The Story of Junk

by Linda Yablonsky

  I drove to a summer job in another county, where I was an usher in a country playhouse. The actors all came from New York and they were always having sex, some of the men with other men, the others with girls like me. They showed me a world that separated me from the kids I knew at school. None of them had ever seen a queer. Older women had not propositioned them, and they didn’t blow married men in small hotels. These kids had no idea what I was up to, and having a secret knowledge of the truth gave me a sense of entitlement. It was the same feeling I was soon to find in drugs. In the sixties, we called it enlightenment.

  I watch Honey pick the ice out of her drink. She’s femmier than I am, softer, loose. I’m all angles: pointy hair, bony hips and Peter Pan tits, sharp jaw, tense. I’ve always been bashful about my appearance. I ought to be grateful for the times we live in—androgyny’s the height of fashion—but I hate getting caught in a trend. I didn’t invent this look but I didn’t go out and buy it, either. This is the way I was made.

  I let myself in the office behind the kitchen. Rico’s at his desk in front of a postal scale and two Ziploc bags fat with powder. One holds Peruvian cocaine; the other has the cut.

  “Listen,” he says, balancing the cocaine in the one bag with the mannitol in the other. “You know Dean? He’s always in here. Dean, with the beard. You’ve seen him. He’s coming over with some Downtown I thought you’d like.”

  In Rico’s personal code, ‘Downtown’ means dope; ‘Uptown’ is coke. I guess he’s been uptown all night. His right knee is bouncing off his chair like a proton lost in an atom smasher. He asks me to stick around.

  “I’m around,” I say. “Kit’s out of town on tour.”

  He raises an eyebrow at this, scratches a lip. I know that look. I don’t meet it. He hands me a straw and I help myself to a line off the scale. It whizzes through my brain like a bullet. “I don’t know if I’m into anything tonight,” I say. “It’s my day off, you know. I’m tired.”

  “Have another hit,” he says, scooping yet another powder into the mix.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know,” he says, pulling at the air for the word he wants. “Methedrine. Speed.”

  “You’re cutting this coke with speed?”

  “Yeah. It keeps you from getting a headache.”

  “Does it?” I ask. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Sure, it does. Of course, you knew that. You’re the one who told me.”

  “I’d like to taste the crystal,” I say, reflecting. “I’ve already had the coke.”

  A smallish guy with sandy hair and a closely trimmed beard appears in the doorway. This is Dean. He clears a space next to me on the couch, which is spread all over with papers. The office is never too tidy. There isn’t much room for hanging out, though that’s all anyone does here, between two desks pushed against opposite walls, on either side of a safe.

  After a few torpid pleasantries, Dean reaches in his pocket for an envelope. It’s the dope. He draws a few lines on a mirror with a razor. We taste it. This stuff is so smooth and clean it’s like not even doing a drug. I feel perfect. Maybe it’s getting help from the coke, but this dope has a taste all its own. Nothing like it.

  Dean says there’s plenty where this came from. If I know anyone I can split it with, he can get me a gram. “How much?” I ask. It’s six hundred dollars.

  “It’s worth it,” Rico says. “You can step on it with an elephant and it’ll still be better than what you get in the street.”

  “Why don’t you buy it?” I say. He’s the one with the six hundred. It’s about two weeks’ pay to me.

  “I just invested in this shit,” he says, snorting a big one. “No, really, I can’t handle having quantities of Down. You can do it, though. You have some control. You can do it.”

  People like buying drugs from me, Kit said. I’ll wait for her return. Then I’ll see.

  “Kit’s away?” Rico asks, wrapping some coke in an old dinner check. “Oh, yeah. You said. So, what are you doing tonight? You don’t want to stay here, do you? I’ll be done soon. We can go to your place.”

  “I’ll be outside,” I say. Best thing to do now is humor him.

  He’s snapping his fingers, scratching his cheek, bouncing his knees. “Too bad Kit’s out of town,” he says, snapping away. He’s crackling. “We could really get something going, the three of us, huh? Kit looks like the type who could, you know, party all night, you know what I mean? A cute ass like that has to know how to party.”

