ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (35 page)

I drove Misty to her mother’s house and stayed in the Festiva. Natasha got out and I watched her explain the story. Misty’s Mom was overjoyed to have her daughter back and hugged her and then Natasha over and over. I was so exhausted and confused from lack of sleep that I didn’t want to meet Misty’s Mom. I watched Natasha walk her right to me.

I quickly took inventory of what I was going to look like to a person who actually went to sleep regularly. It was late afternoon and still sunny and warm and I had a beanie pulled down to my eyes. I had those spracked out things covered with a pair of Elvis Presley glasses. I managed to tell Misty’s Mom, “That guy’s garage she was living in wasn’t any good. Give Misty a lot of love and don’t judge her too harshly. Pray a lot together…”

Tears were running down my eyes and I had to grit my teeth against the emotions. I drove Natasha back to her house and went to Tom’s.

CHAPTER 82

At Tom’s the adrenaline subsided and left me exhausted. I explained what happened and we talked about God. I explained all of the dreams I was having and found out he was raised Catholic also. He started telling me how he interpreted my dreams but I fell asleep while he was talking.

“B.J. the dream you had with the seeds in it represents your actions being sown and cultivated. Trying to control what people are saying is impossible. It’s just as impossible as trying to implement those rules and regulations successfully. You’re playing with fire and expecting not to get burnt! The vines strangling you is God showing you what you’re going to reap. An evil thought is Satan trying to get you into an evil action. Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny. The next dream where you see yourself on a leash is God showing you something also. You’re enslaved by Satan. Your addiction to speed is pulling you into his power. Satan is using your pain, humiliation and rejection against you and is only too happy to see you cover that up with what you see as righteous anger. You can’t see who’s pulling on your leash because Satan is using your own pride to keep you on it. Then your dream shows you what is happening to you and what you have to look forward to. That hill you were climbing and struggling against, showed you that while you’re in Satan’s clutches there is no end to the hill you’re trying to climb… B.J.! Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

I woke up on Tom’s couch and tried to remember any dreams I might have had. I came up empty, nothing. All I could remember was talking to Tom about God and Good and evil. I felt my ingrained instincts telling me it was time to count my money over and over, weigh up my product and see where I was at. It seemed like that was where I started the roller coaster ride. This time I didn’t want to take that ride. I wondered, how am I getting so much satisfaction out of it? I saw what usually followed those activities. I had to find excitement and then try to control it. I’m getting sick of it! But, what are my alternatives. I could go back to sleep and wake up even more depressed. I thought about it for a couple hours. I couldn’t generate any energy or excitement so I did a small wake up snort of speed and called 420.

I felt the speed starting to work, but not enough. After the marathon I’d just run it was like putting a teaspoon of gas in an empty tank. I listened to 420 tell me that my name was all over town. He was hearing stories about me from too many people to keep track. I tried to identify who was saying what and it got confusing. I listened and tried to figure out how to problem solve the situation and came up empty. It was out of control. Total chaos. Totally depressing. I thought about doing a bunch more speed to try and garner enough energy to catch up to all of the chaos and didn’t want to for the first time. I wanted to get away from the amusement park.

After getting off the phone with 420 I thought about things. A plan quickly formulated in my mind. I had to stop being so impulsive, and start using my brain. I had to stop staying up for so long; I had to stop getting so caught up in everything. It was time to show some discipline and figure this thing out. I was going to start this new plan by not doing any more speed this day. I was going to sleep tonight!

I stuck to my new plan and the day seemed to drag by. It was boring and depressing. It felt like I was missing something. Things must be happening out there that need my attention! I passed out on Tom’s couch at 4 in the afternoon.

I woke up the next morning and it was even worse. I couldn’t get up. I laid there in my cocoon of exhaustion and it felt like I was locked down by a thick heavy cloud of depression. I prayed to God over and over and kept falling into a peaceful deep sleep. I woke up at midnight knowing something; I knew it like it was fact. If I didn’t change course one hundred and eighty degrees I was doomed! I went back to sleep.

