As an addict — as a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying, ginuwine, for-real, tweak-seeking meth-missile — I have been known to take some fairly extreme measures to acquire the necessary chemicals in order to harmonize my various physical and mental processes and ease the needing enough to where I could, to some degree, re-create some semblance of life and enjoy other, less intensely focused, pursuits.
Incidentally, we don't carry cards. That would be counter-productive, though I did toy with the idea of having a Medic-Alert bracelet made up with the following instructions: In Any Emergency Administer Methamphetamine. Whether medical personnel would obey the directive ("I realize he's having a heart attack, Doctor, but it's etched right here") I don't know, but I thought it might lend an air of legitimacy to my condition.
That's what it's all about, the life of the addict, calming that monkey down. Not just getting outside of a sufficient quantity of the stuff to quiet the physical distress, but ideally having enough of a cushion to allow one to relax for awhile. So yes, I have definitely pushed the envelope regarding acceptable behavior in the quest to feed my beast.
Pushed it? Let's say shredded, pulped and recycled it into something in which to carry dope. I have sold at a heartbreaking loss things valuable, dear and precious to me; gifts, heirlooms, tools, totems, and signifiers. I have betrayed the trust of friends, family, employers, strangers, neighbors and lovers. I have committed crimes so profoundly stupid, so monumentally misguided, so obviously doomed to failure that I should rightfully forfeit any claim to intelligence or even the barest vestige of common sense. I have subjected my body to such rigors and depredations and abasements as might break a more virtuous man.
I have, most recently and notably, robbed a bank of such an embarrassingly small amount of money that if you extend the haul over the 6 years and 9 months I'm serving, I'm actually earning more in my job as teacher's aide (21¢/hour), even if you apply it to a 40 hour work week.
In short, there do not appear to be any lengths to which I will not go nor depths to which I will not sink to get my needs met when it comes to the ol' wickety-wack. If the human body and its various components were assembled in a modular fashion and therefore removable and trafficable, I would by this point be naught but a disembodied head loudly demanding that someone fetch me a pipe and some dope.
My friend Reuby once told me, Flynn, if you were a girl you'd be giving it up all over town just to get high. And she thought she was insulting me! Girl, I told her, you have no idea. If I had a cooter, that thing would be so shopworn and sprung I'd qualify for disaster aid. I'd have more babies than a Ronettes song. I'd be so toxic they'd designate me a Superfund site. You don't have to tell me.
Generally, people of such a pathologically enthusiastic bent are described as having an "addictive personality," and conventional wisdom says they must, if they're to have a hope of functioning normally, ride herd over all their various urges lest they dominate their life, usually through the application of 12-step flummery. Not so me. I don't smoke cigarettes, I drink and smoke weed in moderation, and I consider eating a necessary chore. I will not replace my drug of choice with whatever's available; I am brand-loyal to meth and without it, I'm just another guy.
Many of my fellow cranksters indulge an auxiliary addiction to gambling. I do not understand this. Casino gambling appears to me to be, at its heart, suckers forking over perfectly good money for flashing lights, spinning reels, and clanging noises. Stimulating, sure, but worth surrendering a real, tangible asset for the remote possibility of a jackpot? I think not.
I do enjoy an occasional trip to the casino where I will drop a 20 if I'm flush, or gamble house money on promotional nights, but I can make twenty clams last for hours on the penny slots, and if at any point I've risen above where I started I will happily cash out. If I insert $20 into a machine and remove $23.75, I call that a win. Any urge I might feel to continue gambling is tamped down by the simple mantra that any degenerate gambler should commit to memory and chant as they make involuntary reparation payments to the Native Americans: The House Always Wins. Always. Las Vegas wasn't built with government subsidies.
I was out at Coyote Valley early one morning, and having won my $6.36 was strolling about the joint and enjoying free Arnold Palmers as I people-watched. I'd come out with my friend Robin, who was still doggedly assaulting the Keno machine with a fairly insane system of escalating prime factors. Robin, incidentally, has successfully shaken her drug addiction but continues making regular and generous donations to the Pomo Nation.
I say "people-watching," but really it's more like gargoyle appreciation at Notre Dame — same grim countenance, same hunched posture. Smiles are as scarce as jackpots at the casino and probably dependent upon them for their rare appearance.
