Back in New York I was staying with Freddy and my brother and his third wife. My brother and his wife had a boy named Daniel. I saw my brother start to change, but it was probably too late. They ended up getting divorced. Anyway I think it was during this time that I got a job at Drake's bakeries in Long Island City. It was a union job but I had to work 30 working days in order to get into the union. They never called me back after 29 days. I was out of work for a while. I really didn't have a lot going for me. Even though I had a high school diploma, I didn't have any skills or experience. There was a bagel store I used to hang out in to play video games when I had some money. One day this guy Kevin was there also, and he said that his boss was looking for someone to help work the next day. The next day I met them and began my first day of work. The boss's name was Bob and he was an ex-drill Sargent in the army. He was a very good boss even though he used to push us. I must say that he really taught me what it means to work. What we did was install replacement windows all over the New York area. We did small houses to six floor apartment buildings. I learned a lot in four years working with him. Not long after I started working I got my own apartment in Ozone Park, Queens. One weeks pay paid all my bills for the whole month. During this time I had just about everything I wanted. I had a stereo TV, I went to concerts all the time, I ate the best food, I would go to topless bars, drag races and football games with my boss, yet I still was all messed up inside. I remember many nights crying myself to sleep. I wasn't motivated to do anything with my life, because there was still this horrible pain of wanting to be loved. After about two years I was the foreman for my boss. I would take one or two or three guys with me and do jobs myself. There was a Spanish guy that worked with us for a while who was a Christian. He didn't really preach or anything but he wouldn't work on Sundays and certain days during the week because of church. I remember talking to him trying to convince him that he needed to work to support his family, yet to no avail. Now I understand why. Another time we did a brownstone in Harlem, New York and the owner was an old black lady who insisted that we all take bibles. The boss's policy was that the customer is always right so we took them. When I got home that night I opened the bible and read Matthew 6. It was right after that, that I got deeper into the drugs. I would have parties at my house with alcohol, pot, various pills, acid and cocaine depending on what was available.
On my 28th birthday, June 25, 1986 I took my first hit of crack cocaine. I had gotten an eighth of an ounce of cocaine and a quarter pound of pot and a case of beer. A guy I worked with came over and brought some crack. We partied together for a while and then he left, and I kept snorting coke and drinking. I was in my living room with the air conditioner on and I fell asleep from being so drunk. I woke up about two o’clock in the morning shaking from cold and blood pouring out from a hole on the outside of my nose. When I tried to get up I couldn't move my legs and I started to really get scared. I ended up dragging myself into the bathroom with my hands, and putting on the hot water and pulling myself into the tub. You would think that I would have come to my senses and stopped but I didn't. I remember my friend John (the one whose parents helped me after I got caught stealing) was already smoking crack and we started getting together. He had a car and I had my own apartment so he would drive us to Brooklyn to buy it and then we would go back to my apartment to smoke. There were many times I would go on a binge for 3 days or a week at a time. There was one time that I had been up doing crack for a week straight. I had no food in the house and I hadn't eaten in a week. At that time I was already so skinny that my bones stuck out. I was so crazed with hunger that I ended up eating my own cat. I drowned it in the bathtub and skinned it and deep-fried it. I tried to get help but couldn't. I even asked my boss to help and he said he would, but didn't. I started stealing stuff from my boss and any one else I could. I also came up with some good stories to get money from Freddy. It wasn't long before no one wanted anything to do with me. I remember taking the work truck to Brooklyn to get drugs and as I was coming out two guys held me up. One guy put a gun to my head and the other one searched my pockets. There was another time a friend and I stole an electrical truck from a place he knew. He knew the whole layout. I just walked up to the truck, hopped in and drove off. We cleaned out what we could sell and left it. One night I was fiending so bad that I actually went out with a pipe to mug someone, but I didn't have the heart. Thank God! The day after I ate my cat, the Landlord came to me, and said that the "boys" said I had to move or else. That night I remember being in such despair crying out with everything in me for someone to help, someone to love me, really love me enough to help me. I remember crying for my mother and father longing for them to be there but they weren't. I also remember saying God if you are real please save me, although I had absolutely no Idea what that meant. That night I cried myself to sleep for the last time in my apartment. The next night I was lonely and scared. I didn't know what to do. I called every cocaine hotline in the phone book and even some that weren't and no one would help me. One guy told me to go to the city shelter, which at that time was like sending a drunk