~ Blizzard Warning ~....Potter padded quietly on the wet concrete floors of St. Elijah Ocean Products in the rubber Bean moccasins his grandmother back in Maine had sent him for Christmas. He didn't care for them much at first, but they were perfect for slipping on after hours to slink down into the sleeping fish plant. Potter had a room upstairs in the can loft, but he preferred to keep his big stash hidden in the bowels of the cannery, ....well removed from his personal space for the obvious reasons. The darkened and serene cannery was in stark contrast to the brightly lit, round-the-clock hustle and bustle that filled the plant during salmon season. A normal January and February brought only sporadic deliveries of King Crabs and Tanner crabs to the plant, and occasionally a rare load of scallops would arrive at the dock, all of which were generally processed in a few short hours, ....and never at night.
Potter made his way through the dim plant and marvelled
at the precious prices a little decent
dope could command in this tiny Alaskan fishing
town. It had never been his original intention to get into peddling marching powder, but as his appetite for the stuff grew, it became an economic imperative–––and even though his task was a child of financial necessity, this did not ensure his efficient or enthusiastic performance of it. Potter would have much preferred to keep the whole damned lot of it for himself, and not have had to put up with an endless stream of coke-crazed, wild-eyed nocturnal zombies, continually pounding at his door. It was his own fault, really....his damned predilection for handling only the highest quality stuff, unsullied with mannitol or aspirin, or any of that other crap some greedy toot heads used to cut down their blow. Some creative idiots even used talcum powder in their exuberant and grandiose marketing strategies! ....Yeah, you could get a gram of shit uptown anywhere, ....for the usual buck and a half, ....but it was invariably stomped on worse than the scrawny kid everyone beat up back in Jr. High. In his righteous quest for purity, Potter was selling g's carved straight from the rock–––brilliant, shiny yellow tinged white flakes, that puffed up gram wrappers so big it didn't look like they could fit in your wallet! Of course, his intentions weren't totally altruistic....Potter was getting $225 a pop, ....a ridiculous price–––even in Corona....and even at $225 per, Potter was making more friends than money. There just wasn't a mercenary bone in his body. Then one brutally cold freezing night, when the chill arctic wind was howling right in through the cheap cannery walls, the party was suddenly over. ....Sure, there was always the usual big letdown after a binge, ....and the shitty and nauseating feeling of emptiness and wasted time after a 3 day snort-fest, ....but this was different. This new feeling was the scariest thing Potter could ever recall....even worse than those ugly nightmares of endlessly falling through space he would wake up from when he was little.... At that moment, on that cold, lonely night, Potter wanted
nothing but to be dead....just to
flat-out die––and
it scared him shitless! Looking out the window at the frozen driveway below, Potter realized in disgust that a jump from his second story perch would avail him no relief. He also realized he was far too much of a chicken to actually do himself in, which only added insult to his injury. Seconds and minutes seemed like weeks and months to his fatigue addled body and fractured psyche. When would this fucking death wish go away? Potter finally wrapped himself up in his bunk, sobbing forlornly in a tortured state of unbearable limbo, and mercifully fell into an oblivious coma while thinking thoughts of trashing his remaining stash. Hours later upon awakening, the dull sickening memory of the dark places he had been the night before rudely pushed their way back into his thoughts. The physical nausea of the previous evening took hold of him all over again, ....only a little less palpably. Potter divested himself of his remaining product within hours, but it would literally take months and years before he could master his moods at the sight of, or even the mere mentioning of coke. In retrospect, Potter knew that an unseen hand had guided him to swear off the toot that night. His course at the time would certainly have lead him to debilitation or incarceration, or very probably even death––likely, all of the above.
Not too long following his own cocaine watershed and
emancipation, Potter
learned of the final release of coke's vise grip on his
connection
in Anchorage. On the very same couch on which Potter had tasted his first uncut blow and had exulted in the euphoria of it all....the "man" and his old lady lay mangled and bloodied amidst the devastation of a hundred big-bore bullets. The Anchorage Daily News had reported the slayings only as drug related, but word on the street was that someone with a very large outstanding debt had come calling to liquidate––the whole damned bank. Call it an occupational hazard, if you like, or just one of the vagaries of the trade, but certainly the vile white powder was capable of inspiring a death wish for others as well as for one's self. ....Anyway, ....go grab an 8-ball with your buddies and have a good old time being King of the World––until the 8-ball is all gone....or the next one, ....or the next one––but unless you're different than any of the rest of us, you're gonna eventually have to look over the edge, baby. ....And if experience is any teacher, you may not like what you see.... You have been warned!
©1999 |