1

I was trying to make money. I was 18 years old. I didn't have a job or a trust fund or a bank account. I did have a few problems though.

2

Me and my girlfriend were snorting close to 200 dollars worth of coke each day- New York prices, about 4 grams.

I didn't always have those 200 dollars. Sometimes I would take earrings or a necklace from my mother's jewelry box. I only took what looked like it hadn't been worn in a while.

Other times, when guilt would set in, instead of going to the jewelry box I would borrow my girlfriend's car. I would drive into Queens, take the Main St. exit off the LIE, and stop by a red brick apartment building. I would honk twice and this guy with gold caps over his front teeth would get in the car. I would drive him to a different apartment building. It was in the Bronx. About 20 minutes later I would drive him back to Queens.
There was definite jail time in the trunk. I figured it had to be at least 5 years back there, under the spare tire.

Mostly, things went pretty smooth. Other times not so much. One time a police car pulled up behind me while I was parked outside the building. It took half an hour of bullshit to explain what I was doing there. I got lucky,

somewhat.

The guy was watching me from a window. When he got back in the car he said that was it, the gold in his mouth flashed, the Rides for Coke program was over.

3

After that I worked out scheme. I would look for kids that were younger and dumber (also smaller and better off financially) but just as fucked up as myself and charge them 70 dollars a gram.

I skimmed 20 off the top and pinched their bags.

That didn't last for too long.

4

I was given credit and I turned it into debt.

5

It was three of us; a DJ, an old girlfriend and myself. We would park the car on a dark street, in a residential neighborhood, and chop lines on a CD case. We would sit there for hours, talking, sweating, drinking beer and snorting white while listening to Jane's Addiction, Sublime, and The Beastie Boys.

I remember once we were real tweaked out, speedy, jumpy, sitting in the car, all that white in our brains and as I came up from a line my eye hit the rearview mirror; I saw trouble coming at us. I put the CD case under my seat as discreetly as possible. I turned to the DJ. He was sitting in the back.

"Listen, I'm gonna tell you to do something right now. Don't question me. We don't have time for that. In about 5 seconds there's gonna be a cop tapping on the window."
"What?"
"Just listen. Do what I tell you. And don't turn you head around!"
"Okay."
"Quickly, unzip your pants, close your eyes. I want you to pull your dick out and start jacking off."
"What?"
"Just fucking do it!"

Then I turned to the girlfriend sitting next to me.

"Come closer. Right now. Whatever I do, just go with it."
"John- "

That's all she got out. I grabbed her hard, worked my tongue past her tight lips, clenched teeth, and into the warm pink of her mouth. Then I got my hand up her shirt and onto her tit.

A flashlight hit the car window. I kept my eyes slit, not closed. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing got heavy. The DJ may have kept his eyes closed, I'm not sure though.

I saw the flashlight move about the car. I saw a police officer, an older looking guy, outside of the car. I saw his eyes pop open. I watched him back away in shock, embarrassment, stupefaction, who knows what. I undid the top button of the girlfriend's pants. Slipped my hand into her panties and twirled some of the pubes between my fingers. I saw the cop moving away from the car, he was moving much faster than when he was approaching us. I watched him through the driver's side mirror. He almost broke into a run. I moved my hand farther down. He got into a parked cruiser about half a block away from us. I heard him start the thing. Saw the headlights pop on. There was a screech of tires and I pulled out of the kiss.

"Holy shit that was close."
"That was intense! It really was a cop, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. Hey, stop jerking off now."
"Give me another minute. Why don't you two start kissing again?"
"Get the fuck out of here!"
"John!"
"What?"
"Get your fucken finger out of there!"

6

I had pawned everything I dared to from my television set to a gold pen that was given to my father as a birthday present a few years earlier.

