Homeless extortion

I could tell the events that were unfolding were taking their toll on Brandon. He didn't outright show it but I could just see it on his face. He'd never been this deep into his addiction, into crime and into homelessness. For that matter I hadn't either. I wondered if my poker face was as bad as his. 

After offing all the plunders from the last burglary we were set for a few days. A purse I had grabbed off the counter had almost $400 inside. That combined with the gun, the 3 laptops and all the miscellaneous jewelry and video games had yielded us more dope than we could even carry between the two of us in our mouths. It had been weeks since either one of us had showered. I asked Brandon if he thought getting a hotel was a good idea but Brandon had what we thought at the time was a better idea. 

We went to a social services office the next day. In Clark county Nevada, contrary to popular belief, there is a fair amount of help for the homeless. You just have to not be strung out long enough to keep it together and get the assistance. Or in our case, have enough drugs to not have to work for awhile. Brandon knew that there were 30 day rent vouchers you could get to help get you on your feet for up to 3 months. In addition to the vouchers, there were homeowners that would take you in and help you get your ID if you didn't have one as long as you contribute with food stamps and pay for a room in their rental homes with your vouchers. I remember thinking of it as a foster family for struggling adults. As I would quickly come to realize, the operation was much more seedy than I had imagined.

The papers to fill out for your ID, rent vouchers and food stamps were easily obtained. I grabbed my applications and snuck off to a trash enclosure to fix and fill them out. When I returned Brandon was talking to a guy I could easily tell was an addict and a slender, older well dressed Asian man. I remember thinking to myself, this kid is a natural.

Joe was a soft spoken man. His spirit seemed much younger than he actually was. He must have been at least 55. But he was willing to give us a place to stay, rent free for two weeks as long as we were willing to give over our vouchers for the next 3 months each. The younger man that accompanied him was 25 or so, about my age, he looked like he had been recently taken off the streets also. He sang Joe's praises as if he were a saint.

"So you guys are coming? That's awesome! Joe is a great man! You will be well taken care of." The man said

"We are heading back to the house now if you would like to get cleaned up I can meet with you gentlemen in the morning and we can figure out a timeline for getting you boys on track." Joe said

I didn't even have to say a word. Brandon did all the talking. We got in Joe's new BMW SUV and headed for our new place. 

The 5 bedroom home had a converted living room and garage set to accommodate up to 12 people in total. 2 in each bedroom and 2 in the living room and the garage had various lockers and storage closets. The math didn't sit well with me. At maximum capacity Joe was "renting" the home for a hefty $4,800 per month and based on the discussion I had heard in the car on the way Joe owned 3 other homes with the same set up and they were not only paid for but they were full. Taking advantage of dozens of people that were down in there luck combined with the uneasy feeling joe gave me anytime I looked at him I realized this wasn't shaping up to be as great an idea as we had first planned.

Surprisingly the next week went by with ease and routine. I'd wake up sick early in the morning, head down to the walmart down the street to fix and panhandle money in the parking lot for cigarettes and food. All the while Joe and the housemates assumed I was "looking for work". Brandon hardly left the house. During this time he had taken to showering 2 times a day. This gave him the time to shoot up in the only privacy he could find. 

By the end of the week I was almost out of drugs. Brandon was completely out. He woke me up just before sunrise and asked me if I had anything to help him out. I opened my backpack. 2 balloons. Just the 2 and that was it from all we had shown up with. I was never the type to hold out on a friend. I gave him one but told him we were either going to have to detox without anyone in the house knowing or go get more. Brandon told me not to worry and that he had another plan. I gave him a balloon and told him, as I had often to this point, to be careful and think about what he was going to do before doing anything drastic.

I tried to sleep in late since I had no idea what I was getting into in the days to come. I had kicked without people knowing in the past. Mind over matter, I'd always told myself. Maybe I'd call my mom and see if she was willing to speak to me again. Maybe I'd go back to WestCare. It's crazy all the things that go through your head when you know you are in the downside of a bad idea. Logic told me our stay at the homeless hotel was about to run out. Maybe I could make the best of it and try to get clean. With the way my life had been the last few months that idea wouldn't be so bad.

Brandon apparently didn't feel the same way. I was just getting up when he busted into the room and quickly started packing his  things. 

"You alright man? What's wrong?" I asked

"Absolutely nothing bro! Let's get the fuck outta here!" He said

"I'm gonna stay here man it's safer here and we are outta shit." I said

"You can stay if you want but we aren't quite outta shit." Brandon said and pulled a ziplock snack bag out of his pocket almost completely full of balloons. 

"Well that's that then I guess. 2 things though. 1 where should we go and 2 where the hell did you get all that dope?" I said.

