Part 2: Samara

0:11JACK: [Music] Death is inescapable. Our lives are constantly ticking to their end, and in my opinion this must be the most solemn news one can hear. Like, that should be traumatizing when you first hear that someday you're gonna die, yet strangely I can't recall the moment that I first learned I would die. I must have learned it when I was a child, but maybe I didn't understand that I was even alive yet. Like, whatever this is, consciousness, living, it feels permanent when you're young.

0:48Like, you can't fathom that you turn off at some point and cease to exist. Gosh, even now as an adult it’s hard to understand what my death will be like. You feel like the center of the universe as a kid. The world without you is inconceivable. No way all this ends. Really? But maybe what happened is instead of letting fear paralyze us and traumatize us, maybe this revelation becomes the spark that ignites our lust for life, our appreciation for every breath, and the more it sinks in that I’m gonna someday die, the more my senses sharpen, my drive grows stronger, and the things that truly matter about life come into focus.

1:39To have a happy life — I mean, look at children. They live with effortless joy, untouched by the weight of the end or the gloom of existence. They embrace fun in a way that we forget how to do as adults, and there’s a profound beauty in that kind of wild spirit. Life is such a gift. But do kids really appreciate that gift? Are they grateful to be alive? Do they even understand what being alive is? I mean, it reminds me of this parable that David Foster Wallace once said.

2:11Here, I’ll play it for you. DAVID: There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, morning, boys. How’s the water? The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, what the hell is water? JACK: Kids don't know what life even is, do they? They take it for granted and live worry-free in it. It’s blissful, yes, but as much as I wish to have a blissful life, I’d rather live a life where I’m aware of what’s at stake, which is everything.

3:01[To Zachariah] So, we left off with you running away, like literally. Tell me about that run. ZACHARIAH: That was the strangest run of my life. [Music] When I think about it, I can't believe what happened. I saw so many things. A homeless guy tried to stop me and ask me for money. I jumped over a drunk guy who was passed out on the street. I saw a car accident happen right in front of me. I saw some guy beat up three guys. I saw some kids pick-pocketing someone and then running away, and for a moment I was running along with them.

3:32They turned off. I couldn't believe how many weird things I ran past. JACK: What made you stop running? ZACHARIAH: What made me stop? I don't remember. Oh yes; I saw a family, a mother and a father both holding the hands of their four-year-old child, asking him how he liked the food. I was caught off guard by the way they were looking at their child. I could see just how much love they had between them all, and in the cold, cruel world, seeing something like this was worth stopping to watch.

4:03It’s important to remember that there’s this love in the world, especially when all is dark around you. [Music] It’s like a candle in the dark that just makes the darkness scatter. Then I looked around and I thought, where the fuck am I? I walked around trying to recognize anything, but I had no clue where I was. It’s not like I chose to run here. I just ran randomly. Then I saw a building that I did recognize, and the only thing I knew about this area was that there was a kid that I know that lives around here.

4:36So, I tried to find him. It took me a while, but I found him and I told him that I ran away, and asked him what I should do. He said he knows a guy that might be able to help. So, he walked with me to this apartment building that we were trying to go to, but I realized we were gonna go past my grandpa’s apartment. I told my friend I wanted to stop there for a minute. I told him to wait outside and get ready to move as soon as I come back out. I went in to see my grandpa, and he let me in and asked if I wanted some tea.

5:08I said yes. As soon as he started making it, I grabbed his wallet and I took all the money from it, and I left. Then the two of us ran away. JACK: Do you remember — did you ever count up how much money you had that day, like all total? ZACHARIAH: That was the most amount of money I’ve ever seen. I felt so rich. I remember thinking, fuck, I should get a mansion. But no, I don't remember exactly how much. I think it was — I think — I remember if I added it up, I could probably buy a shitty car.

5:38JACK: So what’s that, a few hundred dollars? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, maybe that much. I don't know. Like over a hundred dollars. JACK: Okay. So, where was your friend taking you? ZACHARIAH: He took me to this old man’s apartment in a dirty part of town. This old, fat guy opened the door, and my friend told him I need a place to stay. But my friend gave him the wrong name. He mispronounced my name. So, he basically gave the old man a fake name. This guy nodded at me and said my fake name, and then he said he has to go somewhere, and then he just opened the door up and just let us in.

6:19He didn't say much at all, but it seemed like he was welcoming us to stay, so we stayed. JACK: Wait, you were the only person in the house? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. It was really fucking weird. My friend left, too, and it was just me in there. So, the apartment had two bedrooms. One looked like his bedroom with clothes and shit in it, and the other bedroom just had two mattresses on the floor and nothing else. So, I thought I should take that room. I laid down on one of the mattresses to rest.

6:47Since I almost got raped by a pedo that day, I kept my pocketknife open and fell asleep with it in my hand, and I laid on top of it. JACK: So, who was this guy who let you stay there? ZACHARIAH: I don't know much about him. He had tattoos. He was ex-military. I lived there for over a year, but the whole time he rarely spoke. Often I forgot he even could speak. But if you ask him something, he’ll just grunt or point at something and just not say anything.

