“Has he tried to follow you?” A freak coming up the stairs. Green teeth, poisonous needles. Rabbit’s penis has wilted, listening.

“No, he’s not the type. Toward the end I don’t think he knew me from Adam really, all he was thinking about was his next fix. Junkies are like that. They get to be bores. You think they’re talking to you or making love or whatever, and then you realize they’re looking over your shoulder for the next fix. You realize you’re nothing. He didn’t need me to find God for him, if he met God right on the street he’d’ve tried to hustle Him for money enough for a couple bags.”

“What did He look like?”

“Oh, about five-ten, brown hair down to his shoulders, slightly wavy when he brushed it, a neat build. Even after smack had pulled all the color from him he had a wonderful frame. His back was really marvellous, with long sloping shoulders and all these ripply little ribby bumps behind, you know, here.” She touches him but is seeing the other. “He had been a runner in junior high.”

“I meant God.”

“Oh, God. He changed. He was different every time. But you always knew it was Him. Once I remember something like the inside of a big lily, only magnified a thousand times, a sort of glossy shining funnel that went down and down. I can’t talk about it.” She rolls over and kisses him on the mouth feverishly. His slowness to respond seems to excite her; she gets up in a crouch and like a raccoon drinking water kisses his chin, his chest, his navel, goes down and stays. Her mouth nibbling is so surprising he fights the urge to laugh; her fingers on the hair of his thighs tickle like the threat of ice on his skin. The hair of her head makes a tent on his belly. He pushes at her but she sticks at it: he might as well relax. The ceiling. The garage light shining upwards shows a stained patch where chimney flashing let the rain in. Must turn the garage light off. Though maybe a good burglar preventive. These junkies around steal anything. He wonders how Nelson made out. Asleep, boy sleeps on his back, mouth open, frightening; skin seems to tighten on the bone like in pictures of Buchenwald. Always tempted to wake him, prove he’s O.K. Missed the eleven-o’clock news tonight. Vietnam death count, race riots probably somewhere. Funny man, Buchanan. No plan, exactly, just feeling his way, began by wanting to sell him Babe, maybe that’s the way to live. Janice in bed got hot like something cooking but this kid stays cool, a prep-school kid applying what she knows. It works.

“That’s nice,” she says, stroking the extent of his extended cock, glistening with her spittle.

“You’re nice,” he tells her, “not to lose faith.”

“I like it,” she tells him, “making you get big and strong.”

“Why bother?” he asks. “I’m a creep.”