Now the shit really hit the fan. It must have hit something because it sure as hell wasnt floating around the city. There no longer was any thought, or even desire, to make money, but just an unending effort to get enough for themselves. Some days it was a case of just copping enough for right now and then going out again to take care of the rest of the day and have that wake up shot nice and secure.
And the streets were getting tougher. All the neighborhood streets were rilled with dope fiends, even in the snow and sleet, looking for something, anything. Every hallway was cluttered with sick faces with runny noses and bodies shivering with the cold and junk sickness, the cold cracking the marrow of their bones as they broke out in sweats from time to time. The deserted buildings that stretched for miles and made the city look like a battleground of WWII, that gave it the pathetic and devastated look that froze on the faces of the people that inhabited them, were spotted with tiny fires as shivering bodies tried to keep warm and survive long enough to get some dope, one way or another, and make it through one more day so they could start the same routine again. When someone did cop he then had to make it safely to his pad, or some place, where he could get off without someone breaking down the door and stealing his dope and maybe getting killed, or killing, if he didnt want to part with something more precious, at that particular moment, than his life, for without it his life was worse than hell, far worse than death, death seeming to be a reward rather than a threat, because this process of lingering death was the most fearful thing that could happen. And so the city became even more savage with the passing of each day, with the taking of each step, the breathing of each breath. From time to time a body would fall from a window and before the blood had a chance to seep through the clothing hands were going through his pockets to see what might be found to help them through another moment of being suspended in Hell. Cabbies were avoiding certain neighborhoods and carrying guns. Deliveries werent made. Some services discontinued. The sections were like cities under siege, surrounded by the enemy trying to starve them into submission, but the enemy was within. Not only within the boundaries of the cities, of the neighborhoods, the deserted buildings and piss stained doorways, but within each and every body and mind and, most of all, soul. The enemy ate away at their will so they could not resist, their bodies not only craving, but needing the very poison that ground them into that pitiable state of being; the mind diseased and crippled by the enemy it was obsessed with and the obsession and terrible physical need corrupting the soul until the actions were less than those of an animal, less than those of a wounded animal, less than those of anything and everything they did not want to be. The police increased their personnel on the streets as the number of insane robberies increased and men and women were shot as they broke store windows and tried to run down the street with a TV set, the sets exploding as they fell to the ground, the bodies sliding on the ice leaving a trail of blood, and freezing, stiff, before being picked up and disposed of. For every bit of dope that was put on the streets there were thousands of eager and sick hands reaching, grabbing, stabbing, choking, clubbing, or pulling the trigger of a gun. And if you did rip somebody off and get away nice and clean you werent sure you would ever get to see it flow into your veins. And maybe you wouldnt even know that you didnt as you concentrated on cooking it up, not wanting to spill a drop, and somebody bashed in your head before the needle ever got in your arm.
Harry and Tyrone were slowly absorbed by the cesspools they were spending more and more time in. It was a gradual progression, like most diseases, and their overwhelming need made it possible for them to ignore much of what was happening, distorting some, and the rest accepted as part of the reality of their lives. But with each day more and more of the truth was impossible to ignore while the disease instantly and automatically rationalized the truth into an acceptable distortion. Their disease made it possible for them to believe whatever lies it was necessary for them to believe to continue to pursue and indulge their disease, even to the point of them believing they were not enslaved by it, but were actually free. They climbed crumbling old staircases to shattered apartments shielding shattered people where old plaster was peeling off walls that had huge holes in them with broken beams and gigantic rats, as desperate as the other inhabitants of the building, bursting from the darkened holes and corners, sniffing and attacking the unconscious bodies sprawled on the floor. Harry and Tyrone went together now, no matter what the color scheme, because a loner was an open invitation to being ripped off of your dope and your life. Everyone looked like a muskrat and smelled like a skunk, that peculiar and overwhelming junk sick smell penetrating the clothes and the frigid air. At first Harry and Tyrone stayed on the fringes of the devastation, seeing the campfires in the hollowed buildings from a distance, but it became progressively necessary to go deeper and deeper into the desolation to fulfill their needs, the urgency of the need being the first concern of their lives. At first their forays were tentative and timid, now they were cautious but assertive, realizing the necessity of getting to where the action was as rapidly as possible before it was just no mans land with empty bags, broken bottles, unconscious bodies and an occasional corpse. Whatever chances they had to take they took automatically as their disease ordered and they obeyed, a small part of them wanting to try to resist, but that part shoved so far down that it was no more than an ancient dream from a previous life. Only the insatiable and insane need of the moment had any bearing on their lives, and it was that need that gave the orders.
They were really scuffling and barely making it from one day to the next, one hour to the next, and with each day they became more desperate. Many times they were ripped off for a hundred bucks here, a few hundred there, but that was all part of that world and all they could do was get more bread and scuffle and hustle until they got the dope they needed. Many times they could only get a couple of bags and they would shoot them up and continue to try and cop more so they could have enough for Marion and Alice, but sometimes it was a long time between fixes for them. After they got off Harry and Tyrone would affirm that they would take the next stuff back to the pad, even if it was only a couple of bags, so their old ladies could have a taste, but each time they got only two bags they shot them up immediately knowing it would be better for everyone involved if they got off and stayed up here where the action was so they could get some weight and then give the girls a real taste. They knew, and believed, that it was better to have nothing at all than to have less than enough and who knows what might come down while they were away from the scene. And when they got back to their pads the lies came out easily and believingly. From time to time they would think of the old man but as quickly as possible they would dismiss him from their minds knowing that they would never get like that, that they would do something about it before that would happen to them. And whenever they saw cats scufflin the streets trying to sell somebody elses glasses for a fix, or dipping into a toilet bowl to get the Water to cook up their stuff, they knew they would never stoop to shit like that. Shooting dope was one thing, but only a fuckin animal would do that. Yet somehow everything that was happening became progressively easier to ignore. They were walking with a few other cats to cop from a connection when some dude came out of a doorway and shoved a gun against the connections head and blew half his fuckin head off and grabbed the dope and split muttering something about no mutha fucka goin burn him. The others dropped and scattered when it happened and when the guy split they looked at the connection for a brief moment, the blood pumping from the hole in his head, then scattered. The frozen body was found eight hours later.