was even wrestling in summer league. Then my brother, who by this time had been in out of trouble, off-and-on drugs, a hippie surfer took me on a surfing trip to Mexico. Everything was going fine until I was paddling out and this guy lost his surfboard right in front of me. I went to grab it and it shot up and hit me in the head. It almost knocked me out, I was lucky it didn't drown. I did not know how bad I was hurt. I regained my senses and started to walk to camp. I looked down and I was covered with blood. By the time I made it to camp I was really bleeding. My brother looked at my head and saw a huge gash to the bone. He packed the car in an instant and we were on the road. He drove me straight to San Diego, he wanted nothing to do with Mexican doctors.

To the hospital one more time. This one was really serious. I had impaired feeling on my right side. I had a very serious concussion and a brain contusion. I needed brain surgery. The doctor got a hold of my parents and had them drive to San Diego to the hospital. I was blessed by the fact that there was a neurosurgeon convention in San Diego, and the world's best neurosurgeons were there. I had one of the best Doctor’s in the world operating on me. They were afraid that with the severe concussion I receive when they gave me the anesthesia for the operation I would go into a coma - and never wake-up. That was the chance they had to take. I remember laying there thinking this was the end. I had done it this time. I figured when they gave me the shot - I would never wake-up. I was holding my mothers’ hand as I received the injection. I never flinched… no remorse, no shame; I said goodbye cruel world.

When I woke up my perception had changed. I was glad to see my mother and father, but it was not the same. I felt it was a privilege to be a product of science. I realized that many good people had died from far less serious incidents. Here I was, a Second shot at life. This time around I wouldn't miss a beat. I figured that I would get all the pleasure out of this thing called life while I could. It was pretty obvious to me that than name of the game was bop until you drop. 

No more wrestling, no more surfing, I was told to take it easy for about a year. It didn't really matter to me, I felt a little spaced out anyway. Between the impact to my head and my new awareness that a god named science had raised me from the dead, I became indifferent towards worldly goals.

Well with the sports activities gone I needed a new plan. All the guys in the neighborhood and at school started smoking marijuana and hashish. I had made a commitment never to take drugs while I lived at my parents’ house and I was going to stick to it. I had enough fun drinking anyway.

I figured out real quick that I did not have to get a job to make money. I did not have to take drugs to sell them. So I decided to start selling drugs. My brother had made the grade as a respected addict with the local dealers. Which made it easy for me to purchase drugs. I was eventually allowed into the biggest drug connection in town. I would by an ounce of hash and break it into dimes or a kilo of marijuana and package up what was called a lid $10 worth in a baggie. I would usually make a 300% profit witch made money no problem. With stash left over to give to my friends. Things were going fine. I always had drugs for sale and plenty of money.

I got a girlfriend from our neighborhood. She was beautiful and very nice. I really liked he, but she would never have intercourse with me. This really irritated me. But I spend the whole summer trying.

I broke up and got back with my girlfriend a number of times. Finally I gave her a nervous breakdown and she would not have me back. What a mess that was. I needed to take care of business.

Then my father bought me a car for my 16th birthday. A 59 Chevy Station Wagon. As soon as I got the car home I sprayed the windows black, threw in a mattress, and put in some curtains. My father came out to see what I was doing. After he saw that what I had done he proceeded to tell me about an uncle of mine who died of syphilis. He told me that if I ever caught anything to come and tell him and we would go to the doctor and get it fixed. I remember him telling me, “have a good time.” I know realize that he had no idea of what he had done. He had no idea the extreme I would take things to.

I put a great sound system in my car and off to Whittier Boulevard. This was a famous cruising spot. There were hundreds of cars just cruising. People from all over California were cruising looking for a good time. And talk about girls – everywhere you turned cars full of girls.

I did not take long to figure out the ropes to playing the Boulevard. I became a hard core local. Look the part and play the part. Over the next 12 years I went to the Boulevard almost two thousand times.

