Choo Choos and Soft Satin Swirls

Those choo' choos' that fumed after a shot of cocaine,

could only be replaced with the zeal of God,

soft satin swirls of heroin sweetly zapped my anxiety,

that despair I now replenish through a loving Jesus,

who allows me to embrace a full spectrum naturally sound,

I once absorbed my reality and filtered it like a gypsy clown,

now this confident peace owns me,

I desire to converse with God constantly, 

in simplicity he continuously reigns beautifully surreal. 

FLAVOR CRAZED UNBOUND

Grapes fall in time,
they chime squashed to a discounted design,
some reds collapse into berries,
others carelessly disappear into oblivion,
but a single sour shot rises into a sweeter mixed sway,
strongly it spells a flavor crazed unbound,
collecting thick breaks that shore up unrestrained,
we had never before heard of such sweet downpour,
we experienced this foreign candy launch,
that confused our taste buds into a feverish pull,
gobble-gobble this deliciously glazed refrain.

HER VACANT ABSENCE

She trailed off mid-sentence,

delirium plotted a new course,
her vacant eyes promised this growing absence,
and the present kept refreshing the familiar falsely,

She shivered while doing the left handed dial,
the connection gripped in silent fear,
I heard she knew him over ten years ago,
he displayed relatively awkward imaginings,

He re-iterated her irrationally patterned collections,
and the loop swapped the sickness out,
the key that shook her gently,
created a hope that would swoop down soundly.

DFW MONKEY: Scoring Gravity

      Cole and I didn't speak for at least a year or so after I had gotten him mixed up in my craziness. He was understandably upset with me, and I was irrationally resentful towards him for years to come.  Who knows whatever became of Rick, and I am curious to know but these details will most likely forever remain a mystery to me.  I was restless and having experienced a deeper sense of unrest and a new source of anxiety I resorted to using a needle to administer heroin. Robbie was in my class at Keller, I am sure I bought weed from him on one occasion a year or so prior, but I didn't know him very well until the day that he personally showed me how to shoot dope.  Somehow I had been given the word that he had been involved with 'dope' (For the most part if I ever refer to dope it will mean heroin. It is a very broad term to mean any drug but for those with a preference it has a special meaning to those who are all specifically involved with the same drug. Meth heads that know other Meth heads will always know that when one in their crowd says 'dope', they mean Meth, and the same goes for Heroin. Using the word 'dope' referencing Heroin has a deeper roots than any other drug in history) for awhile now, and if I needed to score some 'dope', than Robbie was my guy.
       Robbie picked me up from my house one afternoon. He sloppily maneuvered his little Mazda pick-up truck (yes, true to the stereotype, many people do own trucks in Texas) into my parent's driveway. He nearly hit the tree that sat splitting the middle of the first segment in two. Instead of cutting it down they paved concrete around it, it did seem to serve a purpose as a functional divider, giving two separate paths that quickly rejoined and lead up to the rest of the drive that led up to the garage. I was eagerly awaiting his arrival, perched by the front window I hurried out as soon as he rolled up. The spirit of addiction swam through the air and attached itself to my senses. It honed in on me, abetting this newly acquired nostalgia that I would from then on out associate with that pre-dope rush, simply experienced in the journey of scoring dope.
       "Whats up Robbie... dude you want to smoke on the way out there?" I said as I pulled out a joint.
       "Sure," he replied and then he just drove and we hit the joint for several minutes before I could no longer stand the grim silence.
        "So how far into Ft Worth are we headed?"
        "About thirty minutes at most, depending on traffic."
        "Cool."
        "We are just going to hit up my guy off Berry(a street in Ft. Worth wrought full of dope houses) where hes at right now."
        "So hes at like a dope house?"
        "Something like that, yea he is working the window at one of the spots that I know of."
        "OK," I answered and felt like I was verging into a whole new realm of the drug culture right then.
        "Im going to make a stop real quick up at my work, but its on the way."
        "Yea man its whatever."
We stopped at a twenty-four-seven diner, Denny's, where he worked. I think he was hitting someone up for money because he had quite a habit at this point in time, and wanted to make the venture that we were trekking worthwhile. I was already donating ten bucks worth of dope for obtaining his services.  However, who knows really what the heck we had stopped at his work for. After many years of being around the most random strange drug fueled addicts I realized that I would have to come to terms and accept that sometimes we would make some most ridiculous and senseless stops. It began to drizzle as I sat stoned staring into the abyss of the grey sky that surrounded. I lingered somewhat patient due to the weed I had just smoked, lounging outside of Denny's in his truck, waiting and hoping for him to promptly return from completing whatever task he was trying to accomplish inside.  I was caught in deep anticipation of what this new drug indulgence would be like.  Would I be rocketed into a drug induced orgasm? Little could my young mind comprehend how detrimental of an impact these 'adventerous' choices would have on my life.

