Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (33 page)

One day I was driving along in my car, on my way to make one of many cocaine deliveries to my regular customers. It was one of those days where anything and everything irritated me. Sarah-Lee sat slouched in the passenger seat beside me. By now we had been together for more than two years – a record for me when it came to relationships – but my relationship with her (and my life for that matter) seemed to be spiralling into an irreversible course of self-destruction once more.

I was running late and exceeding the speed limit. Moreover, I was craving a hit. Bothered by my erratic behaviour, Sarah-Lee and I got into one of the many arguments we had been having recently and which had become more frequent since I had resumed freebasing. In response to her accusations, I took my eyes off the road for a second, just as a car that had been parked at the side of the road edged forward without indicating and made a sharp right turn. Instinctively, I swerved to avoid a collision, but, because of the speed I was doing, when I slammed on the brakes my car went into a skid. The adjoining road ran at a downhill slope and was unusually curved, which made the pavement on that side higher than normal.

I crashed headlong into what felt like a solid wall. There was a loud bang and the sound of crushing metal. I heard Sarah-Lee screaming, shrieking, and saw with terror her contorted frame being pushed beneath the dashboard onto the floor. My head went through the windscreen, but, besides a few small cuts and being severely disoriented, I suffered no visible injuries. However, Sarah-Lee was in serious pain and unable to move. I managed to pull her out of the wreckage and laid her on the pavement.

She was so brave – the desperate look of bewilderment in her eyes expressed the pain and fear she was feeling. I suspected that her back might be broken, and to comfort her I assured her she was going to be okay. In a matter of minutes an ambulance, the police and several people who came to try and assist were on the scene. Sarah-Lee was put on a stretcher and whisked off to the hospital. The medics suggested that I go with her so that I could be checked for concussion, but I insisted I was fine. All I could think of at that moment was cooking up some coke and smoking a big rock. I left Sarah-Lee to be taken to the hospital on her own. A sympathetic bystander kindly offered to give me a ride home.

Sarah-Lee and I had moved again, from Sandton to a townhouse, ironically directly behind King David High School in Victory Park, close to the place where, some 15 years back, I had been introduced to marijuana by Craig and three of our schoolteachers. I was sure they would have been proud of the progress I had made up the addiction ladder. When I got home, I phoned Joan and told her about the accident, and also about Sarah-Lee’s condition. I said I planned to be at the hospital in the evening but right now I had a couple of things I needed to do. I asked my sister if she would please inform my girlfriend’s mother about what had happened.

I had about 250g of coke stashed at home in a secret compartment. Anxiously, I measured out 10g on my electronic scale, added a proportionate ratio of bicarbonate of soda mixed with a portion of water. I poured it into a small spice bottle. Holding the enticing concoction of liquid up to the light, right there and then I had an epiphany. This was the only true pleasure my flesh desired and responded to. I couldn’t remember when last I had had sexual intercourse with Sarah-Lee. I was on the path of no return.

I was an addict.

I placed the spice bottle directly onto a plate on the stove which I slowly heated. Timing and controlling the temperature were crucial so that the chemical reaction caused the cocaine to fizz and rise at the same time. I removed the bottle, shaking it in a clockwise swirling motion. After this the murky substance dropped into the steamed water and disappeared into translucent oil. I proceeded to add a small chunk of ice to allow the solution to cool while still jiggling the bottle in a circular motion. Within ten seconds, a solid white rock crystallised before my eyes. I covered the crest of the bottle with the palm of my hand, turned it upside down, and watched as the rock effortlessly floated out. I looked down at it and I thought, What a beauty. I was truly a master when it came to the art of cooking cocaine.

In a moment of reflection, standing there in my kitchen, I looked back on how my journey into the wretched and sordid world of drugs had begun. In 1977 I was 18 years old and invincible. Smoking marijuana was fashionable and it seemed harmless enough. Little did I realise all those years ago how quickly I would be drawn into the drug culture and its constant temptations. What started off innocently as occasional indulgence would progressively become worse. For 16 years now I had been using drugs, and sometimes I had narrowly escaped the clutches of death. I was always on the move, running not only from myself but also from the law. There was no doubt that the damage to my mind was irreparable; I had become a danger not only to myself but also to anybody and everybody around me. The drugs laid down the rules. They dictated the terms. I was beyond being rational. Whether getting totally fucked out of my head or running, it didn’t matter: I was trapped. There was no way out. My days were numbered. Did I care? No, not really. Life had become meaningless for me. I had no purpose. If I ever thought about it, I always reverted to my old thinking: you live and then you die and the length of time we spend on earth makes no difference. What was time anyway?

I was 33 years old. How much lower would I have to sink before I realised the damage I was doing to myself and the people around me? The sick feeling inside me should have told me that things weren’t going to end well for me, but, then again, would I have listened?

Then the phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts. Of all things, it was a casting agency, which I had joined a while back in the hope of getting the odd bit of movie or commercial work. As luck would have it, I had been cast as a member of a gang in an Eric Roberts movie that was being shot in South Africa. Fuck, I had completely forgotten that today was the day I was supposed to turn up! The agent reminded me that it was an opportunity of a lifetime.

I was faced with the insoluble dilemma of the typical junkie: in one hand I held a rock of pure cocaine and in the other a promise of success and a better life. Sealing my fate, I decided to have one quick hit and then go to the movie set. After that I would go to the hospital and visit Sarah-Lee. My intentions were genuine. Implementing them was an entirely different matter.

