Another Page from Carmen's Past

You guys were right about Wanted with Angelina Jolie - it was way way way over the top. It was kind of entertaining and fun - but it wasn't exactly believable.

Here's another back in the day story...

I started drinking about age 15 and it was just at random house parties on the weekends, but I can tell you that the very first time I ever took a drink, I loved the feeling, I felt happy and carefree, I drank as much as humanly possible, I blacked out, I don't remember a good 3 hours of the party and I woke up with hickies on my neck the next day and had no idea who they were from. Good times. I got a lot of attention and I mistakenly thought it was good attention when in reality it was negative attention. At any rate, this was just the beginning.

Around age 18 I took my first hit of acid. I wasn't scared, I couldn't wait to just feel different and I loved it. From that point on I basically did any drug that was put in front of me.

I hung out with a lot of losers that didn't have cars and of course I had a nice new Mitsubishi Eclipse so I drove everyone around every night and didn't think a thing of it. One particular night I'm with these guys that weren't exactly a good influence but I thought they were my friends (looking back I realize they were just using me). They said "let's go on a road trip to Largo". The only thing I knew about Largo was that this amusement park called Wildworld was in Largo and it was right on the outskirts of D.C. I was like "sure - let's hit it".

We drive down there, they go to someone's house and buy some party favors and then we get in the car and head back to our area. They kept calling it "love". I thought it was some fancy sort of weed. The guys rolled it up in papers and started passing it around the car, but it smelled kind of odd to me. It smelled like amonia which I thought was odd because weed doesn't smell like that. But, whatever. I took a couple of hits and I felt so weird. I had never felt this feeling before ever but I liked it. The guys were laughing because I'm like "wow - I feel like I'm on a roller coaster - this is some good shit" and the more I smoked the more I started losing my mind and eventually I was like "seriously guys, what the hell is this shit?" and to mess with me they said it was "crack". I about died. In my mind, crack was for homeless fuckups that didn't have teeth and didn't have jobs and they were super crazy. I had always swore that I would never touch crack.

Long story short - it was PCP. To be more specific it was called "love boat" and it was a joint sprinkled with PCP on the top. Wow - talk about a crazy high. I hate to say it, but I was in love with this drug.

The problem with love boat is that if you take one hit too many you freak the fuck out. I remember laying in the back of my car thinking I was dead, I was like in some other dimension and I couldn't get out. I started trying to kick the windows out of my car, I was freaking out, it was the worst feeling ever. Eventually I gave it up and luckily I didn't hurt anyone or myself. I still to this day get flashbacks of things that I did on that drug and I regret these things immensely.

Since we were all underage we couldn't go to clubs, so we found other creative ways to entertain ourselves. I don't know if anyone has ever been to the end of the line in D.C. - I can't think of the name of the station but it's the very end of the line if you are coming from D.C. into Maryland. Well, late at night there was a huge huge group of people from all over D.C., Maryland and Virginia and they had illegal drag races over at the metro station. The reason we did them there was because it was a really long road and it was off the beaten path and it was a perfect place for racing.

So, we could go up there on the weekends with our party favors and get crazy! One night things got way out of control. Someone pissed someone off and the next thing I know there are guns waving around, bullets being shot and everyone is running for dear life. I think someone got shot, but I wasn't sticking around to find out.

I fucking loved it. Drama - Excitement - Adrenaline. These are the things that I lived for.

I'm pretty sure I headed back there the very next weekend. Some of us never learn huh?