DFW MONKEY: AN ANXIOUS INTERMISSION

 Fear throttled me into a new realm of anxiousness after I had committed a string of B.M.V's (Burglary of a Motor Vehicle) in one drunken night of mayhem.  'They' had me logged into the State of Texas' cancerous system now. I was arrested, bailed out, and then arrested again months later before finally being sentenced. As with most fears this one stemmed from guilty anger. At the time I selfishly felt  anxiety purely from not knowing what my punishment would entail. During a span of about two weeks, beginning from the time that the detectives discovered the stolen goods in my room, scared me into confessing, and ending at the time I was initially arrested was the source of the majority of this anxiety. I was told that they had enough evidence for their case against me, and that this would result in a warrant being issued for my arrest. When would they come to get my punk ass? They said they couldn't tell me exactly when this would happen, but simply assured me that it would happen sometime in the near future. At the time this crime was a misdemeanor (now I believe it is a state jail felony) and so I figured that I just might be confined in the County jail longer than my nieve teenage brain could comprehend.   When that warrant was issued it prompted the cops to come and find me.  I didn't try to elude them. They easily enough got me on their first attempt, coming out to my parent's house in one successful swoop.  There are many different ways to define the word 'surrender'. That was a definite example of a  forced 'physical surrender', but it would be over a decade later when I decided willingly to submit myself to a much sweeter 'spiritual surrender.' In city jail I experienced a brief stay of several days and nights where I wallowed in this guilt-ridden anxious contemplation. That first concrete desolation was not nearly enough to cause me to wise up even the slightest.  The living hell that my destruction would gravitate me through the following years was fucking sick.  My parent's bailed me out of the city jail, and it wasn't until December that I was arrested again.  During these seven months I started fooling around with shooting that dark ass black tar heroin. I am sure that I would've starting shooting dope regardless, but these problems that I was experiencing with the law helped to swiftly propel me into a new angst, which called for a stronger dose everyday.

DFW MONKEY: Breaking the Law like a Redneck Gypsy

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.

GOD WILL ALWAYS REPLENISH MY SPIRIT

This life evades nothing that I can't accept,
I listen to songs that pour out love,
as lilies dream in soft sounds,
waves of leaves scatter,
and remind me of season's less sane.

A crowd disperses energy,
painting delicate desperation,
I swim through these blues,
and hit an emotional climax smiling,
I know God will always replenish my spirit.

DFW MONKEY: The Real Juice of a Dope Monkey Runs Strong

 I got the impression that the county will not babysit you unless you are a real danger to society because I was only there for a few days after being arrested at the juvenile school. When you become an adult is when they will get ya', and when this occurs, happy birthday cause they are through jacking around. The state will send your ass to prison or state jail in a heartbeat, especially if you have a damn public defender assigned to your case. This was the last case I would catch as a minor, luckily it was two months before I turned seventeen, which is the age you start going to adult jail for being a jackass and breaking laws in good ole' Texas. I finally finished my 'sentence' at that damn juvenile school and attended Keller High School once again for the remaining few months before the summer of '99 began.
       In the stories that chronicle the summer of 98' I failed to mention something that is of major importance  to the theme of my old ways, and how the seeds were planted for my extended entanglement with opiates.  I can't remember if my first indulgence of heroin occurred before or after my excursion to the West Coast that summer, but at this point I am sure there isn't much significance in knowing exactly when it was. I know I had impulsively abused LSD, valium, ketamine, cocaine, weed, and alcohol so far in my young journey with chemicals. My compulsion to alter my state of consciousness, bound together with my dangerously naive curiosity spurred this need to experiment with almost any and every chemical I would come across.  I placed heroin high on my list of priorities, not just as a substance to try as soon as I could allocate a source, but ridiculous as it sounds I was obsessed with this above all other priorities in general. As taboo as heroin is I ignored all the warnings of its dangers and listened with open ears to all those voices of my peers and the section of the media and hollywood that advertised heroin as an existential wonder that produced some of the most sensational euphoric effects above all other drugs known to man.
        T.J. lived in one of Keller's half a dozen trailer parks, which can be found less than five minutes away from rich neighborhoods where people such as Dallas Cowboys players have been known to reside. I had known T.J. for a couple of years now and we were mainly acquaintances because of marijuana, not much else. I had many friends like this that would hit me up if his usual weed guy was out and vice versa, I would swing by his place if I hadn't much else place to turn.  We also went to school together, and he was quite a pot-head but a decent person nonetheless.  One day one of his buddies which I believe lived in the same trailer park mentioned heroin when I was hanging around getting stoned with these guys. "Finally!" I secretly thought celebrating inside all the while trying to refrain from showing too much eagerness in this drug I had been fantasizing over for too long. This guy had a hook up from some older lady right there in the trailer park which was less than five minutes from my parent's house at the time.  I don't remember the name of T.J.'s friend, nor can retrieve any semblance of a mental image of his face, but I do remember that he taught me about 'chiva', which is a common way to make 'tar' heroin into a snort-able substance. I began buying capsules that were pre-cut into chiva for ten bucks a pop, snorted one and the 'horse' races were on (horse is one of many slang words for heroin). I was wrapped in this warming-rush of calm and serene confidence. I smoked weed along with it and found the ultimate combo, my choice above doing any and all other drugs if it was there.  The problem as with anything I did was I wanted to do it all day everyday and as much as I could do in one given moment provided I had enough money.  This stint only lasted three days but it had me feeling dependent already. I tried getting some again after the third day and apparently the chic he was scoring from had ended up in jail.  I felt very uneasy and on edge already craving madly for it, and I had only been using heroin for three days. The high I got was incredibly unique, and on the other end of the spectrum how quickly it caused me to fiend for it was very shocking.  I guess I am lucky he wasn't into needles because the course of my life would have been negatively altered even sooner.  I didn't inject heroin until a good year later.

D.D.Monkey's poetry: CREAMED NOSTALGIA

There came a turning of some casually jointed events,
they figured how to placate the actors egos,
and time bent them to their knees,
those memories streamed via the internet smooth as the cable bill,
nostalgia creamed any relative regrets,
and those players in the scene weren't all naive to the rearranging,
a slanted breeze mixed with this morning's lax,
spurned a sweet chill as if we had never left that cradling fix of genesis's green-scape.

