A Diet of Treacle

  “Wait for it to clear a little,” Joe suggested.

  “Hell with it. Basil won’t wait. The world won’t wait. Life is a collection of unbearable demands. Later for all of you.”

  And Shank was gone. Anita crossed the room to close the door and then returned to Joe.

  “I hope he scores,” Joe said.

  “I hope he doesn’t,” Anita blurted.

  Joe gave her an odd look. “Really? What’s bugging you?”

  “I don’t like…pot.”

  He laughed softly. “How do you know? You never made it, baby.”

  “I just don’t like it.”

  Joe’s voice was lazy. “I can remember when you didn’t like sex, baby. Then you turned on to it and you found out it was something fine. You haven’t been the same since, you know. Sexiest woman around.”

  Anita started to grin, but then shook her head. “I still don’t like pot,” she said. “I don’t have to try it to know I don’t like it.”

  “What don’t you like about it?”

  “What it does to you. It takes you far away from me. It makes you so…I don’t know. Cool. Distant. As though you’re miles and miles away. As though there’s a thick glass wall around you, so that you can see out and I can see in but I can’t touch you. And a really thick wall, so that the images are a little warped.”

  “You talk fine. Poetic, sort of.”

  “Joe—”

  “You can tear down the wall, baby. You can turn yourself on and come inside where it’s warm and cozy.”

  “Joe—”

  “I’m a permissive cat,” he went on. “Very easy to get along with. You want to stay straight, that’s your business. I don’t try to turn you on. I don’t try to run your life. You go where you want and you do what you want. It’s up to you. You want to smoke a stick or two, that’s all right with me—we can smoke together and swing together and take a quiet trip way to the top. You don’t want to, fine. Solid. So you be permissive. So don’t try to run my life. It’s my life, baby.”

  “I know it, Joe.”

  “Then show it. You know how many times you told me you don’t like pot? It can get on a cat’s nerves. Really, baby. You can become a drag.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Like yesterday. Like walking out of the pad because I was turning on and you didn’t want to be around. That wasn’t nice. Anti-social.”

  “I—”

  “A lot of cats would have insisted you make the scene yourself. I’m not like that. Hell, it’s not like we’re married, for God’s sake. We just swing together. All right. So you don’t have to smoke and I don’t have to stop.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m…sorry.”

  He relaxed. “I’m going out for a walk,” Joe said. “Just a little walk.”

  “In the rain?”

  “I won’t melt. The pad has me all confined today. Like a prison. I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Can I come?”

  He hesitated. “You stay here,” he said. “I got thinking to do. I can do it better alone.”

  Her disappointment showed in her face. “Oh,” she said. “Will you be gone long?”

  “God,” he said. “I told you, a little while. Just stay here and maybe straighten up a little and I’ll be back. God, I told you—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  Joe gave the girl a quick kiss on the forehead, forced a smile and quit the apartment. When he hit the street he at once felt better—liberated, as if he had escaped. The rain did not trouble him; it slanted down lightly now, a fine spray. Joe strode through without difficulty.

  He hurried to Second Avenue, then walked to a small East Side coffee house called Bird In Hand. It was dark inside. The front part contained half a dozen tables, and a back room had four more. It was to the back that Joe walked, where he took a table close to the adjoining kitchen. For a moment he was completely alone, until the waitress approached for his order.

  The waitress, a thin, hollow-eyed blonde named Eileen, wore tight dungarees and a loose-fitting black sweater. Joe grinned, reaching to pat her buttocks. He had slept with her once or twice several months ago and had liked her.

  “Coffee,” he said. “American coffee, black, no sugar. And if somebody’s looking for a chess game, here I am. Ready and willing.”

  “Solid,” Eileen said. “You’ve been absent lately.”

  “Miss me?”

  “Like I miss a boil. Busy?”

  “Not too.” Joe shrugged.

  “There’s a set at Judy’s. Going?” Eileen asked.

  “I think so. Tomorrow night?”

  “That’s the one.”

