The most semi-permanent resident that we had in those years on 25th St. who was there almost as much as we were, who slept on the sofa but never paid a penny in rent was the Woolly Bully. He was an older junkie that Pat and Joanne had known ever since they had gotten out of high school. Bull to his friends, was the most successful junkies that I ever knew. He was also one of the most honest and by far the most fun, which was why we didn't mind him hanging around. He had been doing "H" for 10 years before I met him and did it for another 10 more during the time that we were friends. And if he's still alive he’s probably still doing it today. As long as I knew him he never OD'ed and never went to prison. Quite an accomplishment for a full blown addict because other then Bull, every single one of them that I knew were either dead or in jail within five years of trying to maintain that lifestyle.
In fact, junkies OD'ing was the most common cause of death in the 60's and 70's for our crowd with suicide second, but the Woolly Bully just kept rolling along and he always had a scam going or a theft planned to keep his habit alive. Even though we hated rip offs, we liked Bull because as far as I know he only ripped off rich people and scamed only the straights for their money.
One of his scams involved a 1950 Chevy that he had acquired along with the pink slip. The body and interior was in pretty good shape but the engine was shot, it burned almost as much oil as gas. He told me that he was going to advertise it for $200. I told him that he wouldn't even get $50 for it. He bet me $10 that he would get at least $100. I said, "You're on." Bull worked on the car for the next couple days cleaning it inside and out, even cleaning all the burned old oil out of the engine compartment then he drained out the oil and replace it with 90 weight gear oil and STP. When he started the car it not only hardly smoked but it purred like a kitten. He put an ad in the paper and the first person who saw it bought it for $150. Bull pocketed that plus my $10.
To show you how influenced people are by the lies of the media, which always depicts junkies as violent psychopaths when just the opposite is true, there's this tale. I have known a lot of junkies, and all of them are liars and thieves however, they are almost never violent. Shit, they're too stoned most of the time. Bull came into our house laughing with this story about getting caught ripping off a house up in the Berkeley Hills, his favorite hunting ground. "Me and Everett (his main partner) had broken into this nice house and were carrying a big TV out to my van (he drove an old Ford delivery) when the owner drove up and saw us with his TV. He got out of his car leaving his family in it, and said, "Just what the hell do you think you're doing with my TV buster!” I looked as him as crazily as I could then screamed at him, "You'd better watch out! We're drug crazed junkies and we need money!" He looked at us standing there holding his TV then got back in his car and drove away. We loaded up the TV and got the fuck out of there and fast." By the end of the story we were all laughing along with him.
The Woolly Bully was a good thief too. He would go out to the suburbs late at night with just a sharpened oyster knife then rob every candy and soda machine in the area. He'd walk in the morning with over $100 in nickels, dimes and quarters which he would then sit around all day rolling up, plus we'd have all the candy, peanuts, chips crackers and sodas that we could eat and drink for days.
He was also an expert shoplifter. His favorite thing to steal was filet mignon from Safeway. He'd walk into the store, get a 12 pack of cheap beer, take out all of the cans then fill the carton back up with steaks. Then he’d, tape the end closed, go through the check out and pay $3 for the carton that was chucked full of about $25 worth of filets. He'd then give them to us as payment for his crashing on our couch and we'd all eat steak instead of hamburger for a week.
He also loved to break into meat markets at night and fill his entire van with beef. He'd bring it over and fill our whole fridge and freezer, which would last us all month. And he’d still have plenty left to sell to the other freeks he knew.
Also, about once or twice a month Bull would roll up to our house with a van full of clothes and other goodies that he had ripped off somewhere and was looking to sell. We’d pick through the stuff and maybe pick out a couple pieces which Bull always either gave us out right or sold to us for a very good price.
But Bull was an exception to the junkie rule. All the rest of them that we knew over the years except for Roger Dodger, ripped us off at one time or another. Sometimes just for small shit, other time for a lot more. Except when they were nodding out you had to watch them all the time. Because even the ones that you were friends with for years would rip you off if they got the chance and then either lie or make up really lame excuses when you caught them, "Well, that $5 was just laying on your dresses, so I thought you didn't want it." Right!
Once while a bunch of us were at a sauna in a cheap hotel we heard someone breaking in to the lockers outside of the sauna room. Bull jumps up shouting, “ Some one is ripping us off!" and goes tearing out of there still naked, we, also naked follow him. He is chasing a guy down the hall and up the stair, then he’s kicking in a door.
There on the bed is the guy holding our clothes saying, "If ya didn't want to get ripped off then ya shouldn't have left yer clothes in the lockers."
As Bull starts beating the hell out of the guy and we're putting our duds back on, the manager walks in and wants to know what's happening. After we tell him he kicks us out agreeing with the junkie thief!
Also, all junkies are babies, they always blame someone else for they’re being addicts, usually their parents, "I was so abused by my Mommy (and/or Daddy) as a child that only smack can make me forget the pain." which is pure bullshit. At least half the junkies I knew came from upper middle class or rich homes.
