Allen and Cathy and I met at the Hollywood site of Clean Needles Now’s syringe exchange program on a rainy, dark Sunday evening during the week of floods in LA that dropped 11 inches of rain in seven days. Three days after Allen and I finished the interview, Cathy was incarcerated for a prior charge.

Q: How did you and Cathy meet?

In the detox center three years ago. Usually, I’ve met other females in detox centers, usually it just lasts a couple of days, you just have fun, but I liked her, she had a good heart, she was for real. Before we had sex we had that HIV test- you know these days you don’t fool around.

We just kind of grew on one another and we’ve been together for three years now. It’s good for us.

My ex wife, she did a number on my head- with the trust level, I just had a hard time getting close to any other female. But Cathy changed all of that. We’ve been together ever since. For the last few, I have been trying to get her to move out of Hollywood. There’s nothing good about that city- the people, they think they are better than everyone else because they are in Hollywood. Everyone thinks they are a producer, or they are some sort of trust fund baby- mom or dad is an actor and they live off of them, haven’t worked a damn day in their life. The whole city is just crazy...

I like it where I’m from- out here and Montclair.

I try to split my time between Cathy and my mom. My mom is ill so I split my week between the two of them. It works, you know. At first, mom was a little jealous of it, because at first she had my full attn, and with Cathy in my life, she’s had to split the time. But she’s grown to like Cathy, my whole family has. Cathy’s story is completely different, her family don’t acknowledge her, but my family is real close knit.

My family- we do things together all the time, we go camping or boating or gambling, we are always do something. That was kind of new to Cathy. Even though I am a dopefiend, I still do normal things- I got my Harley. But the drugs have hindered my life, they’ve cost me a lot of yrs in prison. 94 was the last time I was in there. I just decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I was caught on burglary, possession, shoplifting. If I didn’t have it on me.

During school, I was kind of a loner-type in a way, kind of hung out with a certain kind of people. We smoke weed back then, drank beer on the weekends. The group I was hanging out with started doing heroin. I was against it at first, but I gave in eventually. That was just before I was 18. It seemed like I was just going to jail every year. It always had something to do with heroin.

You have it in the back of your mind that you are only going to use that day, you justify it that you aren’t hurting anybody. But you are, you are hurting everyone around you, you are isolating yourself. You are in a standstill. You know, I love heroin, but it hurts everything around you. Material things don’t mean a lot to me, but you lose sight of your hopes and dreams. It becomes your dreams, that drug, that high. I have been trying tog et off for the last 15 years now. This is the closest I’ve come now. Cathy and I are at that age now, 40 or 50 something years old and your body starts taking its’ toll- you don’t bounce back like when you were 20 or 30. I was getting tired of parole and having someone to listen to. So I gave that lifestyle up and went to detox four years ago to really give it a shot. I probably went three times that year to get off of it. I mean I have been to countless detoxes because of run I had to go three times back to back to back.

We kept telling ourselves we were going to clean up.. But unfortunately it took Cathy getting a case. We are at the age now, we catch a fall, it could be for the rest of our lives.

Cathy- she’s lucky with what she got. It’ll probably be 4-5 months they tell us. But doing time, it’s like living like an animal. It is survival of the fittest. The strong survive and the weak are taken advantage of. It is a whole way of thinking, of carrying yourself- things I don’t really believe in doing, but things you have to do in there to survive or it might cost you your life. I just don’t want to deal with that lifestyle anymore.

Now, if I don’t have the money, I don’t have to steal. Shoplifting, selling stolen goods, that was my thing. But I don’t like taking from common people. I never got into burglarizing houses, or holding a gun in my hand. If you got a gun in your hand and he’s got a gun in his hand- it comes down to survival that way and I am not in to hurting people

Each time it would take a year or two to get over that frame of mind, living like an animal.

