Rehab 2 (cont 8)

The view from the classroom of Narco was absolutely amazing. Just imagine the third floor of a Newport Beach House with sliding glass doors and large windows all around you looking out over the Pacific Ocean. Most days we would see dolphins out in the surf or other interesting things in the water. It was tough to keep your mind on the work in front of you. I would often find myself daydreaming and just looking out the window at the water or the beach. During breaks a lot of the students would head for the water. Most would just take a boogie board, a few would go out and surf. My young friend Brian H. would always surf. He absolutely loved it and would go out no matter the weather conditions. He had a couple of wetsuits and two surfboards. Both of his boards were short boards, at first I didn't really know there was much of a difference between the long board and the short board. I only knew that Brian was a really good surfer and it was cool to watch him. He was definately addicted to Heroin and surfing. It was like he had to surf each day or he just didn't feel good. He was really at home in the water. When Chris showed up he really talked like he was an awesome surfer and that was all he used to do. On our first day of class brian offered Chris one of his boards and a wetsuit to borrow during the morning break. Chris was stoked, he was all over it. I encouraged it because Chriss really had a hard time sitting in class. He got real fidgety and was always bugging the other students. he looked like a surf bum so i figured he would be as good as Brian. At break I stayed in the classroom to watch them hit the waves. It was winter and cold, but he waves were generally pretty good. They paddled out and Brian hit some great waves but I never saw Chris do shit. He maybe caught two waves and they were less than impressive rides. After a few minutes Chris paddled in and disappeared running up the beach to the Narco house. A few minutes later I noticed him running back out to the waves. Brian was still out there surfing. Chris paddled out again and this time he was catching all the waves, but he seemed to be going slower and didn't make the same sharp, quick cuts as Brian. When they came back to class Chris was going on and on about how awesome the surfing was and couldn't wait to get back out there. He kind of made sure everyone heard him talking. When Chris went to the bathroom I asked Brian how good Chris was. Brian said "He sucks, he can't handle a short board and had to go in and borrow a "Rhino Chaser". I asked what the hell that was. Turned out that Chris couldn't handle the short board and ran in and asked someone on the boardwalk to use their longboard. Chris never had a problem asking random people to borrow stuff or have stuff. He definately knew how to survive on the streets. Brian was kind of disgusted and was all done surfing with Chris.



As time went on Chris had a tougher and tougher time sitting in class and he could not get through all the TR's. He just couldn't sit still for more than two minutes. One night after class Stew took Chris into the basement and showed him an old longboard that someone left at Narco after they graduated. It was pretty thrashed but Chris was really excited. He spent the next three nights working on the rhino chaser and got it ready to go. Somehow he came up with a wetsuit and after that he was in the water everyday and late for class everyday. They eventually took the board away from him until he could get back to class on time. He never did quite work it out but it sure helped him to handle class when he was surfing. I never did get the whole story on chris. I knew he grew up on a boat, his dad was an asshole to him. I don't think he came with many clothes or anything, he had no money, he looked cool with his long hair and tan skin and he had plenty of self proclaimed street hustle. Chris had hepatitis and was often sick. I never saw any family come to visit him at all and he never had a cent. Chris was in the suana with me for about a week. During that week he got a Sty(sp?) in his eye and some of the students caught him dumpster diving for clothes or whatever. We would get really bored in the sauna so I would always try to come up with little things to have fun or games to play to pass the time. Sometimes I would say everyone had to talk with a British accent or Italian mobster accent. The day we did Italian accents was just after Chris got the eye infection and was rifling through trash. He was really into the accent thing and made everyone call him Sty Garbagio in an over done accent. He actually kept that going the whole time he was at Narco. Chris had a real tough time in the sauna and when we would take breaks to dive in the ocean to cool off he never wanted to go back to the house. After about a week of sauna time Chris told everyone his B-day was the next day and his girlfriend was coming to visit. At the time Matt was the Sauna CI. That meant staff in charge of the sauna students. He would sit at a desk right outside the sauna door and make sure we were ok and that the sauna stayed over 220 degrees. He also made sure we all took our Niacin, fish oil and a bunch of other pills. We also had to drink some kind of nasty oil. It was thick and hard to keep down. we took all of this shit before and after every sauna session.



Chris begged Matt for the day off the next day for his birthday. They went and met with Jack and I guess they worked it out. However, they didn't want Chris to leave the house with his girlfreind. She was still using heroin on a daily basis and Matt and Jack were very worried about her coming to see him. We were all pretty excited to see what this chick looked like. We had heard some very crazy stories about her and we really expected one wild chick to show up. If she could keep up with Chris I knew she must be a pretty hard core chick. When she showed up we were not disappointed. Chris only had a couple of tatoos, but his girlfriend was covered with them. She drove an old, shitty late 60's model Chevrolet pick-up and was definately a tough looking lady. She looked kind of like she could of been cute without all the tatoos and bandanas and the way she dressed. Basic white tank top and denim over-alls. Her hair had tight braids and a red bandana over her head like Aunt Jemima. She certainly fit the mold of an IV drug user. She had one friend with her and her friend was really strung out. She couldn't even get out of the car. Nathan the detox guy was the first to see them and he ran right to Jack's office. Those two joined with Matt and Ed went out to have a talk with her. They told her that they would get Chris out of class as long as she agreed to stay at Narco and maybe just go talk on the beach. They said she could only hang out for an hour or so. We were all up in class as Chris and Mag walked out on the beach. We watched as they talked for about 5 minutes then disappeared up the boardwalk. That was the last we saw of Chris for 4 days. She had some loaded rigs, they shot up and then she took him to downtown LA, where he lived on the streets. Chris B. had hustle, if anyone could live like that it was Chris B. I used to call him the "Super Hero of Junkies". He had some incredible stories and I really believed him. I really enjoyed talking to and hanging out with Chris. He was someone that I really wanted to help, but also someone who I knew would die from his drug addiction. This rehab or any other rehab wasn't going to fix this guy, there was just something deeper with him.
I will talk about Chris' return to Narco in my next post. And continue with the excrutiating sauna treatment.
Peace.