I owed something in the 4 digits and so I began to think about a job. I had had a few jobs in the past- handy man (fired for drinking in the tool shed), cashier at a supermarket (fired for always having a short drawer), telemarketer (fired for making prank phone calls), stock boy at a book store (fired for showing up with puke on my shirt,
and for having a short drawer, and for ordering pornographic material from places like Thailand, Brazil, Amsterdam for my friends)- nothing ever seemed to pan out.

I told myself that this time I would have to stick to it. I would have to play the part. I even believed it a little because I knew that without a paycheck I wouldn't be able to get any more coke.

7

I started looking through the want ads. I found a gig painting fences and decks- three days during the week, also Saturdays and Sundays.

The job paid 12 dollars an hour because I had to paint fences that were 15 feet high, that were put up alongside a retaining wall with a drop of about 40 feet only a few inches away, other scenarios, a deck that hung out over the Long Island Sound and required me to be suspended off the side by a rope while spraying at the bottom of the deck with a paint hose.

I never got any closer than 10 feet to the ground- 12 dollars an hour, 12-hour days, a 4-digit debt- I took it.

8

The schedule worked out well because I was in college at the time. I was taking a creative writing class over the summer that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was at that point when I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd have to write my way through life. It was rough. Whenever I thought of myself as a writer I always pictured myself dying young and hopeless in some small rented room. I knew that it was harder than playing the stock market or opening a chain restaurant, but I didn't have much of a choice. Whenever I thought of myself as not being a writer I pictured myself half in the coffin…already stiff.

9

Another time I was with a friend in her apartment. We had gone through a bunch of lines and half a box of zinfandel- summer time- it was 85 degrees outside and she didn't have an air conditioner. We we're sitting on her couch.

"Let's take a shower. We'll run the water real cold."
"Are you kidding me? I'm not taking a shower with you."
"It'll feel good. C'mon, I won't try anything. Promise."
"What about…"
"Don't worry about her."
"But she's my friend."
"No she's not. Besides, we're not gonna do anything."
"Yeah right, you're gonna try to screw me. I know how you are."

I broke out a few more lines. We were both sweating. There was an oscillating fan in the corner of the room but all it did was move the hot air around.

"Why would I try something like that?"
"Don't make me laugh."
"I'm being serious."
"John, I'm not going in that shower with you."
"But I love you."
"You? Love me? Ha! You don't know the first thing about love."
"Honey, I know everything about love."
"Yeah, right."

"You could travel from here to Australia, you could swallow 50 different dicks, and I guarantee you that you won't taste a love as sweet, or as true , as that which drips off..."

I stood up and took off my shirt.

"You're getting fat."
"You can even keep your underwear on. It'll be fun."
"Ha-ha. You've got titties now Johnny!"
"So what, you got 'em too."
"Yeah, but yours look big, like a b cup maybe."
"No way, yours are definitely bigger."
"I don't know."
"Let's compare. C'mon."
"You promise you won't try screwing me?"
"I give you my word."

I took my pants off. I was standing there in boxer shorts and a pair of dirty socks. She was still sitting on the couch. I tried sucking in my tits and gut.

"Your word. Huh! Just look at you, you've already got a boner!"
"No, no, it's just how these shorts are cut."

I flexed some internal muscle behind my stomach and my weakness showed its face.

"It just jumped out of your shorts! Holy shit! How'd you do that?"
"I can't tell you."
"Okay, do it again then."
"Are you gonna take a shower with me?"
"Maybe. Do it again and I'll think about."

I flexed the muscle a second time. Her eyes opened up wide. A little bit of love was forming at my piss hole.

10

The creative writing program wasn't anything special. None of us had any idea what we were doing. Not even the teachers knew what was going on. At the beginning of each class you were given an assignment. Then you were free to go wherever you wanted to as long as you returned before the end of the class and handed in that assignment. I would show up. Get the assignment. Then I would spend the rest of the time in a bathroom stall, pants around my ankles, snorting lines off the porcelain and trying to write stories. After I finished a story I would pretend to wipe my ass with the toilet paper, flush, wash up, hand the thing in and then run back out to Queens.

I had some problems.