There was a time, back in a another life when I my mere presence and in some cases, mention of my name used to bring out the worst in certain people. The time I'm, speaking of was around mostly between late 1996 to late 1999, the place, the east bay, Oakland, CA.
At the the time, I was heavily in the thralls of drugs and addiction and had fallen out of the favor of most the crowd of people that me and my good friend Buck had originally linked up with when we first moved to the Bay Area.
Before I get into this post, I wanna mention the reason for it is that recently, Buck, who now lives in Portland, OR, recently spent a few days out in Oakland visiting "the old pals" and he posted on his Facebook page while he was there, these rather cryptic words, "Why didn't you beat his ass when you had the chance".
I don't really know for sure if he was actually referring to me, but at the same time, knowing the character of certain individuals out there, I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, it got me to thinking about that question as well as Buck's ties to those people.
First, or all, Buck and I go back a long way, we've been good friends as of this moment, about 24 years now. Despite the disdain and hard feelings between myself and some of those people in Oakland that may linger, Buck has maintained friendships and close ties and to this day, holds them in high esteem. I don't hold it against him and I try to hold my tongue when they are brought up in our conversations. Which they're usually not. (When I said "some", it used to be "all" but I did make a sort of peace with some of them here and there over the period of years after I got clean)
The thing about those days, I will freely admit and take full accountability for my part in all of it, and I will to this day, even after fifteen fucking years of clean time, still stand by my convictions from that time period, which is more than I can say for most of those fucks, and honestly, at this point, I can care less about any sort of forgiveness or friendship from any of them as well.
See, back in the beginning when we all first met, I was older than most of them by a few years, no biggie really, I wasn't a creeper or anything about it, just the way it was. Buck and I lived in this back garage that was separated from a main house that these goth chicks lived in over in north Oakland.
So one night we went to a show at Gilman where we met this particular crowd of people and over the course of the next few months they slowly began to move in with us in that garage space. Thing about me and Buck that differentiated us from those people is we had goth/death rock leanings, we enjoyed decking ourselves out and going to the goth clubs in San Francisco with the girls in the front house and by ourselves as well, which the guys in the garage didn't really quite get, but were still amused by, but the girls secretly and not-so secretly dug about us! And hey, we looked fucking good!
I would go a little more often than Buck and would occasionally bring home or some goth chick-hottie would come pick me up at the house, not to mention when I would go with the folks in the garage to the Gilman shows, I was picking up girls there too, so I was starting to get a rep among them as one of the girls referred to (I later found out) as a "mack". For the record, I never hooked up with any of the girls that lived there as they were all taken, but I do know that a couple of them did have crushes on me because 1) they privately admitted it to me and 2) looking back, it couldn't have been anymore fucking obvious. Whatever though, nothing ever happened...
Regardless, as time went on, I began to feel a little tension beneath the surface coming from a couple of the guys but nothing to get too alarmed about for the most part, it was mainly from a guy that didn't actually live there but was there constantly. Anyway, when I started doing speed on a regular basis was when things started to get a little "awkward" for lack of a better word. Buck was doing it too, but we were all still drinking, doing acid and hanging out together still so it wasn't that big of an issue yet.
See this is actually what the actual root of it all is/was. The girls. The secret crushes on us. At the time, I guess you can say it was sort of innocent in a way, but these girls, two in particular, actually there was three, altogether, but one of them (Erin)would only do it when it was both me and Buck, but the two I'm speaking of, would come and hang out in my little room with me and one of them, Mo, almost every time, would want a line or two which I had no problem giving her. She and I were actually pretty close for a while but her boyfriend was a big thick headed, beer swilling punk that couldn't stand her doing drugs and would get furious when he found out. He threatened me a couple times yet never did anything, and yes, he could easily have beaten me down. Wouldn't have changed anything and likely would have worked against him. I'll get back to that
The other girl, Amy, was closer to my age, gorgeous, also had a boyfriend, the one I mentioned that didn't live at the garage but was there constantly(for the record, he turned out to be a good guy in the long run), but he was really hot tempered, basically sponging off her(though she allowed it), and somewhat sketchy. Anyway, she admitted to me that she had feelings for me and on a few different occasions asked me for drugs, which I happily obliged. (I guess in retrospect, maybe these crushes weren't so "innocent", since all these shenanigans were taking place when the boyfriends weren't around...)
I guess the real problems began in early 1995 when I brought needles into the mix. Shortly thereafter, I turned Buck onto them too, which in turn, more or less turned a majority of that crowd against me, it was like I corrupted "poor innocent Buck"! Please, if those fucking idiots only knew how Buck grew up and where he came from... Anyway, the garage went under and we all moved out and went our own ways, but me and Buck, along with our old friend Josh had moved into a soon to be notorious apartment off Telegraph & 58th. but that's another story for another blog, this one's about "missed chances". So my relationship with said people continued to sour, although I still remained close with Mo.
