'Here, hold this.' Stacey dumped everything in the kid's lap and took the water from Farmer. 'Who's got a belt?'
Somehow, everyone looked at everyone else and ended up looking at me.
'Shit,' I said and slipped it off. Stacey reached for it and I held it back. 'Somebody tell me where Joe is or I'll throw this out the window right now.'
'China, don't be like that. You're holding things up,' said Priscilla chidingly, as though I were a bratty younger sister.
'I just want to know where Joe is.'
'Just let us fix first, okay? Now give Stacey your belt.'
Stacey snatched the belt away from me before I could say anything else and shoved her shirt and sweater sleeves high up on her arm. 'Wrap it on me,' she said to the kid. Her voice was getting shaky. The kid got the belt around her upper arm and pulled it snug. He had to pour a little water into the bowl of the spoon for her, too, and shake the heroin out of the foil. Someone had a ragged piece of something that had to pass for cheesecloth. Stacey fidgeted with it while the kid held a match under the spoon. When the mix in the bowl started to bubble, Stacey laid the cloth over the surface and drew some solution into the syringe. Her hands were very steady now. She held the syringe up and flicked it with her finger.
'Will you hurry it up?' Farmer snapped. 'There's other people besides you.'
'Keep your shirt on, I'm trying to lose some bubbles. Help me,' Stacey said. 'Tighten that belt.'
The kid pulled the belt tighter for her as she straightened her arm. She felt in the fold of her elbow with her pinky. 'There he is. Old Faithful. He shoulda collapsed long ago but he just keeps on truckin'. I heard about this guy, you know? Who shot an air bubble and he saw it in his vein just as he was nodding out, you know?' She probed with the needle, drew back the plunger and found blood. 'That poor guy just kept stroking it down and stroking it down and would you believe' her eyelids fluttered. I reached over the kid to loosen the belt on her arm. 'He actually got rid of it. He's still shooting.' She started to say something else and passed out.
'Jesus, Priscilla.' I took the needle out of Stacey's arm. 'What kind of stuff have you got?'
'Only the best. Joe's new connection. You next?' she asked the kid.
'He's not an addict yet,' I said. 'He can pass this time.'
'Who asked you?' said the kid. 'You're not my fucking mother.'
'You have to mainline for two weeks straight to get a habit,' I said. 'Take the day off.'
But he already had the belt around his arm. 'No. Give me the needle.'
I plunged the syringe into the cup he was holding. 'You have to clean it first, jerk-off.' I cranked down the window and squirted a thin stream of water into the air. 'If you're going to do this anyway, you might as well do it right.'
Suddenly he looked unsure of himself. 'I never shot myself up before. Stacey always did me.'
I looked at her, sprawled out on his other side. 'She's a big help, that girl. Looks like you're on your own. I don't give injections.'
But I flicked the bubbles out of the syringe for him. It was better than watching him shoot an air bubble. He had veins like power cables.
Priscilla went next. I barely had time to clean the needle and spoon for her. Farmer fixed after her. The spoon was looking bad. I was scrubbing the mess out of it with a corner of my shirt when I noticed it was real silver. The kid's spoon. Probably stolen out of his mother's service for eight. Or maybe it was the one they'd found lodged in his mouth when he'd been born. I looked at him slumped next to Stacey, eyes half-closed, too ecstatic to smile. Was this part of the new element moving in that my father had mentioned, a pampered high-school kid?
'Priscilla, are you awake?' I asked, squirting water from the needle out the window while Farmer cooked his load.
'Maim,' she said, lazily.
'Do you really know where Joe is?'
She didn't answer. I dipped the needle into the water one last time and squirted a stream out the window again. It arched gracefully into the air and splattered against the passenger side window of the police car that had pulled up even with us. I froze, still holding the needle up in plain sight. Farmer was telling me to hand him the fucking spike but his voice seemed to be coming through miles of cotton batting. I was back in the buzz of the night before, the world doing a slow-motion underwater ballet of the macabre while I watched my future dribble down the window along with the water. The cop at the wheel turned his head for a year before his eyes met mine. Riding all alone, must be budget-cutting time, my mind babbled. His face was flat and I could see through the dirty glass that his skin was rough and leathery. His tongue flicked out and ran over his lips as we stared at each other. He blinked once, in a funny way, as though the lower lids of his colourless eyes had risen to meet the upper ones. A kind of recognition passed between us. Then he turned away and the police car accelerated, passing us.
'Did you see that?' I gave the needle to Farmer, who was calling me nine kinds of bastard.
'Nope,' George said grimly. 'And he didn't see us, neither.'
I tried to laugh, as though I were in on the joke. 'Oh, man. I thought for sure we were all busted.'
'Times are changing.'
'Don't tell me the junkies are pooling their money to buy off the cops.'
Priscilla came to and sighed happily. 'Somebody is. We got all the conveniences. Good dope, bad cops. Things ain't so bad around here these days.'
The kid was pulling himself up on me. I sat him up without thinking about it. 'Priscilla? Do you know where Joe is? Priscilla?'
