African Medicine Man in Bad Medicine America

She wasn't a bad looking prostitute, maybe 28-29 years old (going on 80), sleek and silky dark skin, even friendly. But her body wasn't what I was interested in. I wanted what she was out here for. I wanted crack-cocaine.

It was about 2:30am and we were driving into the "hood". I told her to get me two 20 rocks and that I'd give her half of one of them for hooking me up. My shift ended at 3:00am so I had to hurry my evening's decadence along. We pulled up in front of a non-lit broken down house, of course, and she told me to, "kill my lights". Boy, haven't heard that before. I told her, "Listen. It looks more suspicious turning them off and anyway, I can do whatever I want. I'm a cabbie."

She headed into the house. I acted cool. I didn't know why I felt the need to come across as some bad ass to a hooker who could care less and to someone I didn't even know but the truth of the matter was that I was super fucking nervous like every other time. Near shitin' in your pants type nervousness--every fucking time. I never adapted either. It was the nervous rush of obtaining the drug that does so much, a drug that, good or bad, has a strong effect. This is the addiction, not the actual effect of inhaling the drug. At least that's what me and my reliable puffing buddy, Goodwin, agreed on after both coming down off our high one night. I looked out of the smoke and dirt filmed car window and saw her coming back out of the house. She said that it was cool for me to come in. Ok. Here we go, I thought as I took a deep breath. Like always, I had no clue what I was going to be walking into and also, like always, I went anyway.

Repeating in my head was, "...get the shit, get the fuck out...get the shit, get the fuck out...". We were let in by a comical, tweeked out and paranoid court jester type cat. He was thin and wirey on the outside and wired as hell on the inside. Normally he would have made me laugh but his amusing histrionics were overshadowed by the stench of dependency and desperation that was seeping out of his toxic pores. So I entered the dark-energized shithole. Inside was basically an empty space with rooms separated only by wooden beams depleted of most of its drywall.

We walked into the kitchen (I knew it was the kitchen only because a small refrigerator was standing there) and saw about 6 or 7 people sitting around a table. Over-looking the table, nailed to one of the wooden beams, was a large crucifix. The repetitive phrase in my head increased in speed and intensity ("...get the shit, get the fuck out!...get the shit, get the fuck out!..."). Most of the people at the table were black folk minus me and some white scraggly lookin, red-neck, truck drivin' muthafucker who had his 18 wheeler parked out front. In the middle of the table was an over-excessive amount of fire tools and crack accessories including 7 or 8 lighters, back-up matches, tiny bundles of copper cut from dish washing scrubbies, and several glass and metal tube pipes. They looked, not like thrown in a pile, but arranged in a ritualistic positioning.

At the head of the table was one of the blackest black men I've ever seen. he was about 65 to70 years old with white hair contrasting his blue-black skin. All focus was on him. He had the crack. He was the shaman. He was the medicine man and this whole fucking thing to me was an African tribe gone bad. I wanted to get the fuck out but I wanted my shit, goddamnit! I've been in worse situations before but the cultish feel and smothering energy of this one freaked me the fuck out! Slavery again for the black man, for everyone, I thought to myself. First white man, now crack-cocaine and I was a guilty participant.

In a procedural manner, the old African leader started to distribute the rocks to the individuals in the circle, one at a time with pauses in between. I was the last in line. I had my money out, eagerly awaiting my shit so I could leave to safety--that is if you want to call throwing a crack rock on a glass pipe and smoking it while driving over the 405 bridge to check in my cab, "safety". The prostitute was at my side, twitching and waiting as well. The old black man looked at me and slowly took a hit off of his own pipe. Never during my crack smoking cabbie phase have I seen someone so divinely calm after taking such a fat ass hit of crack-cocaine. He didn't seem human to me. His piercing eyes looked right through mine. I reached out to give him the money and he looked at me again, looked back at the money and said, "No".

It was the only thing I heard him say the whole time I was there. I didn't question him. I didn't say anything. I left the girl there, she wanted to stay. I got out. The tweaked out jester closed the door behind me. My emotions were completely mixed but dominated by a deep primal anger. I left feeling humiliated, relieved, and with hatred... with more hatred, I should say, than before for myself, white man, and for the evil Roman Empire 2 that we oh so proudly call America.

(Portland, Fall, 1998) . . . . . aa

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