“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
–Ecclesiastes 1:2
The hills of the Ozarks in Missouri offer some of the most beautiful and diverse landscape I have seen, especially in the few short months of summer. I often spent my time escaping into the countryside, enjoying a few moments of precious sanity, though even then I felt an inescapable, pervasive hollowness that punctuated the tranquillity of the landscape around me. And of course, I’d always come equipped with plenty of whatever narcotics I might have want of.
One spot I would often frequent was located near Ash Grove, a small agricultural community about fifty miles northwest of Springfield, Missouri. It was a good-sized formation called Skylight Cave. Approximately a hundred yards back from the main entrance—a gaping hole leading into about two stories of rocky hillside—was a natural opening in the roof. Sunlight streamed through this from the sky above, hence the name. A steep hill led up and out into the pastureland beyond, and opposite this, to the rear, were the two main, subway-sized tunnel entrances that led deep into the earth below. These formed a 90º angle to one another, though they soon twisted down and around, winding in their own natural courses.
I rarely ventured past this section, instead climbing the hill out of the cavern, in part to satiate my curiosity about the beautiful countryside above and partly as an excellent excuse to stop and smoke a joint. I was full of many such excuses when it came to my pot. No matter what other drugs I might have with me, I always had marijuana. That just went without saying.
That particular summer the bridge was completely out and under construction, so I could only get there one way. It was a good scenic half-mile walk beside the river before I wouldd reach the turnoff point past the no trespassing signs hung on the fence. A short distance later, the cool of the gaping mouth in the hillside loomed before me, greeting my senses with its sudden chill.
Often I wouldd just go alone. Truthfully, I just needed the escape. I frequently craved solitude, though I often did not realize just how very lonesome I was. I really had very few friends.
When I did take others along, it was often just a few of my “business partners.” There were two in particular who were a couple of years younger than I was. They were my main stays and were both proficient climbers.
They would often climb the cavern walls around the skylight, and sometimes I would join in. Usually, however, I held back a little, especially right after copping a good buzz. Admittedly, at least around people, I was usually bolder when I was high (which was basically all of the time), but for some reason the thought of needlessly cracking my skull on the rocky floor below was often momentarily sobering. The footholds were few and far apart, if they existed at all, but that did not stop my acrobatic partners.
Moments like these I still remember fondly, as the landscape was breathtaking and a welcome relief from the rigorous demands of trafficking drugs. I would frequently see cattle grazing in the fields nearby, or bathing in the river. The summer was full of diverse forms of wildlife, and the path was strewn with fragrant, colorful flowers. These scenes painted a very sharp contrast to the world I had carved my niche in.
I blamed others for my irritation, pinpointing them as the source of my aggression and hostility. People were what made the world so miserable. People represented selfishness, hardness, insensitivity, hostility and the like. Virtually everyone posed a threat.
I felt like a small dog backed into a corner. I had two choices: I could either go belly-side up and pee all over myself (with seemed really no choice at all), or I could come out of that corner snarling and snapping with nothing to lose and a fighting chance. I choose the latter of the two, coming out snapping and snarling, fighting mad.
Simply put, I had snapped. I had virtually lost my fear of humans, no matter how many of them there were or how intimidating they might be. I had nothing to lose. I had already lost it all. I had gone cold. I felt nothing but numbness. Life was meaningless. It was a simple fact: one of us was going down. “You want a piece of me? Go ahead. I dare you! Come on, &%$^#@ ;µ*%#@! What are you waiting for!” Aggression pumped my veins full of adrenaline. I did not feel I had a choice anymore. Dog had to eat dog just to survive.
I rarely had to say a word. It was like looking into eyes swimming with insanity: the eyes of a psychopath. Thankfully I never had to enforce my all too clear message or else it is unlikely you would be reading these words. Both of us would have gone down: one for a mighty long time I’m sure, and the other plain gone down for good.
I had virtually no remaining self-respect. My life was filled with hopelessness. I was criminal. I was outcast. But it wasn’t my fault. I did not have a problem, society had a problem with me. Society had made me this way. I had to live like this just to cope, and I was very bitter.
No one cared. No one loved. They had all turned their backs on me: every last stinking one of them. No one had any thoughts except about themselves and what they wanted. They’d sooner shoot you as look at you, and if they were civil, it was just a strained act to shake you down for drugs, money, information, or their own perverse pleasure. And then there were a few “innocents” still naïvely lost in their own delusions. They’d learn. Ah, yes: they’d learn.
And yet, when I met an innocent, I was forced to turn away. I still had an awesome compassion that tempered out my darker self. If you were a hardened player wise to the game I had no mercy; you knew the rules. But if you were an innocent, I left you alone, turning away so that you wouldn’t see the monster I had become. I did not want you to know that such evil could even exist.
