Lying in my prison cell in a semi-state of consciousness, a song on the radio suddenly took me back. Driving down a desolate city street at midnight in a late December blizzard, dry snowflakes bounce off the windshield of my Z-28. Bryan Adams “Run To You” blares from my Alpine and Pioneer six-by-nines at full blast. It’s dark, cold and lonely and I’m coked out of my mind. My eyes dilated, I stare straight ahead mesmerized as my headlights hit the ground and my tires make a crunching sound treading through the ice packed snow. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. I take out my two-gram vial of cocaine, tap out a large portion on the back of one hand and snort the potent white substance up one nostril with ease. Imme­diately my nose and mouth go numb and my hair follicles start to tingle. I exper­ience a heat flash as I place the little glass container back in my shirt pocket and reach for a sip of my Crown Royal and Coke. I’m buzzed. I feel good, yet I’m alone and lonesome, my only true friend being Snow White without the Seven Dwarves.

I see an old girlfriend and wave as she passes. She looks at me and shakes her head as if to say, “Loser.” But she too, no better than me, is lost and alone in a spinning world of cocaine induced bliss. Run To You continues to play … “If the feeling’s right, I’m going to stay all night, I’m going to run to you.” Then, I start to think about people. My wives and ex-girlfriends and wonder where they may be. The shifter knob is cold to touch as I shift into second leaving the traffic light at Zero and Jenny Lind, but even though it’s chilly out, there’s no way I’m going to turn on the heater. I’m already sweating from all the booze and stimulants in my system. It matters not that I can see my breath and my feet are frozen inside my steel-toed biker boots. I’m oblivious to illness. Invincible. Ten feet tall and bulletproof when I’m on cocaine. Just as the Superman emblem tattooed on my right arm symbolizes. I tap another large pile of blow on the back of one hand and snort it with a quickness. Time has no meaning as I continue my endless trek into the night.

Driving up the Grand Avenue entrance ramp onto 1-540, a trucker in a white Peterbilt blows his horn. Apparently I’m driving too slow; noticeably so in that the only vehicle on the highway decides to acknowledge my presence. Two seconds later I hit a small bridge overpass, lose control in the ice and spinout in the median. Taking a moment to regain my composure, I mash the gas watching my speed-omoter move upwards of 70 miles per hour as my 50-series tires dig their way out of the snow. Finally I make it to the pavement and evade the area before the cops come. I see a light at the next exit and pull off to a convenience store to use the telephone. An Arkansas State Trooper is filling his gas tank as I walk inside the Road Runner to get change. He stares at me but makes no effort to approach. Little did he know, I had a .357 magnum tucked in my belt and was probably about blown away enough to use it if I felt threatened. I call Valerie and ask if I can come over. “Sure Trip,” she says. “I’ll be waiting for you at the door.”

Wasted, I make my way to French Village and my late night lover’s apartment. She answers the door in her terrycloth robe and gives me a hug. Sitting on a recliner, I reach beneath for the mirror and razorblade I’d left there two nights before. I pour the last of my 2-gram stash on the mirror, chop it up with the blade and draw four long lines. With a rolled up C-note, I snort my two rails and pass the makeshift tube to Val. Thoroughly buzzed, we both take our clothes off and make love on the living room carpet. My lady friend knows me. She knows who I am and what I need and she pleases me. Yet even after we make hot, passion­ate love, I still feel lonely. “Why,” I say to myself. “What’s wrong with me?