Hostages 2

After that night in the hotel room. After our little homecoming party, nothing changed. You see, it doesn’t matter if I move, it doesn’t matter if I change my number, my job, my girlfriend. I’ve tried it all, when we moved to Georgia, we were just trying to run away from this disease. But it cannot be run away from. I am always the last person that I used with. I am the carrier of this disease, and once it’s activated, all bets are off. We moved to Georgia with high hopes of a fresh start. Of changing things. But all we really did was change up the characters in our on going nightmare. Everyone new that we met was just a new person to manipulate, a new potential victim. She was my hostage, and I was both hers and the addiction’s. We came out of our little mini homecoming rave that morning and headed straight back to Senoia, stopping at the place we had gotten the rolls from. And this was to be my first real exposure to what a real trap was. I had never seen anything like this before, it was an entire little community dedicated to one cause, selling drugs. In front of this little community was about 15 trailers, and in the back of it were about 5 little duplexes. One way in, one way out, off of old highway 85, in Haralson, Ga. This place was absolutely crawling with crack heads and junkies alike. We were whistled at to stop, yelled at, waved over, and eye balled, all the way from the front to the back. But my brother had an in with the shot caller of the whole place. And that was where we were going. Now, the entire intent of the trip was to just go for some weed, we were going to smoke a little and re coop from the night before. But when my brother asked me to come in and meet this guy, and I was able to take in the whole scene of everything, I knew what I was about to ask for. A big ol’ piece of crack. We knocked on the door, and it was opened immediately, a little white girl opened the door and sketchily looked around, and then waved us in with a side ways head nod. Sitting down in various places throughout the living room, we were greeted by a huge cloud of some super dank weed. And the guy we were there to see was sitting on the couch. We got our pot, and exchanged some small talk, and then my addict mind took over. “Hey man, uh, by any chance, y’all got any hard man?” “How much you want?” “Probly like a 50.” Without hesitation, the man pulled out an enormous bag of crack, the biggest I’ve still ever seen to this day, reached in and pulled out about a 100 dollar boulder. “Here ya go man, that’s for you, cuz I know you’ll be back, keep that money, lemme know what you think.” And that was that. Dope dealers are smart, cunning people, because later on in this whole story, it would be nearly impossible to get even a 20 dollar front, but this guy was just handing me a 100 dollar slab right off the bat? And I was hooked right there. And he knew it too. My hostage was not happy when I showed her the massive chunk of rock I had just been gifted, even when I told her that it was free. She genuinely wanted to stop. I genuinely wanted to keep going, and to keep going with her. So I told her what she wanted to hear. And I made it sound sincere. We went back to my grandmother’s house and smoked our way to the moon. Me, my brother, and my hostage. My girlfriend. We would be going on to ruin both of our lives. Quickly. My family was not stupid, is not stupid, they know my background and were alerted very quickly to all of our strange behavior. The late night bonfires all week long until 5 in the morning. The leaving in the car at 2 am constantly, only to return in 15 minutes. The whispers, the secrecy, the weight loss, the lies. They knew something was up. And one day, while we were out and about, they were determined to find out. We were sitting at the trap, in an old abandoned trailer smoking crack, when my cell phone rang. It was my mother, “You guys need to get back here, NOW! Something is going on.” We took a few more hits, and headed back, to see my uncles SUV in the driveway. My uncle is a police officer in a nearby county. They were tossing our bedroom. Packing our stuff. They were throwing us out. We had been there maybe a month on our “New beginning” and we were being thrown out. They had found enough to confirm their worst nightmares. Pipes. Chore Boy. Residue on plates. Baggies. They knew. They told us that we could go and stay at my aunt’s old house, for a while, until we found our own place. But this place was currently in process of foreclosure, and it was only a matter of time before the power and water was shut off, and the doors locked for good. So we better get our shit together quickly. We wouldn’t. We loaded up the Neon and headed for Peachtree City. To my aunt’s old house. Now one would think that a situation like this would be a jarring experience that would convince us that we had a real problem and needed to stop. One would think. Instead, this was sweet! We now had our own place! To do what we wanted, when we wanted and how we wanted to do it. We threw a rave party in the house the first night, and then it became a crack house. Now instead of driving 15 minutes round trip to Haralson and back, it was 45 minutes round trip. Which sucked, but we could come and go as we pleased.  