A Teenager's Journey (13 page)

I guess I’m sorrier than I thought
, I said to myself as I left the house that I’d spent the afternoon in and walked back toward Mulberry Way—back home.

10

B
USTED

I was back where I’d been for most of my life. I had lied to myself for years. I was out of control again. I had lied to my friends about being morally clean and drug-free. Everything I had been doing was a lie—I was living a lie—I was afraid of myself. I just couldn’t face reality. And I had no idea that I could go as far as I did. Looking back, I can’t believe I was stupid enough to go back to it. I was out of my mind.

I had a reputation for causing severe and permanent damage to myself and everyone around me.

It was the most outrageous, the most powerful drug I knew of.

It was heroin.

It was perfect.

I
WENT STRAIGHT TO BED.
It was just after dark and I had little desire to eat or speak to anyone. As I lay on my bed Mom came in and stared at me with a puzzled look. For a moment she just stood in the doorway looking. I was sure she could tell I was stoned out of my mind but I didn’t care.

“I was going to ask why you do this to yourself, but I guess it wouldn’t matter, would it?”

“No, it wouldn’t,” I replied.

“The Nichols family called earlier and wanted to know if you want to watch a movie with them. I told them that I’d make a French bread pizza that you could take up there,” she said, closing the door.

“Thanks,” I replied.

I decided perhaps that was where I needed to be at that moment. My self-esteem was just above bottom-dweller and I had no reason for staying in the house with Mom. I showered and got dressed, then saw that my face and skin again gave me away. But I didn’t think either John or Darlene would recognize the tattletale signs of drug abuse. I convinced myself that I could pass it off as being tired.

As I rang the doorbell of the Nichols family’s house I took a deep breath and hoped that they wouldn’t notice anything wrong. Darlene opened the door and I handed her the pizza that Mom had made. She was glad to see me —as always—and invited me downstairs to watch a movie with the family.

John asked how school was going and if I was excited over graduating later in the week. I had forgotten about graduation, and pondered the thought as we watched the movie. I couldn’t focus on the show, I was so preoccupied with the fact that I was about to graduate high school. Yet it didn’t faze me in the least. All my life I had expected that when the day finally came, somehow I would be cleaned up and ready for the world.

And now look where you are
, I thought.
You’re strung out once again, and you’re back to the same old routine of hiding it all from everyone
.

“What a loser”—only I failed to keep the thought in my head and spoke it out loud. “I was talking about the movie,” I quickly added.

John and Darlene looked at each other like I was from another planet. At that moment I might as well have been.

I turned back toward the screen and tried to grasp some part of what was going on as quickly as I could. Once the show was over and it was well past the normal bedtime for the Nichols kids, I said my good-byes. I started to leave when Darlene asked me if everything was all right.

“I just have a lot on my mind right now,” I said.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

I paused. I desperately wanted to say: “Where do I begin?” But as usual I just said: “It’s just that Mom and I aren’t getting along—again.”

I knew that they would accept that response; it was the trump card I played whenever I needed to close the door on a conversation. Inside I wanted to spill my guts and have someone who cared for me reach out and simply hold me. I knew that at the age of eighteen it was kind of a silly thing to desire—but it was all I really wanted.

I could tell that Darlene wasn’t convinced that there was nothing more to it than that. She asked if I wanted to come for dinner the next night. “Sure, thanks,” I gratefully said.

The walk home was less than two minutes and I dreaded the thought of going there. It was just past eleven. As I approached the front door, I could hear Mom and Scott arguing over something. They were arguing like we used to. I stepped back off the porch and walked down the street to the corner just a few houses away, then down a few more streets. Without thinking about it, I found myself passing by Cindy’s house—Cindy was one of the girls I had been with at a few of the parties before I went to Hawaii. Just then she flew out of the front door and slammed it behind her, screaming some profanity at her father. We were both surprised to see each other. She came over and walked with me down the street.

Very little was said between us as we walked. I knew that she had issues at home and she knew I had as well. Before long we were by the open fields behind some houses. We sat down on the embankment and I put my arm around her. Within a moment we started to kiss.

“Do me a favor,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Can we go back to your room?”

I recalled the times before when Cindy and I snuck in the backyard and into my room at night. Since the room was directly off the back porch, it was easy to get in and out of.

“Yeah, sure, but we have to be quiet this time, my brother’s still up,” I said.

As we walked back to my street I pushed away the conflicting thoughts of trying to be a clean and decent teenager while at the same time being just a normal one. We still hardly spoke as we walked. We made it to the backyard, then, unnoticed, slipped into the room and turned off the lights. Once again I was trading what little innocence I had left for the secrets of the night.

A while later, I set the alarm to make sure we woke up before anyone else in the house did. It was almost three in the morning.

By the end of the week I was to graduate high school and move on with my life. Yet I still had no idea of who I was, what I was—or why I was even alive.

The day before graduation I found the opportunity to hang out with a few friends from high school and plan “the big graduation party.”

I knew that before the end of the day I would feel the need to disconnect with my feelings and anxieties by getting high and drinking myself insane. There was just one thing that must be done before I could go to the party. Unlike many of the other kids I hung out with, I knew the value of a diploma. But I couldn’t attend the last day of school to receive it if I wanted to be at the party.

The day before graduation I asked Darlene to pick up the diploma—because I would be “unavailable.” I made up some excuse that made sense, and she agreed.

Little did I know that it would eventually lead me to almost exposing my life to the two people that I just couldn’t possibly have disappointed and still have faced again.