  “Right,” I say. “I know.” What must we look like to him? He’s never said anything about Kit before. I know she would never have a threesome with him—men don’t turn her on—and threesomes make me feel lonesome. In any case, she’ll be home late tonight. I wink at Dean. By tomorrow, we’ll be in business.

  When I return to the table, the girls have been joined by a wan scarecrow in white jeans and a black silk jacket. He’s Prescott Weems, an opera buff, and a very buffo guy. He’s also a critic. And a poet.

  “Mon dieu!” he yelps at my approach. “Doesn’t she look happy!”

  “I hope so,” says Lute. “She’s been a bitch all night.”

  “I’m not a bitch,” I say gently.

  “Darling, of course not. And I’m the king of Prussia. You’ll order me a drink, won’t you? You’re so good.”

  Lute clasps his hand. “You know what, m’dear? Men are pigs.”

  “But look at her! Look at her!” Weems won’t stop pointing at me and shouting. “Her eyes are little pin spots. Teeny tiny. She’s loaded!”

  “Says who?” I ask, but at the same time I’m thinking: here they are, my first customers.

  “Darling,” he says, “if I had your look, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be Salome. I’d be Aïda. I’d be in love.”

  “No,” Lute says. “You’d be quiet.”

  “Isn’t that someone we know?” I inquire, nodding toward the opposite side of the room—another customer?

  “Uh-oh,” says Honey. “There’s trouble.”

  Magna looks interested. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Big trouble.”

  “How big? In inches?”

  “Oh, my dear!” Prescott howls. “Who is this babe? Where did you come from, where have you been? We should have known each other years ago.”

  “I was in school,” Magna tells him. “In Europe.”

  Prescott moves his chair beside her. “Girl? We have to talk.”

  I’ve known Prescott Weems a long time, ten years. He’s spent his life yearning to be a socialite. His dad was some kind of gangster, died in jail. Heart attack, they said. Prescott suspected foul play. His brother went schizophrenic. Prescott couldn’t wait to get away. He came to New York and met a few painters. In spite of, or because of, a compulsion to drink himself blind, he became a notable interpreter of new movements in art. Poets are like that; Prescott more so. “These young painters,” he likes to say. “They’re sooo cute. But they’re no one until I’ve written about them. No artist is anywhere in this town without a poet to write them up. Without me.” He says this often. That’s what he’s saying now, to “big trouble,” to Claude.

  Kit knows him, I think. He has that band, what’s it called? Red Cross or something? Blue Whale? White Duck? Some color of something. They’re all painters who play or sing, after a fashion—echoey, vibrating stuff, music you can dance to, if you put your mind to it. They’re appearing later at a place called The Scourge. We’re invited.

  “You know Claude, right?” Honey says. Her eyes are locked on his, eyes that burn holes in your heart. “This is Claude Ballard, Prescott’s new find.” Claude nods self-consciously in my direction. He’s a twenty-something guy with creamy pumpernickel skin and Brillo dreads. “Come to the gig,” he says. His smile’s as wide as the Atlantic. “I’ll leave your names at the door.”

  Yes yes yes, I think as he departs. A customer.

  Tina, the waitress, reappears. Magna leans forward in her seat. Claud
e’s visit has left her panting. “Let’s have something CHOCOLATE,” she says, her lips moist. “There are SOME desires only chocolate can satisfy.”

  “The food of love,” Honey agrees.

  The waitress suggests oysters. “Great idea!” Magna brightens. She orders a dozen, along with chocolate cake and more drinks all around. A busboy piles our empties in a tray. “I’m sure that boy has a thing for me,” she muses, watching him walk away. “Did anyone check out his MOUTH?”

  Prescott picks up her drink and drains it. “It wasn’t his mouth that caught my attention.”

  “That’s Belle’s son,” I say.

  “Go on.”

  “No, really.”

  “Talk about what’s not FAIR,” Magna pouts.

  Lute cups her hand to her mouth to stifle her shout. “Lord, give me strength,” she says. “Cal Tutweiler—will you check out the hat?” Now he’s wearing a dark cape and a flat black fedora. “He must’ve died and gone up to his next life or something!”

  “Ladies,” Cal says as he brushes by.

