From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: ASP51-The Passenger - Part 3 - And I Left No Stone Unturned Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 07:15:51 GMT THE ADVENTURES OF SMAKCS PAST, ASP51 THE PASSENGER - PART 3 - AND I LEFT NO STONE UNTURNED, well perhaps a few. Continued from ASP50 And that's what we did. Me and the ex-wife went down there Saturday and she met Joe. This time when we picked him up he was downstairs waiting with two really nice dogs. Large breeds. I can't recall what type they were. I think perhaps Dobermans. But don't quote me. Anyway he ran upstairs with his two dogs and soon returned and we went to breakfast at a local dinner and over the usual chit chat, I asked him if it were okay for my ex to drive him around once or twice. He didn't seem to mind and said it would be fine to have her pick him up. And actually this did happen on one occasion. But it was uneventful. Now, it's hard to believe that I could have screwed this good a work relationship up but that's exactly what I did. After all I was sort of in Junky heaven. I had an easy gig, easy money and little stress about where my next fix was going to come from. Cool, right? Oh sure. By this time I had even opened up enough to Joe and let him know that my past drug use was not so past after all. He did not seem to mind hearing this, but he asked me if I ever intended to quit. He added something along the line of, "you know that there is only so much you'll ever be able to do while you're doing that stuff." He also said that a person "had just so many chances in life and that there came a point when you run out of options." "The trick," he said, "was to chose wisely early on as that gave you more freedom of movement later on down the road." His comment had an air of concern and I thanked him for the sentiment. He said he understood and wished me well. Well things continued as they had but as the next couple of weeks unfolded Joe did not seem to need me quite as much as he did at first. Instead of driving him around 4 days a week, it dropped off to 3 days. And of course when you have money coming in it does not take long to start shooting all the dope your new money can buy. Then you're right back in the same fucking boat again, only this time with a bigger habit. I wondered if him knowing about my drug habit was the reason why there was this cut back. I asked him if it was and he said no. I began to "supplement" my new found spent income by doing more of my usual hacking with the cab again. And that helped. But there came a week when I was using way too much dope. I had an appointment to pick Joe up the next day and when I did, I asked him if I could borrow $300 bucks. He look at me piercingly for a minute and than asked me how long I would need it for and when he could expect repayment. For a moment I thought maybe that's what he's doing, loan sharking. But there was no mention of any vig on the loan. I told him that it was only going to be for a week or so as I had money coming in from somewhere. All this was of course a complete pack of lies. But he loaned me the $300 with no strings attached other than that I repay him in a weeks time. I continued to work for him throughout the next week, 3 days anyway and he did his usual routine of stopping, saying hi to folks, chatting a bit and giving some money away. He also continued to pay me as before never mentioning the money he loaned me. I finally felt that I knew him well enough to blurt out one of my burning questions. I asked him, "Joe, why do you give so much money to some of these people almost every day?" I was fully prepared for him to tell me to mind my own fucking business, but instead he answered me. He said, "Giz, these people you see me give $5, $10 or $20 to almost every day, I give to them because they are good folks who have absolutely no chance of ever making it financially in this life. It's the least I can do, since I can." And on saying this he had a look of real concern in his eyes. "Besides" he said, "you don't understand that my reason for giving is for me too. I get a good feeling out of being able to help. It's like the way some folks get joy out of feeding ducks or pigeons. It's not just me being generous. There's something in it for me too." It may have been a pretty anecdotal comment looked at all these years later, but still it was a pretty emotional moment even for someone as wicked out as I was back then. But of course I was also wondering what I was going to do when I didn't have the $300 I owed him next Monday. I didn't have long to wait to find out. When I saw him that Monday, he asked me about the $300. I told him I didn't have it and I needed a little more time. He listened silently to what I sad and then asked, "how much more time?" I told him a couple of days. And for the first time since I had met him I saw another side of my passenger. All of a sudden he became icy cold. You could feel it for sure. It was obvious that I had fucked up and that he was not at all pleased. I tried to cool things out and said that I was sorry but that I had gotten myself into a jam and that I would take care of it quickly. We went out on some of the usual rounds to the same or similar places in silence. It was the first time that he did not talk to me. And when the day was over he paid the usual amount of money. I