Don't Steal From Your Coke Dealer With The DEA Watching

Laughing at my burly, insane coke dealer's Belinda Carlisle synchro-mesh dance grooves was not an option. It turned out he wasn't paranoid, the DEA was behind every bush.

Summer, 1989, I met the devil. We danced, right up to the edge of the cliff, before a moment of clarity yanked me back.  It took me all of 48 hours after introduction to discover the true nature of Cocaine.  Some people can do the occasional line or two, and go on with their party.  Some of us are wired a bit differently.  There is always a conscious decision.  As Mr. Robert Plant said:  “There is two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”   Personal accountability has nearly ceased to exist, but I knew, and I proceeded down the dark path anyway.  There is something about having a double barrel shotgun pointed at your face that causes you to reassess your life choices. 

April, 1989, I was a senior in High School. Our pharmaceutical  adventurism was an every day thing.  Beginning years before that.  It was a professional bowling league (weed) and fairly regular hallucinogenics and DXM.  Heavy drugs never crossed our mind, held no interest for us.  That changed one night.  A friend took me to a trailer on the wrong side of the tracks.  A couple he knew, to buy some hippy lettuce.  This gentleman had recently entered a new entrepreneurial pursuit, in addition to selling weed. Cocaine. “Hey Matty, ever tried this?” I scooted over, and took a close look.  From a single pearly block, he shaved off some chunks and began  chopping with a razor blade.  Anyone I knew would never take that pearly goodness and whack it with baby formula or whatever adulterants they use. F*****g criminal man. 

“Wanna take a shot at it,” he asked.  “Dude, will that even do anything?” I said in response to how meager the small line was. 

“This s**t came right off the kilo, not stepped on with all that s**t.  Yeah, you wanna start out with this amount,” he said confidently.  I leaned over and sucked it up my beak. It didn’t take thirty seconds.  If it were in a film, it cuts to the collage of dancing girls, angelic choirs, orgasmic howls of pleasure, church bells, fireworks, receptors in the brain lighting up with pure, unadulterated euphoria, far beyond words to describe. 

“Wow. That should be illegal,” I said, to laughter.  I couldn’t believe how incredible the rush was.  Bionic euphoria on steroids.  It’s odd my family didn’t find it suspicious when I vacuumed the entire house with such enthusiasm and verve it looked like a f*****g scene out of “Singing in the Rain.” Synchromesh dance grooves, and the most thorough cheerful cleaning on record. Nope, they never suspected anything. 

I quickly learned the dark side of that euphoric payoff.  It wasn’t even ten minutes and I was flooded with anxiety, a compulsion to repeat, I needed another line, big time.  With each passing minute, the urge became an increasing obsession.  It was the furthest thing from a voluntary urge I had ever felt.  My mind raced.  Scheming to procure more, right f*****g now. “Hey, how about another one?”  “Yeah, okay, I’ll do one more, on the house.  But, after that it’s 20 bucks a quarter gram. 25 for everyone else.” “Yeah, okay, I see now.  That’s how it goes.”  I felt irritation at how quickly he had my nuts in a vice, and began to turn.  Irritation at myself mostly.  I allowed that to happen.  I willingly put the noose around my ball-sack and the other end secured to the trailer hitch of a revving truck.  As Mr. Plant also said, “Nobody’s fault but mine.” 

I felt a second twinge of disgust when I actually saw how little 20 dollars purchased.  I watched him weigh it.  I know he wasn’t shorting me.  I didn’t feel social, or want to consume my coke with someone around.  I just worried they would ask me for some.  Without a word, I dropped Augie off at home.  Later Augie would say he felt something ominous on that silent car ride home.  My sniffling, the only soundtrack. He was right. 