D.D.Monkey's poetry: Jungle Gyms...

Jungle gyms,
pop-cultured trends,
America and its youth,
all the reason for more juice,
but in what direction does the pulp flow?

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (We're gonna' party like its 1999!)

Prince's song lyrics expressed it simple and sassy as only he could,"tonight I'm going to party like its 1999," as this little episode starts one day prior to New Year's Eve, on December 30th, 1998. I was at my friend Nick's house,  we were doing what we always did, lounging around consuming alcohol and ingesting drugs. Nick lived in an older house that sat next door to one of the oldest church's in town. The church was perched in the corner of a ninety degree bended neck of the road, across the street from one of Keller's ancient graveyards. Humongous red and green shrubs created a border between the church and Nick's house.  His room was directly above the garage, but unlike typical garage apts. there was no outside entrance to his room.  The bottom of the stairwell leading up to his room started in the back of the kitchen, so we could hear within ample time to hide what we were doing if we heard anyone start climbing up to check on us.  We weren't technically allowed to smoke pot in his room, but we sure did anyway. We took bong hits next to an open window and in extra pre-cautious measures blew the smoke out through a flow-bee (I don't even know if thats how you spell 'flow-bee' but it's a slang term for a device constructed out of the inner cardboard tube of a paper towel roll stuffed with fabric softener sheets to help filter the marijuana fumes that was exhaled, and if you were a seasoned champion pot-head you held that shit in for so long the majority of the smoke had absorbed into your lungs anyways, leaving only a small remaining portion to exhale). Nick told us that he knew his mom and dad smoked but as far as they knew it was a secret kept by the adults.  As I had advanced in my drug takin career it became more and more common to see this same dynamic. Either the parents would hide it from their kids and the kids would from their parents, all the while each was usually aware what the other was up to. To the parents it just seemed uncouth and bad parenting to bring it out into the open, and most teenagers simply believed it was weird or uncool to be smoking pot with their parents. Then you have the parents that openly smoke and drank with there kids, those were the places to be at when you were in high school when none of your friends had their own apartment yet to party in.  The more the years drifted along and the more depraved my ways became, the variety of drugs I habitually took broadened to an even more fatal extent.  I ended up doing drugs with all different sorts of characters, people in their sixties, rich suburban kids, white lake rats, panhandlers, wanderers, gangsters, skaters, posers, athletes, adrenalin junkies, all different races co-existing smoking crack together, midgets, environmentalists, vegans, etc ... yes, drugs can strangely break down segregation with more twisted efficiency than Martin Luther King Jr.
      I slowly awoke the next morning but the lethargy clung on to me with tenacity.  Since my license was suspended my Mom had to retrieve me and take me all the way to downtown for school. Since I didn't awake in time to depart with that unpleasant transportation provided by the juvenile school, I had a good amount of time to gripe about not wanting to attend that day. I had insisted since the previous night over the telephone to be allowed to skip school. My Mom wouldn't budge, and now that I really think back on it I vaguely remember that there was some form of consequence that usually involved prolonging the time you were scheduled to be done with this alternative school. This is why I believe she was so determined to make sure that I attended, for my sake, but at the time I got angry with her for all kinds of dumb shit that were always my own damn fault.  However, in my defense it was New Year's Eve, dammit, and I had never in my life gone to school on New Year's Eve.
     I rolled up in front of that sad dilapidated sorry school that was painted white onto the outside of this strange, fake, adobe-textured material.  My Mom drawn only from her strong faith in God said something to try and encourage me, but whatever she said wasn't going to help my stupid-ass from going to juvenile detention within two hours of being dropped off for the day.  I was a bit late and was immediately informed by the teacher that the class was about to participate in a spelling quiz. This added to my negative spirit right away, "what the hell, we are juniors in high school and ya'll are giving us spelling tests," I thought but verbally complained a little bit later on in the day when I was to be escorted out by Ft. Worth cops. Thats how irrational and ridiculous I can be, I will make use of side issues in order to make complaints that had nothing to do with the issue at hand. I try to, and very dysfunctional try to win an argument and make others see things my way, the correct way.
       The A.D.D boy of our upstanding class of students, Aaron, had been passing out Aderol to a few of the other guys, and I felt left out. I never was a huge fan of stimulants, but I ingest almost any drug if it is free. Aaron was sitting next to me and I had him hand me a few.  Somehow I clumsily dropped one and caused enough attention my direction for the teacher to head over to my desk.  Apparently he believed that I had a cheat sheet and was about to catch me cheating on a damn spelling test... me! the damn spelling bee champ of eight grade! He saw one of the pills on the ground after he had sauntered over, bent over and retrieved it, saying is this crack!? "Shit, thats not crack", I thought, and said very defensively, "NO!" (its funny how I was offended at this suggestion that I would have anything to do with crack-cocaine, but a few years later I would end up smoking crack on a few occasions). A couple of pills were clutched in my hand. He had me cornered, and asked for me to open my hand. I obeyed. The teacher was racist I still believe to this day, but at the root of my problems I can look back and say that his biased attitude didn't matter because I had simply put myself in these absurdly dumb scenarios.  The reason I say he was racist wasn't just because he was black, but that he was from the the bad parts of Ft Worth and had made it past all the gangs and criminally inclined peers. He was had graduated from college. He felt very empathetic towards the black kids and understandably enough that he felt this deeper connection with them. He had no sympathy for white kids from the suburbs. I remember him distinctly catching Teddy in the act of rolling up a blunt in the back of the classroom at his desk.  Teddy was wisely utilizing class time by preparing himself for the walk home from school. Of course our teacher didn't call the cops on him like he was about to do to my punk ass. So there I am on New Years Eve, escorted out in hand-cuffs headed to the NewYears Eve party at the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Center. As I was escorted out a was yelling about how ridiculous spelling tests are. That night I remember the detention hall supervisors playing the radio in the late hours for the years countdown, and that damn Prince song came on, he was singing, "We gonna' party like its 1999!"

