Addiction and Love

By Jered Liechty

Beginning a few days before Christmas, in an unnamed town in the Midwest, the main character is a full blown Meth addict, and in addition to doing addict things (getting high), he falls in love. The circumstances are sketchy at best, and the focus of his love interest probably not a fitting recipient of his affections. The instant bond of love develops fast, almost too fast to be believable.
What they do not see coming is what the reader will not either. To celebrate when one is an addict is to get higher than usual, and sometimes this behavior comes with unforeseen, and fatal consequences. This is exactly what happens to or man, his lady, and her friends. We leave the group dead or dying, with the main character narrating as he takes a fatal dose after finding his love interest seemingly overdosed. But is she dead? Is he dead. No one starts getting high in the hopes of becoming an addict and dying. But that is what happens; there are only three endings to an addicts life—jails, institutions, or death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jered Liechty
• Release date: Aug 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463704165

Jered Liechty

Born and raised in the Midwest, the author's life of excess finds fruition as he pours out his every fantasy on the pages of these books. Since truth is stranger than fiction, you will wonder . . . did he do it, or did he just write about it.

Book preview

Addiction and Love

Copyright © 2018 by Jered Evan Liechty

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

It was love at first sight—or maybe I was high. I guess I’ll never know and now, after all that has happened, it really doesn’t matter. Just because I’m telling you this story doesn’t mean it has to have a happy ending. It doesn’t mean I’ll even be alive at the end. All I can do is try to make it make sense to you—because it never will to me.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is not important, but you have to call me something. Everybody that knows me (with the exception of family) calls me Red. I am thirty-five years old, and since I was twenty-five years old, I have been an addict. Whoa—you must think I am some sort of down-and-out derelict and honestly—some of the time you would be right. What really kills people is that the rest of the time, to look at me you wouldn’t even think that I am what I am, and I do what I do. It’s the truth, like it or not. And that’s not all. Somewhere along the line, I fell in love, which for an addict is like being a match and falling into a bucket of gasoline. Nothing good can come of it, but we will get to that a little later.

I didn’t intend to become an addict, and I doubt that anyone ever does. I read in the biography of some rock star (I forget who exactly) that they at some point had made the decision to become a heroin addict for awhile. It didn’t work out very well. In the end, he killed himself—strung out, depressed, dope sick, and hopelessly lonely. That’s what happens when you get high; you get all these other unwanted benefits. Knowing what I do now, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for him. What kind of a spoiled, attention seeking, fucking idiot wants to be a heroin addict. I sure as hell didn’t want to go through all that I have.

I used to be a cab driver, in a smallish city in the northwest part of Indiana. I liked the work, even though the hours were long, and the pay was dismal at best. I guess I liked the people—especially the people I met on the night shift. Some of my fares at night were, for lack of a better description, crack-whores. I don’t say it to be mean, it is what it is, I mean, I’m an addict, who am I to judge? I never treated them badly, and for the most part, they appreciated the kindness I tried to show them. They were my friends, and often times, the only source of companionship I had.

Sometimes I would even allow them to come by my little one-bedroom apartment downtown and take a shower, or eat, or sleep if they wanted to. I never partook of their services, a fact that I think cemented the friendships I developed with a few of the girls. I like to drink, and drinking at home is always cheaper than drinking at a bar. However—I hate to drink alone. Once the word got around that Red was kind of a cool guy, kept a carton of cigarettes in the freezer, and wasn’t handsy, I rarely went without company after my days driving.

I even allowed the girls to smoke crack in my apartment. What can I say; I’m a bit of a soft touch. That and sometimes people like to get naked when they smoke. Just saying, after all I am a healthy adult male, who enjoys looking at the naked female body. To make a long story short—I stayed in the proverbial barbershop long enough and ended up getting a haircut. I began smoking too. One of the girls I’ll call Addie caught me drunk one day and we went on a little mission. She showed me how to make a crack-pipe from a tire gauge, and even contributed $20 to the $400 I spent that fateful day.

For a while, I guess it wasn’t too much of a problem. I could still make it to work, I kept my rent paid, I managed to eat fairly regularly, and like I said, to look at me you would never know. Addiction is sneaky. Crack may be the most addictive drug on the planet, but the effects of addiction take time to add up. I know they did for me. First, I lost friends. They found out what I was up to and went their own way. Next, I lost my ability to work. I got in a fight, and lost the vision in one eye completely and partially in the other. No more cab driving for me. Only problem was, I still needed to get high, and with unemployment as my only source of income, I was in a bind.

