Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

Everything is not okay anymore. I’ve already managed to get hooked back on dope after two months of freedom and hanging out with Jenifer. My whole experience in jail and the game plan I developed to do the right thing just hasn’t worked out. How can it when I’m hooked on this shit? And poor Bryce, who depends on his car to deliver pizzas and support his useful English degree, is now totally fucked. I’m depressed about yet another bad thing associated with my habit and I don’t know what to do about it. I had his car towed to a shop to fix and I promised him I would get it out as soon as I could afford to but I’m not high on the reliability circuit lately. As a result, Bryce is moving home with his parents in Corpus Christi and without a roommate, Kirk is just leaving the apartment and moving to Austin. He won’t talk to me too much about it but I really shook up his world with my bullshit.

I had to prostrate and humble myself to my parents to get them to help me co-sign on an apartment here in town. It was not a pleasant experience trying to deal with them again; there’s still so much animosity between us about money, but I desperately needed a place to stay and I’ve always been good about getting a job and paying my rent on time before all of this. To say they were reluctant to help me is putting it nicely. I’m really trying to be good though. I’ve got food stamps to help me get back on track with a balanced diet and my bicycle gets me around town now. My wrecked bug was towed and then sold by the city in an auction before I could reclaim it, which I think is the same as stealing since they didn’t wait the required 3 months before selling it off as salvage, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Stupid city.

The new apartment is just a one room shithole behind the head shop where the Delta Lodge used to be, but at least it’s MY shithole although it always feels hot and awkward. I’ve locked myself out of the apartment several times already (how could that happen?), but by using all my strength I can push the air conditioner into the wall and crawl through the hole to get back in. Now I’m not a large guy but that should give an estimate of the dimensions of my ineffective AC unit.

While I was in jail, the Lodge burned completely to the ground and even though it makes me sad to see it gone, at least I have an alibi that clears me or more than likely it would be one more thing I might have to take the (literal) heat for. When I was homeless I spent more than a few nights on the third floor couches of the house before I finally roomed with Kirk. It’s sad because I loved that house as much as anyone and now it’s gone. All that’s left from there are people flinging crap at me.

In the past month or so I’ve already had to face a trial of my peers at the Delta Lodge because some bitches accused me of stealing money while working at the Fry St. Fair this year. I think it was to divert attention away from themselves since they didn’t show up to the trial where I had to go and address the entire house in person. I guess the worst part is that they didn’t actually see me stealing anything; they just speculated I did because I had money to buy drugs, from them, later on the same day! It’s a fucked up, bizarre rationale but regardless, I’m now on the outs with a lot of people from the Lodge. My habit and drug of choice have become apparent in this community and rumors circulate like wildfire through this new(er) group of guys. I’ve lost touch with them all. I vividly remember my own reaction of revulsion upon meeting my first old “Sammy” alumni who came to the house with these crazy old stories, right out of a seventies rock band cliché, filled with coke, heroin and theft. Well, now I’m that guy in the Lodge, and this new group, which has mostly formed while I’ve been pissing my life away and getting tossed in and out of jail, doesn’t think very highly of me. Somebody even spread the rumor that I was dressing up like my mother and going into the bank to cash her savings bonds, so I had to try and quash that also, but lies based on partial fact are always more believable.

Basically, since I showed up to the Monday meeting and made a convincing plea of my case (the girls didn’t show) I was vindicated. Mostly because the girls that I was getting the drugs from are already not very credible with them either. Delta membership is for life, so after I said what I had to say the whole situation ended with the guys saying “fuck it” and a murmured chant of “karma cash.” “Karma cash” basically means, “We can’t prove you guilty or innocent, so if you did wrong the energy of the universe will boomerang and bite you in the ass later.” I hadn’t heard of that phrase before but it made me feel empty inside knowing I really am guilty of a whole lot more. A curse like that doesn’t bode well for my future because by now I have certainly abused any of the good karma I ever created giving out free food and beer, if that doesn’t count against me also. Words and phrases in everyday conversation now wrack me with ulcer-ish guilt that nearly drives me to my knees. I can’t turn this brain off and it’s so fucking hot.

Disposable pop music and peppermints are all that seem to permeate the air today. The summer heat is pressing in and the trees are dropping those nasty green things that stick to the bottom of my socks and make a green-ish paste on the bottom of my bare feet. I sense humid growth and the ever-present smell of vegetation coupled with fast food scents drifting from the Tomato and Chinese place across the street.

Do I write too much about how hot it is? That’s because it is so fucking hot all the damn time. My body feels like a solar cell when it gets out of a cold environment, storing and internalizing the heat for later use. Must have something to do with my Minnesota roots.

I see Jenifer a lot now that it’s the dead heat of summer. Her habit has gotten really bad, about as bad as mine was while she was in the hospital, but I still need her love even if she can’t perceive it. Every morning I wake up and realize that I live about 100 yards from where I first met and fell in love with her that one fateful day on Fry St. So long ago. Every waking day, I am reminded of what I have done. We’ve just got to see how everything turns out.

How can I describe freedom to people who’ve never had it taken away, people who’ve never lived without it? It’s just not enough that the cops always win, why do they have to make somebody lose in the process of doing it?

I was settled nicely in my new job, new apartment and I was having a mid-morning toke with the screen door open to let in some of the early morning breeze before the heat got too stifling. I was comfortably nice and warm, taking a nap in my only chair after a long night of working at the medical supply company, when I woke up to the cops walking into my place. I heard the squeak of the screen door as it opened and as soon as I saw them, I told them to “get out of my house.” They walked in anyway, saying they saw me napping in my chair and wanted to check and see if everything was ok. I assured them I was fucking “ok” but by that time they were already in my apartment despite my repeated requests not to enter.

The police philosophy is to never pass up the opportunity to search something or somebody around here, whether it’s legal or not. They just always seem to find some fucking excuse to do what they want to do and damn the constitution. I requested to see a copy of their warrant when they had both had stepped foot inside my little room but they just laughed saying that they didn’t need one because they “thought they were responding to a medical emergency.” As they started looking around I clearly indicated that I was not having a medical emergency and that they were not welcome in my apartment, but by then it was too late.