Cigs'

Got some cigarettes to trick my mind,
I smoke 'em like weed,
and live like the sun,
thru the blue sky,
I am the Marlboro Man,
I won't get this thing called cancer man,
not in America,
not in God's country.....

BENT ON DISTANT FIGMENTS

Lights beautifully stretched,
shiny they cry hues through cracks,
caressing gaps narrow slants,
weight sunk so deep beneath cedar planks,
desperation docked parched waves of sour-punch,

a span of crimson crimes dehydrated this lifetime,
past tense colors dimmed the nostalgic rumors pale,
a denser sense cleansed the remnants round,
this palate reminisced of past sensation's convinced bliss,

this style vividly drawn out,
entertained passed the cusp,
to rust rounding out that year's dimensions,
and so fever broke this craved comprehension....

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION)

 Now I was arrested for the first time in my life,  so naturally this meant I ended up in Tarrant County's Juvenile Detention Center.  Had it been five months later I would have been charged as an adult, and would have been sent to the adult County Jail.  I would launch myself there almost a year exactly from this point in time (in the interim of this year I would, after my seventeenth birthday, go in and out of city jails for petty shit like minor in possession of alcohol and public intoxications misdemeanors).  After a few hours or so at the Keller Police station I was escorted down to the Ft. Worth Juvenile Detention Center, though it wasn't as serious a place as the adult county facility I still inherited a different perspective on life from this experience. The majority of the young men there were primed up mini-gangsters already, upon being released from here many would catch a case as an adult and spend a large portion of their adult life in T.D.C. (Texas Department of Corrections, or simply put it's what officials and inmates while awaiting trial in County commonly refer to as prison). The others were aggressively sprouting into dangerously warped outcasts, it being just a matter of time until some dire consequences crowned their foolish heads.  I say this sounding jaded, but I have also witnessed the lowest individuals pitted in despair rise up joyous and free again miraculously, and those were the ones willing to truly surrender.  I believe God works all around us everyday, but I once deemed these re-occurrences as coincidences. It took many of these re-occurrences, time and time again, until finally my stubborn self was broken down disheveled.  I wasn't brought up in a broken family like many of these dudes,  but drugs don't discriminate like people do, chemicals aren't capable of discerning in who they affect.  Some of us do react to the same chemicals in very different ways than others do.  I am so grateful I never got caught up in gangs or violent crimes. I was around guns more than I cared to be, but I never carried one. I was smart enough to at least realize how unwise that was.  I would only be charged with assault once in my life, but I won't get into that right now, one arrest at a time is enough.  I only spent one night in juvenile detention, went to court, saw the judge, was released and put on probation. I was placed on probation for felony possession simply because it was my first offense, oh and what a joke juvenile probation turned out to be.  Officer Adams was assigned to my case, he was a very tall, stocky, thirty-something year old black man.  The first time I saw him he gave me the rundown.  I was supposed to adhere to a curfew, refrain from drugs and alcohol,  not break any laws or get arrested, etc, etc, ... there were so many damn rules I was supposed to follow, but I wouldn't be corralled that easily, I was a wild range-rovin', drug-gobbling stallion.  I never went to a probation office to report like I would many times later as an adult (I may have made one initial visit to the probation office, maybe, but for sure none more after that... many details are very hazy from this time but whats important is the fact that I immediately knew it was all for show until I was an adult. I guess the state knew that they would get me then for sure if I was to be an habitual offender, and as an adult it would be simpler for the courts to dole out a more severe line of options to punish).  Officer Adams came and made somewhere around five visits out to my house in about a seven month time span. During that time he gave me several drug tests. I remember one of them I was thoroughly prepared.  I emptied out this purple or pink blow-bubbles bottle and had my brother Aaron piss into it fo me, and I dont remember why but that was the only time I had him do that for me, so I ended up failing several drug tests later on. I know that marijuana was always detected in my urine those times that I did fail, it stays in your system for so damn long. All my P.O. ever told me was that I needed to work on my marijuana problem, and then I would fail again, and he then would reiterate the fact that I needed to work on my marijuana problem.  By the time February hit I had turned seventeen, making me legally an adult in the state of Texas, and I never saw Officer Adams again.  During this time that I was on juvenile probation I also was required to go to school in downtown Ft. Worth  after being suspended from Keller High School. I had been suspended the previous year so I wasn't allowed to go to any of the other alternative schools in the fine Keller school District. (if I didn't finish successfully here I wouldn't be allowed to go back to Keller High)The school was T.C..J.J.A.E.P. (Tarrant County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program) and it was equally a joke for me as juvenile probation was. This school was full of the same type of thugs that I had seen in juvenile hall. These were kids from the streets, and it seemed to me that it was one big day-care for teenagers. It seemed the focus was mainly on attendance, not education, and so we did shit like take spelling tests, and of course this provoked me to take every chance to be a smart-ass rebel. I was the epitome of one who mocked any authority that had any semblance of power of me, and I as a side hobby I also mocked all other systems of authority that really had no direct control over me simply because I had this monstrous urge to forever be contrary.  My ego was radioactive and resided on a pendulum that swayed to a miserable feverish beat and I believed that I was much smarter than everyone else in this school, especially the teachers.  Either you were a student here because of drugs, were a thug, or you were a thug on drugs. Man did we raise hell, it was a cosmic mix of the American Dream, a melting pot of young menacing maniacs. There was this one dude Kane, and he frequently spouted proud stoned ramblings on how he was a local member of the Krypts. He talked a lot of shit to me, but I loved that dude, we had some shared sacred moments that I may not specifically remember, but  I do remember the spirit and ambiance of our bantering times together.  Eric was this crazy A.D.D diagnosed  kid that had to be restrained at least once a week by one of the several large male teachers. I am pretty sure that that was one of the requirement for the men that worked here, being able to restrain unruly students. There was Terry, who had called in a bomb threat on numerous occasions before he was eventually found out, and bam, they sent him to this juvenile school of winners. There was close to zero female students there, and only one in my classroom. Her name was Jennifer, this petite little white girl that got caught with  a large amount of Ecstasy, which she claimed was all her boyfriend's drugs, but nonetheless she was charged for possession and sent here.  Teddy was another young gangsta' that was always stoned, in fact the majority of us were stoned.  I usually rolled a few joints up, and hoped that at least one other person at the stop on our side of town would reciprocate and have some weed of his own in order that we all could have an ample amount to partake. The school transported kids from all over the county in these white 'church' type 18-passenger vans.  There was only two vans available, and there was around five stops on each section of the county. Kids weren't allowed to drive themselves to school here, besides my license was now officially suspended for the first time of many.  This state issued item labeled a driver's license of mine would be suspended and regained and suspended again and again cycling on a rampant loop.  It made me sick when I thought of how I had waited what seemed to an teenager as an eternity to finally hit sixteen, and then before a year upon receiving it I would lose it recklessly. I must have stopped one or two violations shy of ever again being allowed to have one legally.   

