… when I make what my adult self would have to say was one of the worst decisions of the entire “adventure” thus far.

The worst decision of my life.

——————————————

My adult self knows exactly why I have almost no memory of that afternoon. That afternoon, evening… all the way til the next morning.

All I have is snippets of random images. Ghost-like shapes of people and places I see in jerky, fast-motion scenes. Unidentifiable scenes fill my vision and a constant frantic feeling that I needed to run fills my body. My body needs to get away from where I happen to be at any given moment. I know nothing of where I am, how I got here, what I’m doing. Nothing! My body just needs to GET AWAY!!!

My mind is gone!!

——

The information I do know as to how it happened that Allen and I snorted a bunch of PCP thinking it was cocaine, comes from all the talk by Allen and the gang sometime later. Perhaps a day or so later. I have no idea exactly when it was, but at some point the full realization finally set in of what had actually gone down…and then it was all anyone was talking about.

Talk of “killing that b!#@h” who had made the deal in the first place. Talk of how Allen had heard from the Hell’s Angels next door to my old apartment with the bloodstain, that they had also “got took” by this woman from out of town.

Apparently, a lone woman (no one ever mentioned her being with anyone) had arrived in the neighborhood from parts unknown and conned that group of dangerous men out of a BUNCH of cash. Apparently, she’d promised them a bale of “Killer Weed from California”. Apparently, the “cocaine” was supposed to be an incentive. “A bit of candy to sweeten the deal.” Apparently this woman’s plan to dose all her marks with PCP and give herself time to safely skip town with the cash, went very well for her.

Apparently, Allen had somehow been in on this “sweet deal” too.

“This is some heavy shit man!” and “That b!#@h is gonna die!!” is all I hear from him now.

The few days after the concert were much different. Allen and the gang were in heaven. A shirtless and a very “Crazy” Allen had been front and center on local TV, hooting and hollering and holding up his booze bottle for the cameras reporting on the Alice Cooper Concert at the Omaha Civic Auditorium. I clearly remember seeing him from the passable spot I had been able to push myself to after helping that woman who’d passed out near the beginning of the show.

It took me a long time to get up that close. Allen was up on the shoulders of one of his captains with both arms in the air. He had a bottle of booze and I saw him toss it up on stage just as Alice was looking his way. The rock star picked up the bottle and appeared to take a big swig before tossing it back stage. Everyone went wild!

“Crazy Allen” was famous now. He was surely “going places” and it was time to party. It was time to party and the party drugs were compliments of that “sweet deal” his biker pals had let him in on.

I clearly remember a pile of white powder and Allen chopping it into lines. I’d never seen him so happy. The last few days had been going so well. His standing with The Hell’s Angels, the concert, this drug deal… it all seemed to be leading him to believe in himself like he’d never done before. At seventeen, “Crazy” Allen was on top of his world.

And in this moment in which I saw my friend in all his pride and glory… my naive, nineteen-year-old, midwestern farm boy self, made the brilliant decision to join the party.

Just this one time.

To be continued…