Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [72]
Troubadour reached back for me in the dim lamplight.
“Come on.” I reeled and tried to shake my sluggish brain awake but it couldn't compute the situation.
It seemed a slow whole minute before the scene registered. This was a hit joint for addicts. Fear flushed my face and neck and made the room tremble before me. I had been prepared to experiment with drugs, but I hadn't counted on this ugly exposure. As I watched the wretched nod and scratch, I felt my own innocence as real as a grain of sand between my teeth. I was pure as moonlight and had only begun to live. My escapades were the fumblings of youth and to be forgiven as such.
I twisted for the door behind me and tried to snatch my hand away but Troub held on.
“Come on. I want you to see something.”
I was afraid to scream and alarm the addicts in their dreaming. If I pulled free and reached the lobby would the desk clerk know I wasn't going to the police and allow me to go?
Troub tugged at me and we stumbled over outstretched legs toward an open bathroom door.
In the bathroom, Troub removed his jacket and gave it to me. He rolled up his shirt sleeve. Time for Troub and me moved as if we were swimming under water. He took a tablespoon from the sink and a small square of paper from his pocket.
The senses of sound, taste and touch had disappeared, but I had never seen so clearly or smelled so acutely.
The powder was dusted into the spoon and he dribbled a little water over it. He held three matches under the belly of the spoon while the mixture simmered. The sweet smell went into my nose and unlocked my tongue. “Don't do it, Troub. Please don't.”
“Shut up and watch me.” He tied his arm above the elbow with his tie and tightened it with his teeth. Then he took a syringe from the grimy face bowl and filled it with the hot clear liquid. High-standing keloid scars ran down his inner arm, and the black flesh was purple and yellow in a place, with fresh sores. He pushed the needle into a scar and wiggled it around, then took it out and tried another.
“Please, Troub.”
“Shut up and watch this.”
The needle pricked one of the soft scabs and rich yellow pus flowed out and down his arm to the wrist.
My tears, which had been terror-frozen, thawed at the sight of the man who had been so nice to me, jabbing and picking in his own flesh, oblivious to the pain and the ugliness.
The needle found its place and blood, mixed with a few drops of heroin, had snaked across his upheld arm. He loosened the tie with his teeth, and as if I had X-ray vision, I watched the narcotic reach his brain. His face muscles slackened and he leaned heavily against the wall.
“Now, you want some?” Slow lips, slow question.
“No.”
“You sure? I can cook up for you.” His head lolled, but he kept his eyes on me.
“I'm sure. I don't want it.”
“Then I want you to promise me you won't use shit. That's why they call it shit. It is. You a nice lady, Rita. I don't want to see you change. Promise me you'll stay like I found you. Nice.”
“I promise.”
“Let me rest a little in the car, then I'll take you home.”
He slumped behind the steering wheel for a half-hour and I watched him.
I thought about the kindness of the man. I had wanted him before for the security I thought he'd give me. I loved him as he slouched, nodding, his mouth open and the saliva sliding down his chin as slowly as the blood had flowed down his arm. No one had ever cared for me so much. He had exposed himself to me to teach me a lesson and I learned it as I sat in the dark car inhaling the odors of the wharf. The life of the underworld was truly a rat race, and most of its inhabitants scurried like rodents in the sewers and gutters of the world. I had walked the precipice and seen it all; and at the critical moment, one man's generosity pushed me