TWEEKERLAND – Meth Speed Bumps

The Mab

So the high school experience essentially involved learning how to use more drugs, learning that Meth allowed me to stay awake longer so that whatever drugs I was taking were gonna last longer, and that I was no longer the person I was intended to be. Not even close.

This blog is about methamphetamine and addiction; however, I feel that it is extremely important to include all of the drug use – at least what I can remember.  It all ends with a meth pipe and a 40 year old, that’s the reality.

I also believe that, for most of us who end up using meth as our drug of choice, we go through a hell of a lot of experimentation before we land at meth as our “Final Destination.”

I did a hell of a lot of experimentation, and a hell of a lot of drugs.

By the time I was 17 I dropped out of high school, had caused my folks enough angst and moved in with a friend who had her own apartment. In the 1970’s, what we did in the San Francisco Bay Area for fun was go to concerts. The Bay Area was and still is a hub for all kinds of music, and at that time you could go to a Day on the Green for about $7.50. I went to as many as I could.  I went to almost all of them. I was wasted at every one I attended.

If there was no Day on the Green, then you Cruised the Strip. Eventually, when our habit started to outgrow our incomes, it made sense to start selling some acid, and some meth. We started going to San Francisco to sell meth, and got into the Punk Scene. We spent a lot of time at a place called the Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway, and walked that part of Northbeach where Carol Dodas, Big Al’s, and all the other “Adult Entertainment” venues could be found. The Mabuhay was the place to be if you wanted to see the good punk bands. Broadway was a good place to sell dope to tourists.

We had our own apartment, we were making good cash money, and we were “Having Fun.”  I was taking a LOT of acid. I was taking 6, 7, 8, 9 hits of acid at a time. I was 17 years old and a high school drop out. I had two roomates, one was also a minor, and the other was “An Adult,” probably 19 or 20 years old as I remember. We were completely off the hook. We didn’t sleep, and the only structure I had in my life was a job – I always had a job. Always, with very limited exceptions later on in my life.

It was that job that led to the day that I was standing in the bathroom, curling my hair. I heard a bunch of people running up the stairs, but that wasn’t unusual.

It got real unusual, though, when they broke in the door, and pulled us all into the living room and told us all to get on the floor. I had been arrested before; I had been busted with pot, I had been busted with mushrooms, and I had to sit in the city jail a time or two for an hour or two before they let me go (Remember, my Dad was the Captain of the Reserves in the police department in my hometown.) But this wasn’t like that at all. Not even close.

I laid on the floor with a shotgun in the back of my head, and the men who were going through everything in that apartment weren’t exactly polite about any of it. I was a kid – I was seventeen years old – and I was CRYING. Some of these guys looked like bikers and these were definately guys I would have sold dope to – except I didn’t know any of them.

What I did know is that my boss had come to the apartment about a half hour prior to the raid to buy some acid, and some meth. He seemed kinda nervous, but he was a weird guy anyway, so ya know – no biggie.

I think me mighta snitched on us… yeah, pretty sure it was him.

At any rate, we all got handcuffed, we all got to go to jail, and we were all separated. What the cops really wanted to know was who was selling us the dope we were selling to everyone else – “Just tell us that, and you can go home right now.” The thing they didn’t seem to understand was that the saying “Snitches Die in Ditches” isn’t just a saying – it’s true. I was better off in jail… so that was where I stayed. They transported me from the city jail to “Juvie” in Oakland, CA, and I stayed there for a week. Not a good place for a white girl like me, but like anything else, you adapt to survive.

On Halloween night, I got released and the charges were dropped. The one adult who lived in our apartment was charged with everything – I guess a couple of teenaged girls weren’t the “Catch” they had hoped for, and nobody was willing to snitch (Nobody was willing to end up in a ditch, either.)

So, on Halloween night, we celebrated with a bag of meth and a buttload of Acid, in San Francisco… at the Mab.