By dannye
I took a break from my wires and duct tape and microphones and walked out into the seats and decided to take a seat next to this unusual looking girl. She could not be called "pretty" by any normal standards. Her face was blocked and her nose was rather large and her hair was in a couple of wild braids at its side. It suddenly occurred to me that she was not an American. I went to take the seat in a folding chair next to her, and it collapsed.
Have you ever been so nonchalant that you could turn into Jerry Lewis and still not turn beet red and lose all of your cool? It must have been this girl. She was throwing off vibes of composed needfulness, and I was sent there by God Almighty to fulfill whatever this need was. A collapsed folding chair and a bruise on my ass was not going to interfere with whatever was about to happen here.
I found a chair that worked and, after she got through laughing at me, I introduced myself. And I was right. She spoke broken English with a very German overtone. It turned out that it was her 18th birthday present to herself to travel to America and see what all the fuss was about this place. She was going by bus around several cites and, this afternoon, she just happened to be in mine. After a few words, I told her that I had to get to work, but I'd meet her somewhere later. She said she was staying in a hotel and would be back the next day. I arranged to meet her at 5:00 PM at the big fountain where the kids were defying their parents by taking swims and stealing the coins tossed in for good luck. I figured it would be damn good luck indeed if this rendezvous ever took place.
In fact, I almost forgot all about it. The next day was a Saturday and I had to pick up my Sicilian friend Nick Fragala at the airport. He'd been in Miami visiting his mom and scouting out a couple of career changes. His plane got in around 1:30 and when we got back to my house, he pulled out some of the purest cocaine I've ever seen in my life. Of course, I couldn't tell that it was that pure by looking; but in just a few minutes, I was to find out. You see, I had reached that point in my drug career where a straw and a mirror were so over. When I saw the happy powder, the first thing I did was reach for a needle and a spoon. It's always hard to tell the dosage on a new drug, but I just went for the assumed quota: Whatever they were doing in each nostril, I'd put that sum in a spoon and it'd all be good. I should have known when I saw it dissolve so quickly. There was not an impurity in that stuff.
The results hit my brain instantly, and I swear to God, bells went off in my head. That had never happened before and it made me think of death. I walked out to the back porch and leaned over the rail, breathing hard and my heart going about 250 BPMs. Like any good little addict, instead of saying, "That's it for me, man," I just adjusted the next few doses.
It was around 4:30 when I remembered the little German girl. It was quite a drive to get to downtown. I ran to the car and drove like an idiot. It was 5:10 when I got a parking spot. It was 5:20 when I got to the fountain. I was too late, and I had no one to blame but me. I sat down on the edge of the fountain and took my shoes off. I stuck my feet in and lit a cigarette. I was sitting there like that, feeling sorry for myself and quite depressed, like only cocaine can make you depressed, about my whole sorry life, when I felt a lightheartedness in the air. She touched me on my right shoulder and said, "I did not think you would be making our appointment."