A long time a ago I was addicted to heroin. I was a pretty functional addict and not too many people knew. I was out drinking with some friends and around one in the morning decided to go home. Because I was a little buzzed and started feeling a little sick I decided I would go pick up dope right then instead of being rational and waiting until I knew my dealer was awake at 9am. The hood was about a 45 min drive so I got there at nearly two am and the usual open air drug market was fucking vacant. I knew about a park that people would go cop at sometimes so I drove up to it and a guy was sitting on the picnic table in the middle all by himself. I parked and approached him. He told me he knew where we could get shit but I would have to drive him to a different neighborhood. I stupidly agreed and let him in my car. I was young, naïve, and probably thought I was a lot tougher than I actually was. I was also born and raised in Canada and had only been living in the states a few short years at that point.
He told me to drive to one spot where we parked and got out. We walked into some building through a side door. It was like out of a movie. There were people smoking crack and shooting up in the stair well and it reeked of piss. He took me up a bunch of flights or stairs and I saw some dude very obviously selling dope near the top but once we saw him he turned around and said that there was no one there and that we would go check somewhere else. I quietly said "isn't that guy right up there selling" but he ignored me. This was the first sign I should have said fuck it and just ran back to my car and left. The second sign was when we were walking back down to go where we came from a door opened. It was an older lady and she looked at me right in the eyes and said "you need to get out of here" in a worried, but motherly tone. Admittedly at this point I was feeling a bit freaked out. The alcohol buzz giving me all this blind courage was wearing off and I was just generally over it but addiction is a bitch man.
We left the building and walked through a courtyard when we passed a dude that he motioned to. Dude started walking with us for a bit and they said some stuff to eachother I didn't 100% get and dude walked away. The original guy turned to me and said "he's going to get the dope, we just gotta meet him around the corner." I stupidly said ok and was even excited now. Dude lead me back to my car and asked if he could just drive to where we had to meet him. I said "sure no problem" just wanting this to be over and to have the dope in my hands. He drove us down an alleyway and parked pulling the keys out saying that it wouldn't be much longer now and that home boy would be back with the dope in no time. Maybe 5 min later I saw dude from earlier walking up in the rear view mirror. My heart started beating faster and I started feeling relief knowing I'd be high again soon. The origional guy now sitting in the driver's seat of my car told me to roll down my window a bit. Before I knew it dude reached his hand in and grabbed me by the neck. The back doors of my car flew open and two other guys jumped in, the one behind me reached his hands up around my torso holding a blade to me. Origional guy in the driver's seat told me to give him all the cash I was holding and I did. Dude with his hand around my throat said "more or we'll fucking kill you". Driver's seat guy and the back seat guy not holding a blade up against me rifled through my car. They took my wallet. I didn't realize that I had an envelope with 800 cash in it in the glove box. My mom had put it in there the day before to help me with rent. It was going to be a surprise. Once they found that they let me go and ran. Police sirens and lights exploded from the block behind them and spooked them. The one dude who held me neck opened my wallet and threw back my drivers licence at me as he ran off. I really would have preferred my green card. I scrambled to get my wits about me and crawled back into the driver's seat. It was a long fucking drive home.