School went fine the whole next year. When my parents or my friends’ parents would leave we started to throw parties. It was like you would just say, “party at somebody’s house” and the 50 to 100 people would show up. I was wild. Sometimes there would be three or four parties at different houses in one night. After I had broken up with my girlfriend there were a lot of girls who had their eyes on me. I would get some beer or wine and cruse all the parties. I would talk to the girls and indiscreetly screen them to find the cutest one that was willing to go for a walk. Then into the station wagon for hot one. I got so many hickeys on my neck that I lost track of where I got them.

On Friday and Saturday nights we would go to the La Bonita Park and meet up with the hard cores who were getting primed before the parties. We would throw the cash together and find someone to us liquor. Almost everybody was smoking marijuana. There were only a few of us who just drank. People started eating reds (barbiturates) and dropping LSD. But I stayed clear of all that. They started calling reds fender benders, because a lot of people were crashing their cars.

I was into partying, drinking and girls. I could handle drinking to some degree and my parents had no idea what was going on.

Summer came around again and the guys and I were doing some serious partying every night. If things were slow we would just go to La Bonita Park and drink and hang out. There were always girls there and I would get laid once in a while. But after a few hours if I had no luck there I would go to Whittier Boulevard. I would usually park my car and stand on my favorite corner. I would usually go alone because it was always easier for me to get a girl on my own, rather than trying to set one of my friends up with a girl.

I was cruising one hot summer day and I had just downed a couple of beers. I was going over some railroad tracks and the brakes on my car went out. What a bummer, I rear-ended a car. When the police got there they asked me if I had been drinking and of course I said no. They went and looked at my car, sure enough the brake-line had been wearing on the shock absorber and it finally wore through. So when they saw that the breaks had really gone out, they never mentioned the drinking again. I was really upset because the woman was hurt pretty bad. So when I went home my mother said, “you need to clam down” and she gave me a Valium. That went good with the beer. There was a concert going on at the mall so I went to it, and forgot about it as much as I could.

When my dad came home he was glad that I had not been hurt. He told me the car was not totaled and I could fix it. I went to an auto salvage yard and got the front end off of another car. I was back on the road again. The rest of the summer was without incident.

School started again and I now I was a senior. One night I was really drunk after a football game and I was leaving a fast food restaurant and I over shot a corner hopped the curb and hit a telephone pole. I pulled out the fender so I could drive and was almost ready to leave and the police showed up. I was picked up for drunk driving. But my father was at home with a friend of his whom was a police officer in another city. When they got to the station with a little talking on my behalf the police decided to let me go without filing charges. 

The car was totaled and I was in trouble. I was not in too much trouble. But I had to ask permission to use my parents’ car when I had to drive somewhere. No more drinking and driving for me. They would give me the once over every time I went out in their car. But my friends had cars and I had no problem getting rides. As long as I was not in my parents car I was not rousted by them, so I could still party. I just hung out at the park more, but I had to rely on other people to get a ride to Whittier Boulevard, which cramped my style.

Well it was not long until my dad bought me another car. It was an Opal Cadet Rally Sport. Nice car, but it did not have room for a mattress like the station wagon. I was hitting Wittier Boulevard as much as possible.

I got good with the lines. Yelling smart remarks at the girls. “Hey… where is the party… I am the party. “Whip me – strip me - tie me up and flip me.” “Yank me - crank me - bend me over and spank me.” “Which one is the nasty one” – they would point to a certain girl in the car – and I would say, “no I am.” “Jacuzzi anybody – I have a key to the city – a screwdriver.” I was taking girls from the boulevard to different apartment complexes all over the city. I knew where every secluded pool and Jacuzzi was in town. I would pry the gate open and Jacuzzi and party. 

I was holding a steady B average with the cheating and all. But I had trouble with one of my teachers so she failed me. I did not have enough credits to graduate. So I did not get to go to the Graduation Ceremony. I had enough credits to go to a continuation high school and pick up a GED diploma. 