Abuse to them meant not getting that new red bike for Christmas, or even worse, their parents caught them stealing and whipped their asses. But they all paid their parents back for all that abuse they suffered by ripping them off every chance they got.
Once Bull, Dora the Whora and her new husband Little Dickey came over to shoot up. They had just ripped off Little Dickey’s parent’s middle class house in Concord. They'd fenced the goods, scored and now needed a place to fix, so why not 25 St. since we, unlike a lot of other communes didn’t care. They only had one set of works so first they argued over who'd go first. Bull would be first, Dickey second and Dora last. After Bull had fixed, Dickey was so excited about shooting up that he drop his dropped his balloon on the floor and all the smack spilled out. He then turned to his loving wife and told her that she should share hers with him.
Dora, who was five years older and about the same size as Dickey, laughed saying, "You must be kidding. You spilt yours, so tough shit."
Dickey then lunged for Dora's balloon and they fell to the floor fighting over the junk.
Pat screamed at them to cut the crap or get the hell out for good, but Bull was busy elsewhere. They stopped fighting and Bull told them to share that balloon then they could go and get some more which after some whining and crying, they did. What they didn't see was while they were fighting with each other was, Bull had whipped out a card and scooped the spilt smack up, putting it into a little paper then he pocketed it for later. Two for the price of one.
The other bad thing about junkies was, they were bathroom hogs. They would go into the bathroom, lock the door, fix, then nod out for a couple of hours while everyone else in the house was pounding on the door because they had to pee. I solved that problem by taking the entire door knob/lock assembly out of the door. You could still close the door but there was no way you could lock or even latch it shut. The girls at first were against this, they wanted some privacy while in the bath, but I told them that it was either this or wait forever to pee, and if they could think of some other solution then we would do that. The door stayed lockless then when a junkie nodded out in there, we could personally go in and kick their stoned butts out.
We got ripped off on 25th St. about six times in 6 years and it was always by junkies, and always by junkies who were our "friends." Mostly they just ripped off our change and our plants. They were so stupid that even though everybody knew we never locked our front door, they still every time would kick it in. Then they’d try to sell the pot that they had just ripped off us to friends of ours who knew we had just been ripped off. And who, of course, would tell us. One junkie we knew ripped us off twice in a row. Kris, a Vietnam Vet buddy of our asked if we wanted the guy killed. We told him no, it was only stuff, but we did tell the junkie what Kris had said. We never saw him again. We figured that getting ripped off every now and then was part of the price we paid for accepting everyone and living the free life.
I don't want to sound like the house was a heavy place, hell a half dozen incidents in as many years is nothing. Most of the time it was party as usual. The junkies were a pain in the ass along with the speed freeks, who, unlike the junkies, would be awake and active all night long for days at a time. Plus they tended to get paranoid over nothing at all after a long run.
But it was all part of the San Francisco Hippie Lifestyle of accepting everybody’s tripp as equal and not judging them, and even joining in when it was fun. The junkies and alkies never understood this. For them their drug tripp meant everything, they were hooked. For the rest of us it was a momentary pleasure, a passing high. The junkies and alkies would cry that we just didn't understand, but they were wrong. I’ve known hundreds of dopers, hell, I've been one of them, and 98% of them used every drug ever invented by man and nature in huge quantities and never got permanently hooked. Sure, there were times we got a little too far into a drug but we knew when we'd had enough, then we’d quit cold turkey when that point was reached.
We faced our addiction, used our Will’s saying, "That's all. That's it for now. I quit." and we would. We would feel real bad for a few days but it just the price you paid, it was no big deal. Because you only had to stop using that one drug for awhile and there were so many other to take to take its place. Other's that were not only different but fun in another way, and there was always Mother Marijuana to help smooth out the rough spaces. Getting hooked was like going into a candy store and only eating Hershey bars when there was so much more there to sample.
The junkies and alkies say that it is not there fault. But let's face it folks, it is. Because when it gets right down to the real nitty gritty, we always do have a choice to say Yes or No. And if you let someone or something else make that choice for you, well then, that's still your choice and you can always change your mind right up until the day you die. But the junkies and the alkies are on a suicide tripp anyway, a slow one but a suicide tripp none the less, and that's their choice. Please just don't whine about it to me. The rest of us chose to Live, and to Love, and to Party Together, and most of the time it is Great!
The Woolly Bully was one who never whined about being a junkie and who partied-hardy with us. He's even the only one that I have ever known to have a successful marriage to a non-junkie. He came over to the house one day and told us that he had met a woman and they had really hit it off. He said her name was Ann and that she was an epileptic. A few weeks later he moved in with her, and even tried to clean up for her. He went into detox for a few weeks. While he was in, Ann hung out with us and we became friends. When it was time to go and get him I went along. As soon as Bull got in the car he told Anne to drive to Everette’s so he could get high. Ann was pissed and disappointed but took him anyway. Bull never tried to clean up again and Ann accepted that. They lived together fairly happily. The Mighty Quinn told them that one of the upstairs half flats were opening up and since the rent was cheap they took it and lived there until Ann died from the epilepsy about five years later. Bull then moved out and resumed his junkie life, which as far as I know is still doing it.