My "Dark Past".....

I have mentioned this several times, and have been thinking about it a lot lately. To be honest, I have agonised over writing this out, as there are very few people who know the full truth. For the longest time I wanted and fought to keep it that way. I am not writing this to sound dangerous, cool or mean, like I said in an earlier post..., I will never lie to you.

You see, when I was younger, after I had just gotten out of the army, I was at a loss. The career, that I thought would take me to retirement, was stripped from me in a cruel twist of fate. I was quite angry at the time, and somewhat rebellious. As a consequence, I turned to drugs as a coping mechanism. Through a series of events, I became quite hooked, and moved on to some of the nastier stuff. I was only there for about a year, before my friends came to the rescue once more. I managed to keep that really quiet though, even my family knows nothing about that period of my life.

Towards the end of my dabbling with drugs, I amassed a moderate debt with some not very nice people. At the time I had little money, due to my habit, this turned out to be my downfall. My flat was visited by a very nasty fella, who threatened bodily harm if I did not pay. Problem was, it wasn't me who he threatened, it was my partner at the time. I do not take kindly to these kind of events, and dealt with it the only way I knew how, with violence.

I went to see my dealer, and calmly suggested that if that fella made any attempt to go through with his threats, that he would be wearing his balls as earrings as soon as I caught up with him. A little taken aback by this, he instead made me an offer, in order to pay off my debt. I was pretty much forced into doing things that I am not too proud of. Mostly debt collection, but there was some more "Legally Ambiguous" things in there as well. Think Chili Palmer, with a baseball bat.

Now debt collection, may not seem so bad to some people. But let me tell you, when it is for those that operate outside the law, there are few regulations to uphold. Lawful enterprise doesn't feature much here either. You see what would happen is this...., I would get a phone call (I was given a phone by my "Employers"), the conversation would be simply, a name, an address, and an amount. I would then pay a visit to said address. Most of the time things went peacefully, with a subtle chat, just like in the movies. Other times, well not so much, and then there were times that I would have to resort to things that were not pleasant.
I am sure I do not need to spell these things out to you.

Obviously the police never got involved. It is somewhat difficult to explain to cop that you were assaulted because you owed your dealer a lot of money. Like I said I am not proud of it. I paid my debt off quickly this way, and once clean and clear, I started to get paid for it. What can I tell you the money was very good. But I never really had the taste for it, and after only a few jobs I left. This was when I decided, to go to Uni. Let me tell you being a student does not pay well, so when that phone rang, I am sorry to say I answered it.

I am not a criminal, though I have skirted that knife edge on several occasions. I am no gangster either, I preferred to think of myself as a freelancer. Like I said, I am not proud of it. To be honest I don't like violence all that much, especially in this situation! Fear not though I have certainly turned my life around. So much so that a few years back I moved cities to get away from it.

I don't ever want to be that person again, I am to good for that.