“Andy, look, we’re trying to help you. For Christ’s sake, don’t—”
“If you want to help, you’ll mind your own business. You don’t know anything at all about this, and yet you’re trying to tell me what to do. Well, I don’t need your advice or your help. I’ll get along fine, thanks. And that goes for you too, Carol.”
“Andy, how can you do this?” Carol said. “Don’t you know you’re ruining yourself?”
“Heroin is out of your league, Carol,” Andy snapped. “Forget about it.”
“Why are you doing it, Andy?”
“Because I like it, okay? That’s why. Any other questions?”
“You don’t need it, Andy. You’ve got a big talent, and a—”
“A big talent! Hah! Jesus Christ, you don’t know anything, do you? Look... look, will you leave me alone? Will you please just leave me alone? You don’t know anything about this.”
“I know it stinks,” Bud put in.
“You know nothing. Zero.”
“Why don’t you drop it?”
“What for?”
“Because it’s no good, and you know it’s no good.”
“I can drop it any time I want to.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I like it. I like it fine. If it’s not hurting me, I don’t see what business it is of yours.”
“It’s hurting Carol.”
“Carol hurts too damn easily. I didn’t think she’d turn out to be such a goddamned pollyanna, that’s for sure.”
“If you love her, Andy—”
“Of course I love her! What the hell does that have to do with it? If she loves me, she’d take me the way I am, heroin or no.”
“You’re throwing your life away, Andy. Can’t you see...?”
“It’s my life,” Andy snapped. “What’s so special about my life, anyway, that heroin’s going to hurt it?”
“Andy—”
“Shut up! Jesus Christ, can’t the both of you shut up?” He rose suddenly. “I’m getting out of here. If I stay here another minute—”
Carol stood up. “Andy, where are you—”
“What the hell do you care? Out of here, that’s for sure. There’s about as much understanding here as— Oh, the hell with it.”
“Hold it, Andy,” Bud said firmly. “It’s not going to help if you—”
“Friend,” Andy said, “friend, you don’t know...” He stopped and shook his head. “Thanks for the envelope. I can use it.”
“Andy, look...”
“You don’t understand, do you? Not at all.” He shook his head sourly. “Jesus, let me out of here before I bust!” He walked to the door, and he slammed out of the house, and Bud stared at the closed door, not realizing he wouldn’t see Andy again for close to two and a half years.
She stood alongside him in the dimly lit hallway. The door was somewhere down in the bowels of a tenement, and she could smell the rank basement odor, and she was a little frightened, but he did not seem scared at all, and so she stood close to him in the darkness while he knocked on the door. She could hear her own labored breathing, the sound of Andy’s fist against the wood. There was no other sound in the hallway, no sound from beyond the closed door. The door opened a crack, and she saw an eye, and then a deep voice said, “Oh, Andy.”
There was no life to the voice. It was the voice of a dead man, and she felt a shudder start at the base of her spine, and then Andy’s fingers closed on her arm, and he was leading her into the apartment.
There was no music in the apartment. The apartment was slovenly furnished and very badly lighted. She stood alongside Andy, and her eyes grew slowly accustomed to the darkness, and she could make out the dim shapes sitting around the room. There seemed to be no life in anyone. A girl looked up at her and then turned her head away.
“Come on, Helen,” Andy said.
“What’s the matter with them?” she whispered.
“Huh?” Andy said. “Nothing. Come on.”
She looked at the people again. They seemed to own no spines. They seemed to have been dropped into their seats. They sprawled in their chairs loosely, disjointedly. They seemed to be listening for something. Their eyes were half closed, their faces pale in the darkness. She walked through the room, and they did not stir, except for the girl who looked up again at Helen as she passed. The girl was a thin blonde. She wore a dirty skirt and an old pink sweater. Her hair was stringy, and it hung limply on either side of a young face that looked old. Her legs were crossed, and she sat leaned over onto one side of the easy chair, her head at a curious angle. She wore mocassins and no stockings. Her arms, even in the darkness, showed the scar tissue of her habit.
Andy was walking into a small room with a sink. She followed him there. The counter alongside the sink was covered with bottle tops. The cork lining had been removed from the caps, and the insides were coated with a thin layer of what looked like chalk dust. Several of the caps were overturned, and she saw that the metal was burned and black. The twisted, curled ends of matches lay strewn over the counter top.
“What’s the matter?” Andy asked.
“I... didn’t expect this. You said a shooting party. I thought...”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“A twenty-piece orchestra with violins? Everybody in formal wear? For Christ’s sake, Helen!” His voice was suddenly harsh.
“Don’t get angry with me,” she said. “I just didn’t know.”
“All right, so now you know.” He paused. “Do you want to leave?”
“No.”
“You can leave if you want to, you know. Nobody’s forcing you to stick around.” His eyes blinked. “I’m staying.”
“I said I’d come with you, didn’t I?”
“Well, you’re here now. If you want to chicken out, go ahead.”
“I’m not—”
“I thought you wanted—”
“Andy, please...”
“Look, do whatever the hell you want to. I came here for—”
“All those people,” she said quietly. “Are they... addicts?”
“I never asked them.”
“They don’t look... healthy.”
“They’re as healthy as you are.”
“They look dirty,” Helen said.
“Look, are you going to start— Look, you had a snort, did you like it or didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Helen said softly.
“If you don’t know, then what the hell are you doing here? Helen, look honey, you’ll like this. This is the only way. I mean, look, baby, snorting is for the sparrows, you know?”