My Naked Soul

A divine intervention had taken place that night... I truly believe to this day that God had spared my life because that same gun would kill a friend of mine a month later... when I realized the gun was not firing, I made my break for the door and ran like lightening had struck me dead in the ass. I don’t think I’ve ever ran that fast in my entire life.

As I fled down the hallway, the only thing I could see were the street lights at the end of the hall. When I made it to the curb where my car was parked, I heard a loud booming noise and looking back just for a second, I could see Lawrence had some how managed to grab the shotgun. While he and Reggie were struggling, the gun went off. The blast of the shotgun had tore a hole in the roof of the Ed’s Hotel instead of the back of my head.

When I reached the middle of Cottonwood road, I felt a heavy blow upside the back of my head. Once again, Reggie was beaming down on me. He had hit me with the barrel of the shotgun, and my legs fell from under me. Looking up from the ground, I was facing ‘THE FAT LADY. ‘She looked like a vicious, twisted mask, and an enraged black face with a double barrel shotgun. As I looked right in the eye of this Lady of Death, I screamed, please, please! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me like this! Please don’t kill me!

For just a moment my whole life flashed before my eyes. I had heard somewhere before that when a person was about to die, there life would flash before them. Fortunately for me, the Fat Lady didn’t sing that night, but it was the voice of racing police cars and sirens on an ambulance.

After that, I didn’t remember too much, but I remember my body felt real cold, as if it had been placed in a tomb. When I looked up, there was a man dressed in a white uniform. I thought, ‘had I actually died, but just didn’t know it? I asked myself over and over again, ‘Was I actually dead? Was I to die like this, like an animal in the street! Caught up in this rat hole, a horrible dope fiend’s death, with a spike in my arm and a pipe in my mouth. Was a bag of dope worth this? Wasn’t my life worth more then that...? Damn, damn, damn! I said repeatedly. This is got to be the coldest way in the world for me to die.

When I came to my senses, I realized that the man in the white uniform was an attendant at the Kern County Morgue. Yes! The County morgue was where my addition had taken me... then my poor mother was called down to the morgue to identify her son.

Well, I guess it wasn’t time for the miracle of change in my life that night... you would think that would be enough for any fool to realize there was something incredibly wrong, after I had been beaten, shot at, and declared dead from an overdose.

You have to understand the overwhelming power and insanity of the disease of addition to know all these horrible, life-threatening events that took place that night... I just couldn’t stop the obsession to use... this vicious cycle, this insidious predator had taken over my mind, body and soul. The only thing on my mind... after my eyes opened and I realize I wasn’t going to die... was where in the world I could find me a bag of dope that time of night. Where could I find me another blast, another crack puff...another... damn drug.