A True Life Misadventure Tale Of An Illicit Drug (Ab)User's Life On and Off Streets Around the World.
Legal and non-legal hard and soft drugs, blood, violence, occasional peace, prostitution, pain, incessantly dodging the Law, an addict toils harder than most Nine to Fivers. Twenty-four hours a day, the need to stay well takes precedence. In this book you take the trip to its deepest, darkest, most graphic depths. Every word is true, every line lived completely. No punches are pulled in this tale, told exactly how it was for one person strung out on the streets for a number of years. So prepare for a wild, harrowing, biting and sometimes humorous no-holds-barred ride into and out of the depths of hell. This is the story of one young man who found himself living a life of misadventure, from Atlanta to London, Amsterdam to New York City, on the streets, in squats, in stately manor homes, seedy and not-so-seedy hotels, sofa surfing, all the while playing his guitar, selling real and fake drugs, and whatever else he could do to collect the money for every fix, every single day.
Excerpt
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." William S. Burroughs.
In a twisted, desperate way it makes perfect sense to me: The only way to insure that I'll go through with killing myself by morning, to be sure I don't chicken out like so many times in the past, is to piss off all those people most likely to really hurt or even kill me if I can manage to make them angry enough.
It's New Year's Eve in Rotterdam, 1991. My girl Jennifer and I had been planning on spending the evening partying with some of her co-workers, but I've just in the prior couple of days been banned from the bar where she works. Her co-workers haven't had any trouble spotting the signs of rampant, out of control drug abuse in me, nor realizing it's been me raiding the office safe for at least two or three weeks to get my fix. Not really wanting to deal with these people in a party atmosphere, and completely focused on chasing the crack and heroin I need to feel alive, I stand Jennifer up, finding her gone and the attic apartment we share dark when I do finally arrive hours late. She's taken all our CDs with her to the party, and I think for a second it's to play them there, but I can't kid myself. Four hours late, closer to five, she knows exactly what I've been up to, why I didn't show. Everyone in Rotterdam knows by now. I look like shit, losing weight, accumulating a distinct, constant air of desperation about me. Even my dealers have been telling me to slow down- fat chance of that.
I can't speak Dutch beyond simple counting and asking for things like beer, drugs, or ordering a chicken sandwhich. I must rely on the natives to speak either English or French. Conveniently, most of the Algerians I buy my drugs from speak both. Down and out isn't anything new to me, nor is being on the outs with all my friends and acquaintances. This time however it feels as though I've fucked myself harder than usual. I'm unemployed in a foreign country and losing my girl. Usually I can float through the worst disasters that come my way, but I just can't find it in myself this time to fight on. I can't bear the thought of starting over yet again, leaving behind a mess of pissed off, ripped off people who thought they were my friends, pretending for the rest of my life that I have forgotten them and my crimes against them. Rather than try and deal with that, I'm going to end it all instead.
I've reached these cocaine-inspired depressions before. Only someone who has given themselves over completely to drugs to the exclusion of all else can truly understand the experience. There's no crash quite as hard as a cocaine crash, combined with the awareness that one has screwed over every single friend and casual acquaintance in sight for drugs, usually more than once, and has now run out of people to beg, borrow or steal from. The cocaine itself, or the lack thereof, brings on a certain unique black depression, aving wrung the brain of all natural endorphins.
I stand in the dark for a few minutes lost in thought, thinking morbid, self-pitying thoughts of just how I'm going to do it. It's more than a little frightening, even a bit too much for me to dwell more on, but I do know I'm going to have to be sure that this time, unlike every other time I've spoken of or tried to commit suicide and failed miserably, that I'm going to have to really, honestly carry through with it.
Sepsis knocked her down and out. Faith, hope, and gave her the strength to get back on her feet. I am a Runner She fought the river of death They said she'd never run again
She proved them wrong...
Asa D Seeley, a young Afro American man, shares his struggle to leave his past behind as he reaches for his future. In his one-of-a-kind style, he searches for answers...from the visible & invisible. A Memoir in Poetical/Prose form.
