The effect was uncanny. You would see him one time a fresh-faced kid. A week or so later he would turn up so thin, sallow and old-looking, you would have to look twice to recognize him. His face was lined with suffering in which his eyes did not participate. It was a suffering of his cells alone. He himself—the conscious ego that looked out of the glazed, alert-calm hoodlum eyes—would have nothing to do with this suffering of his rejected other self, a suffering of the nervous system, of flesh and viscera and cells.
He slid into the booth where I was sitting and ordered a shot of whisky. He tossed it off, put the glass down and looked at me with his head tilted a little to one side and back.
“What’s this guy got?” he said.
“A Tommy gun and about thirty-five grains of morphine.”
“The morphine I can get rid of right away, but the Tommy gun may take a little time.”
Two detectives walked in and leaned on the bar talking to the bartender. Jack jerked his head in their direction. “The law. Let’s take a walk.”
I followed him out of the bar. He walked through the door sliding sideways. “I’m taking you to someone who will want the morphine,” he said. “You want to forget this address.”
We went down to the bottom level of the Independent Subway. Jack’s voice, talking to his invisible audience, went on and on. He had a knack of throwing his voice directly into your consciousness. No external noise drowned him out. “Give me a thirty-eight every time. Just flick back the hammer and let her go. I’ll drop anyone at five hundred feet. Don’t care what you say. My brother has two 30-caliber machine guns stashed in Iowa.”
We got off the subway and began to walk on snow-covered sidewalks between tenements.
“The guy owed me for a long time, see? I knew he had it but he wouldn’t pay, so I waited for him when he finished work. I had a roll of nickels. No one can hang anything on you for carrying U.S. currency. Told me he was broke. I cracked his jaw and took my money off him. Two of his friends standing there, but they kept out of it. I’d’ve switched a blade on them.”
We were walking up tenement stairs. The stairs were made of worn black metal. We stopped in front of a narrow, metal-covered door, and Jack gave an elaborate knock inclining his head to the floor like a safecracker. The door was opened by a large, flabby, middle-aged queer, with tattooing on his forearms and even on the backs of his hands.
“This is Joey,” Jack said, and Joey said, “Hello there.”
Jack pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to Joey. “Get us a quart of Schenley’s, will you, Joey?”
Joey put on an overcoat and went out.
In many tenement apartments the front door opens directly into the kitchen. This was such an apartment and we were in the kitchen.
After Joey went out I noticed another man who was standing there looking at me. Waves of hostility and suspicion flowed out from his large brown eyes like some sort of television broadcast. The effect was almost like a physical impact. The man was small and very thin, his neck loose in the collar of his shirt. His complexion was fading from brown to a mottled yellow, and pancake make-up had been heavily applied in an attempt to conceal a skin eruption. His mouth was drawn down at the corners in a grimace of petulant annoyance.
“Who’s this?” he said. His name, I learned later, was Herman.
“Friend of mine. He’s got some morphine he wants to get rid of.”
Herman shrugged and turned out his hands. “I don’t think I want to bother, really.”
“Okay,” Jack said, “we’ll sell it to someone else. Come on, Bill.”
We went into the front room. There was a small radio, a china Buddha with a votive candle in front of it, pieces of bric-a-brac. A man was lying on a studio couch. He sat up as we entered the room and said hello and smiled pleasantly, showing discolored, brownish teeth. It was a Southern voice with the accent of East Texas.
Jack said, “Roy, this is a friend of mine. He has some morphine he wants to sell.”
The man sat up straighter and swung his legs off the couch. His jaw fell slackly, giving his face a vacant look. The skin of his face was smooth and brown. The cheek-bones were high and he looked Oriental. His ears stuck out at right angles from his asymmetrical skull. The eyes were brown and they had a peculiar brilliance, as though points of light were shining behind them. The light in the room glinted on the points of light in his eyes like an opal.
“How much do you have?” he asked me.
“Seventy-five half grain syrettes.”
“The regular price is two dollars a grain,” he said, “but syrettes go for a little less. People want tablets. Those syrettes have too much water and you have to squeeze the stuff out and cook it down.” He paused and his face went blank: “I could go about one-fifty a grain,” he said finally.
“I guess that will be okay,” I said.
He asked how we could make contact and I gave him my phone number.
Joey came back with the whisky and we all had a drink. Herman stuck his head in from the kitchen and said to Jack, “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
I could hear them arguing about something. Then Jack came back and Herman stayed in the kitchen. We all had a few drinks and Jack began telling a story.
“My partner was going through the joint. The guy was sleeping, and I was standing over him with a three-foot length of pipe I found in the bathroom. The pipe had a faucet on the end of it, see? All of a sudden he comes up and jumps straight out of bed, running. I let him have it with the faucet end, and he goes on running right out into the other room, the blood spurting out of his head ten feet every time his heart beat.” He made a pumping motion with his hand. “You could see the brain there and the blood coming out of it.” Jack began to laugh uncontrollably. “My girl was waiting out in the car. She called me—ha-ha-ha!—she called me—ha-ha-ha!—a cold-blooded killer.”