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By the cover of the late afternoon

We waited until sundown to trek to the house Brandon had predetermined would be our best bet. He knew nobody was home, knew where the hide-a-key was and more or less exactly what he wanted to grab. I was apprehensive to say the least. 

I've come to learn that many junkies don't always commit crimes to feed there habit. Whether it's guts or morals or anything of that nature, it takes a certain type of mindset to be okay with knowingly committing a crime to feed your habit. Though this was not my first time breaking the law, I was having doubts that I was interested in going through with our plans. It was at that time Brandon called for my backpack.

The home was your average 2 parent 2 child home, 1 master bedroom, 2 kids rooms. Brandon had already finished up in the parents room and instructed me to tackle the kids rooms with my bag while he pillaged the living room, office and kitchen for whatever else was left. 

I kind of poked around for a second. After all, I didn't know the place like Brandon. The older child of the family was a friend of his from high school. Someone he grew up with, played with on the playground. Now, this friend and his family had become no more then a mark. 

I found a portable DVD player, laptop, money jar and a few other items before Brandon busted in the room and told me he was ready to depart.

Thievery on this level was pitiful and dangerous. The part of Vegas we were in (as most of the Clark county area) was always full of cops buzzing around looking for criminals. It was about a 2-3 mile hike back to the alley we would be calling home for the night but we wouldn't have to wait that long to score. When we reached Burger King the Mexican was already waiting for Brandon. The kid had the nerve to call his dude from the house phone in the home we had just robbed. Brandon took my backpack and rode off to the other side of the parking lot and hopped out with 2 empty backpacks and another mouthful of balloons. 

"He took everything! I'll split it with you but next time we are selling out shit independent. Cool?" Brandon said

"That's fine." I said

I put my balloons in my mouth and headed towards the burger king to fix in the bathroom and told Brandon I'd be back at the alley in a few. 

Fixing in a high traffic bathroom requires much skill if you don't want anyone knowing what your doing. I was getting used to it. Coming to grips with the fact that you are comfortable shooting speedballs in fast food bathrooms is something you would think wouldn't fall by the wayside. Not for me. I was proud. Maybe I didn't have many things to be proud of. Whatever the reason was I was getting cocky. 

Now I just want to state that I wasn't trying to overdose. Push the limits? Yes. Get really high? Absolutely. However, as I pushed the plunger down I still remember thinking to myself;

"Oh no....... that was way too much."

I don't even remember hitting the ground. I don't exactly know how long I was lying there or how exactly the Burger King shift manager found out I was on the floor. 

"Sir!!!! Sir!!! Wake up!" The shift manager said

As I woke up the man tried to hold me on the ground. I kicked him off and pulled the 1/2 full needle out of my arm all the while scrambling to pick up all the drugs that must have fallen out of my mouth when I collapsed.

"The police are on their way." the manager said

I didn't say a word. I just ran. Out of the bathroom. Out of the restaurant. Out of the shopping complex. To that point in my life that was the highest I had ever been. I could barely stay upright. My mind felt as though I must have been all over the place as I ran. 

Our alley wasn't too far down the road. I hit the couch and didn't even wake Brandon sitting on the other side, the straw still dangling from his mouth with a trail on his foil that looked like he had smoked about a gram of dope before nodding out. 

The next few days were more of the same. We hit houses during the day while people were at work and their kids were in school, sometimes 2 to 4 houses a day for about a week or so. Late one afternoon we came upon a house that was locked up tight but we could see that the alarm wasn't set from the window. Brandon also noticed that there were 2 laptops in the home office. I tried the windows and Brandon went around back. After trying all the windows I had decided to give up. As I rounded the corner to the back of the house I found Brandon trying to pry the backdoor open with a garden shovel he had found on the grass.

"We gotta get in there man my dude wants laptops." He said

"C'mon man it's locked up tight we'll get them somewhere else." I said

"Nah, I know what will get the door open!" He said

He leaned over and picked up a full sized cinder block that looked like it had been being used for a doorstop. Before I could say a word Brandon hurtled the concrete towards the window of the French door. It went straight through. I reached up and unlocked the door and just a so opened the door the alarm sounded. 

"We should go!" I said

"No! We hurry!" Brandon said and ran for the laptops.

I started shoveling items into my bag in the living room. Xbox, wallet, jewelry and a digital camera. I met Brandon in the hall and just as we got close to each other the alarm stopped ringing. Startled we split up the rooms to finish the job. Seconds later I heard the backdoor open. Brandon quietly ran into the bathroom and I followed behind and noticed through the mirror at the end of the hall that the person that entered the house wasn't the police that I expected but a woman. A younger woman maybe 25 years old. I closed the bathroom door and quietly consulted with my accomplice.

"What do we do now?" I said

"Just stay in here I'll handle it." Brandon said and reached into his backpack and pulled out a pistol.

