The Horrors of Cocaine: An Unpublished Novel That Could Never Find A Publisher
What Cocaine Made Me Do For Seven Years
Part I of V
By a Kansas City, Missouri Girl
As I sit here feeling irritable, downright evil wondering how I can get my next hit, I think back to the day I first started my habit. Seven years ago, I was living the all American middle class dream. I had a wonderful job at Ford Motor Co, had a beautiful home, a new car, money in bank and no worries. My husband, his son and nephew made life even more better by opening a mechanic shop. Everyday before I went to work I would always go by my husband shop to give him a kiss good bye before I hit the highway to work. Some days he didn't want me to go in, he wanted me to stay home with him. I always said no because I loved my job and didn't want to miss any days. As time went on I noticed my husband was getting in a depressing mood. He would always say everything just fine. Some days when I came by the shop he would be arguing with some of his customers, but everything was always fine according to him. One evening just as I was getting ready for work, his son by a previous marriage called and told me Jack was drunk and passed out at the shop. I was totally dumbfounded because he usually only drank one or two beers a day. When I got there and made him wake up I started yelling how the hell can you do this on the job with customers standing around waiting on their cars. I said Jack what is going on? Something wrong and you're not telling me. No, everythings fine, I just had too much to drink. I apologized to two of his customers and asked them if they could please come back tomorrow. When his son bought the tow truck home for me and he left, I just wondered over to the truck and looked into it. I found three half pints of empty gin bottles in there. I was shocked. I stayed home that night from work and stared at him, not sleeping half the night wondering what the hell is going on. Because I didn't know Jack had started drinking gin. The next morning he got up and left before I woke. When I did I called him at work and he said everything was alright, I'm too busy to talk right now. Well we never got around really to talking about that day. I started quitting going to the shop before work. As time went by it didn't matter to him whether I came by or not. Anyway today is Thursday, payday. I'm always happy on payday. During this particular day theres always this foreign looking man coming by the plant with a briefcase going around talking to a lot of my friends. I got curious one payday and asked a friend of mine, Tobie, why do he always come around on payday. He said, you know why? I looked at him all crazy and said no I don't. He's the cocaine man. I said really? You know what that is don't you? I said I heard of it but really didn't pay it any mind. Well Maxine you just don't know what you're missing. Don't you notice how a lot of people be working real fast, acting strange, laughing and howling after lunch. I said yes, but I thought they all got high off of beer and liquor at lunch time. He said on no, you're way behind. I surely didn't now because i stayed to myself at lunch time. I said to myself, damn he might be making a lot of money cause he is here every Thursday. I even seen him talking to a lot of important people like some of the supervisors.
Well, anyway it was getting close to Missouri lotto time, I couldn't hardly wait til payday to start buying tickets. It started out being fun for a while cause at first you did win a little of your money back then after a while it seems like you didn't win nothing.
It was nearing Christmas now and you always get a Christmas bonus from Ford Motor Co every year. Tobie came up to me one day and asked did I hear about the big cocaine Christmas party they were going to have. No I said. You know Tobie I don't mess with drugs. He said you ought to try it. It makes you feel so damn good. Hell, everyone around here is going to the party. They are reserving a couple of motels across from each other on highway 40. I said so what I'm still not going. But back in my mind I kind of wanted to go just to see how they be getting high.
Now it was seven days before Christmas. As I laid in bed I heard this funny sound outside my home. I got up and looked out and started screaming Jack! someone in your tow truck! When he finally got his gun and made it outside, the truck was gone. Jack looked at me and fell to his knees and started crying. I said why are you crying, you have insurance? He looked up at me and said no I don't, I let it lapse. I forgot to pay the premium. How in the hell could you let that happen, you stupid son of a bitch. I just turned and went back to bed and cried all night. From that night on our lives would change forever.....
One day at work I got a call from my step son saying that Jack was in jail for a DWI. I left work and got him out and didn't say a word to him all the way home. At home he tried to explain to me that he's so upset about his truck and just drank too much.
The next day on the way to work I stopped by the shop. As I was turning in the driveway he was turning up his gin bottle. He saw me and just started cursing me out. I said that's it you better be out of my house by the time I get off of work but I never made it there cause we started fighting and he blacked my eye.