to a bar. I remember one night being so hungry that I walked into a diner and ordered a steak dinner and ran out without paying. Another time a friend and I hadn't eaten in 2 or 3 days so I went into a coffee shop in Manhattan and ordered 2 cheeseburger deluxes to go. When they brought the food out I grabbed the bags and ran. We ran as fast as we could and we kept going until we thought we had gotten away. We didn't even see any one following us. We ducked down some dark stairs in front of a brownstone thinking no one could see us and suddenly a policeman shines a flashlight on us and says, "what are you doing". We were so hungry we didn't even answer him, we just kept eating. He said, "you better thank God that I'm a human being before I'm a cop" and then walked away. I ended up at the city shelter on 8 east 3rd st. because I could get three meals a day and a bed to sleep on. I met a guy who told me how to get on welfare and collect money even though I was living in a welfare hotel already. This guy had a degree in Psychology and yet he was addicted to crack. So for 5 months I lived for free and collected welfare money to buy drugs with. It is amazing how easy it is to get used to living like that. I met guys that had been homeless for years and didn't want to change. For me it almost became a routine. I would eat at the shelter or the mission and sleep at the shelter. During the summer they would bus us to different churches to sleep. When I didn't have money to buy drugs I would usually hang out at Washington Square Park and play chess for most of the day. That was the amazing thing about crack, once I got over the immediate high (usually after falling asleep), I could go for days or even weeks without it with no side effects or difficulty. But as soon as I would get some money, immediately I would begin to think how I could get some. For a While I used to think that I could stop if I really needed to, but one day I realized that I was addicted and that I could not change. I fully expected to die a crack addict. Looking back I know that there was a definite demonic influence behind it. A guy I smoked crack with from the shelter told me about the Bowery Mission, and I started going there to eat because the food was better. I could go through the line at the shelter 3 times and still not be satisfied yet at the mission I always left full. Now I realize that God did it. I didn't really pay attention much; usually I would sleep through the service. Sometimes I would listen to the preaching. Some preachers would be loud and fiery and others put you to sleep but none of it moved me. I did always enjoy the singing however. One Friday I got my welfare check at 8am and spent the whole thing ($350) on crack by 2pm. Afterwards while I was fiending (crack turns you into a fiend) I met a homeless man on 2nd Ave. and 5th street who was looking for someone to push him to the shelter on 8 east 3rd street. I felt sorry for him because my father had been in a wheel chair so I pushed him there. When we got to the shelter we met a friend of his that took a liking to me because I helped his friend. I was so crazed on crack, I was looking for anything that would help me to come down. This guy reached in his duffle bag and handed me an unopened quart of Vodka. I drank half the bottle in one shot trying to come down off the crack. The next thing I remember was waking up in the Hospital with a doctor looking down at me saying, young man you are lucky to be alive. I told him, why didn't you just let me die! Have you ever had a headache where you thought your head was going to explode? I felt like every cell in my body had already exploded. For three weeks I had this deep pain in my chest from my heart failing. I pleaded with them to help me but they wouldn't. They told me to see a psychiatrist. I told them I didn't need a psychiatrist, I needed help! I remember walking out of the hospital totally given up on life, walking in front of oncoming traffic not even caring if I got hit. A friend and I managed to get some money and we got some more crack. My friend went first and seemed to like it very much but when I took a big hit I didn't get high. I knew that I knew that I was going to die and go to hell if I didn’t get help. In my heart I said, God you're my last chance! I decided to try to get into the mission because that was all I knew about. That was Saturday night and they didn't take people in on the weekends and also it was Memorial Day weekend so I had to wait until Tuesday before I could see someone about getting into the program. I knew there was no other hope so I went to every service they had (they had 3 a day) until Tuesday. Sunday night there was a group from New Jersey doing the service, and there was a policeman, in uniform, leading the songs. As we were singing I noticed that this guy was having fun. He wasn't just happy he was actually enjoying himself. I thought to myself, this guy is singing in front of a bunch of drunks and drug addicts and he’s having fun, what's this guy high on, I want some of that. Suddenly I was standing there saying Wow, He’s real, Jesus is real! I have heard the name of Jesus all my life; I even went to Catholic school in second grade but that night Jesus Christ became real to me for the first time. I was too afraid to go up for the altar call so I went back to the welfare hotel I was staying in and pulled the covers over my head and literally cried out to Jesus and asked Him to forgive me and take my life. There were no fireworks or anything but the next day I was different. The next morning I realized that a lifetime of loneliness was gone. Amazing!
By William A. Cotton