My new year's resolution this year was to stop biting my nails.  It’s one of those things that teaches you to despise yourself - you know you’re doing wrong, but you just can’t stop chewing on that thumb. I remember that now, looking at my clean round nails as I am standing on the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek and Gogolevskiy, one hand holding a cup of black coffee and the other scrolling through my contact list for my dealer’s number.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not an addict. I am what you might call “a non-dependent user”. I have a dealer precisely for that reason - Max is one of the only guys who deals quality smack. Would a junkie be so picky about shit in his needles? I don’t think so. You know how people live with their allergies, but when they have trouble breathing they inject adrenaline? Same here. I just inject another “in”. Tomayto, tomahto.

My finger lingers above the call button. Early April morning smells like a baby's smile and a trip to a corner store to get some fresh bread and that last day of sophomore year when you skip classes and go to Vechniy Ogon’ instead to grab a smoke. I take a deep breath, but my lungs stay painfully empty and I press call.

“Max, man, what’s good?” I say.

“Mayak? Didn’t expect to hear so soon from you, man,” he sounds genuinely surprised and I almost feel like I am chewing on my thumb again.

“Yeah, just had a bad night. I’m on Sivtsev Vrazhek, could you help me out?`` The thing is, heroin isn’t so popular in Moscow these days. Kids prefer meth, or hash, or speed. Synthetic drugs for a synthetic generation. Finding heroin became a quest a few years ago,  and I quickly became an Indiana Jones.

“Seven of gera?” he asks.

“Aw, you remember,” I say, and he laughs. 

“Well, Mayak, you’re the only skag regular that I hear from twice a month, not twice a day. ” He doesn't mention that I only called him last week and that is why I like him, “You know, we should grab a beer sometime.”

“Yeah, absolutely, man.” I say. We take turns in saying this every time.

“You can pick up your stuff near old Arbat in fifteen, I’ll text you the deets.”

“Thanks, Max, you’re a doll!” I say.

“Fuck off!” he laughs again and hangs up.

I put my headphones on. I’m only about ten minutes away from the destination point, so I have to choose wisely. “Group Sex” by Circle Jerks will carry me on through the whole trip, so I put it on and head towards old Arbat. The road looks weirdly familiar, and I realize that I am heading towards 16 Tonn, not the one you might be thinking about, but their new location, the one I’ve never been to. Just like any other person who was a regular there since way before he was allowed in legally - every moskvich, really - I only recognize the spot on Presnya. 

I think back to my very first time at 16 Tonn whenever I see their square gold letters on that emerald background. I was eleven and my father took me to see The Fall. The crowd was drunk, Mark Smith was even drunker and throwing around mics and chasing his manager with a hatchet, but the energy vibrating in the air was celestial. Later my father would say that he felt as if he was at a Lou Reed concert, no less. I always doubted it, but Lou Reed never made it to Moscow, so I usually repeat dad’s words when I get the chance.

Dozens of people are walking towards me, behind me, around me, but I don’t bump into a single soul. I scrape the bag out from a small crack in the Tsoy Wall. By this time Lennon shuts up, so I put “Pachka Sigaret” in my headphones and start walking to work. I feel like my respiratory system starts working better and my pretence that it has nothing to do with drugs is offensive and outrageous. This is the first time I wander around with seven grams in my pocket - enough to go under 228 - but I am too busy being warped inside to worry. When I woke up feeling like today, today specifically, I could not handle breathing on my own, I rushed to the calendar. Every first and third Wednesday of the month is circled in red. Today is the fourth Tuesday. My lips are dry, but I bite them instead of licking. My only kit is at home, so I stop by a couple of pharmacies. I thought that my doubts would disappear once I got my pocket full, but I am already near the library and it is still either-or. I either spike the vein, or flush it down the sewer. So far, it has always been the vein and never the sewer, but you never know.

As I nod to Dostoyevsky, who always greets me on Vozdvizhenka, I wonder if it’s the first time someone has snuck smack into Leninka. I go straight to the Book Museum entrance. Although you end up doing all kinds of things working in the library, the museum is my domain, and, for now, my fortress of solitude, as it is still under restoration. I walk through the showrooms, careful not to step on cracks or white squares on the checkerboard floor. The room is blinded with sunlight, and gigantic windows on one wall  showcase my tedious friend Fedya. I don't blame the guy, he was a Scorpio. The antique smell of wet dust, warm wood, and coffee thickens the room. I fix the tarp over wooden cabinets with showpieces in them, spend some time making faces at Buddah’s figurine, and then go to the newly built room of the museum right next to the Bibliophile’s office. Dozens of stacks of books are sitting in the middle of the room donated by people for recycling. Obviously, not one person working here would attempt such a barbaric action as recycling books, so me and Viktor, whose job was to be in charge of everything, came up with the idea of fishing out some rare and old editions to put them on public display in this new room. The rest can just be borrowed or taken home by visitors. I’ve been doing this for the past few weeks - sorting out the books, deciding whether or not the 1950 printing of Anna Karenina is worthy of a place on the shelf.

