The Bottom: Inside a Las Vegas Drug Den

The Story of Carl:
 Tweaker, Professional Thief, and Drama Hound

There are ten people living in a small two bedroom home in Las Vegas, Nevada, myself included, and each one of us has a substance abuse problem. The majority of residents are addicted to heroin, myself being the only one who does not use the drug intravenously. No one here has a job, and I am only able to survive because of savings as well as temporary promotion gigs that I get every now and again. Excluding the three individuals who receive passive income, all residents live a life of crime, living a life of crime to survive. There have been days that I have been pulled my my shirt collar by police after matching the description of a thief caught on camera entering the home with freshly stolen power tools. That day I decided to wear my eye glasses, even though I never seem to wear them any other day, and fit the descriptors of “white male wearing a hat and glasses”. After standing around in handcuffs for around forty minutes for all the neighborhood to see I was released for not being the individual in the recording that brought the law to the house. The people I am living with are the very definition of criminals.

I am not used to being around people like this. Since I was 16 I have had a job, and the last time I stole was when I was around 20 years old, a yellow latex balloon from Albertson's was the last thing i've stolen. After adversely affecting my friends life when I was in my teens my belief in karma has been cemented. There is a saying,”Birds of a feather flock together.” and it truly scares me that seeing what I have seen over these past months will change me. My belief is that if I begin to normalize the lifestyle that these people live that I will end up making bad choices. The following paragraphs I will describe an individual who used to stay here. For the remainder of the story I will call this individual Carl.

The first time I met Carl he was sitting on the couch in the living room, the room that I have slept in for the past few months. Carl recently became homeless, pennyless, and loveless. This man was a theif, he stole for a living and was very good at what he did. Since I have known Carl he brought multiple stolen vehicles to the house. He drove these cars, sold them, and even had one of them stolen from. He would steal license plates from the front of a clean vehicle and place it on the stolen car along with a proper registration sticker. Carl would run into stores and run out with thousands of dollars worth of powertools and electronics. He hit Walmart, Homedepot, Lowes, Smart and Final, and Big Lots, there was no limit to where this man would steal from. Carl did no honest work to support his lifestyle and his habit. It is worth noting that Carl did not use heroin either, Carl was a tweaker.

When I first met Carl he baited the landlord with $600 and a gram of heroin to allow him to move into the back patio for a month.Which turned in to more than two without any hassle from the landlord. He would bring groups of people over to use meth, and these people were obviosly dangerous criminals. There was a woman that Carl was with that immediately was moved into the back patio with him. We'll call her J. J was fucking crazy. J was also a thief. She stole from people in the house, things such as drugs, phones, food, hygene products, etc. Honestly, nothing was off limits.

Relationships are difficult, but this couple was bound to fail, and fail it did. J and Carl would fight constantly. Carl would convince himself that J was cheating on him, which was obviously caused by his meth induced paranoia. Almost every night you would hear screaming from both of them, and the time did not matter. There would be fighting at 3am, 5 am, 10pm, there would be fighting at any moment they were together it seemed. I cannot count the amount of times that they ended the relationship.

One of the nights that they broke up Carl brought over his ex gf while J was “packing”. Somehow Carl was already “in a relationship” with her. After maybe an hour of them being together and Carl telling J that she was a “stupid bitch”, an hour of J screaming at Carl and his “new woman”, in what seemed like an instant Carl and J were back together. I honestly felt bad for this woman he brought home, suddenly she was a “dumb whore” who was acting crazy. He kicked her out. It was maybe 2am and we do not stay in the nicest area. Before this happened I remember asking this woman if she was crazy, she said no. They always say no. Not long after this incident Carl was caught driving a hot truck with more heat in tow. He would go to jail for around a week and a half before he was bailed out by his brother.

