Ok, it was 1998/99 and I was 22. I had gotten myself into a bad scrape with the law on account of my speed addiction and the judge decided that I needed hugs, not drugs. So he sentence me to a hard-core inpatient drug program for a year, in lue of 16 years prison time.
Now this program wasn’t strictly just for drugs, but for any type of addiction or high risk individuals that needed close supervision. We had two SOs’ that I knew of, a few serial car thieves and a sprinkling of gangbangers. Dirty Dave is my name and I’ve seen a thing or two. We’ll start off easy. The program’s name was Highways and Byways, it was ran by a short little guy that fancied himself a street preacher and he had connections with the local court system. So I guess you could say there was kind of a pipeline from jail to the Charles Ham interprise. We referred to ourselves as Hamonites and as such, we operated a slew of shady businesses from Paul’s transmission shop to a pair of thrift stores and even a snowcone cart called Mr. Freeze. All staffed by drug addicts, thieves and paedos. On Sundays after church, we would chase hookers off the streets and shut down crack houses with nothing more than picket signs and a bull-horn.
If you didn’t do exactly what the pastor wanted, he would, “hook you up”. That would usually involve some poor sap being sent out to sweep the stoop only to be swarmed by PD and taken away.
Ever got a blow job from a toothless old queer, in a four man bed room at midnight? I did. Had to work with this guy on one of our moving businesses, and he was always wanting to fool around. Sucking me off at random locations and times as he felt the urge. In the bathroom of this old lady’s house, that we were moving- for example.                                                           I can remember the look on her face as we both exited the john, me zipping up and Greg putting his teeth back in. She had a look of total horror as she realized what must have taken place. Didn’t tell on us though. Greg was black-mailing me because he knew I liked to sneak out of the program most nights to visit my girlfriend. Had to pay the piper, or at least give the piper a flute to play every now and again.
Greg was one of those angry bitter people you meet in life sometimes. The glass was always half empty for that guy. He blamed his homosexuality on his former wife. Said she cheated on him and took him to the cleaners in divorce court. Now he could Never trust a woman Again!
Slowly, as I listened to this guy’s rants, I began to pick up on some interesting details.