At this point, luck smiled on me, and while I was basking in the glow of that smile, it kicked me square in the ass. Hard. I thought I had won the lottery. Through my case manager at Oakton Hospital, I found a government-subsidized apartment. I go to Oakton for depression, since before I began on this crack-smoking thing. Anyway, I had been kicked out on the street a few times by various landlords, and ended up in the local homeless shelter. My case manager, Tracy, found a government grant for people considered chronically homeless. I had an apartment, but at the time, I wasn’t able to pay rent because I couldn’t work. The fact that I had been to the homeless center a few times was enough to qualify me for the program.

She enrolled me in the program, and I waited. A couple of months later, in August, I got an email telling me that my new apartment was ready. I almost didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t drive, so I waited until the next morning for Tracy to swing by and give me a ride over to see the new place. It was amazing. It was in a brand new building, which contained sixteen units. Twelve were one-bedroom apartments, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, and four were studios, one combined living area, and a semi-connected bedroom. I lucked out and got one of the one-bedrooms.

The apartment arranged itself in a sort of a shotgun style. After getting through the locked entryway door, the front door led directly into the living room. As you went farther back into the unit, the living room gave onto the kitchen. These two rooms were a tight fit, with the fridge ending up right next to one end of the couch. Through a short hall, all the way in the back were the bedroom and bathroom. The living room was furnished with an institutional-looking basic couch, loveseat, and some sort of a magazine/paper rack thing that I never understood. No matter, I already had furniture in my current not-paid-for apartment. I called the maintenance depart of the new building, and they said that they could come the next day and remove the furniture I didn’t need. Everything was falling into place. Or so I thought.

The next day, I hired a moving truck, loaded up my old furniture and belongings and made the move to my new place. When I got there it was around ten in the morning, and maintenance had already been there and gotten rid of the unneeded furniture. With the help of the moving guys, I got everything out of the truck and into the apartment. I was home.

Chapter 2

The first thing I did was set to up my computer and go online to see if my unemployment money had hit my bankcard. I was getting $230 a week, $75 of which went to the repayment of old debt from an equally old marriage. That left me with $155 a week of fun-money. I had nothing to pay for except for food, cigarettes, and whatever else I wanted. I was in addict heaven. All I could think about was getting high in my new place. I had nothing else to worry about; love was the furthest things from my mind, a fact that would soon change, and in doing so, change my life forever.

After I was done with the bank, I got on Gmail and hit up my sort-of girlfriend Kristy with a quick text message: New apartment, 1725 Harrison, Apt 504. Got money, Hurry. She was an addict like me and I knew that, to her, those words would spur the kind of immediate response I wanted. Kristy only moved fast if there was alcohol, drugs, or money involved. Period. Otherwise her motto was, miss me with it. As I said, love was not a part of my life. Kristy and I tolerated each other when sober, and ravished each other when high or drunk. It was more of a business partnership than a real relationship.

She texted me back almost immediately and let me know that she was on the way, on the next trolley. In the meanwhile, I needed a drink, and, if I could find anything, some drugs. I tackled the booze problem first, since I think my brain works better when it is well lubricated with vodka.

There was a grocery store just around the corner, and I hiked over, hitting an ATM along the way. Addicts hate having money in the bank. You can’t get high with it there; it needs to be in your hand. I took out $120, leaving me $10 for a rainy day. For some reason, I had a really good feeling about how the rest of the day was going to go.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. At the store, I grabbed a half-gallon of cheap vodka, some cigarettes, a roll of aluminum foil, and three lighters. Addict equipment, but we’ll get to that in a minute. My palms were itching like a degenerate gambler’s on a bad losing streak in Vegas, only the gamble I couldn’t wait to make was with my life.

I sped home, and got there just as Kristy was getting off the trolley around the corner from my house. I sat on my front porch and watched her blonde-and-pink head bob through the trees towards me. Everything was falling into place. I had a new home, party-favors, and it looked like I was going to get laid soon. Little did I know, karma had taken an extreme dislike to me that day.

Kristy is kind of my girlfriend by default—and by default, I mean this. She had been my friend Chad’s girlfriend, Chad being the Meth cook I used to get my Meth from. Oh, I forgot to tell you. By this time, I had stopped smoking crack and started smoking Meth. Anyway, one night, Chad and Kristy got in a little argument, and he kicked her out. I lived conveniently around the corner, and as luck would have it, there she was, at two in the morning, walking down the street crying. I was in the front yard drunk, smoking a cigarette and looking shady. She asked if she could get a smoke from me, and did I have any aluminum foil. Aluminum foil at two in the morning means Meth, so I let her in. Sure enough, she had with her a huge baggie of Chad’s dope.

