A red orchid bloomed at the bottom of the dropper.
He hesitated for a full second, then pressed the bulb,
watching the liquid rush into the vein as if sucked by
the silent thirst of his blood. There was an iridescent,
thin coat of blood left in the dropper, and the white
paper collar was soaked through with blood like a
bandage. He reached over and filled the dropper with
water. As he squirted the water out, the shot hit him
in the stomach, a soft sweet blow.
Look down at my filthy trousers, haven’t been
changed in months. . . . The days glide by strung on
a syringe with a long thread of blood. . . . I am forgetting sex and all sharp pleasures of the body—a grey,
junk-bound ghost. The Spanish boys call me El Hombre Invisible—the Invisible Man. . . .
Twenty push ups every morning. Use of junk removes fat, leaves muscle more or less intact. The addict
seems to need less tissue. . . .Would it be possible to
isolate the fat-removing molecule of junk?
More and more static at the Drug Store, mutterings
of control like a telephone off the hook . . . Spent all
day until 8 p.m . to score for two boxes of Eukodol. . . .
Running out of veins and out of money.
Keep going on the nod. Last night I woke up with
someone squeezing my hand. It was my other hand. . . .
Fall asleep reading and the words take on code significance. . . . Obsessed with codes. . . . Man contracts a
series of diseases which spell out a code message. . . .
Take a shot in front of D.L. Probing for a vein in