I smoke my third bowl of the day and watch Half Baked for the hundredth time. As I pull on the glass piece, my pocket vibrates. I remove the Bagel Bites from my chest and glance at my phone.

Yo. I need you, bro, Raul’s text reads. You were right. I have to go. I’m outta control, dawg. Can you take me?

Finally. I’ve been wondering when he’d wake the fuck up.

Definitely, I reply. I’m on my way.

I really don’t want to go uptown. I was comfortable and looking forward to another night of getting semi-blotto while watching my favorite films. Starsky and Hutch was up next in my queue. Fucking Raul—although we’ve been drifting, he’s still my best friend.

Raul started doing coke our senior year of high school. He’d gotten into NYU, his dream school, and then things started to fall apart. I couldn’t believe it—I only got into BMCC. Anyway, it made sense—he’d always gotten better grades than me. Our senior year he was a starter on our basketball team. We’d won the championship. Raul hit the winning shot while I watched from the bench. We had both started doing drugs by then. Mainly weed, drinking, taking percs when we could get them, perhaps robotripping or taking shrooms on weekends. But as the year wore on, our use progressed in different directions. Coke was never my thing—I’m too high-strung. I was into downers, especially Oxy. I loved Oxy.  

Thanks to my recent stay at Payne Whitney and the Xanax prescription they sent me off with, I’ve kept clean a couple months now. I mean, I still drink 40s and smoke weed, but they won’t kill me. Nothing more now than alcohol and weed. And no hard liquor—I don’t fuck with serious shit.

We’re approaching the end of our first year in college. During first semester we’d hang at the bars near NYU all the time. I’d even have his new friends over to my parents’ apartment, where I still live. I felt part of his experience. I mean, community college didn’t really do the whole dorm room/keg stand thing.

Whenever we’d hang, he’d run to the bathroom every ten minutes, returning wide-eyed, short of breath, and sniffly. Raul even started selling. NYU overachievers, all thirsty for an edge. Long way from the scholarship kid with straight A’s.

I take another hit. I hold it in, exhale in a gasp. I take one more hit for good measure. I then hide the bowl in a dirty sock in the bottom of my laundry basket. I stuff my portable one-hitter and a quarter-pound bag of weed into my cargo pockets.

I spray some Binaca in my mouth and drop a couple drops of Visine into each eye. I always take precautions, just in case I run into a neighbor or one of my parents’ friends on the way down. I knew my parents wouldn’t be back from St. Moritz for another three days. Or four, something around there. But the halls were full of well-wishers who would report back, do‑gooders they told I was on a healing journey.

I spray on a dash of Polo Sport. Good to go.

I leave my parents’ apartment. I’m glad no one else joins the elevator, which seems overly bright. The white-gloved doorman and I nod at each other as I float through the revolving door. I walk west along Central Park South and submerge into the Columbus Circle train station.

It’s quiet—not too many commuters at this late hour. The One train arrives minutes later. A disheveled man shrouded in blankets approaches me. I can smell a strong odor of piss.

“Hey, kid, can you spare a couple bucks? I just need bus fare to get home. Gotta feed the cat, ya know?”

The man’s face is cracked and reflects the fluorescent lights of the train. His eyes are vacant.

“Sorry, I’ve got no cash on me,” I reply. The smell causes me to wince. The ten twenty-dollar bills burn in my wallet against my hip. They’re for my re-up later. I don’t feel guilty—I know there’s no cat. He knows I know, or he should know I know there’s no cat.

The train lunges forward and moves along as I breathe in small gasps. I feel dizzy.

The man’s expression changes. His eyes turn angry; his cracks recede as his face tightens.

“Fuck you, kid. You’re lucky. Lucky I don’t find you round my way.”

At the next stop he exits, and I see him reentering the train on the next car down.

I get off at the 145th Street stop. Rising to the street, I see the familiar bodega, the usual Dominican kids with shit to sell loitering out front. (When I say shit, I mean it. I’m pretty sure it’s half weed, half oregano, and 100 percent bug spray.)

The first time I came up here with Raul, I was terrified. I felt outnumbered and small, and different. But the guys on his block were friendly enough. No one tried to rob me. They said they’d buy us beer for a tax and were happy to sell us weed. They knew I was good for at least a twenty every time I came through.

