ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story)

by Glenn Langohr

  I saw the little blue Festiva bounce over the transmission and grind into the curb. I saw me standing next to it looking up at the sky and asking God, why? Then I saw the days fast forward and could see myself moving the whole time. I looked so restless! Every time I saw myself walking from my truck to Paul’s or somewhere else, I realized I was almost running. Then I would weigh up my product and count my money over and over until it was time to make another delivery. Then I’d run to my truck to make it! Then I saw myself watch Paul going to sleep the first time and leave me unable to. I saw myself getting one of the mountain bikes I had in his garage. I saw myself pedaling against the darkness as hard as I could for the adrenaline rush. I couldn’t believe how risky I looked flying through Dana Point on P.C.H. under all of the street lights. I looked like such a bust. From the view of myself looking down it felt like I was a bird trying to keep up. I saw how fast I was pedaling and I wanted to try and enter my body on the bike to see what I was thinking. It worked. I felt my eyes watering and my teeth grinding together from the exertion. I realized I was pedaling away from the Ford Festiva failure. I saw that failure for what it was. A good distraction from the funeral, my Mom, the guilt and the black hole of pain and loneliness I didn’t want to face. I felt my legs pedaling as hard as possible studying P.C.H. for headlights like a challenge. Flying down the hill, I was so in the Moment I could hear an engine and see its headlights coming. The vehicle was coming from the south end of the harbor and about to reach P.C.H. Just in time, I veered into a Del Taco parking lot, where the drive through was, to dip out of view. From the back of Del Taco I watched the Sheriff drive north on P.C.H. As soon as he was gone from view, I pedaled through the major intersection and made it to a lonelier section of P.C.H. Unlike the busier, more lit up, riskier, downhill section of P.C.H. I’d just traveled; this section of P.C.H. was dark, hidden and less risky. Pedaling on this darker, less risky stretch of road I felt my emotions catch up and surge into my conscious mind. I saw myself at my Mom’s funeral. I saw my brother’s and grandfather’s genuine looks of sorrow. I felt the same deep sorrow but mine was magnified by guilt, confusion and despair. I couldn’t allow myself to look any further. I was seeking the next death defying stunt as another distraction.

  I continued my dream like a bird flying above my pedaling body down below. I saw myself make it to Natasha’s house in San Clemente. I couldn’t be a bird anymore so I imagined what happened through her eyes. I watched myself take my shirt off in her room. Then I weighed my product and counted my money over and over. I saw my back muscles straining and dancing while I chopped up a humongous pile to ingest. I saw myself ingest a portion and turn towards Natasha to offer her some. I saw myself holding the mirror with the lines on it. I wasn’t even looking at her. She was right; I must only want her body. I didn’t look her in the eyes to see how she was doing. The memory of her body was enough for me. I just stood there wanting her to love all of my muscles and determination. I wanted her to see the spirit I had inside of me. Could she see how deep it was? Could she see how much love was in there fighting to get out and free me? I didn’t look up until she took the mirror and walked out of her room. At her door she said, “You have to get some sleep! You’re spun out and you’re taking too many risks!”

  I saw myself in Natasha’s room feeling rejected and impossibly alone. I saw myself doing pushups, crunches and pacing her room with restless energy. I saw myself walk to one of her drawers and open it. It had her lingerie in it. There were three pieces of mail at the bottom. Each piece of mail was from the hospital, a free clinic in south Laguna Beach. One piece said, URGENT, LAB RESULTS! Natasha arrived at the door with a plate of food in her hand.

  I saw myself in her eyes, caught in her scanty drawer, in the middle of my hinkie investigation, with her mail in my hands. But now I was looking right at her, seeking her eyes to see what was going on in that pretty head of her’s. Now she was the one looking down avoiding my eyes. I saw her hand me the plate and tell me, “You have to eat. You’re getting too skinny and reckless. Are you trying to get busted? Do you want to go to prison?”

