Hood Life

Around that first month that I was hanging out with Bill. I mean going out every night. We went to a lot of places and a lot of bars but we also spent a lot of time hanging out in the North Hood. After all, that is where Bill had grown up and where all his friend's lived. We would also drop by various 'friends' of his after the bars were closed so we could have a few more drinks before calling it a night.

This exposed me to a lot of people, places, and lifestyles that I would have otherwise never known. I won't relay all of the times with you, but I will write about some of it.

Most of Bill's 'friends' or acquaintances is more like the term, or pretty much anyone that grew up in those neighbourhoods were functional crack and/ or cocaine users. It was just as much a part of their lifestyles as beer was. When I say 'functional' crack/ cocaine users I mean that they all use as part of their lifestyles, but it hasn't affected their lives much more than alcohol has. They live their normal lives, have their careers (at least most of them work anyway), don't look sickly or like 'crack heads', and pretty much are normal people. They don't sit around and use crack all day. They use it just as people use beer or alcohol or weed for that matter. Mind you, this drug starts getting to anyone over continued use. Functional users can remain that way for years even, but usually eventually become addicts or crack heads if they don't quit using over time. Once again, I'm not promoting the drug. It catches up to anyone and starts impacting their lives more and more if they keep using it. Many people cannot be function users either. They become addicts or crack heads pretty much as soon as they start using it. But that is dependent upon the person too. I will say this as well, it is a drug that can creeps up on you too. Even the functional users will crave it more and more and will be willing to do more and more to get it as time that they've been a user goes on. It is a very addictive drug.

Me and Bill were occassional users at this point as well. But we didn't use it while we were out. If we used, we generally bought a little bit at the end of the night and smoked it at my place after hours while talking or watching TV. This didn't last long though as it turns out that Bill used to be much more of a heavy user, and once we started using occassionally he got much more into wanting to use it more. I talked something about that in a prior post.

Anyway, hanging out with Bill in his neighborhood did expose me to a lot of users and their lifestyle. There was one time me and Bill were drinking in his neighborhood (at Dreamer's Lounge) and after hours dropped by a friends house for a couple more drinks. They didn't have any crack at the time, but this was a crack house. Let me describe it to you. First of all, we got there at around 3:00 am. They had a son, who was about five years old. He was in the front yard sitting on his tricycle when we got there. Bill talked to him and asked if his dad was home, and he replied that he was in the house. So we knocked on the door and went in. He cracked us a beer and we sat around talking while we drank the beer. Let me describe the house. It was a small house. Two bedrooms I suppose, but I only saw the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. The furniture was old but functional and there was no carpet. On the kitchen couters and living room coffee table were plates of half eaten food that were just left sitting out. You could see baby cockroaches occassionally running around these plates of food. At one point, I asked to use the bathroom. Running around the toilet were more baby cockroaches. This is the environment that these people were raising their children in. It was quite eye opening.

This also reminds me of the 'three sisters'. I was out with Bill one evening and we were going to pick up a friend of his and go to a party. His friend lived with the three sisters. The sisters were middle men crack addicts. That means that they knew a local crack dealer. I think it was a relative in fact. Most dealers will only deal to people they know. So, when people wanted crack they would go the the sisters house with their money. The sisters would call their dealer and arrange a meeting. Then the sisters would buy the stuff, take their own cut out of it, and sell it to the buyer. Then the sisters would dissapear into their room and use their share. The sisters house looked just like the other house, but even worse. It was bigger. There were PILES of dirty dishes, pots, and pans all over the entire surface area of the kitchen. I mean piles over all the counter tops, and all over the kitchen table as well as on the coffee table in the living room. At least I don't recall seeing any cockroaches while I was there. But that doesn't mean they didn't have them as well. At least there was no children being raised in this environment.

These are a few of the more extreme places that I visited with Bill though. Most of the places we went to were nice well kept houses, that looked like anyone's home.

One place we dropped into which was on the same street as Bill's house was owned by some guys from backwoods Kentucky. They were hillbillies. The house was clean, but cluttered with papers and stuff. Nothing too out of the ordinary. But what was funny about them is that they were completely open about crack smoking. They would sit in their kitchen, or even on their front porch and smoke crack like it wasn't any different than a cigarette. We had a beer with them, and one of them was sitting at the table doing a hit while we talked to him. That's pretty unusual for crack use. But if you keep to small hits you won't get all weirded out when you use it.

Anyway, it was interesting to see, but pretty sad in reality. Me and Bill hung around his neighborhood for a few weeks, but after the novelty wore off I stopped spending time around there except to visit a few of the bars. It`s not a lifestyle for me except to maybe visit once in a while for the novelty.