One of those first times to his neighborhood, Raul and I went to pick up Chinese food. It was a few blocks from his mom’s apartment. We’d headed there straight from the train after a game. I was holding my Walkman CD player, its headphones hung on my neck, with Dr. Dre’s latest album playing in a low hum. We were planning to eat while watching the Knicks square off against Reggie and the Pacers, then head downtown to a house party in Tribeca. Brynn from school had invited Raul. I guess I was his plus-one. I was anticipating pork fried rice and duck sauce when a muscled black kid stepped in front of me. Yo, lemmie see that, he’d said, eying my Walkman. He’d had two friends with him who sized me up. I froze, not knowing what to do. Raul stepped between us. Nah, you don’t need to see that, was all Raul said. I think it was his scowl that made him so effective. And, like that, they’d let us walk by. I’d trailed half a step behind Raul and felt like a coward.

I enter the bodega, buy a couple forty ounces of Old English and three Phillies. I walk to 142nd Street and West End, passing a stoop with Big Pun blaring from large speakers, their wires running into the building.

“You seeing Raul?” I hear as I ascend the steps to Raul’s building.

“Yeah,” I reply to a thin man a few years older than me who goes by Jonny Haze. When I first learned his name, I asked Raul if that was his drug dealer alias or porn actor name. We laughed and Raul replied, “Definitely street name—I’m pretty sure he has a tiny dick.” Mr. Haze is in an oversized black T-shirt and Puerto Rican flag bandana, his checkered boxers on full display with his baggy jeans resting below his hips.

“Tell that nigga he owes me,” he says. “And that I got rock.”

“You got it,” I say and enter the building. Jonny hasn’t changed since Raul and I became friends, which was in the beginning of ninth grade. By then he’d already dropped out, and Raul was in all AP classes. I was in “Conceptual Chemistry,” which is basically Chemistry for Dummies and the mathematically challenged.

Raul buzzes me up when he hears my voice on the intercom. I walk up to the third floor on the wide marble steps and am breathing heavily as I knock.

“Scott, that you?” Raul says from the other side of the door.

“No, it’s your long-lost dad.”

I hear the bolt unlock and the door opens. Raul smiles, extends his hand, and we clasp hands. Then Raul hugs me. “Good to see you, bro,” he says. His eyes are bloodshot. He’s wearing a wifebeater, slightly discolored briefs, and that’s it.

On his right shoulder I see the large Chinese character tattoo he got last year. He says it means Good Fortune or Destiny, but I’m pretty sure he got it in a blackout and has no idea. My weed is wearing off.

“Of course, bro,” I say. “You know I got you.”

“Fuck, bro, where you taking me again?”

“Payne Whitney—that’s where I went. They’ll set you straight.” My eyes dart around the hallway, not liking how exposed I feel. My voice seems to echo throughout the stairway, which acts as the building’s spine.

“Damn. They lock you in, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the general idea. Put on some clothes and let’s go.” I pause. I want to light up. “Did something happen?”

“Nah, man, I’m just scared. I dunno what to do.”

“Let’s get going.”

“Come in,” Raul says. “I can’t go just yet.”

I enter, walk down the hall to the couch in the living room. The TV is playing Cam’ron’s “Oh Boy” music video in the background.

“What’s up? You having doubts? I totally get it.”

“Nah, I just need to take the edge off first.”

I smile. “I thought you might need some liquid courage.”

I reach into the black plastic bag I got from the bodega and pull out the forties of OE.

“I got you, dawg.” The words sound silly coming out of my mouth.

“My fuckin nigga,” Raul exclaims, taking the beer.

“Where’s your mom?”

“At work. She’ll be gone for a while.”

“And your sister?”

Raul’s eyes narrow. “Sorry to disappoint, gone for the night.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

We swig our beers and don’t talk. Music videos play in the background. It’s like we are back in high school. Except now Raul’s got a buzz cut, and I’m growing a gut, produced by mozzarella sticks and cheeseburger deliveries from Big Tony’s. It feels like an hour passes, but it might be far less or more.

I take out my one-hitter and my quarter-pound bag of bud. My one-hitter looks like the top half of a fountain pen, one made of black glass. It’s efficient, portable. I open the bag of bud. Tiny, translucent crystals cover the fluffy plant. It’s good shit.