He could take it or leave it.  Turn down the first line, and easily turn down the second or third.  It seemed an incredible magic trick.  How someone could even do that.  I went home, down to my basement room.  That quarter gram was gone in 20 minutes.  The jones that hammered me was terrifying and unrelenting.  My mind raced, how could I procure more coke the next morning.  I didn’t get paid for another few days.  Darkness encroached from all sides.  I let the devil in. That crucial horror movie moment, when the vampire stands at the threshold and tries to sweet-talk an invite inside.  I gladly invited him in.  Even just retelling how I felt that night lying in bed, I have beads of anxiety sweat forming on my forehead. Well, it’s more of a five-head these days. 

In my fiendish state of jones, I decided on a plan.  I didn’t fall asleep until after 5am.  I had to be up before Mom caught her daily 6:30am bus. 

“Mom, I need 50 bucks for the graduation gown thing.”  I was overcome  with shame.  My sweet Mother who worked 3 or 4 different jobs after being a homemaker for 25 years.  After being left without a penny of support by my Dad, living large now.  By lunchtime that coke was gone.  If I began dipping my toe in the scum-baggery pool, I now dove headfirst. The jones of my coke high wearing off transformed me into another person entirely.  I raced home, rifling through Mom’s desk and found some new checks.  Writing a check for $25, I forged Mom’s signature.  I had mastered it when covering for absences at school.  After that coke was gone, my mind raced to acquire more.  I was at a crucial tipping point. I spent the afternoon alone, riddled with guilt at having ripped off my own sweet Mother.  Just me and my cocaine jones in my basement bedroom lair. The DreamCenter. 

I decided then and there.  If I continue down the coke path, my dance with the devil, I never steal another penny to finance it.  Deal, sure, steal, no f*****g way.  Despite what the narrative is nowadays, it’s always a decision.  I don’t minimize or deny the illness of addiction, I have a wicked case of it.  But, granting a free pass regarding personal accountability does the addict no favors.  I began selling enough to finance most of my own binges, while continuing my restaurant job.  For all my high and mighty talk regarding stealing, I guess my coke dealer didn’t count. 

Within a few months of my 8 month coke bender, I had lost 50 pounds.  An 8 ball never lasted 24 hours, and I only did coke with people who possessed their own supply or were buying from me.  At 6” I weighed 110 pounds.  Gray complexion, I looked far more like a corpse on the coroner’s exam table than a functioning humanoid.  Cocaine exploded all across small town Utah.  The Bull, my coke dealer was a notorious local tough guy from the wrong side of the tracks.  He was dealing in such volume it was a matter of time before his bust went down.  When jonesing, you would sell your own Mother into prostitution for another hit, however, I honored the commitment to myself.  Until I didn’t. Meh, surely a kilo-a-month coke dealer wouldn’t miss a few morsels. 

Late Summer, I was about to see Metallica for the second time in 12 months.  The “And Justice For All” tour, second leg.  I needed to pay a visit to the Bull.  I hated driving down that long empty road to his family’s home near the shores of the stanky Great Salt Lake.  The only traffic traveling and arriving at the Bull’s was to buy coke.  “Dude, this is way to easy for the Roscoes (cops) to surveil this place.  I bet they are capturing every license plate that enters that place.” 

We passed a dirt road with two middle aged guys carrying shotguns. Obligatory cop ‘stache, large bellies.  They stared as we passed.  “It’s not duck or pheasant season.  Nothing is in season,” I pointed out.  Augie stared with worry. 

“Well, dude, let’s get the f**k salad sandwich outta here then.”  “Dude, I gotta score.  But, I gotta find another connect.  The Bull is on borrowed time.”  One simply couldn’t deal out of such a place, with his criminal background, in a small all-mormon town.  Maybe if he sold wholesale, but to every t**d who wants a quarter gram, doomed to failure. Sooner, rather than later.”  

When the Bull opened the door, the sight scared me.  It was apparent, he had been up for at least 3 days. His big muscular body withered to the point of not looking much better than mine.  Coke seeped in and corrupted everything it touched.  The physical body, soul, friends, brothers, spouses, would sell each other out, or steal from loved ones without remorse.  The Bull’s brothers, usual hangers-on, and his coke lady harem weren’t there.  He was all alone.  After greeting us, he began looking around wild-eyed. 

