Free Needle by Craig Goodman

and started toward my apartment, from across the street I noticed what surely had to be one of the city’s sadder stories hobbling in my direction. Hunched slightly forward, which made his ass appear to stick out unnaturally, a shabby old man took bow-legged strides that were each no more than a foot in length. His unnatural gait seemed to indicate a recently suffered stroke and he struggled to keep pace with sidewalk traffic. He was just anotherforsaken member of society wading in a sea of abject indifference. I don’t know what exactly came over me, but my heart went out to the guy because he really did appear to be suffering. I decided to cross the street to see if I could be of some assistance. Then I realized it was Matt and attempted to run in the opposite direction.
    Unfortunately, he was on his way to Barry’s and had seen me coming. As he desperately began to scream my name I felt sympathy transform itself into humiliation-by-association.
    To be honest, Matt was a difficult person to feel sorry for because he was always the source of his own misery. Whatever his suffering, rest assured, it was typically the result of something stupid he did, thought, or said; so rather than compassion I usually felt he got just what he deserved.
    Matt had no concept of moderation and was fast becoming a heroin addict—which ran afoul of my renegade drug policy. Under the pretext of jamming, almost every evening he would drop by the apartment only to get fucked up away from the Bronx and the prying eyes of his father. And if he got fucked up, I usually got fucked up. Well before physical dependency sets in, one of the first signs of addiction is an inability to, ironically, just say no .
    Now thoroughly disgusted and with nowhere to run, I walked over to him. Up close he seemed even more pathetic and hunched over than I previously thought.
    “What the fuck happened now?” I asked, much more annoyed than concerned.
    “Craig, I really need some dope,” he said ignoring my question.
    Matt had yet to be officially introduced to the daytime dope dealers and as a result, they refused to serve him. This was clearly the reason for his surprise visit and I knew it the moment I realized it was him.
    “Why are you walking like that?” I asked
    “I was just at the clinic,” he said a little reluctantly. “I had to have a minor surgical procedure taken care of. No big deal.”
    It didn’t look minor.
    “Where?” I asked.
    “Don’t worry about it,” he answered though in obvious pain.
    “I’m not worried,” I assured him. “I just wanna know where you had the surgery.”
    “Please get me some dope,” Matt said trying to change the subject. “I’m hurtin’ real bad.”
    “OK—sounds great. But first tell me where you had it.”
    “On my fucking ass, all right!” he shouted in a whisper.
    Unfortunately, that wasn’t the “where” to which I was referring. Actually, I was curious to know what medical facility would perform such a debilitating procedure—and then allow the disturbing post-operative result to hobble right the fuck out the front door. Of course, now armed with this new bit of information I couldn’t help but pursue a different line of questioning.
    “Why?”
    “Listen, man—I’m in a lot of pain. Let’s get some fuckin’ dope,” he said, ignoring my question once again.
    Now typically, there’s nothing I liked better than using someone else’s medical condition to justify my own drug use. However, by this point I wasn’t quite the ravenous junky I’d soon become and I just couldn’t let him get off that easy.
    “WHY DID YOU HAVE ASS-SURGERY, MATTHEW?” I asked firmly.
    “Craig, I’m really not in the mood right now. I’m in a lot of fucking pain here. Come on!” he begged.
    “No problem, brother. Just tell me why you had ass-surgery and we’ll hook it all up,”
    “I caught anal warts and had to get them removed, all right?” he quietly confessed.
    This was getting better by the