7:14He just would sit and read when he was there, books or magazines. He would read about military crusades. JACK: Did you eventually tell him your actual name? ZACHARIAH: No, I never did. He only knew me by my fake name, and that name stuck with me. So, everyone was calling me by a fake name. I just figured if people want to call me that, then I’ll just let them. So, I just went with it. JACK: And he didn't mind that you were just gonna live there? ZACHARIAH: I guess not.

7:41It was fucking weird, I know. But it seemed okay, so I was like, I guess I live here now. It’s not like I had a fucking choice to go somewhere else. There were some teenagers that knew that this guy was a cool dude, and he’d let anyone come in his place if they wanted. So, teenagers would come over all the time and smoke pot in there. One time they brought over a gravity bucket and said, do you want to try it? I was like, why not? I had nothing else to do, so, fuck it, why not?

8:09That was the first time I smoked pot. JACK: What did you think of it? ZACHARIAH: I loved it. I smoked so much pot in that house, it was crazy. I gained weight from it. JACK: Were you fed there, too? ZACHARIAH: Well, it wasn't like the old guy had a fridge full of food, but the stuff he did bring home, you didn't care if you ate it. I remember I’d find old pickled cucumbers in a jar or a old can of beans, and I’d eat it right out of the can. If I was lucky he’d leave a sausage for me.

8:37I didn't have a choice of what I could eat, you know? So, I just ate anything that was given to me. JACK: Did you make any friends while you were living there? ZACHARIAH: Well, it’s not like I was going to school or to the park to meet other kids my age. The teenagers that would come over and smoke pot is who I saw the most. So, I became friends with them. I’d walk around the streets with them and stuff. They would do things like wait outside bars for drunk people to come out and then rob them.

9:02I didn't like robbing people, so I wouldn't do that. But they'd get in trouble a lot, and they'd get caught robbing someone, and suddenly there’d be a fight, or some drunk guy is grabbing one of my friends. It’s not like I’m gonna let my friend get grabbed by some old dude, so I’d help them fight back. Like, one time one of my friends got grabbed, and I kicked the back of this old guy’s knees, which made his legs give out and he fell over. It was actually pretty funny.

9:27Hm, once I hit some guy over the head with a stick because he had one of my friends, and once I did that, he grabbed me and put me in a headlock. Then I bit him, which then he let go of me, and I ran away. It wasn't like I was looking for trouble. It somehow found me, you know? But I did get an adrenaline rush from it. JACK: I’m curious; how do you rate that part of your life? Like, was your life shit then? ZACHARIAH: No, it was great. I had a warm place to sleep, food, free pot.

9:59I loved it. JACK: So, what changed all that? ZACHARIAH: [Music] Hm, it all started to change when those teenagers started bringing over heavier drugs. That’s when the line between surviving and dying got really thin. I couldn't tell which side I was on anymore. It felt like I was living on the razor’s edge. JACK: Do you ever feel the void? That quiet, gnawing sense that something essential is missing from your life? It’s not loud or obvious. It’s subtle, like a shadow at the edge of your vision, and when you try to look directly at it, it’s gone.

10:46It’s like a whisper you can never quite clearly hear, but it’s always there, isn't it? A kind of emptiness, a quiet ache that says this can't be all there is. Life is more than this. But what am I missing? Maybe we feel it because we dream of being more than we are. We sense the potential within us, the greatness that we could reach. The world only sees who we are now, small, stuck, incapable. That dissonance, it eats at us. It tells us something’s wrong, but what?

11:28We search for answers, desperate to fill the void with anything that feels meaningful. We chase mysteries, distractions, relationships, experiences, anything to escape the weight of that subtle emptiness that we keep feeling. But the truth is, the void isn't out there. It’s inside us. Maybe that’s the cruel beauty of it, that the void isn't a problem to solve or a hole to fill. It’s a reminder, a reminder that we're unfinished, that life itself is unfinished.

12:06We aren't meant to be complete. We're meant to seek, to question, to move forward even when there aren't answers. The void is what drives us. It’s the space between who we are and who we could be, and maybe we’ll never reach it. But in the trying, in the searching, that’s where life happens. This is Low, Part 2, Samara. ZACHARIAH: The first drug besides pot that I saw them bring over were these little pieces of colorful paper. The paper was so small.

12:55It was like the size of a little button. They were cutting it so carefully with gloves and scissors. I couldn't believe that such a tiny piece of paper was a drug, but it was. It was acid, LSD, and they gave me a tiny piece and told me to eat it. JACK: What did it taste like? ZACHARIAH: No, it doesn't taste like anything. It’s such a small piece of paper. There’s just no flavor. You just wait for thirty minutes, then it starts to kick in. It was amazing.

13:31It felt way different than pot. Everything was funny looking. Reality was distorted and twisted. It’s like I could see into a different dimension, and I noticed all this stuff that I never noticed before, like the way my hand moved or the way people’s jaws moved when they talk. This kind of stuff was so fascinating, as if I’ve never seen my hand before, and it lasted for days. JACK: Where were these kids getting this stuff? ZACHARIAH: Oh, one of them worked for a drug dealer as a delivery boy.

