I am sitting in my 1981 sky blue BMW on West 142^nd Street and Lenox Avenue in front of a boarded up tenement in Harlem. It is a stiflingly hot August evening.

Across the Harlem River, the hazy sky above the Bronx is glowing white from the lights at Yankee Stadium. Glumly, I watch Puerto Rican and Dominican kids from the neighborhood playing in the gushing water from an open fire hydrant on the corner.

When the occasional anemic breeze blows in from the river, I catch a nauseating whiff of the rotting Harlem trash that’s been marinating in the blazing August sun all day long. It’s garbage day, but nothing’s been picked up yet, so the overwhelming neighborhood aroma is Basura Con Pollo Frito.

I sneeze, which is an indication of imminent dope sickness. Then, with the next breath of noxious garbage, I retch and fight off a wave of the dry heaves, another sure sign that I need to get some dope into my body pronto.

No time of year is a good one to be strung out, but the gurgling and irritable bowels of a New York City summer are an especially nasty time, particularly when withdrawal is closing. Once the dope sickness hits with its full force, I’ll be sweating, sneezing and feeling bone chillingly cold in ninety-five degree heat.

I’m waiting here for Gavi, my Puerto Rican dope connection, as though sitting in my car on 142^nd Street will make him materialize faster than hanging out in his apartment with his wife, Madeleine. At least, they have a bedroom with air conditioning.

Five minutes pass. No Gavi.

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, sniffle and blow my nose.

Ten more minutes elapse. Still, no Gavi.

I toss a Sisters of Mercy CD I stole from the Tower Records where I work into my portable player and turn up the volume. Black Planet comes on in sharp and dark counterpoint to the Latino music blaring from open apartment windows and passing cars.

Another fifteen minutes bite the dust. Gavi does not appear.

I punch the steering wheel, turn off Marianne (Version), stash the CD player in the glove box, roll up the windows and get out of the car. A few months ago, when I started coming here after running into Gavi and Madeleine near 125^th and Lexington Ave and enlisting them to help me cop dope, I worried that I’d come downstairs and find my car up on blocks.

Now, I’m around here so much that the neighborhood kids keep an eye on the car. The Yemeni guy who runs the bodega on the corner gives me Marlboros, Ring Dings, Twinkies, Ho Hos, Oreos and Diet Coke—nicotine, sugar and caffeine being a junkie’s three major food groups—on credit on nights when I’m temporarily out of cash until I steal more CDs from work and sell them the following day.

I climb the stairs in Gavi’s building—which smell of piss and Spanish food—and knock on his door again.

Madeleine answers.

“Gavi still no here,” she says in her heavily Spanish-accented English.

“I know,” I say. “I’m sitting outside in the car.”

“I dunno’ where he is. I hope nuthin’ happen. I tol’ you he lef’’ roun’ one. He was gonna go to the meth clinic and to the welfare.”

I go into the stiflingly hot living room with Madeleine and sit on the dirty old couch.

Their Pekingese, Nani, is running in circles and barking.

“One o’clock late for the meth clinic and the welfare,” she says. “I tol’ him go more earlier.”

“I can’t wait much longer. I’m starting to feel sick.”

“Chu wan’ summtin’ to drink? Some food, maybe?”

“No thanks. I might throw up.”

“Wha’ the las’ time chu gets high?”

“Before I went to work. Around eight this morning.”

“Chu gets sick fas’, Papi.”

“I know.”

The longest I can go between shots of dope is nine or ten hours, after which, I’m a mess until I get drugs into my system.

“Maybe chu should cut down,” Madeleine says.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“How much chu spen’ a week? Four or fi’ hunred dollar, no?”

“Yeah.”

The problem is that I work in a record store for minimum wage and barely clear $200 a week. This, in turn, means I have to raise two or three hundred dollars a week through non-traditional means like stuffing CDs down my pants and selling them for cash at a used CD store at lunchtime. I average an extra $100 a day this way.

Stealing to get your dope money is far more stressful than writing for a living. I’ve already almost gotten caught twice leaving the store unusually weighted down.

“You gotta work har’ make that kinda money,” Madeleine says.

“Tell me about it.”

“What chu gettin for a CD?”

“Five or six bucks.”

“Thas’ alotta’ CD every day, Papi.”

A shiver runs through my entire body.

“Yeah,” I say, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. “Jesus, Maddi, where is he?”

“Gavi be here. Dun’ worry. He know what time chu alway come. He gonna be back.”

“You want to go with me?”

“Gavi know wha’s out there today.”

The Harlem dope market shifts a little every day as new brands hit the street and spots where people sell move around. Gavi’s market research helps us cop with as little hassle as humanly possible, which can still be a huge hassle on the wrong day.

“C’mon, Maddi, I’ll buy you an extra bag,” I say.

Madeleine comes over and sits next to me on the couch, putting her hand on my leg. She’s made tentative moves on me several times recently. I’m not in the mood right now and I’m certainly not in the mood for Madeleine, who is married to Gavi, looks at least ten years older than she actually is and is missing several front teeth.

I shift to put distance between us, even though her hand is still on my leg.

“Chu gonna tell Gavi ‘bou the extra bag?” Madeleine says.

“No.”

“He fine out I goin behine his back and gettin extra dope, he gonna be piss.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Chu gonna get him a bag anyways?”

“Sure.”

“Maybe we drive donton in Manhattan later? We dun go donton for a long time.”

“No problem.”

“Nani can come?”

Jesus. This is the junkie version of negotiating a corporate merger.

“Sure,” I say. “We always take Nani.”

Hearing her name, the dog runs to the door and starts barking.

Madeleine takes her hand from my leg and says, “Okay. Gimme a minute to get ready.”

Madeleine has been wearing white shorts and a loose orange shirt. She comes back out of the bedroom wearing skin-tight navy blue hot pants and a form fitting white shirt that that leave little to the imagination and make her look like she’s going out to turn ten-dollar tricks.

We go downstairs with Nani, the Pekinese, running ahead of us. Gavi is still nowhere to be seen as we walk to my car.

I’m sweating, shivering and sneezing as we drive to East 118^th Street and First Avenue, near one of the spots where we cop.

I give her money to buy eight bags. Six for me. One for her and one for Gavi.

Shelling out for the extra bag sucks, but it beats getting busted or ripped off.

Madeleine hops out of the car. I pull into a space on First Avenue and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait as I continue to sweat and shiver.

I feel wretched by the time Madeleine comes back thirty minutes later, but I perk up considerably when she hands me eight bags of Fuji Power, a widely available “brand” of dope. A drawing of a soccer ball is stamped on the folded-and-taped bag.

I hand her two bags and put six in my pocket.

I feel instantly better just thinking about shooting up in their bathroom.

I step on it so we can fly up the Harlem River Drive back to 142^nd Street and beat back the dog days of August.

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.