Chapter Seven
Out of School - Off to Mississippi

My father got a job offer with Litton shipyard in Mississippi. I think he was catching on that I was headed the wrong direction so he decided to take the job. My dad said he could get me a job at the shipyard so I decided I would move. I had a friend who wanted to go and get a job. We planned to leave in September. 

Now that I was out of school and an adult, I figured it was all right to get loaded. I got into it quick and hard. Smoking hashish and marijuana daily. I still had credit cards, a nice car and plenty of drugs and cash from my drug dealing. I went to the Boulevard, La Bonita Park almost every night hustling girls and getting stoned all summer long.

I took a dose of orange sunshine LSD and went to Hollywood and was frying. Everyone looked so weird. I had a lot of fun but I really did not like it that much. I heard of people flipping out and going crazy so I didn’t get into it.

Well September came around and it was time to pack up and leave. The drive out was a blast. We stopped in every major city to pick up on girls. We found out quick that the girls loved California guys. We would cruse through nice neighborhoods wait to see some girls out in front of a house and ask them for some directions and some water.

We met some girls while we were in Texas and went to a Jethro Tull concert. We did not have tickets so we made some bogus ticket. When we were asked for our tickets at the door we handed him the bogus ones the guy looked at them and we charged into the concert and were lost in the crowd in seconds. Just laughing away, yelling, “did you see his face when you handed him those tickets.”

We finally made it to Mississippi and were getting to know some of the locals. One day we met a really nice local guy. We went over to house. We met his parents. This guy seemed really cool. He dressed well and had a nice family. 

We decided we would meet him later to do some partying. We went over and he took us to his friends’ house. He asked, “have you ever tried heroin.” He pulled out a bindle of powder and a new syringe. Pit it in a spoon, cooked it up, and injected it so fast, so effortlessly, I could not believe it.

I mean I had just been getting stoned for a couple of months, but it looked pretty basic. My friend looked at me like no way. I asked him, “how much.” He said “twenty dollars,” so I handed him a twenty-dollar bill. Same thing, he was so quick, he told me to hold out my arm and tie it off. Perfect shot, quick, clean and no pain. The rush was great. I sat back in a chair and immediately got an erection. I was so loaded, but so under control. It never made me sick and it seemed to have no bad side effects. My friend saw how easy it was, so he decided to try it. 

I drove home perfect. It was easy to drive on heroin. The next day my father told me he wanted to talk with me. He had gone through our things and found some marijuana seed that my friend had brought with him. He was planning to grow marijuana. I did not even know he had them. My dad did not believe me and kicked us both out of the house.

I was asked him, “where am I going to live, what am I going to do.” My father looked at me and said, “you are a young white single male, if you can’t make it in this world, this is a dying race! Give me the credit cards, you can have the car. Pack your things and get out!

Chapter Eight
Back to the City – Business as Usual

We drove straight home. I found a friend who let me stay at his house. I needed to make some money, and surely I was not so stupid that I needed to get a real job, so I started dealing again. He loved to smoke marijuana so it was fine with him, if I could provide him with some stash.

A few months later a friend told me he could get me a job onboard a ship doing seismic research. So I figured I would give it a try. It was really fun. We were smoking marijuana, hash and hash oil while we were working. The job was easy and I cold do it when I was stoned. I was even smoking hash oil on tobacco during my shift in front of the coordinator. I was picking up drugs for the entire crew. We had to work 18 days straight, then into port for two days, and back out for 18 more days. Then I would get 18 days off. We were working the Southern California coast near the Channel Islands. I kept this job for about eight months. Then they figured out it was me that was dealing drugs to the crew, so they fired me.

I had worked long enough to get unemployment and that was fine with me. I did not like working anyway. I went back to La Habra to deal drugs again.

This time I got the biggest connection in town. This guy had kilos of marijuana, hashish, cocaine and heroin. I mean Danny had it going on. I was basically selling marijuana and hashish. But every time I would go over to pick up drugs they had a huge mirror about two feet by three feet full of lines of heroin and cocaine and they offered me lines to snort. 

