"You know, bro--caffeine pills. See—they'll crush the rocks into a powder like I'm doing to these." There's now a small pile of white powder on the mirror. "Then they crush the Mini Thins into a powder and mix the two."

"What's that do?"

"It makes more—it's basically to rip people off."

Beaming, Spin Doctor cuts in, "Only the best for my friends! I save the prope dope for the street feens and other clucks."

Crank, speed, crystal, prope dope—I'm thinking now of all the names I've heard for this one drug. I ask how the drug got the name crank.

"Why's it called crank?" Spin Doctor says. He crosses the room and stops, at what looks to be the door to the garage, where a poster hangs of a brunette in a black string bikini astride a Harley Davidson. He motions to the chrome engine on the motorcycle. "The Hell's Angels used to run methamphetamines up and down the coast. That was back in the good old days. Seventies, early eighties. They'd hide it in the engine crank case. If they ever got pulled over and searched, the cops couldn't find it."

Back to business. Spin Doctor hands Lee a credit card which Lee in turn uses to separate and maneuver the crank. When he's done, a trail of white stretches from one end of the mirror to the other. The line is long and thick. Lee tells me that he's "going for a rail."

"A rail, huh?" Spin Doctor says.

"Yeah, bro, I'm getting spun!"

Lee rolls up a twenty dollar bill—which I'm surprised to see that he still possesses, having told me that the crank would cost him every dollar I'd given him—and uses it as a straw to snort the powder up into his nose. When the trail of white is gone, he sits straight and tilts back his head, revealing a spotless mirror. He levels his head. His eyes are watered.

"What's it feel like?" I wonder aloud.

He doesn't answer for a moment, but when he does it's at light speed. "It-burns-it-burns-it-burns!" Then, "But-it-feels-great!"

A loud knock at the front door disrupts the moment.

"HUUH!" Spin Doctor gasps, shooting to his feet. "What-the-fuck? What-the-fuck?" Lee's also up and panicking.

In a frenzy they cram the unveiled drug paraphernalia into the shoe box. The sudden, unexpected knock proves too much for Lee as he falls into violent spasms. Screaming in anguish, he looks as if he's suffering from a grand mall seizure while still on his feet. Spin Doctor tears down the hall, the shoe box under one arm.

The knock sounds again.

Empty handed, but still in a frenzy, Spin Doctor returns, hurtling from the dark hall, his path straight for Joel and I, like a semi on a collision course with a couple of crash test dummies. A split-second before impact we dive from the couch. I twist around as I hit the carpet and watch Spin Doctor flip the couch onto its backside and then drop down to his hands and knees.

Again comes the knock. Lee falls into another set of screams and spasms.

Spin Doctor springs back up. He's cocking a black sawed-off shotgun.