I had a typical life in a typical town among typical people. I don’t think I stuck out among my peers, but I always felt different. Maybe everyone feels different, maybe we are, maybe not. We compare ourselves to everyone else, to the mask they wear, the surface person that has all the answers, comparing our insides to their outside, and it never adds up. I am still guilty of this from time to time. It is easy to forget life’s lessons getting wrapped up in a moment, or an emotion, or a pervasive thought that defies reason. It is important to be reasonable, is it not?
21 years old
I have been less than reasonable. My typical life in a typical town among typical people devolved into a helter skelter nightmare. It started out quite innocently drinking alcohol and smoking pot. I remember the first time I smoked, I was with friends, in a ditch, after school. I didn’t feel anything at first, we smoked and smoked and nothing happened. I think I pretended to be high, I wanted to belong, be in the club, then out of the blue things changed. The world slowed down, I became light then thick like molasses, I lifted my arms like a bird feeling them slide through the air and started walking towards my friend picturing myself like an astronaut bouncing across the lunar landscape. The world started flashing and I remembered everything I ever learned about drugs, drugs are bad, they will kill you, you are going to die, the DARE program had left its mark on me. What should have been a pleasant coming of age experience quickly morphed into a panic attack which ended with my friends dumping me in my parents’ yard to escape my insanity. Perhaps this was a sign of things to come. You would think that an experience like that would scare some sense into a kid, but alas it did not. As I mentioned I have been less than reasonable.
An entrepreneur
At the age of fourteen I invested my Christmas money in a laminating machine. A friend of mine had a Macintosh computer with a color printer (a rarity back then). I purchased a rubber stamp with the state seal of Arkansas and we began making a fairly impressive copy of the Arkansas state drivers license. Mind you this was before holograms and other forms of anti-counterfeiting measures were implemented which made it pretty easy to make a copy that would pass at most convenience stores. So at fourteen years old I began producing fake IDs for a clientele that consisted of several different schools in Montgomery, Alabama. For $50 you would get two IDs. It’s funny because kids would buy them for nineteen and twenty-one as if one were more believable than the other. It was a good business and a good learning experience for a young kid. Unfortunately, it came to an end when I was kicked out of school and my parents decided to ship me off to boarding school. This was the beginning of a trend that would find me getting the boot from every school I attended. I wasn’t necessarily a bad kid, no worse than others at least, but I seemed to get caught at everything I did.
Laughing Gas
I was introduced to theft when a friend and I decided to steal Nitrous Oxide from a local hospital. The tanks were stored in a fenced in area outside the building in the back. I cut a hole in the fence then jumped into the enclosure and passed the smaller tanks through the hole. It was a rush and I was hooked. The act of stealing was more enjoyable than the gas itself. So began a career that would find me in and out of jail for many years to come.
At the age of eighteen I began injecting IV opiates. I expanded my thefts to targeting oral surgeons, veterinary clinics, and pharmacies. I spent my days in a state of semi-conscious stupor, one bleeding into the next as if time were melting around me. When the drugs ran out I would venture out to steal more. The more strung out I got the worse off I became. There was one instance where I broke into a medical school. I had been there before and gotten away with a pretty nice score, but it is never a good idea to hit the same place twice. I was searching in a place where I knew they kept pharmaceuticals when I heard someone coming. I quickly climbed into the ceiling suspending myself above the tiles by holding onto a piece of conduit. My heart was racing as I listened to the sound of footsteps coming closer. I heard the door open in the room beneath me, sweat was gathering on my forehead, my body reeling from withdrawals made all the more intense by the fear of being caught. Seconds seemed like and eternity. Eventually I heard the door close and the footsteps move away, I was so transfixed with fear that I stayed still a few more minutes before moving on. I didn't want to go back into the lab so I worked my way through the ceiling toward the other side of the building. As I passed over I noticed a VCR attached to the beams that ran over the lab. I reached over and ejected the tape placing it in my waistband then made my way out of the area dropping down into a restroom that was several rooms away.
