Chapter One

With shaking hands I held the flame to the end of my glass pipe and inhaled slowly and deeply. The oily smoke filled my lungs as I immediately felt the euphoric rush which comes from taking a hit of crack cocaine. I held it in my lungs as long as I could, and then slowly exhaled.

I'm not sure how many thousands of times I had performed this same ritual over the previous two years. It's easier to measure drug use of this sort in the degree of ruin, rather than the quantity of the substance ingested, although the two are inexorably linked.

The high lasted only a few moments, then the fear returned - not alone, but with companions. Pain, self loathing, despair and shame all teamed up to force me into what I had been avoiding all along. It was now time to feel, and I dreaded doing so. How did I get to such a state? When would it end?

I walked around the motel room looking for a sharp object with which I could slash my wrists. I'd never tried this, before, but I'd never been so scared of what morning might bring. I would be homeless, penniless, unemployable, and friendless.

Not finding anything sharp in my belongings, I twisted an aluminum can in two till it tore into two halves. Furiously, I tried sawing into my wrist with what looked to be a sharp edge, but succeeded only in leaving a red mark. I couldn't even succeed in killing myself.

I've seen enough movies to know that a climactic moment, like this one, is the perfect time for something spectacular to occur. Sadly, for a drug addict, the mundane and insignificant drag on forever. I spent the next several hours in a deep depression, broken up only by several episodes of crawling around on the carpet in hopes of spotting a stray crumb of crack.

Checkout time from the motel was ten A.M. - I was now officially homeless. I shouldered my old worn sea bag, and began walking towards Semper Virens - the mental health hospital in Eureka. I had speculated that I may be able to get myself committed. This, I reasoned, would solve the food and shelter question, and perhaps they would have some answers to the addiction problem as well. Reasonable as that sounded to me, it didn't impress the check-in clerk much. She informed me that they couldn't help me, but intimated that if I made a serious attempt at suicide, I could probably get in. The only problem with that plan was that I couldn't afford a serious attempt. At the very least, I would need to purchase some razor blades or rope. I didn't have enough cash for either item.

Discouraged beyond belief, I walked to Highway 101 where I began walking south with my thumb in the air. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I knew what I was leaving. Hitch-hiking, under ideal circumstances, is a very slow way to get from one place to another. One must persuade a passing motorist to do something they normally wouldn't - let a total stranger into their car. Compounding the problem is that the hitch hiker isn't exactly on a winning streak. The only information the motorist has to help in the decision making process is a quick visual assessment of the person on the side of the road. I would guess that someone, somewhere, has done a study about the psychology of hitch hiking. I've given it a little thought, myself, and reached a few unofficial conclusions. In essence, empathy and / or sympathy must override fear before someone hits the brakes. A sizeable percentage of drivers are extremely kind people who would gladly offer a ride if there were little or no risk and very little incovenience. A much slimmer percentage of people will take a small risk in order to be kind. If the hitch-hiker is able to portray himself as being a fairly benign chap, down on his luck, he will eventually, get a ride.

In my case, I was wearing clothes which hadn't been laundered for a few weeks, I was ghostly pale, shaking a bit, and projected anything but safety and stability.

After six hours, I was finally able to catch a ride which got me 37 miles down the road. Since I wasn't sure of my destination, anyway, this was a small victory. The driver dropped me outside of the small logging town of Scotia. I decided to stay on the highway, rather than thumb from the onramp. Through the woods, I could see the Scotia Inn, a very fancy hotel. I spent the next three hours watching cars speed by me, and thinking how nice it would be to go spend the night in that Inn.

As the sun began setting, It occurred to me that I may not be spending the night at The Scotia Inn, but I would probably need to find some safe place nearby. I'd been a Boy Scout in my younger days, and knew how to build a lean-to with nothing more than a pocket knife. I didn't even have a knife now. This would be quite a trick.

It was then that a passing mini-van made a heroic and successful attempt to change lanes and pull over for me. It seemed that the driver made a bit too much effort to stop, and I was immediately suspicious. As I approached the van, I decided to look the driver over and decline the ride if I sensed the least little bit of danger.

As I poked my head in the passenger side window, my apprehension left me. I saw a well used bible on the dashboard, and heard Christian praise music coming from the stereo.

"Nothing to worry about here" I thought. "This is just a Christian trying to earn a few brownie points with God."

"Where ya headed?" asked the driver. He was well dressed (by my standards, anyway) and in his thirties. Roughly my age, I guessed.

"South" I replied.

"I can get you to Garberville. Climb on in."

Garberville was the next large town down the highway - a two hour ride. David, the driver, told me that he was the pastor of a small Baptist church. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, and had a real talent for working bible quotes into his conversation without it seeming phony or forced.

As David told me about himself, and about his belief in Jesus, my mind wandered back to what seemed like a different lifetime. He'd probably be surprised to learn that I was a Christian too, that I once had aspirations to be a pastor and had even been accepted by a bible college.

"What about you?" David asked. "This may be none of my business, but I get the feeling that you're running away from something. Want to talk about it?"

One of the cardinal rules of the world I'd been living in was to keep your mouth shut if you could, and lie if you couldn't. My first impulse was to lie about my situation, but something inside of me so desperately wanted to talk - to pour out my heart to someone - to tell someone all about the pain, the fear, the desperation. Somehow, I knew I could trust this stranger in the minivan.

I paused for a moment, not knowing where to start.

Then, my story began.