80

1995

It's not that I didn't like people at all; it is just that I was thrown head first into a pool of writhing animated bodies. There were new poeple coming from everywhere and it sometimes made me feel nervous. Margie moved out of the apartment next to ours and a tall skinny guy who closely resembled Shaggy from Scooby Doo, moved in the vacant apartment. His name was Clinton and he loved to watch Nick at Night way over into the late night and early morning. He was very friendly and didn't conciously exclude me from the conversations...I liked that about him. I grew close to him before things started to become a haze. Clinton played guitar really well and could play most of the classic rock songs. I loved to sit and listen to him for hours,in fact; we did that very thing on many occasions.

Clinton was a Meth head. At that time, I didn't even know the term for what Clinton did...he was just always awake and there for us when we needed to talk to someone about things we were going through. It wasn't long before we were grilling food together, getting drunk and ...of course, delving into Chrystal Meth. I remember exactly how it was done. At first we broke the end off a light bulb and cleaned out the white residue from inside. Then we shook the powdered Meth into the light bulb and we used a straw to suck the fumes up and into our lungs. I cannot remember how many times that I experimented with Meth but I do remember that at least on one occasion, I did not sleep for three days straight. I remember the high as being extraordinary and how excited and energized that I was. I do know that I smoked Chrystal Meth more than one time and we all laughed into many late late nights and onto the many mornings following before we crashed.


1995

Not only did we have Hissy as a pet; but we acquired two more snakes as well. The next snake that we bought from the pet store was named VJ. VJ was my snake and I named him after Venum...he was Venum Junior. Yeah, I guess you can say I thought that was awfully damn cute. Venum also bought another snake and called her Brock. Both snakes were Ball Pythons. Later on we acquired a fourth snake and named her Viper...she was a Boa Constrictor. We had one whole wall of our living room covered with snake cages. It was almost as if we had a small petting zoo in our living room. I wasn't afraid of them though and many times I would take them out and play with them. But when I realized how they had to eat, it was another story. At first I would not feed them myself...I just didn't have the heart to kill those poor mice. The first time Venum brought home a mouse to feed the snakes, I got very upset. I remember him walking over to the table and whacking the mouse against the hard surface of the table top. I saw the brutality of the act and I ran screaming form the house. I cried in my car while Venum fed the first mouse to one of our snakes. Venum laughed at me and it took him a while to get me out of the car. After a few feedings, I just hardened my heart and watched a little more at a time. Eventually, I was doing the job myself. I would take the mouse by the tail and pop him like you would pop a wet ass with a towel after coming out of the shower. I learned those days that hearts can be hardened over time...many things can be done that one would think is virtually impossible. We, as humans can turn our heads to suffering, pain and death when given the right amount of training. To learn these things from feeding a mouse to a snake is interesting indeed. I grew to feeding my own snake and all the others when Venum was too busy to take care of them. It was an interesting thing to go through.


1995

The other pets.

I read about these animals called Chinchillas. These rodent like creatures were native of the Andes Mountains in south America. They were hunted for their coats. My first Chinchilla was named Biscuit and I loved him very much... holding him as much as I could. I remember that I would love to let him out of the cage to get excercize. He was such an entertainment for company when he would run between their legs and hop up on their laps. I remember so vividly how hard it was to catch him when we had to put him back in his cage. Oh, he was a riot and I think he mostly resembled a cross between a squirrel, a rat and a rabbit. Chinchillas are very adorable creatures. Unfortunately, Venum put out rat poison for some of the rats that he couldnt catch for the snakes. One day when Biscuit was taking a run around the house, he got into the poison. I remember when I caught him and how easy it was to catch him...he just flopped over and wiggled. We rushed him to the vet but he just didn't make it. I remember how bad it hurt when he died. Not long afterwards, I decided I wanted more Chinchillas because I had just fallen in love with them. I decided to buy a pair of them to start breeding my own rodent like fur bearers. Apparently, one of them would sell for a hundred dollars. I bought two of them in a large three story cage and placed it in the living room opposite from the snake cages. When me and Venum would get stoned, we would blow smoke into their cage. It was amazing how excited and horney these creatures got when they were high. We would sit and be entertained for hours by the antics of these creatures.


1996
Winter

Steve

If you have ever seen the show "Beavus and Butthead" and remember what the character "Beavus" looked like; then you know exactly what Steve looked like. He was a spitting image of Beavus and acted a lot like him as well. Steve moved into the apartment beside us when Clinton  moved out. We all became fast friends and hung out with Lily, her boyfriend and her boyfriends brother. We were generally a good group...getting drunk and stoned and staying in trouble as much as possible.
An ice storm was coming and we were all packed into our little apartments awaiting the event. We would run next door to talk to Steven then he would run to our apartment to talk to us. Some of the friends of his would hang out with us including whatever girlfriend he had at the time. When the ice storm finally came, we got in Steve's car and headed down to the Barnes Crossing Mall parking lot. We did donuts on the ice until the security ran us away. Then we came back to the apartments and got stoned and drunk until we passed out. Lily and the guys would come by the next day and wake us from our undead like slumber. I could hear them all arguing outside the front door and I would just put my pillow over my face and go back to sleep.

I liked Lily well enough but I knew something was happen
ing between her and Venum. At that point, I thought it was sexual but thinking back on the whole situation...I think that maybe he was supplying her with cocaine or crack ...or something of the nature. You see, I did experiment with harder substances but I never really got hooked on them. Little known to me, Venum was already hooked on harder drugs than he led me to believe. Even Steve, our beloved friend, was hooked on some of the harder stuff. And he had a large female customer base...I assume.

 If that was not the reason then I was right to be jealous. I may never know whether I was right to feel the way I felt. As an older adult, I find myself zoning out when I feel the ugly head of jealousy rearing...Oh, i feel it..I just feel ashamed of it.  As far is Lily is concerned, I never really knew what her deal was. I  may seem jealous as this story goes on, and yes, at times, I was very jealous...but I think, in retrospect, I had a good reason to be. The number of unknown strangers that frequented our home was numerous...I cannot even keep up with them now. It was like a small business. I remember waking to the voices coming from my living room. When I would walk into the room, I would be face to face with people who were looking at ME as if I didn't belong in my own home. It was as if I was the stranger in that time and place of my life. No wonder...I continued to grow angry as time went on.


Winter
1996

After the Ice storm

I was sick again, mom was sick too...Venum was Venum as Venum does...as usual... and the world was sick. Thank god that Venum wasn't sick as well.

My brother let me know that three of the tumors insid my mother...the smaller ones.. were malignant(cancerous) and the biggest one was benign. The doctors could not operate because the big one was in the way of the others. I know I heard the news but yet, I could not process it...could not make it jell into my brain.

I started to throw up the next day...and the next...followed by the next. I couldn't understand if it was nerves or something else. I got a strange thought and so I went to the store and bought a pregnancy test.

It was positive.

The thing inside grew angry and screamed.