"Crack is Whack" by Zach

Disclaimer:

I am not proud of this story. But I must continue to tell it in the hopes that I will never do crack again. And that it will dissuade you, kind reader, from doing the same.

On a pleasant Brooklyn evening I returned home from happy hour to find a disheveled black dude on the stoop in front of my apartment. Here, on a street leading to the projects, I lived with two girls and three cats in a cramped but decent enough NYC flat. Sure, I heard drive-bys and gang fights and domestic disputes on the street at 4am, but I was proud of my first pad in the big city.

Anyway, the man blocking entry to my place asked if I could spare three dollars. Now, this was curious to me because normally when a person begs for money they low-ball, simply asking for "some change". Needless to say I found the requested amount of $3 to be odd... ahem.

When I asked him why he needed that exact amount, he quickly and unabashedly replied, "Cause I need to get some more crack and that's what I'm short."

Simple enough, right?

Well, being the kinda guy I am, wanting to engage in yet another psycho-social trust experiment, I tell him that if I give him the $3 that he has to come back and smoke his score with me. I had never smoked crack before and I wasn't really interested in getting high with this guy (wink, nudge). I just wanted to see if my "experiment" would work; to see if he really would come back as he promised he would.

Well....

Sure as shit this guy comes back ten minutes later with a gleam in his eye that excites and frightens me at the same time. For anyone who has waited for a drug deal to come through, you know the feeling you get when your drugs arrive, regardless of how long you've waited or how much shit-talking you've done about your dealer. When that moment comes all is forgiven.

So he says to me, "We gonna do this?"

With a bit of hesitation and realizing that I had to hold up my end of the bargain now, I said, "Yeah, but let's do it out here on the stoop cause I think my roommates are home and I can't just take some random dude into my apartment to smoke crack."

Here's where he gets upset and uses some not-so-subtle intimidation tactics on me; the kind you find in prison or war that indicate you don't have a choice in the matter. My experiment has flipped on me a bit. I concede, knowing my roommates are in fact not home, and walk him upstairs into my apartment.

Furthermore, who does crack on a stoop in Brooklyn? I should have known better.
What was I an amateur?

We get inside and now I can really see this guy. He's got a scar down the left side of his face, running clean from his eye to jawline. This pit-bull looking motherfucker seems a lot more intimidating in a well lit room, but suddenly the fear dissipates when he sniffles and says, "Hey man, you got any porn?"

"Uh, yeah", I reply.

Luckliy, one of my roommates was seeing a guy who was classy enough to give her a copy of Cheri magazine as a birthday gift. I unearthed it from the pile of Nylon and Vogue magazines on our coffee table and tossed it to my new friend. He disappeared into the bathroom and for the next 5 minutes I sat quietly in amazement, withholding judgment.



When he comes back into the living room after his conjugal visit he sits down and explains to me that he has indeed just gotten out of prison and hasn't seen a woman's body in a long time. He imparts a story about getting busted for stealing cars and serving time for a couple years upstate. I ask him where he got the scar and he turns to me with a disgusted look, saying, "Where you think?"

My fear returns and I thank god I have never been to prison. This JewAmerIndian pearl of a body would be mince meat in minutes.

Quickly I change the subject and focus on the task at hand: getting high!!

But wait, I had never smoked crack before and didn't know what to expect. I know that crack is basically just baking soda mixed with cocaine, but I didn't have a clue as to how long the high would last or what feelings I may experience.

I told my friend, whose name was Lamar, I had never done this before. He flashed a smile and pulled out his broken crack pipe. As he lays out the rocks and packs the pipe he says, "We gon' have a good time."

At this point I'm staring at the broken glass pipe thinking, "Alright! This is authentic!"
Like when you go to Xochimilco in Detroit.

Lamar takes a drag and exhales a thick, white cloud of smoke more dense than any bong rip I've ever seen. He sinks back into the couch and passes me the pipe. I follow suit. For the next ten minutes there's nothing but the hum of electricity and stale smoke lingering in the air. Coming out of our haze we pack it up again and another ten minutes of brain annihilation ensues.

Smoking crack is like taking a combination of a vicodin, weed and nitrous, making for a brief euphoric dance party in your head. Then you snap out of it and clamor for more. I knew my addictive personality was a perfect match for this drug but it's not the sustained high that weed, alcohol, or good cocaine can give you. You have to keep wailing away on that pipe every couple of minutes to keep your buzz worthy of recognition. That kind of effort is too much for me. Drug administration should be quick, and the wave ridden as long as possible.

A half hour passes and, after a few more drags on the pipe, I realize it's time for my friend to leave our little two-man party. But before getting up to leave, Lamar asks what I'm up to tonight. I mistakenly tell him that I'm going to a party (which I'm already late for due to my crack smoking experiment). He smiles and says he's got shit else to do and he likes partying with me (fuck, who doesn't, right?)

Perhaps my brain was mush but I saw no reason why bringing a new friend to the party was such a bad idea. So what if he's a crack head and former convict. Who cares? He had served his time and, at this point, we were both just a couple of crackheads. Who was I to judge him?

I said, "Sure. Let's go".


Our "if the mood is right" crack-using friend is depicted here with a cane.