From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 39) Cats & The Enabling Factor Date: 1996/11/25 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 39) CATS, & THE ENABLING FACTOR Hell, everything "enabled" me to continue with my addiction. Or I could say that I "manipulated" everything, so that enabling would happen. It started early on, in the first year of addiction, when I needed money. If not outright stealing or dealing, I would certainly manipulate my parents, employers, and friends over and over again. "Dad, I'm a little short this week, can I get $20. I'm going out to, blah, blah, blah." Yup, that would work. It worked right up to and until things got bad enough that my folks figured out I was a junky! Then, I had to move to a new level of manipulation. As time went on, they would "put their foot down" on giving me money if I asked for it. They would say, "no way, you're on your own. You want to ruin your life, you'll have to pay for it yourself." But there was a way around this one too. I would come up with elaborate stories about how I REALLY NEEDED MONEY for something. One time, many years later, when I was no longer living at home, I hit on a scheme with my ex-wife to milk both sets of parents out of a couple of thousand dollars. In this "adventure" I had a friend of mine play the part of the big bad loan shark that I was supposed to be into for a couple a grand. I called my dad and told him that my life was being threatened, because I couldn't pay back the money that I owed. I hammed it up in a major way, and said that I had only a day or two to raise the money or I would be dead. This caused my dad to call over to my in-laws house and get them involved with the story. Since both me and my ex-wife were both strung out, our story became highly suspect. But after calling a round table conference with both sets of parents and me and my ex-wife, we arrived at my parents house for the big verbal dukaroo. What a deal. There we are, my and my ex-wife, going through all sorts of histrionics, and trying our best to convince them that we were on the level. Our folks had been duped so many times, that it now took more finesse to pull off a con game like this one. My father insisted that if we really owed a loan shark money, then he wanted to talk to that person, meet that person, and if he believed the story, pay that person off directly. Of course I anticipated all this and had just such a person already lined up to play the part should an "extra" be needed in this scam. To make a long story short, it worked. They talked with my friend who "laid it on thick," attesting to the legitimacy of the "loan," and how he worked for people that were really nasty sorts, and so we better pay up, etc. They bought the story, paid the "loan shark" off directly and me and my ex were off and running to the cop spot all week. Another bit of manipulation that I pulled off, or took advantage of from time to time, was getting my dad or my father in-law to drive me to the cop spot. The first time this happened it was because it was offered to me. After begging some money out of my dad for dope, he asked me where I had to go and how I was going to get there. When I told him I had to go into Harlem to cop, he offered to drive. I was able to avail myself of these free rides a number of times. There is nothing weirder than having your dad wait for you outside a cop spot in a major illegal drug zone. My dad looked like he could have been a Narc or a Mafia type, so every now and again the dealers would ask, "who is that guy in the car with you?" When I told them it was my father, they really didn't seem to know how to react. Who knows? Perhaps they've seen it a number of times before. There's a manipulation and an enabling factor that could be found in any situation. One of the funniest one's was back in 1981 when I got "called into service" for the US. Post Office. I found out that there was going to be a drug screen urine test prior to my start date. I knew I would test positive for opiates, and I knew that somehow I would have to beat the test. This was back in the days before they had all the herbal flushes that are advertised so often today in alternative newspapers. I knew that the only way to beat the test was to get a clean urine submitted. But where was I going to get clean urine. Fuck, everyone I knew back then was strung out. If they weren't using heroin or cocaine, they were certainly using pot, pills, speed, etc. Then I hit on the idea of the moment. I sat there in my living room thinking. I watched my cat, Chocko sleeping quietly on the sofa with me. "Would this work," I asked myself? "Could I submit a sample of cat urine and get away with it?" It just kept occurring to me that of all the people I knew, only my cat was really clean. At least I was pretty sure he wasn't sniffing my empty bags of dope out of the garbage can. So I emptied his litter box of litter and waited until Chocko needed to take a leak. In a few hours I heard him go into the bathroom. When I heard the sound of scratching on the litter box, I walked up to the door and waited and watched as he pissed into the empty litter box. When he was done, I emptied the contents of the litter box into a small bottle. A few days later, I took this "sample" to the testing site and waited for the medical folks at the post office to hand me a vile to piss into. Nobody would watch you piss back in those days. They're probably a little more careful these days, but back then, they just handed you the vile and said, "go do it." After walking into the bathroom, I heated the contents of my bottle by running hot water on it and when it felt warm enough, I emptied the contents into their vile. The result: A totally clean urine. You see, even your pet cat can serve as an enabling factor to keep you "in the game." And so it goes. Copyright Gizmo 1996