True Blue Friend

By Roy DeMauro

True Blue Friend is my disease. My True Blue Friend showed me a good time, took me to a lot of great places, gave me the strength I needed to communicate with people without fear. But did he? No, my True Blue Friend lied to me. Had me believing I couldn't do anything without him. It was so hard to escape from his grasp, but once I did, I realized he wasn't my friend, he was my greatest enemy. His goal was to see me suffer and die. My goal is to not let him succeed. My higher power

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684090242

Book preview

Part 2

Mid-Seventies

The summer months were the best, swimming up the rock quarry. One day I was jumping off the cliffs, drinking and partying with groups of twenty or more. My TBF had me doing crazy things. I was acting like a prodiver off a twenty-five foot cliff into a tire tube. I almost made it on the first try but flipped off into the water. The second try, I made it through the center of the tube and people were applauding yeah. The dude Frank holding the tube told me to grab on, that I was bleeding bad. I swam to land, not realizing about the air valve, which cut my forehead, jumped over my eye down the side of my nose, lips, and chin. I learned something that day: tape the air valve.

Now the music was always so in tune with our life. It was like they were singing about us. Like long-haired country boy, Teen Age Waste Land, Panama Red, Cocaine, Bad Company, Casey Jones, The Needle and the Spoon, Free bird, Changes, Have a Drink on Me, School’s Out, That Smell, Whiskey Rock-a-Roller, I’m Eighteen, Take it on the run, Dream On, Friend of the Devil, Candy Man, need I go on. How could there be anything wrong with what we were doing when they were singing about it on the radio. There were rock stars dying at young ages, and we did not put two and two together.

One rainy Friday, work was called off due to weather, and I drove up to get my check. To find no one was in the trailer where they said they would be. I remember being pissed and not paying much attention to my driving, I slightly crossed over the yellow double lines, and a car hit my rear wheel well. People were unable to tell a new dent in this beat up pick-up. I see the two older people trying to get out of their car, so I pulled their door open and asked if they were all right. The passenger had a slight cut on her head but said they were all right, and I told them I was going to call the cops. I started running and didn’t look back. I probably still had booze in my system from the night before or that morning. I got away; the truck had fictitious plates and nothing to tie it to me. A couple weeks later, the friend in jail who gave me that truck called me collect to bring him something into the jail on a visit. I remember cutting a little tear in the cuff of my pants and putting a little fold of some white substance (THC) and passed it off to Big John. My True Blue Friend told me you got this. While there, John told me the cops came to ask him where that 1968 Chevy pick-up truck is, and he said he junked it. As time went on, they came back to tell him. They said he was not getting out of jail unless he tells them who he gave it to. He had to tell on me, so he said. I winded up with two tickets for a hit-and-run and no insurance. I went to court and received a fine and six months loss of license. The judge asked if I had my license to hand it to Clerk. Well, I paid the fine and said I didn’t have my license they told me to mail it in. Okay, great you got it . . .

Months later, I went to take my permit and road test adding or subtracting my middle name. My mom borrowed $1,500 off her friend Kevin so I could get a car, and what a car I got—1972 Monte Carlo, 350 motor, 400 Turbo Trans silver with black vinyl—beautiful. My TBF had me believe that if I had only a half pint of Yukon Jack, I would be able to drive just fine. I did just that because I was so proud of this Hot Rod. I would park it later to continue my drinking. One evening, I had my half pint of Yukon; I picked up a friend John and took him for a cruise. We all loved to cruise the Ave. Later, we picked up another friend Mike; this guy to my surprise had a pint of Yukon, my favorite, so I had a bit too much and my TBF told me I was a race car driver. So we hit a major highway near home. We flew up RT.21, turned around up at the Passaic Exit, and headed back where a firebird started punching his pedal. We raced a few miles doing 115 mph around curves and straight a ways. The first guy John I picked up first started freaking out and wanted out. When we got to town, John was yelling at my Yukon friend Mike, telling him to let me out. Okay, fine, out he went, and I punched the pedal when I came to a stop sign too fast. I remember saying to myself the faster I go through it, the less chance I have of hitting something. But luck would have it; a car was passing the same time. I hit him so hard his trunk flew open and a briefcase flew out and cracked these tiles on a house, and he spun and hit two more cars and my car hit one other. My Yukon friend Mike and I were both knocked out with the windshield broken.