“Did you hear that? Listen.”  Trying to reassure him, I looked around. “Nope, nobody is around.  I scanned the perimeter on the way in.  Clean. You’re all torqued out, trust me, we are fine brudda.”  

“Come here, watch. See that chrome toaster, watch. Just watch.”   “Okay,” as I watched the reflection in the chrome toaster, acting as mirror.  Leaves fluttering in the breeze, nothing more. 

“Dude, DEA strike team, look in the  toaster, they are roping up and down those tall trees on the dirt road.”  From the window, I comforted him. “Nope, I can see better from here, definitely nobody out there.  They wouldn’t go up and down, too easy to spot them.  You’re good Bull.  I swear.  So, I need an 8 ball.  While Augie stands watch.” 

“Oh, yeah. Sure.  Hey hold on a second.  Sit down, right there.  Matty, there, Augie, right there.”  

The Bull wasn’t really a man you defied, or said, “maybe some other time.” Especially 3-day-bender Bull.  He disappeared into the kitchen.  “Okay guys, watch, watch this.  You ready?”   Augie and I exchanged baffled looks.  “Yep, we’re ready bro.”   The only music Bull ever played was AC/DC or Metallica.  He hit play on his big-a*s stereo system.  His song selection surprised both Augie and I.  Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning,” began with rumbling bass and drums intro.  Frames on the wall rattled.  A smile appeared on Augie, I quickly broke eye contact.  The last  thing we needed was to start laughing at the soon-to-be prancing Bull. 

Abruptly, the Bull appears, with his back to us, making his grand entrance backwards.  Snapping his fingers to the beat.  Part half-assed moonwalk, part Napoleon Dynamite head-bob action.  Just before he hit his cue to spin around and face his audience, Augie and I exchanged one more WTF look.  I pulled a face at Augie, he barely caught the gasp of laughter his body wanted to let rip.  He quickly looked away.  He knew, I can make him laugh at will.  He again faced me, giving me the finger across the throat, sign language for “Dude, we cannot start laughing.”  Our life may depend on it.  

As the full band kicks in, the Bull spins around, and promptly breaks into a Belinda Carlisle, Go-Go’s side-to-side arm thing that everyone did 7-8 years prior to that.  Clearly, the Bull was still a believer.  His side-to-side was so big, so violent, it filled up the entire room.  I turned to Augie, he wouldn’t look at me.  He knew better.  Next, the Bull adds deep knee bends to his glorious side-to-side strut.  Biting his lip and grunting like a pornstar.  “Uhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh.”  He barks out in synchronicity with each direction change.  It gradually morphed into some version of a Ray Lewis pregame dance.  While the Bull was turned away, I directed a quick imitation of the dancing Bull in Augie’s direction. 

Augie sputtered laughter, which he wisely converted into a coughing fit, and used the opportunity to exit stage left.  He fled out the front door.  The Bull didn’t seem to notice.  He was peacocking, strutting all over that lime green shag carpet from 1971.  If I laugh, it’s 6 feet deep in the Bull’s back cow pasture for me.  I began violently pinching the skin on the inside of my upper arm.  With such force, I would have deep, hickey looking marks for days.  With each move he introduced, I fought the urge to release a belly laugh from deep within.  I was praying he didn’t go the entire song.  He wasn’t done. 

“Watch.  You see this?  Uhh, uhh, uhh.”  Strutting with such sincerity, commitment.  I thought he might bite through his bottom lip.  Like a little boy, desperate for approval, “Daddy, watch, watch. You’re not watching.” He had really rehearsed this s**t.  The last man on Earth you think would break out the Belinda Carlisle.  Finally, mercifully, the song ended.  I made it.  The comedy was only beginning. 

