�William Burroughs is coming up soon,� said the man sitting next to me. He was tall and wearing black clothes. His girlfriend was sitting in between us. My friend Charlie was cross-legged on the floor playing with the wire of the telephone. He was talking to his girlfriend.
I took another drink.
We were in Sheffield. I had been ringing Charlie from a phone-box, crying. He had told me to come down and stay at his house for a while, so I got on a bus and, 6 hours later, I was there.
The first night we had gone out to a club. We danced and drank and had a good time. The second night (the �Drugstore Cowboy� night) was supposed to be a quiet night in, but I had got some alcohol anyway. Everyone else (except Charlie) were smoking dope, so I reasoned it was similarly okay for me to drink. Actually, I don�t even believe I had as much awareness as that. I believe it never occurred to me that I was perhaps being anti-social by guzzling Martini like that.
The next thing I knew, everyone was going up to bed. I was sleeping on the sofa, but I felt uncomfortable as soon as I switched off the TV. The room looked frightening in the dark and I couldn�t even hear any comforting noises from the street outside. I felt disconnected from the real world. I felt uneasy.
I switched the TV back on and watched some American chat show about teenage crime. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke it was getting light outside but no one was around. I looked at the clock � 6.15am. I switched off the TV and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Then I returned to the sofa and tried to get a bit more sleep. I was glad it was daylight.