"Get the hell off my property!" I'd hear from behind the bushes.
"I'm out!" I'd yell back as I high-tailed it. There were a lot of Vietnam vets living off the land in Hawaii. They were a little crazy too. Once I spotted a booby-trap and really got spooked, but I couldn't resist the views enough to stop riding in the dirt.
One day I was riding to Kaena Point. I stopped to get stoned and heard talking behind me. The voices were getting close fast so I packed up and hopped on my Suzuki. When I saw a couple of guys come out the the bushes I panicked. I quickly got the Suzuki started up. By the time they noticed me I had the bike in second gear and I was leaving a trail of dust behind me. I was becoming paranoid. Rape was rampant on Oahu. A couple of my friends had already become a victim. More and more I started looking over my shoulder.
One night I was at a party being held at Waimea Falls Park when I came across an old friend from Newport Beach. We headed up the trail to "talk" when I discovered we were being followed. Four Velzy Boyz were quickly running towards us. Three of the guys jumped my friend while I ran into the bushes. One of the Boyz tried to follow me. I picked up a large rock and threw it at him hitting him in the gut (yeah for softball). He fell back and I ran down the trail, past the beating, to get help. My poor friend lost some of his teeth and they broke his nose. Later he moved back to California. I too started thinking about that possibility.
The days leading up to my 21st birthday were plagued with hefty problems. I was doing far too much cocaine and became very thin. I'd gotten to the point that I craved adrenalin and did stupid things to get it. I started riding my motorcycle home from work at 3 in the morning without a helmet and extremely high. I surfed 4 foot Pipeline high on mushrooms once and almost drowned. I also surfed Sunset at night during a real bright full moon high on Acid. I was carless about who I was hanging out with and started dating Ken who was a Quaalude dealer. I was truly sliding down a slippery slope.
On January 8, 1981 Ken was in Texas and left me with a bag of pills. The people at work threw me a 21st birthday party. There was a lot of cocaine, Quaaludes, and shots going around. The next thing I remember I woke up in the trees near Waialua. I was naked, muddy and sore. I felt like I had been hit by a train. It took me a long time to find my clothes, and by the time I got to a phone I was bleeding and vomiting. When I got home I passed out for two days. My Born Again friend came to nurse me back to health.
"Do you remember the guy?" she asked.
"Yeah....kinda. I remember him crashing the party and buying me shots."
"You must have gotten pretty blazed."
I felt shame. I was stabbed with the hard reality that I let myself become blind, deaf and very, very dumb. It was a sobering truth that I had passed my drug line-in-the-sand so long ago that I stopped defending my self respect. And at 21 I shut down my conscience and turned off reason. It was as if I was living my own death wish.
"I remember leaving the party." I told my friend. "The guy said he lived in Haleiwa and would take me home."
"Do you remember his name?"
"No."
"What do you remember?"
A long silence...
"Nothing....well....." I started crying, "I remember...." the words choked, "I remember there being more than one." I couldn't breath under all the shame.
"Come to church with me Sunday." she said.
"Ok."
Two days later my friend came and picked me up. We sat under the tent at Waimea Falls Park where the North Shore Christian Fellowship (NSCF) met. I hadn't had any coke since the attack and was nauseated. My nose bled regularly, my head and body had been hurting for days, and my hands shook. At church all I could do was sit on the bench, ashamed. I don't recall what the minister preached about, all I remember was the alter call. It was then that I ran to the alter and completely broke down in tears.
"I want Jesus in my life." I said to Bill Stonebreaker, the minister.
"May I pray for you?" he asked.
"Please."
While he and my friend hugged me and prayed for me I, through my uncontrollable tears and dripping blood, surrendered my life to the God I had been reading about.
After that day I began going to church every Sunday and even during the week. I met a whole new group of friends and attended their Bible studies. I quit my job at Chuck's Steakhouse and got a new one at a restaurant called Pat's at Punaluu where my friend worked, (and where I would meet my future husband). I stopped doing drugs and began gaining weight. Basically I had started a whole new life.
When Ken returned from Texas I told him what had happened. He came to church with me and became born again too. He flushed his fresh new bag of Quaaludes down the toilet.
Life was looking good again.
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