Cracked Head Memoirs

My initial exposure to cocaine was in 1982 or 3. At the time I was working for Shelby County Government in the capacity of offline equipment operator in the data processing department. My shifts were from midnight to nine in the morning. Unless there was a problem with the mainframes, there were typically only three or four of us there for the entire night. The other guys actually worked with the computers as computer operators. My job was to process the voluminous quantities of reports they printed off every night.

It was a low paying, but gravy job. Even on the busiest of nights, which were payroll related and only happened twice a month, I could do all my work in three hours, and probably closer to two. I spent most of the night sleeping off the previous days drinking bout or looking through the desks and offices of the people who worked during the day. (There were 70 something people in the department.)

One of the fellows I worked with, I’ll call him Dick, was hired in at the same time as me. He was a little older – I think probably 24 to my 20. He was also a life-long Memphian, a talented musician, and full-blown substance abuser such as myself. Nine times out of 10 when we’d get off in the morning we’d drink until it was time to pass out in preparation for that night’s work, usually sometime after noon but before dark.

Before I’d known Dick long, he introduced me to cocaine. Not often, probably three or four times over as many months, we’d get a gram or two, which neither of us could afford (least of all me), and sit in a park somewhere and sniff it, smoke a million cigarettes, and drink oceans of Busch beer. Invariably we wound up never going to bed, then reporting to work in a state of extreme intoxication. Our boss didn’t give a shit though, as long as we did what we were supposed to do, and somehow we always managed to pull it off.

Easily impressed rube that I was, those were heady times for me. Dick knew everybody in Memphis and before long I was on the periphery of an older and very hip crowd. Dick was in an excellent band that played everything from Steely Dan to the Police. I was a regular at their jam sessions and gigs. I got invited to parties where drugs were plentiful and there were lots of pretty girls. There were times, lots of them, when I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

There were a lot of bad times to. Typically I lived by myself in rundown apartments in bad neighborhoods. I was too dumb to be scared of any potential physical danger. I was also too poor to be desired by most of the chicks I encountered. (I was also too drunk and silly, but I don’t think I realized it at the time.) To get laid I had to drive 400 miles to Mobile and a willing ex. (Almost anybody else wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths, but let’s just say that I’ve never had a way with the ladies.) There were times, like when I wasn’t loaded and with Dick or some of his crowd, that I was so lonely and afraid that it felt like it was crushing me. The only option I had at that time was escape with whatever chemicals were available, and that was usually limited to alcohol. I was almost certainly clinically depressed at that point, caught in downward spiral fueled by chemicals.

For a few months things got better. I’d talked the ex, who I’d nicknamed “the Bulldog”, into moving to Memphis and in with me. The Bulldog was an industrious gal, way too good for me, and in no time she’d moved us into a cool apartment on a cool street in Midtown. From our living room window you could see the skyline a few miles away. She also fixed the place up. With her to help pay the bills, my budget for drugs and booze more or less doubled. We were doing coke several times a month, eating out all the time, and drinking and smoking pot on a daily basis. Plus I was getting laid and never had to be alone.

What I didn’t know is that the Bulldog started banging Dick almost as soon as she came to town. Back then I liked to talk and pretend like I was nasty and sophisticated, and that such things didn’t bother me, but it was mostly talk. When I found out about it my relationships with both Dick and the Dog suffered. Mostly I think I was hurt that Dick would do it. I liked him a hell of a lot more than her.

Anyway, shortly after I caught them screwing, I moved out of our place and in with Dick and the band. Go figure. One of the guys in the band was dealing a lot of coke and between what he turned me on to and what I bought from him, I was doing ‘caine several times a week. I was also drinking more than ever and it was catching up with me.

It’s pretty hard to loose a government job, but trooper that I was and am, I managed to do it. Eventually they got tired of me coming and going more or less as I pleased. While my work never suffered, you couldn’t actually count on me being there. Additionally, since I could do my work in a few hours, I did feel the need to show up on time. Management had other ideas and after repeated warning in which they established the proverbial paper trail, they fired.

It was all down hill from there. Over the course of the next year and two or three months I worked only in the odd and part-time capacity. Whatever money I made was immediately exchanged for alcohol, or occasionally cocaine. The cool gang rapidly got sick of my antics, which got much worse, so my cocaine connection dried up. Mostly I imposed upon the hospitality and mercy of the poor Bulldog, but she was getting pretty sick of my drunken and impoverished tendencies. In the period of a matter of weeks I managed to get two DUIs and wound up serving several weekends as a result. At that point I was about as crazy and desperate as I’ve ever been before or since. I was extremely depressed anytime I wasn’t extremely intoxicated.

It’s probably a miracle that someone didn’t beat the shit out of me or kill me. It’s also amazing that I didn’t wind up in worse standing with the criminal justice system. I was arrested at least four of five times in a little over a year. It was all alcohol related but I managed to avoid doing anything too stupid. (Public drunk and DUI is plenty stupid enough.) Honestly I don’t know how I lived through it. It was one of the worst periods I’ve been through. At what looked like the bitter end I took the geographical cure, though, and turned the page on that awful time for one that was marginally better.