  I saw myself set the plate down. “Don’t worry about me. What’s wrong with you? I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  Natasha still wouldn’t look at me. She took the letters from my hand. “Take a shower. I can smell the speed coming out of your pores and it’s gross. Then we’re going to Dennis’s house so you can meet him and Tom.”

  I saw all of us at Dennis’s residence. Natasha had told me that Dennis was a Hell’s Angel representative from a chapter in San Diego. He’d moved to San Clemente to be with his wife Denise. Natasha had explained that Dennis had been moving speed for over 20 years through biker networks in San Diego, so this was a good connection for me. He needed me to get good product. I saw him standing in his living room next to Tom. He looked about 40 years old. He had a husky looking build at about 220lbs. He had thinning brown hair combed back, serious looking brown eyes that looked like they’d seen a lot of action over a brown goatee with silver in it. His look gave me the impression of a Hawk. I looked at Tom standing next to him. He was a little smaller. He was obviously Irish with his reddish thinning hair and his freckly complexion. He wore clear glasses and dressed kind of preppy. I remembered what Natasha had told me about him. He was from Boston and had grown up in the military. He’d gone to West Point and was a Special Forces expert with all kinds of accommodations. Natasha had told me that when he moved here a year ago he started using speed and had a hard time fitting in. Small speed dealers had been burning him for his product and he did his own recon to find Dennis. I watched Natasha tell both of them in as much secret as possible how long it had been since I’d slept at my Mom’s funeral.

  I saw myself react and misinterpret her whispers. I had assumed she was telling them, “Please excuse his presence. He’s spun out of his mind… I shouldn’t have brought him here.”

  I watched myself take my shirt off and stick my chest out like a rooster and march around Dennis’s living room to impress every one. I saw myself spracking around in circles and could remember Natasha, Dennis and Tom laughing at me. I saw myself gritting my teeth in anger while pulling my speed out at the living room table. I remember how I thought to myself, I can handle ten times more shit than either of you old fucks can. Somehow, I stopped my dream right there and examined what I was thinking. If I could handle so much shit, than why wasn’t I facing it and dealing with it? Why was I trying to prove how much more I could handle? Lost in this deep thought my dream got too dark to see anything. I focused as hard as I could to get the dream back and it worked. But this time I didn’t seem to have the same control of my dream. I saw myself from behind. I was leaning over the table snorting my humongous issue and I could see something was around my neck. It was an iron clad chain choking me. It jerked against my neck like a dog collar. I tried to see where it was pulling me from and couldn’t. I could follow it to Dennis’s carpet but there it went invisible. I looked up to my neck and saw the chain still pulling against my neck somehow. I saw Dennis and Tom snort their lines and felt myself leaning against the pressure of that chain. I looked at Natasha’s face and saw her watching me. She looked shocked by something. Could she see the chain around my neck? I went to her eyes. She couldn’t. From her eyes I saw myself leaning forward and swallowing all of my discontent. Then I watched myself grab a deck of cards on the table. I shuffled through them and sleeved the one I wanted in the palm of my hand. I had Dennis and Tom’s attention and they watched me march around the living room. I saw myself straining against the invisible chain and bark orders like a field general. I watched myself tell Dennis and Tom, ‘ This is my territory you both live in and I’m running it with an iron fist. To run a program there has to be rules and regulations implemented. Mine start with the welfare of our women and children. There is to be no selling drugs to women who are pregnant. There is to be no selling drugs to women who have children lest they start neglecting them. There is to be no
selling drugs to kids in school. There is to be no doing business with informants who don’t do their own time for their crime. Those kinds of people are also the ones preying on the weak. Anyone who is willing to regulate these violators will be honored and climb the ranks!’ I watched myself sling the card I had palmed against the table next to the speed. It stuck to the glass like it was glued there. I watched Dennis, Tom and Natasha look at the ace of spades on the table.