I quickly exited the building and headed home empty handed. When I arrived I watched the tape, on it I saw an agent setting up a camera on the lab, he was pointing it directly where they kept the drugs, I then fast forwarded till i saw myself lurking about. I felt the sting of adrenaline running across my skin, I was so close to being caught, if that person hadn't come they would have had me on tape.
You would think this would be a lesson, but it was not. I thought I was smart, too smart to get caught. I made a rule to never hit the same place twice, a rule that I would break again in the future.
Strange Brew - Angels or Demons?
I went with some friends to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. On that trip I ended up spending time with a girl that would eclipse them all. She was fun, energetic, and (little did I know) into the occult. I was accustomed to supernatural occurrences due to the fact my friends and I shared our home with a ghost. The spirit wasn't good or bad, the only reason we knew it existed was the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs when no one was there. Then there were occasions where things would go missing only to appear in the upstairs closet beneath a pile of wires. It got to the point where we would look there first always finding whatever was lost. I imagined our ghost was playful, but this woman brought with her something(s) that was not.
I decided it would be a good idea to take some LSD. I always loved tripping though. I don't think it was ever a spiritual experience for me, however, I did experience a certain degree of bonding with my fellow travelers. This night was much like any other, we were coming up, I don't think the acid was particularly strong just a smooth steady vibration pulsing through the body and pooling beneath the surface of the skin. The girl, a friend, and myself were sitting in a circle in an upstairs room. We were talking and laughing and generally having a good time. She looks at us real serious and tells us a spirit has entered the room. The spirit tells us her name is Diana. She tells us to hold hands so she can prove that she is real. We join hands and the spirit touches our circle causing a pulse of electricity to swirl about us from one to the other and back. Diana then goes on to tell us that something is about to happen, something frightening but that we would be okay. She tells us to ask everyone else that is in the home to leave. I quickly went about doing just that moving from room to room and rounding up my friends telling them something strange was afoot, something I couldn't explain, and that they would have to leave. I'm sure they thought I was crazy, I felt crazy asking people to leave on the advice of a spirit, but at the same time I felt a sense of urgency about the matter.
At last the home was cleared of all but us three. This is when things took a turn for the weird. I'm not sure where in the house we were and I'm not sure what we were doing at the time. All of a sudden the girl starts clawing at her face and ripping at her hair, she begins to speak and a guttural demonic voice and thrashing about on the ground. She or it tells us that Sara is not here any more, it wants to harm her body, it is laughing at our efforts to stop it. We move her to the sofa where I take one arm and one leg while my friend takes the other. We each place our full weight on her to hold her down and keep her from clawing at her face and ripping her hair. She is strong, very very strong, she lifts each of us up off the sofa like we were children.
The voice continues screaming and mocking us seemingly without end. She becomes quiet, lifeless, then another. A new voice equally disturbing yet completely different took over her body. Each entity was unique in its presentation, yet the same in its destruction. They seemed to know bits and pieces about us, things we had hidden from the world, fears, hopes, and they mocked us. She would flail about minutes at a time, rest, then start the process over with a new entity. There was nothing we could do save keep her from hurting herself.
This went on for some time until, during one of the pauses, I found some xanax and had her take a handful. Shortly after that she fell asleep and the disturbance ended. To say I was freaked out is an understatement. I didn't think it was the acid, but who knows. My father was active in his church so I phoned him in the morning to ask what I should do. He in turned phoned the church and set up a time for us to bring her there. That morning as we were leaving the driveway I noticed a grinding sound when I pressed in the brakes. The brake pads were gone. I phoned my father again to tell him what had happened and he assured it that it would be okay, just get her to the church. Eventually we made and the elders gathered around us to pray. I don't think it had any effect. There was no exorcism, no casting out the demons, just a simple prayer and some water splashed from the baptistry.
This is the point my life changed. Something got a hold of me that night, something hell bent on my destruction. Diana followed me for several years after that. I'm still not sure if she was an angel or a demon.
This has been long so I will end for now and take this up later in part 2.