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ball to me enough, which made me nervous, but worse still was when we played on different teams and I had to cover him. He’d use his strength to camp out in the key and when he got the ball, back me down till he got a lay-up. Sometimes, it was too much for me, and I had to call a three-second violation on him, which he didn’t like. More often than not, I tried to cover someone else.
    When we introduced ourselves he said his name was “Dash.” He told me his stage name but never his real one. I was pretty stressed when I met him, having just broken up with my girlfriend. I’d also recently been transferred to a new division of my company that allowed me to work almost exclusively at home in my new condo. I thought I wanted that (I was making more money at this new position, as well), but after my ex left, being alone so much began to weigh on me. I didn’t have use of my driver’s license either (which is a long story), and Dash used to drive me home to West Philly. That was nice of him, I know, but during the rides he’d often sing ’80s rock songs at the top of his lungs or talk right-wing political stuff (Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were two of his heroes), always trying to convert me but never succeeding, or else talk about all the women he’d had sex with. One time I told him I wasn’t doing well with drinking and wished I knew a way to get pot. I explained that I hadn’t been in Philly for a long time and didn’t know who to ask. The dealer said maybe he could help, and that’s how it all began.
    Whenever I’d ask him how his music gigs went the dealer would say, “Primo, great,” something like that, yet he neverseemed to have any money. Then I learned that he wanted to be paid in free pot from the stash I bought rather than in cash, which might explain, in part, why he was so hard up financially. As far as the pot went it worked this way. I’d give him the money (eighty to a hundred dollars up front) then wait for him to come back from his source. Then I’d give him about a third of the pot outside in his car, then run back to my place with the remainder. The good part about this method was that I got to stay home. The bad part was he almost always took two to three times longer than he said he would.
    During my wait I’d become hyperconscious of time, staring at my watch dozens of times till I’d get his call. It wasn’t so much that I was craving pot as that I feared Dash would just run off with my money and never return. I’d have to give up basketball as well as pot then. It would be too humiliating to face him on the playground if he stole my money.
    One time, he didn’t call me until four hours after he said he would. He explained that something had come up but that he had my stuff and would call me the next day to arrange a drop off. Turns out five days passed before he finally gave it to me after basketball, admitting he’d already smoked a little of it himself. During those days while I kept wondering if he’d call me or not, I became ultrasensitive to the sounds in my condo as well. I was on the ground floor and had rarely heard the elderly lady with bright red hair who lived directly above me and who I’d nicknamed Birdwoman to myself because she was thin and talked very rapidly, as if she were always being chased by someone. But during those waiting days I started hearing every step she took as she’d walk from room to room, restless bird that she was. Bottom line—I had a lot of trouble sleeping and had to waste some of the pot I did have left just to finally knock myself out.
    Next time we talked, I told Dash I wanted to ride with him on his drug runs, which meant getting dropped at a gas station / car-wash that had a convenience store as well, until he came back with the stuff. (He’d never bring me to the source, of course.) I thought this would make it harder for him to take