He Was a Student. Then a Heroin Addict. Then a Bank Robber.

[ view in browser.   add esquire@newsletter.esquire.com to your address book ]             FOLLOW US       He Was a Student. Then a Heroin Addict. Then a Bank Robber.   An excerpt from Nico Walker's book Cherry. Emily's gone to take a shower. The room's half-dark and I'm getting dressed, looking for a shirt with no blood on it, not having any luck. The pants are fucked too—cigarette burns in the crotches. All heroin chic, like I were famous already. I go downstairs. Livinia pissed in the living room. There's a lake of piss. I say, "Livinia, goddamn," yet low enough that she won't hear me. She's a good dog; just we've been some fucks about house-training her. I get the paper towels and a bottle of spray. There's a pack of Pall Malls on the kitchen counter. I shake one loose and light it on the stove. I check the rigs in the cupboard. The rigs in the cupboard are all blood-used and crooked, like instruments of torture. And there are two lengths of nylon in the cupboard, and a box of Q-tips and a digital scale, two spoons with old cottons in them. The needles on the rigs are dull, but they'll have to do. Emily has to be at school by ten, and it'll be a close-run thing. There won't be time to buy new rigs till afterward. It's twenty to nine but I think we'll make it. Black should be on time today, and he'll have something for us, so I'm not worried. I soak the piss up with the paper towels. I wipe the spot down with disinfectant, throw the used paper towels away. Black pulls up in the driveway, and I let him in the side door. He hands me a .45-caliber pistol wrapped in a blue rag; and I say, "Let me hold another gram." READ MORE       A Renowned Survival Expert Has Some Advice for Making It Out of the Trump Administration Alive   While reading Laurence Gonzales's 2003 book, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, about thrill-seekers and bad-luck sufferers trying to pull through disasters, it hit me that our country is in a similar position. Instead of being an escape, the book turned out to be a very useful primer on how we might survive Donald Trump. So I tracked down the bestselling author who's written several books on the topic and got his advice. Read On         Every Argument Against Idris Elba Playing James Bond Is Bullshit   The character was also never written to have blond hair and blue eyes, as Daniel Craig does. The character was also never written to understand the intricacies of cyber crime or smart phones, but he's managed to learn a few new tricks over the last few decades. As the world evolves, so does James Bond. Read On         The Boots That'll Make You Look Like a Style God for Less Than $100   There's a reason that everyone from Kanye West to Harry Styles will be caught in Chelsea boots once fall and winter hit. They're functionally easy to wear (no laces!) and fashionably easy to wear. Best of all, these, from New Republic, are criminally well priced and deserve a spot in your rotation. Even when they eventually wear out, you won't feel bad about spending to replace them. Read On         The Key to the Sharp Objects Mystery Is in the Music   The show's creators explain the clues in the soundtrack you didn't catch, and how they got the rights to notoriously difficult Led Zeppelin songs. Read On         Henry Golding Used to Be a Hairdresser. Now He's the Luckiest Man in Hollywood.   He stars in Crazy Rich Asians. He plays Blake Lively's husband in a simple favor. Before this? He was a TV host and a hairdresser. Introducing Henry Golding, quite possibly the luckiest actor in the history of Tinseltown. Read On       Unsubscribe •  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2018 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019