14:03The drug dealer would give this boy drugs, and he was supposed to take it to the buyer and collect the money and give him the drugs and then bring the money back to the drug dealer. The drug dealer would give them some money or drugs for doing the work. JACK: Okay. So, you said this part of your life was great. How does it all start going bad? ZACHARIAH: It was the meth that fucked everything up. These boys started getting meth and taking that. When someone becomes a junkie on meth, it’s all they think about.

14:32They’ll do anything for one more hit. JACK: Did you try meth? ZACHARIAH: Not on purpose. I didn't want to. I was happy smoking pot, but then someone told me they put meth in the pot I smoked. That was the first time I had it. I didn't have a choice. It was too late after smoking the pot laced with it. JACK: Shit, that’s fucked up. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. For the next twelve hours it felt fucking great. I had so much energy. I was full of ideas and ambition.

15:06My body felt great. That’s the strange thing about meth; it’s like it rewires your brain. It tells you that your body needs it and you can't live without it. You crave it fiercely. After that, the urge was just uncontrollable. I had to have it again, or it felt like I was going to be sick. So, this time I smoked it from a tinfoil pipe, which I tell you is the worst fucking way to smoke it, because as you smoke it, you feel great, and so, you want to keep smoking it.

15:32But by the end, all the meth is gone and you're just smoking the tinfoil itself, and that shit is so toxic and gross and hurts to inhale, but you do it anyway because your body wants every last bit of meth. You're desperate, but the high is crazy addicting. You feel so turned on and ready for anything. You might not sleep for days because everything was wonderful. When it wears off, it’s an awful low. Your brain is desperate to get back to that state, and you'll do anything for another hit.

16:02Fuck, just thinking about this again makes me crave it. My hand is trembling right now. JACK: Really. ZACHARIAH: Fuck, the other boys were doing this shit all the time, though. I would watch them and see their lives get ruined right in front of me. Some kids left perfectly good homes and ran away just to smoke meth all the time. They'd run out of money and sell anything they could to get another hit. When they'd run out of stuff, they'd start robbing and stealing.

16:29They became fucking zombies and completely lost control of themselves. They'd tell me about these lives that they ran away from, with two loving parents, a nice apartment, a summer cabin somewhere, and I couldn't believe they would leave all that behind and just go ruin their life with meth. I had to be real careful with my shit since people would steal anything, you know? But I would hide my stuff, but it would still get stolen. When I went to sleep I would take my watch off and put it down my underwear so nobody would grab it during the night.

17:00I saw one guy so desperate for money to buy meth, he was on the street one day, and he stabbed someone to steal their shoes so that he could sell that for drugs. It was fucking awful. But then someone told me one of the guys I knew overdosed on meth and died, and that’s when I decided never to do meth again. It wasn't worth it. But it was too late. The addiction had its grip on me. All I could think about was how bad I wanted it. It controlled me.

17:29I couldn't fight it. All I wanted was more meth. I craved it. It’s like I was sick, and the cure was meth. That’s how it felt, and you've probably been sick before, and you know how desperate you can get when you just really want to feel better. You start getting sick of being sick, and you know what will make you feel better, and it’s meth. So, you start trying to do anything to get it. I somehow was smart enough to beg my friend to help me get off it, and for some reason these friends of mine knew a lot about medical stuff.

18:01They knew what drugs not to mix and how to counteract illness. So, one of my friends took me seriously and kept people out of the apartment for a while and watched after me. I started going through some serious withdrawals, though. I was begging him to let me out so I could get another hit. But he knew not to let me go, and strapped me down on the fucking bed to keep me there. It was fucking awful. I was screaming so loud to let me out. I heard pounding on the walls.

18:28I thought someone was gonna break down my fucking door. I learned it was my neighbors, and they heard the screams, and they were asking if everything was okay. I don't know how he convinced them it’s fine, but he kept them out. God, the agony of going through withdrawals is torture. The body aches, depression, sweating, chills, paranoia. You can't think straight. I’d rather be stabbed every day than go through that again. But I made it through. It really does rewire your brain to make you think you’re gonna die if you don't get it.

18:59Every part of you is screaming inside to get it like it’s oxygen. You have no control of yourself. It’s just awful. I managed to make it through, though, with the help of my friends, and I never did meth again. JACK: Jesus, dude. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I was really lucky to get through it, but that shit gave me a new look at life, you know? [Music] Fucking — when you get to the bottom like that and you come back, shit’s not the same anymore. It hardens you up in some way.

19:33To see people I know losing their mind dying over this shit, you take life more seriously. Yeah, it’s like this shit could have killed me, but it didn't. Now every second that I’m alive, it feels like borrowed time, you know? I’m not saying it gave my life meaning or some clear understanding, but it certainly made me wake up to how fragile life is. I don't know, it gave me vitality. JACK: Explain. ZACHARIAH: Like, getting in fights like I was saying, right?

20:03It was funner now because I didn't give a shit. The other person cherishes their health or happiness or whatever, and we get upset if their life got fucked up. But I didn't care about that. My life was already fucked up. It couldn't get any worse. The pain of getting punched was a reminder that I’m on borrowed time. Yeah, I’m still alive. It just gave me some weird high. Keep in mind, I was just a scrawny twelve-year-old at that time, but if you punched me then, I’d just cackle back at you, which pissed people off even more, because it made me feel alive more than anything at the time.

