Observations placeholder

Cash – The autobiography of Johnny Cash

Luther was a very tolerant man in the usual course of things. I have a clear memory of him during the time when my amphetamine insanity was expressing itself in destructive acts. As I chopped a new doorway through the wall between my motel room and Marshall Grant's with a fire ax, he just sat and watched, grinning and saying, in a tone of genuine wonderment, 'Well, I'll be damned. I'll just be damned.'..........

It wasn't long until the crashes got really bad. As soon as I woke up, I started feeling little things in my skin, briars or wood splinters, itching so badly that I had to keep trying to pluck them out; I'd turn on the light to see them better, and they weren’t there.

That kept happening and got worse - they started to be alive, actually twitching and squirming in my flesh - and that was unbearable.

Then I had to take more pills.

I talked about it to other people who used amphetamines, but nobody else had the problem for the simple reason that nobody else was taking as many pills as I was.

I tried cutting back a little, and it quit happening. So I thought, Okay, I'll push my doses right up to the line, but no further.

Sometimes I managed that.

Other times I'd forget - well, I never forgot; I just didn't care -and I'd go ahead, get as high as I wanted, and end up trying to pull little creatures out of my body.