Fast forward to a couple days ago, Carl and J were finally through. The night before, after a huge fight between the two 'lovebirds', Carl through a brick through the back window of a friend of J's car. I was half asleep laying in a ball on my daybed. When Carl came through the front door screaming how he was going to prison, how he through a brick through some old guys window. Carl was scared and so was J. “He is just a friend that was giving me a ride home!” she screamed at Carl. “Fuck! The cops are going to come. He's going to call the cops.”, he said frantically as he moved through the house and exited through the back door. Even with his large frame Carl easily cleared the back wall to the street at the rear of the house. I was completely dumbfounded, as was everyone else in the house. He just blew the spot up big time. Just to put things in perspective, Carl was allegedly involved in the incident that had me in handcuffs weeks prior, so I had reasoning for the fear that overtook my mind. However, at the same time I was exhausted. When this happened I was half asleep overdosed on coca-cola and rockyroad icecream. Using my logical drug addled mind I weighed my options, either the house would be raided and I would spend the next few nights in jail, or nothing would happen. J opened the backdoor and explained to everyone in the house that she would speak to her friend and convince him not to cal the authorities. This was my ticket to slumberdom. I took another hit off of my sheet of foil and drifted back to sleep. The next morning my mouth tasted horrible and my thoughts began at the possibility of losing my teeth after the amount of nights I slept without brushing my teeth.

Not too long after waking the fighting would begin again. J and Carl were doing what they did best. I could hear J quite clearly inside the living room. She was screaming various obscenities and throwing Carl's belongings outside on “their” patio. After packing her belongings in two red suitcases she moved through the living room screaming various things about Carl. Now, just a little more back story on J's craziness. She would always threaten to snitch on Carl and send him to jail. This happened more times than I can remember. Now remember, Carl was a professional thief, he stole everything. He drove around town in a white stolen pickup truck, and this was not the first one.

Back to a couple days ago, J was a mess. Her missing teeth were prominent when she screamed, she didn't care about who heard her either. According to J Carl would be going to prison, not jail, very soon. She stood out side the house for around an hour screaming about how Carl was a piece of shit. My favorite line was,”Carl! You are going to prison anyway. So take me home you piece of shit!” It would have been funny if I wasn't loaded on heroin, along with the rest of the house adding meth to the mix. We would take turns going out front and telling J to calm down, The neighborhood already hated us, she is making a huge scene and will no doubt cause our neighbors to call the police. We took turns going out front to try and reason with her. Even when speaking to someone she had no problems with she would still scream. We tried and tried to calm her but she would not listen. She was stuck on getting that ride and sending Carl to prison.

I decided enough was enough, this time when I went out the front door I went straight to the hose. I've seen youtube videos of some guy spraying his drunk and disorderly neighbor with the hose and it seemed like a fun choice to take. Water sprayed in all directions as I turned the spigot and opened the valve. J seemed to tease me as a grabbed the hose, spraying a stream of cold water straight towards her. Droplets barely felt up on the lower portion of her legs. Her glare was not as satisfying as it would have been had the jet of water hit her face or her crotch.

Carl, being in the hotseat, had the bright idea to say that he hopped the wall and was gone from the house. We brought this to J's attention, yet she did not budge nor did the volume of her voice decrease. There were talks of an Uber being called for her, she even agreed to leave if the ride was paid for. Carl did not believe this, and decided to go out front to confront the crazy woman himself. After a few minutes of unintelligible noises and various expletives ringing through the house, as if through a blown speaker on its last leg, Carl opened walked through the door while mid insult. He traversed the hallway and through the backdoor he fled, hopping the wall while his insults entertained the neighborhood.

After a few minutes there was quiet. “Was she gone?”, I asked hoping someone had a visual on her through one of the bedroom windows. She was gone. The story of J was finally finished. This day was a victory that unfortunately did not last very long at all. The story of Carl is almost through, and trust me that things haven't even gotten exciting yet.

The moral of this story is to not do heroin or meth. Life is exciting enough on its own. Prison is not worth the moment. Death is not worth the moment. Remember, the feeling does not last. Waking up sick to your dogs collar being stolen is not a life I wanted to live, but I am living that life due to my choices.

To Be Continued...