I walk around the little maze of books, a paper town I designed and carefully built. I have a French literature street, Russian classical literature avenue, historical fiction and modern novel crossroad, a whole block of Mayakovsky with two buildings of his yellow ‘82 edition, soviet collectibles street, and a Second World War boulevard. It’s amazing how calming some yellow dusty paper with ink on it can be, so I inhale deeply, but my lungs stay empty. I check the room for CCTV, take out the bag, and throw it on the table next to the record player I set up here when they assigned me to the museum. 

“So,” I say, staring at the turntable needle, needle, needle, “not that it even matters which locked doors you’re shooting up behind.” I look at the poor stack of records I brought, and pick The Velvet Underground. “It’s not that different from your place; look, you even got your records,” I chuckle, but shush myself as the first notes of “Candy Says” start playing. I shake my head. Talking suddenly feels really exhausting. I don’t need to talk, I need someone to grab my shoulders and tell me what to do. 

“Here you are hiding out again, not drinking tea with us,” Sonya’s voice makes me turn around, and some books get knocked over as my hand falls on the bag and squeezes it..

“Sonya! Are you walking through the walls or something?” Fuck! I slowly back away towards my Soviet fantasy aisle and, like a magician, shove my plastic bag between the ninth and tenth floors of the Strugatsky building. She is staring at me, beaming as always, and I stare back without blinking, holding her gaze, making sure that she is looking in my eyes, not at my hands. “Sorry, I have a lot of work.”

“Well, I brought you some coffee. You decide whether or not to drink it.” She puts coffee on the building right next to Strugatsky.

“Thanks.”

“Is this Lou Reed?” she asks.

“Yes. Group stuff, their third album. You’re getting better at guessing,” I say.

“I still don’t like him.” 

“You don’t have to say that every time, you know,” I say and she smiles.

“Grandpa was looking for you.” I frown, remembering that I was supposed to help Viktor with the upcoming exhibition in Pashkov House.

“I’ll stop by sometime today. I need to finish with the pile over there.”

Sonya picks up the book from the Strugatsky stack. I trace her hands with my eyes, and then they dart back at the stack. There are now only three hundred pages of Hard to be a God separating Sonya and my drugs. Sonya has a copy of Neznayka in her bag and spends all her money feeding every stray dog in the area. Last year I took her to Museum Night because, to my greatest amusement, I was the only adult she knew that Viktor trusted. And now, she is inches away from fucking smack.

I drink half a cup in one gulp, and then my fingers let go of the handle and the cup smashes on the floor, spilling coffee all over our shoes.

“Oh dear lord!” she jumps away and starts looking for something to soak up the mess. I should be helping her, but instead I am just standing and looking at my hands. “What Goes On” starts playing.

“Grisha, are you okay? Did you cut yourself?” She throws a rag I use for dusting on the floor and takes my hands in hers, looking them over.

“I’m sorry.” I pull my hands away and, instead of cleaning, pick up half of the Strugatsky stack and set it somewhere near American classics.

“Your hands are shaking, are you sure you’re alright?”

“It was my second coffee today, I probably had too much. It happens.”

“Why don’t you go home?”

It sounds heavenly. I can go home, and wouldn’t have to deal with anyone, but most importantly, I wouldn’t have to shoot up in the Russian State Library. I can walk from here; I already see myself skipping down the street, maybe getting some more coffee, but probably not, it could make me anxious, and then rushing up the stairs, fourth floor, locking the door, putting on a record, and then proceeding directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs. But there is no fucking headache. If I leave work to go banging, I might as well dissolve my shit in a spit.

“No, I’m fine. We should go and ask someone to clean up this mess.” There is nothing I can do about my stuff with Sonya here anyway.

Viktor catches me on my way back with the cleaning lady, when I am already anticipating the moment of solitude. I spend another two hours helping him with the Saltykov-Schedrin exhibition we’re hosting next week. In my mind, I can see the cleaning lady knocking over my stack and looking at the plastic bag. After we finish, Viktor follows me to the museum, and I am dead sure it is the Strugatsky stack that will catch his eye. But a call distracts him, and I get back to the museum alone. 

I promise myself to wait another half an hour and, if nothing urgent comes up, lock myself inside the bathroom and shoot.

Twenty minutes later the door opens. I know who comes in even before I face him. His sweeping gait and wide step, long arms wiggling in the front, I can almost hear it over the music playing, hand running over his buzz cut - would’ve never imagined him with one ten years ago.

“Half of the city is wondering where he is, and he is hiding out in Leninka,” he says.

“What about the other half?” I turn around. He is looking at me like it takes all his might not to hit me.

“The other half thinks you’re in rehab.”

“Never been; all gossip.”

“Funny - I saw your grandpa the other day and he said you are just a few months out.”

“Is that how you found me? I wouldn’t believe the old man especially. Who let you in anyway?”

“This is a public library.”

“This is a museum, dummy, and it’s closed now,” I say in the manner of a parent who has to explain to his kid why he can’t eat dirt. Mir closes his eyes and exhales loudly.