“Okay, did you like it?”  “Dude, like it?  You could be a professional dancer. Like in rock videos and s**t.”  “Seriously?  You think so?”  “I’ve never seen anyone with size, athleticism, commitment and skill like that.  The complete package.  The full meal deal.  You should seriously look into that Bull.”  He beamed from ear to ear. 

“Okay, bathroom, let’s go.”  He takes me to this skanky little bathroom next to the kitchen.  The exact scale from High School Science class sat on the counter, next to the sink.  The biggest block of uncut, pearly Peruvian marching powder I had ever seen.  Almost as big as my head.  It had to have been a kilo+.  It gave my coke fiend self a cocaine boner just seeing it.  Such sights only exist in films.  The scale was zeroed out.  That chemical coke smell filled the bathroom.  Looking down, there was more pubes than carpet.  I would rather take a dump in a ghetto 7-11 than that crapper.  Years of piss stains on the floor, walls and toilet.  I was thinking I couldn’t stay another second when the Bull’s paranoia returned.  He opened the door and again began staring at the toaster.  “Did you hear that?”  “Nope.”  “They’re coming.  This is it.”  He wheels around to face me, “Do not unlock this door!  Unless I do the secret knock.  Okay?  It’s this: knock, knock…….knock.  DO NOT OPEN, unless it’s that.  You swear?  Lock the door behind me.  You gotta promise.”   “Copy that. I swear.” 

I could hear his footsteps, down, up, then down the stairs again.  My gaze turns toward that block of blow on the scale.  Alone, just us.  Is this some test?  Does he know exactly the weight of that jumbo block o’ blow?  Will my coke fiend greed doom me and my mortal coil to being trampled underfoot by cows and dung for eternity?  He was clearly still in the basement.  “Ahh, f**k it.”  I tore off a piece of toilet paper.  Around the back of the mammoth chunk were several smaller chunks.  Probably an 8 Ball each. 3.5 grams.  I carefully snatched 3, moved around the remains to cover the empty spot, and crammed the package next to my undercarriage.  Surely the Bull wouldn’t wanna search beneath my yam bag.  I was betting a balzak search was extremely unlikely.  Even if he became suspicious.  A minute later, I hear him thumping up the stairs. “Matty, open the door.”  “Dude, I can’t”  “Matty, open the f*****g door!” “Dude, I can’t, you said not to.  Do the knock,” I timidly reminded him. “What knock?”  “The knock.  The secret knock.”  Silence.  Nothing.  An uncomfortable length.  “Dude, lemme in, it’s okay.  It’s Bull.”  “I know it’s you, but you made me promise.  Unless it was the secret code knock.  Is this some kinda test?”  “That’s what I was gonna say. Is this some kinda test”  Is this still Matty?”  He asked.  “Yeah, it’s me, you made me promise. Are you saying you don’t want me to wait for the secret knock?” 

“Knock, whaddya mean knock? it’s okay, they aren’t raiding us.  It’s not the DEA.  Oh s**t, yeah, okay.  Yeah, the knock,” he remembered.  More silence.  He gave it a shot.  “Knock, knock, knock.”   “Nope, that’s not it.” “Dude, Matty, that’s the knock.  Open the f*****g door.”   “Nope, that’s definitely not the knock.”  “Dude, are you trying to steal my s**t?”  Okay, now the knock oath wasn’t so important.  “Dude, I’d rather cut off my own nut sack than steal from you.”  “Smart choice, now open the door.”  “So, you are releasing me from the knock promise?”  “Yes, releasing you from your obligation,” he  confirmed.  He enters and shuts the door. 

“Just for the record, what was the knock?  You know, a coded knock is a really f*****g smart idea.”  “Totally, Bull.  Brilliant,” I was just hoping he  forgot the “stealing” line of questioning.  “Okay, here was the knock: knock, knock………knock.  So 1,2, pause, 3.”  “Yeah, okay.  Even for a coded knock, that’s a f*****g great one.”  I wasn’t about to disagree. Now it was go-time. Was he about to weigh his treasure, find it lacking, then rip my head off and defecate down the hole, before burying me out back? 

