The Beggar's Garden by Michael Christie

ask you to hold your tongue! Treasure yourself? How asinine! It’s philistines like you who cloud the great minds of our nations with your rhetoric of self-worship. This crack cocaine unleashes the truest and noblest potentials in our society! And furthermore …,” but he leaves it because Steve has nodded off again, and this time I don’t wake him up. I’m just glad he knows so little of science; if he doesn’t recognize J. Robert he can’t rat him out. Rat him out to whom I’m not sure.
    Back in my room, J. Robert’s fuming anger is transforming into a sort of agitated sadness. I think it is probably also due to the fact that he is starting to come down, but I don’t tell him.He comments on the naked futility of existence, on the mercilessness of my light bulb, and then says something in what I think is Dutch. The rain has stopped. Luckily, he wants to smoke more rock, which is good because I do too.
    â€œWhat made you want to smoke crack in the first place?” I say.
    â€œExcellent question. Because, Hank, to have a sound and crystallized view on something, I feel one must experience it firsthand—to know what one is talking about, that is—and this crack just seems like an area I should form an opinion on.”
    I notice sweat stains forming in the armpits of his crisp white Oxford shirt. I want desperately to pick up where we left off, before we were interrupted, eager for him to listen to some more of my theories.
    â€œYou know, J. Robert, these pipes are made of Pyrex, the same glass as test tubes.”
    â€œSimple physics,” he says. “Ordinary glass would shatter if subjected to this type of treatment, just like us, huh, Hank? Steeled by the girders of inquiry and knowledge!” He shakes my shoulder and it stabs me with pain, but I don’t tell him to stop.
    The scientific conversation doesn’t last. J. Robert has loosened his tie and is pacing and anxious; he wants to go outside, see the sights, meet the locals, get some air, and of course buy more crack. I fear J. Robert will forget about me if we leave, or that he will disappear and never come back. I tell him we have more than enough to last us the night, and that this neighbourhood is ugly and dangerous and unscientific and we should just stay here and just smoke and talk. He snatches his jacket, begins stuffing his pockets with vials. “Hank, my colleagues call me Oppie. And Oppie is not going to tell you what to do, but Oppie and his narcoticsare going outside, into this night—this night whose force shall break, blow, burn, and make us new!”
Results
    I was twenty-six when I first smoked crack.
Crack.
It sounds so ridiculous even when I say it now, so pornographic. I started late in relation to most. I’d just moved to Vancouver, like everybody else. I was at a party I’d overheard some people talking about that afternoon at a coffee shop. Right when I got there, a girl I didn’t know asked me if she could borrow some money. I asked her what for but she wouldn’t say. I told her whatever it was I would like to be in on it. I was drunk. I didn’t think I would have sex with her but I guess I hoped.
    After the first glorious toke, I calmly asked how much of it was hers and how much of it was mine, took my share, and left. I fumbled through the dim rooms of the party and out the door, deciding to smoke rock forever.
    It’s still forever and we are wandering the streets at the mercy of Oppie’s arbitrary fancies. He is oblivious to traffic or fatigue and often breaks spontaneously into a run. I give chase and am barely successful in my effort to stay with him. When I do catch up, he puts his arm on my shoulder, breathing heavily. He seems surprised to see me and tells me he’s glad I’m here.
    The pavement is wet and reptilian, the air thick with evaporation. People are out tonight, like every night, hustling, smoking, chatting, shaking