At the exchange this afternoon, the heat doesn’t seem to dampen the lemonade stand-atmosphere. About half a block in front of the tables, a young guy on a mountain bike rides at near top speed toward the white van, weaving left and right as if dodging imaginary cones. It looks as if he’s going to ride straight into the folding tables, but at the last second, he weaves left and hops off the bike as it crashes into a chain-link fence. He picks up the bike and loops a bungee cord from around the seat and through the fence, so the bike won’t fall.

The young man’s eyes twitch, as he rubs his hands up and down his arms. He moves with herky-jerky motions. He can’t stand still. Maybe meth. He starts to walk to the tables.

Chrissy, a gentle, red-haired volunteer with two rings in her lower lip, intercepts him. She hands him a pen and clipboard to fill in a form used by exchange organizers to track client data. The man’s hands shake too much to write. She takes back the paperwork and instead asks him questions, filling in answers for him. Data gathered during the exchange is used in grant applications to find the funding to keep the program operating. Chrissy then tells him that he can go to the county health department for hepatitis A and B vaccines.  She doesn’t mention it, but there is no local lab offering free hepatitis C tests. She does, however, tell him about free HIV testing offered some nights at the exchange.

“I need it,” he tells her. “I could be dying and not even know it.”

Chrissy is one of two of young female volunteers handling the table, taking paperwork and passing out needles. Their assistance leaves Headley, the organizer, free to do what he does best: talk. I’m still new to the exchange and Headley explains a few things.

“You have to get on the other side of the table,” Headley explains. “You have to relate to the clients. You have to show them you respect them, show them there’s nothing between you and them.”

Headley tries to orchestrate everything from music to wardrobe.

“The less preppy you dress, the more they’ll relate to you,” he tells me.

In his late twenties, Headley takes his own advice, wearing black sneakers and jeans. His blond beard rises high on his cheekbones. He often wears sleeveless t-shirts, which not only let him showoff his biceps but also display a rather pastoral tattoo of pine trees, mountains and a lake on his right arm. Headley’s other advice is more practical. Don’t wear sandals or open-toed shoes.

He urges addicts like Hollywood to volunteer, but not surprisingly, their participation is sketchy. In four weeks hanging out at the exchange, I never saw Hollywood after that first night. Still, people like Hollywood help build trust with a community of often paranoid users.

Headley offers up other tips and rules. If clients don’t have any needles to trade, they get a starter kit. That’s twenty needles, some alcohol swabs, and some tiny cotton balls used to filter the drugs. You take the word of clients for how many needles they say they bring back. Don’t argue about it, at least. You can give them twenty more needles than what they say they drop off. If they’re in stock, give them a red Tupperware-like canister with a clip-on lid for safe keeping of dirty needles.