He  pulls out a large plastic storage  container from under the sink.  Just as he’s about to remove the coke from the scale, he stops. Looking me square in the eye, “Oh wait.  Hold on.  I gotta weigh this.  Just to make sure you didn’t help yourself to a nugget or two.”  “Yeah, totally.  I would man, haha.”   “Should I?”  He asked.  “I would.  Plus, it would prove I’m trustworthy.”  He was really examining me closely. 

The hair on my neck stood at attention as he began fiddling with the scale. I looked at him, instead of the scale.  “Oh Matty.  That’s really too bad you had to do that.  I always liked you.  Trusted you, you aren’t like all these other dumb-asses.  But, you betrayed me bro, and you know the punishment for ripping me off.  Give it back, and I’ll only beat you half to death.  Hand it over Matty.”  

“Ok, you got me,” I said, reaching in my shorts pocket.  “Duuuude, haha, you must think I have a death wish in addition to being the dumbest m**********r west of the Mississippi.  Steal from you, haha.  That’s f*****g hilarious.  If your scale says that, its f*****g broken bro. Try it again.  Search every inch and my prison purse if you need to.”  “Prison purse?” He asked.  “Haha, my butthole bro.”   “Bwahahahaha, prison purse.  You are f*****g hilarious.  HAHA!  I got you good though, you should have seen your face Matty.  You were all…..” he mimics my supposed expression upon being accused of a death penalty crime.  His bellowing laughter continues for some time.  I don’t ever recall a time feeling more relieved.  It honestly felt like a last minute death-row reprieve call from Governor.”  

“Bull, I would cut and play craps with own my nuts before doing something that stupid.”   “I know Matty, but I f**k with everyone who comes in here.  I could leave that block on the doorstep and go on vacation, ain’t nobody gonna touch it.”  “Nope, nobody,” I confirmed. 

When I made it back to the car, apparently I looked a bit green in the gills. “Dude what took you so long?  Are you okay, you look like you are ready to puke.”  “I am.”  As I drove away, I began to explain the whole incident. “Dude, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.  Not worth thousands of dollars, let alone a few hundred worth of blow.”  “Augie, you don’t have the coke fiend gene.  You’ll never understand.”  We left it there, and enjoyed the big rock show that night.  24 hours later, some shocking news crossed the grapevine gossip wire.  Maybe the Bull wasn’t a paranoid delusional. Without question, those were Roscoes clumsily pretending to be out-of-season hunters, and likely more, unseen.

24 hours after I had left the Bull’s house, a full DEA/County Sheriff SWAT team took the Bull down.  Finding two kilos, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.  His little brother claimed they missed three more kilos hidden in the loft of an unused barn out back.  I feared a knock at my door. Too close of a call.  If I continued down the coke fiend road, it was a matter of time before legal consequences ensnared me.  I stashed the remaining supplies I had at someone else’s home.  If not for the drug transactions, I had also traded a gun to the Bull for some blow.  I waited and waited for the other shoe to drop.  The knock, or worse. Consequences never arrived.  The Roscoes never even questioned me. The Bull did several years in state prison.  The beginning of a long and illustrious career as a jailbird.  And I hadn’t even begun my decades long love affair with opioids.  More on that later.  

Just months later, I would bust an undercover agent at our weekly Coke Monopoly Night.  At the home of another, even bigger, coke dealer in Salt Lake.  My coke career produced two more insane, close-call stories. One with the undercover DEA agent who blew her cover by checking in from a payphone while I eavesdropped nearby.  Coke fiends are outlaws, they aren’t f*****g idiots.  And another, starring twin needle junkies, who after crawling around the carpet for two hours, pulled a double barrel shotgun on us.  Accusing us of stealing the stash they had burned through via needle.  That was the last night of my coke fiend career, and perhaps craziest story of all.  It ended with Augie attempting to leap out of our vessel while traveling 70mph down the freeway.  Please stay tuned, Stay Frosty, Stay Aerodynamic.