As the months passed he got more and more DWI's. I kept on losing a lot of time off of work, bills started piling up, payments on my house and new car started to get behind. My nerves started to get real bad. I asked a girlfriend of mines about the doctor she goes to because we had talked about himm once. He helps you lose weight.
This doctor named George Colon was a psychiatrist. I said I don't need a psychiatrist, I need nerve pills. She said honey, this is the doctor every General Motor of Ford Motor employee goes to. He will give you anything you want. She was right. By the time I got through talking to him I had eight prescriptions half of them I didn't need. From nerve pills to diet pills, two or three kinds each. The doctor told me as long as I lose at least five pounds a month I can get what I want. Sure enough he gave me what I wanted month after month. I ended up selling half my pills just to help out with Jack needing lawyers and helping out with bills.
By the next year ended, Jack had so many DWI's that his last lawyer came right out and told him, look man you're going to jail this time, it's just no way out of it. Sure enough he did.
They gave him a year in jail. Now here I am all alone. I got even more depressed. I started taking uppers two or three at a time at work, taking four or five downers at home. I began to get paranoid all the time, arguing with people at work for no reason.
One day my girlfriend said why don't you drink some alcohol on those pills, makes you feel better. I tried it and I thought things would be better now. But that was just the beginning of my addiction. Jack kept on calling me all the time from jail, and I mostly just listen. I began to get so tired and bored that I hardly went to work.
I had a favorite friend at work, his name was Ron Fused. He was one of the representatives that work in Labor Relations. When you miss work you always had to have a Doctor excuse for a good reason why you were off. If you miss too many days off you would either get time off or get fired. My friend old Ronnie baby liked me. He would some kind of way erase some of the points off my record.
One evening when I got home from work, I notice my front door was open. When I got inside I notice my stereo and bedroom tv were gone. Someone broke in the back door. I called police, but they said they couldn't really do anything about it. I figure it was one of the neighbors because they knew Jack wasn't around. When he called that Saturday I told him what happen and hung up. I took a mouth full of nerve pills, went to the store, got some wine and went over to my blind nephew house. You see his girlfriend shoot his eyes out blinding him.
When I got there, there were quite a few people and relatives over. When I walked in, my blind nephew had this glass looking pipe up to his mouth. I said Bobbie, what the hell is that! When he put it down he started talking real slow. It's cocaine baby! Here try it. I said no thanks but as I sit there watching everyone I said to myself, oh what the hell. I want to get messed up today. I took one puff and thought about what Toby had told me. It was great. After that I left and stopped by the store, bought me a pint of gin and juice, went home and played my stereo about as loud as you can get.
Well, the next week Jack got out of jail early and started begging me to help him open another shop. I eventually did because I got tired of him sitting around the house. I borrow enough money to buy him a cheap pick up truck. Within a few months time he had ran a red light and ended up back in jail.
By this time my blind nephew had gotten put out of his house because of past due payments. I let him move in with me because I was all alone again and needed someone to watch the house while I was at work. I began to get more and more depressed. My psychiatrist was prescribing more and more different medications. He got to the point that he didn't even care whether I had lost weight or not.
About two weeks after my nephew Bobbie had moved in small things around my home started to disappear, like clock radio, black and white tv I had in the basement. His excuse was always, you know I can't see, I don't know what happen to them.
One night I left work early because my stomach was upset, probably from too many pills, as I turned the corner to my house I notice three cars parked in front of my house and the stereo blasting. When I got inside people were all over my place drinking, getting high. Bobbie had two skillets of my chicken frying on the stove. I turned the stove off and told everyone to get the hell out of my house. Bobbie had the nerve to curse me out in my own house about his company. I told him and his girlfriend to get the hell out too. Bobbie turned around on the way out and said, you will regret this night, believe me, you will end up regretting putting me out. I just went to bed and took a mouth full of valium and some other kind of nerve pills.
The next day Jack called and said he would be able to start coming home on weekends from jail. I hated that. When I hung up I went and got me some alcohol, took some speed, turned on my stereo and just sit there. Then I started thinking about how the first hit of cocaine made me feel good. I jump up caled my psychiatrist told him I needed to be off work for a couple of weeks. He said no problem, just come into my office when you're ready to go back to work.