Needless to say, we got high, and drunk, and then went on to have great fun doing things to each other. Nice, but as I said, love wasn’t part of the equation between Kristy and me. For that, a whole chain of other, seemingly innocent events needed to take place, so be patient, I’m getting there as fast as I can.

Kristy just kind of stayed for the next couple of days, days where we didn’t leave the house except to get cigarettes or booze. What we did do was get high, higher than I had ever been, and fuck. Then, I think on the second or third night, we were watching a movie, and heard something being thrown up against the back door. It turned out to be Kristy’s clothes, in a black plastic garbage bag. All she said was, Well that saves and awkward conversation.

Ok, back to the present. I asked Kristy what the plan was, my idea of The Plan being; how were we going to get some Meth? We were both addicts, and had the worst problem imaginable for an addict. We didn’t have a steady connection, being as how Chad was more than a little pissed off both of us. He even refused to do business, uncommon for anyone who sells drugs. But today my good luck held. Kristy got on the computer, and messaged her friend Echo, who she had just run into at the grocery store earlier that day. Now I’m not one to be superstitious, but here is where it gets a little weird.

Kristy and Echo did some time together in Indiana Women’s Prison down in Indianapolis. They were both in for dealing cocaine. They got along well, and vowed to, get at each other when they were released. Kristy had gotten out about a year before Echo, and hadn’t heard from her until that day. Seems Echo had been out for about four months, was back on her feet, and just coincidently, could get us some Meth. The only problem was, we had to find her some cold medicine.

Ok, I may get in trouble here for spilling the beans, but here is the poop and the scoop on how Meth gets made. You need a box or better yet, multiple boxes of nasal decongestant cold medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Sounds simple, right? The problem being, there are regulations and a computer system, and you need an ID, and you can only buy three boxes of cold medicine a month. These factors made a ten-dollar box of cold medicine worth much more, to people in the Methamphetamine business.

Echo had her own Meth cook, and the cook, needed boxes. Again, my luck held. Both Kristy and I could buy one box of cold medicine each, right away, all we needed was a ride to the pharmacy, and money to make the purchase.

Like any good drug dealer, Echo was willing to work with us. She would swing by, pick us up, give us the money and a ride to the pharmacy, and after the Meth was cooked, she would proceed to get us both as high as we could stand, plus give us some dope to take home. See—too much to be a coincidence. Kristy got done texting, and let me in on the plan. I only saw one problem. What if after we give Echo the boxes of cold medicine, she takes off and we never hear from her again. Back in my crack-smoking days, I had been burned so many different ways, I was a little leery of giving away something and not being able to verify that I was getting back what I was promised.

Good ol’ Echo came through with a solution (like any good dope dealer). She had gotten a babysitter, and after we had the boxes, she said that we would go with her to her house, and wait for the Meth cook. After taking care of him, we would all go to a local bar and get drunk while we waited for the Meth to cook. Together. That way we would know where she lived, and be with her until the promised Meth was delivered. Again, it seemed almost too good to be true.

It seemed like everything went off without a hitch. Echo showed up fifteen minutes later, and we were off to the pharmacy. There, we were all three able to buy boxes without incident, and made it back to Echo’s house without trouble from law enforcement, or any other issues. Even better, we actually met the Meth cook and got his telephone number, should we need it in the future. Moreover, Echo agreed to come to my house to drink, so I could work the computer and social media, and see if we could hook Echo up with some drug customers.

Now we were fully engaged in what in the addict world, and in the streets in general, is called hustling. Being at the bottom of the totem pole, Kristy and I were the worker bees that made the whole game go. It worked like this. All addicts know other addicts. When you don’t have your own connection to a drug dealer, you go through other addicts and take advantage of their connections. This comes at a price. If I go to addict A and he/she takes me to dealer B, I will need to give addict A some, sometimes up to half, of what I just purchased from dealer B.

This may sound like bad business, but it really isn’t. I am happy, because I am able to get drugs. Addict A is happy because they get FREE drugs from me, and dealer B is happy because they get to sell me drugs without actually meeting me in person and potentially selling to an undercover police officer. All Kristy and I had to do was find people who wanted drugs.

