Through The Eyes Of

A Night In The Life of a Dealer

Izzy

Time to go to work. I can't live here for free and sponge off of Duff and Slash; they've done enough for me by giving me a roof over my head. Duff's a little ticked off at me too because I let Nikki give Slash some smack last night. I mean he's not mad/mad because obviously I was pretty fucked up and not making the best choices myself last night; that's made painfully obvious every time I try and walk since I invited Tommy to fuck me last night. Duff told me though in no uncertain terms that I had better not turn Curly Sue into a junkie or let him randomly OD because the kid looks up to me and trusts me not to lead him into anything that's going to hurt him. I wouldn't either, not on purpose.

I like the kid; I like the size of his dick, I like the way he plays guitar, I like how he's sweet and somewhat innocent and how this makes Duff happy. I like to watch the way and Duff light up for each other when they lay eyes on the other person. It's sickening to watch but I'm happy for them. I just want to be happy like that again. When I walked by our building tonight I saw that the lights on in our old apartment and I knew Axl was home. I wanted to stop but I just kept going. He'd just tell me get the fuck out if I stopped. Besides; he's probably not alone anyway; that Erin chick is probably there.

Tonight, like every night that I'm out I'm working a little alleyway about hallway between our storage unit on Gardiner and the Cathouse. Lots of the girls know me and come to me to score. They also know that sometimes I'll trade sex for dope and that if they are that desperate I won't hurt them. Sometimes you have nights where that seems to be the only way people want to pay you; with sex. It's fine for the first customer but after that you're going to be losing money and that's not ok. It also depends on who the person is. Cute stripper? Cool. Old whore? No thanks. Underage kid? Definetly not.

As soon as I hit he shadows between the buildings she's on me. Her name is Samantha and she's a pretty little blonde from Kentucky. She came out here to be a model or "maybay eeven a movay stayuh." This translates to "maybe even a movie star" but they pronounce things differently where Samantha's from. She didn't become a movie star obviously; she became a heroin addicted stripper but she likes to tell herself she's just paying her dues. Yeah, and paying and paying and paying; but keep on telling yourself that honey.

"Izzy!" the girl calls out and steps towards me out of the shadows.

I turn towards her and say "What do you need Samantha?" but I keep walking as I say it. I stop when I reach a deep, double doorway completely swathed in darkness.

"Izzy, you know what I need, I need a fix, I need it really bad, I'm starting to get sick and they won't let me work sick and I just paid the rent so I'm out of cash. Even when I get some it's already spent. Hook me up Izzy, help me please!" she begs.

It's sad what she does to herself and I'm not doing her any favors BY feeding her habit but I know what it's like to be dope sick and desperate. Shit, I had just gone through the shit in Seattle. "Samantha, you know I'm not helping you by giving you this shit right?"

"Oh please Izzy, it's not like I have any sober living fantasies right now. You going to shoot me up or what?" she snaps.

"Fine," I reply and pull one of the ready- made syringes out of my boots. I keep them especially for the Cathouse girls so that they can shoot up and get back to work. "You know you've gotta pay in cash next time too right?"

"Yeah Izzy, I know, just shoot me up and then fuck me and get it over with," she says, snapping at me again.

Ok, for some reason that statement pisses me off; probably because so much screwed up shit has been thrown at me lately regarding sex. I used to love sex; shit I still love it but it used to be almost sacred. Sex was like the one time that I knew that my soul would really and truly connect with Axl's. The nakedness and the fact that people saw us being together sexually as wrong was enough to guarantee vulnerability but it was more than that. We used to make love for hours at a time; and it wasn't about the orgasm. When it was time for that it came with sweeping ferocity every time.