Fast forward several months ahead after the chaos of the Telegraph apartment period and I ended up being roomies with Mo in the basement of a house off MLK & 47th for a bit later on. I admit I allowed her to cause a lot of preventable bullshit for me, but I was so clouded with dope by that point I didn't really give a fuck. I'd shoot my dope and if I had enough and she asked I was always more than happy to share it with her, not to mention the couple who lived upstairs, Micheal and Rachel, seemed to find it rather "cool" in their own wacked sorta way. Seriously, at first, they actually thought it was rather novel having a junkie living down in the basement. Micheal in fact dug heroin and he and I shot it together a few times, and I gave Rachel her first real shot cause Micheal kept fucking it up (I still remember all the bruises on her arms from his fuck ups)and was too scared about her ODing that he didn't give her enough to get off. The problem with Mo and drugs is she was one of those people that when she came down, she came down badly! She was one of those types that would get depressed, cry, mope and just get pathetic, and that's when her boyfriend would always come around and pretty much catch on and then as you could guess, hell would break loose, and he was basically a drama queen as well and had no problem talking shit to his buddies about me. He made a few threats toward me as well but nothing ever came of it. I didn't last too long in that house, as I brought some shady characters around and left them unattended and I guess things upstairs started disappearing plus there was stuff in bags down stairs that I foolishly thought were junk that I gave away to friends that turned out to be valuable that ended up creating a massive shitstorm so my relationship with Micheal and Rachel ended badly. Funny thing about those two, with all the threats and shit talking those two did, Micheal's opportunity for "vengeance", he had to be mega-piss drunk to act on it. He showed up at Kara's apartment, where I had taken refuge after being kicked out of the 47th St house, with his buddy with the intention of "beating my ass", but Jason Powerhouse happened to be hanging outside by his truck smirking at them and his buddy looked at Jason and wisely grabbed Micheal and they both took their leave. Next time Micheal saw me I was sitting in front of Mars Merchantile in Berkeley and all he did was give me a dirty look and half-assly flicked his cigarette at me...ooh yikes!
Rachel on the other hand, had seen me in person on a few different occasions but best she got was rounding up a posse (that included her dad)at a show in late 1999 to jump me several on one. I think the humiliation factor hurt more than the actual beating. The sucker punch to the jaw from daddy and the bruises on my arms received from the kicks from the four others while covering my head while I was on the ground were the worst of it physically. (I should also mention, I was strung out as fuck at that time, and that night was actually one of the last times I ever shot up, I got clean pretty much right after that night). I did happen to see a blog of hers online about five years later where she claimed that "She" beat the shit out of me. Hah! yeah right. She gave me a few worthless kicks while talking shit with slurred words while I was on the ground after the fact, but whatever, if it makes her feel better to believe that nonsense, fuck it, she can have that little victory.
As for the others, yeah I know they would have loved to see me beaten to a pulp, but it never happened. For the longest time, I was pretty resentful toward them because I thought I was given an unfair rap in all of it, because why was I such a villain and Buck still revered in high standing, afterall, he was doing and shooting dope too, not to mention an annoyingly obnoxious drunk to boot? But the truth is, it was the fucking girls... Also my big mouth as well. Thing is, my being older might have, I'm not totally sure, but might have played somewhat of a role, but it's also possible that Mo had a lot of pull with her boyfriend, that if he would have so much as laid a hand on me, that probably would have been it for them. Maybe maybe not. It's really hard to say with that particular group, they definitely subscribed to that "bro's before ho's" mentality. Then with Amy, she basically turned on me but that was my fault, because in a moment of bad judgment, I foolishly told one of those guys about one of mine and Amy's "moments" and I'm guessing he went and ratted her out to her boyfriend and that group and my guess is that they gave her hell about it. I recall, there was a point in time where Amy was suddenly not as warm toward me as she usually was anymore and around mid 1999 after she had since moved on and moved out of the Bay Area and was there visiting, we were at Cindy's house partying, Amy was drunk and being kind of a bitch and she, out of nowhere said to me that I told "somebody that she and I hooked up". Not her exact words, but something along those lines, so that explained the coldness on her part and and gave me some perspective I guess... But no ass kicking by their hands other than that shit from Rachel's stupid "posse" ever came my way, and I could tell that a couple of them would have loved to, and believe me, they had plenty of opportunities. I guess it was just timing and the fact that of those who wanted to, I had some dirt and secrets on them. Fucking losers...
So here we are now, a decade and half later. Naturally there's a lot more details to this rant/story and it's not something I really speak of cause to put it simply, why bother? All the characters in it, with the exception of Amy who I have no clue of her whereabouts or what she's up to, I have somewhat of an idea what they're doing and where they're at. When Buck made that post, I honestly could not help but wonder if that was about me. I've never bothered to ask Buck if he'd ever felt caught in the middle, at the same time, I'm not so sure how I'd feel about Buck if the answer was yes. I'm just being honest with that one. However, I'm not about to play tug-of-war either with those people over him.
As for those people... Well, if that really was about me, then well, yeah, I suppose that's a pretty valid question. There might have been other factors too though. I think they knew I was packing a gun. When I was living at "The Rat Cage" (another story for another blog) to try and come after me there, you can bet your fucking ass you would have had a fight on your hands.
But anyway, if they really want me now, they gotta come to me, and they're definitely going to be out of their elements and comfort zones. I'll just leave it at that. You fuckers had your chances.
By the way, for the record, I DO understand now why Buck wasn't looked at as the total "pariah" that I was back then. He may have been a fuck up, but despite it all, he still got a job and paid his share of the rent and was worthy of a degree of respectability. Me on the other hand, I was a lying, cheating, pistol packing, drug slanging, dope shooting, low life fucking junkie. That's the honest fucking truth. I did a lot a fucked up things and went to some dark and vile places, both literally and figuratively. I wronged a lot of good people and I consider myself very lucky to have gotten this far and to have earned the life I have now even if it isn't as good as it could be. Buck's done well for himself, and I have much love and respect for him. Most of the other's I've mentioned in this blog, I feel for the most part, indifferent to, just a big "whatever", but there's a couple people from those days that can go eat a big fat dick for all I care...
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