20:39With life feeling so bleak most of the time, it actually felt good to feel alive. JACK: Did you ever think to yourself that maybe you can — maybe there’s a better life for you out there somewhere? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, sometimes when I’d lay down and go to sleep, I’d sometimes say, fuck, what even is this life, you know? I’d start thinking of a better life. I remember once I was trying to sleep, but I sat up in bed, and I actually did want a better life.

21:13I started to think, okay, what are all the things I’m good at? I was trying to think of all the stuff I can do. So, I thought, okay, I’m good at fighting and I’m good at drugs, and I couldn't think what else. So, I couldn't figure out how to put this to use, you know? I actually felt like I was right where I should be, since that’s what I was good at and I was doing it already. JACK: What kind of shit were you seeing the people around you doing at the time?

21:45You said people were doing drugs, but did you see violence or other crime? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, there was always violence. Every week someone would get shot or stabbed in this neighborhood, and you'd hear shit like, oh, remember that guy who sold us drugs last week? Yeah, he died yesterday. JACK: Dude, this is the worst scenario for a kid to grow up in. You know that, right? ZACHARIAH: Like, I didn't really understand it was that bad because I didn't really know better.

22:11I didn't know there was another life, and it’s not like I had a choice, either. Seriously, I thought everyone just had a lot of struggles and pain, because that’s all I ever saw around me. So, I didn't even know I had a choice. I just thought that’s what life is like. Just deal with it. I didn't ever think about changing because this is how life is. JACK: [Music] I’ve been in situations myself where I felt like I had no choice, too. But I’ve learned that’s a really bad spot to be in, because when I look back at that time, that’s the time where I feel like I squandered my life the most.

22:51When I was in my twenties I moved to a new city. I needed a job. No problem, I thought. I have a degree in computer engineering. This can't be too hard. But it was hard. I applied at dozens of places a day, and I got no call backs. I got a recruiter to help me. They couldn't find me a job, either. I decided to apply for things that I didn't really want to do, but I was desperate. I really needed to make some money. Eventually a pharmacy offered me a job as a pharmacy technician.

23:21I didn't know the first thing about doing that, but they told me my typing skills would come in handy. I said to myself, well, it’s not like I have any other choice here. No one else is hiring me, and I’m desperate. So, I took the job. After a few weeks of getting familiar with things, I was starting to feel pretty good at my job. At some point I decided I wanted to be the best pharmacy technician that that company has ever seen. I wanted to do the work of three people.

23:53I wanted to outperform the top performers. I was the only would who would study and practice at home to be better at doing my work. Most people just clock out at the end of the day and not think about work until they clock back in the next day. But guess what? After a ton of practice and dedication, I became the best. I did everything that everyone was doing, but way more. I was so damn good at being a pharmacy technician that my boss thought I was cheating just to make my output look better than what I was actually doing.

24:24I was getting raises and my team loved me. I was crushing it. But here’s the thing; when I look back at that time in my life, I wasn't crushing it. It was crushing me. I don't love pharmacies. I never cared for them. I love technology and computers and programming and hacking and creating and building and electronics, not medicine. I never, ever dreamed about being great at medicine. But because I felt like I had no other choice, it made me think that maybe I should be great at medicine and become a great pharmacy technician, when in reality that’s really the last thing I should have been spending my life doing.

25:11I put so much extra effort into being great at it, but I wish I would have spent that time and effort doing something I loved, getting better at something I want to get great at, and making my life more meaningful. Jean-Paul Sartre talked about this, and he called this bad faith, that feeling that you have no choice and you're not out there trying to go after what you want in life; instead you're acting more like a person who’s accepting or not accepting what life is throwing at them.

25:42Even though you have freedom, you lie to yourself to escape that burden. You deceive yourself to relieve yourself of the anxiety of choice. So, every time I hear Zachariah say he had no choice, I just feel like he hasn't yet found what he really wants to do in life and keeps getting trapped in his own mind. ZACHARIAH: The thing that freaked me out the most was I was standing around with my friends in some plaza, and a guy got jumped and stabbed and robbed, and he fell to the ground and the person ran away.

26:21Now, I’ve seen people get stabbed before, but what shocked me was just how everyone around him just ignored him. They were stepping over him and walking around him as if he wasn't even there. This guy was on the ground screaming in pain, and everyone’s acting like he doesn't exist. The way we treat other people’s lives is so heartbreaking. Like, people just don't value life at all. They're too busy trying to get somewhere or too focused on other stuff to even notice someone dying right in front of them.

26:57JACK: My god, seeing that as a twelve-year-old must have messed you up. It’s like you're living in a war zone and you can get PTSD from all this. ZACHARIAH: People would do anything for money. I had another friend who was twelve, and he showed me where you can go, and for fifteen dollars you could get a hooker. It was crazy. But crime didn't seem like crime to me back then. Crime was just what you did to live, because everyone was a criminal. I just saw it everywhere.

