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Recommended Reading

The Politics of Heroin

The Politics of
Heroin
by W. McCov

McCoy exposes basic hypocrisy in American policy making, and demonstrates that, as long as powerful government bureaucracies work at cross-purposes, America's drug problem will not be easily solved

 
With her head buried in her hands against the steering wheel, Noelle could not see me. It was possible that she could have thought that the sound of my fingertips tapping against the window of her car were raindrops falling. So I clenched my fist and rapped my knuckles against the wet glass.
Noelle turned toward me. Without me seeing her hand and arm, she reached over to her door, opened it, then kicked it open with such a terrific force that I thought it shattered my hip as it propelled me backwards as if the door was the flipper of a pinball machine and I was the ball in play. The lightning and thunder added to the effect of making me feel like I was the ball in the arcade game of Noelle Alexandria’s disintegrated personality. As I was close to falling on my feet, Noelle was almost flat on both of hers. Look! she yelled. I need a ride home. Wanna gimme a ride home or what? Fuck this stupid piece of shit! Noelle slammed the car door shut, then with a twist of her wrist, locked it.

Hunched over at the waist, supporting my weight with my palms cupping my kneecaps, I managed to punctuate my accentuated groan with a couple of staccato grunts. In the process of standing erect, I lifted one of my hands and pointed to my car.
On the drive over to her apartment, Noelle made no conversation. She just gave directions. I didn’t say a word that was my own the whole way over there. I had The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in my tape deck, so I just sang along with him to Masters of War. Other than the words of the song, I didn’t communicate with Noelle at all, other than by nodding and making the turns she told me to make.

When we arrived in front of her apartment, Noelle thanked me, almost begrudgingly, then, surprisingly, asked me if I wanted to come upstairs. I laughed, shaking my head and asked why. She told me someone had unloaded a bunch of Bob Dylan on her and that it really wasn’t her bag. There must be fifteen or twenty Bob Dylan CDS up there.
The only thing...» »

 

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November 2002   turn