The Guy with a C on his Hand

A story from the past, Heroin and the Characters of its World

This is the first Instalment in a series on this anthology called

Entering Lawrence

These are all true stories from my past about experiences I’ve had written in somewhat of a journal format.

I’ve found it hard to talk about a lot of this stuff, but I feel like being the only one holding so many memories from those who have died, I feel somewhat of an obligation to write it out, so they can be remembered further, beyond myself. here is Entering Lawrence: The Guy with a C on his Hand :

I was thinking today about this time back with my brother Alex.

He had these two guys show up for us to get a ride with to go pick up heroin a couple miles a way. They were around Alex’s age, possibly a little bit older then him, mid to late 20s at the time, I was about 19.

Before I get into the bulk of the story, I want to highlight that these two guys had the most brutal track marks I had ever seen. Everywhere visible from above their elbows to their fingertips were cut up bad from recent needle use, on both their arms.

I wasn’t much better to be honest, but if anything that goes to show just how explicitly bad their tracks were.

Before they arrived my brother and I were just hanging out watching TV, for whatever reason we always had that Rob Dyrdek show on everyday, we work from 4:30 am-1:30 pm everyday on job sites and were home by 2. We were trying to get a quick ride through Lawrence which was our typical everyday, we did have cars but at the time he totaled his and my license was suspended for a hit and run.

All of a sudden he said he got us a ride, but that I didn’t know them and he didn’t say who they were…

Which was really odd since for the most part, to pick up dope you usually just go with the same rotation of people.

It seemed like only a couple minutes later this shitty looking decrepit old gray early 2000s sedan was pulling in the driveway, there was the driver and another guy in the passenger seat.

At first glance they looked like typical New England white guy scumbag addicts. Wearing white shirts, gray sweatshirts, had a few tattoos and one had a Red Sox hat. We hopped in the back of the car and started on our way towards North Lawrence, I can’t really remember much of the conversation from the ride up, I had a really bad feeling the entire time about both of them, and there really wasn’t much of a connection between Alex and them, we didn’t have anything to talk about other then picking up, the plan was that we were just gonna get out of the car and part ways, I think we were just giving them like $10 and some cigarettes for the ride or something but I really don’t know what if anything Alex had told them.

While we were getting closer they all of a sudden pulled up on a side road, and said

“hold on my guy left me something out here.”

They didn’t give any other explanation then that.

The guy in the passenger seat starts wandering around the side of the road looking around the ground.

After a while the driver gets out as well and they both start rummaging through all the litter and random shit across the sidewalk while Alex and I are just sitting in the back of the car still, they eventually call some guy to ask and say :

“It’s in a brown napkin”

Then the guy that was in the passenger seat finds a balled up napkin, and hustles back in the car.

They then start driving away from the area Alex and I were headed too, and within a couple seconds, something happened that would be remembered as one of the strangest things I’ve seen in my life.

The driver says :

“Do you have the spoon?”

Then the passenger pushes back his seat a bit and pulls out a large gravy ladle with a dried up cotton in the middle, and tons of splatter all around it. Then the passenger takes a water cap, pours the whole bag in the ladle, pours some water on top, mixes it with the same dried up nasty cotton that was in the spoon, he then takes a needle and fills it.

The passenger uses it, then immediately fills it up again and hands the same needle he just used to the driver.

Then, while driving, the driver pulls up his right hand, I noticed a perfectly carved out shape of a “C” in dozens and dozens of needle tracks along the shape of his thumb to the back of his hand.

It was brutal, I gave Alex a look to mean “What the fuck is this shit” and he just shook his head confused. I had never, and haven’t since ever seen a perfectly carved out “C” from needles like that and I’ve been around a lot of people with bad tracks but that shit was by far the most ridiculous. And all that on top of the fact they have a shared gravy ladle and needle they use together.

Then, almost instantly after they both hit, the passenger goes:

“OH FUCK THATS OFFICER PATRICK, DON’T LOOK BACK”

I saw in the mirror there was a Lawrence cop following us.

They then say :

“Shit this is a stolen car and we’re both on parole we aren’t supposed to leave New Hampshire”

Now Alex and I are looking at each other, like oh shit this is bad, and before the cop has a chance to turn the lights on and recognize them, Alex opens the door and bolts down the street, Instinctively I ran out with him, I hear the two guys yelling:

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING”

Then the blues turn on and the car starts to drive away and the cop chases them instead of us.

A couple min later a detective pulls up to Alex and I as were walking further into North Lawrence, we knew this detective really well. He says:

“Did you two just run out of a stolen car”

“….No”

Alex says.

The detective starts laughing, said he had a call that Brett and Alex just started running away from a car when a patrol pulled up, which led them to finding these two guys wanted on multiple car jacking’s at gun point.

He said we had just helped them find their guys and told us to be safe.

We went on with our day.

For the rest of Alex’s life, he never told me who they were or how he knew them, we would talk about the guy with the C on his hand, but other then that, whoever they were and however he knew them, passed with him.