Johnny Pendle, among other things, is a heroine addict. But don’t let that admission discredit this account of the events that transpired that night. It was Johnny’s habit that turned him from casual user, to small-time hood and full-on junkie. And it was his rabid pursuit of satisfying his habit that prompted him to break into the home of Mr. Reginald Thules on that fateful November night.

The rain was falling outside in the deserted late night western Philadelphia streets. And tucked away in the shadows, dirty grey hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head to shield his brow from the precipitous downpour, was Johnny Pendle. His breath smoking through the raindrops, marking his place amongst the shadows, scrawny little heroine-chiseled Johnny stood outside the window of apartment 3B, on the bottom floor of the rat-hole tenement he and his called home.

Mr. Thules was an elderly man, likely in his 60s. He seemed a nice enough guy; he mostly kept to himself. The other thugs in the neighborhood ordinarily left Mr. Thules to himself, out of respect for the elderly, and partly because of a rumor that Reginald Thules was cursed, and all who associated themselves with him were damned to bear that curse as well.

Johnny didn’t put much stock into silly superstitious rumors such as this, and it likely wouldn’t have mattered if he did. He was fiending for a fix something fierce, and he had already picked Mr. Thules as his target. Johnny’s decision considered a number of factors: first off, it’s fairly easy to rob the elderly, considering their slow reflexes and general lack of physical prowess; second, old people always have lots of prescription drugs on hand, and nothing fetches a better, quicker turnaround on the street than good prescription drugs.

Soaked through and through with cold late-autumn rain, Johnny finally summoned the courage to shimmy open Mr. Thule’s bathroom window and clamor in. He struggled to lift himself up above the windowsill. After slipping back down into the alleyway on a couple of tries, Johnny finally lunged with one more springy effort to vault himself through the open window. He made it over the ledge, but his momentum was too much and he tumbled forward into Mr. Thules’ bathroom, crashing on a little plastic shelf filled with toiletries and banging his head with a loud crashing thud against the toilet seat.

The racket Johnny made ‘sneaking’ into Mr. Thules’ home was enough to wake even the feeblest of individuals. He froze, holding his breath and listening intently for any noise coming down the hallway to check on the noise he’d just made. But after a few breathless moments, Johnny heard nothing and realized maybe luck was on his side.

He got carefully to his feet and set the broken shelf back upright behind him. He looked around the tiny, dirty bathroom and located the medicine cabinet. Popping open the magnetic clasp of the mirrored little door, Johnny was disappointed to find no prescription drugs whatsoever. There was little inside the medicine cabinet save a half-empty, caked up tube of toothpaste and some sort of foot cream with a yellow crust formed around the cap.

“Eww…” Johnny mumbled to himself as he eased shut the mirrored door to the cabinet. He looked around the bathroom again, peering through the darkness to try to locate some other cabinet, shelf or cupboard that might hide drugs or pills. But, to his chagrin, there was nothing. He would have to venture further into