“No, go right ahead,” Bud said. He leaned forward in his chair and listened to Andy, his brow knotted.
“Sure, that was for the sparrows. Well, anyway, I ran into Mike, and he shifted around and hemmed and hawed and How are you, Andy? and Fine, how are you, Mike? all the time avoiding what was on his mind and in his eyes — that I was a hophead, you understand. In fact, I think I was turned on when I ran into him, but that didn’t affect my thinking any, it doesn’t really make you dopey, you know, like the papers and magazines say, as a matter of fact it makes you kind of sharp, real sharp. Well, he’s been with Fredericks for many moons now, and he told me they’re getting ready to bounce this cat they got blowing second. He asked me if I was still playing and if I’d be interested, and I could see by his eyes that he was just making talk, that he figured I couldn’t blow any more, being a hophead and all, I can read eyes like that, all that goddamn pity in them, you know. His eyes got me sore. I told him sure I was still playing and could he fix an audition, and he hemmed and hawed a little more, which he had no right to do, hell I could always blow rings around Mike, you know that, but he said he’d talk to Fredericks and see what he could swing.
“I gave him the number at my pad, I was living in some crumby dump on Forty-eighth at the time — I think it was Forty-eighth — yeah sure, sure, and Mike gave me a buzz that night. He sounded surprised as hell, but he said Fredericks was interested, that he’d heard some of the sides I’d cut when I was on the Jerralds band. He said he wouldn’t be ready to audition until June first, but he’d give me first crack at the chair then.
“I felt pretty damn good, you know, as if I’d shown Mike. I went to a party that night. I didn’t buzz Helen to come with me because she had kicked the habit already, and this was a real hophead affair, a pass-the-needle ball. We used to go to a lot of them together, you know. I’d give her a ring and then she’d meet me. Well, this place was one big shooting party, and by the time I got there, things were really swinging. Somebody was shooting up, and I walked over, and the guy finished with the spike and he handed it to me, and I loaded it and blew my brains out, and then I passed the spike to somebody else, it was one of those affairs, a community joy ride, you know what I mean? I was up in the clouds, and when I came down, I began to think about Mike and that look in his eyes, and I made up my mind right then and there to kick the junk.
“This must have been about two months ago when I first got the idea. I kept throwing the idea around, but it didn’t do any good, and it’s not an easy thing to make up your mind about the break, you know. But that audition kept getting closer and closer, and I kept remembering that comedown look on Mike’s face, and I kept thinking about what I’d decided that night, when everybody was passing around the same needle, and last week I really made up my mind. No more for me, I told myself, no more of that.
“May I drop dead in the gutter, I told myself, if I ever touch another drop of it.” He knocked the table top and then said, “So far, I’ve got it going. It’s been rough, but I’m on the way. And this Laddy Fredericks is big time, Bud — you know that, don’t you? And I’m sure I’ll be ready for him by the first. He’s got a shmaltzy society outfit, Bud, so I won’t have to blow any tricky stuff for him when I audition, no screech work, nothing like that, hell, he doesn’t even know what a screech trumpet is. I can limber up my lip easily in the next week, the hardest part is over now, you know, even though I heave every now and then, but I’m keeping down a lot more than I used to.
“So that’s the story. Once I land this gig, I’ve really got it made. This is the first break I’ve had in a long time. I was real bad, you know, a real addict.”
“He was taking heroin,” Carol said.
“Yes, I know,” Bud answered, listening to the conversation and knowing he was a part of it, but sensing this something that was wrong with the picture and not knowing what it was.
“It’s poison, man, believe me. Say, you want to hear something interesting? Here’s a fact for you, Buddy. When I was down at Lex — I only stayed two days, man, I couldn’t take that joint. I mean, they do wonderful things down there, all right, but you don’t think of that when you’re there, all you think of is getting a fix — well, anyway, some of the guys there were doctors, how’s that for a fact? I don’t mean the ones who were treating us, I mean the patients. The patients were guys who used to be doctors and who got hooked. Oh, we had all kinds down there, all right, even guys who’d been on the junk for ten, twenty years. Boy, what a place that was. Like they really want you to kick it, you know? I mean, these guys are what you call dedicated, I guess. Except for one shlmozzle, man, I’ll never forget him. All of them are sympathetic, you know? They realize what you’re going through because they see it every day, but they don’t look down on you, they try to help, and they make you feel like you’re not alone. All except this one jerk. I was being examined, and he came over to me and said, ‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’ I said yes, and he just nodded like a wise old owl and said, ‘You’ll be back.’ How’s that for giving a person confidence. ‘You’ll be back!’ Of course, a lot of the guys there were on their fourth and fifth trips, and some of them practically live in the place. They kick it, and they get out and hop aboard again, and wham! right back to Lex. Like a big game. You know they had a bunch of guys in an experimental group down there, the way they have people volunteer to get bitten by mosquitoes, that kind of thing. These guys were the guinea pigs for drug experiments, because those doctors are trying all the time to find out more about it, so they can help, you know? So with these guys, like, they’d raise the fix and keep raising it and raising it, all the way up, so they could study how strong a habit gets. And they’d give it to them right on the dot, like say the first fix was at nine in the morning, then the next fix would be at noon, but right at noon, not a minute before or a minute after.
“And then sometimes they’d hold out on them, to see the effects, things like that so they could help the other guys who are hooked. But these cats in the group, man, they loved it. They were getting all the jive they wanted free, what the hell did they care? And it was certainly a hell of a lot better than that substitute junk they taper you off on, that methadone. Well, I’m glad I cut out of there, that’s for sure. I couldn’t make it, that’s all. I needed a fix. I was bangin’ my head against the wall for a fix. So I took off. They can’t hold you there, you know, even though the full cure is four months. You’re there under voluntary commitment, you know. But I’m telling you, man...”
Bud listened to him rattling on and tried to find something in the man who stood before him that was even remotely related to the boy and adolescent he had known. The features had changed, lengthening into maturity, except for the mouth, which still remained boyish somehow. The eyes had changed most of all, of course, but he knew that was caused by the drugs, or at least he suspected as much. The body, too, was leaner, not as padded as it had been, but he knew none of these things added up to the whole change, the sum of the parts not being equal to the whole in this case. And yet he could not describe the change because it was something he could feel rather than see, and suddenly realizing he was incapable of seeing any real change, he wondered if he too had invisibly changed, if he too sounded as alien as Andy did, and his gaze shifted to Carol as though to reassure himself that some things remain ever and always the same.