He laughed until his face was purple.
•
A few nights after meeting Roy and Herman, I used one of the syrettes, which was my first experience with junk. A syrette is like a toothpaste tube with a needle on the end. You push a pin down through the needle; the pin punctures the seal; and the syrette is ready to shoot.
Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, then the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experienced a strong feeling of fear. I had the feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving, as I turned my head, so that I never quite saw it. I felt nauseous; I lay down and closed my eyes. A series of pictures passed, like watching a movie: A huge, neon-lighted cocktail bar that got larger and larger until streets, traffic, and street repairs were included in it; a waitress carrying a skull on a tray; stars in a clear sky. The physical impact of the fear of death; the shutting off of breath; the stopping of blood.
I dozed off and woke up with a start of fear. Next morning I vomited and felt sick until noon.
Roy called that night.
“About what we were discussing the other night,” he said. “I could go about four dollars per box and take five boxes now. Are you busy? I’ll come over to your place. We’ll come to some kind of agreement.”
A few minutes later he knocked at the door. He had on a Glen plaid suit and a dark, coffee-colored shirt. We said hello. He looked around blankly and said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take one of those now.”
I opened the box. He took out a syrette and injected it into his leg. He pulled up his pants briskly and took out twenty dollars. I put five boxes on the kitchen table.
“I think I’ll take them out of the boxes,” he said. “Too bulky.”
He began putting the syrettes in his coat pockets. “I d
on’t think they’ll perforate this way,” he said. “Listen, I’ll call you again in a day or so after I get rid of these and have some more money.” He was adjusting his hat over his asymmetrical skull. “I’ll see you.”
Next day he was back. He shot another syrette and pulled out forty dollars. I laid out ten boxes and kept two.
“These are for me,” I said.
He looked at me, surprised. “You use it?”
“Now and then.”
“It’s bad stuff,” he said, shaking his head. “The worst thing that can happen to a man. We all think we can control it at first. Sometimes we don’t want to control it.” He laughed. “I’ll take all you can get at this price.”
Next day he was back. He asked if I didn’t want to change my mind about selling the two boxes. I said no. He bought two syrettes for a dollar each, shot them both, and left. He said he had signed on for a two-month trip.
•
During the next month I used up the eight syrettes I had not sold. The fear I had experienced after using the first syrette was not noticeable after the third; but still, from time to time, after taking a shot I would wake up with a start of fear. After six weeks or so I gave Roy a ring, not expecting him to be back from his trip, but then I heard his voice on the phone.
I said, “Say, do you have any to sell? Of the material I sold you before?”
There was a pause.
“Ye-es,” he said, “I can let you have six, but the price will have to be three dollars per. You understand I don’t have many.”
“Okay,” I said. “You know the way. Bring it on over.”
It was twelve one-half grain tablets in a thin glass tube. I paid him eighteen dollars and he apologized again for the retail rate.
Next day he bought two grains back.
“It’s mighty hard to get now at any price,” he said, looking for a vein in his leg. He finally hit a vein and shot the liquid in with an air bubble. “If air bubbles could kill you, there wouldn’t be a junkie alive,” he said, pulling up his pants.
Later that day Roy pointed out to me a drugstore where they sold needles without any questions—very few drugstores will sell them without a prescription. He showed me how to make a collar out of paper to fit the needle to an eyedropper. An eyedropper is easier to use than a regular hypo, especially for giving yourself vein shots.
Several days later Roy sent me to see a doctor with a story about kidney stones, to hit him for a morphine prescription. The doctor’s wife slammed the door in my face, but Roy finally got past her and made the doctor for a ten-grain script.
The doctor’s office was in junk territory on 102nd, off Broadway. He was a doddering old man and could not resist the junkies who filled his office and were, in fact, his only patients. It seemed to give him a feeling of importance to look out and see an office full of people. I guess he had reached a point where he could change the appearance of things to suit his needs and when he looked out there he saw a distinguished and diversified clientele, probably well-dressed in 1910 style, instead of a bunch of ratty-looking junkies come to hit him for a morphine script.
Roy shipped out at two- or three-week intervals. His trips were Army Transport and generally short. When he was in town we generally split a few scripts. The old croaker on 102nd finally lost his mind altogether and no drugstore would fill his scripts, but Roy located an Italian doctor out in the Bronx who would write.
I was taking a shot from time to time, but I was a long way from having a habit. At this time I moved into an apartment on the Lower East Side. It was a tenement apartment with the front door opening into the kitchen.
