the curse of 1850 cherokee........

once again i was sitting at the table i had been killing myself at every day for the better part of 07 .......there were no more after parties, no hot water, no phone, no internet, no girl, no job, no friends.....no god

when i first decided to drink again months before the curse of 1850 had shown me what it could really do. life was prety fuckin good. cahuenga was booming, the drink and drug were basically free, and i was a happy coke filled drunk most of the week. i would take days off here and there to replenish the color in my face, but soon repeated the pale drive that hollywood offers us on a nightly basis. soon after the pills had run there course gently through my body i was slipped a cell phone number that would be the end of all ends for me....

prior to this i was dabbling with the steel horse and some coke here and there. but nothing to really concern myself with, or anyone else for that matter. but the day i called the matadors and jumped into the back seat of there chariot would be day i would never forget. and repeat numerous times on a daily basis to assure my remebrance.... (sorry red bull makes me think i actually know the definition of half the words im using)...anyway....it wasn't to long before i was making my last dope run in 96 look like a walk through central park on a saturday afternoon in the early 50's. me and a friend were selling everything we owned, borrowing from everyone we could, and getting fronted every day..we hustled our asses off to keep our heads above water every miserable day we were forced to wake up. as the months went by my habit grew and my status in hollywood shrank to nothing. everyone stopped coming over which was the only way i was able to be reached aside from me checking email at my neighbors once a day. i would use there phone to call the matadors at least 5 times a day. everything that had power in my house or strings on a fretboard was now the property of elliott salters.

the smell of the little green chariot was so familiar to me that if i smelled it now i would probably shit right here on the carpet...just thinking about it makes my stomache a little knotty. my x who had been hanging on by a thread had given up and started dating someone else. this is what put me over the edge. i remember reading the last email she sent telling me that she was done. i walked back up to my misery and began throwing everything that wasn't at the pawn shop against the wall while tears streamed down my face...i was done and i knew it. unfortunately at that time in my life there was only one way out for me. so i loaded a syringe with 3 balloons of heroin and a shitload of coke, sat at that fucking table once again, and hoped that this would be the last time i stuck a needle in my arm. i woke up half on the bed and half on the floor with blood coming out of my nose, sweat pouring into my eyes, and my hands and heart shaking uncontrollably. the fan still running but knocked on the floor, and my nieghbor standing at my door with a completely freaked out look on his face...i couldn't believe i was still alive....i shouldn't have put the coke in my spoon......

i started sobbing uncontrollably. it felt like the moans coming from my throat were echoing into the open windows of buildings blocks away. i looked up from a noise at the door and saw my x in a blurred teary eyed vision at my door. i had just posted a completely irate bulletin about the situation but there was no way she could have seen it and gotten to my apartment so fast. she told me she was going to europe for 2 years and we were done. i was almost chanting "you cant leave me" over and over while tears streamed down my face. i jumped up and started to fill the spoon again, popping a few of mommies little helpers to get the motor running a little faster. my spirit for suicide intensified greatly at that moment, i couldn't wait to fill my last syringe and end it...... as i melted my last balloon she got on her phone and walked outside. i took everything i had left into the bathroom and locked the door. she came back in frantically pounding and kicking at the door as i sat naked on the toilet jabbing myself vein unfriendly....

after i had opened the door a few times to show her i was just "taking a shit" the fire department showed up...it was taking forever to find the bloodline that would send me to another dimension. gently the young studly men in blue called my name and knocked on the door as blood poured from every hole i made in that 15 minutes...i would open the door a crack and tell them i would be right out. only to close it again and start jabbing myself. finally after 30 or so failed attempts at a connection, i just stuck the needle in my arm and pushed the plunger down. there was so much shit in the needle that i almost broke the plunger trying to get it all in there. the rest of the trip is pretty much a blur. i remember being carried out on a stretcher, and the hot fire dicks hitting on my x as they carried me out. she says they thought i was her brother. then she told me as they were closing the ambulance doors that i asked her...."baby...will you go get my cigarettes??".....i heard one of them say "he's going out" and when i woke up......

i thought i woke up in the alhambra psych ward. until i started getting bills from hollywood pesbyterian and she had told me thats where they brought me. i have absolutely no recollection of being brought back to life. there was no shocking awareness from the narcan, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel before they hit me with paddles. i only know this happened from nurses telling me and the life support/transportation bill i just got from the hospital. (it costs 900 dollars to get brought back in an ambulance in case you were wondering).

this is basically what happened as told by my x and my friend...cuz i didnt remember shit..........

i woke up in a white room strapped to a gernee with a big white tube sticking out of the head of my peehole. the lighting was equivalant to that of a cosco or an AM/PM . there was a giant black man dressed all in white as well standing over me. he sounded like the mouseman from the green mile when he said...."you lucky to be alive little man...they brought you back twice". i looked him dead in the eye and said "get this tube out of my dick i have to go home".....even after all that i still wasn't done trying to die. after a slight chuckle followed by a very dissapointing fatherly stare he ill informed me of my 72 hour suicide watch. that was when they transported me to alhambra psych ward. that whole experience was a brown out. i would come to here and there but basically all i remember is staring at the clock waiting to go home and shoot dope....my x told me she came to see me and they let her give me a cupcake that her daughter had for me. but all i kept doing was asking her to use her phone so i could call my neighbor...i have no idea why i needed to call him so bad....i remember taking a tray of fish from the "hospital lunch rack" that made me puke.... i kinda remember the crazy guy in the bed next to me moaning....and i definitely remember making them call a cab for me 5 minutes before my suicide watch time was up......

I was found face down on my bed crying.. asking her why? why did she have to leave me. she looked around and saw that i had destroyed my apartment. she had no idea what i was trying to do, she hadnt talked to me in over two weeks and was worried about me. she had a gut feeling that things were not ok, so she came by the house and found the worst situation one can find. We talked for a little bit and she realized that i was going to try and kill myself again. so, she called a friend freaking out not knowing what to do. she called the cops and when they showed up, i had fooled all the dumb ass fireman into thinking i was taking a shit. she kept telling them i was getting high but they didnt believe her. They started pulling shit off the walls and taking needles from every single corner in the apt. They put me in the ambulance and all i kept saying was i loved her and wanted her to go my hat and cigs... so they took me to the er and she stayed on the phone with the nurse begging her to not let me leave the hospital. a friend convinced me to tell the doctor i was trying to kill myself because they were going to release me on my own recog... they put me on suicide watch and transferred me to alahambra. i was there for three days. i refused to release any information to anyone but my x which made some of my friends irate. a friend was there when she couldnt be because of her kid. she went to see me while i was there despite what everyone said. i kept yelling at the nurse to let me leave with her. she brought me a cupcake and some notebooks to write in...but i couldnt lift my arms or close my hand enough to hold a pen from all the absesses...... she called my mother and sister and talked to them about sending me home. i am a hard headed s.o.b. so talking me into anything much less moving to the woods was not happening.... it took me almost losing my life actually...losing my life and being brought back... i thank god it was almost...... this world wouldnt be the same without me. :)