29

"Tyler, you have to stop what you are doing and clean up your act," my ex-wife said to me at the end of a call I placed to her from the Racine County Jail. It was just a few minutes before midnight. I was about to turn 30 years old inside a bullpen outside of the booking area. Happy Birthday.

As I sat in that bullpen, surprisingly coherent, I realized that the last year of my life had been a full fledged attempt to destroy anything resembling a decent, honest existence. I fell head over heels for a girl who could not return my love. My wife divorced me, my mom died; those two things happened the same day. Then I brought the girl who could not return my love to live with me. Received an inheritance. Blew through most of it. Lost the friendships of two people who were there for me due to my malicious actions. Picked up a few felony drug charges, and now I was in jail.

The two people were along for most of the ride were Jamie and Aaron. People who had dispositions like my own. All of us had sold our souls to deviancy, depravity, debauchery, and decadence. We were up for anything having to do with moral degradation; as long as the end selfishly resulted in getting high.

Jamie was an on-again, off-again girlfriend who I had been insane about since she was 18 and came to me because she wanted a pimp who wouldn't beat her. She was the one person I allowed to seduce me since I had my heart broken at age 17. She was a somber soul who was addicted to heroin.

The night that I met her I had been married only three weeks. We were at a friend's parent's house watching TV. She had just done a shot of H and offered me a bump. I had done dope before, but I had never found the drug all too appealing. That night I had an experience that was to cement the insane bond between her, me and heroin that would plague me for years to come. That night I broke the sacred vow of my marriage.

Aaron was a product of a generation of youth who had no one to look up to. We met at a packaging company. I could see rock music in his eyes and defeat in his heart. I found out he was a singer in a hard core band before he got addicted to crack. His crack addiction let him to a prison stint. Good behavior led him to parole. Misfortune led him to think I was a good guy to befriend.

When he and I would get together everything would be fun and games at first. Then everything would go very bad. Someone's feelings always got hurt due to sleight of hand. We would just chalk the dirt done up to the crack. We could seemingly do whatever we wanted to one another without the other holding any long term resentment. The forgiveness only lasted so long. As the stakes grew higher, so did the animosity.

Though I spent most of 29 with Aaron and Jamie, other people played key roles. There was my Grandma, Mom, Son, Ex-Wife, drug dealers, irate neighbors, shop keepers, cops, and an elderly landlord who were along for the ride. Having made it to the other side of 29 I can easily look back and be grateful that I did not end up dead. I easily could have. I ask myself: why do some die in the drug game? I realize that drug addicts and the people around them are all players in a deviant chess match where there are no clear cut winners. Some make it. Others are sacrificed. I was just fortunate enough to be a king who was still breathing even if I was facing a stalemate.