Its hard to wake up at seven in the morning, drink coffee, eat something from a fridge

populated with two things, each so old theyve gained growths that would seem to defy nature.
You look over homework and then finish what you hadnt the night before. The starts the nine to
five. Class all day taught at a mediocre level just to increase graduation rates for statisticians to
appease bureaucratic drones so that the school will continue to make money. Then theres
money, from 5 to close every night of the week just to put some cheese and bread in the kitchen
to hold over for the next two weeks. I guess more could be bought, but then I get behind on rent
and cant go out with my friends to socialize. Being unable to have expendable cash at hand
leads to lethargy, and lethargy lead to depression for me. I cant lock myself away to homework
and work only, because then I would crash out in a mix of rage and despondency.
Its a wonder I didnt turn to drugs earlier. Nothing can start off that early morning like a
couple lines of cocaine with a cigarette and a cup of joe. It does also leave a mark on the bank
account, but thats what the other drugs were to sell for.
When you sell drugs for a living the world is a lot more open to you. You can cut work
down to three nights a week and still eat like a king. Work comes to you instead of you going to
it. Its that easy. Three hundred million people in this country, all of them looking for something to
sedate them. Some through faith, others through food, some through knowledge, and almost
too many for drugs. I never have nor ever will sell hard drugs like heroin, crack, meth, or PCP. I
dont even sell the coke, I just buy enough to last a few weeks and do it with myself and my
friends. I stay away from most pills, except adderall and xanax. One to keep me awake, and the
other to help me sleep or come off a bad trip. I sell weed, Ive got the best mushrooms in town
and one hit from the vials I keep in my freezer will put even the most dedicated freaks into
twelve hours of heaven and hell. No one ever comes back saying they had a bad time, just that
they saw everything they felt was possible and built on thoughts from the most base instinctual
level all the way to how restricted we are within the human condition. Some people get the Fear,
but those people didnt get it from me, they picked it up through my friends and my crew.

We roll through town on skateboards or in cars without care or restriction. Each day was
free for us to choose what we wanted to do. Fucked up or sober, whatever the day held while I
was selling drugs was free, fun, and open to my choice. A true time to live youthfully in America.
Legal work became fun as well, because it wasnt a requirement for me to be there, it was just a
chance to break from the norms of my life to socialize with the people struggling to get by. It
allows me to expand and socialize in an outward way, since dealing drugs creates introvert
relationships due to its illegality. At work Im not a drug dealer, To them I dont even smoke
weed. It just keeps the questions about my outside life down, and leaves them unable to answer
questions about me in case the wrong people were asking. I never sold drugs to new people,
but they would get them anyway. I had so much that I could pass on the savings to my friends
and have them move it for me. In turn they were entitled to cuts from the total pay, with myself
paying for all the daily activities. Cash Only.
We lived in a small beach community of just over ten thousand on the coast of sunny
California. These days, its a ghost town. Lost to the continual expansion of America and the
insane inflation rate created by the recession in 2008. The town was done once the college on
the coast shut down. I was twenty-two at the time, two years from graduation.I had started
smoking pot two years before, and now had a house with my friend Chris and my girlfriend
Autumn. When higher ed cuts came hard in 2015, our college of five thousand students couldnt
survive. Most left, but some stuck around. It created a large youth population that stuck hard to
the old sixties and seventies model of Californians and locals only. While some tourists would
come up here to break away from the drag of L.A. and the extreme prices in the bay, our little
town was mostly kept to us. The cops didnt enjoy us, but they didnt know us as a drug dealing
group, just as some local kids left behind by the dream due to a lack of inheritable money. We
were just hooligans who barely got by, and the most theyd ever have to do was pull us out of a
local pool for trespassing, take the joints we had on us, and drive off to smoke them themselves.
We always thought it had to be boring to be a cop in our town, so we were respectful whenever

