It took a long, hot shower to scrub the Wagon Wheel’s smell off my skin. It took even longer to wash away the stink of my own actions. I didn’t do too well in bars; maybe because I’d been brought up in one. At times it had been fun; mostly it involved long boring hours on a stool watching my parents pretend friendly.

Naked and dripping, I ransacked the apartment for sweats. I finally dug them out from the floor of the closet. I dressed, felt my stomach curdle at the thought of a nightcap, and wound up at the kitchen table rolling a joint.

It wasn’t the bar, wasn’t my childhood. But I still didn’t know if the evening’s rage had come from my repulsion and suspicion of Blackhead, or the possibility of doing something for a living other than walk on marbleized tile. Had I again, like so many times before, settled into a set of unrewarding habits, frozen by my reluctance to change?

I stood, opened the refrigerator, and looked at the bright white light. I slammed the door when I realized I was staring at the bulb because it was the only thing close to edible. I got a glass of water, wandered back to my seat, and lit the joint.

I hated to do business with Emil, but my past, with a goose from my present, beckoned unnervingly. Megan stood guard like an ugly gargoyle, but memories of better times flashed behind her. Times filled with hope and idealism. Times charged with the positive electricity of change. Blackhead’s case gave me the chance to see what had become of people I’d known twenty years previously. I knew what had happened to me: I wanted to believe there were other options.

I stood and anxiously gripped the back of my chair. Grass and television weren’t gonna do it: I grabbed a whole Valium, retreated to the living room couch, and forced myself to stare at black-and-white reruns. Hooray for cable. I finished the joint, felt the pill kick in, and rested my eyes.

Deep in the back of my pounding mind I heard the creaks of the front door. For a moment I thought I’d passed out in the Wagon Wheel and someone was coming to fetch me. But I knew I’d fallen asleep once I focused and saw Julius’ sagging black face and salt-and-pepper hair. He’d never set foot in that cracker gin mill.

I struggled to sit and finally succeeded. Julie watched quietly, his face a mixture of amusement and pity. Once he saw me stabilize, he said, “Stinks like a brewery in here. You lose your cookies?”

“I was at a lousy joint and brought the flavor home.” “Doesn’t sound like the best of times, Slumlord.”

I started to shake my head but felt the back of it slide, and stopped. “Business. What time is it? I can’t read the clock from here.”

“You couldn’t read the clock if it was right next to you. I find it troubling to think you could get wasted on bar whiskey.”

“Keep your faith. I ate a sleeping pill.”

A look of disgust crossed his face. “I like getting high, Slumlord, but I’ll never understand volunteering for a down.”

“What’s to understand?”

“Why you would ingest something that tramples what little life you have. One of these days I’m going to walk in here and find you laying on that bathroom floor, a syringe hanging out your arm.”

I forced my arm to wave. “No you won’t. You don’t give me anything I can use with a needle. Lighten up, I’ve already been lectured once tonight about my failings.”

“What’s it matter what anyone says? You never listen.”

I tried to shrug without moving my head, then realized he was empty-handed. “Where’s the medicine bag?”

“Already left it in the other room. You weren’t exactly quick to your feet.”

Julie was one of the original tenants. In the beginning we’d stalked each other, waiting to declare ourselves friend or foe. We turned the corner when he decided he liked the way I treated Mrs. Sullivan who was a touch too old to fend for herself. For my part, I enjoyed the air of mystery and knowledge that filled any room Julius entered. I also liked the rent arrangement.

I squinted the clock into focus. “Then why the fuck are you talking to me?”

He grimaced and chuckled. It sounded like a woofer in his throat. “Got a treat for you, Slumlord.”

“You’ve changed your mind about providing me with syringeables?”

He shook his head. “I do not enjoy your sense of humor as it pertains to drugs.” I shrugged. “Neither did Gloria when she was my shrink.”

“Perhaps you might consider a return visit or two?”

I grabbed my heart and grinned. “You sure know how to hurt a guy, Julie, but she wouldn’t take me back.”

He shrugged and settled on the battered Oriental next to the coffee table. He reached into his pocket but stared at me expectantly before taking out his hand. I slipped down from the couch and joined him on the floor. He nodded and pulled out a little round ball of tinfoil. A smile crossed my face and I stood to get a pipe. Julie motioned me back down.

“Don’t need nothing fancy. Got us a steamer.”

He placed the cardboard cylinder from a toilet paper roll on the table next to the little ball. I leaned over, picked it up and inspected. He had wrapped one hole of the cardboard closed with taped tinfoil, and had neatly cut a pipebowl with a fitted screen on the top. “I haven’t seen one of these in a long time.”

“I like the hit,” he said. “Do we need a knife?”

He looked at me. “Still as white as your skin, eh? You got a silver spoon for coke? Or maybe one of those machines that rolls joints?” He cackled as he bent over the table and unwrapped the hash.

“Got to be nasty, don’t you? Just can’t stand your own generosity?” Julie glanced up at me. “You said you don’t see your shrink no more.”