immediately offered to give him back $30 or so as part of the money I owed him, but he refused this and said "let's not confuse things. Just bring me my $300 on Wednesday." The next day was Tuesday and I was really upset about this and tried to think of how I could lay my hands on $300 quickly. I tried to go out and make it driving the car Tuesday, but it was a dog slow day and I barely made $30 or $40 bucks the whole day and of course all of that went straight into my arm. What to do??? Well of course I could just stop showing up, even though he did have my phone number. But I thought better of it. Even if I could get away with it, I just felt wrong about the whole thing, so the next day I went down to see him and told him that I did not have his money. And for the second time now I was met with a deathly icy stare. This was pretty freaky. In a way I could not believe that this mild mannered guy was getting this pissed off over my being late with $300. Especially since it was quite obvious that he seemed to have plenty of bucks. But that was none of my business. This time he actually got furious with me. For the first time in the six weeks or so that I knew him he flew into a verbal rage in my car and cursed me out and told me what an irresponsible prick I was. He said, "I took the time to try to help you out and this is how you fucking repay me you fucking good for nothing dope fiend." He was so intense that the car windows seemed to vibrate. I thought I was going to have a physical confrontation on my hands and I reached and grabbed hold of my tire iron that I had next to me on my left, ready to duke it out, but it stopped just short of that. Instead he told me that I was going to repay him his fucking money. I felt really bad about the whole thing and I really did want to pay him back so I asked him what I could do. Well at first he said that I was just going to have to work the debt off. He wanted me to pick him up and drive him around when he needed me and each day. Whatever money he would normally pay me would go toward clearing the debt. I agreed seeing as how I had no other viable solution. So the next couple of days I picked him up and drove him around for a couple of hours each day in silence and without getting a dime out of him. No money, no conversation, nothing. Just shit like, "okay, drop me off and pick me up Monday again at such and such a time." That weekend I scrambled with my car to earn some more money and of course shot all of it up. My ex-wife was really pissed off with me over this whole thing and she did not want to go out and drive that weekend. I conned a few members of our family out of some money, but it was not enough and of course we shot that up too. By Sunday night I was a miserable wreck. I was extremely strung out, in debt, sick, etc. Once again the hell of drug addiction in NYC was eating into my psyche. When I saw him on Monday I was not at all prepared for what he said to me. So if you think this sounds weird, just remember it sounded even weirder to me back then. He said he needed a gun and asked if I could get him one! I was dumbstruck. "A gun? What?" What the fuck was this? He started asking me a bunch of questions about certain guns that you could buy and said that all he needed was a small caliber pistol. Even a .22 would do. He said that he knew that it was possible to buy a .22 for around $125 and told me that he would give me $125 maybe even $150 and that if I got him what he wanted he would forgive the other debt. I didn't dare ask him why he thought I could do better than him at finding one. One more time. If you're thinking that this just does not make any sense, trust me, I thought the same damn thing. It made no fucking sense to me at all. The usual million questions started going through my head. Why did he want a gun? Why from me? What was he planning on doing with it? Why me? What happened to the nice kind hearted person I had met almost two months ago? But I really was not thinking straight at all. All I wanted to do was get out of this whole fucking mess so I told him that I might be able to get him what he wanted. He asked me how long it would take? He said he needed it pretty quickly and all that shit. I told him that I would check into it for him and with that he handed me $150. Well like I said, I did not know what the fuck had just happened. Not that night, nor the week before, nor for the entire 2 months I had known Joe. All I did know was that $150 sure sounded real good to me right about that time, so I took the money and told him I would check with a couple of folks I knew who could probably get what he asked for. Of course I promptly went and shot up the $150 and no I had almost no chance of getting a .22 or even a pea shooter for my strange passenger. A couple of days later, when it became clear to him that I was not going to produce any gun, or any of the $240 or so dollars I still owed him for the first loan, he went into a rage in my car. He told me that I was going to pay him back and that he had given me all the chances that I was going to get. He told me that if I did not have all the money I owed him at his door by Friday afternoon that something tragic was going to happen to me. This sounded like business to me. It sounded like a death threat perhaps. I got the fuck away from him and ended up getting pretty freaked by the