I was picking up drugs everyday sometimes two or three times a day. I would snort a little cocaine, a little heroin get my drugs and be on my way. After a while I did not like cocaine, but I loved the heroin. They told me I would not get addicted to heroin or cocaine if I snorted it, only if I injected it. And of course I believed them. Business was booming. I was building a good clientele.

I had plenty of cash and a lot of free time. I was still hitting the Boulevard almost every night. This went on for about eight months. It was summer again and one day I decided to get away and go to the beach with some friends. I had not been doing much except getting loaded, dealing, parting and hustling girls. Everything was great at the beach but on the way home I started feeling a little sick. I went over to a friend’s house I was getting chills, sneezing and my eyes and nose were running. I thought I had the flu. He had a friend of his over and he asked me what I had been doing over at Danny’s (my drug connection). I told him that I had been snorting some heroin but I had not been injecting it. He laughed your addicted to heroin, think about it, it has been going in your body, your hooked. Then he told me he had come over to fix some heroin. I asked him if I could have a snort and he said he did not have enough for a snort, but he would give me a fix (injection).

I had fixed once so it was not that big of a deal. I mean if it would make me feel better. When he gave me that fix, the monster was born. There was nothing I have ever experienced to this day – like getting well. Immediately a warm rush flushed my body. I got an erection and melted into a chair. I closed my eyes, everything was OK. The euphoria cannot be explained in words.

The next morning I went to pick up some marijuana, I took a couple of snorts of heroin, but this time I bought a couple of grams to take with me. I did not say anything about being addicted, because they were down on people who used needles. And I did not want to blow it with them.

When I got to my friend’s house I asked his buddy where was the needle. Into the bathroom and I gave myself a fix. It was the same feeling all over again. 

I started getting heroin every day. I needed to build a clientele so I stared giving lines of heroin to my friends. They were afraid at first, but I made it look so easy. I mean this stuff did not make you stupid like alcohol, it was stronger than weed and better than sex. 

I tried amphetamines a couple of times and they really messed me up. It triggered my sexual desires way out of control every time. It even had me thinking homosexual thoughts. I even tried to act out with a friend of mine on one occasion. That really messed up my mind. I had thoughts that I might be gay. Well with a needle in my arm it reassured me that I was a man. Plus heroin helped control my sex drive to some degree.

My brother was living in San Clemente at this time and he was up visiting when I ran across him. We were just hanging out and I was telling him about my drug sales and how everything was going and about the heroin. He had done some heroin and he liked it. He told me that heroin was like a preservative. He said he knew junkies who were 60 years old who looked like they were 45 years old. He said it slowed down you system and kept you young. Sounded good to me. So I went to Danny’s and picked up. Even my brother was not allowed to pick up at Danny’s, they kept things real tight. We went over to a friend house and fixed. The heroin that I was getting was the purest in town. It was from an old Mexican recipe, made the old fashion way. My brother loved it. We smoked some hashish and he was on his way.

By this time there were party houses everywhere. I was sleeping all over at town at these houses. I would only come home to change clothes. I was tired of all the hustle and bustle and having to be available all the time to make sales so I hooked up with a friend of mine and he took care of sales. I would just deliver the heroin to him. We would fix some pure, get our stash for the day and cut the rest with lactose to triple our investment. I would always make other sales with my other clientele selling marijuana, hashish or hash oil, but I let him sell the heroin. We got things rolling real well. We were picking up at least one ounce of very pure heroin a day.

This went on for a couple of years with out incident. Meanwhile my dad did not like the job in Mississippi and moved back to California and got his old job back. 

By this time I had been with so many girls that I could not even go to local parties. Every party that I went to there were so many girls who thought just because I had sex with them, I was their boyfriend. There was even an occasional fight over me. Not to mention the verbal abuse when I was seen with another girl. I didn’t need the headache. There were more girls at the Boulevard anyway.

I met another guy from down the street who was better at hustling women than I was. We hooked up with more of his friends and all of us would cruse the Boulevard motorcycles. It was perfect we could cruse between the cars and look into them and find the girls we wanted. We could stop anywhere and talk to the girls and have them pull over to talk to us. Talk about sex. We would score almost with out fail.