  She headed for the kitchen and returned with a cup of coffee. Joe handed her a quarter and she pocketed it in her dungarees; then she sighed heavily and sat down opposite him. “God, I’m dragged,” she said. “This is a bitch of a day.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything. You know Dave?”

  “Dave Schwerner?”

  “That’s the one. I’ve been living with him.”

  “I’m hip.”

  “Well, he’s been playing needle games,” she complained.

  Joe shook his head. “Bad,” he said. “Horse?”

  “Uh-huh. Just skin-popping. That’s all, he says. Just skin-popping. He can take it or leave it. Funny, you know. Because he can take it or leave it but he never leaves it. Isn’t that funny?”

  Joe said nothing.

  “So we’re always broke,” she went on. “But very broke. I don’t make much here, you know that. A buck an hour plus a tip now and then. And he spends long bread on the needle. Nobody goes through money like a junkie.”

  “Hold on,” Joe said. “He’s not a junkie.”

  “Then Dave’s faking it. So he’s not hooked. He’s still using a little too regularly to make me happy. And we’re always broke. And you know what comes next.”

  “He wants you to try a needleful?”

  “Not that. Not yet. I suppose that’s next on the agenda but he can go to hell for himself before I punch needle-holes in myself. No, another brainstorm. We’re sitting around, wondering how to pay for the next cap of heroin, and he mentions a way we could be rolling in bread.”

  “Oh.”

  “You got it,” she said. “The same old story. I was thinking, honey, Dave says. You know, all you would have to do is turn one little trick a day and we’d be living in style. An extra fifteen bucks a day. Pay for the horse and money left over to live on. Not that you would be professional or anything. I wouldn’t want that. Just one little trick a day.”

  Joe kept silent.

  “And then he’s using more horse,” Eileen went on, “and then it’s two little tricks a day, and then all of a sudden he’s mainlining with thirty or forty pounds worth of monkey, and then I’m on it myself because otherwise it’s too much to stand by myself, and there we are, a pair of junkies, and I’m spreading my legs for the world to keep us both alive. Just one little trick a day, Dave says. Sure.”

  “That’s bad, Eileen. That’s like ugly.”

  “It gets uglier. Because I don’t know what to do, baby. I really don’t. I ought to leave him. Somebody hits the needle and you have to forget he’s alive. But he needs me, Joe. And I don’t know what to do. He needs me. It’s a funny feeling, when somebody needs you. And one of these days I’m going to turn that one little trick. And I don’t want to. I really don’t want to.” Joe started to say something but then suddenly knew comment to be hopeless.

  Eileen heaved a sigh and stood up. “Problems,” she said. “Everybody’s got them. If we didn’t have them we wouldn’t be here. Stay good, Joe. I’m going to pour coffee for the savages. Later.”

  He watched her go. He thought about Eileen turning tricks to feed Dave’s habit and he felt very sad. It was ugly. But so were lots of things. The world was growing very ugly. Problems? He had problems of his own.

  Funny problems.

  Anita p
roblems.

  You had a woman now, Joe brooded. And when you had a woman you had problems. Things were most assuredly not the same. There were strings all over the place. There were things you couldn’t do.

  You couldn’t hit on another chick. You couldn’t stay out all night. You couldn’t get quite as stoned as you used to and you couldn’t live quite as completely within yourself.

  Not that you necessarily wanted to hit on another chick, to find another bed to warm. Anita was fine in that department, alive and exciting, enough for any man. But the simple fact that you couldn’t if you wanted to, was enough to annoy the hell out of you.

  The big headache was that Anita just didn’t fit in. It was not her scene, not at all. She was too sane for it, maybe. Not sick enough to throw herself headlong into the hysteria of hipdom. Maybe she should have stayed in Harlem and married her split-level engineer. Because a cold-water hole on Saint Marks Place was not her speed.

  What was her speed? Joe frowned.

  And where was the whole bit headed? Where in the world were Anita and you going, and what in the world would you do when you got there?

