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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 particular afternoon, and he could
     just reimburse her when she brought it to him. This arrangement, very casual, made him anxious, so he’d been even more casual
     and said sure, fine, whatever. Thinking back, he was sure he’d said
whatever,
which in retrospect worried him because it might have sounded as if he didn’t care at all, not at all, so little that it
     wouldn’t matter if she forgot to get it or call, and once he’d made the decision to have marijuana in his home one more time
     it mattered a lot. It mattered a lot.