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Sep. 15th, 2003 04:34 pmOn a pleasant sunny afternoon (let's say today) returning from my walk to the nearby convenient store to get a can of soda, I pause on the sidewalk along Avon Street when a huge pick-up truck with a large covered bed pulls up beside me. The truck is in decent shape and is driven by an average looking, white, middle-aged good ole boy with a mustache and twangy accent. The window is down and I'm assuming he needs directions.
"I'm from outta town," he says. "Where can I get a $20."
"You need change for a $20," I say, wondering why he didn't just break it at the convenient store he just passed.
"No, where can I get to 20?"
"You need to get to Route 20?"
"No!" He's getting a bit flabbergasted at this point. "Where can I get some Rock?!"
At that moment I realized "twenty" was slang I hadn't heard before. He continues:
"Drugs, man! Where can I get some drugs around here. Do you know where they sell them?"
"No, I don't actually know."
He seemed rather surprised that I didn't know. It's not like we sell pot in the produce section of grocery stores here and crack at the CVS, but this guy seems to think differently and I should know which local market will double coupons for ice and have buy-one-get-one-free sales on mushrooms.
"You know the neighborhoods in this town?" he asks. "Where do the blacks live?!"
I motioned vaguely toward the direction of Cherry Avenue saying, "Some live over there."
"Over thatta way?" And he drove away in a hurry, taking the first left off of Avon he found.
I continue on home and deliver the soda to my wife. I'm certainly not shocked to find someone seeking drugs in my town, but I'm still wondering why he thought I looked like such a reliable source of information that he was willing to pull over in the middle of the afternoon, on a busy street, in a decent part of town to ask me about getting a Twenty. Maybe he's desperate. Maybe I should've put a glazed look in my eye and done my best raspy old man voice, quoting Burroughs:
Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit - Kid, it was TASTY...
"I'm from outta town," he says. "Where can I get a $20."
"You need change for a $20," I say, wondering why he didn't just break it at the convenient store he just passed.
"No, where can I get to 20?"
"You need to get to Route 20?"
"No!" He's getting a bit flabbergasted at this point. "Where can I get some Rock?!"
At that moment I realized "twenty" was slang I hadn't heard before. He continues:
"Drugs, man! Where can I get some drugs around here. Do you know where they sell them?"
"No, I don't actually know."
He seemed rather surprised that I didn't know. It's not like we sell pot in the produce section of grocery stores here and crack at the CVS, but this guy seems to think differently and I should know which local market will double coupons for ice and have buy-one-get-one-free sales on mushrooms.
"You know the neighborhoods in this town?" he asks. "Where do the blacks live?!"
I motioned vaguely toward the direction of Cherry Avenue saying, "Some live over there."
"Over thatta way?" And he drove away in a hurry, taking the first left off of Avon he found.
I continue on home and deliver the soda to my wife. I'm certainly not shocked to find someone seeking drugs in my town, but I'm still wondering why he thought I looked like such a reliable source of information that he was willing to pull over in the middle of the afternoon, on a busy street, in a decent part of town to ask me about getting a Twenty. Maybe he's desperate. Maybe I should've put a glazed look in my eye and done my best raspy old man voice, quoting Burroughs:
Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit - Kid, it was TASTY...