Dallas Dope Monkey: A TRILLION WAYS TO LOOP THROUGH

 A trillion ways to loop through,
 but only a few made it cool,
 dust wraps the tornado in red subtle ties,
 devilish blues bask in basic hues...

His grandparents spent twenty years in Omaha,
then three in Paris, TX,
their clothes were creased in postured distinction,
and they retired in lonely stride...

His dad was starved of affection until he embraced his mother,
they flew east after meeting stalled in traffic,
and swooped on through azure appalachians to Virginia,
that is where he grew up in nostalgic bliss...

A trillion ways to loop through,
but only a few made it cool,
rust traps their complacent horizon,
and angelic tunes cradled this great expanse.

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (THE DAY SHIT HIT THE FAN)

        Mr. Rodando had me down in the nurse's office, and he was through slapping me on the wrist. The nurse, as she hadn't yet done all those other times, diagnosed me as most likely being 'under the influence' of marijuana. I thought it was hilarious that she perceived the effects of  merely marijuana alone to be so extreme. They could never prove shit if I had only been smoking pot, (without a urine sample of course) not combined with any other drug, no way possible. All the other times I was sent to the nurse she knew I was high but she never officially deemed me as 'under the influence', and some of those times I was simply high only on the ganja. Usually I was on a mixture of substances and still getting away with it unpunished.  When I was on valium and weed, the nurse still would act as though she hadn't enough evidence to prove my intoxication, though its was pretty dang obvious. Who knows maybe she was just trying to give me chance after chance, so I really believed I could go to school as fucked up as I wanted so long as no alcohol was detectable on my breath.  For the school officials to really know for certain I guess I would of have had to have been given a drug test, and I don't think that they were equipped much less allowed to take such a drastic measure. The school would have to spend an insane amount of money if they were to drug test all the students suspected of being high. So I was finally suspended, but since I had been suspended once before towards the end of my sophmore year (for skipping school) they didnt send me back to where the school district had placed me then. They let the county deal with me. I would be sent to T.C.JJ..A.E.P. , (Tarrant COunty Juvenile Justice Education Program) this time, but I wouldn't start there for a week or two later.
              My car was in the student parking lot, but they were not about to let me drive my happy-ass home, so they called my grandma to come pick me up, oh my poor old Grandma. Mr. Rodondo escorted me out and we awkwardly waited together for her to pull up into the fire lane. I am quite certain I was emotionally driven and chemically fueled to where, due to the circumstances, I had a lot of shit to vent about. I vomitied my irrational drug-induced opinions, and Mr. Rodando had to just stand there like a 'robot' and bare it for the short interval until my grandma came to scoop me up. I was already suspended. I safely assumed I couldnt get myself into any further trouble with this man, as long as I didn't get physical with him.  I could say whatever the heck I so desired, and I basked in this sick short spanned  freedom, talking some mega-ultra-diculous trash to the man. He'd already extended the highest consequences that he could dole my way, but just because he could do no more doesn't mean that this didn't catch up to me later that day. There were other officials in the town besides 'peasants' like principals that had some real authoruty, and they had a different course in dealing with doped up maniacal teens. My grandma pulled up, nodded her head with an embarrassing tilt at Mr Rodando, he nodded in silent agreement over my sad state of being, and she began to slowly drive away and as she did she started in on me, scolding me, a grown teenage man-child.  Then I started in on her, and she equally felt the verbal wrath Mr. Rodando had just recently escaped, but I only ranted non-sensical ramblings at her for less than a minute or so. She had looped through the fire lane past the main entrances's front parking lot, turned left heading towards where the street t-eed with Johnson Rd., and then I bolted as the car was in motion.  I didn't give a shit if it was a moving vehicle, I was invincible with drugs in me, and so I needed more. I ran out to my old 88' Celica, my cold stoic lump of steel had been waiting for me patiently in the student  parking lot. My Grandma, was yelling ,"Isaaaaccc!!!!" in the only way I can imagine her saying it as she had many times before and since.  