Part 2: Gunpowder on the street  In tandem, both ambulance, and
fire truck, red lights strobed across the narrow cave-like
doorway to the Tom Waddell clinic. The images flashed in the
dark, like red-tinted, stop-motion animation. Inside the narrow
space the six of us from needle exchange creaked zombie-like to
our feet from where we’d been bent over bodies. Two men still
lay flat-backed on the cold concrete, only now beginning to
twitch and jerk, and enough torn packaging fluttered that it
looked like someone had tossed the contents of a recycling bag
of paper into the doorwell. Between the two men, we’d given
about 10 vials of narcotic antidote (Narcan), over at least ten
minutes.  It may have been longer. When you’re doing a
resuscitation, time rubberbands out thin and tense, the spaces
widening between your own heartbeats, everything stretching all
the way to the breaking point. And then, with that one gasped
inhale, time snaps, stinging, back to normal.  We had witnessed
at least ten minutes of no breathi