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  Chapter 1: I'ma just gonna get a little high

  "God damn it!" Josh shouted in the closed up bathroom stall of The Corner Bakery. The heroin balloon he'd just bought not even ten minutes prior had turned out to be a piece of chocolate mint, which infuriated him to no end. Heroin should either be a nice black ball of vinegar smelling goo or it should be a light brown powder, at least in the western states. Junkies around Colorado would kill for the chance at some china white.

  Josh took in a deep breath and threw the opened black wrapper with the black candy stuck to it into the toilet and gathered his works. He put his needle, metal spoon, lighter, and cotton swab back into the top open zipper of his brown messenger tote bag. Once everything was placed in there and zipped up he put back on his black punk zip hoodie with band buttons all over it.

  Le Tigre

  The Photo Atlas

  The Offspring

  My Chemical Romance

  The Postal Service

  Many more, plus one that told the reader that Josh was one smart cookie, it even had a cookie cartoon on it below the words.

  Josh punched the right wall of the stall and opened the bathroom door. He was surprised to find a short man with a mustache waiting to use the facility. Josh waved him in and left the restaurant, leading him out onto the 16th Street Mall.

  The day was cold and there was a little snow on the ground as he walked south / east toward Civic Center Park, where all good drugs could be found. Actually not ALL the good drugs, that title was held steadfastly with the pager dealers. The pagers were Mexicans (Only buy heroin in Denver from Mexicans, Josh learned this the hard way, as the ten dollar piece of mint he had bought just then was from a tall skinny white dude with t brown chin hair and a ratty looking black AVs hoodie had proven.) who had cars and would come to you anywhere within the city to bring you the dope. Josh considered these guys were awesome and felt that they had the best stuff but they were tough on enforcing the price. There was no haggling with these guys. They had great shit and they knew it.

  Josh stopped at the end of 16th and Curtis and took out his wallet to see how much money he had left after being robbed. Twenty dollars was all he had and it needed to last at least until Monday (two days from now) when he could get tips from his job as a barista at The Jumping Bean coffee house. How he'd managed to be a junkie and keep a job was anyone's guess. The cold and hot flashes were already coming in waves all over his small body.

  Josh decided to go for it. He could buy two pieces and make it last until then. He had the willpower.

  Right?

  He put the duct tape wallet he had bought from Hot Topic back into the pocket of his skinny jeans and took out his cell phone from his other. Josh didn’t want to have another candy ordeal so he was calling in the one person he knew wouldn’t screw him over. After taking off the phone's key lock he went into his contacts and found Jose's number. He hit dial and waited with the phone against his ear as the ring tone played festive Mexican mariachi music. After about six seconds he finally heard that familiar accented voice.

  "Yeah, what?" Jose asked in fast, clipped speech.

  "Hey man! I need twenty of black." Josh waited for a reply while Jose said something to somebody in the room with him.

  "Ok man." He said. "10th and Bannock, twenty minutes."

  "Cool, thanks dude." Josh hung up and locked his phone, putting it back into his pants pocket. He began his trek toward the destination down the way. The best way to do this was to take the "0" bus over on Market Street, which was only two blocks away

  He'd gotten there in record time. The bus was just about to leave when he got to the stop down on Market and there were very few pickups aside from the main one on Broadway and Colfax, which always had at least ten people wanting to get on.

  As he stood on the corner of 10th and Bannock he pondered on how long he could keep this up. He had no insurance therefore going to a detox facility was out of the question. He supposed he could always claim he was suicidal and go to West Pines, but they'd just see right through his plans and kick him out before he would even have the chance to take the first of the prescribed detoxification medicine. There was always Suboxone, which could be bought at the park during certain times throughout the day.

  Suboxone is both an opioid agonist and antagonist. Meaning that it bonded to the opiate receptors like an opiate would, but it had a touch of Narcan in it, which was the cure for opiate overdose. This combination made it impossible to get high once on the medication. You also had to make sure you were in complete withdrawal before you took it, or it would put you in it and hard!

  But these thoughts were far from ever coming into fruition. For now he was content with sticking a needle in his arm every day of the week, fifty two weeks a year, for the last two years. The rush of heroin was far better than any sexual encounter he'd ever had. No orgasm could compete with it. No pussy, no matter how tight and wet, could ever come close to how it felt when the dope hit your brain.

  Dopamine is released when it hits.

  Dopamine is the feel good stuff you get after an orgasm and after you eat a good meal.

  Drugs hi jack this system and gives it to you on demand.

  A natural high in a sense.

  The thought of getting some soon made his body shiver with anticipation and he broke out into a cold sweat, which also could’ve been from the withdrawal from not having it in nearly twenty three hours.

  It had to have been nearly thirty five minutes since he had last called him. He reached for his phone when he heard a honk. A dark green car came to a stop and parked alongside the road. Josh smiled and waved at the man in the vehicle, he did not return the gesture and actually scowled at him. He walked around and got in the passenger side door.

  "Hey man!" Josh said, handing the Mexican the twenty dollars.

  "Hey, mang." The man said, his speech garbled with heroin and coke balloons in his mouth. He spit one out of his mouth but it was white. He put it back in and spat out another, this time black. He went for a second one and then handed Josh the balloons. Josh saluted the guy and got out of the passenger side door. As he walked around the car it started and went down the street, where it made a left and disappeared. Josh surveyed the two heroin balls in his hand and could almost feel the intense euphoria that they would bring him. He smiled and headed down toward sixth, where there was a Starbucks bathroom with his name written all over it in red marker.

  Or blood from the needle that would puncture his skin.