I woke up at 6 A.M. and felt a little less depressed, but still exhausted. I didn’t want to move. I remembered my cell phone. I hadn’t checked it in a couple of days. I looked at it and it was turned off. I turned it on and checked my messages. It took over an hour to listen to them. A bunch of people needed some product, and a bunch of people had information about who said what and what was happening. I didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I tried to forget about it. I couldn’t. The part of my brain that wanted me dead urged, get up! Make your money! You’re losing your grip on the territory! What are you doing? You did all of that work and now you’re just going to give up? I felt my discipline eroding. That voice inside me urged, get up! You’re so close! Are you just going to quit? I guess your Dad was right, you’re just a loser! I went back to sleep with those urges pushing me toward the amusement park.

An hour later I heard Tom’s roommate asking Tom, “What’s wrong with B.J.? Why has he been passed out on our couch for so long?”

Then I heard him leave for work. I got up and faced that I had to get up, get moving and get out. So much for not doing any more speed.

Tom and I got sparked and it felt good! It felt like I could control things again! Tom had a lot of good advice. I ground my teeth and listened.

“B.J. you were so depressed because doing speed keeps your brain from producing dopamine. That’s the chemical your brain naturally produces that gives you pleasure in doing things. You work out a lot, and get pleasure in it from dopamine. You get things done, like work, or accomplishments and it’s the same thing, your brain blesses you with a squirt of dopamine. When we do speed, our brains stop making it. So when you stop using speed you’re extremely depressed and feel like you can’t face things for a while. Eventually without the speed, your brain kicks in and starts producing it again. I think you’re really close to being there so don’t go on any long runs, keep weaning yourself off the speed and sleep every night. But you have to get out of my apartment for a while. My roommate is tripping.”

I left Tom’s nest and drove a few streets away to Paul’s. Nobody was home and I realized I didn’t have anywhere to go. I pulled out what I now realized was my enemy, my cell phone, it was the ticket provider to the amusement park, and made some calls. At each house I stopped, my discipline slid further from my grasp. As I felt my grip slip, I found another way to beat off the depression, through humor. I’ll just make fun of myself and laugh at my own antics. Money started to stack, I continued to sprack. The harder I ride, the more I slipslide, into misery where there is nowhere to hide, but if I continue to pry, and keep praying to God for wisdom, He’ll help me see things from a distance in my dreams as if I can fly.

CHAPTER 83

I desperately needed another distraction and found one. I got hold of Huddy on the phone and he had an important person that wanted to meet me, a man by the name of Dick Dudley. My homework on Mr. Dudley came back with a lot of information. Mr. Dudley was a retired father of two kids our age. Brock, his son, was a borderline pro snowboarder and knew everyone in the pot business as a chronic smoker himself. His daughter Shana knew everyone in the speed world as a punk rocker. Mr. Dudley himself had owned his own dental practice and was an orthopedic surgeon. He bought a block of offices and leased them out to other businesses to get well off enough to retire. After retiring he spent all of his time on his drinking and hobbies. He went on a fishing rampage for years and brought back some of the biggest Marlin known to man, according to him, from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Then, he turned his attention to selling guns for a hobby. He got himself registered as a federal firearms dealer, bought a bank style vault and showed off his weapons to all of his kid’s friends. Huddy told me that Mr. Dudley was an attention whore like us. Mr. Dudley had everyone his kid’s spoke highly of over to his house to investigate them. According to Huddy, you’d made it in the scene if you were brought to Mr. Dudley’s attention. Like he was some kind of underground godfather. I guess it was my turn to kiss his ring. Huddy went on to explain that Mr. Dudley was interviewing bottom feeders like myself to take on a roll in his new project. Mr. Dudley was taking his interest into the Custom Harley Davidson field. He had done his homework on the field and found he could customize them better. He’d already fabricated a wide glide half-chopper under a Custom Creation business name. Now he needed an investor for the second one.