My insatiable craving to get high was continuous, and, as always, it would be victorious over my waning will. Armed with my drug paraphernalia, still shook up from the accident, I headed for the lounge and plonked myself on the dark grey leather sofa. We had a lovely apartment. In the centre of the room was a glass coffee table with a marble base. Adorning the walls were a variety of oil paintings. Near the door, in glazed earthenware pots, were lush green ferns and an indoor palm tree, whose long feathery leaves fanned out over one of the couches and almost touched the ceiling. On the other side of the door was our rectangular glass-topped, wrought-iron dining room table. The pastel-coloured cushions of the eight high-backed chairs arranged around the table matched our roman blinds. On the opposite end to where I was sitting stood two marble pillars on which a single glass shelf was balanced. This was where our telephone and answering machine were. The apartment was tiled in ivory-white, and here in the lounge we had a white shag carpet.

Leaning forward on the couch, I proceeded to break off a fair-sized chunk of coke from the rock I had just cooked. I loaded it onto the wire mesh that was carefully fitted into the front of my glass pipe. While I was melting it carefully with a Bic lighter, I removed my shoes, undid the buckle of my belt, and loosened my jeans. Then, pipe in my mouth and keeping the flame at enough of a distance that the heat would still melt the coke, I slowly but steadily sucked on the pipe, inhaling the smoke, which I held in my lungs for as long as possible, before gradually releasing it.

The rush that comes with smoking crack cocaine is instantaneous.

There’s an all-encompassing flash-like light that jolts your brain and, simultaneously, an intense euphoric feeling that permeates your entire being. This surging sensation has been compared to an orgasm, a mental orgasm. All your senses are heightened. Sounds are magnified and visual images distorted to the point where you actually perceive something that is not there. I fucking
loved
the feeling. When I was at home and high, the minute I had a hit I would sneak around the apartment closing all the windows, securing the doors, and then drawing the curtains shut, ensuring that nobody could see inside.

I had just done all this when the phone rang again.
Fuck
. I got the fright of my life. My heart beating rapidly, I turned down the tone on the telephone, switched on the answering machine and, on tiptoe, made my way to the lounge window. Moving the curtain ever so slightly, I peeped out through the narrow gap. This was an all too familiar scenario for me. Sometimes I would stand there for hours on end, my .38 Special always at hand, my vigil broken only by regular hits on the pipe.

The phone kept ringing. I was so fucked, wired and paranoid I thought that the phone was signalling the cops, so I unplugged it. Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the movie set (I never liked Eric Roberts anyway), but, worst of all, I neglected to visit Sarah-Lee at the hospital that night. I continued smoking coke, going through the same rituals, right through a second day and into a third. I felt like a zombie, still chasing that very first rush. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to.

By late afternoon on the third day I had spent a good hour or two crawling around the apartment looking for rocks that might have fallen onto the carpet, in between peering out the window. While I was contemplating cooking more coke I thought I should check my pager for messages. There were hundreds of them, mostly from my customers, but also a few from my sister. Joan warned me in no uncertain terms that if I failed to visit Sarah-Lee at the hospital that evening, she and Malcolm wouldn’t, for love nor money, ever speak to me again, and nor would I ever see Sarah-Lee again either. She was ashamed of me, she added.

I had been wearing the same clothes for the past 72 hours. I was so fucking wired, so out of my head, that I didn’t even know what time of the day it was. I checked my watch. It was almost 5pm. I had less than two hours to sober up before visiting hours at the hospital. I poured myself a glass of neat whisky, which I drank in gulps, and hurriedly cleaned up. I opened the windows and curtains, allowing light and a fresh breeze to circulate throughout the apartment again. Then I jumped into a bath, which kind of shocked me back to reality. Shaving proved quite tricky, and I cut myself in several spots.

When I was dressed, I took a quick glance at myself in the full-length mirror in our bedroom. Besides the dilated eyes and tiny pupils, I thought I looked reasonably presentable. I grabbed a six-pack of cold beers from the fridge and got into Sarah-Lee’s newly sprayed midnight-blue Volkswagen Beetle, my .38 clipped on the inside of my jeans. My gun was my closest friend. It had saved me from many a precarious situation and I never left it behind.

Driving to the hospital was a daunting task. By now it was dark and the headlights of approaching cars looked like meteorites about to collide with me. I had drunk two beers by the time I reached the hospital, and I downed another one in the parking lot for good measure. Between the coke and the alcohol, I felt pretty good, but I was nervous as fucking hell at the prospect of what I was about to deal with.

I wondered who else might be visiting Sarah-Lee. I didn’t even know the extent of her injuries. After about 20 minutes I plucked up the courage and made my way through the hospital. I was fucked up. I hated hospitals anyway; that pervasive sterilised, medicinal smell, compounded by an atmosphere of sick and dying patients, nauseated me. The distance from the elevator to Sarah-Lee’s ward, although just a couple of metres, felt like miles. With every step, my feet grew heavier and my heart pounded more loudly in my chest. By now there were only about 20 minutes remaining of visiting hours.

I entered the ward. Sarah-Lee’s bed was in the far right-hand corner next to the windows. There were four beds on each side of the spacious room, but not all of them were occupied and only two of the other patients had visitors. The lights were unusually bright, I thought. I felt as if I was on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds of people. It felt like there was a huge spotlight shining directly down on me, with a crowd jeering and shouting and pointing. The words they were shouting weren’t clear, but I knew exactly what they meant. Sarah-Lee’s family and mine were at her bedside, seated and standing on both sides. Each one of them seemed to turn their heads at exactly the same time and look towards me. The look of disgust, anger and disappointment on their faces made me shrivel inside. I wanted to curl up and die.

My entire life, I was constantly on the run. I was a runaway train. I had always had difficulty with change, and running made me feel safe. This was another of those moments. Right then, I was ready to turn my back and run away, faster than I had ever run in my life, but it was too late.