"Where the fuck did you get that?" I said

"The last house we hit." Brandon said

"Is it loaded?" I asked

"Yea but it doesn't matter I'm just gonna scare her then we go. Got it?" He said

"Keep your cool man." I said

Brandon walked the hall to the end and krept around the corner, gun raised.

"Don't scream! I'm not gonna hurt you as long as you keep quiet. Are you alone?" He said

The girl shook her head yes and Brandon kicked over a toolbox in the corner of the living room. I saw him toss the girl a roll of duct tape.

"Don't make it too lose or I'll do it." He said

The girl bound her legs and Brandon finished her wrists. 

"Ok. We are gonna leave now.." Brandon said and was interrupted by the woman whaling. He proceeded to stick the barrel of the gun in her mouth. Her eyes widened and her sound was reduced to a whimper. 

"Stop man! Leave her alone! Let's get the fuck outta here!" I yelled

"Just be quiet and this will be over in just a second." Brandon commanded

It was at that moment we heard the police cars pull up in the front yard. We both made quick tracks for the master bedroom's adjacent bathroom and hopped out the shower window. Leaving out that window wasn't easy. The window was over 5 feet in the air and there wasn't much room to squeeze through. I hit the ground in a bush in the side yard face first. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I didn't notice. I hopped up and was instantly in a full sprint down the side street. 

We ran for what seemed like forever. I don't know for sure if we were the reason for the show, but by the time we made it to the taco shop down the road we could see a helicopter circling the neighborhood we had somehow managed to escape.

"Holy shit dude." I said

"That was too close!" Brandon said

"We gotta off this shit now. Call your dude. And SELL HIM THAT GUN!" I said

"For sure." Brandon said and headed for the pay phone.

If you would like to contribute to my efforts at stopping addiction please visit:

http://gofundme.com/q9vqkg

Together we can make a difference.

Learning Priorities

The ride to WestCare, the free detox and rehab on the north end of Las Vegas blvd, seemed to take forever. Now Andy's mom was jogging the conversation back and forth between grilling me for information about how much her son was actually using and trying to tell me I too needed to "get my shit together". I just bounced around the questions and didn't give her any real info. I had already started feeling bad about outing her son and what was more selfish, I realized I now had no way to get drugs. 

During that trip, I told myself I was gonna ride this rehab for all it was worth and see if they could help me get clean. I missed my family and my 2 year old son and I knew I had no chance of seeing anyone if I was still using. 

Andy's mom dropped me off in front of a building that resembled a private practice doctors office on a side street with no real sidewalks.

"This is it Christopher. Good luck!" she said 

"Thank you." I said and closed the door

I was already sick and had no money and no cigarettes so there was no turning back now. I headed toward the front door of the building.

The entryway of WestCare is not welcoming to say the least. An all white hallway, floor to ceiling, with a wooden half door with a few signs up in an attempt to ward off all of the stupid questions. I approached the door and was greeted by a man in a polo shirt with a grey mustache.

"Can I help you?" He said with ought looking up from his paperwork.

"I'd like to see about checking in." I said

"We are full you'll have to comeback after 4pm when we do discharges." The man said

"But I have nowhere else to go." I said 

"You can wait across the street under the big tree and if anything changes we will come out and get you. I'm sorry but we are full right now. Are you in immediate need of medical attention?" He said

"I don't think so, I'm just sick." I said

"Sick or detoxing?" he said

"Detoxing." I said

"From what? Heroin? Booze? What?" He asked

"Heroin." I said

"When was the last time you used?" He asked

"About 10pm last night." I said 

"Hang in there kid and we will get you in here for an exam as soon as we can get a bed ready ok?" He said

"Ok." I said and headed back outside.

It was only about 10:30am when I sat down under the big tree in the field of gravel across the street from the rehab. No money, no cigarettes, no phone and really I had nobody to call even if I had one. 

In a way I felt bad about what I did to Andy. I'd felt he deserved it though. He'd been steeling dope from me for weeks and the whole time masquerading as being my best friend. It's crazy how drugs can make you feel like everything's great when you're high. How in that moment no matter what's wrong in your life you are OKAY. I had spent the last month living with a scheming drug addict I barely knew that had convinced me into helping him commit a felony so we could go on a big drug binge and eventually, and in a short timeline I might add, end up worse off then we were before. But, somehow while I was doing these things being high allowed me to consider this a positive, happy situation for myself. Now with the drugs gone and the truth in front of me I found myself again alone and looking for help. 

I must have laid there tossing and turning on that gravel for hours because when the woman poked her head out of the door of the building to tell me I could come in the sun was on my face. I got in earlier than expected though not much. After filling out my paperwork and being searched the man with the mustache explained to me that I could only stay for 4 days unless I was interested in going to the their long term program which they referred to as "the mountain", a 30 day intake program on top of the Las Vegas valley mountains. I told them I was interested and the man said I could talk to my counselor about that tomorrow. For now it was time to rest. 

