Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

by Oliver Markus

I had never told Haley about Alice's drug addiction. I was too embarrassed. It's not exactly something you brag about. But now that Haley told me about her own drug problem, I felt I could open up to her and tell her what I had been through with Alice.

  Haley was a good listener. She was very sympathetic. "You poor thing," she said. "No wonder you're so miserable right now. That girl broke your heart every which way possible."

  It felt good to be able to talk to someone who understood, really understood. I teared up. Haley did, too. We hugged and cried together. And I wasn't embarrassed about it at all. I had talked to Linda, Crystal and Kayla about Alice, but I never felt comfortable to let any of them know how deeply hurt I really was. Yeah, I told them I was really depressed, but I never cried when I talked to them about Alice. Instead I'd make sarcastic jokes about Alice fucking some dope boy and how stupid she was for ruining her life.

  But talking to Haley was different. For some reason we connected on a deep level, and I felt like it was ok to be vulnerable in front of her. I didn't feel like I needed to hide my pain behind a tough front.

  On our way to the shittiest motel in town, Haley opened up about what she had been through. The last time I saw her about a year ago, she had been so excited, because she had bought a little convertible. She was so proud of her new car.

  But she had started snorting coke, because her baby daddy Rodney sold it, and she got it for free. Then they both got addicted to oxycodone pills. Those pills are basically legal heroin. Addicts in Florida call them Blues. They crush them up and inject them into their veins, just like the junkies in New York inject heroin.

  At some point Rodney was arrested and went to jail, and Haley started hanging out with some black dope boy. He ended up killing someone, and used Haley's convertible during the murder. Her car was found at the crime scene, so now the police was on her trail. She told them she didn't know anything, and ran away from Fort Myers. That's how she ended up in Miami, and then Hollywood.

  She didn't know anyone when she got there, but addicts have a sixth sense when it comes to finding drugs. It didn't take her long at all to find a dope boy in Miami. He pimped her out. She was raped and beaten regularly. Her life in Miami was absolutely horrible, so she moved to Hollywood. But things weren't much better there either.

  She got arrested for prostitution and spent time in Miami-Dade County Jail. Shortly after her release, she went to jail again, for drug possession with intent to sell, because she was riding around in the car with a dope boy.

  When we got to the dirty motel room, she told me that she was actually on the run from the police right now. She was supposed to be moved from jail to a rehab facility, but she jumped out of the car and ran. Great. So now I was aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive. Lovely. I was starting to get a headache.

  Everything she went through came pouring out of her. It seemed like she was talking nonstop, without even taking a breath. I guess she was high on coke or crack. Then she asked me if we could go back to the house where she was staying, to pick up Rosie. But we had just gotten to the motel, and I really wasn't in the mood to drive all the way back to where we just came from. So she tried to bribe me: "You could fuck both of us! Rosie is really hot. You're gonna like her." That was the first time a girl asked me if I wanted to have a threesome.

  Threesomes sound great in theory. But to me, the thought of disappointing not just one but two girls at the same time, seems like way too much pressure. I think I'd be way too nervous, and probably wouldn't even be able to get hard. I prefer being with just one girl.

  Haley and I had sex. It was a pretty sad experience. She was completely different than I remembered her. She was so skinny and mangy. And where her big beautiful breasts used to be, she now had two saggy skin flaps that looked like deflated balloons. She used to be such a sweetheart. But now she was overacting like a porn star, grinding her pussy into me like she just couldn't get enough of my dick. She kept screaming and moaning so loud, I thought the people in the next room would complain about the noise. I didn't like it. And being around her in this condition was actually getting pretty stressful.

  After we finished, we weren't even dressed yet, and she already wanted to go back to the house. Supposedly to get Rosie, but by now I was pretty sure she really just wanted to go back there to get more drugs. I told her I had a headache, and that I wanted to go back home to Bonita Springs. I offered to drop her back off at the house, and then she and Rosie would have to figure out a way to get back to the motel room on their own.

  A few days later some guy, who sounded like a cop, left a voicemail on my phone. He said Haley got arrested, and she wanted me to bail her out. I called him back. He turned out to be a bondsman, not a cop. I told him that I didn't really know Haley all that well, and that I wasn't going to pay $1200 to bond her out. He told me that he couldn't blame me, because the charges she had were pretty serious, and people in her position tend to not show up for their court dates, and then I'd be on the hook for a lot of money. Haley spent the next 45 days in jail.

  As soon as she got out, she called me and thanked me for not bailing her out. She said she had been totally off the chain and her drug use had become so severe, she probably would have died, if she didn't sober up in jail. Haley told me that by not bailing her out, I probably saved her life. She said she was all better now, and that she would never go back to using drugs. She was tired of that horrible life and she wanted to go back to school and make something of herself. I was really happy to hear that, and we made plans to get together again soon.