I met a really hot girl and started seeing her regularly between trips to the Boulevard. Then she gave me my first venereal disease. Well like my dad told me, “if you catch anything to let me know and I will take you to the doctor and we will get it fixed.” So I told him and he took me to the doctor. I was at the doctors and he told me I had contracted gentile herpes. He said that I had an incurable disease that would stay with me the rest of my life. But he reassured me that it was only contagious when I had an outbreak. I was hysterical. I looked at my dad like it was his fault. He was the one who told me, “have a good time.” I was so angry with him that I jumped out of the car at an intersection and ran to my friends house (the guy who was dealing for me) and did a big fix.

I had occasional out breaks, it only slowed me down. It seemed like nothing could stop me. We were having sex with so many women that we started catching venereal diseases on a regular basis. We had to go to the clinic on a regular basis for check ups. I tested positive for syphilis a couple of times and the health department came to my house looking for me. After some testing we figured out it was the heroin in my system that made me test positive. I caught gonorrhea a number of times. Crabs and scabies were regular occurrences.

We started to go to four of the local high schools at lunchtime. I mean we had a route and met a lot of high school girls. A lot of their parents would be away from home and we would go over to their houses for a lunch and sex. Between the Boulevard and high schools we would sometimes have sex with two or three different girls in one day.

We even rented a house close to the Boulevard. My drug dealing was going fine. But my new friends did not like me doing heroin. What was the problem? I had cash. I wasn’t a drunken fool. Smoking pot just made me stupid. I hated cocaine. And did not even want to think about what happened when I took speed. I kept my fixing down to a minimum, a couple of times a day was plenty. Not like my Freddie, (my drug dealing partner) he was fixing four or five times a day. He was so loaded on occasion he would have trouble cutting the drugs and counting the money. 

I was with so many women I was even spreading my own little epidemics of crabs and scabies. I was also screwing a lot of people’s girlfriends. A lot of people were coming down with a lot of things, but never caught on that it was coming from me. Then I discovered I had contracted venereal warts. Off to the clinic. They tell me, “this will cure you” and they put this medicine on me. It did nothing. They got worse. I went back to the clinic about eight times in two months. Every time the same thing, “this will cure it.” It did not work. Meanwhile I had given this horrid disease to so many local girls and girls from other towns, it was insane. Even my guy friends were getting infected with venereal warts.

So I told my mother and she sent me to the family doctor. He pulls out the same medicine, “this will cure you.” “Wrong,” I tell him, “I have been to the clinic eight times and I am not leaving until you burn these off.” He tells me, “sorry, I will need to set a date so I can give you anesthesia to do this procedure. I said, “I do not think you understand, I am not leaving this office until you remove these - anesthesia or not.” He said, “ OK I will have to burn them off.” I told him, “do it.”

Well talk about pain. He proceeded to burn these warts off my penis, but that was the easy part. They had even gone down to my rectum and when he burned them off there, it was unbelievable. I mean this procedure took over forty minutes. And every second was excruciating pain.

As I was leaving the doctors office I played it off and kept myself under control. But when I hit the street, I stood there in shock for about a half-hour. Talk about pain for the next month every time I went to the bathroom it almost killed me. The heroin could not even kill that pain. I took over a month to heal, but I would soon be well. I knew what to look for and this would surely not happen to me again. I already had herpes and everything else was curable. This was not enough to stop me.

Chapter Nine
The Bottom Falls Out

Our drug sales had skyrocketed. Our drugs were better than anybody’s in our area was. We had crippled all of the dealers in town. Our heroin was not coming from the Mexican Mafia. So the Mexican Mafia stepped in. They sent a hit man to Danny’s (my connection). He knocked at his door. When he answered it he asked, “ is Danny here” he said he was Danny. The guy pulled out a gun and shot him. Right before he fired Danny started to shut the door and the bullet was deflected by the corner of the door and hit him in the side of his chest. He proceeded to run out of the house, as he was firing more shots. Danny had kilos of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and hashish - he did not take anything. It was a straight hit. 

