United States, 1970-1980

After graduating from high school in 1970, I decided to take a tour of this country's places of incarceration. Here is a list of the ones I visited between 1970 and 1980, and the number of times I had the pleasure of going there. 

PG County Upper Marlboro MD 1 

Washington DC 1 

New Orleans Central Lockup LA 3 

New Orleans Parrish Prison LA 1 

Tucson AZ 2 

Phoenix Maricopa County AZ 1 

Berkley Campus CA 1 

Bay St Louis MS 1 

Austin TX 1 

They were brief stints, with the longest being 6 week in NOLA Parrish Prison.

Those were tough years and I still sometimes grieve for the kid who who had to go through this horror. Since that time I had a satisfying career in computers and have many people in my life, including a loving partner. And music. I am grateful.

Tucson, 1976

Okay, so. S***. Another story. This really happened to me in 1976. I had managed to hustle up a little bit of money, so when I return to the abandoned complex called Thurber courts outside Tucson, AZ, I was able to entice a young lady to join me for a night in a motel room close by. Her boyfriend Albert would be none the wiser. Thurber courts was a cluster of abandoned adobe homes that a bunch of hippies had moved into. There was no electricity but someone had bypassed the gas meter so we had gas for heat and hot water. When we returned the next morning, we discovered that the following had transpired the previous evening. Early on a nineteen year old girl Candi Lee Newman enticed a guy in a Cadillac to wait outside while she supposedly went in to cop some heroin for him. The usual suspects were sitting around getting drunk, and Candi announced that she had a guy outside with money and wanted help robbing him. Albert Urbanec got up, grabbed a baseball bat, went out the back door, snuck up in back of the guy and crushed his skull with the bat. They then loaded his body in the trunk and took off for Mexico, planning to sell the car for heroin. Someone immediately called the cops and were eventually apprehended. When Albert's girlfriend and I arrived back at thurber courts the next morning, the cops were there and interviewed us. They brought gifts. Bottles of wine. I was never asked to testify. I'd told the story a few times but had never found evidence until I found this article

New Orleans, 1972

We (the freeborn fuckups, a name i came up with) were hanging out in our room at the Eltro hotel, a derelict building on Decatur Street in the French Quarter where we were squatting, drinking vast amounts of cheap wine as per usual. Suddenly someone came in with a vial of pure adrenaline and a syringe. So of course we passed the vial and needle around. I have to say it was an interesting rush. Definitely pure adrenaline, no changing any other kind of perception, just massive heart beat increase. To be honest i found it unpleasant. We were doing tiny amounts, about a tenth of a CC. Much more than that would probably have been dangerous. Then our friend Easy walked into the room. Easy was a big giant easy going guy, mean looking, bearded, a little bit dirty, shy as can be. We told him what we were doing and he said let me have some. So he took the vial and syringe and went into the other room alone and did an entire CC. When he walked back into the room he was stammering and his face was flashing red and white in time with his heartbeat and you could see his heart thudding in his chest. He had IV'd an entire CC. It was pretty terrifying. Fortunately that stuff wears off pretty quickly and he didn't die. He may have done some permanent damage though. We all may have.

Chicago, Washington DC, 1979

I was living on the west side of Chicago in a run down 6th floor walkup. I was making a few bucks now and then as an under the radar roofer's helper (under the radar here means paid in cash, no insurance, no healthcare, doing really dangerous work). I had also hooked up with some pretty high rolling drug people so i was having an ok time, at least based on my standards at that time. That's a completely insane story for another time. Fucking mayhem. Anyway, suddenly Paul burst into the room all wild eyed and threw a baggie with an ounce of coke on the table. He and i had hitch hiked from Portland OR 6 months earlier (a number of completely insane stories there) and he had been my connection for work and drugs in Chicago. He and i had bought a battered old Buick with holes in the floor and ripped out the back seat so we could haul around roofing supplies. I loved that guy like a brother. But he had disappeared 2 months prior and no word from him until now. He told me he had seen a cousin of his that had just gone through a divorce. She had gotten some money and a house in the settlement. He had started her on cocaine, they got in a sexual relationship, and in two months everything she had went straight into their veins. Then prior to showing up at my place Paul had been at a coke dealers house and the guy had had an ounce of coke sitting on the coffee table. On impulse Paul had punched the guy in the face, grabbed the goodies and ran out the door. No car, no cash, no weapon, no plan, no nothing. Just an ounce of really good coke. Then he had high tailed it straight to my place. He and i immediately started in on the ounce. All mainlined. We decided to head for DC where i knew people. On the way to the bus station i stopped and bought a very large folding knife and kept in in my pocket until we got to DC. Shit, another story if i get around to it. It was a night bus and all night Paul and i kept getting up, going back to to the bathroom and shooting more coke, bigger and bigger doses every time. We had planned to sell some of it to give us a leg up in DC but within a few days of our arrival it was all gone. We ended up sleeping on a good friend's floor (a massage parlor prostitute and her biker boyfriend. she would give you the shirt off her back with one hand and rob you blind with the other. we had nothing to steal so we were safe). Within a week Paul took off for new Orleans. I had some pretty terrible associations in my mind with NOLA, some nasty shit had gone down, and so opted out. This was the end of my life on the road. Soon, after a few less major shenanigans, and with lots of help from loved ones who hadn't abandoned hope in me long after i had, i checked into rehab.

New Orleans 1974

I was in Orleans Parrish Prison in 1974 for "possession of greenish brown vegetable, probably marijuana." It wasn't actually marijuana, it was bits of bugler tobacco they found in the bottom of my pocket. They just made s*** up to get people they didn't like off the street, and I had been definitely causing trouble on Bourbon Street. I was on a "tier" that consisted of a single gigantic room housing about 70 men. They consisted of! murderers, rapists, muggers , dope dealers ... and me. One part was beds, the other the day area with steel picnic style tables, a TV. The first night I discovered that I had crabs. So the next morning, I walked up to the bars naked except for a towel wrapped around my waist and waved the guard over and whispered to him the nature of my dilemma. He yelled out loudly "you have crabs?" loud enough so that everyone on the tier could hear. I looked around and everyone - had turned from what they were doing and stared at me. Later they brought me the shampoo, and there were no negative repercussions from the incident, with the exception of one guy who was in there for murder who whispered to me in private that if he caught crabs in there he was going to kill me. After a week I heard the guard announce "Ralph Crawford, roll out." My heart leapt. I gathered up all my belongings and walked up to the bars ready to be released. The guard looked me in the eye and said "m*********** you ain't never getting out of here." So I returned to my cot. There was a guy on the tier I only knew as pops and he ran an under the radar commissary. I bought a couple of packages of tobacco from him. After I had been there about 2 weeks, word got out that pops was getting out the next day and that someone was going to take over his commissary. There was going to be an "election" that night. I overheard someone talking about sharpening their shiv. I was in terror of going to bed that night. Later that afternoon, though, thankfully, I once again heard Ralph Crawford roll out, but this time I was released for real.