Chapter 11: A friend of the Devil

A few months later, literally a week after my 18^th birthday I received a message from Brandon Rodriguez. We caught up for an hour or so on instant messenger. I told him how I was selling weed and making tons of money. He was in town; he now had his own van and offered to come pick me up to hang out at some girl’s house.

If I had been in school like a normal high school senior I would not have been able to go but I was in Independent study.

Brandon pulled up outside my house and introduced me to his new girlfriend. She was very quiet and looked young.

She wore thick eye makeup that looked emo. I jumped in the car with them. She moved to the back so I could sit in the front passenger seat.

We drove over to another girl’s house I knew from high school. She was a couple grades below me but pretty cute. She was short, tan and blonde. I think we had a class together or maybe I went on a date with her friend.

After being there for possibly five minutes Brandon asked her right in front of me “Are you attracted to him? " Referring to me.

She blushed and mumbled “yes.”

It felt like he was doing his usual thing hooking up his friends with girls. I made small talk to make the situation less awkward between us.

Brandon wanted to smoke a joint and gave me a little money to provide the weed. I had brought about $100 worth with me.

I am terrible at rolling joints, so I gave him the minimum amount of weed needed to roll a joint and asked him to do the honors. I started talking to the girl who Brandon was trying to hook me up with and did not notice when Brandon added meth to the joint.

I knew right away when I hit it that it tasted different. I thought at first it was the joint paper but after a second proper hit I knew for sure something was wrong.

"Did you put something in this joint?" I asked Brandon.

"I told you I was rolling a "P-Dog"!" Brandon responded.

"No, you did not!" I fired back.

I let Brandon finish the joint and asked him to drop me off at Jason’s house. When we got there Jason was not home.

I could not just sit on the street outside Jason’s house tripping on tweak, so I stayed in the car with Brandon and his girlfriend. Brandon decided to drive back to another friend’s house.

It was the three of us in the car. As we were driving about five minutes from Jason’s house we got pulled over by the police. Apparently, Brandon’s girlfriend was underage and had run away from home.

The parent’s had called the police and given them Brandon’s information.

The police asked us all to all step out of the vehicle and sit on the sidewalk. As I am getting out of the car there was a small bag of meth on the floor one of them had tried to stash without me knowing. I ended up accidentally kicking the bag out of the car as I got out. The cops saw it and thought I was trying to ditch it before they searched me.

The police searched the car and found enough meth and a scale to charge someone with dealing. The police ended up taking the three of us to the police station. They took my mug shot and then my shoes and my pants. It was kind of strange to be walking around the police station in my boxers.

They put us all in separate cells on opposite sides of the jail so we could not talk. I spent the night in jail coming down from meth for the first (and only) time. The reality of the situation really hit hard when the police officer approached my cell and read me my rights.

There was no one around me and I could not see beyond a corner where my cell was. It felt like I had no concept of time.

While sitting in the jail cell I made a deal with God. I prayed because it was all I could do at this point. I told God if he got me out of trouble I would only smoke weed and not do serious drugs for the rest of my life.

The next morning the police took us each one by one into an interrogation room with detectives.

The cops asked me about the meth and truthfully, I did not know anything. I admitted to having weed. They also found cash on me that probably looked suspicious. They tried to basically get me to lie and say Brandon was a meth dealer. I did not know anything, so I did not say anything.

They asked me how the meth got on the floor, and I said I had no idea it was even there. I am sure it was hard to believe me since I was still coming down from doing meth the night before.

The detectives took my phone number and told me they wanted to meet with me a few more times before they decided the outcome of their investigation. They let me go home a few hours later.

Over the next two weeks the detectives kept calling me and trying to get me to meet with them. They wanted me to snitch.

I am pretty positive Brandon had told them I sold weed and they kept asking me where I got it from. I just played dumb and said I did not know what they were talking about. I thought maybe I could convince them Brandon was lying to cover his own ass.

One day when I was just coming home from school, they were already waiting for me outside my house in a soccer mom looking minivan. They were dressed in plain clothes. They told me to get in the car with them.

I felt like if I did not get in the car they were going to arrest me.

I got in and they drove me over to Lil Ron’s house without a word of explaining where we were going. When we arrived, they told me they knew that I knew Lil Ron, and they wanted me to call him up for weed and basically set him up to get arrested.

I had Lil Ron’s number, but I never really personally called him to do business. I always let Jason handle that since they were family. Most of the time we all just met at Jason’s house. For me to call Lil Ron or show up at his house would have been weird.

Lil Ron was always kind of a dick to me and the rest of the world for that matter. He was a pill fiend and had robbed enough people he probably deserved to get arrested.

I still didn’t nark on him. I pretended to call him in front of the police and pretended he did not answer. I told them I did not know him well and he probably did not recognize my number.

