The Meth Chronicles Volume 3

Chapter 1:
Lesson Learned

Dana Carver looked at the clock. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and she was just opening her eyes. Sleep had come hard the night before.

This time she had stayed up for five days straight—until Jimmy took her pipe from her, which had led to a nasty fight. She hated it when he tried to control her like the others. The come down on meth was the worst. She remembered begging him for just one more hit, just a small bump, just enough to get her through the feeling of panic and misery that came over her as she tried to come down.

Kelsey was one of six girls Jimmy had living here and she was currently sleeping in bed with them. She had short brunette hair, just like Dana, but she was much shorter at five foot three, whereas Dana stood at five foot nine. Dana used to be athletic, playing soccer competitively all the way up until two years ago. She was a true all-American girl, with long beautiful legs and a body that boys drooled over.

She did not think Kelsey had ever been an athlete. Actually, Dana was the only one of these girls without a troubled past. Kelsey had confided to her that her dad had been in and out of prison and her mom went with any guy who would have her. Unfortunately for Kelsey, some of those men had wandering hands.

Dana nudged Kelsey’s naked ass with her foot. She mumbled but did not wake up. Dana nudged her again. Although Jimmy had them all in his bed at one time or another, Dana was his favorite by far, and as a result, the Queen Bee.

Finally, Kelsey squealed, “What?” Dana issued, “I want a smoke.”

“I’m out.”

Dana then demanded, “Then go get some.”

“Dana, it’s your turn, I went the last four times, plus I just fell asleep.”

“You know why I can’t go in the daytime. He could drive by and see me.”

Kelsey did not respond. She fell back into a near coma and Dana doubted she would even remember talking to her. She would have to go get her own damn cigarettes. It was a journey wrought with peril, as her dad was the Police Chief of Madera, California, and he had been searching for her for a solid month now.

He had already found her and stuck her in rehab twice before, and both times she had failed right after she was released. In both instances, her dad acted as if the betrayal were the biggest that he had ever had to encounter. And in fact, it was.

What he did not understand was the pull the drug had, the draw. At first, it was just when she was hanging out with some of her friends on weekends. They would buy some speed and snort it. They had just graduated high school and almost all her friends were going to the local Junior College. They would go camping for the weekend and snorting some speed allowed them to stay up all Friday and Saturday nights, so the weekend lasted longer. Dana always related the drug to that, a two-day high that enabled the extension of fun . . . and sex.

Her boyfriend at the time was Rex Hanson and he was an animal in the lovemaking department. Out of their group, he was the only one that went off to a four-year college and subsequently, the only one who left Madera. Dana often wondered what it would have been like if they had stayed together.

Rex had only been gone three months before she received the letter. He was polite and thoughtful, as he always was, but he wrote to tell her he was leaving her. He wanted to do things in his life, and he did not want her home waiting for a boyfriend who might never show.

That was when she met Jimmy at a party and took her first bump. That was what he called it, but in reality, it was just a small hit of meth in a glass pipe. She went for it, but soon left the back bedroom scene Jimmy had going and went back to the party.

Unlike snorting meth, she found this was much more of an intense high, but the peak wore off a lot quicker than snorting it. Normally, after she snorted some, she would be having sex with someone within the hour. It was programmed in her mind that that was how snorting went. Snorting then sex. Even after Rex left, she maintained her norm. As a result, she went through boyfriends now like going through tissues in a tissue box, although sometimes she would even go back for seconds, as the circle of people in her small central valley town was limited.

This time though, after the hour had passed, all she could think about was going back into that bedroom for another hit. Smoking the shit had really gotten into her head. Before she knew it, she was indeed back there for a second bump. It was as if she had no control. The second hit she took was no bump, it was a monster toke—and she had been chasing the next hit ever since.

Although she had not had a bad or traumatic life, she had always been an underachiever—a C student. Being an only child, she had no excuses except not everyone was exceptional in school. Soccer was her only passion, but she was the upper middle of the pack at best. Not scholarship worthy. It happened, there were people who were comfortable in the middle of the road. Ever since she had taken that meth hit, though, she had finally found something she could become exceptional at and that was doing meth.

Jimmy lived in the house that his grandmother had willed to him. For many years, his parents never told him about his inheritance and kept that and the fact he had inherited almost thirty thousand dollars a secret from him, even after he turned eighteen because they knew he was doing drugs.

Before Jimmy knew of the money, his father had been fighting the hardest battle of his life trying to get Jimmy to stop using. He had just about got him the path to straight when fate stepped in and screwed him.

Jimmy had found a job at a lumberyard and needed a car to get to work, so his dad took him to the bank where he had agreed to co-sign for his son. It was the way-too-helpful employee who screwed the whole thing up and sent the kid on a spiral. One idiot bank officer who just had to ask, “Are you sure you don’t want to draw the funds out of Jimmy’s savings?”

That was the last time Jim Randall let himself be controlled by anyone. He immediately moved into his late grandmother’s modest three-bedroom home and never spoke to either of his parents again.

His grandmother’s house was located on the outskirts of town and that suited Jimmy just fine. Meth users have no need for the general public other than to steal from them. Once settled into his new abode, he started his life of never-ending meth use.

The house was built in a bungalow style with solid hardwood framing and embedded stone facing throughout. It sat on a small parcel of land that was bordered by orchards of varying types. After Ansell Street, there were just farms upon farms for the next thirty- miles, all the way up to the Sierras, some simple and earthy, with their adorned roadside stands, and some palatial and grand, sitting on hills overlooking their properties like royalty.

