A Drop of the Hard Stuff

He never had any interest in other drugs—uppers, downers, psychedelics. He tried mushrooms once and mescaline once and acid twice, just to know what they were about, but as far as he was concerned there was nothing like good dope. He smoked every day, and he sold enough so it didn’t cost him, and maybe he even came out a few dollars ahead.

“Never been busted,” he said, “which is probably a record, or close to it. But I only sell to people I know, and the cops around here know me and know what I do, and they know I’m not hurting anybody, or doing any kind of volume, so I don’t get hassled. I always get by, and I always stay high, and there’s a song lyric hiding in there somewhere, can you dig it?”

“But Jack wasn’t looking to cop,” I said.

“Oh, wow. Got a ways off track, didn’t we? No, he wasn’t. I offered, you know, like did he want a taste? And before I could finish the sentence he’s telling me how he’s an alcoholic, except he doesn’t drink, and that means he can’t do anything. Dope, pills, anything at all; if it does anything good for your head, he can’t have any part of it. I couldn’t figure out why at first, but he put it so I could understand it.”

“ ‘You can’t be high and sober at the same time,’ ” I said.

“That’s it! His words exactly, and when he put it that way I could dig it. So I didn’t offer him anything except an orange soda, which I’ve been meaning to offer you, because I figure you and him were in the same club. I’m gonna have one, and can I bring you one?”

We drank our orange sodas out of the can. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one, and decided I was willing to go that long before I had another.

“You’re an orange soda guy, you know what he came for.”

“I think so.”

“Amends, he called it. He was going through his life, trying to make up for everything bad he ever did. You do that yourself?”

“Not yet.”

“Man, I was never a drinker, you know? Day I graduated Pembroke High I hit all the parties and came home shit-faced drunk. Fell into bed with my clothes on, and the room started spinning. Leaned over, puked on the carpet, and passed out. Woke up and said I’m never doing that again, and I never did.”

Until he got to the last four words, his story was one I’d heard more times than I could count.

“Amends,” he said, in something approaching wonder. “What did he ever do to me that he’s got to make amends? Me and Jack, we knew each other for a few years there. Worked a few moving jobs together, smoked a little dope together, hung out some. Only thing came to mind, he tried to get me to tip him to some people who’d be good pickings. You know, people I moved, and they had good stuff, and I’d get a cut of what he got from ripping them off.”

“But you weren’t interested.”

“No way, man!” He shook his head. “Man, run a little scam on the Welfare Department, get a check I got no right to? Go up to Klein’s, boost some socks and a shirt? Okay, why not? I’m no saint, I’m cool with shit like that. But stealing from human beings? People I met, people who paid me to take good care of their stuff, people who gave me tips? Not my scene.” He took a long drink of soda. “But where’s the amends come in? I, like, turned him down flat on that one. Never even tempted. Didn’t judge the man, just said no, not my scene. Matter of fact —”

“What?”

“Well, just thinking about it now, maybe I was the one owed him an amends. ’Cause what I did, a couple of the moving companies I worked for, I sort of told them not to hire him no more. Didn’t say why. Just, like, he’s not the most reliable cat to work with, he don’t pull his weight, he slacks off. Nothing to get him banned or give him a bad name, just enough so he’s the last one hired. Here I’m his friend and I’m keeping him from getting work, so maybe…”

His voice trailed off, and I could see him running the question in his mind. He looked to be capable of devoting the next hour to its philosophical implications.

I said, “But that wasn’t what was on his mind.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, nothing like that. It was loose.”

“How’s that?”

“Loosey-goosey. Luce. Lucille, man. My old lady.” He looked off to the side, smiled at a memory. “Years back, this was. Not my old lady anymore. Been a few of them since her. My experience, they tend to come and go. You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“They’re always around the same age. The ones that move all the way in, I mean. A chick who’s in my life for, like, fifteen minutes, she could be any age. But the ones who move in and park their shoes under the bed, they’re always twenty-four, twenty-five years old. When I was nineteen I had an old lady six years older’n me, and now I’m what, forty-seven? And the last old lady I had, like she moved out a year ago, and she was twenty years younger’n me. Man, Picture of Dorian Gray? Can you dig it?” He frowned. “Except not exactly Dorian Gray, but you see what I’m getting at, don’t you?”

“Lucille,” I said.

“Oh, right. Man, she was choice. Out of her fucking mind, but sweet. Had some fucked-up childhood.” He moved a hand to wave the past away. “Jack comes here, tells me how he was balling her. Him and Lucille, going at it like, I don’t know, mink? Man, he thinks he has to make amends to me for that?”

“You already knew about it?”

“I took it for fucking granted, man! Lucille, she was balling everybody. It didn’t take us more than a couple of months to get way past the whole fidelity number. We went to a few parties where everybody just did anybody who was handy. Man, after you watch your woman getting fucked by a stranger, you either let go of jealousy or you put her clothes in a box and set it out by the curb. I told him, I said, Jack, if this is keeping you up nights, man, let go of it. ‘But you were my friend and I betrayed you.’ By fucking Lucille? You want to make amends for that, go get in line,