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🔴 TRIGGER WARNING - DRUG USE 🔴
I was on my way to pick up Ty. He had fell asleep on someone's couch and said he needed to get out as soon as possible. Seemed like he always needed to leave as quickly as he came. Luckily, I had spent the day at home with my kids and family, but everyone finally went to sleep, so it was my time to shamelessly break free.
I drove through town and down a few winding roads that never seemed to end. He told me it was the last driveway at the end of the Leeds street. I drove until I came to a dead end. To the left was a narrow dirt road with no lights, or signs of any kind. I nervously turned and drove up the road, hoping I was heading the right way. Further up I saw what looked like a few flashlights moving around. I pulled forward to an open area where there were two men working on an old truck. They looked haggard and mean. At first I was a little scared, but then I realized i was probably pulling up to a trap house in the middle of the country, so I couldn't expect much else.
The men looked at each other for a moment and the both pulled out guns and pointed them at me and started briskly walking my way. I slammed on my brakes and rolled down my window, trying not to look as scared as I actually was.
"Who are you?" one of the men shouted.
"My name is Emily, Ty said to pick him up here," I said, not taking my eyes off of him. I could possibly die here. Right here and now. Why did he always get me in to these situations?
"Oh damn, he's asleep on the couch. I'll go get him. Don't drive up any further. You stay right there."
I took a deep breath as I put my car in park. The older man held on to his gun but lowered it to his side. He didn't take his eyes off of me. He was tall and skinny. He had short dark hair and a goatee. He wore a dirty wife beater, blue jeans and work boots covered in grease and dirt. I tried not to look at him and just kept my head down, sure that there was something up here I wasn't supposed to see.
A few minutes later Ty came walking my way with a duffel bag over his shoulder. He threw it in the back and climbed in.
"Sorry about that, I forgot to tell them you were coming."
"Obviously, thanks. Thought I was about to die."
"They won't hurt you. All talk and no walk. Let's go, I have to meet someone. They aren't too far from here."
I did a sharp u-turn, still trying to avoid looking past the old truck, and headed back down the dirt road. We drove down some more back roads I had never seen before. I guess if you're going to be in the game, you have to stay as far away from town as you can.
Ty eventually had me pull next to an old abandoned house and turn off the car. He pulled a little bag and a card out of his pocket.
"You got anything we can make lines on?"
I thought for a second. I had a cook book I had bought for a friends birthday sitting in the back seat. It's all I had that we could use. I didn't want to deface it, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Surely he couldn't tell if we had snorted drugs off of it.
"Yeah, I got this," I said as I pulled out the book and handed it over. It was a large, hard copy book straight out of today's mail.
"Eat like you give a fuck? Interesting. This will work."
He laid the book in his lap and shook some shards out of the bag and began crushing them with his card.
"So, I need to warn you about who we're about to see," he said as he straightened the powder into six long lines. "She's one of my ex's, and she's fucking crazy. I don't just say that because I dated her. I mean it. You'll have to see for yourself, but once she started shooting up, she lost her fucking mind. Promise me you won't start shooting up, please." He looked over at me with sincerity in his eyes.
"Yeah, I promise! I like smoking it anyways. Seems like too much work to shoot up. Same high anyways."
"Uh, yeah, kind of. So anyways, she has some of my shit at her house I need and she has some stuff she owes me. She can just sit in the back for a bit, we don't have to go anywhere."
"Okay, sure, whatever you need to do. I'm just the driver. Tweaker taxi I might add," I said with a laugh.
"Hm, I guess you're not wrong. Hold this still for me."
I grabbed the book and held it where he could see it in the dim street light. He leaned over and snorted 2 lines before he sat up shaking his head with a grimace.
"I'm good. That's some solid shit right there. You can have the rest. I'll hold it for you if you want."
"Hell yeah! Thanks!"
He took the book and laid it in his lap. I grabbed the small straw I kept tucked away in the console and situated myself so I could lean over the console. I took a slow, deep breath out and did the other four lines back to back. I sat back up and rubbed my nose. My throat burned and my nose dripped, but I felt amazing.
I grabbed the book, licked the residue off of it, and sat it under my seat. As I was trying to get the rest of the dope out of my nose, Ty's phone rang.
"Hey, where you at?... Oh, I see you... Yeah, just get in the back. I got Emily with me, but she's cool."
I looked up and saw someone in the distance walking our direction. As they got closer, I realized it was a young dark haired girl in a mini dress, carrying what looked like a pillow case and a metal box. She passed by my door and got in the back seat behind me.