27:27It wasn't about being bad or good. It was about surviving. The world doesn't hand you much, so you gotta take what you can when you can. If you don't, someone else is gonna take that. That’s the thing nobody talks about; crime doesn't feel like crime when it’s the only way forward. When you're hungry or broke or stuck and your only opportunity is staring you in the face have sharp edges, you don't stop to think about what’s right or wrong. You just think about making it through another day.

27:55Everyone was cutting corners, bending rules, breaking something. If you didn't do it, you were a fool. You were the one who got left behind, stuck with nothing while everyone else carved out their little piece of the world. It wasn’t just us, too. [Music] I remember the chief of police got in trouble for raping some lady. Like, they can't even find a decent police officer, you know? I don't think the rules are written for people like me, anyway. JACK: Your life is crazy, so crazy that I even hate to ask what happens next.

28:43Like, you've already killed someone, you became a street kid, you got into a lot of fights and did a lot of drugs. Is this…? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what I did next. Drugs became a bigger part of my life. That teenager who was a runner for that drug dealer asked me to come along to deliver some drugs, and I had nothing else to do, so I was like, alright, I’ll go along. [Music] He taught me the terminology and what the different drugs looked like and how to weigh them, and different routes through neighborhoods.

29:11I was already smart about drugs, but he was helping me get way smarter. He taught me a lot, and this also meant I would see that drug dealer that he was working with sometimes. So, after going over there enough times, the drug dealer asked me to take some packages somewhere, so I did, and I started earning money this way. But I also knew the drug scene pretty well and would try to impress the drug dealer with what I knew, and he gave me some pot to take to someone, and I’d collect the money and bring it back to him.

29:37I felt lucky to have this opportunity and really wanted to be good at this. So, I would try to do everything right around him, making sure to be on time and helpful. Both him and his customers liked me, you know, and I liked that, so I got more jobs running drugs around town. It felt great. He started testing me with bigger deals and stuff. But I started to think, if I want to be a great drug dealer, I should probably find ways to rip people off.

30:01JACK: What do you mean? ZACHARIAH: Like, the drug dealers I knew were always up to something, sometimes selling short or giving you fake drugs. One time I bought LSD and it was just blank, you know? It didn't make me high at all. I just bought paper. So, everyone is trying to rip everyone else off. It’s just what I thought drug dealers did, you know? Fuck, there are rap songs about ripping people off, you know? It seemed like this was what you should be focusing on.

30:24Fuck, I didn't mind getting in fights. Like, I had no fear. I was on borrowed time anyway. JACK: Jeez, man. Okay, so, tell me the time when you first ripped someone off doing a drug deal. ZACHARIAH: My drug dealer gave me cocaine to deliver. I had never seen cocaine before, but they gave me three grams and told me to deliver it to these guys from Uzbekistan. Well, I took one gram for myself, and I brought the guy two grams and I tried to sell it to him as if it was three grams.

30:53He held it and looked and me and said, this is not three grams. I said, I don't give a fuck. Give me the money. Trying to act hard, you know? He had me come into his hotel room. There were hookers in there, and a scale and a mirror on the table. He put it on the scale and said, look, it’s only two grams. I said, I don't give a fuck. Pay me. He said, oh yeah? He kept saying ‘oh yeah?’ over and over and over. He came at me and he pushed me against the wall, and I pulled out my taser and I jammed it into his side.

31:18He yelled, fuck you, and picked me up and threw me out the door. I tumbled down the stairs. I remember walking back all bruised up from falling down those stairs when he pushed me. JACK: Wait, so, he kept the cocaine and didn't pay you at all? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. JACK: [Music] So, what did you tell your boss? ZACHARIAH: I just paid for the three grams with my own money. I didn't want him to know I was ripping people off. But I felt like a real gangster, you know?

31:42This is what it’s like to be a drug dealer. You try making a deal and it goes bad, and you get thrown down stairs. It was all fun to me. JACK: Did it ever work? Like, were you — did you — were you able to rip off anyone? ZACHARIAH: Oh yeah, yeah. There were so many junkies I was selling to, and they didn't care what they were buying or how much. If they had any money and got any drugs from me, they were happy, and I learned how to read them. Sometimes I even hung around to watch them get high.

32:19One guy passed out, and I ended up eating some food out of his refrigerator and just watched him trip out for a while. I remember watching another guy put his hands on the wall, and he was just looking and listening to the wall as if it was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. It was weird as shit. I was sitting there in total silence watching some guy with his ears on the wall and sometimes just staring at it. I don't think he knew I was even there.

32:42But I was just sitting there watching him trip out. JACK: Do you ever steal things from people after they got high like that? ZACHARIAH: No, I really don't like stealing from people like that. Once I borrowed a guy’s bicycle. It was a junkie, and I brought it back before he even knew it was gone. Like I said, I would eat some people’s food when they weren't looking, but I don't think it’s right to get your shit stolen. JACK: Yeah, but you're ripping them off.

