I was nervous. I wouldn’t exactly say I was scared, but I was definitely very, very nervous. Here I was, sitting on a bed, in my underwear, in a bizarre bedroom that looked like it was designed for a cheap porn shoot. What made it worse is that I could see exactly how I looked. In the mirrors plastering the walls I saw a scared kid that at one time used to be confident, even cocky, but now was barely holding on to what little self-respect he had left. I kept running my fingers through my hair nervously, taking deep breaths, and trying to sort it all out.
I was by myself for about 10 minutes when the door opened. I was startled, but relaxed when I saw that it was Arturo. He came in with his drink still in hand, ignoring me and walked over to the only table in the room. I didn’t say anything as he opened the drawer under the table and pulled out a small hand mirror and set it on the table. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. He carefully opened the packet and I could see what at first looked like white powder. I thought it was cocaine which I had seen a couple of times before at parties, but when he scattered some of the contents onto the mirror I could see that it was not a powder but more like tiny, clear pebbles, or crystals. He poured a few of these crystals on the mirror, refolded the paper, and put it back in his pocket. He then reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small pocket knife. He flipped open one of the blades and then proceeded to carefully chop the crystals. There was a look of concentration on his face as he chopped away, then scooped the now more finer particles into a pile, chopped again with his knife, then repeated the process over and over. His eyes never left the mirror and it was clear he had done this many times.
After a couple of minutes leaning over the mirror and going through this repetitive process he finally stood up, carefully licked the edges of the blade, and then folded the it and put the pocket knife back in his pants. He then reached into his back pocket and pulled out what looked like a small, clear straw but as I looked closer I saw that it was a plastic ballpoint pen that had the insides removed. He then leaned over the desk where he had just formed 6 lines of the unknown powder on the mirror. Taking the hollowed out pen he then proceeded to put one end to his nose, leaned all the way over the table, placed a finger over his left nostril, and then starting at one end of the lines began to inhale, moving the straw as he did. The line of powder disappeared as the plastic tube approached, as if picked up by a vacuum hose, and disappeared into his right nostril. He stood up, leaned his head back, and quickly pinched and tugged on his nose several times with his left thumb and forefinger as he continued to inhale.
With his other hand still holding the plastic tube he held it out to me acknowledging my presence for the first time since he entered the room and asked, “Want some?”