The Underground Man Part Two
Confrontation: Self-Reflection and the Realization of Despair
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Then, one morning, everything was gone. Okay, not everything. The trash bags, dust, old boxes—they were all right where they'd been, like old friends that refused to leave. But the duffels? Empty. Cash, drugs, all my product. Poof. Like some cosmic joke. I stood there disbelieving in my underwear, awing at an empty canvas bag that—last I checked—was full of other people’s money.
"There's no way I blew that much coke..." I held court in my head, muttering, pacing, confessing, cross-examining, looking for an explanation, pulling the grease out of my hair. I had done a lot of coke. I’d bought more than I could account for. A new personal record, I’m sure. But, even so, the numbers didn’t even ballpark what was missing.
I pulled out my phone to check for clues. Dead battery. Classic.
Had I been robbed? A few associates still had outstanding debts, but together they didn’t owe enough to explain this. And none of them had the means to steal more than they already had.
Amnesia? Once while cleaning a closet, a quarter pound fell from the ceiling like a manna from the gods. My memory was not what it once was, sure, but to stash that much of anything would take time, multiple loads, a large storage space, possibly an extra set of hands, bottom line: more effort than even a mess like me could forget. Besides, even though I mixed alcohol with Xanax, cocaine always protected me from the total blackout—that was half the reason for it.
I squinted at the basement until my forehead throbbed, then I metered out a deep breath and tried to let go of my focus, as if finding the truth was simply a trick I could play on myself. When that didn’t work I flogged my recall, adding and subtracting, insulting myself back through every meeting I could half-remember.
Isn’t this why people usually keep records? I swear I did. My jacket pockets were stuffed with wads of napkins, receipts, business cards, and takeout menus, basic math chicken-scratched onto all of it. Open any file in my notes app and find more of the same. But no names, no dates or locations to be found. I thought as long as I got the figures down, I would always know the running tally. Evidently not.
And my partners? By now, probably circling the city, calling, pacing, assembling new AR-15s while I considered becoming a monk.
These guys never had any reason to question my loyalty. From first introductions they seemed like well-mannered, legit business types. Most carried themselves as if our business was, at least for the moment, protected, by some chance legal grey area. I think maybe some of us even convinced people that was true. But even Mr. Rogers would have changed into his teeth-kicking boots for a fuck up of this magnitude. They had seen people get creative to collect a debt. Hell, I had seen people get creative to collect a debt. And they weren’t going to take, “Uh…funny story,” for an answer.
My breath quickened. I felt tight panic, the kind that whispers, "It's probably fine" with one hand already on the crash bar of the escape hatch. I grabbed a few boxes and upended them, as if the crawlspace might contain a pile of money and benzodiazepines. Nothing. Just a half-empty handle of Jack Daniels that I twisted off and tried to steady, hands shaking. The last of my sanity sloshed at the bottom, and I took down as much as my body would accept.
Once resurrected, the phone wouldn’t stop. Of course. Same script, every time. Questions, trying hard not to sound desperate, stretching vocabulary to sound urgent without triggering any rashness: “So, my buddy is asking when you think you’ll be ready with that? Plants are coming down early, the good stuff is already going out. How soon can we link? If I wanted to buy you out, how much could I grab right now? How are the numbers looking?” All subtle ways of saying, “Where’s the fucking money!?!”
My temporary plan had been a half-baked medical marijuana partnership that could be used to wash cash. It accounted for some of the missing loot, but not enough to impress anybody. And with no more deposits from me, it wouldn’t ever. All I had left was the residue. This meant I was basically running a Ponzi scheme with no more marks. Game over. I couldn’t even keep a promise to myself.
Then came the noise. Not just in my head—outside my window. Doors slamming, cars peeling out, subs thumping, ratatats, probably some guy with a telescope. Hell, my neighborhood had turned into an open-air drug market. I'd practically set up a carnival for local dealers by now. I had to hand it to them, really—for seeing a void too tempting to pass up. But they were drawing attention, and I fought the urge to call them in, even though that’s what I hoped to avoid.
Then there were the imaginary cops. Helicopters, DEA, maybe the Post Office Inspector General on horseback? Oh, they were out there, all right. Building a case, waiting to pounce. I could almost hear the SWAT team rehearsing. It felt real enough, even if I couldn't tell if it just my mind disintegrating.