"Yo, where the fuck you been, mother fucker! You still got my shit and here I am bringing this to you like you got me chained or somethin'. Who the fuck you think I am, Ty? I ain't one of your dope hoes!"
She was berating Ty as he just looked out of the window like he had heard it all before. I just looked down, trying to make myself small and unseen.
"Oh, hi darling,I'm Terri! It's nice to meet you! You are so beautiful!" I looked back and she was smiling and reaching her hand out to me. I shook her hand, a bit confused at what the hell just happened. "Sorry, sweetie, we just have some stuff we need to work out."
"You're good, I'm just... here. Just ignore me."
Ty turned around and looked at her, "before I give you shit, I need mine."
"You piece of shit, fuck you. I got what you want. Here, fucking take it."
She threw the metal box at Ty. He opened it and turned it away from me. I caught a glimpse of what looked like costume jewelry and loose diamonds.
"Bet. Where's my other shit? You have almost all my clothes. I've been living out of a bag for months."
"Yeah because you been avoiding me! You are such a piece of shit, Ty. You act like you don't care, like you some hard ass. You just some mixed kid with daddy issues!"
"Hey! Shut your god damn mouth. I know what I'm about. You couldn't keep your fuckin' legs closed around Brick and Trevor and you let them shoot you up. Why you think I left your ass in the first place?"
"Oh you act like you aren't fucking everything that walks! You probably fuckin' that bitch too!"
"Hey now," I interrupted, "It's not like that. I haven't touched him, okay? I'm just the driver. I swear."
Ty furrowed his eyebrows and glared over at me. For the record, I haven't had sex with Ty, but some other things went down that I wasn't about to tell her.
"Sorry honey," she said in her high pitched country voice, "I'm just so used to him fuckin' around with everyone and he acts like I don't know!"
"I understand completely, girl! No worries at all."
I was trying to stay as neutral as possible, since I couldn't exactly leave my own car. Suddenly, her attitude changed.
"Okay, so I've got your stuff in my car, but it's at my parents house. I have it all in a box for you if you want to go get it."
"Oh, so we're playing nice now?"
"I mean, you need your stuff. I wouldn't expect you to run around without clothes, silly!"
Ty rolled his eyes, "Fine. Her house is right up the road. Just go straight and take a left when you see a yellow mailbox. It's a short dirt road. This won't take long."
I started the car and drove down the road. Her and Ty were talking about what they had been doing the past few months, what licks they hit, and who got locked up recently.
I pulled into a driveway with three broken down cars and a tiny trailer. As soon as I parked, they both got out without a word. I watched them walk over to what I was assuming to be her car and she handed him a cardboard box full of clothes. He handed her some money and something in a plastic bag. Suddenly, the yelling started again. I couldn't hear anything they were saying, so I just watched.
She was throwing her hands in the air screaming at him and shoving him while he just stood there. She slapped him in the face and he pushed her down on the ground. I watched him grab his things and run towards the car. He jumped in, as I saw her get up.
"Go! Just back down the driveway!"
I started the car and floored it. Dirt and rocks flew everywhere and she came running towards us screaming. I made it to the road and flew down the street before I even remembered to turn the headlights on.
I looked over at Ty who was visibly pissed.
"Promise me. Promise me you will never shoot up. You saw how she was, she's fucking crazy! She used to not be like that. Fuckin' Brick shot her up one time and she lost her fucking mind. I'm serious. Promise me, Em. You're a good person, I don't want to see you like that."
"I promise."
"Thank you. I'm holding you to that."
"I don't even know how to shoot up!"
"Don't figure it out."
Ty had me drive him back to where I picked him up. This time no one was outside and the truck from earlier was gone. I pulled up into the driveway and parked behind another car.
"Wait here. Don't come in. Don't get out of the car. I'll be right back."
He took his box of clothes and the metal box he got from Terri and headed inside.
I looked around a bit to try and gather my surroundings. It was a nice looking double wide trailer, but the yard was scattered in old cars, tires, scrap metal, and power tools. It looked like a junk yard.
My phone was dead, so I watched the clock on the dashboard as the minutes passed by. After waiting a little over an hour, I laid my head down on the steering wheel and closed my eyes. I wasn't tired, at least not physically, but I was emotionally drained. I had a gun pulled on me again, I just had to deal with Ty and his crazy ex girlfriend, and now I was left here in the car with nothing to do.
A little while later, there was a knock on my window. I jerked up to see a tall, skinny, young woman at my window. She had long curly blonde hair and her face was sunken in.
