When he saw himself stick the little plastic snake in the toy and pull it out again, an intense pain filled his intestines, throat, and nostrils, as if a giant version of the same strip had been poked in and out of all his orifices. It obscured everything, including the little car, in a long, hot stabbing which dissipated in bursts that grew further and further apart. He opened his eyes and saw the face of Che Guevara on the poster that had been hung on the closet door with four rusty thumbtacks. He concentrated on the star on Che’s black beret like on the light at the end of a tunnel. He counted the whistles of pain as they got further and further away, like a train behind the mountains. Then he felt relief and the thirst he would quench by drinking, if he had the strength to reach it, from an aluminum can full of water that smelled of burnt gasoline, like everything in Havana.

The cursive font on the poster read, “Words instruct, examples lead.” He breathed deeply and noticed a slight smell of vomit on the pillowcase. Janet Jackson’s “Nasty Boys” could clearly be heard through the wall. He could also hear the worn-out soles of his neighbor Vantroi’s Reebok Classics squeaking on the tiles as he rehearsed Janet’s choreography for one of his drag queen shows. Made useless by the withdrawal, Argenis had spent the last week in bed, but whenever he managed to find the strength he went out on the balcony for a little air. He had seen Vantroi leave the building a couple of times and he was never wearing the Adidas Argenis had given him.

Now that he had nothing left to trade for a vial of Temgesic, he saw those Adidas in a new light. Eyes closed and breathing deeply, the way he had learned to postpone the next wave of nausea and cramps, he speculated as to how many vials he could get for the sneakers. A disembodied hand opened in front of him with three, five, two, one vial. Again, he could smell the scent of newness the shoes had given off that afternoon when, like a junkie Mother Theresa, he gave those treasures away to a transvestite.

Would they look really used now? The question destabilized the slow breaths that kept his malaise at bay, filling his hands with sweat and something else. It was a little car. Santa Claus had brought him it at Christmas. He hadn’t asked for it. The car was Chinese red and the flame adorning each side was poorly executed with stencil and spray paint on the plastic body. He knew what would happen next: he would put the band inside the toy’s rear end and pull it out violently. He knew that the imaginary car would not move, and that it would disappear with the arrival of a pain that would lock him in a fetal position under his filthy sheet.