We were in a college dorm. Alan had to go to work. He was teaching physics. He was a good teacher. Dan was cutting a class (that) he didn't belong in anyway. He made chirpy talk in code to Alan--but I knew he was talking about going to get drugs. I wanted to scream, "What do you think I am? A goddamn moron? A babe in the woods?" I thought it was downright pathetic that he would even TRY to attempt to hide his escapades from someone with my past level of experience in drugs. He had time to kill until 9:30 p.m. when he had to leave to got to Queens for the score. He said, "Do you want to come look at my drawings?" I said, "NO I DON'T want to come look at drawings you did in 1987. I've seen those stupid drawings a million times and they sure haven't changed since last time. You haven't picked up a pencil in 15 years. If you're an artist you gotta be doing art every day and not stupid drugs." Everything (mostly) I said was true, except the part about seeing his drawings a million times. I had actually only seen them once but it seemed like a million times. He got so upset (that) he couldn't get the pill bottle open that was sitting on the table. He finally got it open and swiped out a handful but spilled them; his hands were shaky. He tried to break a xanax  in half like he was cutting back and swiped up a handful--quick-like, like in playing jacks. He put them in his pocket and left. This made me fed up with New York and I went to Florida back to my old art school to paint undisturbed for a while. Before I left I saw them throwing out some beautiful, very stylish, black standing lamps and I wanted to take one. There were 5. But it was 6 feet tall and a lot to carry to Florida without a car. When I got there it was night and I was appalled at the long distances between ATMs, when you didn't have a car. Kids at the steps near the ocean, hanging out talking to me. I resolved not to suck up to their brown nosing, even though I was lonely not knowing anyone. I went to a bar where they also fixed bicycles and in came girls who'd found 5 bicycles. Those deco lamps had folded out into bicycles. I was mad at myself for not getting one when I saw them tossed out. They were all identical--flat black Schwinns, sleek girls' model bikes. The girls were sewing square multi-colored scarves onto army backpacks. I left the bar and it was raining and I climbed in somebody's window, but walking across the floor the booby trap got me. It had rubber hoses and suction cups that would grab me and was like a rubber blanket of leeches. I finally got out and the art student recognized me. "Aren't you the one who broke into my house?" I said, "I'll return your tape." At least his place smelled like turpentine. I went into an all-night Chinese restaurant (looking for cigarettes) and to get a cup of coffee to go. She rang it up--$1.50. I said, "$1.50 for a plain old cup of coffee? You can just throw it away. I won't pay $1.50 for a fifty-cent cup of coffee." I felt like I had done the right thing.