By Vanessa Cort
GUYANESE all over the country are familiar with the smell and taste of barbecue chicken. It has become popular at house parties and a variety of functions.

What many do not know is that tall and handsome Lenny, was the person single-handedly responsible for introducing barbecue chicken to the Guyanese public over two decades ago, when he began a business with only this item on the menu.

And even back then, when crack cocaine was relatively unknown in this country, Lenny was a binge crack smoker, spending thousands of dollars in a matter of days, whenever he felt the urge.

A consummate entrepreneur, Lenny was also a talented clothing designer, with a boutique selling his own brand. He subsequently opened a successful restaurant in the city centre and enjoyed wide popularity.

Of his habit he would say, “I can afford it,” joking that all he had to do to cover his spending was walk around the boutique and “add a zero” to certain items.

Many of Lenny’s friends, also successful businessmen, smoked crack too. Though in those days the process was different and the product was known as ‘free-base.’

However, these men did not smoke on the block but in the privacy of their own homes. While they would sometimes get their supply from a block, often the seller would deliver to their homes and was always only a phone call away.

Frequent travellers, Lenny and his friends would be ‘clean’ while abroad only to ‘go on the rampage’ when they returned to Guyana, smoking non-stop for days on end.

Before long they all began to show the signs of prolonged crack-smoking – weight loss, sunken cheeks, nervous energy and paranoia. They became suspicious of everything and everyone.

Lenny eventually had to close the doors of his business, because his habit escalated and he no longer found time, nor had the money, to maintain it.

While many of his friends moved away and ‘kicked’ the habit, Lenny resorted to smoking alone at his home, often with his supplier in attendance and even joining him sometimes as he smoked.

He became withdrawn and increasingly paranoid and was found dead in his home days after he died. Whether his death was related to his habit is unclear, though likely, but it certainly had a negative impact on his life.

Bobby often referred to himself as the ‘black sheep’ of the family. Dark-skinned, with a winning smile, he was always wayward, but much-loved by his family.

A talented, young, Berbician cricketer, his career was on the rise until he took his very first ‘hit’ of crack. “From then all I wanted to do was smoke,” he said, with his quirky lopsided grin. He would regularly turn up late or miss practice altogether, though he had been selected for the Under-19 cricket squad. And on the day of trials he stopped by the block and never left until the following day.

Bobby had to quit the squad and soon resorted to petty crime to support his growing habit. Fleet-footed and agile, he quickly gained a reputation as the ‘thief who was never caught’. While he was often the chief suspect in crime, nobody could catch him in the act.

“When dem women in de market (Port Mourant Market) hear that I deh bout dey does hold on tight to dem aprons wid de money!” he joked one day.

But following repeated pleas from his family, especially his mother, Bobby quit stealing and would do odd jobs, market portering and selling fruits to make his money.

“ I like ma mother bad and she always begging me to stop, plus I get a ‘flingings’ one day from the police and I had to stop (thiefin’) cause I know one day dey would shoot me,” he declared.

He even stopped smoking when he developed a lung problem and started going to church with his mother. But, ironically, it was the depression caused by his condition which led him to resume smoking.

“I was the fastest in the squad an I couldn’t take it when I had to slow down,” he admitted.

Eventually Bobby’s chest condition worsened and he developed tuberculosis and an awful ‘hacking’ cough. He was smoking on the block one day when he ‘took in’ and died on his way to hospital.

There are many more of these stories about an army of addicts, who smoke all day every day , in between jobs. Many are market porters and handymen and women who work just to support their habit.

They are substance abusers in need of help from a society which must ‘sit up’ and take notice.