I lethargically carrened that red Toyato past the old security guard Sparky, honked at him giddily as I passed, and then jumped out towards Johnson Rd myself. I wasn't about to be chauffeured off by my grandma. I was determined to continue the day in doing what felt natural to me, more drugs. I had to go home and grab my stash of weed and pills, damnit, the day was shitty thus far, but I knew how to orchestrate my thoughts away from reality. I was emotionally charged from what had just transpired at school and so my adrenaline aided the drugs to elevate myself to an ultra-dumbass caliber. I decided to drive like I was on the autobahn, passing every car that was in front of me as I bolted down Johnson road, and so by the time I turned onto Pearson Lane I was getting pulled over. "What the fuck," I am sure I said exactly that or at least something similar. I now realized I was about to talk to some 'serious' authority figures a mere twenty minutes after having to deal with the damn school nazis. The officer had explained to me that the reason I was being pulled over is that not one, but several people had called and reported that a red Toyato was racing down Johnson like a drunken idiot.  I remember being told to "walk the line" and was also given other field sobriety tests, and so the cops said I seemed to be intoxicated. I only remember a few parts of the conversation. I know I tried to respond to the accusations by retorting that I had a cold and that I had recently drank some cough syrup, but that was all I had ingested, and so they said, "ok we'll then we will see when we take you to the station and give you a blood test." The gig was up, I was about to recieve a DUI, but thats only a misdeamenour, a felony would also come my way after I got down to the station.
              One day a week or so previous to this whole eposide of my failure to avoid authorities I had naively showed my brother, Aaron, my stash of hoarded drugs.  The whole first couple of years of my rebellion I believed I was just trying to do drugs without being bothered, and I also figured that I wasn't hurting anyone, right? I would only bullshit myself with these lines of justification for a short time frame.  Soon I realized that I was trememdously hurting others. I never was able to control my mania when it came to drugs and alcohol. I didn't even realize what a warped perspective I had on 'my world'  to be carelessly showing Aaron this drug collection. I was all pilled out one evening and I believe I thought I was bragging in a strange and sick way.  Showing off all the drugs I had so easily and convienantly been stealing. Aaron drank a bit and smoked weed a bit by this point, I mean he was 15 so he had some experimenting to swim in, but he didnt linger, I was the one set on wading lazily in discontent. He dove into the shallow end with youthful curiosity, but turned around and got out before venturing anywhere near his big brother, who was hangin out amongst whales on a withering floatation device way out in vacant salty waters. Aaron was fucking shocked, and I drunkenly assumed he knew my intentions were only for hoarding purposes. He wasn't a mind reader, for all he knew I was set on suicide, and looking back on it I can understand why he might have drawn such a dramatic conclusion.  My latest actions were drastically more extreme than even my normal temperamental behavior. Before I was casually just stoned or drunk, but now since I had combined the latest mix of chemicals that churned my behavior to a buttery quicksilver.  I was cool and calm in one given moment, and utterly fragile the very next minute.  People that were in my life all around me were really frightened by my behavior. The majority were mostly afraid for my own well-being, and the rest were scared for their own lives. Once my peers got too closely involved with me and the strange situations that frequented my day to day activities,  they were never again quite the same again.  They were shocked into a new twisted perspective of how sick people can really be.  Aaron had been drawn into my fermented vortex, he was one of the tortured onlookers, but he was also my brother, and so he he didn't really know how to respond to my madness. I don't know when he told our parents about my large stash of drugs, but he had at some point before this day. My parent's had been notified by the school already earlier that day, then they were updated by my grandma on my escape from her vehicle, and lastly the cops had touched base with them, revealing to them the grand finale of this day's  conclusion.  Being told that I was being detained for a D.U.I. they headed to where I was.  So there I was fuming with crazed, blood-shot, bug eyes down at the police station when my parents came in with this damn plastic bag.  It was my precious collection, still mostly un-removed from their original containers with the Eckerd's sticker slapped across them, still in their branded (mostly labeled by Roche, a pharmecutical company) bottles that a customer with a prescription never sees. I was not charged with theft, but was charged with felony drug possesion. My parents hated my drug problem, but later in life they expressed regret in having turned me in like that because they eventually realized the court systems are one giant sad satire of brokenness reflecting brokenness. The American legal system has much greatness in it's roots, but today it is not what it was once meant to be. It is a strangled mess, proving in the simplest words that the system is really about what caliber of lawyer you can afford to obtain. This is what the world knows and it may change, but then it will revert back eventually, money rules society.  Over the next ten years I would benefit when I had money, or could get my parents money. Many times I was on my own financially and it would show me how much I depended on my family when I got myself caught up in these predicaments, time and time again.