He lifted a ball of very black hash between his thumb and forefinger and sniffed. He fished a disposable lighter from his shirt pocket and, for a second or two, held a flame under the hash. He nodded to me and I took the lighter from his hand and gave him the steamer. He rubbed his finger on the heated section and we both watched as pieces crumpled into the makeshift bowl. He started to hand it to me, but I shook my head. Julius shrugged and lit the dope. I watched the tinfoil quiver with his inhale.

He passed me the steamer and I lit up. Suddenly my lungs were burning, my eyes watering. Billowing smoke exploded from my mouth along with a hacking cough. Julius grabbed the toilet paper tube and waited silently for my gasping to subside.

“I guess I overtoked.” I could barely squeeze the words past the tremors in my lungs. “Is there anything left?” I hissed.

He kept his face impassive as he handed me back the steamer. I relit and carefully inhaled, mindful of the pounding in my chest.

A look of amusement crossed Julie’s face. “You might have waited a moment.”

I handed back his pipe and struggled to keep the smoke down. He dumped the ashes and rubbed more hash in. I felt my fingertips grow airy and everything begin to slow. Julie finished his toke and I took another. I held my breath and felt the dope trail its way around my body, massaging as it burrowed into my nerves. I thought about protesting when he put the pipe on the table, but it didn’t look like he was going anywhere. I pushed the table out of the way, lay down on my side, and leaned on my elbow. The room seemed a tone brighter.

Julie rested back on his hands. “Don’t like your humor about drugs,” he repeated. “Reminds me of when you first moved in.”

I tried to recapture that era, then didn’t want to. “Nah. I’m not depressed, just quiet. Working the malls, all that bullshit.”

His head shook almost imperceptibly. “I beg to differ, Slumlord. It’s one thing to be quiet, another to be dead.”

As if to prove I was still breathing, I sat upright, reached onto the coffee table, lit two cigarettes, and passed him one. While I was there I took a small hit off the steamer. Finally I said, “The malls can do that to you.” I put it back on the table as I thought of my meeting with Blackhead. “Anyway, my meet in the Wagon Wheel may have brought me something different to do.”

His half-mast eyelids lifted a fraction. “What can The End bring besides trouble?” “It’s not so bad. I worked there when I first got to town.”

“The Wagon Wheel?” “Hell, no, The End.” “How long ago was that?” “About twenty.”

“Shit man, you weren’t no older than a kid. What the hell were you doing in the Wagon Wheel tonight?”

He seemed surprised I’d made it out of the bar intact. I felt my stomach growl and tasted the Wheel’s whiskey. Sort of intact. I ran down Emil’s request. But, by the time I finished, my earlier suspicions of Blackhead and his job nipped at the elastic in my sweat cuffs.

Julius’ response didn’t make it any easier to shake them off. “This here case sounds like bullshit. And you ain’t too stupid not to smell it.”

I thought of doing another day at another mall, drinking another twelve cups of bad coffee, and felt a dose of annoyance cloud my high. “Easy enough for you to say ‘Go spend your days playing guard dog on the swells side of the track.’” Then I felt silly paraphrasing Blackhead, and reached for the pipe.

Julie waited quietly then helped himself to the dope. I lay back down on the floor and felt my petulance dissipate. “The story doesn’t feel right to me either, but the thought of more malls is ugly. On top of that, Lou may visit.”

“Since when is Bhwana Lou a bummer?”

“Since the fucking reno was finished. He’s been picking at me like I was a scab.” “Since the renovation, or since you be in Chi for the funeral?”

“I don’t know, man. If he comes you can ask him.” I didn’t want to know. The whole subject made me feel bad.

Julie took another pull at the steamer as I rolled to my side and reached toward him. He handed me the pipe; but he didn’t let go until he said, “You don’t want to be forgetting your roots, Matt.”

By now my lungs had no problem with the size of my appetite. I exhaled another long drag, and said, “I had weeds, not roots. It’s taken me a lifetime to pull ‘em out.”

Julius shook his head. “You’re not getting it down, are you?”

“Getting what down?” But my mind was already drifting. I suddenly saw Bhwana Lou’s bulky body squeezed into every inch of my apartment.

I came back to the last echo of his words. “What did you say?” I asked.

It took a long time for him to answer. “I said you don’t seem bothered by that idea.” “What idea?”

“Damn.”

I watched as he stood. “What’s the matter, Julie?” “You be too high to talk.”

“I am not! I’m not that high. I just didn’t hear what you said.” “I said The End is a helluva place to try and hide.”

I stood, felt a little dizzy, and sat down on the couch. “I’ll probably just look up some old acquaintances to see how they made out.”

Julius frowned down at me. “You’ll surely find them. That place is a one-way ticket.” “Hey, I got out.”

“If you call you out,” he said, watching me hold on to the arm of the couch. “Anyway, you weren’t born there.”

Julius leaned over the table, lifted the steamer, and inspected it to see if anything was still alive. With a shrug he tapped the dottle into the ashtray and started toward the door.

He was halfway out when I said, “You forgot the hash, man.”

He turned back to me. “You keep it, Slumlord. Something tells me you’re going to need it.”