The woman sitting in the living room of my Dupont Circle apartment in Washington with my dealer and friend Smooth is in her mid-twenties. She is African-American and has the look of a really hot female who is part way into a deep crack addiction; she is neither as good looking as she was before she started sucking on the Devil’s Johnson nor as hideous as she will become after spending more quality time doing major suckee suckee.

The female is holding up a variety of clothing for my inspection from a large bag she is carrying around, as though she has returned from a monstrous shopping excursion undertaken with a credit card from a makeover show.

Shirts.

Jeans.

Shorts.

Hats.

Ties.

Etc.

“This Fee-your-you-see,” she says. “The real deal, boo.”

She displays a green print shirt and points at the Fiorucci tag.

“That’s nice,” I say.

“I know it nice,” says the woman, whose name is Shawanda. “And it look nice on you, you try it on.”

“No thanks.”

She pulls out a black shirt and displays it. “Prada,” she says.

“Nice,” I say.

“Shit be lookin’ good on a big man like you. Try it. You like it, I give it to you for forty. Worth three hundredfitty. I know you got forty livin’ in a crib like this.”

She gestures around my apartment, which is an average place in a nondescript mid-sixties Washington apartment building. The furniture is multiple steps up the food chain from Ikea, and it is well equipped with electronic equipment. There is a large number of books and CDs on wall units in the living room, although significantly less of both than there once was. I am in the process of selling many of the books and CDs to subsidize by drug habit, but the collection—which was huge to start with—is still impressive.

“Where they from?” I say.

“Fee-your-you-see an’ Prada,” she says. “Just like it say. This ain’t no knockoff shit. It be the real deal. Looks like your size too, baby.”

I can see that it’s Prada and Fiorucci. What I want to know is where the sister got the Prada and the Fee-your-you-see at and why she’s like a walking designer boutique.

Smooth—who was a welterweight boxer back in the day—and is now a shiftless crackhead and dope addict who talks about what it was like when he was a boxer, looks at me and laughs. Smooth’s real name is John. He says that “Smooth” is his name from his boxing days. People called him “Smooth” because he was such a smooth fighter. Other people say that he has acquired the nickname more recently, and that it is related to the fact that he bullshits and lies so effortlessly and smoothly.

Smooth shakes his head and says, “You can’t beat them kinda prices.”

“What size are the shirts?” I say.

“Most of ‘em mediums, boo,” she says. “I got some large too. Ain’t they nice?”

“No way,” I say. I exhale a stream of smoke from hit of rock I just smoked. Before coming back to my apartment, and acquiring Shawanda from the streets of inner city Washington in the process, Smooth and I scored several bags of dope and about fifty bucks worth of rock.

“I’m an XXL or an XL,” I say.

“You large at bess’, baby,” she says. “You keep smokin’, you gonna’ be medium before you know it.”

That’s cool. I don’t have a problem with weight loss.

Dope and rock help one shed massive poundage effortlessly. You can drop twenty or thirty pounds in a matter of weeks on a really good run without even breaking a sweat.

Normal people starve themselves to death or run like rodents on treadmills day in and day out to get that kind of result.

The hell with South Beach, low carbs and Dr. Atkins. Crack cocaine and heroin (Drs. White and Brown, respectively, or White and White, depending on the point of origin of the dope) are the real miracle diets.

Guaranteed.^*

(^*Side effects may vary).

Shawanda rummages in one of the bags again and lifts out a black shirt with a print of red, white and green ice pops on it. “This be Mos-Chai-No,” she says. “Be a large. It say two hundred fitty on the tag. Hit me with 20 and it yours.”

Only Prada, Fiorucci and Moschino? No Dolce & Gabbana?

Shawanda and Smooth are sitting on my sofa. I’m sitting on a chair across from them. A guy in his sixties named Rufus, who has white hair and a less than average number of front teeth, is sitting on the floor leaning on my coffee table.

