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of fat cooking on kebab skewers, piss, and the smoke from cheap blocks of hash.
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    I thought that Narcotics Anonymous meetings would be a good spot to get more information about where the real heroin and crack scene was centered. Only it was tough to walk right up to people who were in recovery and try and get that kind of information. So we just sat and listened, waiting for clues. I had patience. I had nothing but time. I was an invisible man, blended completely into the chaos of the capital. After the meetings we returned to the rooming house and sat with the blinds drawn, the dark enveloping us, and we waited. I imagined that if I concentrated hard enough I could disappear completely.
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    Sometimes some well-meaning sort would offer to buy us a coffee after the meeting. As with all junkies in recovery, the talk was inevitably concentrated around drugs. The serenity and the clean-living bullshit that everybody bandied about in the meetings soon vanished into unrestrained drug talk. Like men with no dicks talking about all the pussy they used to get.
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    â€œâ€¦and then I fixed the morphine drip in the hospital, so I could get enough out of it to stay high on…”
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    â€œâ€¦when they closed down the needle exchanges in Glasgow I’d just fish the used needle bins out of the Dumpsters at the hospital, get the old spikes out, file ’em down, bleach ’em, and use ’em…only sometimes there was no time for filing and bleaching…”
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    â€œâ€¦yeah the skag was so much better then. Little tablets we used to get…‘jacks’ they called ’em…just cook ’em right down and shoot them…”
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    â€œâ€¦and there I was, sick as shit on the cell floor, shitting my pants…screaming, and the guards wouldn’t even call the fucking doctor…”
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    â€œâ€¦when my cousin OD’d on that stuff we went and found his connection and bought as much of it as we could. You see, we knew it had to be good shit then….”
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    â€œâ€¦high as a cunt, I just picked up a two-thousand-quid rug from Harrods and walked straight out of the front door. I think they figured I was a delivery guy or something. I walked it straight to my fence and got two hundred quid for it. That was back when you could buy Diconal and Ritalin cheap in the West End…. Ever shoot Diconal? It’s a better rush than heroin…hits you like a speedball….”
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    â€œâ€¦you see this leg? Right here, below the knee, where it goes purple? It’s a deep vein thrombosis. I got it shooting Palfium. They don’t like to prescribe it anymore. Pink palfs…they were the best. Better than skag. You got to crush ’em up good and cold shake it in the syringe. But if you don’t shake it well enough you fuck up your veins. Once I got this I was able to hit up doctors for pain pills better than ever. File a lost-and-found slip at the train station saying you left a bag containing pain meds on the train. Then call an emergency doctor at night and show ’em the slip and tell ’em you’re in pain. Once the fuckers took a look at myleg they were always good for more pills until the doctor’s office opened. Do it on a Friday and you could get enough to get loaded with for the whole weekend….”
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    I had come back to a city I no longer belonged to. Junkie and fuckup stuck out all over me like a warning sign to potential employers, friends, or lovers. I found myself unable to even relate to my old friends. I called up Emma from the Catsuits and found myself invited up to her place in Crouch End for a party. She lived with our old guitar player Marie, so this would be a reunion of sorts. I knew there would be a lot of old faces from my music days. Susan stayed alone in the hotel. I arrived early and nervously downed pints in an Irish theme pub across the road. I felt like an imposter, uncomfortably