Destiny

In all of our lives, there are moments that seem to be part of a great cosmic plan of misery. Ppl used to ask me all the time how I ended up in San Francisco. It wasn't destiny. I used to listen to the Doors "the End" on acid and think one day I will go out West. The real reason I ended up in California was that someone was going to kill me and I had two choices: New York or San Francisco. Those were the only places where I knew to get heroin. 
I had an apartment on Mcmillian in Clifton. The neighborhood was a mixture of college town, Gay district, place where mentally ill and whinos congregated. I had an apartment there because I was pretending to go to college in between drug binges. My apartment had no real furniture except a matress on the floor and a broken couch. Graffiti and handprints were on the wall. Basically if you were over the age of 18 you came to my place to get fucked up. If you were under age, you stayed on short vine.
I barely knew this person, a friend of a friend. We were hanging out one night when he confided in me that he had $2,240 in his sock. He had owed the loan shark $2,500 but he was coming up short. He knew what that meant. This person had been in prison for burning down buildings. It just so happened that he didn't really care if the people were in them. There were many problems with my evening. The main one happened when this person woke up without his money. Another transient at my shooting gallery clipped him. 
He held me hostage, this person, this friend of a friend. "Bitch if I don't have this money these people are going to kill me so I am going to kill you". After a few hours of looking for the paper trail " you know what, I'm not going to kill you bitch. I'm going to put your eyes out so you can live the rest of your life and suffer."

I didn't lose my life that night or my eyes but I was on the bus to California as soon as I could scrape together the money. I was a fast learner- don't steal, don't trust anyone, and don't stay in one place. I thought it was destiny that made me come to California but really it was fear. Fear that I wouldn't be able to escape far enough without an ocean and a dirty spoon

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