I’ve been telling you about all of the pressure I was feeling from the outside world. But, I didn’t want to do any of this. Because I knew how it would end. This was round three. I'd failed before, once at nineteen, another time at thirty, but the stakes were small. Being shaken down once a week for my paycheck was humiliating. Being ambushed at a nightclub and threatened broke me. One friend straight up betrayed me for a few racks. I knew I would never have what it takes to succeed at this.
But, the drives were exciting unlike anything else. Crossing the city limits sign intact with a luggage rack full of the best the market had to offer was the ultimate vindication, and pretending that pile of money was mine, make believing that I was the subject of envy. It was almost worth feeling demoralized later, having my pockets turned out like some playground dweeb. But I’d seen through all that, I thought. But I was on my way to an overdose in a company hotel room. It was coming toward me and I leapt from the first window to open. Maybe this time would be different. Shit, they will write that on my headstone.
Before I drove the first mile, I slapped myself in the mirror, reaching for the bootstraps of my bootstraps. I could not let myself repeat the past. If I started losing, I was going to walk away. So goddamn naive. So frighteningly delusional. As if I hadn’t already sealed my fate.
This time there was no exit. I was boxed in, surrounded by rightfully pissed-off people, like a really un-fun game of Monopoly. I resolved to ask my parents for a little cash—try to squeeze a "loan" out of retired people with big hearts, maybe find a new grower I could convince to trust me, something akin to using one credit card to pay off the others. But it wasn’t a plan. Just lies, piling up.
I’d love to tell you that this is when I had a stroke of insight, but that would only be half true. One innocent attempt to blow off some steam ended abruptly when I got backhanded. The doctor called it a “Thunderclap Headache”. Next thing I know, I’m strapped to a gurney and their slicing me open, shoving a tube through my femoral artery so they can cover the inside of my skull in ectoplasm.
Every day in the ICU, the nurses would get me out of bed and walk me around the Neural ward, but not for the exercise. I was to see first hand what it meant to be the only “neuroactive” patient on the whole floor. Each room we passed contained someone like me, who had endured a life-threatening brain hemorrhage. Except unlike me, none of them could make words or sentences, or walk without aid. It was the kind of wake-up call you can’t ignore. Except I did.
Discharged and recovering at home, the phone continued to ring. Every ring was a countdown, another silent reminder I was in free fall. I promised everyone I love that I was finished. I promised myself too. What kind of person would return to something that has just almost taken them out? Hadn’t I just made it impossible to use again?
After a few days at home, I became irritated with the hospital which had just possibly saved my life. I was convinced that they had merely pushed me out the door without the usual aftercare someone else might receive. I thought, “They’ve left me to fight the after effects,” depression among them, “on my own.”
It all felt like a great injustice. Each day I became more the victim, more resentful, eventually resolving to, once again, take matters into my own hands. Incomprehensibly, that’s when self-medication began again, followed by a hunt for the same drugs that nearly killed me. My mind was still in the basement, despite where my body might be.
It was harder to get them now that the community knew what I was capable of doing with them. An associate reluctantly delivered me a bag of illegally pressed Xanax, only because I’d promised to wipe out his $1500 debt. I was paying him to ignore his conscience, when I saw the look of resignation on his face right before he turned and walked away, I couldn’t deny what I had become.
It felt like I was down to seconds on the game clock of my life, and I mostly welcomed the end. But as a real maverick, you might figure, I had to do something drastic. So I did what any true gangster does: I called my mom.
She sounded concerned when I asked if we could go for a drive. Moms always know when something is wrong.
I thought maybe I could frame it as a "business issue," keep things light, clean myself up, maybe she’d pity me and offer a little cash. But I’m pretty sure she saw through my intentions, and honestly, I was out of phony charm. At one point, we just sat there, her driving through the drizzle, nothing but engine hum and wiper taps.
My brain raced, but I knew there was nothing left to say. I finally cracked, saying all the things. Dealers, drugs, missing money, and those thoughts creeping around the edges-- the darker ones. The ones you're supposed to take seriously.
We pulled up to the ER, her face soft but serious. She walked me to the counter. This was it--the end of the line. No more basement, no more lies, no more phone calls. I'd been sprinting, trying to get away from myself for years, and now it had caught up with me. Whatever happened from this point on, was not going to be my idea. I lost any ability I once had to self-assess, and was no good to myself or others.
That was the day I left the basement. But what I didn't realize then? Leaving was the easy part. Figuring out how to live above ground--that was a whole new circus.
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