Summer has landed on the Nation’s Capital with a stifling and inhuman thud.

Outside, the temperature is in the upper nineties and the humidity is stuck near an oppressive and ungodly 100 percent. The “heat index” says something like One Oh Five or One Ten. Whatever. Making the transition from air conditioning to the great outdoors is like stepping into an overheated sauna run by someone who continually overheats rocks upon which vaporize vast quantities of water.

There is, of course, always the option of the rooftop pool of my Dupont Circle apartment building, but I’ve abandoned sunbathing due to general fears of UV radiation, the thinning ozone layer and carcinomas, not to mention the track marks and bruises on my arms from shooting dope like there’s no tomorrow.

In the days before I perfected the art of turning myself into a human pincushion, (i.e., last summer) there was only the stray red dot or welt and the occasional bruise where a shot of dope “missed,” depositing heroin and miscellaneous chemicals, both benign and not, into flesh rather than a vein.

No longer.

My right arm is marked by a nasty red line of needle marks that approximates the Northeast rail corridor between Washington and New York City in shape, even down to clusters of puncture marks along my long suffering veins that could stand in for Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia.

While the stubborn abscess in the crook of my right arm is finally healing after months of gross nastiness, taking the elevator up to the roof and jumping in the pool wearing a long sleeve shirt would only make me stand out, particularly among my Speedo clad gay neighbors.

Ah, yes, summer in Dupont Circle as a downwardly mobile young professional junkie.

While no time of year is a particularly good one to be hideously strung out on dope and ceaselessly craving crack, the gurgling and irritable bowels of a Washington summer are a particularly brutal time.

Particularly, the days when dope is scarce and withdrawal starts setting in before I can get straight. You haven’t truly gotten a sense of life’s nasty little underbelly until you know the feeling of getting dope sick on a blisteringly hot day and feeling bone chillingly cold in 100 degree heat.

And so, I hide in my Dupont Circle apartment and venture outside only to:

(A). Cop drugs, which I must do at least once a day.

(B). Buy cigarettes and “food” (Ring Dings, Yodels, Twinkies, Oreos, Etc.) at the Exxon station a block away.

(C). Make the occasional trip to the office, which I do with much less frequency than the former and only after I have copped, which means that the latter—which enables the former—doesn’t happen at all on days when I don’t hook up with dope until evening.

And…

(D). Sell off everything I own (particularly the CDs and books) or acquire things which are not mine to sell (laptops taken from the office in dead of night, shoulder bags full of expensive books destined for the local used book shop) to cover cash shortfalls and buy dope between paychecks. One of the reasons that God made used CD shops and used bookstores is to allow junkies who once enjoyed reading and listening to music the ability to raise cash without resorting to more brazen thievery, which I have also begun to do.

While (A). is the prevailing reality of summer, it is not guaranteed in the medium- to long-term sense since (A). will definitely be undermined by (C). and cannot be supported entirely by (D)., which is most certainly the handwriting on the wall.

And, then, while indoors, there is….

(E). Fending off phone calls from credit card companies, which have taken to frequent and threatening phone calls since I ceased payment on my three Visa cards, two Mastercards and my American Express card, because a $100 a day dope habit cannot peacefully coexist with debt service, even in its most minimal form.

On this particular day, there have been two such calls, one handled by my answering machine and one, unfortunately, answered by me because I thought it was my drug dealer calling back.

Citibank Guy (seemingly friendly): “Hi, Robert, how are you?”

Me (cursing silently for picking up the phone because I don’t know anyone other than my mother that calls me Robert): “Uh, fine.”

Citibank Guy: “Robert, I’m calling about your outstanding balance, which as of today is 4,383 dollars and 68 cents.”

Me: “4,383 dollars and 68 cents. Right.”

Citibank Guy: “As you know, you’ve missed the last two minimum monthly payments. One in the amount of $163 and the other in the amount of $171.”

Me: “I’m sorry about that.”

Citibank Guy: “If there’s a problem, we’d certainly like to know about it. But, as of now, Robert, your minimum payment is $509. When can we expect that?”

Me: “I’m expecting a check within the next week. How about if I send you $100?”

Citibank Guy: “Our records show that you’re employed full time. Is that still the case?”

Me: “Yes, of course.”

Citibank Guy: “I’m sorry, Robert, but we do need to ask for the full amount at this time. Anything less will result in your account being turned over to our collection department and it will be canceled.”

Me: “Collection? Canceled?”

Citibank Guy: “Yes.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Citibank Guy: “You’re going to be strictly cash and carry from here on out.”

Me (agitated): “Cash and carry? What?”

Citibank Guy: “You’re not going to have credit cards anymore. You’ll have a past due account and a bad credit rating. You will be cash only. For a long, long time.”

Me: “Fuck you, then.”

Citibank Guy: “There’s no reason to curse. If you just make the minimum payment…”

Me: “I can’t!!!”

Citibank Guy: “Sir, it’s your obligation.”

