A Scanner Darkly

The girl bopped on into the store, as he had figured.
Another girl, amid the sidewalk traffic, came along, this one in a frilly blouse, high heels, with silver hair and too much makeup. Trying to look older than she is, he thought. Probably not out of high school. After her came nothing worth mentioning, so he removed the string that held the glove compartment shut and got out a pack of cigarettes. He lit up and turned on the car radio, to a rock station. Once he had owned a tape-cartridge stereo, but finally, while loaded one day, he had neglected to bring it indoors with him when he locked up the car; naturally, when he returned the whole stereo tape system had been stolen. That’s what carelessness gets you, he had thought, and so now he had only the crummy radio. Someday they’d take that too. But he knew where he could get another for almost nothing, used. Anyhow, the car stood to be wrecked any day; its oil rings were shot and compression had dropped way down. Evidently, he had burned a valve on the freeway coming home one night with a whole bunch of good stuff; sometimes when he had really scored heavy he got paranoid—not about the cops so much as about some other heads ripping him off. Some head desperate from withdrawing and dingey as a motherfucker.
A girl walked along now that made him take notice. Black hair, pretty, cruising slow; she wore an open midriff blouse and denim white pants washed a lot. Hey, I know her, he thought. That’s Bob Arctor’s girl. That’s Donna.
He pushed open the car door and stepped out. The girl eyed him and continued on. He followed.
Thinks I’m fixing to grab-ass, he thought as he snaked among the people. How easily she gained speed; he could barely see her now as she glanced back. A firm, calm face … He saw large eyes that appraised him. Calculated his speed and would he catch up. Not at this rate, he thought. She can really move.
At the corner people had halted for the sign to say WALK instead of DON’T WALK; cars were making wild left turns. But the girl continued on, fast but with dignity, threading her path among the nut-o cars. The drivers glared at her with indignation. She didn’t appear to notice.
“Donna!” When the sign flashed WALK he hurried across after her and caught up with her. She declined to run but merely walked rapidly. “Aren’t you Bob’s old lady?” he said. He managed to get in front of her to examine her face.
“No,” she said. “No.” She came toward him, directly at him; he retreated backward, because she held a short knife pointed at his stomach. “Get lost,” she said, continuing to move forward without slowing or hesitating.
“Sure you are,” he said. “I met you at his place.” He could hardly see the knife, only a tiny section of blade metal, but he knew it was there. She would stab him and walk on. He continued to retreat backward, protesting. The girl held the knife so well concealed that probably no one else, the others walking along, could notice. But he did; it was going right at him as she approached without hesitation. He stepped aside, then, and the girl traveled on, in silence.
“Jeez!” he said to the back of her. I know it’s Donna, he thought. She just doesn’t flash on who I am, that she knows me. Scared, I guess; scared I’m going to hustle her. You got to be careful, he thought, when you come to a strange chick on the street; they’re all prepared now. Too much has happened to them.
Funky little knife, he thought. Chicks shouldn’t carry those; any guy could turn her wrist and the blade back on her any time he wanted. I could have. If I really wanted to get her. He stood there, feeling angry. I know that was Donna, he thought.
As he started to go back toward his parked car, he realized that the girl had halted, out of the movement of passers-by, and now stood silently gazing at him.
He walked cautiously toward her. “One night,” he said, “me and Bob and another chick had some old Simon and Garfunkel tapes, and you were sitting there—” She had been filling capsules with high-grade death, one by one, painstakingly. For over an hour. El Primo. Numero Uno: Death. After she had finished she had laid a cap on each of them and they had dropped them, all of them together. Except her. I just sell them, she had said. If I start dropping them I eat up all my profits.
The girl said, “I thought you were going to knock me down and bang me.”
“No,” he said. “I just wondered if you …” He hesitated. “Like, wanted a ride. On the sidewalk?” he said, startled. “In broad daylight?”
“Maybe in a doorway. Or pull me into a car.”
“I know you,” he protested. “And Arctor would snuff me if I did that.”
“Well, I didn’t recognize you.” She came toward him three steps. “I’m sorta nearsighted.”
“You ought to wear contacts.” She had, he thought, lovely large dark warm eyes. Which meant she wasn’t on junk.
“I did have. But one fell out into a punch bowl. Acid punch, at a party. It sank to the bottom, and I guess someone dipped it up and drank it. I hope it tasted good; it cost me thirty-five dollars, originally.”
“You want a ride where you’re going?”
“You’ll bang me in the car.”
“No,” he said, “I can’t get it on right now, these last couple of weeks. It must be something they’re adulterating all the stuff with. Some chemical.”
“That’s a neat-o line, but I’ve heard it before. Everybody bangs me.” She amended that. “Tries to, anyhow. That’s what it’s like to be a chick. I’m suing one guy in court right now, for molestation and assault. We’re asking punitive damages in excess of forty thousand.”
“How far’d he get?”
Donna said, “Got his hand around my boob.”
“That isn’t worth forty thousand.”
Together, they walked back toward his car.
“You got anything to sell?” he asked. “I’m really hurting. I’m virtually out, in fact, hell, I am out, come to think of it. Even a few, if you could spare a few.”
“I can get you some.”
“Tabs,” he said. “I don’t shoot up.”
“Yes.” She nodded intently, head down. “But, see, they’re real scarce right now—the supply’s temporarily dried up. You probably discovered that already. I can’t get you very many, but—”
“When?” he broke in. They had reached his car; he halted, opened the door, got in. On the far side Donna got in. They sat side by side.
“Day after tomorrow,” Donna said. “If I can git ahold of this guy. I think I can.”
Shit, he thought. Day after tomorrow. “No sooner? Not like, say, tonight?”
“Tomorrow at the earliest.”
“How much?”
“Sixty dollars a hundred.”
“Oh, Jeez,” he said. “That’s a burn.”
“They’re super good. I’ve got them from him before; they’re really not what you usually buy into. Take my word for it—they’re worth it. Actually, I prefer to get them from him rather than from anybody else—when I can. He doesn’t always have them. See, he just took a trip down south, I guess. He just got back. He picked them up himself, so I know they’re good for sure. And you don’t have to pay me in advance. When I get them. Okay? I trust you.”
“I never front,” he said.
“Sometimes you have to.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then can you get me at least a hundred?” He tried to figure, rapidly, how many he could get; in two days he probably could raise one hundred twenty dollars and get two hundred tabs from her. And if he ran across a better deal in the meantime, from other people who were holding, he could forget her deal and buy from them. That was the advantage of never fronting, that plus never being burned.
“It’s lucky for you that you ran into me,” Donna said as he started up his car and backed out into traffic. “I’m supposed to see this one dude in about an hour, and he’d probably take all I could get … you’d have been out of luck. This was your day.” She smiled, and he did too.
“I wish you could get them sooner,” he said.
“If I do …” Opening her purse, she got out a little note pad and a pen that had SPARKS BATTERY TUNE-UP stamped on it. “How do I get hold of you, and I forget your name.”