Rufus—who is probably somebody’s grandfather—is saying, “Shit be good” repeatedly. Occasionally, he throws in, “Smooth, do me anotha’ hit. I be good for it.”

Rufus is stationary, which means I do not need to follow him around my apartment. The last time he came over with Smooth, a cheap souvenir watch I bought in Spain and several dollars in quarters I kept in a cup in my kitchen went missing.

I mix up a hit of dope in a teaspoon, suck the liquid into a syringe, tie off my right arm with a sock and shoot up in front of everybody like I’m drinking a shot of scotch.

At one time, I ran into the bathroom to shoot up, but I’m no long shy and, besides, leaving the premises unattended could result in petty theft on Rufus’ part (Smooth won’t steal from me and, as far as I know, Shawanda is only interested in big ticket items off the rack).

Shawanda holds up a woman’s blouse and hands it to Smooth.

He examines it and says, “My wife would love this shit. How much you want for it?”

“That be Christian Dior, baby,” she says.

“Give you a blast for it.”

“Sold.”

Shawanda smokes the big hit of rock Smooth gives her in exchange for the Dior blouse. I smoke another hit. Rufus watches us and begs for another hit. Smooth gives him a small piece.

“Shit be fuckin’ all right,” he says upon exhaling.

“Smooth,” Shawanda says. “You take me down to Hecht’s?”

She wants to go Hecht’s, the big department store in downtown DC?

“I thought you banned from Hecht’s,” Smooth says.

“Nah, baby. I banned from Woodie’s. I still cool at Hecht’s.”

Smooth looks at me and says, “Shawanda the best booster in DC. She incredible.”

Really? I know good writers, kick ass photographers, successful lawyers, top-notch business people and, even, Class-A junkies and dope fiends. But Shawanda is the first professional shoplifter I’ve met.

I’m suitably impressed.

“Cool,” I say. “You make a living boosting?”

“Shit,” she laughs. “I ain’t even been busted that many times.”

“You wanna’ come?” Smooth asks me. “She can show you how.”

I should be working. I have a story due tomorrow. I postponed the deadline on it last week when I was too stoned to bother writing by claiming a vague and debilitating illness to my editor. I’ve written, maybe, five paragraphs of thing so far.

In fact, I should be writing my ass off right now, not hosting a crackhead convention in my apartment.

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “Why not? We can stop for more rock later, right?”

“All you want,” Smooth says.

It’s two in the afternoon. Smooth drops Rufus off on U Street, then we head downtown so Shawanda can hit up Hecht’s.

“They anything you need, Baby?” she asks me. “I give you a good price on it. Maybe we do a trade or sumfin’.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

We pull up in front of Hecht’s. Shawanda gets out of the car and Smooth tells her we’ll wait across the street.

We sit and wait. Fifteen minutes later, Shawanda walks out of the store. She runs across the street and jumps into the backseat.

“Go!” she says.

Smooth pulls out.

“Go!” she shouts. “Faster!”

We speed off down the street.

“What’s up?” Smooth says.

“Security asshole be followin’ me,” she says. “Fuckin’ poh-lice muthafucka’.”

She holds up a black shirt.

“It’s extra large, baby, jus’ like you want,” she says. “Paul Smith.”

It is a nice shirt. And it’s in my color.

“How much you want for it?” I say.

“Twenty,” she says. “It’s worth a hundred seveny.”

I reach into my pocket and give her a twenty. It’s not like I stole the shirt. It’s pre-stolen. I’m only buying it.

“I need a blast,” Shawanda says. “Fuckin’ poh-lice got me trippin’.”

“Less get more rock,” I tell Smooth.

He turns left through the downtown traffic, headed back to the dope spot.

Robert Guskind has been writing for a long time. An award-winning Washington-based journalist and contributor to major national magazines and newspapers, he now lives very close to Manhattan, where he continues to write, shoot photographs and work on a book based on his travels and experiences as a reporter and formerly disreputable dope fiend. He is all better now and is a regular contributor to Cherrybleeds.