No One’s Sleep (The First Published Excerpt)

Baltimore, a bright Saturday morning in early August. All my nerve endings on fire, in pain that becomes more intense by the hour, sleepless for days, unwashed, sick from withdrawal, sick with worry, and sick in heart and body, I step out of my apartment building on North Eutaw Street, take a wistful look south at Camden Yards a few blocks away, and then walk the half block to East Fayette.

“Yo, Ed,” Outlaw says, standing down the street at the intersection with North Howard. The blue and white light rail train clatters by, maybe on its way south to the airport, I think.. “Hurry up. I told you I have to catch the bus.”

I give him a brief wave, more of an acknowledgment than amity (I‘ve paid him more than enough when we‘ve done business before that he doesn‘t have the right to tell me to hurry), and walk across the street toward the KFC and the pawn shop on the corner–the pawn shop which already holds my notebook computer, Citizen Eco-drive watch and lovely, beautifully-grained, hollow-body Epiphone guitar. I haven’t had so much as a dime in over a week. I’ve been drinking tap water just to stay alive.

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