When he caught me up at the entrance to the Metro I absently moved out of his way as I felt for my ticket. You flouted this law at your peril. Nor had it been quite so law-abiding. I called in there, ordered an espresso at the counter and signalled to the barman that I was there on a different mission. He gave me an I-thought-so look and either got on the phone or signalled to somebody to fetch a guy called Beck.
To this day I can barely remember what that bar looked like. Because of my lack of curiosity, I never knew what its connection was to Beck and his friends. Maybe the people who ran it were relatives or maybe they owed Beck, somehow โ maybe Beck did them favours of some kind.
A friend had put me onto Beck as a source of weed, speed, coke and smack. I never used coke, unless it was given as a freebie. I preferred the everyday buzz of speed, and for special occasions the magic rush of heroin. I saw myself as a recreational user and not a junky.
Lots of junkies see themselves like that for a while, and can feel superior to their junky friends โ only for a while, though. I forget her name, just remember her skew-whiff disco-punk hair, wide eyes, a nostril gone scabby from a bad piercing, her hairy armpits, a never-quite-finished conversation about family and friendship and loyalty and politics and the amazing generosity of an act rooted in loneliness, I suppose.
I began to think I could do it perhaps twice a week, if I was in funds. Beck was in his late thirties and compact and muscular without quite sporting the look of an athlete.