whole fucking thing. The next day my ex-wife had somehow conned her mom and dad out of $200 on some pretext. We went and spent about $50 and we agreed that the next day I was going to go down there and give him the other $150. Maybe I was imagining the whole thing. Maybe I was making way too much out of it. Because shit, I had been threatened before by the best of them and in almost every case nothing usually happened. It's the ones who don't threaten you that you have to worry about. But for some reason this threat seemed a lot more valid. I don't know why. Maybe it was the entire experience. Maybe it was the gun thing. Maybe it was the intensity and insanity of the last week or so. Whatever it was, I decided not to take any chances. So the next day I drive down to meet him. When I get there I pulled the car over and waited for him in front of his apartment. Five, ten, fifteen minutes goes by and Joe does not show. Another five, ten, twenty minutes goes by and still no show. "Well this is fucking weird" I tell myself. I ended up waiting about and hour and a half and finally I split, thinking perhaps he'll call. That night, no phone call. Nothing. I remember that in all this time we've known each other he only actually called me by phone once and that was four or five weeks earlier. I was all on the alert, waiting for trouble to show up somehow. The next day while out hacking again I get a call near where he lives and decide to go and see if I might spot him again. Yup, I still have the $150 bucks from the amount my ex-wife got two nights earlier. Again I get there and again, no sign of him. Again I wait a hour or so and nothing. Finally I decide to get out of the car and try to see if I can pick out which apartment he might be in as it's a small 4 story building and I know that there can't be more than maybe eight apartments in there. I get out and walk over to the building and start looking inside, but I can't tell. A few folks come in and out and I decide to ask a couple of them if they know which apartment is Joe's? They look at me funny and tell me in Spanish and broken English, "sorry man. No Joe here. No one here man." Well this is weird. I go up to the corner where there are a bunch of the usual type of neighborhood number card players, beer drinking crowd gathered there. Again I ask if anyone knows Joe and start pointing to the apartment? Again they shake their head and say they don't know? I even describe the two dogs he has thinking that should do it, right? But no. Now my fears and concerns are giving way to curiosity again. Later that day I stop by the first of the many bodega's that we stopped in the first week we met and with all the balls I can muster I go in and ask if Joe's been around? I recognize one or two of them as we were briefly introduced that first week. Right? Well, right or not right, nobody knows what the fuck or who the fuck I am, or who the fuck I'm talking about and they just act real dumb and tell me "no one here, no one like that bro. Sorry. Maybe you have the wrong bodega?" I held that $150 for another week or so. And at least one more time I go down to that neighborhood and look around and ask a few questions. Each time it's the same. I talk with a woman from the apartment who speaks good English and she tells me that she's been living there for 5 years and that she has never seen anyone with the description of the person I'm asking about. No dogs, no nicely dressed mid 30 year old black male, 5' 8" tall etc. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Could he have moved out that fast? Could it be that he didn't live there at all? That seemed possible at least. Could it be that nobody knew him? I must have asked at least ten people there over the few times I stopped by to look for him. Even if he didn't actually live there, someone must have known who he was because I picked him up at that address at least 30 times. And I remember him talking with folks in the neighborhood a few times before I parked my car. Did they now him and was he someone that nobody would ever talk about? That seemed likely too? But where the fuck did he go? Why didn't he try to get his money or try to get revenge? It just didn't jive. Over the next week I even stopped by a few other places where we stopped and where he brought people over to say hello to me. Same thing. I go in and ask around and like before at the other bodega, nobody knows anything. Period. The fucking guy just fucking vanished like a wisp of smoke. Eventually I stopped worrying about it and forgot the whole weird scene. I sometimes wondered if just dreamed the whole fucking thing up, or if I was having a bad LSD flashback. But my wife met him too. More than once. So the odds of both of us hallucinating were not too likely. No matter how many drugs we did in our lives. Many years later after I got clean I got friendly with someone who had, how shall we say, an interesting past as well. Drugs, time in jail, interest in consciousness etc. Somehow we got into talking about weird shit that's happened to us along the way and he relayed a bizarre tale of some magical type person he met and than lost contact with out in New Mexico in the early 70's. I told him about Joe, the passenger. He just smiled and said "there are some (real powerful dudes) out in life. And sometimes you meet one!" Copyright Gizmo 2001