“Do you mind?” I ask.

“So long as you pass that shit.”

I pack and burn down the contents of the one-hitter before packing it again and handing it over. Halfway through his first pull, Raul enters a coughing fit.

“You and your fucking asthma,” I say, taking back the piece and smoking what’s left.

“Fuck yourself,” he manages as he continues to catch his breath.

My forty is almost cached, mainly suds hanging at the bottom of the bottle. The room weaves in and out. I feel good. Proud. Here I am to help.

“Damn, bro, you’re twisted,” Raul says. “How much did you smoke before you got here?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Lookie what I got.” He reaches into his jeans, which are strewn on the floor. He’s holding forth a half-empty baggie of white powder.

“No, thank you,” I say, my head bobbing slightly.

“I wasn’t offering.”

He empties the contents onto a small plate resting on the coffee table.

“What the fuck, man? I thought I came all this way cuz you were done with that shit.”

“All this way, ha! Bro, you know I can’t go like this.” He looks at me like a sad puppy begging for food an hour after dinner was supposed to happen. “Just something to take the edge off, right?”

“Fuck, man. Fine. Finish your shit and then we’re going.” Raul cuts the coke with a credit card, then uses the card to make five even lines. He reveals a sawed-off Bic pen cap and snorts one of the lines.

I find the remote and put on Band of Brothers. The Allies are trying to smoke out a German sniper hiding high in a tower somewhere. I close my eyes. Then open them. They feel heavy. I close them again and my breath deepens.

When I open my eyes again, the apartment is quiet. The TV is back on the OnDemand screen, waiting for the next episode to be selected.

I look around—Raul is gone. Typical fucking Raul.

I call his cell—no answer.

WTF are you? I text.

Coming, he texts back.

Moments later I hear the front door rattle, and there’s Raul, jeans now on with a baggy, green polo shirt.

“Dude, where you been?”

“Not far.” His pupils are so dilated, they leave no white in his eyes. “Look what that pencil-dick prick J. Haze hooked me up with.” Raul holds forth a baggie with a jagged, white rock perfectly held in the middle as if in amber.

“Bro, why you fucking with that shit?” I don’t know what else to say.

“It’s why I texted you, man. Not gonna lie, I’m twisted on this shit.”

“Let’s just go. Let’s smoke a bowl and go.”

Raul looks at the floor. He doesn’t talk for once. He’s far away and there’s a wall between us. Minutes pass.

“Did you know I dropped out?”

“Wait—what? Why?”

“My grades dropped below 3.0. I was on some bullshit, I’ll admit. Then I lost my scholarship. My mom can’t afford tuition, it’s crazy.” Raul grimaces. “Also I tried out for the basketball team, but the coach was a dick.”

He starts to break apart the rock. He takes out a sizable shard, sets it on tinfoil he retrieves from under the couch.

“Bro, you’re done. I came here to take you to the hospital. Let’s go.”

I get up, grab his arm. He jerks free, careful not to spill any rock.

“Hold on a sec. I’ll go, right after this.” Raul reaches into a black plastic bag and pulls out a 22-ounce Heineken. “Here you go. One for the road.”

I take the beer and sit. “Fine. You’re such a dick. Then we leave or I’m done with you.”

“Oh yeah? What else is new.” Raul glares at me. I don’t know what he’s implying.

I must’ve struck a chord. His brows furrow and his nostrils flare. He’s holding back, though I know he can only do so for a moment.

“You always thought you was so much better than me. Lemme tell you, you wouldn’t last twelve hours up here on your own. You only don’t get rolled on cuz they know you’re with me.”

I know he’s right. I spook easy and hate confrontation.

“You’re lucky, just too stupid to see it. Do you know the shit I always got heading home in those fucking khakis and gay-ass collared shirt? In school I was a spic, up here I was a banana.”

I don’t reply. I don’t know what to say. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Raul pauses. “You’re my man. We’re going right after this—I promise.”

I open my beer with my teeth and swig. I look down and am perturbed by the size of my gut, which seems to have grown slightly since last I checked.

“Fuck,” Raul says, rummaging his pockets and JanSport backpack. “Bro, lemme borrow your glass piece.”