we had to deal with them face to face, but wed always run a little bit just to give them a little
excitement. They never knew that I had four vials of LSD, half a freezer full of psilocybin
mushrooms, and the other half full of weed for sale. I owned all of it, enough to put me in jail for
twenty-five plus years. But that didnt worry me, I was young, dumb, and the coke made me feel
untouchable. When they closed the college we didnt have the care or drive to move down the
coast to another town, we were going to stay here, until the gold mine this town was dried up.
Its amazing the thoughts that can fill your mind so early in the morning. In five minutes I
can cover the entirety of when my life entered into my control, even though it was over two
years ago that I started. I was laying next to my girlfriend starting at the ceiling, I turned my head
and laid there for a moment watching her chest rise and fall. Good. Another day without an
overdose murder stuck on my hands. Its the reason I dont sell hard drugs, besides the fact I
dont want to deal with people that will kill me for less than a gram of anything, I dont want
anyones blood on my hands. I walked naked to the bathroom, lit a cigarette and snorted two
lines of cocaine. I put on some ratty shorts and just cascaded a button up over my shoulders. As
I looked into the mirror, a shell of a person looked back. I shook my head but he was still there.
As I started to wonder where I had fallen to reach the point where I could have fallen away from
the dreams I used to have, the coke kicked in and I was awake and ready to go. The man in the
mirror was normal again, looking young and ready to greet the world. I went to the kitchen,
grabbed a bud out of the freezer and started the coffee. As it brewed I rolled a joint and went out
to the back porch to lay in my hammock. I slapped all my pockets as I laid down and was filled
ith the disappointment of the kid who didnt get what he wanted for Christmas, I had forgotten
my lighter in the bathroom. damnit. As I start to get up to get it, it lands in my lap. There is
Autumn, a smile on her face with nothing on but one of my button ups and some tight, lacy, little
panties that showed off her incredible ass.
Here baby, you forgot something. she said.
Thanks. I murmured though a smile.

She was beautiful. slim, tall, long brown hair and piercing blue eyes. She was an old
soul, something that helped drive the original movement at Golden Gate Park. Completely
misplaced in time, sixty years too late. We both missed that departure, and while drugs were
prevalent in our lives, they did not create our views on society and on the politics. We were well
aware that our generation would be the last one to experience the freedoms that are promised
by our figurehead government. She asked me something during this thought, but for the life of
me I wasnt listening.
I nodded and she returned in time, climbing into the hammock with me. As we got
comfortable, she grabbed the joint out of my mouth,lit it, and took a long drag off of it. As I went
to grab it, she rolled herself onto me and blew her drag into my mouth. I returned the kiss to her,
trying to hold back a smile on my face. She rolled out of the hammock and off the finish making
breakfast. Leaving me there to smoke out my thoughts and watch the beautiful California
morning turn into a beautiful California day.
After we ate breakfast we grabbed our surfboards, loaded them onto the car, and let
Chris drive them down to the beach. Chris was shaved bald, and had a traditional look about
him. Straight up midwest turned surfer, which is how he actually ended up in Cali, on a sports
scholarship for the college before it closed. He was originally straight edge like myself, but we
both opened up as we felt disparity to the situation of our future,and found ways to sedate
ourselves.
Autumn and I packed up some drugs into a backpack and rode down on our
skateboards. When we arrived I put a vial in a cooler with ice and rolled up a joint. As we waxed
our boards we passed it around, watching the local youngsters continually throw themselves at
the surf. We all took a bump of coke off a little vial I wore around my neck then hit the ocean.
After two hours of surfing, we all hopped into the car and headed back to the house.
We did this every morning, always bring the acid but not always eating it, when we
would get back to the house it would be time to open up shop. The greatest thing about moving

drugs to close friends is that the will put off their customers until you are ready to start the day.
Chris, Autumn and I weigh out bags and fill them up as everyone drops by for their daily
purchases. We hook up about twelve people, and they are always around to keep suspicion low.
The ones who were with me originally were Chris, Autumn, Adam, Sam, Nick, and Sean. We
had five people who rolled in our group, but they would hang out less because they had large
clients and stuck to being available and at home at almost all times for their customers. The
initial seven, which included myself, would do just about everything together, wed eat together,
go to the bar together, and basically do anything except live together, together.
When we would go out and run into people they knew, I was just a close friend that didnt
participate often, but was absolutely okay with the situation. We would go to music festivals and
make money while so far gone on our drugs that it made no sense whatsoever as to how we
were able to actually move them. People just want drugs we felt, and we had the good ones.
Thats probably what would bring people by our campsite, or just us randomly jabbering about
random events happening in our coke fueled acid binges.
It was pretty easy for us to do what we wanted. None of us were really obsessed with
having the most top of the line model of anything. We just had what we needed to get by. We
just had what we needed to get by. Our cars werent flashy and we didnt go around just blowing
the cash that we made. We let it build up so we could buy more product.
Nobody but myself knew my supplier, and I wont even tell you now. He was a straight,
up-front guy who was never a man to be feared. I met him through a friend and established an
up front cash agreement. I used my student loans to set off my business, and in less than a
month I had doubled them. I bought enough product to sit on and still get by with fun, rent, and
food. Buying in bulk made the arrangement easy. We did not communicate through
conventional means, we would write each other letters as if we were just regular pen pals. I
would update him with what was going on in my world, send him the letter, and hed respond.
Ten days after the response letter arrived, he would show up at the door and wed exchange