  My dream got darker. I fought against the depth of my sleep, wanting to get back into my subconscious to see what else happened. I wanted to see myself doing the recon on Tom’s residence and then what we’d talked about inside. I couldn’t get there. Instead, I felt that chain around my neck again. I felt myself walking up a hill, straining against my leash. The hill kept getting steeper and steeper. I felt myself leaning against my leash as hard as I could, pumping my legs faster and faster, and starting to run. I saw the road in front of me was starting to turn and I assumed that once I made it through the turn I’d be at the top of the hill. Determined, I pushed harder. Then I heard Natasha’s voice behind me, “You better hurry and get us there! I’ve only got a little more time left with you!” My leash was pulling against my neck so hard that I couldn’t turn around to look at her or the steep descent I was climbing would have us both tumbling down the hill, so I continued to strain against my leash. At least I was entering the turn now. I began to hear a “Click, click… Click, click… Click, click…” I realized Natasha must be on a skateboard holding on to my leash. I pushed harder and ran faster through the rest of the turn. I had to get to the top of the hill so I could look back at Natasha and ask her what she meant. Ask her what was happening to us. A little further, a little further. I struggled through the last of the turn and saw the road in front of me… I still had another steep hill to climb. It only looked another 50 yards, but it was a little steeper. I desperately struggled against my leash as hard as I could. I realized it was turning toward the top of it like the last one. Pushing harder, pumping my legs and grinding my teeth against the exertion I strained onward against my leash. I struggled through the turn and saw… Another steep hill, identical to the last one. I didn’t want to be in my dream anymore. Maybe I could take on the form of a bird and see myself from above to see how many more hills I had left. It worked. I saw myself straining against the leash, but Natasha was gone. I couldn’t see anyone pulling my leash I struggled against. Who was pulling it? I pulled away from my struggling body far enough to see the hill I was climbing until I couldn’t see myself struggling against my leash anymore. I still couldn’t see the top of the hill. There was one turn after another, after another, after another with no end in sight…

  Then….I saw my grandfather’s face at the airport and heard him tell me, “Nothing good can come out of this drug business.”

  CHAPTER 73

  “Benny! Wake up! B.J.! Wake up!”

  I tried to open my eyes and couldn’t. They were stuck. I felt so much dried sleep holding my eye lids together it felt like they were glued shut. I worked on prying them open until I saw Paul standing over the couch I was on. I felt so dazed and exhausted, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t think. I just laid there and looked at Paul.

  “B.J. You’ve been asleep for 36 hours! I thought I should wake you up so you could eat something and drink some water. Gina made breakfast and there’s some coffee.”

  I studied Paul and tried to make sense of what he was telling me. They were just words. I couldn’t make sense of them in the cocoon it felt like I was in. I looked at my watch. It was 2 p.m. I struggled through my mind to remember I laid down at about 2 a.m.. Was he telling me that I was asleep for 36 hours? That meant I must have slept through another whole day… I felt that desperate energy coming back to me and ask me, where did you leave things? What do you have to face? I saw the Ford Festiva. I looked back further and saw my grandfather’s face! Then my brother’s! It was all coming back to me but I was too exhausted to run from it. I scrubbed at my eyes to tear the dried up sleep away from my eye lids and welcomed the pain. I asked Paul, “What day is it?”

  My brain was starting to let me process things faster. Paul looked wired. I felt a little jealous. I watched him tell me, “It’s Friday the thirteenth. I slept until 5 in the evening yesterday. I was haggard and felt like hell. I think our tolerance is finally built up to that last shit we got from Bob. I’m almost out of that, anyway. We need to get some more from him. I got a little bit last night from a local dealer who sells glass. It’s expensive. It’s about as good as Bob’s but it’s different and works well. It’s cleaner. I mixed some of it up with what I had left from Bob’s and it’s got me going so hard I want to fix Gina’s car and give it a tune up. I’m going to need you to get a hold of Bob to get us some more shit. He’s not answering his phone.”

  I picked through what Paul had just said and liked hearing I was needed. That felt good to hear from my cocoon. Then I realized if I got up I could try some of his new shit. It had Paul talking faster than I could make instant sense of. That was enough to get me off the couch. I went straight to his mirror of new shit for breakfast. I ingested a humongous amount of the new glass, and then another of the mixed with Bob’s stuff.