The men's dorm was nothing more than a huge room filled with hospital beds. Though the accommodations were strange I was actually grateful to have a place to rest. I was getting pretty sick by dinner time. 

Meals, meds, and meetings were all mandatory. WestCare had an open door policy so everyone there could leave at anytime. I gave my dinner away as I was too sick to eat and squirmed around in my chair until the AA/NA meeting was over. At about 9pm I was so week I could barely make my way back to my bed. I knew then it was gonna be a long night. Smoking cigarettes when you are sick, for a smoker like me, is vital. This was a no smoking facility which made things a lot more difficult. 

I tossed and turned all night. I wasn't the only one though. The room was alive with grunts and wails from every bed. When the lights came on for breakfast and prayer in the morning some of the faces had changed.  

During breakfast I tried to look around and see if there were any other heroin addicts in the men's pod. I made eye contact with a younger guy who looked like he was scouting the same thing I was. I sat down with my tray and tried to think of something clever to say.

"You gonna eat?" I asked the younger guy

"Hell no. Even if I could this food sucks." He said 

"Yea I hear ya. I'm too sick to eat anyway," I said

"Me too. You kicking black?" He asked

"Yea man. Bad" I said

"Me too. I just wanna get outta here." He said

"I came in wanting to make this work but I'm so sick now and they won't let us smoke. It's got me really stressed. Plus I don't have any money anyway." I said

"My dude will front me as soon as I leave if you wanna go pick up. If we leave now by the time we get off the bus by where I stay he will be there. You wanna go?" He said

"What's the catch?" I asked

"No catch. I just don't wanna get high alone." He said 

"What's your name kid?" I asked 

"Brandon." He said and stuck out his hand

"Well Brandon. I'm Chris. You are 100% sure you're okay with me tagging along and your dude will be cool with the front?" I asked

"Yea man 100% lets just say I'm a preferred customer." he said

"Alright man I'm convinced. Let's get our stuff and get going. If I get any sicker I'm going to start puking all over the place." I said

Within minutes we were at the gas station on Las Vegas blvd panhandling money for the phone call. Brandon was a 1/2 Mexican half white kid and said he was 19 though I had my suspicions he was younger. He spoke to the guy on the phone all in Spanish and confirmed the front. Minutes later we were on the bus. 

Sitting on the bus I had enough time to realize what I had just done. I left another rehab and was on my way to another part of town I was unfamiliar with to hopefully get free drugs from some kid who said it was a sure thing. On top of that I had just realized I wasn't going to be going to "the mountain" to get clean and hopefully speak to my family and get my sobriety underway. It's sad how no matter how important these things are when your strung out and sick getting high, no matter how difficult, is the priority. Again, though I knew full well the extent of my poor judgment, I just wanted to feel better.

When we got off the bus Brandon headed to the phone to call his guy and let him know he was there. He returned to tell me he'd be there in 10 minutes. Across the street was a neighborhood Walmart that had a pharmacy. I had no rigs and Brandon informed me he was a smoker so we headed across the street to panhandle a few bucks to buy rigs from the pharmacy and some foil. The first person I asked gave me $20 and Brandon $10. As soon as we walked out if the Walmart Brandon was greeted by a dark blue Toyota and told me to wait across the street. 

When he got out of the car it looked like he had just taken a bite out of a $6 burger. His mouth was full of balloons. 

"I guess you are a preferred customer." I joked

Brandon nodded, his mouth too full of balloons to speak. We quickly made our way down the street to an alley Brandon seemed to know well. I sat down and yore the bottom off of a can I found in the alley. As I was cooking my dope up I decided to make small talk.

"You stay here?" I asked

"Sometimes when I need to." Brandon said

"How'd you get in such good graces with your dude?" I asked

" I spend a lot of money and get him things he wants for his family." He said

"What kind of stuff?" I asked

"Anything really. Laptops, watches, movies. Whatever he wants really. Can you make one of those up for me?" Brandon said

"A shot? Yeah. Have you done this before?" I asked

"Yea I have. Can you help me though? I'm not very good at it." He asked

"Sure man. It's the least I can do with you helping me get well." I said 

I shot up Brandon then myself. The feeling of relief set in and we both just laid there in the couch for a few minutes before Brandon pulled out some foil and loaded a piece for us to share.

"K I've got one last question." I said

"Fire away." He said

"How do you get all the stuff your guy asks for?" I asked

"I lick houses. And if your down I have a list of some things I need to pick up for my guy tonight. And I know just where to find it all." He said

If you would like to contribute to my efforts at stopping addiction please visit:

http://gofundme.com/q9vqkg

Together we can make a difference.