and that he still has life. Sometimes pain can bring about clarity and remind us we’re still breathing. I take a letter opener off Bob’s desk and shove it into my stapled wound. I want to scream so badly that I have to hold my breath. Every part of me wants to run from this feeling, to avoid it at all costs. Just like I want to run from having to kill Alice because I know that, even though it will save my ass, it will ultimately destroy me. But the pain centers me and makes me forget about the outside world. It reminds me that I am alone and always have been. It forces me to focus on what I have to do, what I was born to do.
----
Rule #8: Jump.
Along with an innate survival instinct—which is more specifically an animal thing—we are born with a strong emotional attachment to life, which is specifically a human thing. This is something you will need to cut from yourself like a surgeon cuts out a tumor.
When I first met Bob, as I said I was twelve years old. I was incarcerated at the Tracy juvenile detention center in Northern California,one of the worst in the country. I was serving time there for killing my foster parents in San Francisco. I cycled into their home when I was eight years old after their biological son had died at seven of some disease they never disclosed.
Seemed like a nice place. My impression was that they were a couple of sad old hippies who just needed a warm body to fill the void. They got a reptile instead. But they didn’t seem to care about my complete emotional disconnection. That was because they were not at all what they seemed. They were running one of the biggest heroin smuggling operations on the West Coast. Which is why, as an homage to one of my favorite films, I will call them Mickey and Mallory. Their deceased son had been their mule, running balloons all over the city. Imagine sending a seven-year-old into the Tenderloin to deliver half a kilo in balloons to a flophouse full of toothless whores and gangbangers. He didn’t die of a disease. He took a bullet when the narcs raided the flophouse. Mickey and Mallory, remaining true to their chickenshit souls, never claimed the body, and their own flesh and blood was buried a John Doe, along with all the other nameless human refuse, in a potter’s field.
When I later became their indentured servant and replacement mule, I heard that story from one of the gangbangers I was supplying. His street name was Indio, Spanish for “Indian.” Nice guy. He was nice to me anyway. The seven teardrop tattoos coming from the corners of both of his eyes indicated he did not really play well with others. He used to give me money for food on the side because he knew my “parents” wouldn’t and they counted every cent I brought back from my “errands.”
Mickey and Mallory weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed though. First of all, they started cutting the heroin with a lot of things other than heroin to boost profits—even though I know they brought in about $25,000 a week in cash. Ah, greed. The fact that it is the undoing of just about every criminal is one thing that is very accurate inthe movies. And far be it from Mickey and Mallory to do anything other than immerse themselves in this cliché.
Indio was the first to tell me that he knew what Mickey and Mallory were doing and that their days were numbered. He had two “customers” croak in two weeks because of some toxic shit Mickey and Mallory cut into the H. Most greedy dealers were at least smart enough to use something nontoxic because, as Indio used to say, “dead don’t pay.” Also, if word gets out that you’re selling the death trip, the dealer down the block just got a whole new revenue stream.
I saw this as an opportunity. These fucking assholes were using and abusing me, and even though I was eight years old, I was over taking shit from anyone ever again. All of the pent-up frustration and rage that had been building in me since my cognitive abilities were mature
----
Rule #8: Jump.
Along with an innate survival instinct—which is more specifically an animal thing—we are born with a strong emotional attachment to life, which is specifically a human thing. This is something you will need to cut from yourself like a surgeon cuts out a tumor.
When I first met Bob, as I said I was twelve years old. I was incarcerated at the Tracy juvenile detention center in Northern California,one of the worst in the country. I was serving time there for killing my foster parents in San Francisco. I cycled into their home when I was eight years old after their biological son had died at seven of some disease they never disclosed.
Seemed like a nice place. My impression was that they were a couple of sad old hippies who just needed a warm body to fill the void. They got a reptile instead. But they didn’t seem to care about my complete emotional disconnection. That was because they were not at all what they seemed. They were running one of the biggest heroin smuggling operations on the West Coast. Which is why, as an homage to one of my favorite films, I will call them Mickey and Mallory. Their deceased son had been their mule, running balloons all over the city. Imagine sending a seven-year-old into the Tenderloin to deliver half a kilo in balloons to a flophouse full of toothless whores and gangbangers. He didn’t die of a disease. He took a bullet when the narcs raided the flophouse. Mickey and Mallory, remaining true to their chickenshit souls, never claimed the body, and their own flesh and blood was buried a John Doe, along with all the other nameless human refuse, in a potter’s field.
When I later became their indentured servant and replacement mule, I heard that story from one of the gangbangers I was supplying. His street name was Indio, Spanish for “Indian.” Nice guy. He was nice to me anyway. The seven teardrop tattoos coming from the corners of both of his eyes indicated he did not really play well with others. He used to give me money for food on the side because he knew my “parents” wouldn’t and they counted every cent I brought back from my “errands.”
Mickey and Mallory weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed though. First of all, they started cutting the heroin with a lot of things other than heroin to boost profits—even though I know they brought in about $25,000 a week in cash. Ah, greed. The fact that it is the undoing of just about every criminal is one thing that is very accurate inthe movies. And far be it from Mickey and Mallory to do anything other than immerse themselves in this cliché.
Indio was the first to tell me that he knew what Mickey and Mallory were doing and that their days were numbered. He had two “customers” croak in two weeks because of some toxic shit Mickey and Mallory cut into the H. Most greedy dealers were at least smart enough to use something nontoxic because, as Indio used to say, “dead don’t pay.” Also, if word gets out that you’re selling the death trip, the dealer down the block just got a whole new revenue stream.
I saw this as an opportunity. These fucking assholes were using and abusing me, and even though I was eight years old, I was over taking shit from anyone ever again. All of the pent-up frustration and rage that had been building in me since my cognitive abilities were mature
Similar Books
