Going Ninety on Georgia Avenue.

Going Ninety on Georgia Avenue.

When I was seventeen or eighteen and in the twelfth grade, I was arrested on Georgia Avenue in Washington DC. I had a tan colored VW Karmann Ghia two-speed sports car with no clutch. I would race around town in this vehicle. Even my closest friends refused to drive with me. I also drove the car to school. After two weeks the other children in the carpool complained about my speed. I would start off in second gear at the red light and with this advantage was able to beat most cars from the start, even BMW's.

I never received my driverÕs license, because I received a drunk driving charge while I had my learnerÕs permit and before the probation period ended. I got caught again and my license was revoked. After that time I was arrested again for diving after revocation.

My father confiscated the car when the insurance company eventually caught up with me and cancelled the insurance coverage if I was the driver. My father wouldn't have me driving without insurance or obviously without a license. I was an alcoholic.

What happened was one night I drove into a snow bank on Reno Road during a big snow and got stuck. I may also have run out of gas. So I left the car in the snow bank and walked home. The next morning I explained to my father that I had run out of gas and it was his problem, because he didn't give me a high enough allowance to cover my illustrious lifestyle. My father drove or walked to the car and then confiscated it and hid the car from me.

What my father discovered in the car was a Tequila bottle, a wine bottle, some beer cans, the box top of a game filled with Marijuana, and something that was used as a cleaning device to roll the seeds and stems away, baggies of Marijuana, and a large bamboo bong.

When he returned home he stated that my car was a roving bar and opium den. I had no business being on the road. This action by my father prevented me and discouraged me from diving a car for many years. I did manage to drive other peopleÕs cars a few times, which resulted in more accidents and trouble, but it wasn_t until eight years later that I actually got my driving privileges restored. This was after I started my recovery. My parentsÕ biggest fear was that I would hurt someone on the road and possibly kill myself driving while intoxicated.

They had all but given up hope of me getting help as far as my drug use, addiction, alcoholism, and manic depression went. To protect society from me they made sure that I wasn_t driving any vehicles. This Tough Love approach was all they could do. My disease progressed fairly quickly, because now I never had to worry about what state of mind I was going to be in. I could get as high as possible, because I wasn_t driving. This mentality lasted for six years. The only thing holding me back had been driving. Driving fast was one of my favorite occupations in life. Having a car was my escape. It enabled me to sell Marijuana all over town.

One night I was attempting to go to a rock concert in Largo, Maryland at the Capitol Center. I had dropped two purple microdot LSD tabs. I managed to spill a whole bottle of Marques de Riscal French wine in the car. I also had a ziplock baggie filled with Tequila. I used this method to smuggle booze into concerts, because the security guards were only concerned with glass bottles and weapons. A soft ziplock bag would make it through security if you were patted down. One time I was at a Greg Allman concert and I was sitting in someone else_s seat in the front row. I also picked up a girl and let her sit in the seat next to me, which was my downfall because that seat could have been mine. The owner of my seat arrived halfway through the concert and showed the security his ticket. By this point I was trashed and could not produce a ticket for my seat. The girl I had picked up didn_t lose her seat. I was belligerent, and two huge security guards grabbed me by my ears and threw me out of the concert without any explanation. I couldn_t believe the physical abuse that was happening to me.

Miraculously I managed to get back inside the concert from the parking lot, having found a way to get in through the bowels of the Capitol Center. It was as if I was underneath the stadium, because the concrete ceiling was like upside down stairs. I was in the catacomb basement of the concert stadium. I managed to find a doorway that led into the main hallway. Coincidently, soon after gaining access back into the concert, I bumped into one of the huge security guards who had thrown me out by my ears. He was amazed at seeing me back inside and gave me a warning, before I fled into the crowd. My ears hurt for days after that, which reinforced my hatred for authority figures, policemen, and security guards.

Another time I was driving while tripping on my way to the Capitol Center for a rock concert. I was wearing a brown Pakistani vest made out of hemp. It actually had a hemp smell to it. Plus a purple cotton shirt from India, no shoes, or possibly sandals. Somehow I found my way on to Georgia Avenue. It was after midnight and I was very late for getting to the concert. I was completely lost and had never been this far on Georgia Avenue before. Panicking, I was speeding up Georgia Avenue. I got clocked by a paddy wagon doing ninety miles an hour.

The police had set up a roadblock to stop me. I threw the ziplock bag of Tequila out the window and pulled over to stop. My heart was racing as about four police cars arrived. I then swallowed ten tabs of maroon red purple LSD microdots for fear of getting busted. The whole car reeked of wine from my having spilled the bottle of Marques de Riscal. Doing the field test, my legs were shaking so bad from fear that the police immediately handcuffed me and put me in the paddy wagon.

An exhaustive search revealed no drugs, no bottles of wine. I was hallucinating badly from all the flashing lights of the police cars. My memory is vague, but I believe the police let me go after giving me a ten dollar ticket and a speeding warning. The police then gave me a Breathalyzer test, which I passed with flying colors.

I told the police I was lost and in a panic to get to the concert. I managed to get home without making it to the concert. I had about nine hours of nightmares, unable to sleep from dropping those ten tabs of microdots. My Pakistani vest had been ripped in the scuffle with the police. I was extremely grateful for not being incarcerated for any great length of time. I truly believed the Gods were protecting me. I continued my quest to take as many drugs as humanly possible and to maintain my lifestyle of being high all the time.