Limitless

I hadn’t meant to bring the conversation so neatly back around to the matter in hand, but Vernon looked at me and said, ‘Well, you know, we’ll see what we can do.’

This irked me a little, but the feeling was simultaneously muted and exacerbated by the realization that he actually could do something. I smiled at him and held my hands up.

Vernon then nodded at me, slapped his knees and said, ‘OK, in the meantime, you want some coffee, or something to eat?’

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled himself forward and struggled up out of the couch. He walked over to the kitchen area in the corner, which was separated from the living-room by a counter and stools.

I got up and followed him.

Vernon opened the refrigerator door and looked in. Over his shoulder I could see that it was almost empty. There was a Tropicana orange juice carton, which he took out and shook and then replaced.

‘You know what?’ he said, turning around to face me. ‘I’m going to ask you to do me a favour.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m in no shape to go out right now, as you can see, but I do have to go out later … and I need to pick up a suit at the dry-cleaner’s. So could I ask you to run down and pick it up for me? And maybe while you’re there you could pick us up some breakfast, too?’

‘Sure.’

‘And some aspirin?’

‘Sure.’

Standing there in front of me, in his shorts, Vernon looked skinny and kind of pathetic. Also, up close like this, I could see lines in his face and grey streaks in the hair around his temples. His skin was drawn. Suddenly, I could see where the ten years had gone. Doubtless, looking at me, Vernon was thinking – with suitable variations – the same thing. This gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach, and was compounded by the fact that I was trying to ingratiate myself with him – with my dealer – by agreeing to run down and pick up his suit and get him some breakfast. I was amazed at how quickly it all slotted back into place, this dealer-client dynamic, this easy sacrificing of dignity for a guaranteed return of a dime bag or a gram or an eightball or, in this case, a pill that was going to cost me the best part of a month’s rent.

Vernon walked across the room to the old bureau and got his wallet. As he was going through it – looking, presumably, for money and the dry-cleaning stub – I noticed a copy of the Boston Globe lying on the tinted-glass dining table. Their lead story was Defense Secretary Caleb Hale’s ill-advised comments about Mexico, but why – I asked myself – was a New Yorker reading the Boston Globe?

Vernon turned around and walked towards me.

‘Get me a toasted English with scrambled eggs and Swiss, and a side of Canadian bacon, and a regular coffee. And whatever you want yourself.’

He handed me a bill and a small blue stub. I put the stub in the breast pocket of my jacket. I looked at the bill – at the sombre, bearded face of Ulysses S. Grant – and handed it back to him.

‘What, your local diner’s going to break a fifty for an English muffin?’

‘Why not? Fuck’em.’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘Whatever. The drycleaner’s is on the corner of Eighty-ninth and the diner’s right beside it. There’s a paper store on the same block where you can get the aspirin. Oh, and could you get me a Boston Globe as well?’

I looked back at the paper on the table.

He saw me looking at it and said, ‘That’s yesterday’s.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘and now you want today’s?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK,’ I said and shrugged. Then I turned and went along the narrow hallway towards the door.

‘Thanks,’ he said, walking behind me. ‘And listen, we’ll sort something out when you get back up, price-wise. Everything is negotiable, am I right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, opening the door, ‘see you in a few.’

I heard the door close behind me as I made my way down the hall and around the corner to the elevators.

On the ride down I had to resist thinking too much about how bad all of this was making me feel. I told myself that he’d had the shit kicked out of him and that I was just doing him a favour, but it brought me back to the old days. It reminded me of the hours spent waiting in various apartments, pre-Vernon, for the guy to show up and of the laboured small talk and of all the nervous energy invested in holding things together until that glorious moment arrived when you could hit the road, split … go to a club or go home – eighty bucks lighter, OK, but a whole gram heavier.

The old days.

Which were more than ten years ago.

So what the fuck was I doing now?