33:06That’s stealing, right? ZACHARIAH: Well, to me those are just business deals. They could check the weight or whatever, and they didn't. They could tell me to fuck off or punch me in the face, and they didn't. That’s their poor business decisions, and it’s not the same as me stealing. JACK: Zachariah once told me about a man he found passed out on the street. The man had drank too much or did too many drugs, but he was gone. He was just sprawled out on the pavement.

33:37His body was limp and lifeless, like someone had discarded a bag of trash on the street. ZACHARIAH: I thought he was dead at first, but then I saw him breathing just fine. JACK: Zachariah took a morbid curiosity to him. He stood over him for a while, silent, just watching the man breathe shallow, uneven breaths that barely seemed to tether him to life. The man didn't stir. He was completely oblivious to Zachariah or the cold bite of the concrete beneath him or the chaos of the world spinning around him.

34:13Cars rushed by, people stepped around him, and the man, this fragment of a human life, lay there utterly still as though none of it mattered. Zachariah couldn't stop watching him. The man looked peaceful. Not happy exactly, but unburdened, free, even, free from the endless responsibilities of life. The man had let go. He was gone. ZACHARIAH: He looked like someone who had just given up on everything. JACK: Zachariah crept closer, studying the man’s face.

34:53What did it feel like, he wondered, to let go so completely, to hand over the reins of your life to the street like that, to be so vulnerable? Was it weakness or some strange kind of strength? To shed every attachment, every ambition, and just empty yourself of everything, it disgusted him. ZACHARIAH: He was a tragedy, you know? JACK: But a small part of him envied it; to be empty inside, to feel nothing, to have no responsibility, no cares, to be completely opened up to the world around him.

35:37It must be blissful. He placed his foot on the man’s face. ZACHARIAH: I didn't want to fucking hurt him. I just wanted to see what would happen if I put my foot on his face, gently. I don't fucking know why. It sounds crazy now. JACK: He just wanted to see what it would feel like to test that fragile boundary between the two. The man didn't flinch. Zachariah realized this guy’s fate belonged to the street, to the people stepping over him, or even on him.

36:16Fate is a strange thing, isn't it? There’s only so much you can do to tip the scales in your favor, and then the rest is up to fate. Will the wind blow your way today or not? But this makes me think how there’s sort of a dial that we have when it comes to fate. We can give fate more control or we can turn that knob in our favor and try to give fate a much smaller say in the situation. This guy who was just laying there had completely handed the reins of his life over to the world, turning the dial all the way in fate’s power.

36:56Zachariah tells me about this strange sensation he got from pressing his shoe into the man’s nose a little. While he was trying to describe it, strangely I feel like I might have felt that same feeling. When I was growing up, I looked at my parents as these all-knowing figures of my life. They were like superheroes to me. They knew everything. They could do anything. They were fun and perfect. But as I got into my teenage years, I started seeing through their costumes, and sometimes I would peek behind the curtain.

37:35I distinctly remember a time when my dad was helping me on my homework, and it was math homework. I told him, I don't know how to do this. He said, okay, give it here. I’ll show you how to do this math. But it was tricky algebra, and my dad’s not good at algebra. He thought it would be some basic math, but when he looked at it, he knew this was out of his league. So he said, no problem, and he picked up the phone and started calling his friends to see who could come over and help me with my homework.

38:03This was before the internet was a big deal, so it was hard finding someone. Call after call, either people weren't home or didn't know this math, either. His voice got more desperate with each call, too. This gave me a strange feeling. Here I needed help, and I could always rely on my dad in the past, but he was completely out of his depth and had no way to help me in this situation. For the first time I felt smarter than him. He didn't even try to read the lesson to learn how.

38:35I, at least, knew that much, that I should probably just reread this section and I’d get it. But even though I felt smarter than him, I also knew I wasn't smarter than him. It was different than that. I didn't think I’d ever reach his level of greatness, yet here I just did as a middle-schooler. It’s like I saw the bottom of his well of knowledge, and I was no longer impressed by it. I thought it was endless, but it wasn't. I guess I felt disappointed in a way, but that’s not exactly it.

39:08I think the word is disillusioned. A spell broke that day. I saw behind the curtain. Have you ever had that feeling, too? Do we all become disillusioned of our parents at some stage? Well, as Zachariah stood over this man in the street, he felt that. The man was shrinking under his foot. Zachariah was disillusioned. A twelve-year-old boy was so much better off than this guy who’s three times his age. The man should have been faster, stronger, happier, richer, but he wasn't.

39:46He was a crumpled-up piece of trash discarded on the street. He was a husk of a human. He just felt so much better than this guy. He can do anything to this man; steal his wallet, take his clothes, step on his face, and there was something disheartening about all that to Zachariah. Some part of humanity escaped him that day. A spell was broken. ZACHARIAH: That feeling would show up again other times, too. My friends would be walking around at night on the streets and we’d mess with drunks coming out of bars.

40:21Again, I’d get some weird sensation of power or something. We were fast and smart, and they were slow and dumb, but way older than us and way bigger than us. We got a strange thrill from it somehow. You could size someone up in the weirdest way in those situations. Like, it was so easy to steal stuff from these people, and them not even noticing, it was really strange. Once we took some guy’s wallet, not to steal it, but just to look through it, to go through his private documents.

