Partying at Parklawn

“Skeezer heal the tank, I’m going to jump in he’s dying quick”

They said as we were deep in a raid. I was playing World of Warcraft, something I’d devoted most of my year to. It was 2009, and this year I logged 154 days of game play. I would stay up for 2-3 days running raids with my friends, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating pizza.

We lived in a small apartment off Parklawn Ave in Edina. It was a nice quiet neighborhood with families, kids, and long term tenants. The quietness left that year, replaced with a raging fire of drugs, mischief, police activity, and complaints. 

I used to go to church every week until I was around 14 years old. I even started playing piano for church services and would get paid from nursing homes in the area to play for their services. I met several friends through church, one of which sold weed. These friends of mine were 4-6 years older than I was, they were in high school while I was still in middle school. Some graduated already. I wasn’t naive to the reality that drugs existed as a child, but never really took interest.

What interested me in the beginning was the lifestyle.

I saw my friend selling weed and was instantly intrigued. He always had thousands of dollars with him, a crew of people always surrounding him, and everyone in the city knew who he was. I was attracted to the lifestyle. One day he invited me to come hangout with him and some friends, and we ended up at the YMCA off Xerxes in Edina after hours. We weren’t inside the club though, we were in the back of the building inside a YMCA bus. We found the door open and snuck in, this would become a regular thing for us.

This particular night was the first time I smoked weed, and damn this shit was good. I took only a few hits and got incredibly stoned.

It was that night that I suggested we come to my house sometime, and let them know my mom worked nights and I had the entire apartment to myself 5 nights a week. It was on that night we hatched a plan to have a few people over at my place the next night.

The Party at Parklawn has begun.

My mom left around 9pm as usual, and I let them know the coast was clear. They were waiting in a car in the parking lot and once she was gone they came right in. There were 5 people at the house, which quickly turned to 10+. It was a solid place to party, my friends could come and smoke weed, drink, and hangout listening to music.

We repeated this almost every time my mom went to work for months on end. It got increasingly more lit as time progressed. Mom started to notice that something was going on, and got significantly more suspicious when the neighbors started complaining about the noise. Several times we got so drunk we knocked over the hookah and the coals burned the carpet.

The morning cleaning routine was immaculate.

I had a system, grab a rag and wipe the counters, tables, and couches. Then sweep the debris from the ground, click on the vacuum and hit the living room, then scan the room twice for any evidence. Caps to beer and liquor bottles, blunt wraps, outdoor debris like leaves and dirt, all got cleaned up and removed to eliminate any evidence of a party.

Finish with a spritz of disinfectant and Febreze on all surfaces. I made sure everyone was gone by 6:15am so I had 45 minutes to clean and get in bed before she arrived home.

Then one night, things got really crazy.

As I continued to experiment with more hard drugs I had cocaine on me much more frequently. I began to sell it to people that would come to my apartment parties which led to more and more people showing up. One night, the neighbors had enough and called the police.

This wasn’t the first time they had shown up, and we were always on the lookout for them. The apartment was positioned so we could see right when they turned the corner and we had multiple directions to run. We saw them before they even turned their lights on, and scattered like ants. 30 people evacuated the apartment in 5 seconds. Most of us were dope dealers, we knew the game and stayed ready to dip.

The 2 blocks around us were all apartment buildings, and I ran north towards a dark area of the block. I had blow and weed in my backpack and had it on me; I knew this arrest could end in multiple felonies.

My instinct kicked in and I knew what the best course of action was.

I got to the dark area of the block, found a balcony, and started scaling. I jumped up the first level, then the second, then the third. The third balcony was about 4ft from the roofline. I grabbed the edge of the building and pulled with all my might. Damn right, I got up. I laid on the top of the building with a clear view of the apartment, I was about 500ft away and I knew they wouldn’t think I’d scaled a building at 15 years old.

I stayed there for what seemed like forever, but ended up being about 30 minutes. The cops parked in my driveway, walked up to the apartment, shined their flashlights in the window and were puzzled when it was empty. They’re not stupid, they knew we ran. They just weren’t expecting a bunch of kids to evacuate like green berets. They also didn’t know the weight we were pushing, and how close they were to busting open one of the biggest drug cases in Edina MN.

We continued this for several more months until my apartment got too hot from police activity. A few more events happened which put further strain on the relationship between my mom and I. During the end of the party madness I had drank way too much and passed out on the couch blackout drunk.

“What the hell is this Steven?!”

she bellowed at me while holding the container. She had come home and the house was a mess, beer bottles everywhere, and on the kitchen table a large container with over a pound of weed in it. I jumped up and grabbed it out of her hands and started to panic. She was reaching for her phone saying she was calling the police, I cleaned up as much as I could, threw on an outfit, and ran out the door with my backpack.

After that day I felt it was too hot to have people at night.

My mom had never called the cops like that before, and I wasn’t going to risk our growing enterprise being shut down. Shortly after that, we were given the eviction notice and asked to leave. I didn’t really care, I was happy to be leaving that place since it was so hot. I preferred to move somewhere else where law enforcement didn't know me. It barely affected me at the time, I was so addicted to the rat race of dope dealing, partying, and running plays that nothing else mattered.

Getting fucked up was my identity now. Every waking minute was consumed by it.