Barking Man by Madison Smartt Bell Page A

other women, but I managed not to know anything about that at the time. He had not quite finished high school and the best job he could hold was being an orderly down at the hospital, but he made a good deal of extra money stealing pills out of there and selling them on the street.
    That was something else I didn’t allow myself to think on much back then. Patrick never told me a lot about it anyhow, always acted real mysterious about whatever he was up to in that line. He would disappear on one of his trips and come back with a whole mess of money, and I would spend up my share and be glad I had it too. Never thought much about where it was coming from, the money or the pills, either one. He used to keep all manner of pills around the house, Valium and hides and a lot of different kinds of speed, and we both took what we felt like whenever we felt in the mood. But what Patrick made the most on was Dilaudid. I used to take that without ever knowing what it really was, but once everything fell in on us I found out it was a bad thing, bad as heroin they said, and not much different, and that was what they gave Patrick most of his time for.
    I truly was surprised to find out that was the strongest dope we had, because I never really felt like it made me all that high. It sure didn’t have anything like the punch the speed did. Yet you could fall into the habit of taking a good bit of it, never noticing how much. You would just take one and kick back on a long slow stroke and whatever trouble you might have, it would not be able to find you. It came on like nothing but it was the hardest habit to lose, and I was a long time shaking it. I might be thinking about it yet if I would let myself, and there were times, all through the winter I spent in that apartment, I’d catch myself remembering the feeling.
    I had come just before the leaves started turning, and then I believed it was all going to happen quick. I thought to have Davey back with me inside of a month or six weeks. But pretty soon the lawyer was singing me a different tune, delaying it all for this reason or that. He had a whole lot of different schemes in his mind, having to do with which judge, which social worker, which doctor might help us out the most. I got excited over everything he told me, in the beginning I did at least, but then nothing ever seemed to come of it at all. It turned off cold, the leaves came down, that poor little apple tree underneath my window was bare as a stick, and still nothing had happened.
    You couldn’t call it a real bad winter, there wasn’t much snow or anything, but I was cold just about all the time, except when I was at work. The TOA was hot as a steam bath, especially back around the kitchen, and when I was there I’d sweat until I smelled. In the apartment, though, all I had was some electric baseboard heaters, and they cost too much for me to leave them running very long at a stretch. I’d keep it just warm enough I couldn’t see my breath, and spend my time in a hot bathtub or under a big pile of blankets on the bed. Or else I would just be cold.
    Outside wasn’t all that much colder than in, and I spent a lot of time sitting there on that balcony, looking way out yonder toward the mountains. I got a pair of those gloves with the fingers out so I could keep on stuffing my envelopes while I was sitting out there. Day or night, it didn’t matter, I was so familiar with it I could do it in the dark. I’d sit there sometimes for hours on end, counting the time by the trains that went by. Sound seemed to carry better in the cold, and I felt like I could hear every clack of the rails when a train was coming, and when they let the horn off it rang that whole valley like a bell.
    But inside the apartment it was mostly dead quiet. I might hear the pipes moaning now and again and that was all. If the phone rang it would make me jump. Didn’t seem like there was any TV or radio next door. The only sound coming out of there was