A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [116]
My Mother wipes her eyes, my Father squeezes her hand.
I smoked pot for the time at twelve. Same thing. I snuck out to a party and the older Kids gave it to me. I didn’t like it much, but I liked that they thought I was cool. I did it as much as I could, and because you guys were out or away a lot, it was easy to do. The baby-sitters never gave two shits and sometimes they did it with me.
My Mother holds a hand to her face, my Father looks down at the table.
I blacked out for the first time at fourteen. I was drinking and smoking in the basement of someone’s house and the next thing I knew it was morning and I was Home. By then I was getting fucked up three or four times a week. At fifteen I started using harder stuff, coke and acid and crystal meth. I liked all of them more than pot, so I stopped smoking it, and it’s the only drug I’ve ever quit using. I was also selling drugs and liquor at fifteen. I’d go into the Ghetto over in the Harbor and meet up with this guy named Freddy. He was a low-level dealer and if I gave him a couple bucks, he’d get me whatever I wanted. People knew I could get shit, so they gave me rides. The deal was they had to buy me something too. When I couldn’t get rides, I took your car. When I didn’t have money, Freddy gave me credit. He liked me and called me White Boy James, and I became known over there as that. It was fucking stupid and dangerous, but I liked it, thought it was cool, and it allowed me to get anything I wanted whenever I wanted it. I wanted it all the time.
My Mother starts crying, my Father stares at me.
Sixteen and seventeen were more of the same. I bought and sold liquor and drugs, did as much as I could of whatever I could get. I got fucked up before school, during school, after school. I got fucked up every single day. I drank and mostly used meth, and when I had that overdose, that’s what it was, meth and alcohol. I don’t know how much I did because I was blacked out. You never knew what went wrong because I refused to talk to the Doctors. I know you’re sitting there thinking you should have known more and you should have stopped me, but I hid things well and you tried, you tried hard. If you remember, you threatened me with Rehab a bunch of times and I told you if you sent me, I’d walk out and you’d never see or hear from me again. At the time, I would have done it. There was nothing you could have done to change me. I wouldn’t have stopped.
I take a deep breath. My Mother has moved closer to my Father and is sobbing into her own hands. I can see her makeup streaking through her fingers. My Father is staring at me and his eyes are wet. I have never seen him cry before, never seen him even close.
Eighteen. Same thing, but more. Went away to school in the Fall. No Rules, you weren’t around, I got a monthly allowance. I was in Heaven. I blacked out every night, always had a bloody nose from snorting coke all the time, pissed in my bed three or four times a week because I was too drunk to get out of bed. Nineteen, same thing, but probably worse. At twenty I started smoking coke. I used all the money you gave me to buy it and sell it. The FBI started investigating me for dealing and I got questioned by them at the local Police Station five or six times. They never got me on anything. Twenty-one. Bad year. I started smoking crack, which I loved. I smoked it as much as I could, which was basically every day. Crack is a bad drug, and it fucked me up. I was throwing up blood, pissing blood, shitting blood. I was sick all the time. I don’t really know how I managed it, but I finished school and you guys got me that job and sent me to Europe. I know you did it because you thought it would be good