Danny got out of the hospital and was fine. But he stopped dealing heroin for a while. He sold me a little heroin for personal use - but that was it. Then his connection stopped delivering heroin. It was over. 

Danny’s had a brother and I hooked up with his girlfriend. She was hooked on heroin also. Danny was supplying her with a little out of his personal stash, but he was not giving her as much as we needed.

I went out to the streets to get another connection. I could not find another big connection. It was insane. I could not even get a quarter ounce. Just twenty-five dollar bags of heroin, or five for one hundred dollars. I had not been saving much money. My clientele for marijuana had dwindled down to almost zero, with all the partying. I thought the heroin sales would never end. All my money went quick, and the quality of the heroin was not even what I was used too, so I was shooting a lot more drugs.

I found out real quick how to shop lift and return the merchandise for cash. My new girlfriend was a real doll and a good crime partner. We were boosting (stealing) and returning merchandise every day. Then she decided to get a job at a bar doing bikini dancing to supplement our boosting income to support our habits. 

She was making a lot of money every day and eventually she moved on to a topless bar. Things were getting heavy at work. She was hustling money form all of the customers. She would tell them she would meet them after work. There would be three or four cars waiting. I would pull up and she would run to the car and jump in, I would take off as fast as I could. Sometimes they would chase after us. I had to start carrying a gun. I loaded it with the first two chambers with birdshot, so I would not be afraid to pull the trigger.

My grandfather had died and my step grandmother had let Julie and I move into the house while it was for sale. It was a huge luxurious house in Fullerton with a maid and a gardener.

I got into a routine. Get up, take all the money out of Julie’s purse drive to the connection and by drugs. At about three o’clock I would go to a store and shoplift make more money for more drugs and food. Drop Julie off a work. Then I would hit the Boulevard to pick up on girls. I would hit the Jacuzzis or bring them home party get laid, then off to pick Julie from work. On her day off we would just boost and return.

Julie worked her way to a totally nude bar where she started making real good money. But it was still not enough. The more money we had the bigger our drug habits became. I had to steal every day. One night I hooked up with my friend who had been doing the dealing for me. He had traded his Harley Davidson for a few ounces of PCP. He had plans to become a big dealer again. So he asks me, “have you ever tried PCP?” No he tells me, “it is great and you can kick heroin with it.” So he gives me a line to snort. I left and drove home. By the time I got home I was so loaded I could hardly walk. I staggered into the house and fell asleep in the living room. Julie had driven to work and when she came home and I was passed out. She was having slight withdrawals from the heroin. She laid down on the floor next to me. I was holding her in my arms and I had an out of body experience.

This blew my mind to say the least. I had a birds eye view of us looking down from a corner in the ceiling. There we were I was loaded out of my mind with Julie twitching and squirming from her withdrawals. I felt so ashamed, so guilty for the life I was living.

When I woke up the next morning I told Julie about my experience and suggested we go to a hospital and get off the heroin. She agreed. I called up a hospital and found a drug program that would take us for free. Julie quit her job. We even called her parents and told them were addicted to heroin and we were going to a hospital.

I called Freddie and he said he wanted to go as well. All three of us went to the drug detoxification program. It was in Palmdale, California. They gave us plenty of methadone so we were hardly sick the first week. There was minimal counseling and recovery therapy. But was an arts and crafts room. I got clever and took a huge ceramic spoon out of a silver ware set. I painted the spoon silver and proceeded to paint he bottom of the spoon black. Then I dipped a cotton ball in brown paint and put it in the spoon. I looked like a giant cooker. Everyone thought it was hilarious when they saw it. I made a few of them to take home. 

The last three days we started having minor withdrawals. We stayed the whole ten days and were released. As soon as we left the hospital we went and fixed. We were still hooked, but nothing like before. We had at least got our habits down to a minimum. 

