9.13pm

Out and about now. The car growls its low approval as you steer it around the suburbs. The dark has enveloped the city now but the air is still warm. You use the control to move the windows down and let the night into the car. Steve’s house is up ahead, the usual assortment of beaten up cars littering what used to be the front lawn. You grab your jacket which doubles as a goodie bag and make your way to the front door. Steve opens it himself and lets out a howl of greeting. His head has been shaved again and the scar on his forehead bisects the stubble in a white lightning flash. You exchange the usual insincere hugs and handshakes but for once you can’t be bothered with it and make your way to the lounge room. The usual suspects are here; Steve’s pallid girlfriend Sandy, KT, Jason and Min. You’ve never worked out if the last three actually live here or just spend their lives coming over to get stoned and sit around on the stained carpet. They tend to wake up a bit when you appear. There is the usual scraping for credit, money reluctantly handed over and bags eagerly received. The room stinks even more than usual. You move to the kitchen, which will never make the front cover of Better Homes and Gardens. Sandy drifts after you and puts her arms around your waist from behind. She’s as thin as a ghost.

“C’n you let me have one?”

You turn around and she leans in and twines her arms around your neck, smiling anxiously.

“You got any money?”

She looks up at you from under her eyelashes and smiles again, coyly this time. At the same time, you feel her skinny thigh move between your legs to press against your groin. She’s wasting her time – it takes a lot more than that to get you hard these days.

“Come on Sandy, you know the score.”

She pouts and takes her leg away.

“Steve won’t let me have one of his.”

Steve’s got the right idea, you think. And then, relenting, reach into your pocket and slip her a pill. She grins like a Cheshire cat and comes back to your arms.

“You’re great, y’know that. I’d like you even if you weren’t our dealer, you know?”

You slide your hands down to her non-existent bum. Warm bone, she may be, but she’s still warm.

“I’m not a drug dealer,” you say, your mouth against her forehead. “I’m a social pharmacist.”

12.34am

The city streets are clogged with cars, all doing the Friday night cruise. You curse as a metallic blue Subaru looms up behind you like a fume-belching demon and nearly takes out your rear wing. At times like this the car feels like a little oasis, a cosy metal cage that locks out the outside world. In here, you can watch the rest of them, but they can’t watch you back. But you can’t stay here any longer, not with a dozen hungry punters waiting for you in the pubs and clubs of Adelaide. Miraculously there’s an empty space outside the Crown and Sceptre and you wedge the S2000 against the kerb. The line-up snakes back from the doorway but you saunter up to the bouncer, blipping the remote locking on the car. You can feel the ray-gun intensity of resentful gazes, feel the envy wafting out from the crowd along with the smell of hot skin, sweat and perfume.

At the doorway, you change your mind. Inside is a pulsating, feverish beat, wall-to-wall smoke, bodies lining the walls and the dance floor. For a wild moment, you want to turn and run, pound away down the street past the waiting queue, making for – where? There’s a thumping in your head, echoing the bass that seeps out from the pub. There’s no escape for you tonight. With the knowledge of that, calmness comes back and you clutch the bag inside your jacket. The slippery plastic moulds to your fingers and beneath it, you can feel the reassuring grind of the white powder.

There’s a shout behind you and your heartbeat accelerates another notch. You turn and there’s Laurie, blonde crop dazzling under the streetlights, tanned skin stretched over muscles. He comes over and gives you a bone-crushing hug.

“Alright?”

“No worries.”

He knows the score. He dances to the same tune as you and you are almost friends. There’s still that faint vacancy in his eyes when he catches yours. In another world, another life, you would be soul mates. Here, a line separates you still. A white powdery line, scored across a mirror.

It’s still a relief to see him. With him and only him, you can relax. Almost. There is always an ‘almost’.

“You going in?”

“Who’s in there?”

He grins. His teeth are still white and fairly even. With all the pills he does, he should just have a row of stumps. You run your tongue over yours automatically.

“The usual suckers. Nadia’s looking for you.”

You roll your eyes and he grins again.

“Gotta just grab something from the car – coming?”

You glance back at the Honda, shiny beneath the streetlights. Laurie will have parked somewhere more secluded.

“For sure.”

The nos canister gasps. Beside you Laurie exhales loudly, a blank white strip of cornea visible beneath his eyelids. The gas escapes from his mouth in an almost invisible blue sigh. His hand falls into his lap and the canister begins to slide to the floor. You retrieve it quickly, drop in a bulb with a metallic little clink, screw it in. As you suck it down, he comes round.

You finish up the box between you and both sit there for a while, dreamy and quiet. Slowly the nitrous recedes, like a wispy tide withdrawing and you sit up and reach for the bag. Tonight won’t work as a pill night, you’ve decided, and then chuck another one down anyway, just in case you were wrong.

With three fat lines inside you, you can face the music. Literally. You can feel the grin on your face already, stretching your skin over your cheekbones. You fake a yawn, just to feel the ache in your jaw.

Inside you lose Laurie almost immediately. You need a piss and begin to wade your way towards the toilets at the back of the bar. There’s a scream in your ear, loud enough to shatter your eardrum. Nadia materialises in front of you, shimmering in a silver vest. She screams your name again and flings herself at you. You stagger a little, even under her slight weight. The pills are making you unsteady.

“I thought you’d never get here! Everyone’s waiting for you! Come with me.”

She seizes your hand and tugs you along. For a fleeting moment, you wonder what it would be like to know this many people who’d be like this even if you didn’t sell them drugs. Then someone stumbles into you and the thought is gone. You follow Nadia’s pert white-jean-clad behind out into the tiny beer garden.

There is an immediate change in the atmosphere. Those who are most desperate come forward and start talking to you; the absolutely frantic come straight out with their requests. The ones better able to hide their need continue with their conversations, with just a slight pause as they clock your entrance and the occasional glance around to check that you’re still there. Those are the ones who will wait until you want to leave and then corner you by the stairs, by your car, in the toilets. You clench your jaw – you feel the need for another line already. You spot Laurie making his way over to the table and the shift of a few people from you to him. As always, there’s that momentary sting of rejection, until you remind yourself that both of you are just providing a service, that’s all.

Nadia sits down by you. The smoke from her cigarette stings your eyes; her voice rattles on in your numbed ears. You look at her, marvelling that someone so beautiful can be so empty. She hasn’t got a bad personality – she has no personality. She’s a personality sink. You can feel a little of yours leach away every time you’re near her. You always come away greyer, thinner, more insubstantial.