" qué? " he asks.

He decided to start up his own business and poached my number one day. He asked me to meet him at a taqueria out on 24th street. I was not a Mission girl. I had tried to cop there before. I wasn’t familiar with the home bums, the gangsters, and people who looked like dealers but were actually just down on their luck hustlers. In the Tenderloin, things were easy to discern with a glance. Follow the traffic. If a dealer has a bunch of people coming up to him, he is in business. If things are not moving in his direction, he is the last choice.





This guy was new to the set. He still had an actual JOB. The set up was fairly simple. If you wanted a quarter gram, you asked for a “special” chicken soft taco. You paid with thirty dollars. If you wanted a half gram, you asked for two chicken soft tacos and paid fifty dollars. I never knew dope and tacos could be so fucking delicious. Since that might be the only time I ate something that didn’t involve sugar, fat, and salt as the main ingredients, I ate that taco up. Angel was quickly becoming my favorite.





“Help me out Angel. I’m sick “ I could tell as the words fell out of my mouth that this was not going to work.

I had broken the unspoken rule. I had called him to drive out with no money. He was no longer slinging tacos. He was slinging packages. He put me the fuck out of his car with a bunch of curses in Spanish. He had left his home for this bullshit. I was desperate.

He didn't even ask me to suck his dick. Not sure what that means about him or about my appearance.





He made it clear as he hissed in broken English “Don’t call me with no money”. He had learned a thing or two.





There went that idea. As I walked back to my room at the West Hotel, my legs felt so heavy. When I went through the streets, it seemed as if every fluid in my body was attempting to evacuate at the same time. I was sweating, my eyes were water, my nose was running, and I really really really needed to find a bathroom for what was about to leak from my behind.





As I ran up to flights of stairs, I was tightly clenching my cheeks. I got the deadbolt open and make it just in time to shit and puke while delicately balanced in the sink and on the toilet at the same time.





A gravely door cried weakly “Shut the fucking door Tracey!” Yeah, I will get right on that asshole.

About this motherfucker right here- my boyfriend. He had been up on a crack binge for a few days. Now he had taken his klonopin, mixed with what he had left of “his” dope. Yes. Exactly. We were playing that game. My dope was his dope and his dope was his dope. He had given me some crumbs this morning but apparently he feels I am doing too much.





When I can finally extract myself from the john, I see my opportunity. The rig from earlier was left in the cabinet. It had gotten clogged before his got his full issue. Clearly, he was feeling no pain. In his klonopin coma he was still attempting to lecture me about how I should manage my money.





I lean in and steal a kiss as I whisper “show me some love”.





I want to see how awake he is at the moment. He is out. Completely out. I know he is sleeping with some dope crammed somewhere where no one will steal it while he is passed out. What he means is so I won’t steal it. I don’t steal his shit anyway. He gets so high on benzos he does it all then forgets. Like this hit in the bathroom. I lock the door. I go in the bathroom. I’m doing it.





I open up the back of the syringe and pour the blood and dope into a spoon. I take the old needle and fish out the blood clot then reheat the mixture. I don’t know why I am bothering to pretend to be hygienic. I am shooting up his blood and dope plus some extra tap water to thin the fluids. This was the dope he didn’t feel I needed and I took it. I place it in a new syringe. BAM. I get it the first time. I feel the warmth that only tar gives you. Apparently the dope to blood ratio was pretty low because I feel it.







I crawl in bed with him. He won’t remember any of this and neither will I (I hope). I have sunk so low as to shoot up a coagulated blood hit I essentially stole from my sleeping boyfriend. I just hope he shares with me in the morning. Good night.

















"Show me some love here Angel " I say in a shaky voice.