  A couple of days later, she called me again and told me she had moved back to Fort Myers, and she found a room for rent. She said she just needed $20 to be able to move in.

  "$20? To move into a room?" I asked. "Really? Are you sure, you're not just asking me for $20 to go buy some crack?"

  At first she denied it, but then she admitted it: "Yeah, it's for crack. But I'm not gonna let it get out of control this time. I'm just gonna smoke crack casually, here and there. On the weekends. I'm never gonna let it get as bad as I was before I went to jail."

  Yeah, right. I had heard that story before. I knew that if she starts smoking crack again, she'd be a wreck in a matter of days. I told her: "I'm sorry, sweetie. But I don't want to be the one to make you relapse, so I'm not going to give you money for crack."

  She called me almost every day after that, and we started hanging out again. She stayed at a house off of Palm Beach Boulevard, with a man named Lorne. He was a 70 year old convicted drug smuggler who had spent his youth in prison. He only had one arm.

  Haley had gained a lot of weight while she was in jail. But she lost it again at an alarming rate, because she was smoking so much crack and not eating. Palm Beach Boulevard is one of the worst drug neighborhoods in Fort Myers. There seems to be at least one crack house, or trap house as kids like to call them these days, on every street.

  Haley supported her drug habit by walking along Palm Beach Boulevard, getting in guys' cars and having sex with them. Sometimes for as little as $10. Or she spent all day and night in a trap house, having sex with whoever would stop by and throw her a couple of dollars or a hit of crack.

  It broke my heart to see her like this. She was such a sweetheart, with such a great personality, and so much potential. She used to run a karaoke club a few years ago. She had a great voice and had auditioned for American Idol. She had even sung as the opening act for Rick Ross at a NASCAR race. And now here she was, nothing more than a sad shadow of her former self, sucking dick on Palm Beach, and spreading her legs for any random thug at a trap house on Ione Avenue.

  Whenever she couldn't take it anymore, and she needed to get away from her miserable life for a few hours, she asked me to come pick her up. We'd go to the beach together, or to the little ice cream shop her dad used to take her to, when she was little. We watched movies at my place, and went out to eat. She told me my condo was the only place where she felt truly safe, and that being around me was the only time
she felt like a normal human being and not just a piece of shit. She said I was her only real friend. The sad part was, she was my only real friend, too.

  Every time we hung out together, she teared up when she told me how much she hated her life, and how badly she wanted to get away from it all. But she just couldn't quit drugs.

  Over the years, Haley spent the night at my place many times, but in the beginning it was hard to get her to sleep in bed. She reminded me of a skittish animal. She had been raped, groped in her sleep, and used by so many guys, that a bed had become a scary place for her. To her, a bed was not a place of rest, but a place of torment. She preferred the couch. She was used to sleeping with one eye open, always with her razor-sharp box cutter within easy reach.

  She had to use that box cutter a few times to defend herself. One time a guy tried to rape her, and she stabbed him in his throat. Another time, 2 large Mexican girls tried to mug her on the streets, and she sliced one of the girls' cheeks.

  GARY THE VIDEO GAME ADDICT

  "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

  Edgar Allan Poe

  After Hussy's mother and her sister Ferrara told me what a lying psycho Hussy really was, I needed to get away from her and Florida for a while.

  I went to New York for a few weeks and visited my ex-wife Donna and her new boyfriend, Gary. He was in his 50s, a couple of years older than Donna, and he had Parkinson's disease. He was a retired cop. So you'd think he was a commanding presence, used to giving orders. But he was the most mellow, timid push-over I had ever met. He was like a big puppy. He didn't stand a chance against Donna's domineering personality, and she bossed him around all day long. There was absolutely no doubt that she was the one wearing the pants.

  Donna didn't have a lot of friends, because she was a recluse who almost never left the house and didn't like being around other people, other than me. Our divorce had been really hard on her as well, because she didn't have a support network any more than I did. After the divorce she was all alone and she had no one to talk to, except a few online friends she had never met in person, and the occasional phone conversation with her childhood friend Roy. Roy was one of the few people who knew about Donna's agoraphobia. He was used to her not answering the door and pretending not to be home when he or anyone else came knocking on her door.

  Roy's older brother Gary was a shut in, too. After he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's, he lost his job and his emotionally abusive wife left him. He went into a deep depression and lost his will to live. He escaped his lonely, miserable life by playing the online video game World of Warcraft. Everything he was missing in his real life, he found in the game. He became so addicted to it, he practically lived inside the game. The real world didn't matter to him anymore. The only thing he cared about was completing another raid in the game, or exploring a new dungeon and winning the admiration of his online friends in battle. He later told me that a lot of handicapped people become addicted to World of Warcraft, because in their online fantasy world, they are healthy, wealthy, and handsome. The game lets them forget about their broken bodies, and they become legendary heroes, saving the world, while riding dragons.

