As a drug, uru was a junkie's dream.
As a planet, Uru was paradise. But
combined, the two became a living hell!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity Science Fiction, August 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"_I read about a drug called_ yage.... _Maybe I will find in_ yage
_what I was looking for in junk and weed and coke._ Yage _may be
the final fix_."--William Lee, _Junkie_.
I was meeting The Man in a cafeteria on West End Avenue--the rundown
part of the avenue south of 72nd Street where all the garages and auto
parts places are.
I didn't need a fix. I'd been off the junk for three months and I was
all right. I was drinking a lot, but that was all.
The meet in the cafeteria was set up by an old connection of mine who'd
heard I was interested in this new stuff. My connection's name was
Rollo, sometimes called Rollo the Roller because he rolled lushes in
the subway.
Rollo and I had coffee while we waited for The Man.
"He's a funny one," Rollo said. "Not like any other pusher I ever dig."
"You sure he's straight?" I asked. "He wouldn't be one of The People,
would he?"
"Nah, he's no agent. Don't you think I can make a cop or a Federal by
now?"
"All right. I wasn't trying to insult you."
We sipped our coffee and talked in low voices. The cafeteria wasn't a
regular joint. It might be in time, and then it would be one till it
got too hot, but it wasn't now.
I didn't see the guy come in. The first thing I knew he was standing
at the table over us. Tall, wearing a black suit like an undertaker
or a preacher, but with a dark blue shirt and a white tie. He had a
young-old face and his skin was a light tan. Not the tan you get at
Miami Beach or from a sun lamp, but as if he had Chinese or Malay blood
in him somewhere.
Rollo jumped a little when he noticed him at his elbow.
"Oh, hello, Jones. Creepin' up on people again. Sit down. This is
Barry."
I acknowledged the introduction. I was sure Jones wasn't his real name
any more than Barry was mine. I asked him if I could buy him a cup of
coffee and he said _no_, and then Rollo left. Rollo'd mumbled something
about business, but I got the feeling he didn't like being around Jones
any more than he had to.
"I understand you are interested in my product," Jones said. He had
dark brown eyes, almost black. He didn't talk like a pusher, but you
can't always make generalizations.
"I don't want to score any," I said. "At least not right now. I'm off
the stuff, but I take a sort of philosophical interest in it, you might
say."
"I could not sell you any at the moment, in any case," Jones said. "I
do not make a practice of carrying it on my person."
"Of course not. But what is it? Rollo tells me it's not the usual junk.
I wondered if maybe it was _yage_."
_Yage_ was something you kept hearing about but never saw yourself. It
was always somebody who knew somebody else who'd tried it. _Yage_ was
the junkie's dream. You never caught up with it, but you heard hints
in conversation.
An addict would give himself a fix of Henry, sliding the needle
into the vein, and later, as his tension relaxed, he'd say to his
connection, "I hear _yage_ is the real kick--they tell me that compared
to _yage_, heroin is the least." And the connection would say, "That's
what they tell me, but I never seen any of it myself. They have it in
the Amazon or someplace, I hear."
It's always hearsay. But after a while you hear so much about it that
you believe it's got to be around somewhere, so you keep asking. I
asked Jones.
"I could show you _yage_," Jones said, and I felt a tingle, like a kid
promised his first kiss. "But it would disappoint you."
"Why?"
"It is like _peyote_--just another herb. It has a similar effect to
that of the Mescal cactus button, but since you would not seem to be a
devotee of the Sun Dance I do not think it would interest you."
I went into a slump again when I heard him run down _yage_. I knew what
_peyote_ was. It might be all right for Indians, but it just made the
average junkie sick to his stomach.
"What would interest me, then?" I asked him.
"I have a certain amount of a substance called _uru_," he said. "It
is--and I do not exaggerate when I say this--the most."
I couldn't help grinning. Jones had been speaking the store-bought
English of the educated foreigner and then he came out with this hep
expression.
"Tell me more, professor," I said. "You're ringing my bell."
"You tell _me_ more, my friend," he came back. "What is your great
interest in this will-o'-the-wisp _yage_ that so excites you, although
you claim to be 'off the stuff'?"