Heroin Chronicles by Jerry Stahl

arm.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    Eli’s hand moved like lightning to his back pocket. She rolled it over in her head; one shot and both these cunts will be out. She took nothing and stirred it into her spoon, preparing to shoot ice-cold water in her veins.
    â€œBaby, hold me.”
    Eliza grabbed the top of Eli’s arm. He went in for a spot. PRDD’s head sank toward the scattered two-foot line waiting for him. Eli was out. She’d deal with him later, right now she needed him out of the way for this to work. She sat back and waited. She watched the bringer’s head resting on the back of the couch, mind gone. Then he came to, swallowed down half the beer.
    â€œMoses, can we talk in the bedroom?”
    â€œWhat?”
    She smiled; nudged her head toward her drooling, dope-blessed seatmate.
    â€œOh yeah, yeah.”
    She grabbed the bringer by the arm, led him to his bedroom. He pushed her up against the door, roughed up her tits. She moaned, and she passed her hands along his limp cock. They moved toward the bed. He plopped onto the corner, hard mattress protruding from between his legs, his head sagging down. She waited a few seconds, then pushed him back, started to unzip his pants. There was no need to take the charade any further; he was out.
    She raced to the front room, grabbed a freezer bag, shoveled the drugs in, ran to the bathroom, took the lid off the tank, and seized the double-wide freezer bag of cash floating there. She roused Eli. “Come on, baby. Let’s bounce.”
    â€œWhere’s the bringer?”
    â€œSleeping.”
    Eli didn’t notice the extra baggage she was toting. She shuffled him down the stairs and into the car, not looking back once. They’d have to leave to wherever now, or they’d be dead by tomorrow. One stop. They needed to go to the apartment to get clothes, a quick in-and-out.
    The car came to a screeching halt, half on the street, half on the walkway. “Wait here. I’ll grab our things. Be right back.”
    â€œWhere’s our stash, baby?”
    â€œNot now. We gotta leave.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œDon’t ask.”
    â€œCome on, baby. I need it.”
    â€œOkay, let’s go.”
    She’d miss him when he was gone. He was so beautiful. She watched him stumble into the bathroom with a ridiculous scoop of drugs in his paw; ritual. The door closed.
    â€œI’ll be waiting in the car when you’re done.”
    Eliza walked out, got in the car, and headed for the highway.
    At least he’d be high when the bringer came. She’d be high, too, in a couple of hours. On some beach figuring out what was next. Fuck, maybe rehab was in her future. There had to be something beyond this, there had to be a better way to live. She turned up DNA’s “Not Moving” and let it screech through her speakers as she laughed and cried over the memory of the men she had just left behind; the looks that would be etched onto their faces when they finally came to.

N ATHAN L ARSON is best known as an award-winning film music composer, having created the scores for over thirty movies, including Boys Don’t Cry, Dirty Pretty Things, and Margin Call . In the 1990s, he was lead guitarist for the influential prog-punk outfit Shudder to Think. He is the author of the novel The Dewey Decimal System and its sequel The Nervous System . Larson lives in Harlem, New York City, with his wife and son.

dos mac + the jones
    by nathan larson
    D os Mac, accomplished urban planner and the mind behind some heavy-duty military technology, is draining his first cup of coffee as he notes an ancient but absolutely unmistakable tug in his groin and stomach.
    Dos gives it a second. Player, please, he thinks. But there it is, that heat in his gut. If you’ve felt it once you couldn’t possibly misdiagnose it.
    Sets down his brown MTA mug on the metal gurney that now supports his piecemeal bachelor’s kitchenette.