I work when I can, I was driving diesel for five or six years, but my brakes went out. They have these gravel pits. I didn’t know at the time, but afterwards I had these nightmares. I would constantly go in the hospital emergency thinking I was having a heart attack. They told me I was having anxiety attacks. Doctors are so quick to give you drugs, “Here take vicodin, Xanax…” and I don’t need anything else to get addicted to, I was already hooked on heroin and methadone and I just wanted to stay away from pills.

She’s a good, caring woman, a woman you can trust. She has her own hang-ups, like we all do.

Q: What do you and Cathy like to do

Sex, ride on the Harley, go to the shows. Gambling, fishing, you know go out to dinner. The usual, common things. I try to get her to do more things. For a while there, she was confined to the house after her mom died. She kind of just stayed in the house for a year or two, she just isolated herself. I had to bring her back to the world- and that was my family in part.

Cathy and I- it’s you know we got that Harley- that is one of our favorite toys.

Family get-togethers, barbeques, thanksgiving, stuff like that. And you know, we just enjoy ea other’s company, just together we’re cool.

Q: How many years have you been injecting?

Almost thirty years, you buy them on the streets for a buck or two on the streets. Or you go to the pharmacies. Out of every three I go to, one will sell to you.

It has become more serious since my parole in ’86. That’s when they would talk about HIV/AIDS.

In the joint we always had a bottle of bleach and water because we would pass around the needle to a hundred or more guys. It was used and used and used.

Now I get them by the box. I always keep my works at home, I never use in the streets. I never let myself get caught out with the fellas with just one outfit, so I just wait until I get home. It became safer that way- for one thing, you are not using someone else’s outfit, and if you aren’t slamming in the streets, you are less likely to get picked up.

I had always heard about the exchange in the LA area and it wasn’t until Cathy that I went. It is a good thing- to know that you can always have a clean outfit, that you don’t have to use behind someone. Because sometimes it is hard to find them. Now, even if someone comes over, we can give them an outfit, make sure they take it with them.

Society is so backwards about drugs. Cathy got this possession charge you know, and we had it all set up for her to do a program, but they have her going to jail for a year. Instead she is going to county and all you do there is get negative and learn how to be a better criminal – that is all people do, talk about better scams, how to do illegal stuff. There is no rehabilitation in there- they gave that up years and years ago. So she is not going anywhere she can get anything out of it. Ever since, who was it, Ronald Reagan came in and closed down everything, there hasn’t been any rehabilitation.

It is so sad, they cry about this and that, but on the other hand they don’t do anything about it, but this exchange thing, they are slowing the transfer of AIDS. It will still be tough with the hookers, but it is not as fast anyhow.

I know I am alright because I have myself tested every six months or so for piece of mind.

I keep my life pretty simple now. I got out of the bad homeboy thing and running with the fellas because all it did was keep bringing me back to jail

I don’t need all that excitement, to be living on the edge anymore.

Q: What do you mean there is no more rehabilitation? What is the difference?

It was a lot easier to get into a detox ok? Now I can have to wait three months maybe. There are only two medical detox places unless you have private insurance and not many dopefiends have private insurance. Before Ronald Reagan you had other places you could get right into within days. Now, it takes months to get in. When someone wants to clean up, they want to clean up right then, they don’t want to wait three months, In three months you could be dead or in jail. But with the budget cuts they closed a lot of places. There aren’t opportunities for us now.

The dope has gotten worse- there is so much crud, it has gotten so weak. The Border Brothers- the people from Mexico- have pretty much taken it over. You just don’t know what it is cut with anymore- it is kind of scary thinking about what you are doing. I try to stay with one person- so I have a feel for what’s coming. That, along with Hepatitis C, which I’ve had for 20-something years, my liver has gone bad. Everything has gone bad, the drug has taken it’s toll.

In the beginning, you think you are just going to use for a year. That year has turned into 20-somehthing years. I look back at what I’ve done, and I haven’t done anything. I am kind of into the Lord now and The lord didn’t put me on this earth to do nothing for all these years. I should give back. I want to give back to society, leave something good, something positive to be remembered by. My whole way of thinking has changed. I used to be proud, I was proud to be a dopefiend, but it’s a dead-end street. I don’t lie anymore, I know what happens in the end. You go to prison. It hasn’t killed me yet, but it’s come close.

