And I’m gone to the races, Terry. What else could I do? I can taste the junk in the roof of my mouth. I mean I’m scopin’ how she’s nodding her face off like a wax dummy on a hot day, the cigarette burning her fingers, the needle in her neck. It’s pushin’ all my buttons, you know? I’m thinkin’, That would feel real good right now, after all I been through. Very refreshing.

So I say, “Wake up, Carol, you win, forget it with the twenty bucks, just lay a bag on me.”

Just then the Chink food shows up and the guy, you know the way those guys are, kinda lookin’ at you like they don’t know what you’re saying, and I’m just like cool, cool, here’s the money for the food, get lost, you know? I had no appetite. Guy’s standin’ in the door, Snowball’s barkin’ at ’im, she hates the Chinese people, don’t ask me why. Carol’s cleaning drops of blood off those black leather pants a hers she’s so proud of. I’m thinkin’, People are fuckin’ weird, ya know?

Anyway, I finally gets rid of the Coolie, I stick the wings and the fried rice in the fridge so the roaches can’t get at it, although I once found a roach in an ice cube, don’t ask me how that got there. And Carol says, “I don’t got no more. We gotta go cop.”

And you know how it is, Terry, when that monkey wakes up. He doesn’t just wake up, he takes speed. Hoppin’ up and down on my back like he’s on a two-hundred-pound pogo stick. So I say, fine, let’s take a walk. So I had this C-note stashed away—I know I owe you money, Terry, I know, but hey, man, will you be decent for once in your skinny-assed, cheapskate life? I don’t even know why I bother talkin’ to you. You know? Do you want to hear the story or not? Alright, so where was I?

We go cop. And we get beat. You know how it is, whenever you’re desperate, you get beat. It’s like life, man. It’s like fuckin’ life. So that’s a hundred bucks down the drain. Then I remember, I didn’t do the methadone yet. So me and Carol hikes back to my place, I walks in the door, Snowball is completely confused, we grab the ’done and go back to the corner where my usual guy is, and we sell the shit and I buy four bags.