When Friday arrived, I woke with a determination to destroy myself this time, to bury my feelings with as many drugs as it was possible to take. In the past, when the opportunity to get high presented itself, I would never turn it down. But this time it was different, and scary—I was planning it long beforehand. The desire wasn’t new, but it was stronger than I ever remembered it: I wanted to get so insane and so high, like I had never been before.

Once I arrived at the school parking lot, it took no time to locate the kids I knew. We all hung out behind the gym near the football field, away from the main building. As I walked down the school hallway, I was struck by the exciting, festive atmosphere—it was everywhere. I don’t think any senior attended a single class that day. The corridors were as full of kids as the parking lot was full of cars.

The excitement only added to my anticipation of getting high. Perhaps I had now evolved into an out-and-out drug addict.

I had never felt such anticipation as I did now. There was nothing that was going to stop me. I wanted to go as far over the edge as I could. I didn’t want to think about the conflicts in my life—Mom, the lies I had told John and Darlene, or anything else. I was tired of carrying the conflict like a rock too heavy to dispose of.

By lunchtime we all were well on our way to being insanely high. I’d brought with me to the party what was left of my paycheck and was prepared to have the time of my life. The barbecue was cooking, the coolers were full of beer, and the counters were full of booze—and of course the bedroom was full of drugs.

Nathan Bennett was at the party, and that was all I needed. After all this time he and I still seemed to have the same agenda. We went together into the bedroom, but were disappointed at the familiar selection of options we found there. None of the drugs were enticing enough to just grab and use.

“Ever done this?” he said, holding out a bag.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You’ll like it. It’s like nothing you’ve ever done before.”

It was as if he knew exactly what to say to me and, being in the mood that I was at that moment, all I could say was: “Where?”

I followed him out into the driveway and we got in his car. He retrieved a kit from the backseat and opened it. Before long he had pulled out two needles, melted the powder, and filled the syringes. Up to that point I had snorted, smoked, eaten, drunk, or just plain swallowed almost every drug I had heard of. I didn’t press him on what it was we were about to take. I was more concerned about using a syringe than anything else.

I tied a small rubber tube around my arm to stop the blood flow for a moment, then pushed the needle just under the skin and into the vein that now protruded from my arm. Once the syringe was empty, I untied the tube and sat back.

Within a moment I felt the wrath of the fluid flowing up my arm and almost instantly started to feel different. The calmness and warmth I felt was by far the most outrageous as well as the most horrifying effect of any drug I had taken up to that point. I leaned over toward Nathan. As he fell back in the front seat, I asked: “What the hell is this?”

“It’s heroin, stupid.”

I was horrified.

I had never used a needle before. I had smoked heroin, but using a needle was too much for me. It was strong, it was deadly, it was addictive. And it was perfect.

I have no idea how long we sat there or what we talked about. I remember leaving the car and walking back to the house. With most other drugs I always felt either disoriented or completely separated from myself. But this was different: I knew exactly who I was and what I was doing. I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of comfort and ease with myself.

As we walked into the backyard, where the party was in full swing, we looked at each other as if we’d had the same idea at the same time. We walked straight over to the girls, parting the crowd that stood around them.

“
You guys are ripped!
” two of the girls said in unison.

Nathan looked at me again and I at him as we fed off each other. We each took one of the girls by the hand and went into the house. Behind us the small crowd cheered as they watched us walk away. I had an incredible sense of power and control. And it would last longer than with any heroin I’d used before.

Afterward, without hesitation I led the girl I’d been with outside—and grabbed a motorcycle. The feeling of freedom the bike and the high gave me was more than exciting. We rode around the area for a while before heading over to the school parking lot. By the end of the day we were back at the house and relaxing. The high had worn off. At first it didn’t bother me that it, and the day, were over. I said my good-byes and left.

Once I was home I went to bed and slept for the rest of the evening. When I awoke, it hit me. I was exhausted and cold. As I lay there, I was shaking uncontrollably. My body was completely trashed. The feeling of sickness and lethargy that I was used to from other worn-off highs was not the same as I now felt. This was worse. All I could think about was the drug, how good it had made me feel and how bad I felt now. And how much I wanted more of it to make me feel better.

I didn’t leave the house for a day and a half.

Once I was able to carry myself as normal, I made my way up to the Nichols house to inquire if Darlene had picked up my diploma. I took care to make sure that I looked almost presentable, not like death warmed over. I felt like it, but I didn’t want to look like it.

Within a few minutes of arriving at their house, they informed me that Darlene had seen me riding around on a motorcycle at the very time I was supposed to be off doing the all-important errand I had told her about.

I had never thought it possible. The chances that she would be in the school grounds during the few minutes I’d spent there myself seemed more than unlikely. The odds against it were monumental, in fact, and yet it was just my luck. I didn’t know what to say. I knew that I had been caught in another lie and that she was mad with me and disappointed. I was sure that this was the beginning of the end of her trust in me and of my secret life as well.

Darlene never really went into any detail about what she thought or what she understood about me after that. I believe that she had her suspicions, but kept them between herself and John. I hated the fact that I had disappointed them yet again. I had been well and truly busted, caught in the web I’d woven for myself. I was now on the verge of exposing what I’d spent years hiding—my total embarrassment over myself.

11

F
ORSAKEN?

Just before I turned eighteen I took a good hard look at myself. I was fearless. I was emotionless. I held little concern for life. I was, overall, dangerous. I would never fit in anywhere. I tried to follow in Ross’s footsteps and join the service.

I had made some very serious mistakes and had ruined several chances to get my life in order. I knew the damage I was capable of. I was afraid of myself—I mean
really
afraid of myself. And I was going to leave that house if it killed me—which would be fine with me.

F
ROM 1983 THROUGH 1986
I spent my time in southern California in the military. I joined the service in Salt Lake City and went directly into boot camp.