40:55Like, we found his passport and discovered his name and started calling him by his name. Then we found a photo of some lady and asked, is this your wife? It was strange to go through someone’s wallet right in front of them like that. The guy was too far gone to understand anything. We just put it all back. I remember I also put a condom in his wallet, too, and then we just put it back in his pocket. JACK: Did you ever get injured at all during this time?

41:20Like, there’s all this violence around you. I’d figured you'd get hurt sometimes. ZACHARIAH: I got stabbed once with a pencil. JACK: What? Why? ZACHARIAH: I called some autistic guy a retard, and he took out a pencil and stabbed me in my shoulder. JACK: Okay, the reason why I ask if you're getting injured is because there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. If you get hurt and you have to go to the doctor or a hospital, aren't they gonna look up your name and then see that you're a runaway and take you home?

41:48ZACHARIAH: Well, when I got stabbed in the shoulder with the pencil, one of my friends took it out and put rubbing alcohol on it and then put a Band-Aid on it, and that was probably the most medical attention I received during that time. Another time I got tased, but I didn't go to the doctor for that, either. JACK: Wait, why did you get tased? ZACHARIAH: Me and my friends were fucking around, and one pulled out a taser and tased me in my arm. [Music] It left a giant bruise, but it healed up after a few days.

42:45JACK: Did the police ever come looking for you because of what you did to your mom’s boyfriend? ZACHARIAH: No, never. I’m pretty sure my mom covered for me, making it look like an accident or something. I don't think she wanted me to be arrested since I don't think she liked him very much anyway, and didn't want me to be punished over it. But I did go back to see her once, like about a year after I left home. One night I took a taxi over to her apartment.

43:11I really wanted to go in and see her, but I couldn't. I knew I could never go back there. So, I stood in the dark and looked through the window. I saw her there at the table. She looked so kind and peaceful. I smoked a cigarette and just watched her from the dark. She was writing something and eating. I hoped she was happy. I wanted to go up and see her so bad. I didn't. Instead I walked around the old neighborhood for a while and then went back home.

43:54JACK: Why couldn't you go up to see her? ZACHARIAH: That life was over. I knew if I saw her it would bring all kinds of trouble to her. All these drugs that I was involved with now and all the violence in my life, I didn't want to bring that into her life, and I couldn't quit my life. It’s all I had. I was only good at two things, fighting and drugs, and I was starting to make money from drugs, so I couldn't leave that. I figure if I just — if I went home I would just give her so many problems.

44:27JACK: So, you were selling pot, meth, cocaine. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, you name it. [Music] I was involved with every drug. I sold it, tried it. After a while my dealer started having me collect shipments for him. It was strange at first. He had me running all over town collecting little plastic-wrapped boxes. Often I’d have to go into a shop and give them a fake name, and they'd hand it to me. I couldn't mess with it or he’d know I opened it. They were sealed tight.

44:58I asked to see what was in it, and he’d open it and show me. They were bulk packages of drugs, and he’d divide it up to smaller amounts and sell that around town. I was asking him, how do you know where these packages are all over town? He told me because he’s ordering them; acid, cocaine, Adderall, meth, pot, big amounts of it, too. I asked him, how do you order drugs? He says, Silk Road. I didn't know what he meant by Silk Road. I didn't know what the dark web was at the time.

45:28Someone told me the dark web is a mysterious place on the internet full of crazy shit, and that’s it. I thought it was a myth, honestly, but I was asking him a million questions. I really wanted to be a better drug dealer and learn everything, so I asked him to show me how to use a Tor browser and access the dark web and how to use cryptocurrencies to buy drugs on Silk Road. Then he’d take these bulk packages and he’d sell them in smaller quantities to people around town.

45:53He was a fucking genius, no joke. I thought he was way smart, because he never did any of the deals himself. He always had runners do all the work, and to use the darknet to buy things with, and then get kids to sell it locally. He was making a ton of money. I really wanted to be as good as him. Since he was way smarter than me, I just kept asking him to show me more and more and more about how everything works. That’s when I started getting into cryptocurrency and computers.

46:19Like, I didn't use a computer much before that, and some of my first experiences on the internet are being on the dark web marketplaces. I even saved enough to buy a crappy computer. I think it was like, I don't know, a hundred-dollar computer or something. I would just go on Silk Road and read all the forum posts and listings. I could only read Russian, though, so I couldn't understand most of what was on there. I felt like this is what I was gonna do when I grow up, be the best drug dealer in town.

46:46So, I was super intrigued by all this and was saving up Bitcoin to buy my first order. JACK: How did you buy Bitcoin back then? ZACHARIAH: I just gave money to the dealer and asked him to give me Bitcoin, or sometimes he’d pay me in Bitcoin. JACK: Man, you were like a real early adopter of Bitcoin. It was, what, less than a hundred dollars back then, right? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, you're right, but one day I went home and one of the kids there told me the old man I was living with died.

47:13JACK: Wait, the guy you were living with died? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, and it was his apartment, so we knew we couldn't stay there anymore. JACK: How did he die? ZACHARIAH: We don't know. We just found him in his bed in his room. We think he must have died from a heart attack, because he never did drugs. What’s weird is by the looks of him, he must have died a few days ago, and we were living there with him, but we had no idea he was dead. JACK: Oh, man.

