AWNING WINDOW CRANK

I get out of the car and lean against the hood. If Ronda does keep me waiting, at least I can spend the time taking in the stirrings of spring. The jonquils are already in bloom...the redbuds will be bursting forth any day...the birds are beginning to sing...

"Mar—Mar—Mar—Marcie—"

Ronda is suddenly back. A sweater draped over one arm, she is stuttering her hooker friend Marcie's name.

Very emotionally, her voice breaking, she tells me Marcie had just admitted that she did indeed have the ring that Ronda thought she had stolen from her. And then, after Ronda told her she could keep it, Marcie had started to cry...

Ronda seems so moved by this, I'm thinking. Really and truly and genuinely moved...

Suddenly she grabs my shirt—just below my neck— twists it—hard —and jerks me toward her—

"Give me some money for a pill—or I'm gonna kill you!"

"WHAT!?" I'm shocked.

She releases my shirt. Her tone had been only half kidding.

"You're full of shit," I say. "What are you talking about? You know I'm not gonna do that."

"I'm getting strung out again, George. I discovered the other day I'm getting strung out again... Please. "

"I will not!" I declare.

"Pleeeeease!"

"I told you what the deal was before. And I'm not changing."

"Don't be on principle!"

"That's not—"

"Fuck principle!" She's almost shouting.

"That's not just principle."

"Principle sucks, man!"

I back up: "What do you mean...you're... What do you mean that you're stru— You said you discovered the other day that you're strung out again."

"I am, I'm strung out again. I know I am."

"All right, explain to me what that means... That you're strung out again."

She yells her answer—

"I—WANT—A—FUCKING—PILL!"

"Okay"—my voice is normal, or fairly normal—"but that doesn't mean strung out. I thought, basically, strung out, the way you've used the term strung out...was that you had to have it so damned much and you were doing it constantly— "

Ronda interrupts: "I have been doing it constantly—that's the problem."

"Well, Melvin said you've been averaging two a day. How many have you really been averaging?"

"Five or six. He don't know what I've been doing."

"Okay. You've been doing five or six a day?"

"I'll give you this watch."

"You've been averaging five or six a day for how long?"

"I don't know! "

She clenches her teeth in frustration.

"A week?" I push. "Two weeks? A month?"

No answer from Ronda.

"Two months?"

Still no answer.

Then: "Since my coat got stolen. At least. Before then. I don't wanna talk about it. Pleeease, George, what can I do?”

"You have been averaging five or six a day for...a month? And Melvin doesn't know that. Is that correct?"

"What have I got to do?" she asks—no, demands. "Have a goddamn—" She stops.

"Is that correct?"

"Yeah." [Sounding definitive.]

"Okay. Well, this is what I've been asking you for a long time, was to tell me the truth about the pills. So you're getting strung out? "

"I am strung out."

Now I raise my voice:

"But you're not getting strung out like you have been, Ronda! Because I know how you were."

"Well, lemmee..." She gives a frustrated little sigh. "You can have everything in my house," she offers. "You can have Melvin included. You can have me. "

I just look at her.

"I'll be your personal slave for a week," she says—and laughs. "You can say, 'Ronda...'"

"You're lying. You have not been doing five or six a day for that long."

"I have," she contends. Her brow furrows... "A hundred and fifty, two hundred...about three hundred dollars a day. That's six, right? Yeah."

"So where do you shoot up?" I ask, looking her hard in the eye.

"Here. At Rick's. They don't tell anybody. [Pauses.] What can I do?"

"So... So you're strung out again..."

"What can I do?" she interrupts, repeating her question more forcefully.

"Well, what do you usually do?"

A sound of exasperation is her response.

Then suddenly I'm wondering:

Did she mean something more by her question? Something more crucial? More hopeful?

So quickly I ask: "What can you do about what?"

"George," she answers," I

The great thing about shooting with an improv comic actor is that you can pretty much throwing anything at them and say, "hey, be funny with that", and they will. Eric explored putting the whole thing in his mouth, and basically gave oral birth to the rubber duck. Yeah I know! Afterwards he demanded water and a mint because it apparently tasted like rubber...go figure!

The red curtain is a pulled drape that was already in place for the glass sliding doors at Eric's home. One challenge shooting on location is finding good backdrops to work with, somedays I'm just lucky.

Strobist info:
This was shot using a single Nikon SB800. Held with a boom stand directly over head and slightly right, with a shoot through umbrella. On the dining table directly below Eric was my 36" gold reflector.