Day Four

It's the Weekend

So today is Friday, meaning that the weekend is upon me. Today I enjoy the weekends. It means I have two days off to enjoy the company of my family and friends. It also means I can do most anything I please. There was a time though when I never got a day off. Dope kind of fucks that up for you. The getting, using, and finding ways and means to get more is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week gig.

By the time that I was having to hustle full time again things had gotten pretty bad. I had started a relationship with this wonderful woman sometime around the time I relapsed and had stopped screwing Jane. At this point Jane was my connection. There were a few other sources for my habit, but the 5th amendment is a beautiful thing. Being a narcotics officer and a drug addict just don't mix. It wasn't too long till questions were asked and I felt it better to resign than go through a bunch of shit and get fired in the end either way. I wouldn't have been able to pass a piss test anyways. Life went downhill fast. I was using a credit card for buying dope. I can tell you that it doesn't take very long to rack up almost 10k in debt when you are buying dope. Needless to say my habit got big and I had to begin using another CI for dope when Jane couldn't get any. This other CI, I'll call him Thomas, was a guy I made some great cases with. Reliable, as honest as a junky can be, and actually a pretty nice guy. When I was dope sick he would give me some of his and vice-versa. I began using him more than Jane.

By this time my girlfriend was suspecting I had relapsed. She and I had known each other for over a decade. She could tell something was wrong, but I adamantly denied it. I could not let her know that I had relapsed because that would mean she would leave me for being a failure (She didn't leave nor did she think of me as a failure).

I had given Thomas $100 for a gram of black tar heroin. It was pretty good stuff we had been getting so he was going to get a gram for us. He was waiting on this certain dope dealer to get back from wherever he was re-upping(getting more dope). We thought it might be in Chicago, but we were never sure. A day went by and I called Thomas, no answer. I kept calling and calling and he would never answer. Finally it stopped ringing and started going straight to voicemail. I just knew that this asshole had ripped me off. He had already screwed me over $100 for suboxone strips, but his story for that was just plausible enough that I might have believed him a little. 3 days had passed and I had to go see what was going on. I had been to the driveway of his house many times to give him money and pick up dope. I had never been inside. He was squatting in an all black neighborhood. He was a white guy. Him and his wife, "Tina", lived in one room of this vacant house with an extension cord running from the light pole to the front bedroom of the house. That day I entered the house for the first time, my life changed forever. I pulled up to the house and saw that the front door was halfway open. I walked up and tried to get through the door without opening it up all the way. The front room was filled with wood planks and sheets where Thomas must have been doing work on the place. I yelled his name  "Thomas, you in here?" He didn't answer. I walked to the right through a door that led to the hallway. As I rounded the entryway into the hallway I yelled for Thomas again...Again no answer. I began walking towards the front bedroom which was directly to the right as you entered the hallway. As soon as I got close to the half opened door I saw Thomas's feet on the bed. I figured he was sleeping so I kind of stuck my head into the room to say his name and get him awake. As my eyes scanned towards the head of the bed I realized Thomas was dead. His eyes were wide open staring at me while the blood under his chin and the blood and fragments from the top of his head were all over the pillow. He had been shot in the head. My heart began to pound and I began to tremble. As I began to back out of the doorway I saw his wife Tina on the floor next to him. She looked like she was balled up in a comforter and there was blood on the side of her head. I knew she had been murdered too. I instantly knew that someone had found out that Thomas had worked for the police as an informant and murdered him for that. I began shaking so heavily and was so scared. I just wanted my life to be ok at this point. I didn't want to be an addict, I didn't want to be involved in shit like this, I didn't want to be scared, I just wanted to be ok and it wasn't FUCKING OK! I ran outside, jumped into my truck and drove towards my house. I called crimestoppers, but hung up before I left a message because I was convinced they would know who I was and then everyone would find out I was a heroin addict. I was so wrapped up in the heroin that I missed the fact that everyone already knew I was a junky.

 

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”   - William Shakespeare, Macbeth