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The place is a walk-in basement apartment of a Brooklyn brownstone house. Rachel, a thirty three year old drug addict prostitute, lives there with her nine month old baby boy. The dark, musty smelling, dingy four room apartment is also the temporary shelter for approximately a dozen or two male and female addicts who use the living room as a "shooting gallery". A shooting gallery is any place occupied by a number of addicts where they inject the drugs into their arms.
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It is ten p.m as we enter. The baby is sleeping. Five addicts have gathered, each bringing his own " stuff" (heroin). The regulars have hidden their set of works ( needle, eye dropper, etc.) In a corner of the room. Others take their out of their pockets. One addict has no works so he will share another's. Pabo, the oldest of the group, lays his "instruments of death" on the floor.
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The cooker, a small bottle cap, has a hair clip fitted around it to serve as a handle. Placing the eye dropper and needle in front of him he takes his home made eye dropper holder the edge of a dollar bill approximately a quarter of an inch in width and rolls it around the top of the needle and fits it into the eye dropper.
The wet dollar bill edge serves as a sponge to secure the dropper and needle snugly together. Next he opens the five dollar bag of heroin, licks his finger, then touches the heroin lightly. He tastes it to test its strength. He is asking himself, " Is it good stuff; is it garbage, or is it pure heroin?" If the latter is the case, this could be his last shot. Most heroin is only two to five per cent potent.
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Occasionally, either by accident or design, pushers will sell stronger heroin and the result can be an OD (overdose). It is a quiet way of doing away with somebody. Pabo is assured this bag is safe. Now he puts it in the cooker, carefully scrapping it to be assured that every bit is used.
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Then taking the eye dropper and needle he places it in a glass of water, fills up the dropper, then shoots the water into the cooker. Next he puts a match under it to heat and dissolve the white powder in the water. Taking the needle again, he draws the substance out of the cooker and up into the dropper.
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Anticipation is written over his face. Quickly he removes his belt and wraps it around his left arm, making a tourniquet. Now he is pumping his arm, the veins slowly puff up. Balancing his left arm on his left leg he takes the needle in his right hand and slowly inject it into the vein.
With the thumb and first finger of his right hand he squeezes the rubber part of the eye dropper. Slowly the heroin goes into his arm. But suddenly he stops and pulls the needle out. He has missed. Pabo's veins are very bad. He has been on drugs thirteen years, since he was twenty years of age. It is not uncommon for him to take two or three minutes to find a good vein.
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Again, he drills. Smack "it's a hit", he says out loud. Quickly the heroin enters his blood stream, warms his body, and once again he is "up, up, and away". Now he feels like a new man. Taking a piece of brown wrapping paper, he puts his works inside and rolls them up and puts them back in his hiding place.
While the others complete the same ritual, he sit down in a chairs to " groof" (experience the dreamy world of the heroin high). In two hours the heaviness of his high will taper off some what and he will go home to his wife ( a non drug user) and go to sleep. Tomorrow he will go through the same routine three times.
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In the morning whe n he wakes up, about three o'clock in the afternoon, and late in the evening. He will do it, that is, unless he gets "busted" (arrested) or takes an OD. Or he will stop if he finally makes up his mind to listen to the pleading of his wife and go to Teen Challenge. If he is fortunate enough to remain alive and does not find a positive cure, he will continue to be a member of the "high" society, and live on those streets where the lonely walk.