Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers

“What’s it like, Raymond?”

Hicks closed his eyes for a moment, drank some bourbon, and gave Eddie Peace his own smile.

“I don’t know what it’s like, Eddie.”

Marge leaned against him and felt him trembling.

“What are we doing here?” she asked. “Are we going to do up or what?”

Eddie came over to pat her on the head.

“Mar-gee wants her smack-ee.”

“ Please .” Marge said. “Really.”

Eddie laughed.

“I already asked ya if you was a schoolteacher, didn’ I?”

“Yes, you did,” she said.

Eddie clapped his hands.

“C’mon, c’mon, Raymond. It’s all you. Where’s this famous shit?”

The bleached fingers shook slightly as he opened the bag. His Eddie Peace smile was an uninhabited rictus. Marge grew frightened of him.

When the dope was out everyone regarded it with silent respect. Gerald and Jody stood to see it.

“Well, O.K., there, Mr. Hicks,” Eddie said. “Let’s try it on.”

Since their arrival, Marge had been trying to decide whether she would do up with them. The fact that there seemed to be a decision involved encouraged her to pass; with the stuff laid out before her like a midnight picnic, her faint resolve wavered.

So far as she could tell, she felt all right. Perhaps it had been just nerves the last time, nerves and the lack of dilaudid. If she declined, Eddie Peace would be irritated and confused and that made it almost worthwhile. On the other hand, it was all such a drag, so scary and depressing and the high was so righteous and serene. She never thought about Janey when she was high.

“You want to go first?” Eddie asked her gently. She glanced at Hicks and it seemed to her that he shook his head almost imperceptibly. It was probably imagination, she thought, she could not read him at all that night.

“You go ahead. I’ll think about it.”

Eddie smiled.

“Yeah, you do that, Margie.” He looked about the room. “I’ll go first. Because it’s my party.”

Hicks bowed his head in deference, the terrible smile still in place.

“Your works or mine, Eddie?”

“Mine,” Eddie said. “They’re new.”

His works were new, a regulation syringe, without improvisations. He had cotton and ajar of surgical alcohol. Hollywood.

“Now that’s what I call narcotics paraphernalia,” Hicks said. “I got better than that,” Eddie said. “I got coke to run with it. I don’t go for that nowhere noddy feeling.”

“I do,” Marge said.

“Sure you do. You’re a broad.”

He assembled the needle and admired its luster. Jody watched him.

“But is Ed an addict?” she asked her husband. “I didn’t know Ed was an addict.”

Gerald looked puzzled.

“Ed’s an addict,” Hicks said. “Ain’t you, Ed?”

Nothing could spoil Eddie’s mood.

“None of your fucking business,” he said good-naturedly.

Hicks took the cap from his Wild Turkey bottle, rinsed it out in the sink — and with his baker’s measuring spoon — poured in what he judged to be the fifth part — a nickel bag. Eddie followed him about, watching over his shoulder.

“That’s enough?”

“You’ll find out.”

“It’s that good?” He took the cap and looked into it. “And we do it aged in oak.”

There was a pool of water in the bottom of the sink. Hicks drew up enough to fill the dropper and transferred it to the cap in three measures.

“Gerald,” Eddie said. “C’mon Gerald, social significance time. We’re gonna cook up here.”

He held the cap with an alligator roach clip, they cooked up with his propane lighter. When the heroin began to melt, he produced a tiny make-up box and spooned an edge of his cocaine from it into the mix.

“Aged in oak and cut with coke, Gerald.” Gerald nodded as a man will who has spent much time being shown things. “Aged in oak and cut with coke and bless my soul,” Eddie said. He took the works from Hicks’ hand and loaded his shot.

“Cheers,” he told them.

He tied up with the red bandana and went into the big vein. When he shot, a burst of bright color rose in the valve and a liquor of blood and melted heroin spread across the pure glass surface in delicate butterfly patterns. When he took the needle out he ran a swab across his arm and over the point of the spike.

“Aw shit,” he said tenderly, moved to emotion.

After a minute or so, he stamped his feet.

“Ai yai !” He grinned furiously at the people in the room. “Ai chihuahua .”

Jody watched him with an expression of incredulity and delight.

“Is it Mexican?” she asked.

“Is it Mexican?” Eddie cried. “Bless your heart!”

Everyone laughed except Gerald. Hicks’ laughter was his Eddie Peace smile expanded in a spasm.

“She asks me if it’s Mexican!” Eddie roared. His hilarity was boundless. “Outasight!”

Jody was nearly beside herself. “Who’s next.”

“Who’s next, Marge?” Eddie asked.

Marge shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m still thinking about it.”

“What about me?” Jody demanded.

“Gotta be you,” Eddie said. There was a little bit of spittle on his lip and he wiped it away. “Gotta be you. Stone the gash.”

“Did you want to go first?” Jody asked her husband.

“Maybe I ought to,” Gerald said.

“I don’t see why. But you can if you want to.”

“No,” Gerald said. “No. There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

“Stone the gash,” Eddie Peace said. Jody offered her arm manfully. Eddie held it and turned to Hicks.

“I gotta say, Raymond.… I gotta say…”

“Glad you like it, Eddie.”

He looked down at Jody’s arm and shoved it away.

“I don’t want that,” he declared. “Gimme some leg.”

“Some leg?” Jody asked.

“He wants to put it in your leg,” Gerald explained, “instead of the vein.”

“Somewhere nice.” Eddie said. “C’mon Gerald, tell her take her pants down.”

Gerald stood up uncertainly, as though he thought he might be useful.

Jody unbuckled her brand new leather belt and peeled the fawn colored cloth down her left hip to expose an area of skin below the margin of her panties. She blushed charmingly and held her trousers up with her right hand. She looked at her husband while Eddie shot her and did not flinch.

“O.K., Jody,” Eddie said, patting her on the rump. “You’re fixed.” She walked away looking thoughtful and sat down on the floor beside her husband. For a moment they held hands and looked at each other.

“Raymond,” Eddie said, “take care of Gerald. I want to goof.” He began walking up and down in the middle of the room, silently mouthing a song of his imagining. Goofing.

Hicks measured and cooked up again.

Gerald took the chair where Jody had been sitting; he sat erect and grim, with the air of a man about to do something valorous in a good cause. When he looked at Hicks, his eyes held humility and trust.

“Shall I take my pants down,” he asked.

“You don’t have to,” Hicks said.

Hicks drew up the liquor, pink with blood and lined up the spike with Gerald’s bare arm.

Eddie stopped goofing for a moment to watch.

“Hey, Raymond, don’t hit him in the vein, man.”

“No,” Hicks said.

Jody tried to stand up.

“Oh my God,” she said softly.

“Isn’t that the vein?” Gerald asked. At the last moment, he tried to pull his arm away. Hicks held his wrist and pushed the shot home.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked. He was still smiling. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Gerald’s eyes opened in astonishment. His feet made a quick convulsive shuffle. When he fell sideways, the needle went with his arm.