“Is it that important now?”

“You know, not really. I’d say I missed you, but didn’t we see each other last week?” I think back to his undisguisedly shocked face when he saw me on the bleachers.

“Yeah, that’s actually why I’m here.”

“Missed me already?”

“Oh, quit fucking around. What were you doing at my game?” He is calm as ever, but I know him too well not to hear the ringing hostility in his voice. 

“Watching? And it wasn’t your game, it was your team’s,” I shrug.

“How do you know Solomeya?”

“Aren’t you overstepping your boundaries, coach? Or do you go around pressing all of your players’ friends?”

“Did you tell your friend that you’re a hardcore junkie?”

“Haven’t really talked it through, but she doesn’t seem to mind.”

“You have no business hanging around her. She is a good player. Nice girl, as a matter of fact…”

“Just the way you like’em, huh?” 

“Fuck off her, Mayak.” he hisses, losing control a little. I smile.

“Well, she invited me there. Did you talk to her already? I don’t think so, because you know it’s none of your fucking business. In fact, you are the only one I saw her weep about. So maybe you should stop fucking her over?” I push him, and he grabs me by the collar. 

“Grisha,” he emphasizes the name, “You, of all people, should be aware of your spectacular ability to fuck up the lives of good people-”

“No, please enlighten me.” I say sarcastically, but think about Sonya holding that Strugatsky book.

“-and of your spectacular ability to go scoring after you create a mess. Meya is just too good to see that. So I’m saying this for the last time - leave her alone.” He lets go of me and storms out. 

“And you go find someone your age!” I yell, but he already closed the door behind him. I stand there for a while, trying to calm down and breathe.

I learned the word escapist when I was about eight, and it became the worst insult I could think of right after I found the short note my dad left at the top of my bookshelf. I hated that word. I despise escapists. I hate weed and acid and e, they all make me feel even less in control than I already do. Those kinds of drugs are only good for you if you can go to bed wanting to wake up in the morning. Otherwise, it’s a pointless shitshow. But heroin is not like that. Heroin turns its addicts into virtuoso liars, but it never lies itself. It just makes you feel better. Have you ever been to a party in late September, when the room is full of people, and all the air in the room feels sucked out, and you come to the window and open it and breathe in this crisp, sweet, delicious night air, the only air that can fill your lungs up to their fullest? This is what a heroin rush feels like. No mind alterations, no annoying giggling or blackhole eyes. You just can breathe again. 

It is almost noon. I think about breaking the junkies’ golden rule and putting on “Heroin”, but resist and put The Smiths  “Asleep” instead. The bathroom door won’t open. I wander around my paper streets, picking the one to host an opium den. Stacks of children’s literature are particularly high, almost skyscrapers of sorts. I sit behind them. Dragunsky, Nosov, Milne, Dahl. Syringe, lighter, tourniquet, water bottle. While I am cooking up, I think about how sad it is that people don’t keep children’s books at home, but bring them here. Children’s books are the best. My grandma keeps all of my dad’s childhood books. I notice The Wizard of Oz and remember how she used to read me The Wizard of the Emerald City, which for a long time I considered the OG book. An urge to dial my grandma’s number itches my fingers. After filling up the syringe, I take out my phone.

“Vnuchen’ka, hi!” I heard her voice on the other end of the line. She must have mistaken me for my sister.

“Hey, ba, it’s Grisha.”

“Grishen’ka!” She sounds so excited it makes me uncomfortable. “How is it going, malen’kiy?”

“It’s going great. I’m doing great.” I look at the syringe in my left hand and it occurs to me just how much light these huge windows let in. It hurts my eyes, and I start blinking rapidly. “How are you?”

“Oh, at this point - living and am grateful for that. Blood pressure is a little high, but there is no escape from that anymore. Your sister took me to Taganka yesterday to see “The Master and Margarita”, but I didn’t really like it, all the devils and Satan, very ugly. Are you at work? Am I distracting you?” I grimace at this manner of ehrs - always worrying about causing an inconvenience.

“I am, but don’t worry, I have some time...” I inhale deeply to stop my voice from trembling, “I thought I’d give you a quick call. I was just sorting out books, and found this Wizard of the Emerald City book like the one dad had, remember?”

“Oh, of course! You loved it so much as a kid! We went to church the other day; I lit a candle for you, and for your mother, and for your sister!” I am just listening at this point, covering my mouth with my hand, and leaving the syringe on the floor. My shoulders are shaking so much the steadiness of the book stacks behind me is under threat.

“But I probably am distracting you, aren’t I, malen’kiy? You go ahead and work! It makes me so happy that you called,” She says.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll try to stop by later this week.” It takes an effort to squeeze the words out of my mouth and hang up, covering my face with my hands.

I sit like that until my sleeves become stretched and wet, and my knuckles start to hurt from biting. I stand up and rush to the window, struggling to open it with shaking hands. Fresh air immediately fills up the space around me, and I try to suck it all in, anticipating the second of relief. But my lungs stay empty. I walk back, careful not to step on the cracks in the tile.