When I came to, wiping blood from my eyes I saw forty or more people, police, and ambulance guys all around the other car. I’m thinking they must have thought we were dead. I shook my friend Mike till he came around. We walked out to find the car totaled, picking glass out of my forehead.

The ambulance took us to the hospital to get stitched up. Then the law took me to jail where they did those stupid DWI tests. One month, three days, my car was totaled. I got six months loss of license and those classes telling me how much I can drink in an hour to drive.

Well, I’ll show them I bought another Monte that ran and took the motor out on the street in front of my house. At this time, I was doing speed methamphetamine along with drinking this wine that was like a fruit drink called TJ Swann. It was cheap and came in four flavors: Easy Nights, Magic Moments, Mellow Days, and Stepping Out, almost daily. I had a couple of friends help me put it back in with a tow truck from my totaled out Monte. I really don’t want to tell you how that ran, but it did get me back and forth to the city dumping a pint of transmission fluid in every trip.

The summers down in Seaside Heights as we became older, we became not welcomed by the law. I got busted snorting THC on a urinal under the stage bathroom on the boards. They brought me to jail that time. After that, the cops would ask where are you guys from? When we said K-Town, they asked us to leave. One time they took us in about five of us all tattooed out and the officer had to document each one of our tattoos, boy was he pissed. The same with going up Boonton the cops would ask where you boys from. They had falls and a clean river. One day, we went there and friends that got there hours before us were in a panic state like they seen a ghost. What’s going on I asked, and they said Jake tried swimming across the river like they did many times, but this time, he didn’t come up. It took his life they found him hours later hung up downstream. We also use to jump off the bridge and if someone jumped and made it; we jumped in that spot. This was the stuff alcohol would have us do for fun. I know if we were not getting high, we would not be doing this stuff. Anyway, the Boonton Cops would turn us right back around when they saw us and posted no swimming signs all around.

Groups of us went horseback riding on lots of weekends. My mom even bought my sister a horse. Dirt bike riding and going to English town for the car races, car shows in NYC, we always had a cooler full. Right before I turned eighteen, the drinking age turned eighteen. When I turned twenty-one, the drinking age went back to twenty-one. Not that it matter, but looking back, that was strange.

Mom and I

Part 3

1978–1981

There was a place I can’t mention; it was down off the pike. We called it The New Road. Anyway, it was a dead end between factories and ended at the meadows with railroad tracks. We would go down in forces, maybe one hundred people and out of that one hundred maybe five were of age to drink. We would get a fifty-five-gallon drum, start a fire, and hang out with our keg of beer and weed. We were able to see when the cops where coming in and stopped with the weed. These cops would roll in ride around our fire and roll out leaving us be. I think they were glad we were down there and not roaming the avenue. One night, we even plugged into the factory for power and had a live band.

Then it kind of came to an end when a friend I went to grammar school with, drove four people home drunk on his ass. He hit a pole on dead man’s curve, known for bad accidents, two guys died that night, and one lost one of his jewels. The driver Fred lived to do time and came out of jail even nuttier. Everyone I knew got high, and when I would see someone going to church on Sunday, I thought there was something wrong with them.

Some things I hate to remember, but they say if you don’t remember, you’re doomed to repeat. I used to practice throwing steak knives into our back door. The screen was broken, so we put up a piece of plywood. I started practicing throwing one, then two, then three knives at once and got pretty good at it. One day, drinking a lot, I was on the phone and older brother Richie wanted to use it, and I didn’t get off so he hung up on me. Not thinking with a fast reaction, I pick up a screw driver and throw it at his back. I missed his spine by a fractions of an inch. I could have crippled him.

