7 Minutes Is All I Have

I love body cam vids

Getting arrested at 42 is insane. I have no words for it. Maybe as I think about missing fortnite battle passes with my son. I have words for it. Either way, its fuck shit.

Before today, I remember being in my car. Blackened off of In Justice For All is slamming out of my Chevy Cavelier. My mom would have killed me if she could see what this car had become under my command. Nevertheless, I was so high, I could never even handle her protests in between the insane guitar solos slamming between myself and Brisk. It was kind of him to consider me on his road trip, even if it was to pick up an ounce of coke. Even though I had finally gotten a bachelors in dumb shit, it was nice that he considered me first when picking up $1,200 dollars in drug charges tonight.

Recounting it I cant even think. It’s just glam rock guitar solos broken into my brain. How decades later I’d think about my dad, who got me into this shit off of CDs I accidentally discovered in a basin left by our lounge chair. How even today I feel guilty for stealing the discs and the influences from that shit he had stashed down there. But tonight I was in front of Brisk, as always being the standard in front of the most ridiculous villain of all time. A man who insisted we called him Snake. How it was possible, in the 90’s, to have such a pure loser like Snake in front of you. It was just unheard of. We had always bought coke from him off shore. Friends of a friend that would have dealt with him way beyond when we ever would have had to touch him to buy the typical ounce of weed. But tonight we had no choice, fiending off unemployment and heavy metal, we needed him now.

When I think of the days before then, they are ultimately the most peaceful days of my life. Sitting with Brisk on top of his car, ultimately one that would be totaled, slamming Black Sabbath. A band we never got to live in the hayday of, but were pretending to anyway. Knee deep into an eighth of coke and ether, going all dreamy as we wondered who we would be in the future. If I knew he’d be dead and I’d be writing this, maybe I would have warned him. But tonight I was hitting Sweat Leaf so hard I couldn’t even imagine any other life.

When we met Snake, it was like every drug deal you can imagine given the sheer amount of Breaking Bad copycats you’ve seen now a days. It was a stark and empty field, we had the money, he had the stuff. But what stuffed us in the end was the price. We never could have expected him to just drop $1,700 dollars on us when we had carefully saved up a dozen thousand dollars in our part time work outside of school. To jack us up almost $600 bucks when I was waiting tables at a Bostons where we lived. It was criminal. Besides the fact that he was selling us weed and coke.

I can still remember feeling my dad’s .45 through my pants when he told us the price. I would never hurt someone, but outpricing someone at that level can feel hurtful. But both of us were jaded, stupid. We were going to say yes to him no matter what the fuck he said to us. We just wanted to get high again. High like we used to be just sitting in my old car in high school. Yet, I couldn’t even negotiate a raise at my waiter job after a year, yet alone with a masterful drug dealer who certainly was armed.

Brisk knew better than me though, maybe for the better, probably for the worst. He was wise enough to have brought both a bottle of Jack and a few pads of LSD. Both for us and for the potential negotiations. It’s wind through my ears remembering how good he was with dudes. Spanish, German, Japs, you could be from any walk of life and this guy could have lulled you into a conversation. I miss how he could make you feel wanted even when you knew you were a nuisance. Brisk just had a way with everyone. How he could turn your worst day into an interesting talking point. You just don’t find people willing to talk about you like that in prison. You felt important around him day and night. I regret how much I took from him and never gave back.

But anyway, our CD had hit Solitude on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality and Snake did not want Jack or hallucinogens. He was just an evil guy, and he wanted so bad to be that villain that was heavily feared. The funniest part is that I can still hear it when recounting it to you. The SSSSSsssss sound that came around us deep in the West Texas dirt. Even at my age, I knew It was a coral snake. Was it a safe color? I still don’t know. But I do know Snake picked that guy up as soon as he saw him. Letting him chill around his shoulders, adding to his aura. At the time it was so terrifying to watch this maniac do this. What a crazy guy to just pick up a snake while dealing drugs. This will surely scare us into overpaying for weed and coke.

What I can never remember clearly is what went next. I know that the SSSSsss eventually ended in Snake having a coral bite sent into his face. It’s comical now to think of his hubris. How he felt so brave to pick up a wild animal to scare some college kids. But decades ago I had to visit his corpse and I.D. him. He had no one else to do it. I know now at least, that it was definitely the snake that took his life.

I also know that in the fear of him screaming I let at least 3 rounds fly from a .45 caliber weapon, that I had never fired before. While 2 of them went into my leg as I rose the weapon to the challenge. I now know that one round flew into my friends chest. I was scared, and I still have no idea what comfort bringing a firearm to this meet up granted me. It may be that by the time you are reading this, the accidental discharge of that firearm is what has killed me in the end. Something I discovered in between my father’s disc collection years ago.

DNA shit become so much better later in my life. They found me decades later. As hard as I tried to bury my friend and his enabler. I didn’t do a good enough job. My shit is all over the place, and instead of asking for an explanation, they just want to know why I did it.

To this day I still sit at the window, imagining Metallica blaring out of my ears as the Florida air passes. I’ve only seen a smart phone from the periodical illegal shipments. But I pray that he only sees one when he is ready to handle that level of toxicity.

To my wife, and my son, I was dumb. I never thought something like this would come back to me. Frankly, I just wanted a fat week of bumps and spliffs that Summer. Also to spend a free week with a friend I miss dearly to this day. While I will maintain I did no wrongdoing, I want you to know that my week with Brisk, was one of the most free moments of my life. One that I will think about dearly before they take my freedom from me forever.

Leon V.