Salant - Leaving dirty jersey: a crystal meth memoir

This book is a memoir and derives primarily from my memory. Ive changed some names, locations, and physical details. Also, Ive altered some conversations to make them coherent, and in a very few cases Ive changed the chronology. All of that notwithstanding, Ive done my best to portray my experiences honestly. Leaving Dirty Jersey is not about redemption or recovery, but I would like to think that the last three years of my life have been just that, and nothing has been more crucial to turning my life around than revisiting my past with ruthless honesty.

The line of evergreens in front of the Princeton Shopping Center was bristling and swaying in the wind, morphing and swirling and streaking the sky neon green, and even tripping on acid I was trying to walk like a tough guy. Swinging my feet slightly to the side in a kind of waddle, I led each step with a shoulder as if wading through water. For once, though, I wasnt scowling. I was happy and smiling, having cut school with two friends. Wed dropped the acid and sniffed some heroin and watched the end of Casino . Now we were on our way to the shopping center for pizza, and one of the trees was whispering to me. The words sounded familiar. When I realized that the tree was quoting Casino , I laughed, and then sunlight flickered across the grassdancing flames of iridescenceand I began to burst with a this-is-special feeling. It was a gorgeous day, and nature was putting on a light show for me. Then the cops pulled up.

As soon as they told us to stop and stand over there, the sun seemed too bright: My eyes began to water and I couldnt stop blinking. In my pocket were a bag of pot and eight paper hits of acid. I fidgeted while one of the copsa short, clean-shaven officer with a nasal voiceexplained that hed just received a call about three guys trying car-door handles in the parking lot wed just passed through.

My friends, who were black, screamed racial profiling: You know aint nobody call. You just wanna harass a bitch. I needed a different strategy, but I couldnt come up with anything better than shaking my head in disbelief, looking nervous and high. Another squad car pulled up.

Afterward, my friends and I would complain about how unfair the whole thing was: We actually hadnt been trying car-door handles, so in our minds it was all bigotry and harassment. It never occurred to us that we looked exactly like the type of people who do try car-door handles and that, in fact, on any drug but acid we were those people.

Come on over here, said a gray-haired, mustachioed detective in a dark suit, standing by his car. He was talking to me. Trudging over, I stared at the ground and hoped that I was walking normally. Why dont you empty your pockets for me, he said, and put everything on the hood, over here.

You dont have the right to search my pockets, I said.

Yes, I do. He laughed. And that was that. I placed cash, keys, little scraps of papereverything that wasnt illegalon the hood of his car. Then he told me to turn my pockets inside out.

No, I mumbled.

No? he said, raising his eyebrows.

The local paper said that a seventeen-year-old high school senior darted (or maybe it was dashed) down the street in an attempt to escape, but Im less sure of what I was trying to do. I didnt even know that I was going to run until Id started, and then, once the boots were thudding and the cops were shouting, it just naturally popped into my head, as if Id undergone some junkie training program, that I should eat the aciddestroy the evidence.

It is impossible, though, to open a sealed baggy while running from the cops on a head full of acid. It also didnt help that my boots, which were fashionably untied, began to come off. When I tried to kick them off altogether so I could run in my socks, my fashionably baggy jeans fell to my knees. Stumbling, then running like a demented penguin, I shoved the closed baggy into my mouth and started to chew. I had no chance of swallowingmy mouth was parchedbut I hoped that the baggy would open in my mouth so I could eat the remaining tabs. It didnt.

The mustachioed detective soon caught up and struck me on the back of the neck, sending me flying through the air. I landed hard, tumbling on the grass, and in another second they were on me, flipping me on my stomach, putting a knee on my back, cuffing me, turning out my pockets, and finding the pot. Finally they pulled me up to my knees.

Oh, whats this? said one of the cops, holding the bag of acid, which had fallen out of my mouth. A little of the LSD, huh?

That was about the stupidest damn thing you could have done! yelled the detective whod run me down.

Now, Jim, said another cop. We already knew each otherOfficer Summers. He took off his glasses and stooped in front of me with his hands on his thighs. What did you swallow? I am not fucking around, Jim! What did you swallow?

Nothing, I mumbled. You already got it. Later, the story to my friends was that I told him to go fuck himself.

Officer Summers shook his head and walked away, leaving me kneeling in my boxers, dirt and grass clinging to my legs. In a few minutes two of the cops hoisted me to my feet and yanked my jeans up roughly. The jeans became tangled with my boxers and didnt quite make it over my hips.

Whats happening now? I asked another detective, a woman who was standing at the edge of a huddle watching me as the other cops gave each other orders and talked into their radios.

Were waiting for the ambulance, she said.

For what? I said. I dont want an ambulance. Im fine.

I was standing in my damp socks, cuffed, a cool breeze blowing across the top of my butt.

I wish I could believe you.

But I really didnt eat anything, I said. I mean, if thats what you think. You saw me try to swallow something, but that fell out of my mouth. You got that.

You mean the LSD, she said.

Yeah, I said. That was everything.

I wanted to ask one of the cops to fix my pants.

And the pot, said the mustachioed detective.

Yeah, sure, fine, I said. But thats it. I didnt eat any stash.

How do we know that? the detective snapped. Look at the size of your pupils.

I wondered if I should tell them that I was on acid. Tell THEM

that Im on LSD, that Im on SDLthat Im nearing hell? Tell them a fucking thing

The ambulance arrived.

Take any drugs today, son? an EMT asked me once I was cuffed inside.

Nope.

Nothing at all?

Well, I smoked a little marijuana earlier.

Thats it? he said, shining a flashlight in my eyes. Youre sure?

Yup.

At the ER, a place Id never been, the detective walked me from the ambulance to a plain room, empty except for a chair in the center, to which he cuffed me. Then he left me, and a young doctor in a white smock came in with a clipboard and smiled at me good-naturedly.