Julie’s parent wanted her to move back to their house. So we decided that would be best since we were already fixing again. With Julie out of the picture I had to rely on my shoplifting to support my habit. I got real good at shoplifting. I was stealing liquor and cigarettes, meat and selling them in the a place called the Camp, a neighborhood of poor Hispanics. I was also stealing sporting goods, clothes and tools and returning them back to the store for cash.

Chapter Ten
Learning to Play the Streets

I was doing crime with a few of my friends who I had been dealing drug to. One of my crime partners would over-dose at least once a month. I got good at keeping him alive. Being a street junkie was hard, but exciting. Everyday was an adventure. You lived on the edge, you could get busted and go to jail, not make money and be sick, or over dose and die. It was an all or nothing life. Living from one fix the to next, from one crime to the next..

Then all the junkies I knew started getting hepatitis. It became an epidemic in our town. People were turning yellow, you could see it in their eyes first, then off to the hospital. For some reason, I was immune to hepatitis. I was fixing with the same people as everyone else, but I never came down with hepatitis. We did not have syringes in those days, we used a thing called a binkie, which was a home made eye dropper with a needle attached and needles were scarce. So everyone was used to sharing needles. 

I started getting busted almost on a regular basis. I figured out how to play the system real quick. About when to use an alias and when not to, when to carry identification and when not to. And where to park the car when I was doing a crime or when to have a wheel man ready to pick me up. In this era if you were not picked up for violence or a heavy felony the police would not run your finger prints, so you could use any name you liked. So when I shoplifted I would not carry identification. If I got busted I would go before the judge and I would not have a record. I would play it off like this was the first time I had been in trouble and it always worked. I would usually be released in three days or less. If was driving and was picked pulled over, I would want my identification, unless I had a warrant in my name for a traffic violation, or I had stolen property in the car and I thought I was going to get shook down by the police. You had to be careful and know when to use your identification and when to use an alias, and where to hide you identification. Cars were really cheep in those days. You could buy a good running used car for $50.00 or $100.00. So if the cops would take my car no big deal. I just did not want to go in front of the judge with a record.

Then they started dieing. A close friend of mine who I shot a lot of drugs with died of an over dose. Another on his motorcycle. A couple of nice kids I had gone to school with wee killed in car accidents. And another close friend who had never done drugs and who was a super nice guy died of Hotchkiss disease. You would here on the street of another one of the guys died of an over dose. One guy broke his neck and was a quadriplegic. Life had no guarantees, get it while you can – bop till you drop. I did not miss a beat.

Then most of the addicts I knew progressed to getting busted and going to prison. Coming out tattooed, healthy, buffed-out and ready to go. I was still on the streets and it was taking its toll. Everybody was talking about parole and probation officers, parole and probation violations, prison yard talk, where they had been Chino, Lompoc, Folsom. Houses getting raided because parolees were living there.

It came down to shoot dope, dodge cops and make money for me. If I got caught I was going to be sick, and that was what I feared most. So I was real careful not to get caught or at least play my cards right and see the judge with a clean record so I would do only a few days. I could handle a few days sick, and that was all I ever had to handle. I was good, one of the best. A modern day Robin Hood, steel from the store and sell to the poor. 

I played it this way for years. Nothing changed. A few close calls with the law, I even did a few burglaries when I had been drinking, that really bummed me out. I always prided myself as being a good addict, I never wanted to steal from people. I had a good name on the street. I never burned anybody in drug deals and I could always be trusted. I never stole from my parents.

My mom would always give me $25 or $50 when I asked, she loved me unconditionally. She knew what was going on, and she always cared. I did not like going over and asking for money. Only in a bind. She was busy drinking with her friends, everyday buy this time. If they were not playing cards drinking at home, they were at the bowling ally drinking. She was drinking a small Coors for breakfast, wine for lunch and vodka in the evening with my dad. When I look back I can now see how my addiction helped push her into her alcoholism. I always blamed her-- it was me. Every time I went over it was like putting a knife in her heart. She loved me so much and it killed her seeing my kill myself. But I could not see past the next fix. 

It gets really heavy after this... to be continued.