  Gary really wasn't any different than a crack addict, when he was in the depths of his video game addiction. He wouldn't go to sleep for days at a time, and he'd play the game nonstop, day and night, only taking a quick break if he absolutely had to use the bathroom. He was totally addicted to the positive feelings he got from killing evil monsters or finding a new magical weapon or his game character raised a level and learned a new combat skill.

  Anything that feels good triggers the reward center in our brains and a little bit of the feel-good chemical dopamine is released. Whether you get a raise at work, or you eat candy, or you have sex, or someone gives you flowers, or tells you they love you, or you watch a pretty sunset, or someone sends you a sweet text message, or you find a golden sword in a video game, it all releases a little bit of dopamine. You can get addicted to anything that makes you feel good, whether it's text messages, video games, food, sex, exercise, cigarettes, or drugs.

  Drugs like crack or heroin flood the brain with so much dopamine, everything else in life pales by comparison. That's what makes these drugs so extremely addicting, and why addicts feel so miserable and empty when they don't have their drug. Once their brains get used to the endless flood of dopamine, life without drugs seems unbearably sad and dull. Nothing, no matter how pleasant, releases enough dopamine to even come close to crack or heroin. Once an addict gets sober, it takes their brain years to fully restore its chemical balance. It takes a while, before an addict can really appreciate life's simple pleasures again.

  Gary's video game addiction was so bad, his younger brother Roy was getting really worried about him. Gary was so pale, his skin was almost translucent. He hadn't showered in weeks, and hadn't cut his hair or his beard in months. Roy figured that Gary and Donna would be perfect for each other, so he persuaded Donna to take a ride to meet Gary. He looked like a caveman when they met, but they hit it off anyway. They started talking on the phone, and then, after a few weeks, Gary moved in with Donna.

  She told him that he wasn't allowed to play the game anymore, and he obeyed. But his beloved fantasy world never really left his mind. A year or so after he moved in with her, he begged her to let him play his game again. Just a little bit. Just on the weekends, after he finished all his chores around the house.

  I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Well, not only did he get totally addicted to the game again, he got Donna addicted to it, too. When I visited them again a few months later, they both got on their laptops as soon as they woke up in the morning and played the game all day long, every day, until it was time to go to bed.

  Anyway, after I talked to Ferrara and Hussy's mother, I spent a few weeks in New York with Donna and Gary.

  A few days before I got there, they walked the dogs in nearby Seaview Park in Brooklyn late at night. All the parks in New York City close at dusk, because they're not safe at night. But Donna couldn't stand being around other people, so she only walked the dogs very late at night, when nobody else was in the park.

  This one night there was someone else. A black guy on a bicycle. The dogs saw him from afar and started chasing after him. He was afraid for his life and tried to escape from what must have looked like vicious beasts to him. But the dogs were really just being friendly, when they barked at him.

  He returned a little while later, holding a big stick. He wanted to beat the dogs with it. Donna freaked out and started screaming at the black guy. Gary slowly shuffled behind her. There was a big commotion, and Donna told Gary to call the cops. The black guy dropped the stick and ran off.

  From that point on Donna didn't feel safe in the park at night anymore and decided that she needed a taser for self defense. But of course she didn't just order one. She ordered five.

  She was a shopaholic. One of anything was never enough. She ordered so much stuff on the Internet every day, the whole house was full of crap. There were unopened boxes of kitchen appliances, dozens of unused purses, hundreds of plastic jars that were on sale, clown dolls that she bought wholesale in China and wanted to sell on Ebay but never did, and so on and so forth.

  And when she ordered something on a Monday, she wouldn't be interested in it anymore by the time it arrived on Thursday, because she already bought different stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday. So the house was full of unused, unopened stuff, that she eventually threw away to make room for more stuff.

  She had done that for years, ever since I started earning a lot of money on the Internet. There were times when she spent over $3000 a month on things we didn't need and that just cluttered up the house. She was still doing the same thing now, on a smaller scale, using Gary's credit card, instead of mine. I think shopping for things online filled an emotional void in her life.

  Anyway, after the five tasers arrived, she put a few of them in her purse. One day, she was rummagi
ng through her purse, touched one of the tasers, and accidentally shocked herself. I was in Manhattan at the time, but she told me all about it when I got back at night: "Oh my God! I accidentally tasered myself today! It hurt like crazy! I felt like I hit a brick wall! Want me to taser you?"

  "What? No, hell no," I replied and laughed.

  "Gary, get over here, I'm gonna taser you," she yelled.

  Gary said ok and obediently shuffled into the living room and sat down on a chair, to prepare himself for electrocution.