The landlady pinches her pennies and polishes her silver while the addict goes through hundreds of dollars in a day to not feel sick. She’s holding her money, he is going through his. They both need it.
He needs something else even more than money. He needs more than a name. He needs to take a life. That is what happens today without knowing it. It used to be that you would need a weapon to take what is not yours. Now all you need to do is share. Share with someone what you need and you take everything from them.
The landlady doesn’t share. She takes from the impoverished young man and justifies it by telling herself that she is giving him what he needs as he is only a fiend who needs a place to stay and rest, to close his eyes. She will provide him with that and more.
The fiend is not only addicted to chemicals (and chemicals they are) but he is also addicted to the landlady. He is really in love with her possessions. He is in love and the chemicals are winning. His love for everything else is secondary. She herself is really dead last for his love.
Polishing her silver, looking into the shine of it, she gives herself a smile and a wink. She longs to be adored like when she was a beautiful young lady with no bad habits of taking in younger men to add to her long running list of outlaw tenants and piles of silver trays and chemicals.
The young man comes back from sharing out in the night and gives the once beautiful older lady a handful of cash and a bag full of shiny things. He keeps for himself a mysterious small baggie he scooped up from another one of his dead last friends.
The landlady has received her wares for the week but feels empty inside this time. She doesn’t want to polish and wink. She wants to be young again, beautiful, and loved.
The young fiend sees this look and senses a different mood in the air. He wants to admire her, to buy her admiration. For once he wants to show his appreciation for the roof over his head and of course all the chemicals so he produces the mysterious baggie from his pocket.
He empties the contents out on a silver tray and slides it to his friend, telling her how wonderful it has been in this agreement. He shares this but thinks to himself that if he had what she has he would not accept.
She accepts and lays back on the couch peacefully, but empty and alone.
Before she closes her eyes for good the addict, the fiend, the young man needs to consume. He can’t control his impulses so he does.
Francis Erich McElroy 