Neither more nor less

Twice this day the young man pictured above nearly ended his life : this was the second of the two close to deadly events .

He sat down in front of us near the phone booth at the corner of avenue A and 7th street very early one morning 5 or so years ago and pulled out his works and dope .Out of some sense of deference or whatever we did not intrude with the camera as he proceeded to shoot-up and then get high . But as he became incoherent and started to sink into a limp heap in front of us we called for an ambulance with a cell phone and then began to crank the camera .

His friends were not happy about the phone call because it would bring not just the ambulence but the police too . Despite their concern about the police they did make a sort of pathetic , frantic and fruitless effort to revive their friend as seen above .

The police arrived first , then the ambulance : quickly his friends disappeared into the night .

Palid and limp with bluish tone to his lips and nails he was on his way to the end when the medical technicians injected some heroin blocking agent and took him to the hospital .

This young man had survived this trying night and day but we were told a few months later that he had over-dosed in San Fransisco and died .