After his money ran low, Jimmy had the bright idea he should start dealing meth. As he continued down this path, he learned to pick up “down and out” girls and give them a place to live with plenty of meth to smoke. The trade-off was that they were his sex, dealing, and stealing slaves.

Meth was good profit, but so was shoplifting. Jimmy went to the flea market every Saturday to sell what the girls had stolen during the week. He simply drove them to a store he had staked out and then sent them in with his plan. And as promised, he was always waiting for them outside.

Dana crawled out of bed and looked back. Jimmy was completely balls-deep with Kelsey, who was wrapped around him like a blanket. There was a full-length mirror attached to the door, which she avoided at all costs. If she looked into it, she would see her sallow skin covered with tiny open sores. She would see her once beautiful legs emaciated to the point where she looked like she was a victim of a third-world famine. Her legs were also covered in micro-sores, which she loathed, just not enough to stop doing meth. She searched the ashtray for a half-smoked butt, but in this house, that was not likely. People were more inclined to smoke one to the filter in this place. True enough, not one butt worth a relight to be found. She reluctantly put her clothes on.

The first time her dad had been able to nab her was the time she got busted for shoplifting. Shoplifting did not always succeed and that time it was her turn to take the heat. The worst part was the jail cell. She was really high and being put in that fucking cell with no chance to even get a bump, well, it was enough to make her claw the walls.

But then her dad came in and told her that he was going to get her into rehab was even worse. That was, in fact, the worst news she had ever heard. He begged and pleaded with her, and the only reason she had agreed was so she could escape later and go find Jimmy again.

Unfortunately, it was two weeks of hell—a hell where she had to tell lie after lie just to have the possibility of seeing daylight any- time soon. It was pure torture, but she knew at the end of the tunnel she could climb right back on the horse. And climb she did, for six more months, until her dad caught her again. That time she was coming out of a 7-Eleven at two in the morning, a mistake that cost her a month in rehab and the greatest acting job in the world to get free and clear.

This time when she ran, she made sure she was gone for good. Jimmy let her move in, and she kept a very low profile. She was not shoplifting anymore, and her dealing was only done in other towns by use of back roads. Her dad had no idea where to find her, or if he did, no right to come and get her without a warrant.

She saw the pipe on the counter and the torch was right there. She knew she should eat breakfast and from the moment she opened her eyes it was the first thing she intended to do. But the pipe was calling. She decided she would start her day with a bump, just to get things going.

Of course, oftentimes, that bump led to nothing being done for many hours, even days, depending on their schedule. This time though, it just deepened her need to have a cigarette. She would have to risk the walk to Rocket Liquor store. She looked at Jimmy. Somehow, he was even more entwined in Kelsey, and she accepted that she was the one going to the store. The one thing she had learned never to do was wake Jimmy Randall.

Her pants did not fit her any longer, so she belted them on. After putting on her getup, including dark glasses and a baseball hat, she pulled the brim down and headed out. She purposely kept her head down and it was a good thing, the afternoon sun and heat were staggering.

She only made it two steps out the door when she turned around and went back in for a hit. She had forgotten to take a bump before she left, and she needed it to get her through until she returned from the store.

With a fresh hit inside her head, she forged on. The second she stepped out, the blinding sun and scorching heat from the sidewalk radiated up, making the walk unbearable—yet she had to keep her head down to avoid possible detection. It nearly made her faint. She crossed the street mid-block, as the store was on the other side of the street. The asphalt was softened, its hot oily smell wafting up to her nostrils.

No one was out except a carpet-cleaning guy. She could see through the side door that he was inside his van, winding up his hose, but she only glanced. It must be a million degrees in there, poor guy.

She made her way past the man cooking in the van only to find the storekeeper cooking in the store. There was no AC in Rocket, but the fan blowing down as she walked in felt like heaven and she removed her hat for a second to soak it in.

She bought a Coke and three packs of Marlboro Reds from the clerk of Indian descent who had three fans on him. As she was leaving, she saw Suzy Strelich coming in. She only saw her for a flash, but it was her for sure. She and Suzy had been friends since grade school, both having played soccer together for years.

As Dana was used to doing whenever she encountered people, she put her head down and kept moving. The rest of her body was decimated by what she has done to herself, but nothing was wrong with her ears, and she clearly heard Suzy asking her mom, “Was that Dana?” Dana heard them debating it as she blazed a path home, because of the heat, almost literally.

The sun felt like a welder’s torch on her and if her house were any further, she was sure she would have just succumbed.

The rug guy was finishing his job by emptying his dirty water down the gutter. Dana was sure that had to be some kind of environmental violation; not that she gave a shit. Then she noticed how big the guy was. His head was even with the top of the van, yet his feet were not on the curb, they were on the street!

She kept her head down, but her eyes were peeled up, the man was huge. He wore a jumpsuit that had ‘Cleaners’ written on the back, but no name of the outfit. He was baldhead on the top, but had that encircling hairline below, like his baldhead was a giant egg sitting in a nest. As she drew even with the man, he turned toward her, and Dana’s heart leapt out of her chest as she gave a startled scream.

The man was wearing one of those masks she had seen some out- law motorcyclist wear. It was a skeletal mask, and it was supposed to place fear into normal people. Dana supposed she was normal people after all, as she yelled as loud as she could, but the next thing she knew, the man had placed a towel over her face and her world went dark.