  Weems replies with a soigné drag on his Camel, blowing smoke through both his nostrils. There hasn’t been any love lost between these two. Actually, there’s been a lot of love lost. They both have a thing about Toni. Weems thinks Toni is a goddess. Cal, on the other hand, he says, is an ass.

  “Where’d you go?” I ask. “What’s happened to Toni?”

  “Oh, darling,” says Weems. “Isn’t it obvious? She has to be looking for a new pot to piss in.”

  Cal presses my neck. “We got really high.”

  “No,” Prescott says. “Really?”

  “Heh heh.”

  Well, well, I think. Another customer.

  “I’ve never done heroin,” Magna confesses.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll like it.”

  “Hello there,” says an unmistakable voice. It coughs.

  “Why, Belle!” Prescott calls. “Do sit. Sit here, girl. Sit.” He swipes a chair from a nearby table.

  “I’m not a dog, you know.” Belle sits.

  Magna gives her a smoldering look. “I had no idea you were the mother of that delicious boy over there.”

  “Oh, yes,” Belle replies, her eyes picking him out from the crowd.

  “Do you happen to know if he has a girlfriend? He seems to have an eye on me.”

  “I’ll have to speak to him,” murmurs Belle.

  The food has arrived, more drinks all around. Magna heads for the john, where we can see a crowd spilling out of the hallway. Belle mouths the words “Is she doing drugs?”

  “Magna doesn’t take drugs,” Honey notes.

  “Nobody takes drugs anymore,” Belle says, peering into my drink. “We just sit around and pray for money.”

  “Magna doesn’t need money,” Lute points out. “She needs love.”

  “Of course,” says Cal. “Money is love in action.”

  “Magna takes drugs,” I say. “She doesn’t do smack.”

  “She doesn’t need to,” Belle submits.

  “We all need a little,” I say. “Now and then. That’s why I’m going into the business.”

  Belle looks at me, aghast. “You can’t.”

  “But I can.”

  “But scag? It’s so sordid.”

  “It’s the Lower East Side that’s sordid,” I reply.

  Belle’s cough is so violent it startles the silverware. “The East Side isn’t sordid. It’s merely provincial.”

  Hard to please, Belle is. She’s a drug snob. If it was cocaine I wanted to sell, that would be all right—I could move to the head of the class. Cocaine is a social drug; it brings you such interesting people, such bright and radical ideas. But conversation on junk? That’s something else. It lacks luster. Still, it would put a stop to that cough.

  “Do be sure you have a good, safe connection,” Weems says, speaking barely above a whisper. He’s in earnest. “A good connection can make you rich.”

  Belle reaches in my pack for a smoke. “Let’s not prattle on about this,” she says. “It’s so boring.”

  I think she protests too much. I think she’s a customer.

  The discussion turns, as it always does, to what’s going on in the world of art: who’s doing what, where, and to whom, and how much they got paid for it. As I listen, I realize what’s left for me to do: to make an art of dealing. It’s not such a foreign concept in this crowd. Always watch the artists, Sticky says.

  So I’m watching.

  THAT DICK

  That Dick was here three days. Then he started calling.

  “So,” he said. “What’ve you been doing?”

  “Breathing.”

  “I mean, you lookin’ for names?”

  “I thought I was lookin’ at five to fifteen.”

  “Not yet. We’re still working on Angelo. It’s taking longer than we thought. You might want to find yourself a job.”

  “I’m kinda weak for that,” I said. Get a job? There isn’t a soul on this earth that would hire me now. Except, maybe, that Dick.

  “If you were legitimately employed,” he said, “it might sit well with a judge.”

  “You’re better legal aid than a lawyer.”

  “You don’t need a lawyer.”

  Right. Then why do I need him?

  “Maybe you should think about going back to work at your restaurant.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “No,” I said slowly. “It closed.”

  “That’s too bad, but you can get a job. Look in the papers. Restaurants are always hiring. Even my guys have a crew working one.”

  Why tell me? Was he bragging?

  “I’m not sure I know how to cook anymore,” I said, feeling weary. “I don’t know what I can do. Everything I know is history.”

