Cathy and Bobby had been doing heroin. She’d done it before a couple of times, and it didn’t seem like anything that could kill you. Everybody did it, at least everybody Bobby knew. Cathy’s friends had fallen by the wayside. She never saw them anymore. But Bobby had the junk. And now Cathy wanted some more. She woke up from a nightmare, about a weeping woman with red hair, to face the mother of all hangovers, except it wasn’t really a hangover at all; it was the first stage of withdrawal. It was the surreptitious discomfort that somebody who has only done heroin a few irregular times, and thinks it can’t possibly be that, experiences. Cathy sat up slowly, nauseous. The room yawed and tilted. She felt her face as if the dimensions of it had shifted and swollen during the night. But numb fingers touched numb flesh and felt nothing. She and Bobby had gotten really fucked up last night. He had started to do things. Bobby was funny like that. He did strange things. Cathy convinced herself it was art because he photographed it.
