AD: How did you wind up meeting this girl in Tijuana?
JS: Ahh, you hadda ask that, hein? Yeh, well that’s some more of that crazy synchronicity shit I was just talking about, all these mystical events, seemingly unrelated coincidences that eventually weave together into some kinda higher destiny.
So how did I wind up meeting the original Narcisa in Tijuana? At the time I met her I’d been staying up in L.A. writing this screenplay for Johnny Depp, which never got off the ground. That’s another story. One that may never get told, but anyway, Johnny was off living in Europe or somewhere far away, making movies and being a big shot movie star and I was holed up all alone at his big empty Hollywood mansion, a really spooky place, totally haunted and creepy, and there I was staying there all alone and going totally stir-crazy writing this really depressing screenplay and slowly going insane, like blow-your-brains-out-in-Hollywood-crazy, ya know…
So one night I just couldn’t fucking take it there anymore and I just got on my motorcycle and hauled ass the fuck outa there as fast as I could like the devil was chasing me, and a few hours later I was there in Mexico, back on familiar turf, walking around the dirty old red-light slums of Tijuana and feeling alot more at home, I must say… And that’s where I ran into this little lost junkie surfer girl. She was out there turning tricks, and she just stood out like a beautiful white fairy or something standing out there in the middle of all these short, stubby little Mexican street whores, ya know? Well we went off and had a short-time shag in some roach motel there and we kinda hit it off and became fast friends so I just kinda hung out there in TJ with her and, you know, just kinda got lost in her world. I was a coupla years sober at the time.
She was about the most tore-up dope fiend I’d ever met. This chick had like tracks on her tracks, real Frankenstein scars all running up her neck and down to her feet and she was staying in some dump with all these strung out fucked up killers and ex-cons and dope fiends and it was just this really surreal, nasty scene there. But she was really smart and sweet and charismatic and I just kinda saw something in her that was so…. alive. Like somebody who just really needed to be saved from herself…
I started telling her about my recovery from heroin addiction and she really related to me and I guess she saw me as some sort of a friend and I guess my own victory over addiction gave her some sort of hope to cling to…. and after a few weeks hanging out together, one night I cracked out a book about recovery and started reading it to her and she just broke down and started crying and asked me to help her get clean. Long story short, I threw her on the back of my bike and rode across the border with her and locked her up in a room and fed her methadone I got from a guy I knew who had all that kinda stuff and as soon as she was well enough to stand up, I started taking her to meetings and just threw her into the mix and she ended up getting clean and staying clean and she’s still clean today. One of my fondest accomplishments. She still sends me emails from time to time. She’s married and working in a career and living a kick ass life as far as I can tell. She’s still kinda freaked out about the name of the book, but she’ll get over it.(Laughs)... Anyway, that’s one part of where the name Narcisa comes from, aside from it just being such a perfect name to personify the overall character of a drug addict…
That’s an incredibly Awesome, Beautiful, and Inspiring story…
Thanks, man.