  PART THREE

  THE ART OF DEALING

  THE ART OF DEALING

  It doesn’t take a lot of know-how to know how to deal drugs. You learn as you go along. You buy, you mix, you weigh and measure; you bag, trade, and sell. It’s a business, like any other religion: same dependence on faith and ritual, same promise of deliverance, same foundation in fear. Same flow of tax-free cash.

  But this is not an easy business to profit by; the product can tempt more than the proceeds. It’s all about turnover and control, same as restaurants. Restaurants can’t depend on serving food alone. They have to have personalities. That’s how it is in drugs: a dealer can’t be too honest or too devious; attitude counts the most. It might be nice to have a patient, kind, and understanding nature, to be close-mouthed and mature, but none of that is really very useful. It takes a bitch to be a dealer.

  Advertising is out, except by word of mouth, and that’s a double-edged sword. The word can easily reach the wrong ears. I can’t let myself sell to just anyone; that’s the business of the street.

  Besides, I’m no kind of pusher. Pushers are the “nifty Louie” types you see in movies, extortionists with an evil glint in their eyes and the monkey on a taut, stinking leash. Private dealers like me do not remotely resemble these Hollywood lowlifes. We’re respectable, and selective. When I drop hints around Sticky’s, it’s all very furtive, very hush-hush. Kit does the same at her gigs. And before long, people start calling.

  The needleheads come first. That’s natural, I can’t complain. They’re the steady customers. Knock-knock, ring-ring, beep-beep: Are you in now? Are you in? Okay to stop by now? Got anything to drink? How is this stuff? How much should I do? This is the usual drill. Can I pay you later? tomorrow? next week?

  I prefer the less regular customers, chippers and partyheads, overachievers, friends—filmmakers, poets, painters, musician friends of Kit’s. Not all of them are into drugs, but the ones who aren’t have husbands or girlfriends or sisters who are, and they all come together and hang out. It’s not a big scene but I enjoy it. I was always such a loner. I have a community now.

  On nights I have to work, I deal the way I did for Big Guy, we
ighing out tenths and half-tenths of a gram from a green plastic miniscale that fits in the pocket of my grill jacket. The walk-in refrigerator is my place of business. Pedro calls it the Food and Drug Administration. Everything coming out of Sticky’s, he says, is FDA-tested and approved.

  At home I deal from the living room, salon-style. If they’re very good friends, Honey and Magna, or Big Guy and Mr. Leather (Belle comes by only when no one will know), I work out of the bedroom, where Kit and I actually live. It’s the one comfortable room in the apartment: a carpet and two armchairs, a small table and the bed, a raised platform. Kit and Betty had been sleeping on the floor, but I couldn’t put up with that. Too slummy.

  Dean’s all right, though. He delivers, but he’s slow, a little slow. He teaches shop in a high school downtown. Every day after class he comes by to pick up money, then he goes to his source while I wait. I wait and so do all my friends, outside on the benches, at home by the phone, in bars. I don’t like to keep them waiting, but what can I do? When Dean finally arrives, he lays out a taste, then he wants to stay and talk and I have to listen.

  It’s the biggest part of my job, listening, or pretending to. Having a private dealership is like sitting in a confessional—that religious aspect again. Sometimes it’s more like therapy. People are supposed to tell a shrink everything on their minds, but who ever actually does that? No one I know, not when they can spill to a dealer. A dealer has to keep mum.

  I don’t know what Dean thinks about besides drugs and money. Every now and then he mentions an ex-girlfriend, emphasizing the “ex,” but mostly all I hear are vague references to his supplier, and Rico.

  Was it Rico who set him up with this connection, I wonder? Maybe it’s someone Rico owes a favor and Dean is someone he promised a favor and now they’re all making out, through me. They make the money and I do all the work. I work just as hard at this as I ever have in a kitchen. Then how can I be serving so many people and not come out ahead? I keep strict control of Kit’s intake, am even harder on my own. The problem is the cost to me: I must not be close enough to the source. Yet the dope is pure, not stepped-on, not cut to shit by having passed through too many hands. Nobody’s touching it but me, a little, I don’t want to spoil anyone. This might not last.