heroin chic on the streets
helen does not become a prostitute to support her heroin habit. she falls in love with bobby, who is already addicted, and supports both of them with her "call girl" earnings because she's a very beautiful girl. soon, however, helen takes up the drug, and becomes yet another strung out junky whore who turns tricks for $15.00 instead of $100.00 a night. the fact helen knows this is going on only bothers her a little bit.
bobby her boyfriend is from the lower classes so the ghetto addiction is nothing new to him, and he's been to jails many many times. for a while helen & bobby are "happy" hanging around the cheap flophouse hotels, cafeterias, and "needle park" a group of park benches on a concrete slab that sits in the middle of a 3 way intersection in new york city because that's where the pusher is, and he's their friend.
the writer, the "over all voice" to the story is trying to find out about heroin addiction & why people can come clean, then go back to it time & time again. helen & bobby are the addicts he's the closest to, and gets their stories, and he tries to swim through the lies, the self deception & the stunted emotional growth of the average street junky. the words speak for themselves.
"not every one can become a junky" states helen.
in between, the mafia who supplies the junk have somehow ran out of supplies (or are hoarding them), and the panic is on for heroin addicts of needle park. this means the price goes up, using is harder because the junk is worthless, and people "beat" each other for money for copping all the time. even the lovers helen & bobby steal from one another during the panic.
"we're all animals," says helen, "we're all animals living in a world nobody understands"
this is quite possibly the best book written about heroin addicts since the author took the time to really see what their world was made up of, and stays impartial as if he's a black & white documentry photographer.
and helen, well, she's the one all the junkies go to if there's an OD.
