Drugs are bad but sometimes they make a magical alchemy in the mind
of a user that makes them pretty dang entertaining. On the boat we
had a runner who was restricted to the boat because he was out of
jail on probation stemming from some unpleasantness with the
consumption of and sale of some chemical contraband. He told us he
had been clean for a while but he still had that over fast twitchy
urgency of a tweaker. He was pure energy and hustle from the crack of
dawn until well after dark. He was pulling tanks, helping people in
and out of the water and cleaning puke off of anything it got on. He
zipped around the deck until everything was set and then he would go
free dive a little and shoot some fish for dinner if the divers were
not getting their own. He sat down a couple of times to talk to me
and I asked him where he got the name Fast Eddy, it was based on
exactly what you would guess. He told me about some of his tattoos
which he got in prison and several times he would start in on a story
and then look off into the distance and tell me to never try drugs. I
wanted to hear more about his life and what he had done but he was
busy so I would just catch him once more when he had dived down and
shot an octopus and he told me to help him clean it so we could eat
it. I had never seen an octopus in real life let alone have eaten
one. We cleaned the animal and then Eddy grilled it in butter and
teriyaki. It was not good but I ate it and pretended to like it
because Eddy was so earnest and hopeful. That is the last time we
spent anytime together and after he loaded us off the boat I never
heard from him again but I had a much different opinion about drug
users and addicts than I had formulated in my small town.
