from: ©Tim Wells, William Triplett : Drug Wars - an oral stories from the trenches, 1992
I got involved selling heroin at the age of thirteen. It was 'cause
of my uncle. He was a distributor. He'd buy raw heroin and pass it around
to the neighborhood sellers - you know, keep them supplied in dope. He
had a big old house, and a big old car. But he was always tellin' me not
to mess with drugs. He was sayin', "Drugs is a dirty game. I don't
want to see you on the street. You go to school and get you an education."
You know, he loved me like a son.
One day me and my cousin was out at my uncle's house, and we stole some
heroin from him. He had so much of it hidden he didn't even know what little
we took was missin'. At the time, I didn't know it was raw. There's difference
between scrambled, bone, and raw. Scrambled has two different cuts on it,
bone has one, and raw has none. I ain't aware of the difference at that
time. It was kind of funny though, because I was snorting, and I'd take
a little match-head of this dope and stay high all day. I never thought
about why it affected me that way, until this young lady bought some heroin
from me and she OD'd (overdosed- comment DaY). She went into a coma.
She was in a coma for six, seven months, and to tell you the truth I don't
know if she ever died or not. I lost track of what happened to her. But
when she OD'd it scared me. I checked it out with an older guy, a guy named
Larry. He was a seller. I showed him what I had, and he said, 'Man, this
is raw dope!" He showed me how to cut it and mix it, and from there
on I wasn't turning back. I was selling. I was making money.
My uncle draw by saw me on the street one day, and I tried to run away.
I didn't want him to see me out there, but he did. He didn't get mad or
nothin'. He just said, "if you gonna be in the game, you might as
well work for me." After that, I was gettin' all my narcotics from
him. Me, my cousin, and my uncle - we had us a little family business.
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