Dark Secrets and Hypocricy

Thinking back to that drug addled time period of the mid to late 1990's in Oakland with all its drama, scorn and social stigma directed toward me from that particular crowd of individuals that I spoke of in my previous blog I felt the need to put together this one because I had a lot more to say about it, but before I get into all that I want to make some things clear first:
First of all, although I was indeed what one would call, a "low-life" and a "shady character",it doesn't mean I didn't have any friends or people that cared about me. Sure, as my addiction grew deeper and further out of my control and I began alienating and putting people off, and chasing people out of my life as well, the numbers dwindled, but those that I referred to in my previous blog were the ones that either A)Expressed, implied and/or threatened physical harm on me. or B) Often justified their disdain for me based on some hypocritical moralistic higher ground.  "B" was often the case.

As I mentioned, in my previous post, there was definitely the girls. Their role, for the most part was in the first couple years, like the first half of that time period. I mentioned Mo and Amy, and to a lesser degree, Erin. All of their boyfriends, with the exception of Amy's, grew up together and had come to the east bay from a small town up north called Vacaville, so they had this dopey punk rock "bro-dude" bond trip going that I just couldn't get into, but the girls were cute, and Amy was a knock out, not to mention she was about my age so we bonded pretty quickly. When I started getting into drugs, starting with meth, the guys, who were often belligerent shitheads when they drank, didn't seem to have any qualms about voicing disapproval about mine and Bucks use of it. Mo and Erin's boyfriends both being from Vacaville would usually go back there for a few days once a month to get money from their families to pitch in on rent and whatever else, and when they were away, Mo and Erin were both always very eager to partake on mine and Bucks "activities" with us, although they would half the time get themselves into shit about with the boyfriends after they returned cause either they came down badly or someone would tell on them.(I suspect Joey O., one of the guys that lived there, also fron Vacaville) the dummies... Erin was the more mature one and eventually gave her boyfriend his walking papers. (Erin also lived at the 47th St house at the same time me and Mo did, although she didn't stay for the drama. I think she dated Micheal for a bit after he and Rachel broke up. There was never any bad blood between us. She identifies as a "Conservative Republican" these days and is a horse trainer ( I think) in affluent Benicia, CA, and we're actually still somewhat in touch)
Mo, LOVED drugs. It drove her boyfriend nuts. I'm not sure exactly how he felt about about me in general, I think that he respected that I was an "old school" punk, but was uneasy about the relationship that me and Mo had with one another, and as far as the drugs, realistically, I can't really fault him for that. He should have actually kicked my ass or at least came to me and spoke up and said, "Look dude, I don't wan't you giving drugs to my girlfriend, it's fucking her up, and blah blah..." I mean , who knows, I might have even respected him enough to have actually said, "Sure man, no problem", But he never did...  There was one night at a party where I was drunk, and I'm not sure exactly what brought it on but I guess things had gotten "weird" or something between me and Mo and she decided to lecture me and the only thing I recall her saying was, "...ever since you started doing speed you.." and that's when I interrupted her and said something like, "Okay, stop! I don't need to hear this shit! Like who the fuck are you to lecture ME about something like that?" and I just walked away from her, she ran off, I assume crying. I mean seriously, every time she and I were alone together, she was practically begging me for the shit, and now she wants to fucking lecture me, what the fuck was that?!? Anyway, about a minute later, there's her boyfriend yelling in my face about how much she loves me and cares about me and how could I treat her like that and other horseshit, and I just looked at him and calmly said, "So are you gonna hit me now?" It seemed to throw him off a bit but he continued his "lecture/yelling fit" calling me a tweaker/asshole and other shit. I ended up just saying "fuck this" and leaving. I walked all the way back to Kara's from there, smashing a storefront window along the way. I got into heroin less than a year later.
With Amy, it wasn't quite as often, cause her boyfriend kept her on a pretty short leash, so she always had to be really sneaky about it, so if there was ever any problems that followed, it never got back to me.
Basically, with the girls, not just these three, cause there was more that came into the picture, was they loved the drugs, they liked me and their boyfriends couldn't stand it!
But the boyfriends weren't so innocent either...
(Before I move on, last time I saw Mo she showed up at "The Rat Cage", this crazy punk house where I lived. She seemed like she'd matured quite a bit and seemed rather taken aback by what she saw from me. (I really was a trainwreck at that time). I believe these days, she's living up in Eugene, OR raising a couple kids. I've made no attempt to contact her as I'm pretty sure she wants nothing to do with me. As for Amy, I have no clue of her whereabouts. last time I saw her was in 1999 when she visited us in Oakland. She had moved to Canada and had gotten married if I remember correctly)
Mo's boyfriend's name was Aaron. He was always known a hard drinking, brawling, rowdy individual. One night on 2006 or '07 he left a bar very drunk and wrecked on his motorcycle and was in a coma for a couple months. He's since recovered but has never fully gained all his senses and is a shell of the person he once was. Last I heard, he was was working, scooping ice cream