We landed a couple jobs waiting tables and were actually making pretty good money combined. But the money NEVER made it home with us, we would start off with a few beers at the bar at the end of our shift, and off we would go. We smoked crack every single night for as long as I can recall. And then one day, there was a knock on the door. It was the utilities man, and there went our power and water. But it didn’t matter. We were both so strung out, all we did was work and smoke crack. We were going to restaurants and grocery stores, gas stations, to bird bath shower in the sinks before work. It was really getting bad. But on I pushed. I say I because she had never wanted to be a part of this to begin with, she was just so clung to me that she would follow me anywhere. She was my hostage. It was sick. Toxic and dangerous. I remember a moment of clarity we had in that big, dark, empty house one night, we had of course blown all of our work money out at the trap, and we were broke. The rock was gone and we just lay staring at the blackness, on our backs, staring at the ceiling. Out of no where I just started sobbing and crying. This was getting really bad, I was killing this poor girl, I was killing myself and hurting my entire family. I prayed for the first time in forever that night, that God would help me stop. And I truly meant it. The next day we were smoking again. A few more days would pass and then God would give me my chance to stop. It was a weekend afternoon and we had both worked the morning shift, and of course, headed out to Haralson for some more rock. On our way back this time, we were pulled over. They said it was for an unsafe lane change, which was bullshit, because when we were smoking, we were absolutely meticulous with our driving. The cocaine paranoia is something else. But never the less, they ransacked the car, but didn’t find what I was holding, I was pretty good at keeping large amounts either hidden, or easily dispensable out the window, this time, it went out the window. But they did find about $1.25 worth of crack crumbs inside a Camel lights pack that was somehow crushed up under neath my seat. We were both taken to the county jail, my car towed. This was bad. I just knew I wouldn’t be getting out and neither would she. This would go on to be my second felony conviction. My bond was set at 500 dollars and hers also. I spent 3 days in the county before they called my name to pack it up. Somehow I had made bond. I didn’t care how, I just knew that I was being released. I got to the lobby to find my mother crying, sitting beside her best friend. She informed me that my hostage had been bonded out too. Her father had taken an emergency flight from O’Hare to Hartsfield Jackson, rented a car, bonded her out, and got a hotel room for them. That they had left earlier that day. I was devastated. But I didn’t blame her. She was gone. My mother gave me a few dollars and some smokes and took me to my aunt’s old house. We pulled into the drive way to see some unknown vehicle sitting in front of the house. I walked up to the porch and found a letter taped to the door. It was from her. explaining to me everything that had happened and that she was going home, but not “leaving”. I heard some movement inside the house and made my way through the front door. There she was, her and her father attempting to collect what they could of hers with the little light that was coming through the windows. They had attempted to do this the night before, right after she was bonded out, but it was obviously too dark. And that’s why they needed the hotel room, so that they could come back in the morning to get her stuff, while they could see. The look on this man’s face when I walked in said it all. “I want you dead. I want to torture you the way you’ve tortured us, and I want to hide your body where it will never be found.” “I hate you.” We all made our way out to the drive way to talk, to say our good byes. There were a lot of tears and apologies. And then, out of no where, She turned to her Father and apologized, because she wouldn’t be returning to Indiana with him. She was staying. His eyes cut directly through me, and burned a hole in my skull like I’ve never witnessed before. There was such an uncomfortable tension there. I will never forget the look of sheer hatred in his eyes, his tears. But he loved his baby girl. And with a lump in his throat, his voice cracked. He wiped his eyes, hugged his daughter’s neck, told her that he loved her, looked at me, tortured me in his mind, and got in his car and left. She was staying. We hugged each other, cried, and went inside. This was just another horrible “new beginning.”