Huddy had Mr. Dudley call us into his gated community from the passenger seat of my Festiva. Driving up to the gate guard the elegant cobblestone road shook the little car. I felt like a ghetto super star sitting there waiting for the security guard. The guard was dressed in an expensive looking suit and I could feel the power of money all around me. On both sides of the closed gate were waterfalls cascading down a rock waterfall. The gate guard came back and handed me a pass to enter.

Huddy directed me to Mr. Dudley’s house and Mr. Dudley, Brock and Shana were in the garage waiting for me. Huddy excused himself to go see a girl who lived down the street and I met the family. Mr. Dudley was average size, bald, and had big eyes that appeared to smile a lot. He looked very ordinary and dressed casual. Brock looked like a G.Q. model with short cropped brown hair and a surfer build. He dressed local to the area in Black Fly and Lost apparel. Shana was a cute looking brunette that looked a little grungy and puck rockish. She was wearing a black mini skirt with a white tank top.

Mr. Dudley shook my hand, introduced himself, and asked me, “What do you want to drink, A beer, or something stronger?”

I looked at my watch. It was two in the afternoon. “I don’t drink sir.”

Mr. Dudley looked shocked. I was already on the wrong foot with him. “Shana go get us a beer.”

Shana ran in the house. Mr. Dudley walked me into the garage and watched me. I studied him right back until I realized he expected me to look around and comment on his custom Harley Davidson.

I looked at it. It looked like a piece of art, like it had been sculpted. It was positioned at an angle that best represented it and I noticed it was parked there on top of a mirror. It had a chopper look with the forks kicked out at a rakish angle. It looked longer and lower than any other Harley I’d seen. The gas tank was painted powder white with all the colors of a sunset in ghost flames swirling through an Eagle’s face. The seat looked lower than normal and the back end extended at a slightly downward angle until the massive back tire stuck out giving it a very masculine look. The next thing my eye caught was the fat chrome exhaust pipe. I looked it over from the rear to the front of it and noticed how much more polished chrome the machine sported. Everything that wasn’t powder white frame was polished chrome. I’d never seen a Harley look like that. I looked back at Mr. Dudley’s expectant face and said, “It’s pretty.”

Mr. Dudley looked like he was waiting for me to finish saying something, like it’s pretty… incredible. I noticed that Mr. Dudley had walked right to a certain spot in the garage when we entered it and assumed it was his station. I looked at the wall to the right and there was a black and white poster of someone spraying a machine gun. I looked closer. The man doing the shooting was in a shooters stance with his legs bent to hold on while a fusillade of bullets erupted from the gun, but you couldn’t see the man’s face. The picture was taken so you only saw the man up to the neck. It had to be Mr. Dudley.

He noticed me looking at the poster and smiled. I saw him about to tell me something and I walked toward his custom Harley. I asked his son Brock, “Why is it on a mirror?”

“The frame’s well joints are polished. You know how where the frame comes together there is usually the rough welded area? Ours are polished smooth. It’s a show bike. That’s how you show these kinds of bikes, on a mirror.”

Mr. Dudley walked over and I had to stop myself from walking back to where his station was to reexamine the poster. He said, “I keep telling Brock it’s a motorcycle, not a bike. Brock used to race B.M.X. bikes and calls everything a bike that’s on two wheels.”

I watched the father and son share in the joke and couldn’t help but walk back to look at the poster.

Mr. Dudley followed me back over to his station and said, “You can’t keep your attention on one thing can you?”

I looked at the poster and decided again that it was probably Mr. Dudley. “Is that you?”

I finally looked right at Mr. Dudley again. His face looked irritated. I smiled and said, “I have A.D.H.D., is that you in the poster?”

Mr. Dudley smiled like he was trying to figure out if I was just kidding with him or if this was really me. Then he looked at his son like they were sharing in another joke together. He asked me, “Do you know what kind of gun that is?”