Me: “Bite me, you bloodsucking fuck.”

Yes, there are definitely ominous and dark clouds looming on the horizon come fall and, God forbid, winter. If summer is a crappy time to be a nearly penniless junkie, winter will be even worse.

And so, I’m spending entire days watching CNN Headline News while waiting for my dope man to come. I view so many repeated cycles of Headline News every day, day in and day out, that I may be one of the world’s most superficially informed people. At the top and bottom of every hour I drool in a Pavlovian way, somehow associating the beginning and end of each newscast with getting my hands on a bag of dope, doing a shot and “getting straight,” as they say. You no longer get particularly high when you’re strung out so much as you ward off illness—chills, puking, cold sweat, apocalyptic diarrhea, etc. In fact, getting dope into your system and banishing the first signs of sickness—sneezing, runny nose and mild chills—is such a blessed relief that you actually get a giddy feeling knowing you won’t be sick.

Every hour or so I page my dope dealer—who may be the only guy in town who delivers and does so on credit—and pray that he calls right back.

Sometimes he does.

Sometimes he doesn’t.

Sometimes, I resort to Plan B, which is to contact a former boxer, and now crackhead dealer named John, AKA Smooth. Smooth will swing by with his car so that we can drive around frightening parts of D.C. looking for dope.

Smooth is not a good solution because the upfront price for his services is a portion of my dope and being nagged into buying some rock, whether I’m trying to save all my money for dope or not.

I try to be patient and not send too many 9-1-1’s to Dealer Numero Uno, Jimmy, which is understood to be an emergency.

Since getting dope this summer is a constant emergency, the hourly 9-1-1 pages would cease to lose their impact. I generally wait until after sundown to send Jimmy a 9-1-1.

Today, Jimmy returns my calls at 7:30 in the evening, after I’ve gone to the Exxon station to pick up a pack of Marlboros, a Diet Coke and a package of Yodels.

The news is grim.

“Hey, Bob,” he says. “I couldn’t get back at you. I be travelin’.”

My stomach sinks and I feel like hurling.

“Traveling?” I say.

“Me an’ Sheri and Teisha be in Norf Carolina.”

Sheri is Jimmy’s certifiably insane or, at least, pathologically violent, wife. Teisha is his six-year-old daughter.

Several days ago, I sat in Jimmy’s kitchen as Sheri argued with Jimmy on the phone, finally screaming, “All right, muthafucka, bring it on. I’m strappin’ up and comin’ to put a cap in yo’ ass.”

She grabbed a .22 from the cupboard behind some dishes, put the gun in her handbag and ran out the door, leaving me and Sammy, Jimmy’s partner and occasional bill collector, sitting at the table debating whether Sheri would actually shoot Jimmy or would only threaten him with the gun, and whether we should call him to let him know that his wife was coming after him with a .22.

Sammy called Jimmy to tell him Sheri had a gun and wanted to put a cap in his ass.

“Did you say North Carolina, Jimmy?” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “Be nice here.”

“You coming back tonight?”

He laughs and says, “Hell no. We comin’ back nex’ week. Tu’day or Wehnsday.”

“A week from now?”

“Yeah, me and Sheri boaf got big family here.”

“Cool.”

I shiver and break out in a cold sweat. What the hell am I going to do without Jimmy for a week? He’s been my main supplier for nearly a year.

“Gonna’ do me some fishin’,” Jimmy says. “Gonna’ eat me some barbecue. Gonna’ have a big family reunion this weeken’.”

I let out a basso profondo fart that indicates an impending case of the runs.

“Great,” I say. “It’s nice that you can spend time with your family.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help you wif some here-oh-on before I lef.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been nice.”

“Trip came as a suhprise. We decided this mornin’ and jes lef fo Norf’ Carolina.”

“Right.”

“Maybe Sammy can hep you out. Or Smooth.”

I belch deeply, again beating back the urge to puke.

“Hey, no problem,” I say. “I hope you enjoy yourselves.’

“See you whens we get back.”

“Right. Enjoy.”

I sit on the sofa, sweating despite the fact that the air conditioning is refrigerating the apartment. My bowels loosen. Since becoming familiar with the copping and using dope treadmill, I’ve learned that unpleasant things, or even very exciting things, can cause you to shit yourself.

Fuck.

This presents multiple problems:

(A). I was counting on Jimmy to front me more dope on credit because I’m not getting paid until Friday and my absolutely free checking account is absolutely empty.

(B). I now need to find Smooth, who will help me score, but in a time consuming and annoying way.

and

(C). Because of (A). and (B)., I will now have to scour my rapidly diminishing shelves of music for several dozen CDs that I can sell at used CD place before Smooth and I drive to the hellish D.C. street on which dope dealers are to be found today.

I sigh, concluding that the only option I have is:

(D). Calling Smooth.

I pick up the phone, dial Smooth’s pager, punch in my number and wait for him to call back and make the summer night better.

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.