  Joe sipped his coffee. After a while Lee Revzin came in carrying a chess set. The poet sat down without a word. He took a white pawn in one hand, a black pawn in the other. He mixed them up, then extended both closed fists to Joe. Joe tapped one and got white.

  They set up the pieces and began to play.

  They played for three hours. In the course of the several games Lee said only two words, “Check,” when Joe’s king was in check, and “Mate,” when he won a game. When Lee had something to say he could talk non-stop for hours. One time he had exploded in spontaneous poetry for an hour and a half, talking in perfect heroic couplets and hitting some astonishingly successful and vivid images. At other times he would go for days without uttering a syllable.

  Joe matched the poet’s silence with his own. He played chess and drank coffee and let his mind live a life by itself.

  Basil was hard to find.

  A check of available coffee pots in the area yielded nothing. Shank was having a hard time. He was also beginning to feel thoroughly annoyed.

  The Kitchen was a fairly dismal slum but this failed to dismay Shank. Nor did the slum’s inhabitants—Irish, Italian, and a sprinkling of Puerto Ricans—affect Shank either. But the juveniles of the area were another story. He was close enough to them in age to be a possible member of an alien gang. At one point two teenagers approached him, their eyes wary. He was on their turf, and that might to them mean an invasion. Shank remembered the protocol of the Royal Ramblers and now the routine struck him as ridiculous. But Shank knew the language and he was ready.

  “Who are you, man?” He looked the taller of the two in the eyes. “I’m looking for Basil,” he said. “You know him?”

  Shank read the expression. They knew Basil. But they were too small to deal with him. Basil was big and they were little. They bought what they used, if they used, from someone not nearly so tall as Basil. Someone like Shank, perhaps.

  “You got business with him?” the taller one said.

  “I buy,” Shank said. “I sell.”

  “You swing with a gang?”

  “Years ago but no more.”

  It was satisfactory. They let him alone because they knew he was not in their way. But they did not know Basil’s whereabouts.

  Nobody did. The mystery was becoming a drag. Finally Shank entered the coffee pot where, by all the rules, Basil should have been. Shank sauntered to the counter and studied the girl behind it. He asked for Basil and her eyes informed him she knew both the name and the man.

  “I don’t know him,” the girl said.

  “Call him.” Shank said. “Tell him somebody wants to see him.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Crap,” Shank said. “You pour me a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar. Then you get your butt over to the phone and you call him. Fast.”

  “I don’t know you,” she said. “Maybe you’re law.”

  “I look like law?”

  She shrugged.

  But for the girl and Shank, the diner was empty. Shank walked around the counter and moved in on the girl. She seemed vaguely frightened but obviously did not know what to do next. There was nobody to call on for help.

  Shank took out the knife. He sprang the blade, and the girl’s eyes widened. He moved the blade until it was about an inch away from her stomach.

  “Law doesn’t carry blades,” he said. “But you go right on thinking I’m law, and you go right on giving me a hard time. Then I’ll have to prove to you I’m not law. You know how I’ll do it?”

  Her mouth made an O.

  “I’ll cut your tits off,” he said gently. “Wouldn’t you rather call Basil?”

  She nodded. She started for the phone.

  “First the coffee. Cream and sugar.”

  She poured the coffee. Then she found the phone and dropped a dime into it and dialed. He sat at the counter and sipped coffee, pleased.

  “He’s on his way,” she told him.

  Shank nodded. He waited. Less than five minutes later the man called Basil stepped into the diner. He was a small man, five-and-a-half feet short, small-boned, bald. He had nervous eyes. He was well-dressed and over-dressed, as many small men are. His hat was black and short-brimmed, his topcoat an expensive tweed. His Italian loafers were highly shined.

  “You wanted to see me?” Basil’s voice was low.

  Shank nodded. “Can we go somewhere?”

  “First let me know who you are.”

  “You can call me Shank.”

  “I never made that handle.”

  “You do now. You used to know somebody named Mau-Mau. So did I.”

  “Ancient history,” Basil said.

