THE BELL CHIMES TOO LATE FOR TEARS

FIRST IS WAS THE PILLS. THEN IT WAS THE BOOZE.
Then it was the pills and booze.

Dahlia Danton and David Schoffman, Svoge, Bulgaria 2010

David Schoffman has a decided weakness for vixens and succubi. First there was the dark eyed Agrat Hinojosa who's ex-husband nearly killed him in a comical bar fight in Tuscon. Agrat was beautiful and crazy and Schoffman was powerless in the face of her ludicrous amatory commands. Then there was Na'ima Zenunim, the coffee complected exotic dancer from Rio who had a limbless amphiptere tattooed along the length of her back. She chain-smoked Han Cao clove cigarettes and wore nearly fifty handmade silver bracelets around both her wrists and her ankles. And then there was Dahlia Danton, the hard drinking, pill popping sot. She managed to maintain a high profile international career as an artist while plunging herself into the gutter of squalid dissipation. David was willingly corrupted by this legendarily irresistible coquette.

It's been years since my dear, weak friend David has allowed himself to be seduced by temptresses and jezebels.  He lives alone and ascetically in Cartago, California, rising each day at 4AM to meditate and chant. His quotidian routine includes fifty push-ups and a six and a half mile run in the desert. 

He recently ran into Danton at a conference in Bulgaria and he sent me the picture posted above. He claims their meeting remained cordial and chaste.

I have my doubts.