Crack House --------------------------------------------- A Life Lesson by Ned Sane

The morning came suddenly.

Johnny bolted upright to a sitting position in his bed. His hair felt greasy. His eyes were dry. But Johnny didn't care. It was time for another day of business.

Johnny was a rich man.

He rolled out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom. His feet were cold and his eyes were red. Johnny was tired. He needed a lift.

A rich man… was Johnny.

A hot shower blasted away the crust and sweat from his drug-ravaged body. It also took away the fatigue. The steaming jets peeled yesterday's sins off Johnny's skin, sending them swirling and gurgling down the drain.

Gone for good.

He returned to the bedroom, glowing with the new pink of cleanliness. The anticipation of the day's events showed clearly on his face as he stepped into trousers, slipped into a clean shirt, and rapidly combed his hair.

Last things first.

Johnny smoked his morning bowl of crack.

Minutes later, and no longer tired, Johnny found Rulon downstairs playing solitaire at the business desk.

"Busy night," Johnny inquired, eagerly.

"Normal, not bad," Rulon answered.

Then he stood up from his game of cards and left the room. Johnny could hear Rulon's feet stomping up the stairs as he sat down at the desk. Johnny surfed through his daily work schedule. The telephone rang.

Johnny cracked himself a smile.

Outside the house, local police personalities were watching the daily activities surrounding the suspected crack house. They had been doing the same surveillance for several days. Their faded tan Chevy Impala was parked several houses away. Today, the men inside were more anxious than usual.

In approximately six hours, they would raid the crack house and bust the germs inside.
There were two detectives on the job. They were both good men. Detective Charlie Buck lived with his wife and son about one mile from the crack house. Charlie was happy with his life. Even though the surveillance duties got pretty boring at times, he was still very proud of his position and clean record as an officer. Charlie was especially proud of his son, Westopher. Charlie knew that his precious Westopher would never use crack.

Charlie was right.

Westopher Buck was completely obsessed with bombs. He liked to build them. He liked to detonate them. He liked to examine the damage they did, and plan for a more effective explosion based on his studies of the scene.

Today, like his father, Westopher Buck was also anxious.

He had snooped through his father's detective files and discovered some information about a suspected crack house within a mile of his own neighborhood. The finding had sparked Westopher's imagination, and he had proceeded to construct a very special pipe bomb. Special… meaning that the little dyna-pipe could turn a one-room apartment in a fistful of dust.

You see, Westopher had always wanted to find a decent target to rip apart with a bomb. Small toys had started it all. Blowing up stacks of trucks and army men with M-80 cap blasters had lost its thrill years ago. His attention had turned to doghouses and small sheds. Again, boredom arose quickly after the last wood-working shop was leveled at 2 am one freezing winter morning.

Recently, Westopher had become almost desperate enough to vaporize the Buck family garage. However, while fighting his temptation, Wes had learned to search for other options.

He found himself a little old crack house.

Bingo.

Westopher saw his chance to move up the bomber's ladder with this new target. He only hoped that his specially fabricated pipe bomb could do enough damage to merit the risk.

Wes had put some extra special ingredients into the bomb. So on this day, Wes was drenched with confidence. His mission would commence after school.

Varmint-Boy thrashed nervously in his bed. The sun had been up for several hours, yet he had not slept. He was so freaking tired of buying bad crack. Oh, sure, it had kept him awake this time. But he had never really gotten high. It never did get him high… the bad stuff that is. At least not the garbage he had scored lately off Johnny and Rulon.

Varmint-Boy knew his crack.

After living for three straight years on welfare, Varmint-Boy could be considered a true survivor. On this morning, however, it had all seemed to catch up with him. Three years of heavy crack use, little food intake, and countless hours of rolling around in his bed finally added up to one thought… one recollection: Varmint-Boy suddenly remembered that he had a crossbow in the closet.
This was the fifth time that Rulon had sold him bad crack. And it was going to be the last. Varmint-Boy went to the closet, pulled out the old crossbow, and stroked its mighty shaft.

He knew that today would be the day.

"Nobawdy mess widda BOY," he murmured to the empty room. Then he cracked a mutant smile.

Picture a small house. Let's say it's a crack house. The house faces north and it is relatively well spaced from its neighboring houses. The surrounding community is a typical residential block within the borders of a typically busy metropolitan American city.

It's about 3 pm. On the street we see two men casually step out of a parked Chevy Impala. They are both wearing business suits. They approach the house from a northwest vector.
Shifting our view to the rear of the house, we notice a boy. The lad is probably high school aged, hoisting himself over the back fence and dropping silently into the back yard.

In the side yard we spot a scurvy-looking character leaning suspiciously against the east side of the house. He is wearing a long, greasy green army jacket. One hand is inside the coat as if he is holding something.

Rulon had gotten out of the bed to use the bathroom. He was now returning to bed. On his way, he passed by a window. Suddenly, Rulon caught a glimpse of something that made him back up, and look through the window for a closer look.

However, rather than see anything suspicious, Rulon merely noted that it was a sunny day, which was unpredicted by the local weather people.

Rulon was about to leave the window and go back to bed, when he suddenly saw movement. Some kid was running from the back fence toward the house. In the crack world, these things happened. Rulon was a veteran and, more importantly, he was really tired from working all night. He knew that Johnny was downstairs running the business.

Rulon made the mistake of assuming that the sprinter was merely a nervous customer.
Rulon continued toward his bed. Before he reached the mattress, however, a noise caused him to stop abruptly.

Breaking glass downstairs.

Rulon ran back to the curtained window and looked out again. He saw the same kid running, but this time away from the house. The kid leapt onto the back fence and swung himself over.

Puzzled, Rulon ran to his bed, dropped to his side and plunged one arm underneath. He was groping for a loaded rifle that he and Johnny kept in case of an emergency.

The fuse specification was thirty seconds.

Officer Charlie Buck and his partner braced themselves, pistols drawn. They were about to kick in the front door.

Varmint-Boy was still wondering about that sound of broken glass he had just heard. Suddenly, he heard another sound, like a window sliding open in the back of the house. He reacted by running around to the backyard, and then quickly aimed his crossbow upward.

Rulon fired the rifle at the back fence, directly at the spot where the boy could be seen crouching. Westopher, a victim of his own curiosity, would not get to see his masterpiece. Rulon saw that he had hit the mark, as the boy slumped into a heap behind the fence. Then he stuck his head out of the window to look down the back wall of the house.
An armor-piercing arrow caught him directly in the forehead.

Varmint-Boy pulled out another arrow and kicked open the back door.

The two detectives had just heard a rifle shot. They immediately kicked in the front door and scampered cautiously into the house.

Varmint-Boy was just inside the back of the house. He saw Johnny jump up from behind a couch in the living room, just as the front door was kicked in. Varmint-Boy aimed the crossbow and fired, just as the pipe bomb exploded.

The arrow missed Johnny and hit Charlie Buck's chest instead.

The pipe bomb blew Varmint-Boy and Johnny into little bits. It also provided Charlie Buck's partner with a twisted new outlook on life.

His name was Winford Engle.

Winford survived the explosion. In fact he was unharmed in any way. So he was completely capable of going to the basement, finding a big pile of crack, along with a stack of pipes and lamps.

Still reeling from the scene he had just witnessed, and close to losing his mind anyway, due to an awful marriage and a desire to drink alcohol 24-hours per day, Winford Engle proceeded to sit down and smoke himself a good helping of crack until help arrived one-half hour later.

Moral: Know thy neighbor