cash in full for product. Id send chris and Autumn out to buy groceries and collect money from
Adam, Sam, Nick, and Sean. By the time my guy was gone, Theyd be back with food for a
month and all the money for the next shipment to be bought.
Then it was back to the daily. Adam, Sam, Nick, and Sean would drop by, kick it, then
head back home after picking up. Autumn had some girlfriends she sold to as well, but she was
never allowed to bring them to my place. Shed call them up, go to her apartment (which I paid
for), then hook them up with whatever they needed. She never told them what I did, and Id only
be around them when we went out and I was present as well. I never once thought about
Autumn letting it slip, I didnt need to. She adored me, she loved me, and all my secrets were
hers to keep. I felt the exact same way about this woman. The only reason we werent married
was because we believed the system was flawed. We didnt want to be included in statistics
bound by legal code. We wanted love, so we chose love. We didnt need anyone to tell us we
were legally in love, because in the end there is nothing truly legal about it. Barriers get dropped
and violated by each party in the quest to discover the true depth of the others personality. From
the minute I met Autumn, our personal barriers just seemed to melt away, and when they were
gone, we were naked to each other.
The sex was amazing. From the minute I entered her it felt like every drug I had ever
taken hit me at once. I melted into her, my eyes closed, and visions of a perfect future came to
fruition in my minds eye. I wont brag, or make things up, while it was amazing for me, it lasted
about thirty seconds for her. It was all okay though because she felt what I felt too, and let me
try again.
After we met our lives changed. It took a few months before she found out what I
actually did, but it did not bother her at all. My guess was she had always known, but nobody
would have been able to guess. I loved her absolutely from that moment on.
Adam was a guy who was good with cars, he lived with Sean and they split the money
from the drugs. If we ever had a vehicular problem, wed pay him in a mix of cash and free

drugs to get it fixed. He never would accept anything more than the cost of the part due to his
adamant defense of the phrase good friends. So Id give the money to Sean to add to their
drug stack. Sean was slim with long straight brown hair. He only wore shorts, flip flops, and a
wifebeater. Adam however was a thick guy with a short crop on his head and strong tone to his
muscles.
Nick and Sam lived at two different places but were inseparable. Both had the long hair
hair surfer, pretty boy look and basically looked like twins. This running joke in the group was
enhanced when they both crashed their cars on the same day and took to skateboarding
everywhere they wanted to go together. If one was at his house, you knew the other was there,
or vice versa.
After we got back from surfing, we sold out the drugs we needed to get rid of then
moved back to hanging out for fun. The legal market in America was fucked, so we figured the
only way to succeed is to follow the models of corrupt, mega-corporations and slide our way
through the law to make money. If they werent going to jail, we shouldnt go for making way
less untaxed money right? We were all pissed that the country was falling apart around us, and
that the people responsible for it remained free from even the most illustrious of prisons. In fact,
in 2008, they even got caught taking bailout money and spending it on themselves instead of
their companies and went free, so by our logic, if we started making money to even that point,
we should be fine.
It was now lunchtime, and Autumn and I were sitting on the couch listening to music and
snorting coke. Chris was in his room and everyone was coming over for a little get together. I
pulled out a quarter of an ounce of coke, one vial of LSD, an ounce of mushrooms, and an
ounce of weed. Autumn and I decided that it would be best to go get some booze as well, so we
rolled off to the liquor store. I had Chris move the drugs we werent going to do that night into his
safe, so that nobody would get any ideas to consume more than the allotted amount (which was
still a shit load to use over seven people). Autumn and I passed the liquor store, passing a joint

