Drug users of all stripes are familiar with using code words or phrases. Not sure if it’s the clandestine nature of the life, a penchant for nicknames, or personal slang terms & inside jokes. In my previous incarnation as a criminal mastermind druggie I was not immune to the silly little thrills of taking an innocuous term & turning it into something illicit.

“D’ya wanna go for a walk?” was the code my girlfriend & I employed during what I refer to as my lost years. She was in a much-loved band. In fact most of my girlfriends had been in bands. Must be my type. Actually, I’ve been in a couple bands too. Means I’m my type as well. That’s so disturbing I don’t even want to think about it. But now I can’t get the image of trying to flirt with myself out of my head. Ick! I wonder if I’d come across just as chaotic as the inside of my brain? Perhaps I’d see right through me, realize that this goof is just masking their social anxiety by being intentionally ridiculous. Back to the point, the code phrase did signify a walk. Also that it was preceded by substance use. It was a loaded question for a loaded walk.

One night on just such a walk we wandered down Belmont Avenue from my Capitol Hill apartment, turned on Thomas & went past the tiny park on Summit. From there I have no idea where all we went because, as stated, we went there high. We walked for an hour maybe. It’s really anyone’s guess after the years & the drugs. As we made our way back, coming up Olive Way to where it meets Belmont, on that corner was a well-known coffee shop called The B&O Espresso. Something had gone down there just outside, so we had to stop. Belmont was cordoned off with police tape for the next 2 blocks. There were a few cruisers parked behind the tape, lights spinning. I pondered for probably longer than a person not under the influence would, wondering how to get to my apartment within the cordoned-off zone.

Then brilliance struck. Or the brilliance of the stoned at any rate. “I know what we can do,” I said. We backtracked down Olive to the entrance of the corner building’s parking lot. It wrapped around the building, & had a gap in the fence that opened onto my street, well inside the police tape. Perhaps if we hadn’t been so logic-challenged we would’ve just told a cop that I lived on this street & gained entry that way. Y’know, legitimately sanctioned to pass in other words. But we circumvented the police tape instead. Like any law-abiding citizens would.

The street was scantily lit, & it was past 10pm. I was wearing my signature outside gear: dark glasses. & not my prescription lenses either. Just regular sunglasses. To be clear, I am indeed myopic & require corrective lenses if I were to, say, drive. But I was walking. In public. I always felt I could face the world better if it was blurry & several shades dimmer.

As I stepped through the gap in the fence, my head was turned to say to my girlfriend how weird this was for a relatively crime-free, quiet area of the city. That’s why I didn’t register that someone was yelling at me. Flashlights were waving in my direction. I was suddenly stunned mid-stride, one foot in the air. I hadn’t heard what the cops were shouting, but just then noticed I was poised to step. right. on. a. corpse. A homicide victim was splayed across the sidewalk, under my raised boot. The coroner hadn’t even arrived yet. I was haplessly contaminating their crime scene.

I’m surprised we weren’t hauled in or detained. I don’t recall being questioned beyond why we were on this street. The police most likely read the incompetence all over our faces. Had we witnessed something, it wouldn’t be coherent enough to be of any use. They thought getting rid of us was their best course of action. A ‘run along home you two. & don’t leave your house’ sounds about right.