he came over for a while to smoke some pot and listen to jazz records

pdf (264 pages / 20MB), with thanks to the original sharer

We walked past the Music Box Theater and the Bijou, heading west. When we got to the Henry Hudson Parkway, we stared walking south. It was after midnight as we passed the Fortysecond Street Ferry and stopped around Fortieth Street in a little dock cafe that had a small lighthouse structure on the roof. A kind of sinking fog was blowing in on the piers. He had a little bunched-up wax-paper ball he unwrapped and handed me a white pill. “Bite it in half,” he said, “and swallow the rest of it later.” I asked what it was. “Bennie,” he said. “You can walk all fucking night, man. It opens up your eyeballs...” We gulped the pill halves and drank coffee, and he wanted to know what I thought about dying young. I could feel the pill kicking my heart into third gear.