between us as we rolled down main street. Then we rolled up to the local overlook and watched
the Pacific Ocean roll in and out on the coast. It was springtime and the currents were just
starting to warm the ocean below. We climbed down and smoked another joint on the rocks.
Autumn pushed me into the water and ran around the cliff to the beach access point. I swam in
after her, and by the time I had gotten back to the road, my skateboard was at the edge of the
beach and I could see the speck of a person down the road rolling away into town. I guess the
chase was on.
When I got into town she was already sitting outside of the liquor store smiling and
waving two bottles in the air. She joked around telling me that she was covering it all for once,
and a couple more boxes of beer and liquor were brought out by the owner of the store. We
filled our packs up and carried the rest and rode back to the house. Everyone was already
there, and we went inside and started drinking. I busted out lines and we all started feeling the
coke in minutes. I walked around with the vial while my friends ate some mushrooms and
dropped two drops on the back of their necks and four into Autumns drink. I then opened my
mouth and dropped about six hits into it.
Three hours later we were all laughing and tripping and rolling around on the floor.
Autumn and Sean were painting the walls with psychedelic paints and patterns that came to
their minds. Music was blaring and we were about halfway through the coke and a quarter of the
way through the weed. Everyone except Autumn and I went out back for a cigarette, and we sat
there on the couch, talking about the future and how we could escape both the drug game and
the ails of the country. I held her in my arms and she nuzzled her head against my shoulder. Our
dreams were attainable, and after a couple more years in the country, wed have enough money
for two tickets out. I never felt happier about a plan in my life, and I wont ever forget the joy I felt
at the time. Maybe the drugs were helping with those feelings and wild ideas, but they fit us
outside of the drugs, and we could feel it.

Suddenly there was a loud crash. The glass screen door gave way to Adam and
someone who I did not know. Adam slammed him into the ground and a gun fell out of his hand.
There was a bunch of yelling. Adam was asking the guy who the fuck he was and screaming all
sorts of profanities as he removed the mask from the guy. I looked over and saw Sam watching
with a look of horrified recognition on his face. This man was someone he knew, and had waited
to follow Sam back over here and try to rob us. He came running in and started punching the
guy in the face repeatedly as Adam pointed the gun at his face. There were so many people
talking and shouting and asking what to do with the pig fucker that I couldnt even figure out who
was saying what. People asking me if they should just kill him and be done with it, Sam still
punching this kids barely conscious face in. I remember running my hands through my hair and
pacing back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. The acid told me to grab my shit and run,
the coke told me to kill the guy for even thinking about coming to my home where I lived with the
love of my life and causing a threat to both her and to the business we ran. Sam stopped
beating the guy and he was laying there bloodied with a fearful look in his eyes. I remember
yelling at him, telling him that he had finally met the supplier that hed wanted to rob, and that he
was an absolute fucking idiot for trying to rob me while everyone was here. I grabbed the pistol
from Adam and shoved it into the kids face again. repeatedly asking if he was scared. All he
could do was cry and nod. I told everybody to grab the shit and get it moved to another house,
and to not tell me which house it was at until wed all cooled down.
Crash.
Again another loud crash echoed through the room, and I looked up to see the front door
flying open and saw two guys running through it with masks on. I heard Adam cry out and
watched him fall on his face as blood painted the white shirt on his black. I saw Autumn cover
her mouth and was pretty sure she let out a scream, I couldnt hear anything anymore. My trip
turned red, everything I saw was as red as the blood coursing from Adams back and pooling on
the floor. Everything was moving slow. I ducked behind the couch and pulled Autumn down. I