“To smoke that shit? Fuck no.” Finally some ground to stand on.

“C’mon, bro, I’m just getting right—then we’ll go. You think I’m not gonna smoke this shit? If you don’t give me the piece, I’ll go light up on the corner.”

I throw my one-hitter at him and put Band of Brothers back on. I can’t bear to look at him. The room starts to smell like burnt plastic.

I chug my beer, drink as much as I can until I need to come up for air. Raul coughs. The lighter fires and he starts coughing again.

“All done,” Raul says after a bit and hands me my one-hitter. He claps his hands. “Feeling good now! Push-ups—max out. Just like high school—let’s go.” He smiles, walks over, and pinches my flank. I see a trace of the Raul I knew.

I roll my eyes and don’t move.

“Hey, man, need to take your tampon out first?”

“Prick,” I say.

I hit the floor along with him.

“Three, two, one, get it!”

We get to work. The room is spinning around me as I try to count.

“Chest to floor, bro—don’t bitch out,” Raul says.

My chest burns and, finally, my body gives way. He keeps going, then crashes, heaving, to the floor shortly after.

“Hell yeah,” Raul says. “What’d you hit?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Forty-eight. I still got you beat. Some things ain’t gonna change.” Raul grins and I remember why all the girls loved him.

“Yeah, well, at least I had Sarah first.” I don’t know why I went there.

“You mean before I stole her from you?”

I don’t tell him I stole her back at a house party. They were kind of serious then. I was brownout drunk and Sarah was practically sober.

“Yeah, whatever, man. Hey, can we go already or what?”

Raul stares at the floor again. “It’s just a few days, right? Then they let you out?” He looks up, worry on his face.

“That’s what happened to me.”

“Wait, so they can keep you longer? How much does that shit cost, anyway? Shit’s expensive.”

“It’ll be okay, man, I promise. Let’s just go. Everything will sort itself out.”

“Fuck.” He sits a time, forehead crinkled. “Soon, I promise.”

“Soon was a long time ago. It’s time, man.”

Raul doesn’t move.

“Why does high school feel like forever ago?” he says.

“I guess.”

“Bro, I remember we used to mix the 151 in our drinks at lunch. You’d be high. I’d see you in homeroom, eyes red, late as usual.”

“Yeah, those times were real. I’m just glad I don’t drink 151 anymore. I can’t handle that stuff.”

Raul looks at the 22-ounce Heineken in my hand, which has only one or two decent gulps left.

Suddenly he looks down, starts rubbing his temples. He breathes heavily, clutches his head. “Damn, I feel lightheaded. I’ll be back in a sec.” Raul gets up and stumbles into his bedroom down the hall.

My head swims. I look over the glass piece, the burned tinfoil. My one-hitter is charred and caked with resin. After a few minutes of waiting, I pull out my weed and pack my one-hitter. I smoke it and pack another. Artillery fires along the German front as I continue to blaze. I can’t think. I didn’t love high school. I have to get Raul to the hospital. Get him help. I’ll get him in a second. I just need to sit a moment.

Where the fuck is Raul? How can he sleep on that shit? I walk into his room. Raul is out cold in bed. His eyes are closed and his mouth hangs open.

“Raul, get up, man. It’s now or never.” He doesn’t move. I shake him. “I’m serious, get up. I’m way too fucked up for this shit.” Nothing.

I shake him again. I slap and pinch him. My head is spinning and my vision blurs. I hold his nose closed. I call him names. All the names that got under his skin in school and made him aware of his difference. The ones I’d call him when it was just the two of us, after seeing him pull girls at a party all night with ease. I shake him hard and his neck jerks like a rag doll.

“Raul! Raul!? Raul, get your ass up, NOW!” I hear the cracks and rising panic in my voice. “Raul, PLEASE get up! You’re not funny!” His tongue hangs limp from his mouth. I hold his left eyelid open, and an unresponsive, enlarged pupil stares back.

I want to cry. My chest tightens and I feel I can’t breathe. I reach for my phone and dial 911.

“Hi. We need an ambulance—quick. I think my friend took something. He’s not waking up.” I give them the address, and they say help is on the way.

