I've had great success being a total idiot. (Jerry Lewis)

Despite the fact that the place with filled with young tenants who loved nothing more than to party hardy, the building was actually fairly calm most of the time, peaceful even. People floated in the pool, read in the courtyard, the usual. The newlyweds moved out, two of the UCLA students moved out, (Tommy flunked out of UCLA), actors and actresses failed and moved back to the mid-west, but Tommy and I did the math, even with the astronomical rate we could charge for available units it was still more profitable to convert the apartments to meth labs. It got to the point where aside from my apartment the entire second tier was producing crystal meth. That is dangerous, flammable, what-have-you, but if you seen the money it turned over you would have went for it too!

I still paid Rider as if the apartments were occupied. He was none the wiser but just to be sure I went to his apartment for our monthly family dinners now. My mobility was another thing that was new. I was the proud new owner of a shiny new BMW. German engineering has produced my favorite things: from heroin to Bavarian Motor Works, Germany gets me.

Rider wasn’t an idiot or living under a rock. He knew about the Hundred Parties but he was okay with it. He thought it would be good for business as long as it was under control and he got his name on the list. I took that opportunity to tell him I had some money to offer toward the family debt. I gave him a sizable but sum, but not too sizable as to raise his suspicions. I pretended it all came from Hundred Party admissions. I had done the math, it was believable.

“Do you think it’s enough?”

Rider was at every hundred party after that. I wasn’t too impressed because I had to be on my best behavior. I’ll admit my best behavior isn’t exactly angelic but I had to be sober. Oh did I forget to mention that? At this point I was head-over-heels in love with crystal meth.

My addiction didn’t screw anything up though. I still graduated high school a year ahead of schedule in June of that year. I don’t care what doctors and textbooks say. I was a successful drug addict. I was acing school, running an apartment building, running a crystal meth empire, taking care of my family financially, balancing – albeit poorly – several guys. I was an entrepreneur and a budding academic.