A Scanner Darkly

“You know what they do in cassette-tape stores now?” Do

“They arrest you,” he said, “if you steal them.”

“They always did that. Now what they do—you know when you carry an LP or a tape to the counter and the clerk removes the little price tag that’s gummed on? Well, guess what. Guess what I found out almost the hard way.” She threw herself down in a chair, gri

“How did you find out almost the hard way?”

“Some teenybopper tried to walk out with one under her coat ahead of me and the alarm went off and they grabbed her and the pigs came.”

“How many did you have under your coat?”

“Three.”

“Did you also have dope in your car?” he said. “Because once they got you for the tape rip-off, they’d impound your car, because you’d be downtown looking out, and the car would be routinely towed away and then they’d find the dope and send you up for that, too. I’ll bet that wasn’t locally, either; I’ll bet you did that where—” He had started to say, Where you don’t know anybody in law enforcement who would intervene. But he could not say that, because he meant himself; were Do

“Spunky,” he said to her now, unhappily, “without Spooky.”

“What’s that?” After a moment she understood. “Oh, that TA therapy. But when I do hash …” She had gotten out her very own little round ceramic hash pipe, like a sand dollar, which she had made herself, and was lighting it. “Then I’m Sleepy.” Gazing up at him, bright-eyed and happy, she laughed and extended to him the precious hash pipe. “I’ll supercharge you,” she declared. “Sit down.”

As he seated himself, she rose to her feet, stood puffing the hash pipe into lively activity, then waddled at him, bent, and as he opened his mouth—like a baby bird, he thought, as he always thought when she did this—she exhaled great gray forceful jets of hash smoke into him, filling him with her own hot and bold and incorrigible energy, which was at the same time a pacifying agent that relaxed and mellowed them both out together: she who supercharged and Bob Arctor who received.

“I love you, Do

“Yeah, I can dig it, your being in love with me,” she said, chuckled, sat down beside him, gri

9

“Hey, Do

She blinked, red-eyed. “Dripping little things. Moving along about a foot above the ground.”

“Above, no, on the ground.”

“Drippy. Behind furniture.”

“Little spring flowers, then,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I can dig it—little spring flowers, with yellow in them. That first come up.”

“Before,” he said. “Before anyone.”

“Yes.” She nodded, eyes shut, off in her trip. “Before anyone stomps them, and they’re—gone.”

“You know me,” he said. “You can read me.”

She lay back, setting down the hash pipe. It had gone out. “No more,” she said, and her smile slowly dwindled away.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Nothing.” She shook her head and that was all.

“Can I put my arms around you?” he said. “I want to hold you. Okay? Hug you, like. Okay?”

Her dark, enlarged, unfocused weary eyes opened. “No,” she said. “No, you’re too ugly.”

“What?” he said.

“No!” she said, sharply now. “I snort a lot of coke; I have to be super careful because I snort a lot of coke.”

“Ugly!” he echoed, furious at her. “Fuck you, Do

“Just leave my body alone,” she said, staring at him.

“Sure,” he said. “Sure.” He got to his feet and backed away. “You better believe it.” He felt like going out to his car, getting his pistol from the glove compartment, and shooting her face off, bursting her skull and eyes to bits. And then that passed, that hash hate and fury. “Fuck it,” he said dismally.

“I don’t like people to grope my body,” Do

“I’m taking off,” he said.

“Your car is at your place. I drove you.” The girl struggled up, tousled and confused and half asleep, wandered toward the closet to get her leather jacket. “I’ll drive you back. But you can see why I have to protect my snatch. Four pounds of coke is worth—”

“No fucking way,” he said. “You’re too stoned to drive ten feet, and you never fucking let anybody else drive that little roller skate of yours.”

Facing him, she yelled wildly, “That’s because nobody else can fucking drive my car! Nobody else even gets it right, no man especially! Driving on anything else! You had your hands down into my—”

And then he was somewhere outside in the darkness, roaming, without his coat, in a strange part of town. Nobody with him. Fucking alone, he thought, and then he heard Do

Approaching him, Do

“Yeah,” he said. “Too ugly!”

“Sometimes when I’ve worked all day and I’m super super tired, the first hit I take just spaces me. You wa

“Okay,” he said. Together they walked back.

“That sure is good hash, isn’t it?” Do

Bob Arctor said, “It’s black sticky hash, which means it’s saturated with opium alkaloids. What you’re smoking is opium, not hash—do you know that? That’s why it costs so much—do you know that?” He heard his voice rise; he stopped walking. “You aren’t doing hash, sweetie. You’re doing opium, and that means a lifetime habit at a cost of … what’s ‘hash’ selling for now a pound? And you’ll be smoking and nodding off and nodding off and not being able to get your car in gear and rear-ending trucks and needing it every day before you go to work—”