Junkie Love

Ziggy and Doreen  

8

 

A few days later, I was parked alone in front of the Double Eagle Hotel reading Varieties of Religious Experiences. It was a routine foray into the Fillmore for smack or to promote a deal.

I was now spending all my time waiting in the car instead of inside observing. I wanted to watch a con from beginning to end. A couple times I asked if I could come with him and his standard reply was that the others involved wouldn’t like it. Maybe. At first Ziggy liked me (as much as he was capable) and wanted me to become an apprentice, but I think the disgust and revulsion I had felt, since his first stoned rumba in the livingroom, snuck out.

Now, around my car, blacks of both sexes and all ages milled about the sidewalks in the warm sunlight, joshing and guffawing. Ziggy came out of the hotel and casually got into the car. I broke off my reading, inserted a bookmark, and put the book under the seat. A tall lanky black youth strode up and put his face in Ziggy’s window.

“Staht the cah!!” Ziggy shouted frantically. “Get outa heeuh!! Staht the cah!!”

I started the car.

“Hey, man,” the black kid drawled, “I know some cats wanna kill yoh ass.”

Ziggy pulled a foot length of lead pipe out from under the seat. I had never seen it before.

“C’mon get outa heeuh!!!” he shrieked.

I pulled the transmission into first and checked the side mirror. There was a space in the traffic so we shot down Fillmore Street . In the rear view mirror, the spade watched us.

“What the fuck was that about?!” I demanded with the vehemence of my fear.

“Theh’s these cats that wanna kill me,” Ziggy explained as he replaced the pipe under the seat. “That’s why we hadda move into yuh place. They’eh lookin’ all over town fuh us. These cats will kill me on sight. I buhned ‘em. They found awe pad and we hadda split right away. Left awe clothes theh and everything.”