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head.
    â€œYour boyfriend a football player?” I asked.
    â€œNo, he deals coke.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œDo you like coke?”
    â€œYes, quite a lot.”
    â€œWell, Hal has some Bolivian rock you can read your fortune in, I’ll tell you that.”
    â€œOh, gee, I—”
    â€œAnybody ever tell you the difference between acid and coke?”
    â€œNobody ever did.”
    â€œWell, with acid you think you see God. With coke you think you are God. I’ll tell you the honest truth, this rock Hal’s got looks like the main exhibit at the Arizona Rock and Gem Show. Did you ever hear a drawl like mine?”
    â€œNo, where’s it from?”
    â€œIt’s not from anywhere. I made the god damn thing up out of magazines.”
    â€œHow much of that rock is left?”
    â€œOne o.z. No more, no less. At a grand, it’s the last nickel bargain in Florida.”
    â€œI’ll take it all.”
    â€œWe’ll drop it off. Hey, can you tell me one thing, how come you got hospitalized? The papers said exhaustion but I don’t believe everything I read. You don’t look exhausted.”
    â€œIt was exhaustion.”
    That night, after I had paid them, I asked if the business in the boats that afternoon had been a setup. She said that it had. “Don’t tell him that!” giggled the boyfriend. “You coo-coo brain!”
    *   *   *
    My eyes were out on wires and I was grinding my teeth. When I chopped that shit, it fell apart like a dog biscuit. Bolivian rock. I didn’t care. I just made the rails about eight feet and blew myself a daydream with a McDonald’s straw. Let them try and stop me now!
    By the time I got to Reynolds Street I was in tears. I went down to the park and crossed over to Astro City. The ground was beaten gray and flat and the tin rocketships were unoccupied. I climbed high enough on the monkey bars that no one could look into my eyes and wept until I choked.
    I considered changing my name and cutting my throat. I considered taking measures. I decided to walk to Catherine’s house again and if necessary nail myself to her door. I was up for the whole shooting match.
    I walked over to Simonton, past the old cigar factory, around the schoolyard and synagogue, and stopped at the lumber company. I bought a hammer and four nails. Then I continued on my way. On Eaton Street, trying to sneak, I dropped about a gram on the sidewalk. I knelt with my red and white straw and snorted it off the concrete while horrified pedestrians filed around me. “It takes toot to tango,” I explained. Nylon and Platt would love to catch me at this, a real chance to throw the book. I walked on, rubbing a little freeze on my gums and waiting for the drip to start down my throat and signal the advent of white-line fever or renewed confidence.
    The wind floated gently into my hair, full of the ocean and maritime sundries from the shipyard. A seagull rocketed all the way from William Street close to the wooden houses, unseen, mind you, by any eyes but mine. A huge old tamarind dropped scented moisture into the evening in trailing veils. Mad fuck-ups running to their newspapers and greasy dinners surged around my cut-rate beneficence. I felt my angel wings unfold. More than that you can’t ask for.
    Catherine’s house with her bicycle on the porch was in a row of wooden cigarmakers’ houses grown about with untended vegetation, on a street full of huge mahoganies. I thought to offer her a number of things—silence, love, friendship, departure, a hot beef injection, shining secrets, a tit for a tat, courtesy, a sensible house pet, a raison d’être, or a cup of coffee. And I was open to suggestion, short of “get outa here,” in which case I had the hammer and nails and would nail myself to her door like a summons.
    I crossed the street to her house, crept Indian style onto the porch, and looked