One other time, drunk off my ass, a dude in my house started some crap. This was the guy I put that eagle tattoo on I wished I put on me. I pick up my machete and swung it at his neck and a friend stuck his hand with a cast on his arm to block it. I am not telling these stories to be cool; it’s to let you know what alcohol can do. There are lots of people sitting in jail not remembering doing stuff like that, drunk or high.

One night, sitting around the table with three friends, Bobby, Steve, and Russell, that drank just like I did each one of us having a fifth of 151 Rum. I remembered up to the time of getting another quart to split between us. Then I couldn’t remember nothing, I blacked out, not passed out, which means I was doing things I could not remember.

The next morning, I said, What the hell happened? I had a bruise the size of a basketball on my left thigh. I remembered who I started drinking with, so I called Bobby.

He said, You don’t remember you were hit by a car? They said a friend Kevin was driving another friend Frank’s Night Stalker an old Chevelle. I was by Cold Beer, the place I used to cash my checks. Anyway, I stepped out into the road, and Frank hit the pedal. I thought he would go around me, and he thought I would move. A game of chicken and I was knocked clear to the other side of the street. The Big Guy (God) takes care of drunks and children, and I was both. The brain stops growing when you start getting high, so being eighteen with a ten- or eleven-year-old mind.

I’m still loving and caring at this time of my life. I liked helping and respecting my elders but not myself. Things did not change much going into my nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first year of age. The party kept rolling on, except we lost a few more friends. My friend, my neighbor Bran who always enters through my front door cause his basement door was fifteen feet away. He was up for days and another guy John happen to have bags of heroin the next morning; another guy Frank came to my house and said, I think Bran’s dead. I wish I never went over to see that he was dead. The guy with the red pick-up truck, we all partied with was gone didn’t see his twenties. Too young to die but did that stop what we were doing? No . . . I remember when someone overdosed, we would always ask, Where did he cop, that most of been good stuff, let’s go get some. How do people overdosing become a norm? Putting Bros in a tub of ice water to bring them back out of that dying stage and then, them being pissed we ruined their high. I remember a couple years before saying I would never do that crap like I did with many things. It seemed my TBF had control over me and what I did.

Once I had a drink, all was on. That car I put the motor in was a shuttle back and forth to the city. They would buy; I would fly. I can remember the first time trying heroin, a close friend Donny came down from Pennsy with some good crank/speed my choice at the time he said take what you want be careful its good stuff, but you have to take me to the city and try this other stuff. Crazy name bands like The Toilet, Dr. Nova, 357 I was going in these abandoned buildings putting our money in a bucket or handing it into a missing brick in the wall and getting stamped bags. The excitement and the adrenalin was part of getting high. Flying in and out of the tunnels, getting on the path train going into places so bazaar like Harlem being the only white boy on the block. I went into a club where people got high. We went into an abandoned building with the marble steps missing from the staircase, just the frame. People were shooting up in their neck, needles, cookers, and garbage all over the place. People nodding in corners, loving their high and couldn’t get enough. Then I started loving this dirty doge, that’s what we called it and I began to get a habit.

I remember more jail times; getting arrested in the city, you can forget about getting out anytime soon. They transferred you to the precinct jail then the courthouse jail, and if you didn’t get heard by the judge back to a holding cell where they gave you two pieces of stale bread and one slice of cheese and one bologna; it was sick. But did that stop us no.

Another time a dude had a factious credit card and said let’s go to the mall and use it. So we did to pick out a nice new TV to sell. That did not go well either busted more jail time more court. Sitting in jail, coming off all kinds of drugs and booze, you really start to sink. And think, What the hell I am doing? Only to have my TBF telling me its okay things will be different next time. When I went to court for that credit card I was sentenced to sixty days in Caldwell jail. I was the only white boy on the tear. When asked, I would tell the inmates I got six months for credit card fraud; this way, I could just slide out when my time was up. I would hook up with the biggest blackest dude in there for protection.

