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went there under the cover of getting needles but with the real intention of talking to some local junkies. The place was deserted though, apart from the guys who worked there—a couple of older black ex-dopers. One guy took care of me while the other hung out watching TV, asked me to fill out a form, and I gave a false surname and address. He was polite, respectful. He noticed the trace of an accent I had picked up in LA and in true dope-fiend fashion asked me what the heroin was like on the West Coast.
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    I told him that since my return to London I had been smoking heroin but now I wanted to inject again. He filled me in on the need to cook down UK heroin in citric acid. He gave me a pack of forty insulin needles, packets of citric acid, cookers, filters, sterile water, alcohol swabs, and a bin for disposing old needles in. As I was finishing the paperwork I noticed a tall, gaunt figure ring the bell and get buzzed in. He moved quickly, with a junky’s determination, dropping off his old needles and following the guy into the back room to pick up more. I thanked my guy and walked out, loitering by the front entrance to talk to the new arrival as he left.
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    â€œHey, how’s it going?” I asked as he walked out the door. He looked a little startled but stopped to answer me.
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    â€œNot bad, mate.”
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    I got a closer look at him, yet could not get a read of his face. It was as if he was petrified in wax, his features out of focus and indistinct. He wore a cream winter sports jacket and baseball cap, but beyond these features I could not pinpoint anything distinct about him. If he changed his outfit he would have become completely unrecognizable to me.
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    â€œListen man…I just moved here and I need to score, badly. I ain’t a cop or anything…. Can you help me out?”
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    â€œWell,” he told me, “I figure they ain’t got Yanks workin’ for the drug squad now…. Wass yer name, mate?”
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    We exchanged pleasantries and he told me his name was RJ.
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    â€œI can’t do anyfing right now, but I can sort you out after six if yer like. You got a pen?”
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    And that was how it started again. We split with each other’s mobile numbers and my lethargy and depression melted away with each successive step. I had three hours to kill. I sat in the McDonald’s on Shepherds Bush Green nursing a Coke and watching council estate mums withtheir hair pulled back in severe ponytails pushing red-faced screaming children, flabby white arses peeking out of the tops of tracksuit bottoms….
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    â€¦An old homeless guy with shit stains on his filthy wool suit walking the gray streets and rummaging through a garbage can looking for food…quick-talking black kids with impenetrable West London–Jamaican accents hanging on a fence, slapping palms, wolf-whistling at the young snatch as it walked by…
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    I returned to the flat beaming with pride. The hunter who had returned with enough provisions for the family. Susan even attempted a stilted, awkward hug, and we sat and waited for six o’clock to roll around.
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    That evening I established what was to become my routine over the next few months. My mobile phone buzzed to life and I answered it breathlessly after the first ring.
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    â€œIt’s RJ. I’m walkin’ up on your place now. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
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    I slipped my shoes on, put on my leather jacket, and crept out the front door. I exited the Stalinist-gray block of flats and leaned by the door watching for RJ to appear from the background static of the city. Kids played in the concrete and the broken glass, one suspiciously poking at a dead cat with a stick.
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    Cars dragged past the estate, their souped-up sound systems causing the windows in the flats and houses to vibrate in unison. The sky was a murky gray, already dark outside at six, dirty yellow streetlights