I took notice of a woman sitting at the end of a slots row not only because she was attractive, but because she seemed utterly out of place. Dressed in a print sundress and sandals with her hair pertly ponytailed, I could imagine her strolling the beach with her sandals dangling from one finger or sitting cross legged on a park bench at midday reading Romantic poetry. But she just didn't fit well into the playing-slots-at-3am-in-a-janky-Indian-casino mold. She was simultaneously playing two of the machines which allow one to subdivide their penny wager up to four times — yes, you can make a quarter-cent bet — which seemed a little crazy to me. She was betting the minimum with maximum lines, which is the slots equivalent of throwing a handful of gravel at a target. You'll probably hit it, but the result will be a lot less satisfying than if you'd pegged it with a single hefty rock.
I sat down at the machine to her immediate right, a penny affair with a farm theme. "Hi," I said cheerfully. No response, not so much as a glance. I excavated a singleton from my pocket and popped it confidently a few times. "My lucky dollar. Gonna get rich. This-here smackeroo is my ticket to fame and fortune — In she goes!" I said as the mechanism dutifully sucked up my dollar. "Okay, 20 lines at 5x, that's the whole megillah. Go big or go home, that's what I always say."
"Would you please shut the hell up?" my neighbor said without looking my way.
"Sorry, sorry. BAM!" I pressed the Spin button. The pigs and cows and farmers and barns spun merrily around and when the jingling and jangling ceased, the Bonus light started flashing and the credits kept accruing as the machine beeped and whooped and whistled. It wasn't a major jackpot but at $65 bones certainly one of my bigger hauls. I immediately hit Cash Out and sat for a moment fingering my credit slip. "Excuse me," I said to the lass still ignoring me next door. "Would you like to split this with me?"
She looked at the slip, then at me. Suspicion and irritation fought for supremacy on her face. "What? Why? Who are you?"
"I only came over here because you're so pretty. I wasn't planning on playing any more, so I figure it's fair. I won because you've got a pretty face, so you win because you've got a pretty face. Ipso facto, bingo bango. Snip, snap." I clapped my hands together in a dusting-off motion.
"Okay, whatever, thanks, I guess…" She shrugged and continued playing. I cashed in the ticket and handed her $32.50. "Tell you what," I said. "You go on feeding this machine til you get bored or whatever, and I'll keep my half and use it to take you out to breakfast when you're done. Deal?"
She looked at me skeptically, as if I'd just claimed to be a time-traveler from the Reformation.
"Breakfast?" she said, as if the term were unfamiliar to her. "That seems weird…"
"Look, I'll be around, find me if you want to go get something to eat," I said. I patted her shoulder and left to meander about the premises.
Robin was still locked in a death battle with the Keno machine. I got some coffee and watched the blackjack table for a little while, which was anchored by a grim-looking fellow who reacted the exact same way win or lose, which is to say not at all. Apart from the minimal hand motions to indicate hit or stay, he was utterly silent and still. Fascinating. I couldn't help feeling that this guy was not being fulfilled in his current avocation and would benefit hugely from some exposure to musical comedy, but it's kind of a tough sell to these hardshell types.
I sensed someone behind me and turned to see the young lady from the slots. "I lost the money, but thanks," she said.
"No problem. You hungry? C'mon, let's go get something to eat."
She acquiesced and we decided, since she was a Valley local and had bicycled over and I had ridden with Robin, to walk up to the Redwood Valley Cafe. On the way she explained that this was her first time at the casino and she'd only come to find out why her dad had to borrow money from her every month. "I'm never coming back here," she said. "Those machines are evil."
"And greedy," I agreed. "Do you like omelets? This place makes a bomb-ass omelet."
Thus began my long, fraught relationship with Christine, 17 years my junior and crazier than me by a factor of 12. We may still be together, I'm not sure. We never officially broke up, but communication is not her long suit. The last two times I paroled we took back up as if I'd never left. I'll pop over and see her in 2018, see what's cookin'.
The fact that I am careful with my money, immune to the slot's siren song, and do not overindulge in gustatory pleasures would seem to belie the fact that I once seriously considered yanking the gold crowns right out of my mouth to pay for a jolt. Hell, I'd'a made sweet love to a rabid wolverine if he or she promised me some cha-cha for after. If you constructed a Venn diagram of overlapping properties — A) me, and B) meth — then point of intersection C) would be something that frankly should not be allowed to exist. Talk about your unholy unions.
George Washington, father of our country, had this to say about gambling: "It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief." If meth is a first cousin to gambling, and I would ascribe to it a connection at least that close, then it is the nephew of avarice, primp to iniquity, and cuz-once-removed to mischief. Not a clan I would advise marrying into, inviting to parties, or even including on your Christmas card list.
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