They thought I was nuts with all my tattoos, back then black men rarely got ink so I thought. Anyway sitting in there, I said to myself I have to stop. Stop what? Stop getting caught was my answer in my head, but in my heart, I knew there was something wrong. I used to think this was hell and these were the cards I was dealt. If I remember correctly, when I got out, my mom came and got me with a friend of hers, and I told her I need a drink to calm my nerves. And we did, I didn’t get two blocks away, and I’m back at it again.

To think I would have enough of jail that I would stop this behavior. But my True Blue Friend had its grips in me. The clubs continued the getting drunk riding to Philly to see bands like Skynyrd, Stones were getting blurry. That same dude John I put the tattoo on lived behind a club called Aldo’s. We had a lot of after hour parties and lots of girls came by. What a place to live I thought.

Around twenty years old, I received a call from someone asking if I could get them some cocaine. They said they met me at Aldo’s, which was the next county over. I told them no, I don’t have that stuff. A week later, they called and asked again, which a friend around the corner had been selling, so my bright idea said let me get this guy a gram of cocaine charge him $20 more and take some out. It went well two weeks later this person called the house and Mom answered, said, I don’t know you, don’t call here again. She seen some weed dealing of my older brother and she had good ears. A while after this guy got me again and wanted a one-eighth ounce. So I got it for him. Meanwhile, this guy is testing it with some liquid if it turned blue it was good stuff, and I asked if he could get me some of that there stuff. Time went on, and this guy asked for an ounce, which was too big amount to get cuffed to me, which means credited. So they gave me half an ounce, forget what it cost and what I was to make. So this time, I had my girlfriend Jennifer ride me up because I had a union meeting to get to after the deal went down. Much to our surprise, when I got in the car, with them to make the deal, cops flew in and surrounded the cars. These guys were narks, Bergan County Narcotic Task Force. I was set up by that guy John, I believed.

My girlfriend freaked out, and I told them she had nothing to do with this. That she was just giving me a ride to my union meeting. They were nice enough to let her go. Me they had lots of questions for me hours’ worth but got nowhere because I would not tell them where I got it. Jail again no way not again. I think my bail was set at ten thousand with 10 percent my girlfriend got me out. Later, when court came up, I got a court-appointed lawyer and went with entrapment by police. My mom told him not to call, and they continued to call. Three counts of possession and three counts of distribution knocked down to one distribution a felony. I received three years’ probation and drug and alcohol counseling. Could I do that? No, I could not. I went to counseling once and they wanted a urine test, and I asked the lady did you ever have a drug or alcohol problem, and she said, No, I went to school for this. I said to her then you wouldn’t understand and never went back. Not reporting to probation much because they took urine test also and it was too far to get to, I had a warrant put out for my arrest. I was always looking over my back. How come I can’t stop this merry-go-round? Like a hamster in a wheel.

Part 4

Early Eighties

Our party house was getting ready to be pulled out from under my brother Richie and myself. Mom was moving out with a friend Harry; we called him Nob Head and my younger brother Mark. My sister Jenny was off having children with her husband Billy. They had their own little place not far from our home. We were told months before to look for a place, and I wasn’t buying it. We were there forever; I was not getting much work with labors union, and I had pets and nowhere to go. The day Mom was moving everything out, I still had everything in its place in my room. Richie had gone off with a girlfriend to get an apartment. And to see that apartment empty, I realized I had to do something quick. So I called a friend Jake (the snake man) down the block to ask his mom if she could rent me a room, and she said yes. My snake was not a problem because this guy bred and raised the snakes. They had their own room, but what a nuthouse, I fit right in. I was doing some roofing and moving jobs to keep busy and make money. People were getting drunk and high on those type jobs. Right up my alley.