  “That’s the point. You also know a guy named Billy-Billy and a girl named Joyce. So do I.”

  “Billy-Billy’s a fine fellow,” Basil said thoughtfully. “He and Joyce make a good couple.”

  “Billy-Billy’s gay as a jay,” Shank said. “Joyce is a hustler for somebody uptown. Do I pass?”

  “You pass,” Basil said, amused. “Follow me.”

  They walked along 39th Street to Tenth Avenue, turned up Tenth to 40th, then down 40th to a crumbling brownstone. A sign announced the building had been condemned. Large white Xs adorned the windows.

  They entered the building and climbed three flights. Basil put a key into a lock, turned it. They walked into an empty room where, obviously, no one lived. But here Basil kept his goods. The place was known as a drop—a place for the storage, exchange, sale and delivery of junk.

  “What do you want?” Basil asked.

  “Pot.”

  Basil shrugged. “I hardly carry it,” he said. “No profit. I’m surprised you bother. You swing with Billy-Billy and Joyce, you ought to have something better going for you. Pot is small-time. Very small. Not tall at all.”

  “I get along.”

  “You could get along better.”

  “And sell hard stuff?”

  Basil nodded.

  “I don’t like hard stuff,” Shank said. “They bust you for hard stuff and they lay it on you. Hard. Jails sort of drag me. I don’t like them.”

  “You go to the same jails for pot,” Basil said. “The law doesn’t know the difference. Look at the Mau-Mau. Three times was the charm for him. And he never sold a grain of powder.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You could handle both,” Basil said. “Pot for the teaheads, horse for the live ones. More money in it.”

  “I’ve got a steady clientele.”

  “With heroin, customers look for you. A captive audience. No hustling, no worry. If you just want pot you can look for another connection. To tell you the truth, I just carry it as a service. I wouldn’t sell it alone. But I’ll sell it along with the other. And I can make a nice price.”

  Shank thought about it. There was one big point in Basil’s favor. The law saw no difference
between marijuana and heroin. The law was stupid. And you might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.

  “How nice a price?”

  “You sell for five cents a cap. I let you have it for two. A profit of three. Tax-free, baby.”

  A nice price, Shank judged, and he said, “I’ve got fifty dollars. Name me a list of goods.”

  “Fifty?” Basil considered. “Twenty caps,” he said. “And two ounces of gauge. I lose money on the gauge that way. But you’re new. It’s a favor.”

  Two ounces was not enough, Shank thought quickly. Not with the party the next night.

  “Fifteen caps and three ounces,” he said. Basil frowned. “Baby,” he said. “Baby, how much money do you want me to lose?”

  “I need three ounces.”

  They talked about it. And finally Basil agreed. “But you’ll learn,” he said. “You’ll drop the pot after a while. One of your customers gets picked up and he’ll tip them to you without thinking. He won’t be a junkie. He won’t need to protect you. And there you are, lover. Busted because you sell pot. That doesn’t happen when you sell junk. They don’t do a pigeon routine. They don’t dare. They don’t want to be cut off cold. They don’t want to risk a hot shot. You know from a hot shot?”

  Shank knew. But Basil explained anyway.

  “I saw it happen,” he said. “A long-tailed rat. Turned in his pusher to cop a plea. He tried to connect with somebody else, somebody who knew the score. He got his. He got a cap of strychnine. Heated it on his spoon and sent it home and died with the needle in his arm. Ugly, baby.”

  They ironed out the deal. Basil gave Shank three envelopes, each having an ounce of marijuana. Then he handed Shank another envelope containing fifteen capsules of heroin. Shank counted out ten five-dollar bills.

  “A pleasure,” the little man said. He put away the money and smiled. “You know where I hang. The afternoon’s the best time. Find me at leisure. Keep my name a secret. Don’t talk in your sleep. And don’t become your own customer. I won’t sell to you once you become a user yourself. Smoke all the pot you want. Start riding the horse and I cut you off clean. I don’t sell to junkies. I’ve got a code of ethics. No morals. But loads of ethics.”