College, crazy Barry a chemical diet and a crossbow

It wasn’t long before school was finished and a reasonable set of exam results meant I could attend a college at the neighbouring town.  3 A levels should set me in good stead for my soon to be career in advertising / journalism / media!

6 months in and I had kissed the hottest girl in my classes, befriended an awesome graffiti artist (who later completed a mural covering my bedroom wall much to my mothers disgust), gotten some great results in my photography classes, been to my first trance party and been beaten up at the local pub.

Want to read about my first real beating? click here

So, all in all college was great but my ability to function when stoned 24/7 was not, I fell behind and was politely asked to leave rather than be expelled.

My first real job was working in a sheet metal factory owned by the father of a friend.  It meant getting up ridiculously early, working extremely long days and getting paid close to fuck all....I honestly loved it.

It was here that I was first introduced to speed.  One of the other much older workers gave me my first taste and in the same vein as weed this bleach flavoured, bitter as hell substance became a new and exciting associate during my long days.  I now had speed to wake up and weed to wind down (there’s probably a song in that somewhere)

My addictive personality and my newly delivered pay cheque meant that speed became part of my daily  routine....shit, brush teeth, take speed, brush teeth again, go to work.

As well as my work colleague dealer there was a local guy who I used to purchase fun from, he was slightly older and lived literally 2 minutes from my house, lets call him Barry.

Very strange guy with an abundance of personal issues but nevertheless he always had the goods, (speed needs to be kept in the fridge and shouldn’t be stored in anything like a "wrap" that has colour on it as it will strip the colour from the paper....if it doesn't then what you have just bought is predominately glucose...unlucky)

Barry once abducted a male friend of mine...I received a phone call from said friend to say that he was in Barrys bedroom and had been pushed in there before the door was bolted with no explanation offered.  Barry then went out for several hours, I waited on his doorstep until he returned but he was so ruined by the time he got back he didn't even remember doing it.

Another time I walked into his house (door was normally left open for us) to find him naked with a pot of paint in each hand.  He stopped and stared as I entered the lounge slightly slack jawed, from the walls and his painted naked body I could see that he had been using himself as a paint brush to decorate his lounge.  I side stepped into the kitchen collected what I needed from the fridge, left the money on the side and left without a word.

Want another little story about crazy Barry? click here

Speed (or “base” as it's known in it's purer form) is a really nasty drug and I don’t recall any fond memories in the same way I do with other drugs, some bloody crazy ones but none that you could class as nostalgic.

I lost so much weight over the coming months that my already emaciated frame started to turn heads and not in a “sexy beast” kinda way.

Yes it's a Banksy

My shrinking body, occasional chronic constipation, twitchiness and general disregard for anything that didn’t involve speed or weed didn’t go unnoticed and after a few choice words from family and friends I decided to sort myself out,  I left the sheet metal factory and searched for another job.

My second, and to date longest spanning role, was working in an electronics company producing military products.  I’d landed on my feet and worked hard.

My boss at the time was a bit of a lad and when working the 10pm till 6am shift together one evening the conversation eased on to my favourite subject matter of the moment, drugs.

Turns out he was happy to supply me with vast quantities of pot with no payment up front.  I started buying, chopping and selling 9 bars (9 ounce block, value once chopped roughly £800.00).

This continued for a while and although I never made any huge amounts of cash I always had an abundance of pot to smoke for free.

One morning, on a day I was due to collect the latest delivery (from his desk drawer on a busy shop floor!) the police turned up and we were all asked to vacate the building while they searched his locker and you guessed it, his desk.

Turns out the odd 9 ounces every couple of weeks was only a speck of what my boss was actually shifting.

I heard later through a mutual friend that when they raided his house they found huge blocks of pot in each of his kitchen cupboards worth over £30000.00

After being let out on bail he decided to track down the guy he suspected of assisting with his capture and was promptly arrested by armed police in his local pub brandishing a loaded crossbow.

That’s the last I heard of him and was to be the interlude to my simple supply route for a bounty of cheap / free pot.

For no particular reason I’d like to finish this post with another quote from Hunter S Thompson:

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

For those that don’t know, Hunter S Thompson wrote some fantastic books which were later turned into amazing films, including “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “The Rum Diaries”, both starring Johnny Depp.

You may recognise some of the images scrolling through my photo’s at the top left, these are created by Ralph Steadman who provided the immensely fitting artwork for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you can find his website here

This is new...it's called "Carp Crazy" (Ralph Steadman)

 

Till next time dull-lovers!