I can remember when some of the younger guys that hung with the drug running crowd used to come over and help me weigh my goods, in awe of the big dealer man. In many ways, they were still innocents. I remember one of them in particular. You know, I really liked the kid a lot. He had so much going for him, but he just couldn’t see it.
I used to try and warn him. I felt like grabbing him by the lapels and shaking him hard, screaming, “You fool! Wake up! You don’t want to become like me! I AM NOT WHAT I SEEM!” But, of course, he wouldn’t listen, blinded by all the money and affluence afforded my position. I knew that he wouldn’t. They never do.
In the end, the only people I tolerated—the only people who represented even the smallest degree of sanity—were Jimmy and Leann, my roommates, the two people who were my only true, close friends. I just went through the motions of putting up with my business associates, though we grudgingly became closer than I expected. We were, after all, coworkers working side by side seven days a week and none of us saw too many other people who might even be remotely considered friends. Still, I did grow rather fond of one of the two partners I mentioned, but due to the inherent nature of the game and the fact that there was so much water under the bridge, we were fated to be brothers in hatred.
We had to work together, though every man looked out for his own and we all knew it. Most of their girlfriends were basically in the same game, stripping for a buck or two. I often gave the girls a lift to the strip parlors so they could go make some money of their own while we were off selling drugs. They would frequently help us out, taking quarter and half grams of peanut butter crank (which was always sure to sell) with them to offer the other dancers or the guys they seduced. I never personally ran drugs through the strip joints though. I usually stayed away from those sorts of places.
When I was alone I was calmer. My self-loathing fueled my self-destructive tendencies. I did not really so much want to die, as end the pain and emptiness that plagued me day and night. When faced with my own solitude, my destructive tendencies often paled, such as in my hesitation in climbing the cavern walls.
In other areas it is a small wonder I did not die. Someone or something apparently wanted me dead. For instance, I remember driving in from the outskirts of town, having gone for a jaunt in the moonlit countryside air for some peace, tripping hard on LSD and who knows what else. In that state, nothing was real. Reality was literally a segment of a waking dream. The city lights were oh so awfully bright and shiny. I had an impossibly hard time taking my eyes off them. They just gravitated to them like steel to a magnet.
In my dreamy haze, I’d tell myself, “Stop it! Stop looking at those cursed lights! Watch the road! Keep it between the lines! What if a cop pulls you over? Man, you are out of your mind! Absolutely blown! Wasted! One flew over the cuckoo nest! WHEEEEE!” These sentiments were typically not expressed in the kindest fashion, bitter sarcasm tingeing them with their maniacal quality.
I remember telling myself over and over, “Eric, Dude, Man! Wake up! This isn’t a dream! Eric, this isn’t a video game! If you drive on the wrong side of the road . . . If you swerve into the other lane . . . Dude, just suck it up. You’ve got to make it home! Just concentrate! You’ve got to get yourself home in one piece without getting pulled over. Concentrate! Come on, Buddy. You can do it. You’ve got to fight!” Telling myself such things should have shown me my will to live, but I had so much lost touch with myself and reality.
And then there was my darker self: an evil part of me that thrilled in freaking myself out. The awesome temptation was there to try swerving in the other lane just to see what might happen. Nothing was real anymore. It was just a big joke—HA! HA! Oh my—perhaps I might die.
And then in a rush of mindless insanity the thought came of just ending it all—my whole senseless, worthless existence—under those bright, shiny city lights. No one would miss me (though I bitterly realized they would miss my drugs until they found another dealer). No more thinking. No feeling. No more pain. Just sweet, blissful peace. Perhaps it could have been stated, “Nothing is real: ah, but nothing is real,” or more accurately, “Everything is way too real. Oh, God help me, everything is way too ;µ*%+^% real!”
I remember right down the street from where I lived was Calvary Temple Assembly of God. Some members from there were going around witnessing one day and came around the complex catching me in the parking lot on my way to run my deals. They ask me did I know Jesus and could they please pray with me. I did not give much response, if any, to the first question and said a half-hearted “Sure,” to the second. I was a mildly annoyed, but they weren’t hurting me, and if in their own little sheltered worlds believing in a higher power helped them cope with this hell we call life, then who was I to sober them with the real truth of the matter?
And the fact was it did not matter. It made them feel better and took up just a few minutes in the hours and days of the meaningless emptiness I had to kill. If it weren’t them, I’d be putting up with some spun-out, whining nuisance that was seriously in danger of getting on my last nerve. But I was a player and needed my fix to cope with the game. I was getting in deeper and deeper over my head, so I tolerated more than I cared to: much more.
