Low life | 7 March 2019

Standing in a messy kitchen at the tendril tip of a county line at three o’clock in the morning, Trev was applying his concentration to the intricate business of washing the coke in a dessert spoon with acetone and a lighter flame. When the impurities had burnt away, Trev goggled with incredulity at what remained in the spoon. Then he swore in a low, disbelieving voice because the washed remainder was the most he’d ever seen.

Three were a crowd in the small, narrow kitchen. Our hyperactive host, whose eyes were out on stalks and whose voice was hoarse from shouting, was carrying on two conversations at once. He would hoarsely shout at us for a minute or so, then run upstairs to shout at whoever was up there. He was an attractive, self-consciously comic character wearing a blue T-shirt adorned with the decorations of a high-ranking US astronaut. The pipe under construction was Trev’s third, but repetition hadn’t lessened his astonishment at the purity.