I really did not owe Lil Ron anything. Partly I knew once you are a nark you live with the mark of a coward for the rest of your life. You refused to take responsibility for your own mistakes and passed on the punishment. I don’t think I could live with the guilt of ruining someone else’s life. Even Lil Ron’s.

Also, Lil Ron was working for some serious gangsters.

If they somehow found out I was connected to them getting arrested, I would be killed. I would love to tell you something cool like I live by some code of the street but in reality I was fucking terrified for my life.

After another fake attempt at calling Lil Ron they drove me to another house about five minutes away on another side of town. I knew of the drug dealer who lived there but I truthfully did not know him enough to call him and do business. I did not even have his number. I told the cops that.

As we were parked outside the dealers four-unit apartment building, out walks Mark. The guy I used to smoke with every day after school sophomore year.

He had become more popular and more involved in sports so after sophomore year we rarely talked. He was obviously leaving the dealers house after buying weed and the detectives knew it.

The one detective turned to the other and asked if he wanted to go grab Mark and call for another unit to take him in. This was the break they needed to catch that dealer.

I interrupted them and told them that I knew Mark from school. He was on all the sports teams, and he did not smoke or drink or do any drugs. He had even talked shit to me in the past for doing so. I said he lived in that apartment building.

I lied through my fucking teeth. The detectives believed me and said at least I was good for something. They left Mark alone and took me home and dropped me off.

Mark if you are reading this buddy, you owe me one. While you are enjoying your life as a professional athlete somewhere please know you almost did not have any of it and you did not even know it.

I assumed that because the police had released me, they did not have enough evidence to arrest me otherwise they would have done it already. I assumed the way they were talking about Brandon being a meth dealer he would be taking the fall for everything.

About a week later I received a court summons and official notification I was being charged with possession of enumerated substances with the intention of sales. They were charging me for the meth and the weed and selling it as well. Apparently, Brandon and his girlfriend had cooperated with the detectives and basically lied and said everything was mine.

My court date was set for four months away. I had just enough time to finish high school before they potentially locked me away in jail for years. At school lots of rumors started surrounding me.

People started to say I was a crazy drug addict who smoked meth. A lot of people who I had grown up with and considered close friends stopped talking to me.

In the end I completed my school assignments fast and was allowed to graduate early.

The school offered me the chance to be part of my class graduation ceremony despite being in Independent study. Although I know my parents would have loved to see it, I ended up declining due to the fact my court date was the same week.

It felt kind of stupid to say yes and then not show up because I had gone to jail. That would probably further cement the rumors about me.

The only one of my friends who stood behind me was Jason. Jason knew I protected him from going down with me. We were partners and I kept my mouth shut. Jason used some of his profit to pay back the money I owed Lil Ron from the front after the police took my weed. He did not have to do that.

About a month after I received my summons Lil Ron got arrested on his own. He was completely fucked up on pills, got into a fist fight with his own father and then called the police when he lost the fight. The police showed up and arrested Lil Ron instead.

Lil Ron was only 17 and eventually got sent to a juvenile detention camp.

The months leading up to my court day and the days after were some of the darkest times of my life. I had looked up the average results for someone charged with the crimes I was and it was a minimum of several years in jail.

To say I was scared would be to say the least. Barely 18 and I was already facing jail time.

Jason always smoked me out and hooked me up with small sacks when I managed to have money. In anticipation of potential court fees, my dad gave me a job working for him again.

Myself and my family were desperate for help so my mom reached out to one of her best friends who worked as the assistant to the DA of the city of Torrance. The city I was arrested in Redondo Beach, and Torrance shared a court house. As a favor, the DA of Torrance attempted to get the DA of Redondo to drop the case. Unfortunately, they were unwilling to do it because Torrance had turned down a similar request from Redondo a few months prior.

The day of my court appearance I was shitting my pants. I had gotten a clean cut hair cut a few days before. I was wearing a nice collar shirt with a tie. Some random guy outside the courthouse had to help me tie it.

It was a few minutes before my court hearing was scheduled to begin and the DA of Torrance walks out of the shadows and comes up to me.

He says:

“Don’t worry you are not going to jail! I can’t get them to drop the case, but I can help you get the best outcome that is possible.”

He walks right up to the prosecutor for my case and pulls her aside into his office.

They talked for five minutes. They both come out and he winks at me.

The prosecutor comes up to me, hands me some paperwork and explains I am going to plead guilty but because I had never been arrested or in trouble before I qualify for a special rehab and drug education program called Diversion instead of jail.

Once I completed the Diversion program my charges would be dropped from my record.

I went before the judge for my turn in court. The prosecutor handed her some paperwork and the judge said I was ordered to complete the diversion program. I was to return to court in seven months when the program was complete to present my paperwork.

Chapter 12: Diversion