I'm not totally sure about the time frame, but I'm guessing probably 1996, some new characters came into the mix, these guys had more of a skinhead (not the white power "bonehead" variety) background. There was John and Matt from Chicago. Matt was a complete lunatic, cool guy, but creepy and intimidating. John, aka "Lonely John" (Kara gave him that moniker), who ended up going Punk. Then there was Dennis, who had a mohawk when he first showed up then went skin, he was quiet, but a pretty violent douchebag. He was pretty hard to read, but I always got a bad vibe off him. Then there was Bill Jackson, who'd been around the Bay Area for a while, but suddenly started hanging around, Bill was an ugly cockeyed fucker, but a damn good drummer, that took an almost instant dislike to me. He in particular attempted to use one of those moralistic approaches to defend his dislike toward me as reasoning toward my habits. In fact, I'll start with him.

When I first met Bill, he seemed vaguely familiar, like I'd seen him around. I think to Bill, I was just one of those people that no matter what, he was always gonna take issue with me in some way, and the fact that I was much better looking, his new friends had issues with me and that I was strung out on drugs that he despised gave him all the excuses and fuel he needed to justify his dislike. Only problem was as long as I was in the east bay, I was connected to that group of people cause I was there before him and living with Buck, Kara and Lilia(who happened to be my girlfriend at the time), not to mention I was still good friends with Amy and still on good terms with various members of his household, so like me or not, Bill was just gonna have to deal with it, but I did make an effort to not antagonize him and be friendly.
Bill took issue about me dealing high grade meth, quite successfully, I might add, so I always had money, and he saw me as a "scumbag" because of that. He worked at LaVal's Pizza in North Berkeley and had gotten everyone jobs there, including Buck, but interestingly enough, Bill himself was also dealing weed on the side. Here's the hypocrisy... Bill would find and recruit homeless gutter punks that would beg for change on Telegraph and Shattuck Avenues in Berkeley to sell his weed for him! He'd usually end up giving them a tiny bit of "chump change" (maybe) and kick them down some buds for their trouble. However, usually what would eventually happen is his "employees" would end up ripping him off at some point, saying fuck this, and just take off with both whatever weed and profits Bill gave them. Truth is, for all his bullshit posturing, Bill wasn't much of a fighter. For a skinhead, Bill was kind of a chump and a joke. Actually, I recall Bill got the living shit beat out of him by Dennis and this "Dennis-worshipping" skin named Mark when Dennis accused Bill of stealing money or something...(Back in 2008 I actually talked to Bill and he admitted that he "just didn't like me" which was fine. We continued to chat a bit, I told him that I had met his girlfriend, Ali, that she had visited me at my house in Santa Cruz a couple years prior with Cindy and Lilia. He just looked at me funny and nodded. )

