Friday, that’s payday. We decide to go to the Venus Bar to see a chick Dionisio’s sweet on, Tina from Nicaragua. Dionisio’s been having stomach trouble so first we go to Grand Central Market, the China Cafe, for menudo, and then we tip a few. Dionisio goes to the toilet and when he comes back his face is pale and he’s clutching his stomach. It’s probably salmonella. Or it could be E. coli. Or the wormwood dust, who knows.

          “Maybe we shouldn’t go to the bar.”

          “No, fuck it. I want you to meet Tina.”

          We walk Third to Main. Whores lined up in front of La Herradura Restaurant next to the gutted Playland Dance Hall give us the eye. Open fires are flickering in the gutter in front of the Midnight Mission. We go over to Fifth Street and down, down into the medieval squalor that flourishes east of Los Angeles Street, smoking fires, hordes of ragged people settling into makeshift cardboard dwellings or squatting on sidewalks choked with rotting garbage and swigging from bottles of wine. I feel a surge of adrenaline. I’ve got less than six dollars on me, and no jewelry, but I’m afraid they’ll kill me for my shoes.

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