Acquaintance

“He had a certain strength about him, fortitude about him, and he was very determined. And people did have strength; we were all very wellful, and we were all independent and ran our lives very wellfully, and we were very strong. So, Bobby was in that nature of being very strong, but he was very affected by drugs too, like LSD and methamphetamine, and I was doing the same thing, and so were other people in our group. So, Bobby wasn’t doing this exclusively; he was doing it as part of a general culture". [on Bobby at the Factory]

‘David Wyles walked in with a woman on his arm he had met at the coffee shop. He introduced her as Susanne. She was the ex-wife of Bobby Driscoll, the child actor busted for being the cat burglar of Malibu. He had been arrested and was doing time. She was lonely and just wandering around the beach area. She asked if we wanted to get high. She had a thick French accent; it sounded so good. We had been smoking pot but were open to some more. She pulled out a little black case and opened it. She had crystal methedrine, a syringe, spoon, and matches; she was a traveling shooting gallery. We all wanted to try it, but the needle was a first for us. She was so sweet, like your mother, as she tied off your arm. My veins are big, to begin with, but when you tie off my arm, well, they almost exploded up under the skin. She had no trouble slipping the needle into my arm. The crystals had been soaked and boiled in some water on the spoon and sucked up into the syringe. Once the needle was into my vein, she pushed on the plunger. As she injected the meth into my blood, I could feel its effect almost immediately; a warm sensation was rushing up from my feet to my head. I had never felt pure euphoria before. My only experience was with LSD, and that had a lot of mental stuff attached. This was different; it was pure feeling, no brain games. She shot us up, one by one. She seemed to enjoy turning us on. We gave her some money to cover the cost of the meth. Kip and I played our guitars for maybe eight hours. Our fingers were sore and about to bleed. The sun was coming up. Wow, the night had passed away, and we were still high and wired. We all went for a long walk on the boardwalk by the beach. No one could sleep. The comedown is a little rough: you're tired but cannot sleep. Susanne came back the next day with the same stuff. We did it for three or four days. Meth is very addictive. It is so good in the early stages, but with long-term usage, you get skinny, your teeth fall out, and there is permanent brain damage. Susanne and a lot of other people were strung out on it. I could understand why.’