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11. Busted
- The University of Tennessee Press
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11. Busted Even for addicts holding down steady jobs, a"est was an ever-present danger. They could always be prosecuted for possession ofdrugs, regardless ofthe legal nature oftheir occupations. For those who supplemented their incomes by hustling, or who did not work at all, the odds were so much the worse: they could be a"estedfor possession ofnarcotics, for various property crimes, or, ifprostitutes, on morals charges. No matter how smooth their operations, they eventually got caughtfor something. Most got caught repeatedly. Some ofthese a"ests were ofthe revolving door variety, but others resulted in jail terms, and that meant withdrawal, eithergradual or rapid. A few addias were lucky enough to end up in prisons with medically supervised detoxification, but these were the exceptions. The rule during the classic era was cold turkey: kicking it out on a stone floor. Addicts could sometimes forestall this by scoring drugs from other inmates, but in-prison supplies were irregular and expensive. Their only other hope was to make bail, either on their own, or with the help of fomily andfriends. That is, ifthey had any. Addias on the bust-prison-freedom-bust treadmill found it difficult to maintain personal ties. Relationships were necessarilyprecarious : the unexpeaedfrisk, the knock on the door, could cause someone to disappear suddenly, indefinitely. It was a world of impermanence, ofchanging faces, of plans and expectations that seldom extended beyond the next shot. TED DY ''I couldn't tellyou how many arrests I had, " Teddy admitted. ''Atfyyellow sheets are a few inches thick. I hadfour felonies alone. " The first three felonies netted him five years in the penitentiary; the last one, in 196,5, thirteen. "Then, ifyou throw in the little three-month and thirty-day bits, I guess altogetherI got about 250 ADDICTS WHO SURVIVED twenty years. "At various times Teddy wrote numbers, dealt heroin, shoplifted coats and radios, and even robbed payrolls. 'lWy sentences were all narcoticrelated , " he said. "Ifit wasn'tfor dealing, it was for getting the money, one way or another, to buy narcotics. " My first arrest for narcotics was in 1945 or 1946, before I went into the army. The police busted us for dealing, but they didn't have a clear-cut case, so they threw it out. But in the meantime I cold turkeyed in the Tombs. In those days there was no methadone. You were lucky ifyou got a tranquilizer. Asking for an aspirin, you might have got your head busted. When they took you down to the Tombs they sent you up to the ninth floor and you grabbed a corner, and you squatted in that corner for three days. After three, four days you started feeling a little better, but, boy, during them first two days the best you could do was stand it, naked in that corner. It stinks, you vomit, you go through days and nights squatting in that corner. You don't move. There was no help, unless maybe you were fortunate enough to have a lawyer, and he could come down and get you to a hospital where you could get a shot ofmorphine. But it still didn't make no difference: you were eventually going to cold turkey anyway. So you go ahead and take it, and get it over with. They turned us loose. I was on 134th Street. I was with this fellow, Pete, who was dealing. I was in his house when the feds raided it, and they caught us. The FBI rounded us all up, and they came up with a book. One of them said, "Oh, you're listed here as a draft dodger. They're looking for you." I said, "No, I never received no papers." I had received them actually, but I had sent them back "address unknown." The only thing I had was my draft card. I wasn't even eighteen when I got my draft card, but I kept it because, everywhere you went, if you were asked for 1.0., you said, "Here, I've got my draft card." That was its only purpose. I had no intention of going into the army. But, anyway, the FBI was going to say that we were selling narcotics. We said, "Oh no, no, no." They said, "Well, look, we'll settle this ifyou go in the army. You go to the army, or you go to jail." I said, "Oh, I'm not even eighteen years old." They said, "But you got a draft card...