That never ending deluge of time allotted by Keller High's principals was finally over. I was through going downtown everyday to the County's damn Juvenile school. Upon returning I definitely wasn't forgotten by the principals, my reputation (which I undoubtedly deserved) kept me a target all through out High School. I was still devoting the majority of my waking hours to smoking lots of pot and tripping way too much acid. I rode to school and hung out with one of my buddies, Cole, everyday to wrap up the last month of school. We rolled up reeking of herb every morning. I had never been kicked out for just being stoned on weed, but within a week upon returning from the juvenile school my first period teacher tried her best. My eyeballs are already huge, giving me away, sometimes unfairly because even now as a sober dude I can look stoned, but when I really am stoned my eyes look insanely red and glossy. My teacher sent me to the nurses office but without an escort, so I simply bypassed the nurse's office and left the school altogether for that day. I was not about to be kicked out as soon as I had returned for smoking pot. I ended my junior year there as I had began, barely attending. Cole was a close friend but looking back on it I used him for rides, and he used me to smoke free weed. It was a fair trade. (To ever encounter even one single friendship where neither person has any ulterior motives or agendas is rare and one should never forget these special blessings.) Cole and I were always smoking in his truck in the morning, and skipping classes here and there to rejuvenate our spirits with more weed, and then continued on smoking as soon as we ventured out of the school's parking lot. On a typical day we didn't stop till we parted ways in the early evenings, and then I would commence to take my drugs and drink alone until passing out. I still remember eye-balling that damn motorcycle cop with aggressive paranoia while we passed him leaving the school grounds. I forget his name but he had messed with us before. "Fucking cops man," I uttered everyday as we passed by him. He was there like clock-work as the afternoon school traffic streamed out, there to radar and ticket anyone speeding in the school zone.
Cole drove a little blue 89' Chevy pick-up truck. The majority of his family was born and raised in Keller, and they still had several hundred acres that was steadily growing more and more in value. They held off until years later to give in to the developers that would eventually have most of Keller's residential areas divided up into sub-divisions. When I was a younger teen, before ever having meet Cole I would wander exploring all over his family's property. Fishing in their stock pond, and ever so often would get kicked off the property by either his grandpa or one of his uncles. This vast landscape was the perfect setting to shoot off fireworks or smoke cigarettes without having to worry much over getting into too much trouble.
I love that pocket between spring and summer, and I was sedated snug right, floating somewhere in the midst of the latter days of the refreshing month of May. We skipped the entire last day of school, just like the first day, usually two of the most pointless day to attend. Cole and I did our usual bullshitting around town, listening to music and getting high. As the gentle colors contoured the rays of the setting sun, dusk gently rescued us from the day's heat with a breeze. When the sun began to set I seemed to always catch a second wind. After coming down from a sun baked lethargy brought on by mid-afternoon, I knew I could usually look forward to gaining access to this new reserve of energy late in the day, and tonights purpose we were set out to get smashed drunk like young idiots living in the prime of our stupidity. We went to go pick up Rick Brinks, who I had occasionally hung out with but not much. He lived with his loony meth-head parents in a log cabin off of Ottinger road. Every time I conjure up the image of their property, which included some sheds, and various other ridiculous structures; my main associations to memories of his family is them living on a compound in some weird cult-like fashion. Ricks parents did drugs but were twisted because of how fucking strict that they were on Rick for smoking weed. I never understood this obviously absurd hypocrisy of the drug taking parents, but I guess just because they had a drug problem they simply didn't want their son to share a similar one. I believe that I also had ill memories of his house and family simply because I had an intense and mostly unpleasant trip on acid one really long day at his house. Unfair bias of places where I have had bad trips often brand its lingering foams in my brain for years.
Rick jumped in the bed of his truck and off we went to get one of Cole's uncles to purchase some beer for us. We had a cooler full of steaks and beer, and some sleeping bags to camp out on the outskirts of Cole's family land. We headed up a dirt road that stemmed off of Florence Rd. which led to an abandon trailer home that was also owned by Cole's family. Behind the trailer home is where we gathered some sticks and logs, and started a fire. We tossed a metal grill on some high standing rocks that we had placed around the fire in order to cook the steaks. We waited impatiently to inhale some juicy red meat as we toked up proper and drank Budweiser like stereotypes of heathen redneck gypsies from Texas.
I submerged my self into alcohol as quickly as I could and chain-smoked cigarettes and blunts with my boys. Around midnight we felt adventurous and hopped in Cole's truck, riding around neighborhoods to see what kind of hell we could raise. I began stealing items from unlocked cars. Items such as a couple of lame cameras, some binoculars, CDs, and cassette tapes. I remember specifically one of the cassettes was the Don Henley album that contained the cheesy song "Dirty Laundry." Every time I hear that damn song play it reminds me of these ridiculous car burglaries that I committed in a young drunken stupor thinking this is a great way to celebrate the beginning of summer. What it did was begin a decade long cycle of real tangling with law enforcement and various city and county jails. I was so lost and every irrational drug-induced thing I decided to act on contributed to my anxiety and fears in life, which kept the damn cycle thriving on itself. I now had more reasons to use drugs than the basic youthful curiosity. I had began to really collect more and more of emotional shame, guilt, and remorse that I now medicated over. Drugs helped me deal with anything and everything from then on out. Drugs also created these insane problems and trouble I continuously found myself in.
Poor Cole's truck was seen by someone that night and they linked him to the thefts. Cole really hadn't stolen anything and none of it was his idea in the first place. The only thing he was guilty of was being present and drive Rick and me around as we raised hell. None of us planned to break into cars. I think we were just roaming around and saw some items in one car, took them, and then that planted the idea to start looking more for unlocked car doors. After that it was like we couldn't get enough useless junk from people's cars. Cole was questioned by the cops and he 'ratted' us out. I blamed him then but now I certainly don't blame him the least bit. We caused some shit to reign down upon him that he wasn't even responsible for. This was the first time I had to deal with the Keller P.D.'s detectives, and they scared the shit out of me. I denied the fuck out of everything but they ended up talking with my parents, who allowed them to search my room where they ended up discovering some of the reported stolen property. I was booked as an adult for the first time. My parents let me sit in the city jail for a few days and then they bailed me out finally cause I called them collect all day and night everyday from my cell until I wore them down and broke there spirits. Seven months later I would do the longest time I had done so far in my young life, it was tied to this arrest, and it involved me spending another New Years Eve(the millenium) and New Years Day incarcerated, except unlike last year I was in the adult County lock-up. I also spent Christmas in there. That was fucking awesome, boy let me tell ya'! One thing I remember was my parents coming to visit me before the millenium and told me that they were going out to East Texas at the families old farmland just in case chaos from Y2K went down. They told me if all the computers shut down it might open the jail doors and cause a riot. I was supposed to find a way out there and meet up with them if this occurred. Y2K turned out to be a hoax, and I finished my 30 day sentence and was released back into society.
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