Heroin Dave
"Sierra's pregnant! I'm going to be a daddy!" - that's what Heroin Dave announced to me one night as I walked into the bar. He was bouncing, beaming so hard his usual mustard-toned skin was flushed lightly pink. Heroin Dave talked about his girlfriend Sierra frequently. Every other sentence, he'd refer to her. "Sierra says...", or "Sierra thinks...", or "Sierra wants us to...". Since I had never seen Heroin Dave's girlfriend, and since the word among the regulars was that no one else had ever seen Sierra either, at least not back then, I'd wondered if she really existed.
Heroin Dave was in his mid-thirties and of average height and build, although his arms were muscular, as if he'd been doing manual labor for a while. His hair was clipped short, sandy-yellow; the irises of his eyes were a yellow-tinged brown. Heroin Dave was, in general, a yellow person. His intellect was average, maybe a bit above so. He had a specific and bright curiousity, the raw, wondering curiosity of a young child sitting on the floor next to a stack of new picture-books. Heroin Dave was an artist of fair talent and decent technique. He was friendly, sociable, and warm by nature. He also possessed a trust and idealism that was tinged with a foreboding sense of tragic outcome. Because of his personality, I could easily see him with an imaginary friend, an imaginary friend he'd dreamed right into a girlfriend he called "Sierra".
Heroin Dave never drank. He sat at the bar, perched up on a bar stool, a short stack of napkins next to him, ballpoint pen in hand, sketching the circus around him.
It was a long time before I realised that Heroin Dave was a junkie. He had seemed like a normal, average working guy to me, one who entertained himself by sitting in the bar and sketching while waiting for his girlfriend to get off from work. His yellowness I attributed to a past hepatitis, or simply his unfortunate natural colour. Then one night I had reached down to adjust the strap on my boot and when I straightened up, I saw Alex pass a small baggie to Heroin Dave. Then I knew.
Heroin Dave was in his mid-thirties and of average height and build, although his arms were muscular, as if he'd been doing manual labor for a while. His hair was clipped short, sandy-yellow; the irises of his eyes were a yellow-tinged brown. Heroin Dave was, in general, a yellow person. His intellect was average, maybe a bit above so. He had a specific and bright curiousity, the raw, wondering curiosity of a young child sitting on the floor next to a stack of new picture-books. Heroin Dave was an artist of fair talent and decent technique. He was friendly, sociable, and warm by nature. He also possessed a trust and idealism that was tinged with a foreboding sense of tragic outcome. Because of his personality, I could easily see him with an imaginary friend, an imaginary friend he'd dreamed right into a girlfriend he called "Sierra".
Heroin Dave never drank. He sat at the bar, perched up on a bar stool, a short stack of napkins next to him, ballpoint pen in hand, sketching the circus around him.
It was a long time before I realised that Heroin Dave was a junkie. He had seemed like a normal, average working guy to me, one who entertained himself by sitting in the bar and sketching while waiting for his girlfriend to get off from work. His yellowness I attributed to a past hepatitis, or simply his unfortunate natural colour. Then one night I had reached down to adjust the strap on my boot and when I straightened up, I saw Alex pass a small baggie to Heroin Dave. Then I knew.