B365V2.100 - Drigged, Dragged, Drugged

It all began back in 5th or 6th grade, I am not sure quite which year in school I was in at the time.  Perhaps this is an early indicator of Alzheimer's, who knows.  But our school received a new student, one Robert Walker.  As time and years would pass Bob became one of if not my closest friend in school.  We did nerdy things together (before being a nerd became so trendy).  We held personal political debates at our lunch table in the cafeteria, we both were way active in student council, so much so that we were both selected to attend the National Association of Student Councils conferences in 1986 (Oklahoma City) and 1987 (Buffalo).  We both signed up to receive religious mailings from the Worldwide Church of God and its wacko founder Herbert W Armstrong. The mailings consisted of their attempt to convince people that the Catholic Church was actually the church of Satan.  We did the morning PA announcements together at school.  And our senior year we were co recipients of the Elderton High School Outstanding Leadership Award.

Bob would go on to take classes at IUP, I wanted to be away from home (if an hour away can be considered away) and went to Pitt.  Bob would go on to get married (one of those moments where I was in a tuxedo from blogs past) and I remember the post card I got from him announcing that he was getting married, he mentioned her breasts and the fact she was Catholic.  Apparently those Worldwide Church of God books didn't sink in.  Perhaps Satan lurked in her breast, I do not know,  I just know that they moved to Phoenix and the marriage fell apart.

Meanwhile back at the ranch my life was in a flux of sorts, I had reached one of those horribly comfortable points where I was working and making enough to pay my bills, my boss and co workers were cool, but I wasn't really moving forward.  I was working at The Attic, a bar/restaurant/pool hall in Oakland along with my roommates.  Nights would find us closing the bar down, leaving at like 3 or 4 am then going back to our place where a bunch of people would smoke weed and watch Star Trek until some ungodly hour.  One of my roommates was a dealer, every night consisted of them smoking away his profits.  He was basically dealing to pay for his habit.  While I tried it a few times, weed never did anything for me, save for give me a headache, so it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Anyway I get an unexpected call from Bob one day, he is coming back to the area and wants the meet up.  Of course I am cool with that, but then he drops the bombshell.  He wants to do cocaine because he has never tried it (neither had I at that point) and he wanted to do it around people he could trust.  So if ever I lead you into a life of debauchery, you can blame it on my trusting face.  Bob asks me if I could arrange this on his visit.  Ahem, I am living with a drug dealer, arrangements can be made.

Now I don't know what the current market of cocaine is, or how much we had back got for our investment but I think we had gathered up like $100 for this enterprise.  And my roommate secured the cocaine needed as well as a little inhaler type thing, so rather than us being rank amateurs cutting lines and trying to snort it off of a bunch of obscure surfaces, this thing you just tapped out a "bump", then held it up to your nostril and inhaled.  The wonders of modern technology indeed.

Bob comes to visit, he borrowed his parents car and made the drive from their place to Pittsburgh.  We met up and decided to go drinking, so we went to The Attic, where I knew there would be a good chance we wold drink all night for free.  And my roommate was there, with the cocaine, he was working the door that night.  We get to the bar and take the elevator up to the third floor which was an abandoned bowling alley (which would be the future home of Club Laga for those into that scene) and proceed to try our hand at being junkies for a night.  We each did like one or two bumps, came back downstairs, had a couple of drinks, then went back upstairs and did a couple more.  We came back down again and a girl whose name I can't remember was hanging out in the bar.  I will go ahead and say it, she was all kinds of into me and really, what's not to be into anyway.  I did not feel the same way about her, so Bob and I snuck out again, went upstairs and did more coke, came back down and this euphoric feeling washed over me.  It was like a realization of a long lost fact, I looked at Bob and said, "you know, it doesn't matter how much I drink tonight, there is no way I am getting sick."  It was a really bad realization to come to (though it was ultimately true) because the rest of the night I drank with reckless abandon.  I imagine the feeling is similar to when someone tries to shoot Superman with bullets.  So I go to the bar to get us another round of drinks and I turn around and Bob and this girl are kissing.  Now I am really feeling like Superman because now I am dodging bullets as well.

Upon me discovering this bit of tete a tete with tongues, she comes running up to me and starts apologizing.  Now there are some things  about me and alcohol, 1) it can make me very sleepy (though under the influence of cocaine that is greatly inhibited), 2) it hampers my sexual performance and 3) it acts as Sodium Pentothal.  It was this third thing that kicked into gear as she was doing her mea culpas and I blurted out, "I really don't care."

Bob and I go upstairs again and finish off what was left of our purchase, then we make our way down to the second floor and a club called  "The Upstage".  I believe it was one of their quarter draft nights, and yes the female followed us down to the club.  I walked up to the bar to get us more beverages and the thing about the Upstage was behind the bar was all lined with mirrors, so you could see what was happening on the dance floor behind you while you were at the bar. So as I place the drink order and the bartender goes to get it I look up at there is Bob and this girl swapping spit again, so to speak.  I was laughing uncontrollably at the bar, I got our drinks and turned around and again was met with h a line of apologies from her, which got my "I really don't care" response again.  We eventually made our way back upstairs to The Attic, where we closed the bar and eventually decided to leave.  Now I knew there was no way Bob could drive home in his current state, I assumed that he would be crashing at my place and then heading home the next day, but he ended up going home with the girl from the bar.  Okay fine, I am going to go home then and trying to burn off some of the extra energy I have.  I get back to my place, I couldn't sleep, I may have made something to eat, I can't recall and it was about 8 am before my buzz was starting to wear off.  Then the phone rang, Bob was calling in a panic, "My parents car was stolen."  I told him to relax, I would come meet him and we would go look around the area where he parked the previous night and see if we couldn't locate it.  So I go and meet him and he points out where he parked, right in front of someone's driveway.  I said most likely the car wasn't stolen, it was towed.  A call to the impound lot later and we had solved the case of the missing car of the parental units.

Now we have to get to the impound lot, which was located in the Strip District in those days, we hop a bus downtown and another to the Strip and that is when I get the lowdown on what happened while I wasn't sleeping.  Apparently they had fooled around in a way that Herbert W Armstrong would disapprove of and afterward she makes the startling admission to Bob that she doesn't even like sex.  Now I am dying in the bus and I blurt out, "you mean you are paying $200 to get a car out of an impound lot because you had sex with someone who didn't enjoy it, a prostitute would have been cheaper and wouldn't have told you how awful it was afterward."

Now I know drugs are bad, mmmkay, but my first time doing coke became a fun, memorable, awesome, time.  It came with drinking and dancing and all kinds of fun feelings and moments that if I could bottle it up and sell it I would.  Cocaine was a gateway drug all right, a gateway to one of the funnest nights I have ever had.