LUCIANO: I’ve got an idea for a picture, for the next section. It’s probably going to make you mad, though: Draw a man and a woman on a couch, slumped over in a heroin nod, with a city skyline in the background. With a caption like, Good Times. STEPHANIE: “Good…

STEPHANIE: The last we heard from Luciano, he was promising to tell us how his friend Tim’s death, from AIDS, led him to a career in Harm Reduction. LUCIANO: Hey I know what you should draw for this section! Draw me like one of those fishing-trip guys, but an outreach…

Luciano handed in his assignment the other day, but now I’m the one who’s not quite ready to move on. I kind of like being the puppet-master. It gives me a tiny, little feeling of power — something I don’t have much of, in my real life. …

The chapter about Tim’s death was supposed to lead into a chapter about Luciano and Harm Reduction — why he was attracted to it; also, whether or not it was a good idea for him to work around drugs. Instead, thinking about that time set him to reminiscing about his…

Luciano: You should draw a picture of me lying on a couch in a therapist’s office, with a balloon saying, “There’s Always Been Something Very Wrong With Me” coming out of my mouth, and an IV pole, with an IV line with Self-Absorption flowing through it. Stephanie: Huh. You mean…