So the man sits down, opens a rumpled Chinese takeout bag, drops two weeks' worth of used syringes in a plastic bucket. He counts off: "There goes 130, 131 . . ."
He's high today, a heroin addict for more than half his life.
". . . 132, 133 . . ."
He is 69, unemployed, homeless, divorced, his legs and right arm wrapped in pus-stained bandages.
"134, 135, 136 . . ."
Ron Daniels, looking the man in the eye, hears the last one hit. "That's 137," Daniels says. "Is that all?"
Donald, the man with 137 syringes, grunts. He's thirsty and fidgety, and asks for a cup of ice water.
"Have you been tested for HIV?" Daniels asks. "Have you been tested for hepatitis C?"
Donald nods twice.
"You sure?" Daniels asks again, holding eye contact.
It's a sticky, humid Friday, and there's a line of 21 people outside the Winnebago, spilling into the parking lot of a Shell station on the littered corner of Minnesota Avenue and Clay Street NE.
This first-name-only "exchange site" -- short for needle exchange, funded by the nonprofit group Prevention Works! -- is the day's first of three, and the slowest. David, 49, eyes bloodshot, turns in 58 syringes. Before him, Denise, 48, stick-thin, turns in 15 . It's controversial, giving David and Denise clean syringes, but Ron Daniels has a job to do. By 5:30 p.m., he's collected more than 3,000 dirty needles from more than 80 addicts.
The mobile unit stops in Wards 6, 7 and 8, mostly east of the Anacostia River, far from "official" Washington. But those who come for service are as much a part of life in the city and its suburbs as they are hidden from it: a Metro employee in his uniform, a carpenter on his lunch break, a social worker in a charcoal skirt and white top, a homeless man in his wheelchair. Of course, there are addicts who can afford to buy their own syringes. But these are the ones who show up, day in and day out, waiting in a relentless line to make these free exchanges. It's a weekly routine -- twice a week for some -- and faces, after a while, become familiar.
"We work year-round," says Daniels, one of two full-time employees of Prevention Works! "You can't stop being an addict 'cause the weather is bad."
He is 46, built like a gymnast, as agile and quick as he is focused and intense. As the only full-time employee in charge of the streets, he has a lot riding on his 5-foot-6, 150-pound frame. Here are some numbers: 9,856 District residents inject drugs, approximately 1 out of 20 has HIV, and the incidence of AIDS cases here is the highest among large U.S. cities, according to local health officials. Trace the root of those staggering statistics, Daniels says, and it leads to a shared needle for many.
"If these syringes weren't collected -- by someone, anyone -- where would they go? In backyards, trash cans? Parks? Somewhere in the monuments?" asks Daniels, surveying the crowd outside the mobile unit, talking and teasing and sitting around, some in the parking lot of the Shell station, others across the street outside the Payless Shoe Source.
He's a calming presence in the storm of their lives, the way he respectfully speaks, the way he carefully puts his hand over someone else's. "They've been in the heat all day," he says. "They're not eatin' right, not sleepin' right, not drinkin' enough fluids."
He pauses.