47:39What did you do? What did you even do when you saw that he was dead? ZACHARIAH: Well, we obviously took his wallet and rings and any valuable jewellery he had. JACK: Wait, see? This is the difference between you and me. I once had a dog that died, and I was gonna bury it in the backyard. I dug the hole, and when I came to move the dog to put it into the hole, I couldn't do it. I couldn't even take off its collar. When I touched my lifeless dog, just that lifeless limp body, it was just too awful to move, to carry, to do anything with.

48:14It sent chills through me. Like, I really tried, but then the head flopped about and the tongue was hanging out, and it just freaked me out moving a dead dog even just a little bit. It was like it was haunted or something. It was just — it freaked me out, and that’s how I deal with death, right? But here you go; the minute this guy dies, you start rifling through his pockets, taking stuff off his fingers. I just cannot relate to that. ZACHARIAH: Like you said, my life is a war zone.

48:47When you're in that situation, you don't have a choice. You don't have emotional reactions like what you're saying. You have this pressing urge to survive, and you pay attention to whatever opportunities come your way, because if you don't take advantage of this opportunity, someone else will. JACK: Okay, so you loot his body, then what? Did you call an ambulance or anything? ZACHARIAH: We submitted an anonymous tip about gunshots in the apartment.

49:16This way someone would come and check on him and find him. Yeah, we knew we could never come back here, and we had a lot of drugs that we hid in this place. So, we went through all our hiding spots and got everything, and then took off. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I got together with some friends who knew him, and we went on a rooftop and we had a little ceremony for the old man and got high. We made a memorial for him up there, too.

49:43I was homeless at that point. I didn't know what to do. So, I got my stuff and went to that drug dealer’s house. He gave one of the teenagers a package to deliver, and he told me to go along with him because he wanted two people to deliver it. [Music] So, we walked this package a few blocks away to this dirty apartment building. There’s needles on the stairs going up, and someone was passed out on the stairs. It was a nasty place. We had to get up to the second floor.

50:12We get up to the room and knock on it, and a guy opens the door and tells us to come inside. We go in and they start arguing about the deal. I think the teenager took some for himself, and it wasn't all there. So, the guy gets real pissed and he pulls out a gun and stars aiming it around at us. Everyone started yelling at each other at this point, and the guy runs up to me and knocks into me with his shoulder real hard. I was standing next to a window, and he hit me so hard that I went flying out the second-floor window and landed badly on my hand and arm.

50:46I couldn't breathe for a few minutes. I felt throbbing pain in my arm. When I looked down at it, I could tell it was bent the wrong way. I knew it was broken, and my hand was all fucked up, too, but I couldn't do anything but lay there and just hold onto my arm. I was gasping for breath. When I could finally breathe normal again, I tried to get up, but the pain in my arm was just too much to move. It was so sharp and stinging, and I couldn't put any weight on it.

51:23I didn't know where to go, either, so I just stayed down, holding my arm and trying to calm down, just rocking back and forth. It hurt so fucking bad. I had no idea what happened to that teenager I was with. For all I know, he could have fucking got shot and killed. But he managed to get away and told some people that I’m still there or something. So, some other people came looking for me, and they found me in the bushes, and they got me up and they took me to a place that they knew I could get help at.

51:52It was like a doctor’s side job or something, like no questions asked, just paid in cash kinda thing. They straightened my arm and wrapped it in bandages to keep it from moving. I didn't have a place to go. I was basically homeless. I just slept in a stairwell in some shitty apartment building. The only stuff I had with me were a few clothes, a little bit of food, some drugs, my laptop, my pocket knife, wristwatch, and some money. My friends gave me some painkillers to get me through it.

52:32And as I was just sitting there waiting for my arm to heal. It made me realize I don't want to do this anymore. I’m lucky to have just a broken arm. That guy could have fucking shot me or something. Like I was saying, it felt like every week someone would be dying in this neighborhood from drugs or selling drugs or being killed by a druggie. I didn't want to fucking die. So, after that I stopped selling drugs and doing deals. I still liked drugs.

53:01I liked smoking pot and taking Adderall. God, fucking Adderall made me feel so smart. I loved pot, but I stopped taking all the other stuff. So, when I realized that this town is gonna fucking kill me, I knew I had to leave Samara altogether and start over somewhere else. Samara is a fucking hell hole. I don't belong here anymore, and I need to get as far away from this place as possible. So, I was walking down the street one day and I saw a bicycle leaned up against a building.

53:37[Music] I stood there looking at it, wondering if this is my way out. I had my bag with me and I zipped it up, and jumped on the bike. I just started riding it. I knew fate had a plan for me, and I can't escape fate. But I was gonna make it work to catch up to me. I know I can't outrun my past, but maybe I can outgrow it. I was literally watching my past shrink behind me. Every push of the pedal felt like I was giving a middle finger to that place and this life that I hated.

54:14I rode off not having a fucking clue where I was going. I just knew I needed to get out of there.