Have you ever smoked crack?

I haven't, but I've seen it done more than once. The first time was in 1992. I was in a strange transitional place in my life and for some reason hanging out with a big hooker named Rita. Believe it or not, our relationship wasn't a sexual one. Each of us found the other attractive, but we never acted on it. For my part I wouldn't risk becoming emotionally attached to someone who I knew would be sleeping with other people for money moments after saying how much she cared about me. In so far as she was concerned, she had a preference for short Latinos with thick moustaches.

We were drinking buddies. I met her in a sleazy bar on Main Street back when the now bustling part of downtown Houston was still pretty skanky. We had a few drinks and seemed to enjoy one an other's company. She was a big, six foot, brunette from Arkansas, with big blue eyes, heavy over sized breasts, and a trailer park twang that was as comical as it was rustic and charming in a backwoods kind of way. After we talked for an hour we discovered that our birthdays were exactly eight days and one year apart and we both drank vodka. At the time we hung out I was working a dead end job, which involved lifting heavy objects and she was hustling the streets. By hustling I meant she was begging, picking pockets, breaking into cars and turning the occasional trick. She would do virtually anything to keep a roof over her head. She'd left Arkansas when she was 17 and had spent the previous five years drinking hard, snorting coke and doing smack and her face showed it. At 23 she looked 35. When I met her she drank mostly. She only did drugs when either she had the money or when someone else provided them. She lived in a miserable downtown hotel that seemed to be a haven for prostitutes.

The owners were reprehensible recent immigrants with thick accents of unknown Eastern European origin. They knew most of their mostly female residents were working girls and turned tricks in their rooms so as not to be left out they charged the girls a $10.00 visitors fee for each "visitor" who came in so as to get their "cut" of the action. One day Rita and I had a cheap bottle of vodka and went up to her room to get drunk beyond belief. She drank to escape the problems she'd created for herself, and I drank to escape the minuscule demons of my own making which paled in comparison to what she saw each day on the cruel streets. As we sat drinking warm vodka from cheap thin plastic glasses there was a frantic knock on her door. When she got up to answer it a skinny redhead with a black eye entered.

"Girl. You aint gonna believe this shit." She said as she entered without fanfare.

"What's wrong?" Rita asked

"That bitch Chloe." The redhead said "That skank is saying I'm going on $10.00 dates."

"You're shittin' me?" Rita said in disbelief. The nameless redhead was a sight. She was wiry to the point of being what many would consider anorexic. Her skin was pale and blotchy and she wore too much foundation. Her hair was a peculiar shade of brownish red and her eyes were a placid blue. The problem however was the fact that when she entered while she looked in the general direction of Rita and me she seemed to be looking straight through us. She had what soldiers and Marines call a thousand yard stare. Her eyes were filled with fear. It looked almost as if she were staring down the barrel of a gun. "I ran into her outside" she continued "and kicked her fuckin' ass."

Funny thing about those who sell sex for a living. We call what they do 'picking up Johns' or 'turning tricks.' The simply call it going on dates. I guess in their mind it sanitizes that which they do and makes it a bit more mentally palatable to them. What could be more harmless or NORMAL than going on a date? While being a whore amongst whores isn't a bad thing, being a CHEAP whore was considered to be unacceptable. One girl claiming another was doing 'dates' for anything but the going rate was an affront worthy of getting cut.

"She do that to your eye?" Rita asked

"Fuck yeah." The redhead countered. "But don't worry, I got her." She said. "I got that bitch good." She sat down on a beaten wooden chair as Rita returned to the couch where I sat with a generic bottle of god awful vodka. The redhead poked around in her purse. "I mean seriously." She continued "Who the fuck does that bitch think I am?" From the worn black handbag that looked as if it had been fished from a dumpster she fished out an odd looking bent piece of glass tubing.

"I don't blame you." Rita said as she obliviously snatched the bottle from me and filled the scratchy, thin, plastic cup to it's rim. "She needs ta mind her own fuckin' business." The redhead reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of tissue and carefully unfolded it. In it was a tiny clump of something that looked like baking soda. She gently placed it into the piece of glass tubing then began to fish around in the dirty, faded jeans that hung from her boney frame and pulled out a beaten, purple, plastic lighter.

