[This is a five-chapter finished work that will complete posting within two weeks.]
I hesitated before writing the prescription out for Grunge, real name Greg Hunley, which is what I put on the prescription, but it wasn't worth the risk not to. I had no idea where he got the money to pay for his habit--and I didn't want to know--but it wasn't from me. All he wanted from me were the prescriptions. They were for drugs that wouldn't harm him nearly as much as those he'd buy off the street would. I used that as a conscience-justifying excuse for continuing to serve his need. But the greater truth is that I didn't want him telling people I provided that service from the free clinic on Chicago's North Halstead Street in the heart of the Lake View gay district.
That's who came into our clinic: guys with a habit or guys who had unprotected sex and needed help--either to avoid STDs or to counter them. Luckily in these times, I had access to new drugs that helped avoid them. I gave them out like candy too, although I wouldn't admit it if I could avoid it. And, like the cleaner drugs I prescribed, my attitude was that it kept guys alive who were going to do what they did anyway.
Working here positioned me to cover my own sexual needs. I knew how to avoid picking up anything, so I was free to get my sexual needs taken care of from a selection men who came to the clinic who invariably were keen to give me what I wanted to get relief for them own afflictions.
I used the new preventative drugs myself pretty freely. I liked to both bareback and be barebacked. I played both ways, depending on what I saw to like in the guy I was going with at the moment. I was more of an "at the moment" guy than anything to do with commitment. That said, I liked the view from the bottom best.
I left the fee clinic, where, at twenty-six, I worked as a newly minted doctor, and walked down North Halstead toward the parking garage where I kept my 2015 Chevy Silverado double-cab truck. At the head of the alley before I got there, I saw trouble that I was all too familiar with. It wasn't going to be an early evening at Quads Gym on North Broadway followed by a night at the nearby Gay Follies that I'd anticipated, I didn't think.
As I approached the alley, I caught a glimpse of young Petey Finelli withdrawing into the darkness. Just before that I'd seen another figure enter the alley too--a drug pusher I knew as Stickman. The dirty stuff Stickman sold was much of the reason I'd gotten into prescribing cleaner drugs. I did what I could to keep the guys in this neighborhood alive. Shit, I thought. Petey's willing to buy off the street. I thought I'd pinned that down.
Petey Finelli was my special problem child--always running the edge, not that I was one to judge that or to have been able to avoid it myself. He was an irresistible honey of nineteen--small and willowy and oh so huggable and more. Always willing to take a tumble as long as his needs were fed. The kicker was that his father, Mario Finelli, was an underworld chieftain in Chicago, with a corner on the protection racket in upstate Illinois and fingers in the prostitution and drugs markets in the city. That didn't mean he knew or would approve of his son, Petey, snorting the stuff or would look kindly on anyone supplying Petey. I'm not sure he'd forgive my caring excuse of trying to combat killing drugs with just habit-forming drugs.
I had been supplying Petey and laying him since before I knew who his father was. Since I found out his family connections to the underworld, a good part of my time was spent trying to keep him out of trouble and away from the bad stuff. That didn't mean I had stopped laying him, however. He didn't want me to stop, and he was somewhat of a wild card on what he'd do and who he'd tell if he wasn't getting his way.
"Hold on, guys," I said, as I turned the corner into the alley. "Don't hand the man that money, Petey. And, Stickman, you know better than that. You know where Petey gets it from."
"I was just on my way to see you, Denny," Petey said. Stickman didn't say anything. He retreated further in the darkness of the alley. He knew better than this. He knew who Petey's father was and he knew Petey was getting his stuff from me. But he also knew that if Petey ODed on something that could be traced back to him, Stickman was a dead man. He must have been desperate for a higher-drug fix himself to take a chance with Petey like this. He didn't know, of course, that my serving Petey's needs wasn't at his father's behest or how Petey was paying for his stuff.
"If you were on your way to see me, why were you buying off the street, Petey?"
"Just, you know, to have some backup. And it was being offered real cheap. I sometimes get a better kick from the street stuff too."
"That's because the street drugs have stuff in them that will kill you, Petey. How many times do I have to tell you that? You come to me because what I have is pure and as safe as it can be." Sometimes I wondered about Petey. He wasn't always the sharpest knife in the drawer. But that was part of his charm and allure, I guess. He always seemed so innocent, so yielding, and so "Oh, gosh, that's doing me so good." He was that way with my cock as well as drugs.
"Come with me," I said, taking his hand and leading him into the next block where the parking garage was.
I always parked in the shadows in the garage. It was just habit. I didn't want to lead a high-profile life, which was a little surprising considering what I did other than work at the free clinic, but I'd always been sort of an "in the shadows" type guy.
We got in the truck, me in the driver's seat and Petey in the front passenger seat. I reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling the thick maintenance folder out to make a shelf there.
"Give me your handkerchief," I said.
"What? My handkerchief?" he asked.
"Do you have one?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Is it clean? Have you blown your nose in it?"
"No. I mean, yes, it's clean."
"Take it out and fan it out over the folder there. You might be able to get a little off it later."
He did so. He was acting a bit jittery. I'd noticed that back at the head of the alley. I wasn't all with it when Stickman had tried to do a sale with him. I knew what he needed now. I reached down to my medical bag, opened the side compartment, and took out a packet of the white stuff. He knew then what I was doing, and he smiled.