A Madness to their Meth? Odd...

I spent three days in Lodi, California. It seemed like three weeks. Three awful weeks. I was sick, probably with food poisoning.
I met a lot of people while I was sick, which was an odd experience because I spent most of my time in the room, staring at my eyelids. Not once did I turn the television on. I did cross the street to the gas station a few times, and my presence at the motel was duly noted by a certain group of people who happened to see my comings and goings. My scruffy appearance ( I do look pretty rough at this point, I must say) probably prompted one of them to talk to me.
“You need anything?”
Me: “Like?”
“Crank”
Me: “Hell no.”
Okay.
Me: “Wait, can I ask you a question?”
I proceeded to tell the individual of my walk, my writing project, and asked for permission to sit in while he and his little circle did their thing in another room in the same motel. He said to go to my room and he would let me know. I went to my room and waited. For a while day and half I waited, sick and wondering if the question had been either dismissed or not remembered. Then came a knock on the door. nI opened it and there stood “Eric”, and he just said, “You still wanna hang out with us? It’s okay but no pictures and you cant use our real names.” I agreed and got up, following him all of a hundred feet.
We entered the room that he and his girlfriend/wife Amy lived in a temporary situation . It was set up oddly and there was a second small room where Amy’s little boy, Ryan, slept. That’s right, her 3 year old little adorable boy.
“Do you want some?” he asked me. I politely but firmly declined his offer. He already knew I wasn’t interested in any of what he was offering me—crystal meth, or crank, as it is sometimes called. Theb scourge of the country, and maybe the world eventually.
Crystal methamphetamine is a very strange drug for anyone to even contemplate taking into their body, since, as Eric confirmed my research, it is made in part with hydrochloric acid and other very noxious chemicals, and when it is inhaled, I can’t imagine that it doesn’t eat away at some part of your body. It is a very, very dangerous drug, and has been invading the east coast in recent years, and because it is cheaper and longer lasting, it will eventually overtake crack as the biggest and baddest drug out there. While fairly new to the east coast, as I said, it has been pervasive on the west coast for decades.
So while I sat on a kitchen chair, in a motel room type kitchen area, away from the fumes, Eric and Amy smoked their meth. I still could smell a chemical odor but it wasn’t too disturbing. I wasn’t aware that they had made a phone call for a delivery of more, and when the dealer showed up, Eric told me to turn around and to not look at him. It was a bit nerve-wracking, and I heard the dealer ask who I was, and the response was , “He’s cool.”
As they did their thing, we talked. I was a bit surprised at how normal they were. I asked if they ever tried to quit. Eric said that he did not care to stop, but Amy said that she had stopped for a while but was so hooked on it now that if she went cold turkey she would go into a coma for two days, and she couldn’t let Eric take responsibility for Ryan, who was fathered by someone else. They both said that they did not take the drug for fun, but just to feel normal and to be able to function. They both smoke it every day, not in large quantities but enough to maintain that “normal” feeling. What a life, eh?
I was concerned about something, or someone---Ryan. An absolutely adorable child, he appears to be as normal as can be, but being raised in a motel situation with crank smoking parents isn’t the usual, and when I asked about how they could do that with him present, they actually looked guilty and I thought that maybe I had crossed a line that might get me in a situation.
And then, as if to prove my point, little Ryan came out of his room and said he wanted to watch TV. Amy didn’t even try to hide her activity, and Eric didn’t say anything. I tried to distract the little guy, but I was a stranger to him and he didn’t respond.
As a former teacher, I was a “mandated reporter.” That means that if I see any case of child abuse, I am required by law to report it to the proper authorities. As a writer, though, it is a moral code violation to disclose sources. The child looked to be healthy, though, and that fact caused me to wait a couple of days before making that call this morning. Now that I am safely out of Lodi, I won’t have to look over my shoulder.
I have no idea of this was a typical example of this nonsense. I did hear more people talking about meth publicly than I hear on the east coast. The meth heads I’ve seen in Georgia look pretty bad usually, but not all do. Here, Eric, Amy and the few of their friends that came in and out seemed like normal people. Ironically it was my appearance that prompted Eric to ask me if I was in need. If I ran into either of them on the street, I wouldn’t be able to tell. Eventually, though, that insidious crap eats away at skin and bone and the results are exactly what you would expect.
I am including this piece because, as I said, it is something that I saw on my journey, even if I did seek it out due to being sick and bored in a motel room. Not every story is a pleasant one. This is one of them. I wish all parties well, but I was careful not to give them my blog info or any real location information, to be safe.