You want some of this? Ben asked.

Yeah.

Just a hit. I gotta save some.

Save crack? Right, Meg told him. You don’t save crack. You do it all and go out and get more. That’s crack.

That’s what I got you for, Ben handed her the pipe. Tonight, you should hit 8th Avenue. All those porn shops. You’ll find a lot of horny old geezers to get off.

Way ahead of you.

Don’t come back till you have a hundred on you.

You gonna be here?

Yeah. I’ll be waiting for you.

Men looking for something. Something to ease their sickness. The illness that keeps them up at night. Things wives won’t do. A filthy world; block after block after block. Tranny whores out for the night. Young boys ready to take flight. Girls licking their lips as men stroll by. Eye contact is made; you want a date? Pay by the hour hotel rooms. Pakistanis behind glass. Taking in the money and handing out the keys. Cockroaches march on soiled sheets. This is business.

Meg stands on the corner of 43rd and 8th. She lights a cigarette and waits for men to approach her. She carries a blade in her purse.

Wanna party? a stocky young man asks. I got fifty on me. What can I get for that? He’s nervous. Sweating in the cold. He doesn’t want to do this, but he feels compelled to.

Fifty gets you everything. Are we gonna party? Meg asks.

I said we would, he stutters.

Well, alright then. Let’s go.

Ben sits in a bar next to The Port Authority. He nurses a beer and downs a shot of cheap house vodka. He tells himself it was good to talk to Jamie and counts his money. The Knicks are on TV playing the Bulls. And for a brief moment, he misses home.