  I got in the shower wired for sound. All of that restless energy was back and I washed myself so fast I started laughing. I laughed about the Ford Festiva and remembered how my brain had turned into an impulse message sender and saw my arm sticking my 123 placard in the air. I told myself, I’m not spectacular anymore. I’m spracktacular! Once I was done laughing at myself, I tried facing myself. I thought, I should call my brother! Then I almost started crying and told myself, I can’t, I’m too tweaked out. I got out of the shower and knew I was going to run from everything. I thought, I might as well visit Tom and Dennis, my two new distractions.

  CHAPTER 74

  I got to Tom’s apartment in Dana Point and parked my truck down the street. Walking there, I remembered fragments of my dream. The part I was trying to get to and couldn’t, my recon. The apartment he lived in was an older brown duplex. Both units were up a wooden flight of stairs. One was facing the other at a right angle. The first floor had two garages only. The driveway always had vehicles parked in it and I used them as shelter to get into the open back yard. From there I could see Tom’s bedroom window. It was partially open to let in the fresh air like last time. I remembered how I had looked to see if any of the neighbors had a view of his bedroom window. None did. Like last time, I listened and tried to hear Tom. I couldn’t. I lit a cigarette and thought about him. He was a daredevil. He’d shown me his Special Forces credentials. He was ranked at 99.3% in his field as a sniper, right behind the instructor who was a retired general. He could hit something accurately from 1,000 yards. He also had an accommodation for parachuting out of a plane from an insane high altitude. I thought about how real Tom seemed. I could see why he was having a hard time fitting into our beautiful, but extremely trendy, plastic area. I thought, hanging around him would be a challenge to see how I measured up.

  I went upstairs and Tom answered the door. He looked pretty normal behind those glasses he wore until you studied his eyes. It looked like he’d been squinting them for too long and they were a little red. He greeted me with a big smile and studied me for a second. “You finally went to sleep?”

  I nodded my head and followed him inside. I followed him past his roommate’s room straight to his bedroom. He had told me he was keeping his speed habit a secret from him.

  His master bedroom was pretty spacious. I looked at his walk-in closet and had an idea about it. Tom walked to his bed and reached down it along the wall and pulled out a humongous glass pipe. At first I thought it was a marijuana bong. It looked like a three foot bong but the end of the glass had been stretched into a circular bowl the size of a basketball. I remembered Tom had said he couldn’t snort speed because the membranes in his nose had an allergic reaction to it. I on the other hand didn’t like smoking it. It slowed
me down and I couldn’t stay as focused.

  Tom held it up like he was proud. “I blew this amazing piece of glass last night. It took me all night. I need to buy some shit to put in it.”

  I thought about how I was in the process of turning Tom into a mini dealer. My plan was to have him be my infiltrator into what was happening on the ground. I laughed at the idea of him being able to lord it over the same people who used to rip him off. I broke Tom off some for him to put in his pipe and asked, “Do you mind if I use your walk-in closet to store my pot?”

  Tom started his blow torch. It was set up at an angle so he could use his pipe without having to hold the torch. “Sure. I don’t see why not. I won’t have to have you deliver it that way. I’ll just keep notes on what I remove from it as I move it.”

  I watched Tom blow a giant bowl of chemicals and blow them out. He studied the bowl like he was fascinated with how the liquid potion snapped back against the glass. Then he looked at me, “B.J. do you remember what you said about your rules and regulations at Dennis’s house?”

  I nodded my head. Of course I did. I’d laid them down so hard, they couldn’t be lifted.

  Tom continued, “Those are some of the most righteous rules I can imagine in this business, but they seem impossible to regulate.”

  I waited Tom out; I knew he had more to say.

  Did you know that Dennis’s wife has a twelve year old kid?”

  I didn’t.

  “His wife Denise doesn’t use… Is he in violation of those rules?”

  I thought about it. I had two choices that I could see. One, just say I was too spun out to remember what I’d said. Or two, stand by those rules that came from what was good in me that I had to hold on to. I looked at Tom and answered, “If he’s putting his twelve year old in harm’s way than it’s a problem.”