You see, having grown up in a Christian home, I did not deny that being a Christian would make you a better person. If a person could believe that to cope with this world, I knew they were better off than me with my dope. The Bible was an incredible book if you were innocent and naïve enough to believe it, but I couldn’t. It just wasn’t reality. Where was the proof?
I held Mom and Dad in high regard, and I guess I equated them a little differently than most Christians. They followed what they believed, and I respected them a lot. Though I kept my thoughts to myself, I still felt that their faith was a product of an older generation, where morals and respect were higher and people were still innocent enough to accept the concept of a living, breathing omnipotent deity called God who single-handedly created the world. As far as I could see, the only reason they believed it was because they had been taught to and so it worked for them.
So what did I accept as truth? Well, I couldn’t argue that there probably was something more to life. Many times I had pondered the complexity of the earth and all of the life forms: the plants, the animals, and especially my own existence as a living, breathing human being. I was the one thing I couldn’t explain, or argue with. I was obviously not a figment of my own imagination; I was very alive and very real. It all seemed so strange. I knew that there had to be something more to life, something more than my finite mind could comprehend. But how could I ever know what? How could anyone? Where was the proof?
There were many different religions in the world that people felt equally passionate about. But what did that prove? It seemed just a bunch of people attempting to explain things no mortal could know. Most were followers because they’d tried it, believed it, and it seemed to work for them. Who was the final authority to say that one religion was more correct than another? The certainty that they had the right answers met with equal fervency across the spectrum. I mean, no matter what religion it is, you’re going to have to first believe that it’s true if you expect to get anything out of it. But what if you don’t think you have enough information to believe with absolute surety that any religion is true?
To me, life seemed so hollow and pointless and religion man-made. I eventually concluded that if there was truth to be found, it was more than likely somewhere in between all the religions. After all, they all sought answers to the same unknown. So I searched for universal parallels.
Concerning an afterlife, if there was another dimension our essence passed on to intact, I did not understand how I, a mere pathetic mortal human, could possibly do anything to ensure where I might end up. What could I possibly do that would influence a higher power? If I was wrong I hoped that the gods, goddesses, or God, would understand that I did not have enough information. If not, oh well. What could I have done anyway? I couldn’t realistically follow what I did not believe. Such were my sentiments.
The theory of reincarnation I treated with great skepticism and even more the concept of transmigration.1 What were the chances of the body’s molecular and energy structure reforming in its entirety into a separate entity? This seemed extremely improbable, maybe once in infinity. I could have understood in the sense of the body’s energy going back into the energy pool (the atmosphere) and the body decomposing back into the earth to recycle itself, as in other things in nature. Reincarnation in its usual form, however, was not a valid consideration for me.
My view of the establishment wasn’t much more promising. Concerning politics, while there may be precious few exceptions, I believe that in this world it’s not so much a matter of whether you’re on the top side of the law or the bottom. It’s a matter of who has the most greenbacks. Votes and justice are bought, and it’s an endless game of aesthetics and power played with dollar bills. The infamous “guilty until proven innocent” reigns triumphant. “Suspects” are apprehended and incarcerated until proven innocent (that is, if they are), and even then, their reputations are already ruined beyond recognition. And the media, like so many puppets on a string, often further fan the flame.
I’d heard of one too many dishonest cops and judges that lead the same life we all were, only they hid behind their titles and badges. They knew all the right people in all the right places who said all the right things, and no one ever seemed to see or hear anything. Mysterious how they “just happened” to be on the other side of town, taking a vacation, or “accidentally” lost the paperwork: oops! Now imagine this on a much grander scale, and I believe a pretty clear picture emerges for my observation of the behind the scenes basis of world government.
The little guy got left holding the bag, and everyone pasted on million dollar smiles: everyone except him. Only the players knew how the game was being played, but no one stepped forward, as they themselves had too much to risk by being exposed in the spotlight.
In the end, all that I knew was that I was here. I did not know how I got here, and I did not know where I might end up, but I knew that I was. Therefore I set my mind to finding out everything I could about what I could observe: the here and now. I believed an afterlife or a higher power were unanswerable mysteries that we might find out when we died. And if we did not? Well, I don’t guess it would have mattered too much, huh? And that is what I tended to believe.
Life seemed so hopeless. There was no explainable, personal God. There was no life after death. Everyone had an ulterior motive; everyone, that is, except for a few starry-eyed innocents still naïvely lost in their own delusions. There was no true justice. There was very little to live for. So I avoided talking about religion and politics like the plague. I viewed them as pointless, no-win topics.
The only meaning I could find in life was to pursue pleasure wherever I could find it. If I died, I died. That was it. There seemed a lot worse fates than that. But that was then, and this is now. And to date my feet are firmly planted in the 21st century, and I have my story left to tell you.
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