"What's fucked up" The redhead continued as she desperately flicked the old lighter until it finally produced a flame. "Is that I fuckin' trusted her! I mean she even crashed with my ass a couple of days when she couldn't make her rent. Fuckin' bitch!" Once she had a flame she greedily placed the other end of the tube into her mouth and puffed it as tiny billows of white smoke came from her face.

I tried not to stare, but don't think it really mattered. She was in another world. She closed her eyes and the fear that had been on her face seconds earlier seemed to become a distant memory. She was in an odd state of euphoria. The fight she'd been in minutes earlier had become irrelevant, for the moment her problems had all disappeared. The rock she was smoking had been a small one or else she might have shared it with Rita.

Rita and I let the conversation end as the redhead seemed content to silence herself. Rita and I resumed drinking amid the chemical smell produced by her friend's quickly inhaled crack rock. Neither Rita nor I could sit in judgement. Rita over the time that I knew her slowly ruined her life with the same drug. She wound up doing a lengthy prison term for possession of it and some of the crimes she committed in order to get it. I was drinking at the time and couldn't pretend that my own vice was a harmless one.

It was the first time I'd ever seen anyone freebase cocaine, and I wish I could say it was the last. Unfortunately for me over the years that followed I witnessed entirely too many members of my generation destroying their brains and lives with that poison. Some would ultimately wind up dying as a result of it. Mine was not the first generation to lose a good portion of it's better minds to drugs. I guess it's part of an odd cycle of stupidity. With age comes a certain degree of wisdom, but in retrospect I can't help but wonder where Rita, her red headed friend and various other members of my generation are now and where they would be had they better used their common sense.

Oh My GOD! There are BULLIES IN SCHOOL!

Recently in a handful of unrelated incidents American teens have committed suicide out of sheer embarrassment because either someone started a hurtful (and unlikely rumor about them) or either attacked them or outed them for being homosexual. In typical knee-jerk fashion, lawmakers are in a tizzy and are scrambling to enact ANY sort of anti-bully legislation to protect our children. While it shouldn't matter those bullied who would up taking their own lives were white kids from suburbia. Do I have issues with white kids from Suburbia of course not. Do I think someone should do something about bullies in America's schools? Of course. Should we pass strict "anti bullying" laws?
Before I answer that question let me pose one. Is bullying a new and recent phenomena or have bullies been around since the dawn of mankind? Everyone who went to school falls into one of three categories they either were bullied, were bullies or know someone who fell into one of the aforementioned categories. When I was in elementary I was unfortunate enough to have sat in front of someone who would today be called bi-polar. Back then we just called them crazy. A student who I'll call Phil used to go into violent rages and hit the person closest to him and as we sat alphabetically and I sat directly in front of him he would periodically punch me in the back of the head. Once he got up in the middle of a class, knocked me off my desk and pummelled me. We were both sent to the Principal's office where we were ordered to say "I'm sorry & shake hands" and go back to class. I looked at the principal with disbelief and told her I wasn't going to apologize for being attacked for no reason. Regardless she told me I'd get paddled (as they weren't stingy with the paddle back then) if I didn't. I reached out to shake his hand and he stood up and punched me full on in the face...IN our principals office.
I was given an ice pack for my eye and for some reason they gave both me AND my bully Popsicles and sent us back to class. Phil would occasionally wait for me after school with two other idiots and they would jump me for sport. When I reported it I was told my teacher (whom I sincerely hope is dead and roasting in hell by now) that "No one likes a tattle tale." By the time I made it to high school bullies hadn't changed I was being picked on in the 10th grade by some idiot. When I defended myself against him he attacked me with five of his friends and gave me a concussion by hitting me in the back of the head with a 55 gallon metal trash can. I told an assistant principal and was told "We'll do what we can." The next time I saw my bully he didn't have his five friends in tow. He was walking down a hall with his girlfriend. I ran at him at full speed and turned his face into my own personal punching bag.
As it was the late 80s and every jerk and his dog had a HUGE Run DMC looking gold chain, I wrapped my hands in his and used it as a crude weapon to repeatedly ram his head into a locker as hard as I could to the point of denting it. Before I knew it, Mr. Henry my assistant principal (who stood a good five foot four) had tackled me at the knees and was dragging me to the office by my left heel with one hand. I was suspended as was my bully for the previous confrontation and I was never bullied again. Funny thing. Four years ago I was in a convenience store and ran into the bully from my second story. The fight came up and we had a good laugh about it.
My point? There have always been and will always be bullies how we react to it defines us in a way. Was my way the best way? Most certainly it wasn't, and I don't' advocate being a vigilante. The bullied in the 90s responded to their bullies by bringing guns to school and apparently the bullied in this generation respond by killing themselves. In the 90s principals responded by getting more counselors to talk to kids when they felt "stressed". The downside to this was anytime a kid didn't want to be in a class he/she would simply say "Uh...I got a problem and need to talk to my counselor" which lead to rampant abuse.
The solution to bullies isn't passing laws to hold some bully accountable if the bullied kills him/herself. The solution is simpler than that. Teachers, principals and parents should simply DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS and come down on bullies like a ton of bricks. What about Phil the bully from my first story? I ran into him in the old neighborhood at a gas station. He was incoherent and rambling talking about how people were out to get him. I mentioned a former classmate of ours and Phil made some sort of veiled threat against him. I let him leave first and while he was outside someone approached him and he drew a 9 millimeter pistol on them prompting them to flee. Passing "feel good" anti-bully laws won't solve this age old problem, the framework has long been in place to handle it, but rather than disciplining those who bully we coddle them and ignore the kids BEING bullied until something goes horrifically wrong and until we start telling kids at an early age that bullying is wrong the problem will persist.