They had that prop- prop 36, it’s a good thing, for the newcomers. But it doesn’t work for me because of my history, but at least it is on the right track. They had given up on it for so long.

Once people find out you are a dopefiend they are prejudiced toward you anyhow.

Q: Why?

Because, we take advantage of things. It is a disease first of all, we have a hard time fighting this disease, we have all of the intentions in the world of doing good, but we keep going back to it- so people see you do the same thing no matter what you promise. But addiction is so powerful, no matter what you want to do, it get the better of you. A lot of people just lose hope. If you’re a dopefiend you’ll just stay one. A lot of people think that about me, but I know what changes I’ve made and where I’m going. I don’t feel the need that I have to prove it anymore, but people do recognize the change in me now. I got 30 years using and 10 years isn’t going to change it all of a sudden.

I’ve come to the reality of what it’s all about. Where it’s taken me, and I don’t like it.

I don’t always succeed, but I am not going to give up hope. I keep working at it. Each day I get up and see what I can do to change myself.

It’s gotten better and I wish there was more help you there, especially with detoxes, but there’s not so you work with what you have. I hope I live long enough to accomplish some of the things I want to do- be a better person, maybe if I can help somebody in this world, learn about the Lord more, I would like to be a counselor, that is one of my dreams, to be a drug counselor. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I know all the cons, the manipulation, what I have to do to get it, how to work it, what to say, I’ve been through it so much, that you know you really can’t run a game by me. I feel like that would be a good feeling for me, and plus, I think it would be a good reminder for me, I need to always remember my past, those games I used to run.

I want a simple life, I don’t need a rich life. I just want a simple life with a good girl.

But in Hollywood- everyone is caught up with who they are, how much money they have, the movies, it is hard to find anybody real, I would say 80% are phonies. That’s why I like it back here- people are real.

Q: What’s the deal with Cathy’s charge?

Drugs we had for ourselves, and you know, we’ve sold a little bit. But there were only two people in the end there we allowed to come by. But the last guy we gave a bag, we told for some reason, they arrested us, we had balloons in the fridge. Heroin you know.

They say if you get pulled over you can show them the card, but the reality is, they will bypass that and get you for under the influence. But it is nice to have a place to get clean needles.

Q: What do you think you’ll do while Cathy is serving her time?

Working, saving money, I am planning on starting a business here- a tow trucking business, right now I am running a wrecking yard. From there, I am eventually going to buy another house. While she is in there, I want to get this all set up and get it off the ground, start the business so she’ll have something to do. That’s the thing, keep a dopefiend busy. Because before, my whole day revolved around drugs. Getting the money for it, doing it, and doing it all over again all day long. Once you stop using, you have to replace it with something,. That is what I am trying to do. I get my ass up and go to work everyday. I may not like it, but that’s what I do. I would like to have Cathy come in on this too so she’ll have something to do. But it’s all about doing. Talking is easy, but it’s all about putting it in motion. For the last month or so I have been researching it, getting ready to do it and hopefully it will turn out.

No, no, it’s pretty much the same old story. Every one has a story, but it’s a little different, in a different time. But we all have a disease. It’s hard to deal with it, it’s real hard. Whatever years I do have left, I want to have them clean. That’s where my life is going, getting clean, staying clean and having something show for it.

I’ll be 46 next week. I started when I was 17. That’s pretty much all I know. That also makes it hard, especially when you pull out of prison, a lot of us have nothing else to go to, so we just keep going back in. Society really don’t understand, people do 10 years, they were using, they come out- well, they are going to go back to what they were doing. Society cries about it, but they don’t do anything about it to help. That’s another goal of mine, to have a halfway house, give people a chance, help them get self-respect back, so they can feel like everybody else.

Nobody wants to give anybody a chance though.