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Intravenously Driven)

  On this particular day I made my presence known at school, and so my 'good' attendance resulted in me being arrested on my first felony charge.  All of these ridiculous avenues I aimlessly sought out were slowly creating a monster. I was a sad little child taking on false burdens. I clearly had no fucking idea how to simply just be happy, much less how to even pursue it. When I strived towards perfection my sense of life was even more jacked up than when I did drugs. I was a complete mess.  How else could I spice up the doldrums that I perceived as a constant part of my reality.  Drugs were the simplest answer to it all, to everything, and I say everything because they seemingly solved any and every of the perceivable situation, grand or minute. These difficulties were usually nothing to an emotionally mature individual, but these were all my own subjectively giant burdens. I chose to depressingly attach myself to those imaginary worries, and then I owned them outright.  I had now been routinely chomping down on four blue valiums in the morning binded along some weed at minimum, and then as the day ensued I ate more and more losing track of everything that was going on around me. I even crushed the valium up and laced them into my marijuana cigs. I was a freakin' doped up lunatic, but hey I was anxiety free for the most part, until sooner usually than later I would find myself caught up into some idiotic jam, and 'fuck it' if consequences ever resulted. What better way to deal with and forget about any of those consequences but with more drugs? It would take many years to figure out any 'better way,' and this wiser alternative outsiders could perceive as common sense, it was so obvious to everyone but me. Rational thoughts I couldn't seem to ever conceive of on my own. However, nothing over the course of the next decade-plus would grab my attention better than GOD, and boy did I ignore HIM until my brain felt as raw and shiny as a crocodile hide.
       There I was passed out again in class, drooling like a half-witted loon all over my desk, and here is  Mr. Rodando (aka  Senor Robo-3000), who was called in again to wake me from another regular peaceful drug slumber by my poor teacher.  This was a typical scene from the beginning of my junior year, getting really doped before school, and then awakened by one of the three fine assistant principals of Keller High. In every instance this had gone down very similar as it did on this particular day, except on this day Mr. Rodando took some action involving my suspension from school. I often wonder why they hadn't deemed me qualified as being 'under the influence' enough to not be suspended on those recent previous occasions when I was awoken by the Mr. Rodando. I was pilled out every other time to where it was most obvious something seriously drug-related was interfering with my brain. Well I am now certain that it has to have been a  subtle combination of  two plausible explanations why I wasn't suspended before in those earlier incidents. In order to satisfy my infantile imaginings that frequently became quite exhausted I soon realized it was simple. The night that preceded this mornings encounter with Mr. Rodono I had used a needle for the first time. I had no damn clue what I was doing but I was determined to expand my horizons radically beyond to where that brought me looped through inside some drug-induced worm-hole. I was so insanely inclined to drugs that I had set out to shoot up ketamine (a cat-tranquilizer that is referred to as Special K by druggies). One of my friends worked at an animal clinic and as I was skimming pills off the shelfs from the pharmacy, he pulled vials of ketamine from this veterinarians stocked supply room, and then we engaged in some good old- fashioned bartering. Now I had drank this stuff in it's liquid form, snorted, and smoked it in it's powdered form, but I had yet to do it right. I didn't even have the proper equipment for the job. The needle I used was huge and I had never done this before so I didn't know anything about inter-venously shooting any substance. Luckily what little innocence I had left probably saved my damn life because I ended up 'skin-popping' accidentally before I even knew what that term even meant. When a junky has abused his veins for an extended matter of years at a time day after day than one must resort to doing a 'muscle shot,' and what I had done that night wasn't even considered a muscle shot. I merely injected a giant bubble under  my skin in my hand, and I now realize it was most likely a very dangerous amount. If I had directly bumped that shit it would have immediately invaded my bloodstream, and I am most certain I would be dead. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I effectively passed out where I sat, on this small sectional couch that I had in my room as a teenager. All I remember was waking up to the sound of my Dad's fist beating the locked door in the morning quite  frustrated. His frustration was justified more and more everyday due to my total lack of respect, boy I was the anti-thesis of a respectable young man. Im sure it took me a good minute to wake from those loud noises manufactured by my angered father on the other side of my bedroom door. Who knows where his imagination went every time I had that door locked. A year or so later my parents resorted to taking the damn doors of the hinges for a brief period of time after feeling quite defeated in dealing with my teenage madness. I would eventually hear my father's commotion and rouse myself from my stupor, pop some more pills, roll a joint, and then head to school. Little did I know  before the day's end I would be in juvenile hall.

      

A DIMMER SWITCH SPLIT

 Oscillating those ties that often pattern random fabrications,

 I watched as she talked proudly about her delicately fostered dreams,

 I listened to myself brag and utter non-sense in a small decorated confidence,

 I calmed myself with subtle stainless steel reserve,

 I heard her breath draw deep before I felt it's created heat,

 In the summer's slot she rocked back gently caught,
 
 In the summer's slot I lounged in the den every night until a half-past ten,

We contemplated the years that pursued plenty spent,

Referring casually to those lofty revelations,

We decided our motives were to preciously precise,

And so with those novel fears we resolutely said our good-byes...