"I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted to check to see if you were okay!" she said through the window.
"Oh! I'm fine, thank you!"
"Do you want to come in?"
"Ty said I couldn't, thank you though."
She seemed a little sad when I told her I couldn't come in. "Okay, I'll try to see if I can get him to hurry. When him and Troy get together it's hard to get them apart!" she said as she walked back into the house.
I wondered why Ty made me stay out here. Who ever she was, she seemed pretty nice. I never expected someone to come out and check on me. Especially after what happened here earlier.
After another 20 or so minutes, Ty finally came back out, followed by several small dogs. I heard an older man yell for them to come back inside, but they all ran off in different directions.
Ty got in the car with a blow torch and a Walmart bag.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yeah, just tell me where I'm going."
"Go find somewhere we can smoke, but go into town. I got to go somewhere later."
I drove to town and ended up parked in the parking lot of a Hilton hotel overlooking the street below us. There was never anyone parked out here, and surely no one was going anywhere at two in the morning.
Ty started a bowl and we passed it back and forth.
"So who were those people? Some woman came outside to check on me."
"That's Danielle, ol' boy's wife. They aren't good people. I don't want you around them."
"She seemed nice. If they're bad, why are you there?"
"Just needed to handle business."
"Understood."
We sat there for a while talking about how easy it is to steal scooters in the winter and how we could change the VIN number, paint them and resell them in the spring for profit. He told me about other licks he's hit and cars he's stolen. It never struck me as scary or dangerous, but I was rather excited by it. Could I ever do it? Absolutely not. I think the thought of doing dangerous and illegal things was just exciting to me because I never had an exciting life, but here I was, smoking meth in a parking lot, talking to a criminal drug dealer about how to resell stolen goods. Never thought I would see that as "exciting".
I dropped Ty off at Brick's house later that morning and headed back home, still fully wired from the lines I did earlier. I kept wondering what was so bad about Danielle and whoever "ol' boy" was. Troy maybe? She just seemed so nice. Maybe I'd see them again some day. Hopefully without Ty.
To be continued...
So chapter 19 comes to a close. I can't believe I've written 19 chapters already and there's still so much to tell and more people to introduce!
I never did run across Terri again and that's probably for the best. She was a little crazy.
About the book... I feel like I should elaborate a bit on it. I had bought it as a birthday present for a guy (who has since transitioned to a female, but for the sake of this timeline, anonymity, and story, I will refer to them as their gender during this time in which all this happened) I was seeing before I ever started using. Michael wanted the same cook book and was very upset with me when I got it for him instead. I had met Michael who really liked me, then started seeing this other guy and Michael hated it. So, the cookbook (which is bad ass by the way) was called "Eat like you give a fuck" because this guy was an incredible chef. I remember hesitating before handing it over to Ty. I felt so bad for doing lines off of it, then handing it to them as a gift later on. I still feel guilty about that.
I'm not sure if I have explained snorting lines before, so I'll go ahead. Btw, I hate the term "snorting" because it sounds nasty, but that's what it is. Anyways, when you snort it, it will drip down your throat and I swear you can taste every single chemical in it. It's A W F U L!! It burns too. Usually, I'd hold the other side of my nose after and keep snorting air in to get it all out because having meth in your nose hurts if you leave it in there. I can vividly remember the taste, feeling, and high I got from snorting it. Every time I think about it, I swear I can taste it in my throat. It's a very similar high to shooting up (at least it was for me), but the effects don't last as long.
Oh, also the one guy who pulled a gun on me first I never saw again. He looked like he was in a Peal Jam tribute band, lol. Eventually, I got used to having guns pulled on me. Just a normal every day thing in the game. I never carried one though. Throughout this whole thing, I only ever carried a knife. I believed, and still do to this day, that if I'm going to hurt someone, It's going to be up close and personal. I don't even go for ranged weapons in video games, lol.
ALSO I would like to go ahead and state that I NEVER stole any scooters or vehicles or any kind. It was just Ty and his stories. He did. I know he did, I had proof several times, but that's to come later on. To be honest, even while I was using and caught up in all the bad shit, I felt so bad at the thought of it. I knew someone worked hard to get what they had. Why would you go take it from them? That could be all they had. I never had the heart to even attempt anything like that. Story on that in particular later on.
I will do my best to keep everything going weekly like it has been. Thank you all again for being patient with me! Life loves to throw me curve balls and I just haven't perfected catching them just yet.