easy as that

glenny pulled a gun on a cop.

he went to prison.

glenny beat up his girlfriends.

glenny and i were fucking the same girl

we each knew there was someone else

but we didn’t know whom

until she insisted on introducing us.

he and i talked so long, sophia fell asleep.

we became friends and she became a hooker

glenny represented

an extreme i did not believe in

but we were able to hustle

more cash together.

i suspect he gave better head than i did

but i got better head than he did.

when you are a junkie

you mostly encounter dickheads

bright and whining self-centered junkies

who are such greedy machines

they could have their own private jets,

rehab egoists who are profiting off the predicament,

badges, handcuffs, judges, fines,

and coroners glad to tell you how much

your girlfriend’s brain weighed

at the peurto ricans’, we went around back.

the routine was you banged on the steel bulkhead.

they lived in a fucking bunker. someone would yell from inside, “who is it?”

glenny yelled “mario!”

in the window of the first floor a couple of kids appeared, shaking their heads at us. they knew what was going on.

we weren’t the only ones. this place was hot. sometimes they shot at us with toy guns. it wouldn’t be long before the peurto ricans were raided by real guns.

meanwhile, glenny and i were standing

in the snow, breathing clouds, waiting and waiting.

he leaned over and banged on the bulkhead again.

finally there was the sound of the thing being unlocked

and it was pushed open and delight was there,

telling us to shut the fuck up.

delight was the matron of the house

and she was in command of the heroin,

which she dispatched much more quickly than she answered her bulkhead.

she was small, in her 40’s, and had graduated from kennedy plaza long ago. she lived with her man and another girl in her 20’s

in this dark unfinished basement clogged with furniture and divided by curtains.

the floor was concrete, the ceiling exposed beams.

they had a tv and a couch to the right, a dining room table

straight ahead, where she let us shoot up, and a bedroom to the left, blocked off by a curtain.

she kept the dope in there and we were never allowed there.

down a narrow hall to the left was a makeshift bathroom with a bucket of water and no running water in the sink.

the toilet was clogged.

delight asked us what we wanted and took $50.

this time we brought the dope into the bathroom and used the top of the sink. we had brought our own water.

we decided to split a bag to start because delight's dope killed tanya a week ago and put glenny in the hospital.

glenny said the dope looked like the same dope.

the shit hit harder than anything i’d had all year in any amount.

by the time i was out to the dining room table to retrieve my coat, i was self-conscious about looking wasted.

we split out the bulkhead and walked for the bus, stupefied, it’s good, it’s good.

we drank a couple beers at the bus stop and scratched.

on the bus back to newport we agreed we would save the other bag for tomorrow because we were so fucking high it’d be a waste to shoot it.

i nodded for most of the hour home.

back at the building, we stopped by julio's for a quick visit. we were aglow. julio later said we were very obvious, and he, on methadone, was jealous.

we split julio's place, each for our own rooms. i told glenny i’d be right over.

i dropped my coat and backpack off at my place and headed to glenny's. as i came into his room, he said, “i just did half a shot. yours is on the table.”

i eyed the amber barrel and thought, “no fucking way. i’m so high already. why did he do that?”

i sat down to roll a cigarette. before i opened the can of tobacco, the blood went out of his face and he fell backwards.

He turned grey and he croaked.