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Restless Small Town Pigs, Make for Restless Small Town Dope Monkeys)

The last episode I wrote about resulted in the cops apprehending us skipping school. "What are ya'll doing out there in that field," I remember them asking us. We simply made up some bullshit explanation about how we were out there fishing at the stock pond.  "Where are y'alls fishing poles," they returned. That stumped us, but it really didn't make much of a difference. We had ample time to stash the weed under some brush as soon as we had realized that they had arrived off in the distance by our parked vehicles.  We walked across the field, back towards them and our cars, meeting them as far away from the initial 'scene' where we had been smokin' weed.  They made a feeble attempt to go and wander around a bit in the field searching for any tossed 'dope', but their energies were wasted in vain having not found what they were searching for. They talked to us for awhile and searched our pockets and cars. They did not find any drugs that they seemed to always assume we had in our possession, 24/7.  They didn't issue us truancy tickets, but they did notify the principals that we were skipping class that day. Ultimately we had to serve a few detentions. All of us got known very quickly by the small town cops, so from then on we readily assumed that whenever stopped we had damn well better be prepared for a search. I would get pulled over frequently in Keller as a teenager and be immediately asked very bluntly, "Are there any dope or guns in the vehicle," and I always replied, "no sir," trying to muster up a respectable tone while thinking guns?  What the fuck, I was thought, I may be guilty of carrying drugs but guns? Really? I definitely deserved a mass majority of the treatment I received as a teenager by the local officials, but these cops, as with any small town cops, really did have way to much time on their hands. My pill thievery from the pharmacy I had been working at during the first month of my junior year was growing more and more reckless, and I was about to have some major consequences reign down upon me. I would be arrested on my first of the three felonies a week later. All three were accumulated before the age of twenty-four.

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Schools' for Fools)

The chemical backlash from my job at the pharmacy was obscene.  I had a whole new arsenal of drugs to abuse.  As with any drugs that are in my possession, these pills I couldn't seem to keep from consuming constantly. The valium was such a new wonder to me. I tried this drug, loved its affects, and from then on naively relied on it in everything I did. If I had any kind of stash it wouldn't last, there was no need for me to refrain from eating all of them in an insanely short period of time.  That first month in my venture with pills I was all over the place. Much of these days were simply erased from my memory, however,  many of them I do remember.  One day after dropping my little bro' off at school I met up with some friends miles away, absent from our classrooms. The usual gang consisted of Daniel, Tyler , Eddie, Jeremy, Brad,  or Toni. Interchange one for another at anytime it didn't matter, we were always doing the same old shit, whether there were two or ten present we all shared in the common goal of getting high. On this particular day the majority of us were all together. We meet up on the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood not to far from the street where I grew up. This housing development was adjacent to acres and acres of undeveloped land, that then was primarily used for cattle grazing. We parked our vehicles at the dead end of a street that granted us easy access to those vast fields.  We ventured about a half mile deep into the field, which involved traipsing thru a resident's yard and over a short barbed wire fence that bordered their land and the field. Our destination was a stock pond, where we could smoke pot and fish during the day, or at night after drinking too much liquor we might go out there to shoot off fireworks, which always lead to firing them off at each other.

      "Dude I hope none of those fuckers call the cops on us," I crudely expressed my concerns ('fuckers' had become a very dominant word in my vocabulary used to describe anything and everything without hesitation), the 'fuckers' I was referring to there were anyone that lived on that street who may have seen us trespassing through their neighbors front yard, along their driveway, through their back yard , and into the pasture beyond.

     "I know but shit at least we will have time to stash the bud if they come, we just gotta keep a look-out." Eddie replied.

    "The way we came through really is the only way cops can come through to get to us," Daniel added. This paranoia was truly thrilling in a way when I think back on it, we were living on the edge, breaking minor laws everyday, and getting away with more and more everyday.

    There we were all huddled together hittin' the weed pipe, what a glorious day it was! All that talk about the cops was merely teenage drama to mull over, something to bullshit about, we really weren't too concerned. It was just cool to jabber on about how much of 'rebels' we were. 

    " Fuck the police!" I blurted out simultaneously as I blew out a hit of bud, adding that unique choked up tone to mix my words with. I passed that shit to my left and then asked adding, "Anyone going back for second period today?"

      "Yea I gotta go in and take a quiz," Daniel said.

      "Cool man I can drop you back off," I replied.

      "Watch out for Sparky dude, he might recognize your ride and report your dumb-ass to Mr. Rodando," Toni remarked. Sparky was a student-given nickname which we used to refer to this poor, skinny, old security guard in charge of cars coming and going from the student parking lot. Man did the students  stress him out with our endless parade of shenanigans.   

       "Yea like you give a fuck since you dropped out," I retorted.

       "Dude Rodando is such a weird fucker. You know he got us good last week," Tyler broke in after a deep moment of blankly staring into the distance, interrupting the direction of the conversation. 

       "Yea he sure did," I chimed in.
        Tyler was referring to our encounter with him in trying to sneak back into the school after skipping the first half of the school day "Yea I mean how are we supposed to even make some of our classes if we are scared of getting back in. I might as well just skip the whole damn day," I added my backwards justification because ultimately we got caught up one way or another by school official's in the end.

         "He's such a  weird robot lookin' fucker," Eddie threw in, to explain this description of his appearance one would have to have known and seen his physical appearance mixed with his posture, and mannerisms to fully grasp what Eddie meant, "So he got you dumb-fuckers huh? Thats great! I love that fuckin robot!" Eddie then started a string of laughs that continued for a solid thirty seconds.

       "What the fuck!" I burst out very loudly. "Dude the cops are coming, look! Theres' two fucking cops, hide that shit somewhere!" I said to Tyler who had the pipe and the weed. Everyone thought I was just fucking around at first, but sure enough one of the the residents had  called the Keller police on us.