Padded Window Punch

Cold foggy night in the Mission, Folsom and 20Th. Mark's brother keeps walking around the first floor flat of the old Victorian punching his hand and cursing. Psyching himself up for something I'm not sure what. Grey bushy hair in a classic Manson mane frames his angry face. He's the one who keeps asking who we are and if we're cool. Mark keeps reminding him that Running Bear is the guy who did his tattoos. Mark is bouncing around the apartment too rubbing his back and telling Bear that his back always aches when he's coming down. I run out for a couple 40's of Rainier Ale. We kicked in on some beans and tacos that Mark's toothless girlfriend is cooking up in the kitchen rapping to herself or any of us that wander in there. Mark has that classic biker metal head look motorcycle jacket black jeans and boots, black greasy hair that is pasted to his face because he's sweating alot. He and Bear are telling stories about people I don't know and I'm drinking as much malt liquor as it's polite to do without taking too much and I'm getting buzzed because my stomach is empty. I think we smoked some cheap "bama" weed too. I was wondering if we were going to do some speed but first we sit down to dinner like civilised folk. I was wondering if I wanted to do any speed and knew that if it came out I wouldn't be able to resist even though I hated it. I was in that frame of mind. Eating together was weirdly bonding and I was laughing and thinking these people were pretty cool and they lived around the corner so maybe we could be friends of a sort even though they were tweakers and I was into hop. My stomach was having a bad reaction to the canned re fried beans though, jumping and gurgling something fierce. Lately I'd been resisting and had only broken down and copped a couple times in the past month.Getting high on heroin in a house that was a daycare center during the day was a big no no and I felt pretty fucking shitty about it. But being broke and out of work will put you in that "I'll do any thing if it's free" mode and so chances were I was going to get some speed if I hung out, but these guys probably shot it and I didn't want to deal with using their works. Plus I really didn't like speed but there I was.
After dinner Marks brother got ready to go out and put on a big old navy pea coat and a black wool hat. His right hand had some kind of padding taped to it and he was slamming it into his left palm harder and harder. I finally figured out he was going out to punch car windows and snag car stereos or whatever else he could get. From what I gathered Mark was not going to kick down any speed to his brother for free so he was going out to make his own luck and therefore partake of the bounty of his brothers methamphetamine supply. I also figured out that I was probably not going to get any free speed either and decided to head home rather than hang out looking like a typical drug leech. I can't remember if Running Bear got high with that guy that night I think that although he talked like he was a big time meth dealer that really he was out of dope too and his brother was working to feed the whole houses habit. Marks brother had been grey haired but he was buff and scary and on parole. For the next ten years I saw him pushing a shopping cart around the Mission, looking worse and worse, muttering to himself and the knuckles of his right hand were always padded and at the ready. I was glad I didn't get high with those guys, and soon after I never high again on something I didn't want to do.