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unusually
     good marijuana, for $1250 U.S. He had tried to stop smoking marijuana maybe 70 or
     80 times before. Before this woman knew him. She did not know he had tried to stop.
     He always lasted a week, or two weeks, or maybe two days, and then he’d think and
     decide to have some in his home one more last time. One last final time he’d search
     out someone new, someone he hadn’t already told that he had to stop smoking dope and
     please under no circumstances should they procure him any dope. It had to be a third
     party, because he’d told every dealer he knew to cut him off. And the third party
     had to be someone all-new, because each time he got some he knew this time had to
     be the last time, and so told them, asked them, as a favor, never to get him any more,
     ever. And he never asked a person again once he’d told them this, because he was proud,
     and also kind, and wouldn’t put anyone in that kind of contradictory position. Also
     he considered himself creepy when it came to dope, and he was afraid that others would
     see that he was creepy about it as well. He sat and thought and waited in an uneven
     X of light through two different windows. Once or twice he looked at the phone. The
     insect had disappeared back into the hole in the steel girder a shelf fit into.
    She’d promised to come at one certain time, and it was past that time. Finally he
     gave in and called her number, using just audio, and it rang several times, and he
     was afraid of how much time he was taking tying up the line and he got her audio answering
     device, the message had a snatch of ironic pop music and her voice and a male voice
     together saying we’ll call you back, and the ‘we’ made them sound like a couple, the
     man was a handsome black man who was in law school, she designed sets, and he didn’t
     leave a message because he didn’t want her to know how much now he felt like he needed
     it. He had been very casual about the whole thing. She said she knew a guy just over
     the river in Allston who sold high-resin dope in moderate bulk, and he’d yawned and
     said well, maybe, well, hey, why not, sure, special occasion, I haven’t bought any
     in I don’t know how long. She said he lived in a trailer and had a harelip and kept
     snakes and had no phone, and was basically just not what you’d call a pleasant or
     attractive person at all, but the guy in Allston frequently sold dope to theater people
     in Cambridge, and had a devoted following. He said he was trying to even remember
     when was the last time he’d bought any, it had been so long. He said he guessed he’d
     have her get a decent amount, he said he’d had some friends call him in the recent
     past and ask if he could get them some. He had this thing where he’d frequently say
     he was getting dope mostly for friends. Then if the woman didn’t have it when she
     said she’d have it for him and he became anxious about it he could tell the woman
     that it was his friends who were becoming anxious, and he was sorry to bother the
     woman about something so casual but his friends were anxious and bothering him about
     it and he just wanted to know what he could maybe tell them. He was caught in the
     middle, is how he would represent it. He could say his friends had given him their
     money and were now anxious and exerting pressure, calling and bothering him. This
     tactic was not possible with this woman who’d said she’d come with it because he hadn’t
     yet given her the $1250. She would not let him. She was well off. Her family was well
     off, she’d said to explain how her condominium was as nice as it was when she worked
     designing sets for a Cambridge theater company that seemed to do only German plays,
     dark smeary sets. She didn’t care much about the money, she said she’d cover the cost
     herself when she got out to the Allston Spur to see whether the guy was at home in
     the trailer as she was certain he would be this