Erin's former boyfriend from the early day's name was Joe. He was a complete idiot. Although he came from Vacaville, he was originally from Rhode Island where Dennis was from as well, so there was a connection of some sort that I wasn't clear on, but whatever. Anyway, they too used that uppity moralistic high ground as part of their reasoning to dislike me as well. Honestly, I could really care less, if you want to hate me, just fucking hate, you don't need a reason... Anyway, when someone hates or doesn't like you, when you're in their presence, you definitely know it. At least I do, I'm a pretty perceptive motherfucker though, but that's me. Anyway, I don't recall ever giving him my pager number(yes pager!), but I got a page from Joe late one afternoon. I was quite surprised it was him but even more surprised by what they(him and Dennis) wanted. They were looking for $40 worth of Heroin, which was no problem, I easily procured(I pinched a little for myself of course, Fuck them!Actually, I don't think I even bought $40 worth, my dealer would sell me any dollar amount I wanted so I probably kept a few bucks now that I think about it) it for them and even gave them both a couple of clean syringes. I was so amused by the scenario, how uncomfortable they both looked, knowing how much they despised me, yet having to go through me to get the stuff, and then asking me not to mention this to anyone and then having to trust me to keep their secret. I got a kick out of seeing them squirm! And I never told anyone either. (As far as know, Joe's still around, not sure if he's still in the east bay or back in Vacaville though. I know that back in the early 2000's the Vacaville guys  formed this pyschobilly "club" called the BP Pychos in Oakland that has since evolved into some sort of biker club that might even be a feeder club for The Hells Angels, but I'm not 100% sure about that. As for Dennis, I have no idea, he just kinda faded away)

Then there's the Chicago guys, Matt and Lonely John. Those dudes were actually alright, in fact much to the dismay of the others, they actually bought drugs from me and were fairly regular customers! I'm not sure how open Matt was about it with the the others but what were they gonna say or do, everyone both respected him and was not about to fuck with him cause Matt was one bad ass motherfucker! Even Dennis didn't want to cross Matt. And thing is, Matt was a pretty laid back, easy going guy for the most part, but he was a skinhead to the bone, in attitude, appearance and beliefs. He liked taking drugs though, he wasn't into needles or anything, but he loved to do speed, he liked smoking weed, he was down to take acid(even though he got weird and creepy on the shit) and he definitely loved to drink. Matt was also rather unsettling at times. He was extremely homophobic and would get pretty weirded out around goths or punks that had makeup on, his mind automatically perceived them as "gay" and he would get a bit wound up about it. Other than that, he was cool.
John was a skin when he first came to the east bay but decided to go punk for whatever reason. Matt used to give him shit about it, John was a pretty nice guy, but you can tell he had something going on beneath the surface. He disappeared for a while I remember, turned out, he'd been in rehab. First thing he did when he got out was page me and buy some shit... (I know that Matt was part of that BP Psycho thing for a while but eventually moved to Texas and got married. Not sure of his whereabouts these days. I have no idea what ever became of John.)

There was this rich kid punker that went by the name JP, that went skinhead soon after I met him. He was kind of a dipshit in my opinion simply cause he was a "follower". He used to hang out with Dennis and Matt. His girlfriend was this chick named Nikki who was one of my regular customers. JP was always looking at me funny. I know he obviously didn't like me, as he rarely spoke to me, but like I said, his girlfriend frequently bought a lot of drugs off me as well as Matt, who was one of his friends as well. JP was never any real threat to me, his girlfriend was a good source of income for a while, though potential trouble, and his connection to Dennis was a little sketchy but that's about it.(JP coming from an affluent background, I can only assume he settled into some sort of easy lifestyle unless he fucked up somewhere down the line. I can't imagine him marrying Nikki cause I know his family absolutely despised her. They were an odd looking couple actually, He was actually pretty young and she was much older. She was a tallish, overweight Mexican girl from a questionable background not very attractive at all, but still a nice person, while he was a strapping, young, fairly good looking white kid from a very affluent background with a seemingly bright future. Yet he was into her. Very odd couple indeed...
As for Nikki, I can only imagine what became of her, unless JP foolishly knocked her up, I don't see how things would have panned out in any way all that positive for her, unless she got her act together and educated herself, but who knows...)

To sum this all up, these are the main characters that come to mind as far as the ones that never owned up to their role in any of this particular drama from that time period or simply stepped away and acted like they never had any part in it is a better way to put it. At this point, none of it really matter now anyway, it's just something to look back and reflect upon now. It was a whole other life for me in a way, definitely a whole different world compared to the one I live in now. I have a few pictures from that time and surprisingly, a whole lot of memories! Do I hold any grudges or resentments? Truth? Not really... Despite how by saying that make all my words prior to saying that come off completely contradictory, it's true!