My Mother left my Dad for good after he broke her knee, and we really had nowhere to go. My Mother's family was not the types to take in other family members unless they were children. Adults were expected to make it on their own, so we moved in with a friend of my Moms. It was not long after that my Mom had to go into the hospital for a Hysterectomy, and she did not know what to do with me. She called my Aunt that I had stayed in in North Carolina and basically begged her to let me come back down there. My Aunt spoke to my Uncle, and they said yes. I got on a Greyhound bus the next day.
When I got to North Carolina my Uncle had a long talk with me about my going to the bar the last time I was there. I agreed to do my best in school and to behave myself at home.
My first day back to school there was one of the best memories I have in life. I was walking through the hall on my way to class when I turned a corner and ran right into the girlfriend I had been forced to leave 6 months (or however long) earlier. She immediately dropped her books and gave me a huge hug! It was one of the few times in my life when I have felt true unconditional love from someone.
I decided that I was going to do my best to do the right thing and was actually doing rather well. I was going to school and doing my homework, actually passing all my classes, and doing my chores at home. One day my Aunt blew up at me over my bed not being made and she threatened to send me back to Michigan. I went to my room, packed a bag, and climbed out of the window. I went to the friends house from school who I had went to the bar with before, and stayed there. My cousins came looking for me to tell me that my Uncle had went to the school and found out I had been doing good. They said they wanted me to come back, but I refused. My Aunt yelling at me like that was too much like my life at home and I wanted nothing to do with it.
My friends house was a lot like my friends at home, except the sex with his parents. I was allowed to drink and smoke weed and didn't do much else. It did not take long for his Mother to decide that I was not her kid and she was not going to support me. She told me I had a week to get a job or move. Since I was not even 15 yet a job was not likely to happen. I called my Mom and begged her to send me a bus ticket, which she did.
I was riding on a Greyhound bus by myself at 14 years old. You could smoke on buses back then, and bus stations were dens of iniquity to say the least. I was at a layover in Nashville Tennessee when an older black man got on and sat next to me in the back. I had a cassette player and some tapes with me to listen to and I listened to a lot of different stuff, from RUN DMC to Beastie Boys to Led Zeppelin. This guy asked me if he could borrow my music off and on until he got off in Detroit. He said that if I did he would get me high. I figured he was talking about weed until he pulled out a juice jar full of some white stuff. He made the comment that someone had messed up because he had only paid $80 for it. I had no idea what it was or what it should cost. I was down to try it whatever it was so I told him yes.
This was the late 80's and Crack had been on the front page of most Magazines. I had never experienced it, but I was about to. This guy took a pop can and poked some holes to make a simple screen then put some cigarette ashes over the holes. He then took a "Rock" and melted it into the ashes. He told me to go in the bathroom and hit the smoke as hard as I could, then hold it as long as I could. I did not know he had put a whole $20 rock on the can.
It was the greatest thing I had ever felt. I felt as though I could figure anything out, talk to anyone about anything, do anything. I wanted to feel like that forever. I smoked $20 rocks about every 20 minutes all the way to Detroit. When we got there he gave me about 6 rocks and we parted ways. It was a good thing we were going back to the small town and hadn't moved to the city yet or I would have became a full blown crack head right then. Instead I became one later in life, for now I was a kid with some rocks looking for someone to smoke them with. I soon found someone.
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