I am driving in a large circle through summertime Harlem, from 143^rd and Lenox Avenue, down to 125^th and Lexington, and back again—with smaller intersecting circles around various blocks in the vicinity of 125^th and Lex—looking for Gavi and Madeleine, my Puerto Rican dope connections.

I am on the third such large go-round and umpteenth small roundabout of the afternoon, and I still can’t find them. Strange. Junkies are creatures of extreme habit. They don’t stray far from home or the street corners on which they usually hang because changes in routine interfere with life’s most important activities: copping dope and getting off.

They are nowhere to be found either on their home block, which is 143^rd Street immediately west of Lenox Avenue, or in their copping area, which is within a quarter-mile radius of 125^th and Lex. Currently, I’m driving on East 127^th Street, having just gotten off the southbound Harlem River Drive.

I’ve got a hundred dollars in my pocket courtesy of CDs stolen from my workplace and resold at a used CD shop and a Jones that’s already asserting itself in sneezes and sniffles.

The clock is ticking.

I park my ’81 sky blue BMW on 129^th near Lexington, thinking that I might find Gavi and/or Madeleine if I’m on foot. If not, I’ll hit one of the dope spots myself.

Relying on others to cop for me is wimpy, but safe. On my own, I am at risk of:

(A). Getting ripped off while buying dope.

(B). Being sold dummy bags full of crap rather than dope.

(C). Getting ripped off after buying dope, or

(D). Not getting ripped off at all because:

(1). I get stopped by the cops on the way to cop.

(2). I get busted while buying dope, or

(3). I get busted after buying dope.

I’m likely to score and walk away with my dope un-robbed and un-busted, but my fears aren’t entirely irrational. I can only be one of several things on some of the East Harlem blocks I frequent:

(A). Slightly insane.

(B). A social worker.

(C). A real estate speculator trying to get way out in front of the wave.

(D). A cop, or

(E). A junkie.

Over the years on the streets of Harlem, I have been called things like Poh-leece, Cracker, White Boy, Poh-leece muthafucker, Cracker muthafucker and, occasionally, Baby, or Papi by Latina crackwhores and Latino crack dealers.

I can deal with the names, but my real fear is the real police.

The cops, specifically the Tactical Narcotics Taskforce or TNT, periodically do “jump outs.” While word spreads fast on Jump Out Days, jump outs can happen at any point.

TNT favors yellow and livery cabs, making East Harlem one of the few places in New York City where a taxi on the wrong street can put the fear of God into you for reasons that have nothing to do with road rage.

All in all, I prefer having Gavi and Madeleine do my dirty work for me, just like Sal, my dope buddy from Brooklyn, did my bidding in Harlem before I had to lose him because he’d become a thieving and insane pain in the ass.

As soon as I turn south on Lexington, the sales pitches from the junkies peddling methadone and pills start coming fast and furious.

“Got twenty,” a Latino guy with a wild beard and matted black hair says, veering into my path. “Twenty. Sealed. Twenty.”

“Twenty” is the quantity of methadone he’s selling, as in 20 milligrams. “Sealed,” meanwhile, alleges that the bottle of meth hasn’t been opened, as opposed to being “spit back,” which is what they call methadone that the junkie has put in his mouth while being watched by methadone clinic staff and, then, spit back into the bottle from whence it came and offered for sale.

Spit Back is an especially vile and desperate way to do drugs, in that:

(A). It is methadone, one of the more atrocious drugs known to mankind and a product of World War II Nazi pharmaceutical R&D.

and

(B). There is no high in the world worth swallowing a cocktail of methadone and slimy junkie saliva.

“Ativan,” an older black guy in filthy khakis mutters a few steps further down the block. “Ativan. Valium. Xanax. Ativan.”

“Tirty,” says another Latino guy with no front teeth. “Tirty. Got tirty.”

“Got Valium,” a younger Latino in his twenties offers. “Many as chu wan.”

It’s an open-air supermarket for drugs you don’t want when you’re on the market for dope.

I push through the knots of junkies and meth and pill dealers, trying not to inhale too much of the summertime street funk of unwashed bodies and festering garbage, and stand on the corner of 125^th and Lex peering at the mass of people.

Gavi and Madeleine are not on the northeast corner. Likewise the southeast, southwest and northwest corners.

I look east down 125^th Street where Gavi sometimes hangs out to sell the (sealed) bottles of methadone he is given at the clinic he frequents. Like most New York junkies, Gavi doesn’t take his methadone. He sells his publicly-provided free methadone and uses the proceeds to buy privately-provided $10 bags of dope.

It is what happens when government programs and the free market intersect.

I look across Lexington Avenue at the fast food place that sells fried chicken, platanos, empanadas and other Latino food where Gavi and Madeleine sometimes hang out.

They’re not there either.

Fuck.

I walk past the vacant lot on the southeast corner of 125^th and Lexington Avenue that’s slated to become a shopping center and will cause a huge upheaval in the drug marketplace by uplifting the quality of life so much that the dealers and junkies have to find other corners on which to hang.