A month later, I moved into another friend’s house, Fred. I put my bed and dresser down in the not-finished basement another party house equipped with a drug dealer for a landlord. Of course, credit with a new liquor store a friends family owned. Who I also got high with and worked awhile on his soda truck, he had a serious heroin habit.

Then I landed a new job driving for West American Van Lines; can you believe another party place? So it was up in the morning passing by the liquor store downing a half pint of whiskey, getting the keys to a straight job and some cash. I was off going to the city getting some other goodies and getting the deliveries done. The bosses loved us, Walter and I, when other workers brought back deliveries they could not get done they would give it to us. We would get that job done no matter what it took. Seemed like the best job ever working in the city with everything we needed. The one day that sucked was Friday, trying to get home for our checks and not being able to get out of the city, around Christmas time was near impossible. This job went on for a couple years and my True Blue Friend was in its glory.

One hot summer day, we got out of work early and stopped in a bar near the house. I remember the day being hot and the beer being cold. Sitting on the bar stool, I saw spots before my eyes, and I was following them back into my head and fell off the bar stool. The ambulance came and asked me my name, and I said I don’t know. They asked me where I lived, and I said I don’t know. They asked me a couple more questions that I didn’t have the answers to, but when they asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital, I said no. I walked to Fred’s house with a friend I went to drink with, and by the time I got to the door, I asked him what happened. He said, You don’t remember? And I said, No, just seeing spots. He said, You had a seizure and blacked out.

My habits were daily, and I would get sick when I could not get to the city, or I was sent to other places like out of state. Meanwhile more friends were dying, one friend James we called him Bones. I went to high school with him, and I used to run him to the city in my shuttle when he received an insurance claim and he bought me a scorpion tattoo on my neck one day when we were over the city getting high. I remember Bones showing me this old gun he had. An old German luger and it had one bullet.

He got himself a nice apartment with his girlfriend; he had a good job. I admired this dude. One day, I heard he shot himself with that one bullet over his girlfriend leaving him. I heard he even told her if she leaves him; that’s what he would do. Another young man hung himself in the cemetery he worked in, as his father did years before. As bad as things got at times, I could not imagine doing something like that to myself.

The landlord Fred wanted me to get rid of his car for him. Thinking nothing of it and being dope sick, we took two cars to Brooklyn and I went into cop my drugs and asked the big guy there if he could off a car for me. He said, Where you put it? and gives me the keys you will never see it again. I walked out the building with my drugs, and boy, was I sick. I walked up the street a bit and this black dude asked me if I was a cop. I looked at him and said, Get out of here, are you kidding me? No time for conversation; this guy pulls out a gun and said give me your sh*t (dope). I looked at him in his eyes and said, No, I’m sick. So he said, You don’t think it’s real? And then he shoots it by my feet. The guy I gave the keys to heard the shot, looked out the window, and said, Leave that white boy alone. The black dude waving the gun in my face said, "You’re lucky. You’re f*cking lucky. Did that open my eyes? No not at all with my TBF at my side. Job well done . . . .

I moved upstairs in the attic of Fred’s house with a couple other guys like me Mick and his brother John and Kevin another guy we worked with. Then we had the second floor and attic, what a place, all of us working to party. People moved in, people moved out, but the party kept on. Soon, all good things come to an end, and Fred lost the house because he was an adopted kid and had no rights even though he lived there all his life.

Mom, o, Mom, I need a place to sleep. I’m working, Mom, and I’ll help you out around here, all kinds of promises. Mom let me sleep on the sun porch. Meanwhile splitting up with one girlfriend Jenny and getting back with another girlfriend May, they were both good girls. How did they put up with me? I don’t know. A couple months living in that sun porch, my brother Richie who had a room in that apartment back with Mom was moving out. So I got the room.

One day, I went to the city early in the morning like we did often. I went into one of those abandoned buildings called 357 with the missing stairs only had the frames to walk up. The dealers always stayed up on the top floors because if the cops came in they would hit the rooftops onto other buildings. With spotters on the corner, I hear, Mahondo, mahondo, which meant the police.