ME FIRST!

The other day I was talking to a co-worker when a student came up and interrupted us.

"Mr. Nemo I need your signature on XYZ." My co-worker and I simply stood there looking at the student as if there were a foot coming out of her forehead. She signed the document and we continued our conversation. The other day after church I was standing around talking to an usher. In the midst of our chat a boy who couldn't have been more than 12 came up and interrupted "You want to buy so me cookies." I looked at him oddly and politely said no. "It's for a good cause" the kid interrupted. I again said no thank you. "Please." the young person pleaded again. I stood there and said:

"Young man HERE are the mistakes you made. #1 you didn't say excuse me. This gentleman and I were talking and you just interrupted us as if what we were discussing was of no importance. #2 You didn't introduce yourself. My name is Joe Blow or something would have gotten our attention. #3. You didn't tell us what you were selling this stuff FOR! #4. You're not telling me what kind of cookies. It's like you don't know what you're selling. You're rude and you act like we should buy from you simply because you're telling us to." The young man's expression didn't change as he looked me straight in the eye as if I hadn't uttered a word and he asked me:

"So you want to buy some cookies or not?" When did common courtesy and civility become the exception and not the RULE in these United States? My generation was occasionally smacked upside the head by our parents. Was it right? Of course not, but unfortunately it made my generation the WORST parents the world has ever seen. When I played pop Warner football you either won or lost. If you won you got a trophy if you lost you got a lecture on it not being about winning but rather about sportsmanship which you later discarded because you wanted to win.
Now unfortunately everyone on every team gets a HUGE trophy simply for playing. Children who swear at parents and teachers are no longer paddled, they get "time outs" where they get to think about what they've done OR they sit and talk about their feelings. When I was coming up if you cursed out a teacher you were expelled. If you cursed out one of your parents you said "time out" as they attacked you with a worn leather belt or some kind of hickory switch.
My generation has given their children every computer, video game, phone and electronic device that the mass media tells them they should have and the end result is a group of fat, lazy complacent young people with no imagination whatsoever who only go outside on their way to pick up fast food or more games.

As we don't require them to work for anything, we ask schools to relax standards so that their grades are artificially bolstered. Reading anything other than garbled text messages is considered "nerdy" or a waste of time. When they receive a bad grade we blame their teachers as our children can't possibly be at fault. The end result of this coddling is an entire generation which can't write in cursive, thinks that cell phones have always existed, feels that there wasn't a time when we were never on the moon or flying shuttle missions and can't name either the allies or axis powers of the second world war.

We can't blindly blame "society" because as many of our parents have passed on or retired WE have become the society which we rebelled against in the midst of the late 80s and 90s. Our lack of foresight will soon come to disturbing fruition when the children who can barely read, become adults who can't hold jobs because they insist on treating bosses and co workers as if they owe them something. The collapse of social security is inevitable and the generation of slackers and idiots whom we're counting on to pay for it all will be too busy trying to figure out how to get bigger televisions to care or to even fathom that their kids and grand kids will be far dumber than they are.