I continue south on Lex toward 123^rd Street and the bodega where the old Latino guy I used to cop dope from with Sal hung out. He’s been gone for a couple of years and the only things currently sold on that corner are bebidas and cervezas.

I’m so happy when I see Gavi and Madeline standing across Lexington on 124^th Street that I almost cry.

“Gavi!” I yell. “Madi!”

Seeing me, they wave and cross the street.

“Chu jus’ get here?” Gavi says, shaking my hand.

“I’ve been looking for you for a couple of hours.”

“We dun go nowheres,” Madeleine says.

“We dun see you,” Gavi says.

“I drove here and back up to the apartment twice,” I say. “This is my third time.”

“I tol chu was Bob, Gavi!” Madeleine says.

“She screamin’ at chu car like she crazy,” Gavi says. “But chu dun see us.”

“Chu was drivin’ too fas’,” Madeleine says.

“Fuck. I’ve been driving in circles forever. What’s around?”

“Ain’ shit,” Gavi says. “Place hot.”

“Gavi almos’ get busted by TNT,” Madeleine says.

“What happened?” I say.

“They do a jump out on 120^th,” Gavi says. “They stop me.”

“Tanks God he wun holdin’,” Madeleine says.

“They pop me,” Gavi says. “I’m fucked. Chu know I got parole.”

“I know.”

“They chould lock up criminals, not people doin’ dope,” Madeleine says.

“Fuckin’ marecon cops,” Gavi adds.

“When was the jump out?” I ask.

“This mornin’ roun’ eleven,” Gavi says.

I look at my watch. It’s nearly five.

“You think it’s cooled off?” I say.

“I dunno,” Gavi says. “Thins quiet.”

“Where the car?” Madeleine says. “Chu chouldn’ be walkin’ roun’.”

“It’s on 129^th,” I say.

We walk back to 129^th Street and get in the car. Gavi wants to try an apartment building on First Avenue where dope and rock are usually on sale.

I give him 80 dollars and drop him off on the corner. I circle the block with Madeleine.

“I hope nuthin’ happen,” Madeleine says, looking nervously in the side view mirror.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” I say, totally unsure that anything is going to be okay and nervously checking my rear view mirror to see if any yellow cabs are following me.

We circle the block a half dozen times while waiting for Gavi to reappear. Finally, we sport him on the corner of 122^nd Street and First Avenue.

I pull over. He climbs into the back seat.

“Everything okay?” I say.

“I thin so,” Gavi says. “I bough’ the dope from a black guy. I dun like buyin’ from black guys.”

Gavi is not a big believer in racial tolerance or diversity.

“What brand is it?” I say.

New York City heroin bears brand names stamped in ink on the bags:

Fuji Power.

D.O.A.

Midnight.

Murder One.

Etc.

“Killer,” he says. “I wanted to try it, but he wouldn’ let me. The marecon say the block too hot. Ain’t no other shit roun’.”

Killer is not a familiar brand.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” I say, hopefully.

We drive off. Gavi tears open a bag and snorts about half the contents.

A minute later, he says, “Shit. I dunno, man.”

“What’s wrong?” I say.

“I thin is dummy bags,” he says.

The dummy bag filled with God knows what is the junkie’s worst nightmare.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I thin so. Fuck!”

“Fuck!”

“I’m gonna go back.”

“Wha’ chu crazy papi?” Madeleine says.

“I ain’t gettin’ beat,” he says. “Less go back.”

“How many did you get?” I say.

“Tanks God I chus get four,” Gavi says. “I din trust the muthafucker.”

“Then, why you buy it?” Madeleine says.

“Cause ain’t nuthin else aroun’,” Gavi says.

“You chouldn’ do that,” she says.

They argue in Spanish.

“You still have forty bucks?” I interrupt.

“Yeah,” Gavi says.

“Let’s find something else.”

“No. I gonna fine that marecon. Maybe I fine the manager.”

Dope, like any business, has its own hierarchy. On the street retail end, there are salesmen who sell the bags. There are runners who get the product from the main stash, which never stays with the salesman. And there are managers, who oversee the entire enterprise.

“Let’s just go,” I say.

“No,” Gavi says. “I gonna fine this marecon.”

We drive back to the dope spot.

Gavi gets out of the car. Ten minutes later, he’s back again.

“The marecon who sole me the dummy bags wun there,” he says. “But I fine the manager.”

“And?” I say.

“I tole him what happen, but he wun do nuthin’. At lease, he got dope. I try before I buy.”

“You got some?” I say, relieved that we’ve got dope rather than pissed about the rip off.

Relatively beat is better than totally beat.

“Yeah,” Gavi says. “I figure you wan me to.”

“Yeah.”

A yellow cab cruises past and continues on First Avenue. I pull out into traffic, in a hurry to get out of the neighborhood before something else goes wrong.

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.