Chris Squire with the Tori Cobras at the Casbah
(photo by Eric Rife)
He Should Have Known Better
Page 3
On the Road Again
Now without a job, Squire moved on. Of all places, he packed up
for New Hampshire, where writer Lisa Carver lived. While in
Phoenix, Squire had corresponded with her, which led to the
two becoming an item.
Long before blogs and online diaries, Carver had built a following
writing about the intimate details of her life, first in her fanzine
Rollerderby and later in books and magazine columns. Part of her
public life included her relationship with Boyd Rice, a former San
Diegan noise music pioneer who performs under the moniker NON.
Despite being 3000 miles away, Squire knew his problems in San
Diego would catch up. Toward the end of 2005, he got a phone call.
"I'm in New Hampshire, and my mom called me up and said,
'These warrants showed up in the mail for you.' Fuck it, I'm not
going back to California."
Carver was involved in a custody battle, and Squire moved out,
finding a room on craigslist that was across the state line in Maine.
He moved in with a couple in a rockabilly band. The woman, he
later discovered, was porn star Isabella Soprano.
He considered his time in Maine temporary while he tried to decide
his next move. His way out was another band calling for a fill-in musician.
This time it was electrosynth punk band Digital Leather from Phoenix,
who needed a drummer.
In May 2006, Digital Leather flew Squire to Arizona, and they hit the
road. Squire said part of the deal was a guarantee that the tour would
be profitable. He should have known better. Even midlevel bands
with a nightly guarantee are lucky to break even.
"This was all on the promise that they were going to make some
money on tour and buy me a plane ticket to New Hampshire when
the tour was over," Squire said. "What happened was they didn't
make money. They ended up borrowing money from me and burning
through all of that." The tour's last show was in San Diego at
Scolari's Office on May 27.
"I had the choice of going with them back to Phoenix or staying in
San Diego. Either way, it was going to be with no money and no
plane ticket home. I didn't want to end up back in Phoenix, so I ended
up staying in San Diego, which everyone had been warning me not to
do. My friends were telling me, 'Don't go back to San Diego. You're
gonna get arrested.' "
You Have the Right to Remain Silent...
Despite his network of friends in San Diego, Squire quickly fell on
hard times.
"I was basically homeless, with no job and no money, so I had to
hustle. I did what I knew how to do and started selling drugs. I
got thrown into the mix real quick."
Squire had gone from selling weed to his friends to selling crystal
meth to an assortment of shady characters. He was using regularly.
By selling, he could both keep himself supplied and make money.
By now, he looked and acted like a tweaker, riding his bike around
Imperial Beach and San Diego -- Loma Portal, Clairemont Mesa,
Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, and downtown -- making deliveries
at all hours of the night.
Most of Monday, August 14, 2006, was spent dropping off dope at
prearranged spots.
"I remember I spent most of the night just waiting around to pick
up drugs," he said. "I was just floating around. Sometimes I had
money, sometimes I had drugs, sometimes I had both. But I was
just rolling around San Diego waiting to turn drugs and money into
more money. It was a really long night. I spent a lot of time on the
trolley or running around throwing my bike into people's cars,
getting rides to places, and then getting back on the trolley. All the
way, I was just counting down to the time where I was either going
to make a lot of money or I was going to go to jail.
"Then I got the phone call. Someone wanted some drugs. I was
sitting on a big bag of dope that someone had already paid for, but
I figured I'd sell it."
His plan was to sell a marked-up ounce to the new buyer, use the
money to buy a replacement ounce, and deliver that to the original
buyer. He figured he'd pocket several hundred on the deal.
Squire showed up at the prearranged meeting spot, the Mobil gas
station at the bottom of Washington Street, across from Gelato Vero.
"I went to where I was supposed to meet them and they weren't
there," he said. "I was riding my bike across a crosswalk to go across
the street, lock it up, and get a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden
these plainclothes cops roll up on me from every direction.
"They had this crazy story about how they were doing a stakeout on
the gas station because it had been getting robbed, and they said they
thought I was robbing the gas station at three o'clock in the afternoon
on a bicycle. It didn't make any sense and just tied in with my whole
suspicion that I had been set up."
Squire was caught with 31.5 grams of meth -- slightly more than an
ounce -- a scale, and bags.
"I had been so depressed being separated from Lisa and being aware
of what I was doing to myself and with my life. I wasn't making any
progress, and I had totally taken two steps back after a year."
As he headed toward downtown for booking, he settled into the seat
and cracked a smile.
"Finally, it's over," he thought to himself.