That’s my cue to leave. I throw my weed and one-hitter in my pockets, along with Raul’s Bic snorter, the burnt tinfoil, and the mostly empty crack baggie sitting atop the coffee table.

I don’t say goodbye.

I leave the apartment and halfway down the stairs—cops! Three of them.

Fuck fuck fuck, I’m so fucking fucked, is all I can think. I can barely think. What if Raul dies?

“Hey, where you going, buddy?” the plump white one says. “Was it you who’s in trouble?”

“No, it’s my friend. He’s upstairs. I think he might’ve OD’ed.”

The one-hitter and quarter-pound of weed burn in my pocket. I imagine the cops searching me, finding the crack baggie, the tinfoil and Bic pen cap. My heart pounds in my chest. I wonder if Raul left some crack in my one-hitter.

I can’t get a record. My stay at Payne Whitney is still fresh. My parents took me the morning after my mom found me passed out in the kitchen, near OD’ed on Oxy. My left cheek was bruised from an apparent hard landing. They were frantic. My mom searched my room, found and flushed my remaining pills. As I came to, my head throbbed, and the dimmest light made me wince. I couldn’t take the pain that seared my skull from inside.

The way my parents looked at me as we sat in the living room, them on one couch, me on another, parallel and facing them, I burst out crying. They came over and embraced me. Then we were all crying, and they said they’d get me help.

They drove me to the hospital first thing in the morning. My mom got me a cappuccino for the short drive. They wore somber expressions as they talked to the intake doctors, taking mental notes on what I needed. Soon I was checked in and on a bevy of pills. A week and a half later, the doctors said I was ready to go home. They spoke with my parents, who made sure I had therapy lined up, twice a week, starting the day of my discharge. I don’t want to let them down.

“Why you running off so quick?” the cop asks.

“To get help. He called, wanted me to take him to the hospital. I got here, found him, and called for help,” I say just as two paramedics move quickly past to the apartment. My breath catches in my throat. I hope my eyes don’t betray me as I make sure to maintain eye contact.

The cop eyes me. “Better come with us, kid.”

We enter the apartment and go to Raul’s room. Miraculously Raul is sitting up now, paramedics checking his vitals.

“What’d you take, pal?” a paramedic asks.

“Yeah, tell the man,” says one of the cops.

“We’re going to take you to the ER—an ambulance is out front. Any information you tell us will help.”

“We’ll be just behind you, kid. We’ve got a few questions too,” the cop adds, towering over Raul.

The paramedic shines a light in Raul’s eyes. “Yeah, he’s fucked up right now. Doesn’t appear to be life-threatening.”

Raul’s face is blank. I’m expecting him to drool on himself any moment.

The cop turns and looks at me. He studies me, top to bottom.

“How do you know your friend here?”

“We went to high school together. Greenfield Prep.”

“And where’s home?”

I tell him.

The cops exchange a glance.

“Go home, kid, we’ll take care of it,” the plump one says.

I quietly back up and out of the room, not wanting to move in such a way they’d change their minds. Once in the hall I quickly head to the front door, then exit the apartment and head down the stairs. As I leave the building, I see two empty cop cars, their lights on and flashing, and the ambulance waiting for its cargo.

The block is empty. The street is quiet. I hastily move to the subway station, swipe my MetroCard, and queue up Nas’s Stillmatic album on my iPod. My heart pounds as I struggle to draw breath. I’m relieved when the train arrives almost immediately.

As I lean against the train doors, all I can think of is Raul’s dead, dark eyes. I remember sleeping over at his place, smoking Marlboro Lights out his bathroom window as we got ready for school. We’d take the train. Sometimes his mom would drive us down the West Side Highway. She’d get us Egg McMuffins and coffee. I’d be so tired, and the coffee would hit like pure oxygen.

I’m the only one in the car. At the next stop the homeless man from earlier boards the train. He stands across from me, looks at me. He doesn’t approach, doesn’t ask for money. Just stares. He sees something ugly in me, and I hate him for it. We ride the train together all the way to Columbus Circle, the homeless man never taking his eyes off of me.

“Fuck you,” I say as I withdraw, crumple, and throw a twenty at him as I exit the train.

I move east along the park and slowly feel relief. I nod at the doorman and am impatient as the elevator ticks along, the only thing between me and smoke.