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Heroin Girl

Story by Larry Fondation (Read author interview) December 15, 2008

Art by Robinson Accola

“Hey, heroin girl,” I said. “What’s up?”

She was skinny as fuck, and standing on Hollywood Boulevard, right by the subway station off Vine.

I wanted to fuck her.

We chatted for a while, all small talk.

She didn’t have much to say.

Then this lady – she’d been standing there the whole time, like waiting for the bus or something – anyway, she started to convulse.

Heroin chick immediately kicked into action – CPR, resuscitation, whatever it’s called, the whole bit. It was amazing; she was amazing.

Meanwhile, I called 911 on my cell phone.

The EMT crew arrived.

Heroin girl backed off.

We started kissing.

A cop wanted to ask her questions.

She talked shit.

The lady seemed OK.

The paramedics took her away.

Everything calmed down.

I led my girl away, into the dark, into the back of the unlit parking lot opposite the Pantages.

We continued to kiss. We kissed more and more.

Then she said, “Hey, hey, just a minute, we gotta stop, just for a minute.”

She fumbled in her purse.

She found what she was looking for.

She tied off; she shot up.

She couldn’t really kiss anymore.

That was it.

About the Author

Larry Fondation is the author of the novel Angry Nights and of Common Criminals, a collection of short stories. His third book, Fish, Soap and Bonds—a novel featuring a trio of homeless characters—came out in March 2007. The novel is illustrated by noted London-based artist, Kate Ruth. The three books are part of a planned sequence of five books of fiction focusing on the Los Angeles underbelly. Unintended Consequences, a story collection (also with drawings by Kate Ruth), will be published in 2009. Fondation has lived in LA since the 1980s and worked for fifteen years as an organizer in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, and East LA. Continuing his civic involvement, Fondation was appointed in July 2006 to the City of Los Angeles Ballot Simplification Committee. His fiction and non-fiction pieces have appeared in a range of diverse publications including Flaunt (where he is Writer-at-Large), Plastique, West, Fiction International, Night Train, Quarterly West, Los Angeles Times and the Harvard Business Review. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He can be contacted at lfondation@aol.com.

About the Artist

Robinson Accola creates artwork for SmokeLong Quarterly as needed.

This story appeared in Issue Twenty-Three of SmokeLong Quarterly.
SmokeLong Quarterly Issue Twenty-Three
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