remember yelling at her to go hide in the back and get Chris pistol from his nightstand. She
didnt move though and just sat there crying, maybe I didnt say anything...who knows. I have
never felt my heart break on the level that it did while she was staring at me. All of this
happened in seconds that felt like hours. Usually certain live events can make one who is on
LSD forget the effects of the drug and see soberly, especially during traumatic events, but this
wasnt the case this time. I had taken twelve hits before and talked sheriff's out of searching and
inevitably arresting us. They had shown up and I went from gone to sober in the matter of time it
took me to recognize what was happening. Not this time though. The walls were warping and
faces looked reptilian. I could see everything going on around me even though I was in cover. It
was almost as if I could see through walls and couches and see exactly where they were. The
kid who Sam had been beating ran back out the back when Sam turned to see Adam falling.
I gripped the pistol and turned to the front. One of the guys in the mask peeked out and I
sent three rounds his way. I heard him cry out and his friend yell that I was something,
something, sonofabitch! Nick and Sam went out back to chase after the first kid, and jumped
the fence to the alley. Chris went around the back and broke his window out to get his gun and
throw the safe out back. Im pretty sure he had yelled to me what he was doing, but I cant
remember how I knew. Then the sound came rushing back, and all of it hit me at once, dizzying
me, making me nauseous, I gagged and threw up on the floor and pushed Autumn, who was
screaming and crying under the table. I looked over and heard Adam groaning and trying to
crawl his way into better cover. I still couldnt understand how he had been hit in the back. There
must have been a fourth shooter with a getaway car out back. Chris came flying through the
hallway ratcheting off ten rounds as fast as he could, dropping the clip and reloading as he
dropped into cover. I looked at him and nodded. he reached up and took a shot at the wall. It
went through both layers of drywall and hit the guy at the front door. Then suddenly, other than
the groans of the wounded, it was dead silent. I looked out and saw nothing in front of us, and
looked back to Chris. I told him to get to Adam and make sure he is alright. I pulled Autumn out

from under the table and told her to stay low for a second, but to go grab what she needed
before we had to run out of town. I stood up and walked over to the two guys who came through
the front. I put one round each into their head and marveled at the sight of blood spray on the
white walls and pooling on the floor. If it wasnt so real it may have been an interesting thing to
see on LSD.
Crack.
The sound came from outside, but I didnt know what it was, it sounded like a firework
had gone off or a car had backfired a couple blocks over. A sudden sharp pain was felt in my
chest. Damn drugs, dont do this now echoed through my mind over and over again. I looked
over at Chris and Autumn, both were standing up with the weirdest of shocked looks on their
faces. Then my legs quit on me. Again I thought it was the drugs, I fell to the ground and rolled
sideways to prop myself against the wall. I was feeling calm, like the whole event was tragic, but
wed all be okay. Then the pain in my chest hit again, this time much sharper. I looked down and
saw a dark wet hole in my shirt. I coughed and blood came spattering out of my mouth. I looked
up at Autumn, who ran over screaming with tears coming out of her eyes. All I could hear was
her screaming Aiden over and over, getting softer and softer from the level of screams to just
pure normal sobs. I looked over at Adam, he caught my eye, nodded and his head collapsed
downward. Then the realization set over that I was also hit, and that it wasnt good. The liquor
had thinned out my blood and it was pouring out. I tried to talk but nothing would come out. I
tried to tell Autumn how much I loved her, and how wed get out of the country as soon as I was
better, but nothing came out except blood. She kept telling me that she loved me and to hold
on, that they were going to get me help. I nodded and smiled at her, heard the words come out
of my mouth telling her how she meant the world to me, how every single moment wed shared
since we met was the best thing Id ever had experienced. Drugs were nothing compared to her,
and we both knew I meant it. Then I grew tired. It was weird how fast it set on. Like I had just
run a triathlon and was headed back home for some well needed and deserved rest. I closed

my eyes and felt myself start to drift off, with Autumns sobs and declarations of love echoing
through as it all went dark.
Now Im here, I cant really tell you what here is, because Im not too sure myself. It has
no reference, does not have a feeling of either heaven nor hell, and its not permanent white
forever like the ideas of old about purgatory. I dont remember how I got here, or why I am here,
but I can remember all the events up to the point of going to sleep. I feel like Ive been here for
decades now, confused and left only with memories up to the point of being against the wall,
constantly replaying the sounds of Autumn as she held me in her arms right there, asking me to
wake up, telling me how she needed me, and then demanding that I get up. Just open my eyes.
Come back. I chase these words around over and over trying to find her, trying to find a way out,
but the echoes just grow farther and farther away. I cant understand why she wont come here
to me. I try to yell out at the echoes to direct her closer to me, but its starting to seem like its in
vain. The only thing keeping me going here is hope. I hope she will find me soon.