Enter Facebook. Every resourceful addict has, since Facebook’s inception, has kept two active Facebook profiles. One is for your actual, real-life friends, and the other is for your drug friends. It had been so long since I logged onto my regular account I couldn’t remember the password.

My other profile was alive and kicking, and had all the contacts I needed. We all piled in my new apartment and filled up the couches. I made drinks for everybody, gave Echo the Wi-Fi password, and while Kristy and her were catching up, I got to work. It was about ten minutes after seven in the evening. Still kind of early for drug dealing, but I could still set some traps for later. I asked Echo how long it would take the cook, and she said about three hours, which gave me a good window in which to make something happen.

The first person I saw online was someone who I actually didn’t really know personally. She had friended me online one night, and who is going to turn down a friend request from a hot blonde at three in the morning. I also knew she was a Meth-head of the finest caliber. For the purposes of this story, I will call her M—. The thing about M— is that at some point, Kristy had told me that she was a snitch, but that they got along and still got high together. Addicts don’t give a shit about risk, so I messaged M—, giving her the down low in code, as well as my Gmail phone number. Trap number one was baited and set.

Next on the list was my former next-door neighbor, who I will call A—. Before I moved off 7th street to my new place, A—, her dad and two brothers lived in the building next door. They were displaced hillbilly trash, having recently moved up from West Virginia, with suspicions of incest running high. I always thought she was cute and had heard of her infamous cocaine parties while we were neighbors. I also knew that she liked the ‘Go-Fast’ as Meth was called on the street and online. So naturally, I invited her to the party. Trap number two was baited and in the water.

And so it went. After about an hour, and three or four drinks each, none of us was feeling any pain. I had run through my contact list of-addicts and was now engaged in serious conversation with Echo about fixing some computers at her house. At some point, Kristy had gotten ahold of Echo’s cell phone, and Echo was on my computer. I’m a huge geek and I get a little touchy about people using my computer. However—we had made this cool addict-to-addict connection. It was as if we had known each other for years. We were getting along so well that Kristy was getting pissed. Now don’t get me wrong, I like to keep my standards low, but Echo would only ever be a friend, being as how she kind of had a butter-face. That meant that everything looked good but her face.

I finagled my way back online by offering her another drink and promising that I would fix her computers later that night free, and Kristy would drive her if she needed to go anywhere that night. I had heard back from almost everyone that I had messaged before, and told him or her that I would message when the Go-Fast was ready. I poked Kristy and whispered to her.

We gonna get soooo fucked up. I got like five people coming by and that’s a quarter gram at least from each of them, plus what we getting for the two boxes.

Ay, I was just gonna tell you, I got hold of my girl from IWP (That’s Indiana Women’s Prison), named Treena. Kristy said back. "She just got out of the joint and she’s past begging to get high. Plus, she says that she can get boxes from people at her work every day like clockwork."

Well tell her to come over and get drunk with us then. I said. I was feeling the vodka, and between that and knowing that I would soon be as high as giraffe pussy, I was enjoying the idea of my house, a new house at that, full of drunk and high women. If I wouldn’t have been so drunk, I would have noticed that the coincidences were piling up. Karma is a sneaky bastard, and I was being snuck up on big time.

Just a little side note. I told you before about the crack-whores I used to hang around with. Now it’s not always crack addicts or professional bar whores, or other types of semi-degenerates, but in general, I don’t hang out with dudes. I don’t see the point. A night out with the fellas usually ends up with a fight, someone trying to text your girlfriend, and your car always ends up smelling like puke. Sometimes I get static from whoever is my current girlfriend, usually about whether or not I am having sex with these so-called friends, but usually they either play along, or get their asses on down the road.

So we party together, and three-some’s are not out of the question. It just depends on how much we have had to drink, how much Meth we have smoked, and maybe the cycle of the moon. I never know, so I usually tread carefully (behind her back) until I am sure that whatever little escapade I have planned is going to be cool with her.

In keeping with being sneaky, I had already quietly added Echo to my cellphone’s Contacts list, under the heading Echo-Baby. This little mistake would come back to haunt me soon, very soon. I texted Echo and gave her the rundown on what I had lined up, and what we would need from her and asked had she heard from the cook. Once again, my amazing run of luck held. She

Reviews for Addiction and Love

[Jered Liechty · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fast paced narrative about love and how addiction twists feelings and actions into unmanageable knots. I couldn't put it down. Beware the twist at the end