•
I began dropping into the Angle Bar every night and saw quite a bit of Herman. I managed to overcome his original bad impression of me, and soon I was buying his drinks and meals, and he was hitting me for “smash” (change) at regular intervals. Herman did not have a habit at this time. In fact, he seldom got a habit unless someone else paid for it. But he was always high on something—weed, benzedrine, or knocked out of his mind on “goof balls.” He showed up at the Angle every night with a big slob of a Polack called Whitey. There were four Whities in the Angle set, which made for confusion. This Whitey combined the sensitivity of a neurotic with a psychopath’s readiness for violence. He was convinced that nobody liked him, a fact that seemed to cause him a great deal of worry.
One Tuesday night Roy and I were standing at the end of the Angle bar. Subway Mike was there, and Frankie Dolan. Dolan was an Irish boy with a cast in one eye. He specialized in crummy scores, beating up defenseless drunks, and holding out on his confederates. “I got no honor,” he would say. “I’m a rat.” And he would giggle.
Subway Mike had a large, pale face and long teeth. He looked like some specialized kind of underground animal that preys on the animals of the surface. He was a skillful lush-worker, but he had no front. Any cop would do a double-take at sight of him, and he was well known to the subway squad. So Mike spent at least half of his time on the Island doing the five-twenty-nine for jostling.
This night Herman was knocked out on “nembies” and his head kept falling down onto the bar. Whitey was stomping up and down the length of the bar trying to promote some free drinks. The boys at the bar sat rigid and tense, clutching their drinks, quickly pocketing their change. I heard Whitey say to the bartender, “Keep this for me, will you?” and he passed his large clasp knife across the bar. The boys sat there silent and gloomy under the fluorescent lights. They were all afraid of Whitey, all except Roy. Roy sipped his beer grimly. His eyes shone with their peculiar phosphorescence. His long asymmetrical body was draped against the bar. He didn’t look at Whitey, but at the opposite wall where the booths were located. Once he said to me, “He’s no more drunk than I am. He’s just thirsty.”
Whitey was standing in the middle of the bar, his fists doubled up, tears streaming down his face. “I’m no good,” he said. “I’m no good. Can’t anyone understand I don’t know what I’m doing?”
The boys tried to get as far away from him as possible without attracting his attention.
Subway Slim, Mike’s occasional partner, came in and ordered a beer. He was tall and bony, and his ugly face had a curiously inanimate look, as if made out of wood. Whitey slapped him on the back and I heard Slim say, “For Christ’s sake, Whitey.” There was more interchange I didn’t hear. Somewhere along the line Whitey must have got his knife back from the bartender. He got behind Slim and suddenly pushed his hand against Slim’s back. Slim fell forward against the bar, groaning. I saw Whitey walk to the front of the bar and look around. He closed his knife and slipped it into his pocket.
Roy said, “Let’s go.”
Whitey had disappeared and the bar was empty except for Mike, who was holding Slim up on one side. Frankie Dolan was on the other.
I heard next day from Frankie that Slim was okay. “The croaker at the hospital said the knife just missed a kidney.”
Roy said, “The big slob. I can see a real muscle man, but a guy like that going around picking up dimes and quarters off the bar. I was ready for him. I was going to kick him in the belly first, then get one of those quart beer bottles from the case on the floor and break it over his sconce. With a big villain like that you’ve got to use strategy.”
We were all barred from the Angle, which shortly afterwards changed its name to the Roxy Grill.
•
One night I went to the Henry Street address to look up Jack. A tall, red-haired girl met me at the door.
“I’m Mary,” she said. “Come in.”
It seemed that Jack was in Washington on business.
“Come on into the front room,” she said, pushing aside a red corduroy curtain. “I talk to landlords and bill collectors in the kitchen. We live in here.”
I looked around. The bric-a-brac had gone. The pla
ce looked like a chop suey joint. There were black and red lacquered tables scattered around, black curtains covered the window. A colored wheel had been painted on the ceiling with little squares and triangles of different colors giving a mosaic effect.
“Jack did that,” Mary said, pointing to the wheel. “You should have seen him. He stretched a board between two ladders and lay down on it. Paint kept dripping into his face. He gets a kick out of doing things like that. We get some frantic kicks out of that wheel when we’re high. We lay on our backs and dig the wheel and pretty soon it begins to spin. The longer you watch it, the faster it spins.”
This wheel had the nightmarish vulgarity of Aztec mosaics, the bloody, vulgar nightmare, the heart throbbing in the morning sun, the garish pinks and blues of souvenir ashtrays, postcards and calendars. The walls were painted black and there was a Chinese character in red lacquer on one wall.
“We don’t know what it means,” she said.
“Shirts thirty-one cents,” I suggested.
She turned on me her blank, cold smile. She began talking about Jack. “I’m queer for Jack,” she said. “He works at being a thief just like any job. Used to come home nights and hand me his gun. ‘Stash that!’ He likes to work around the house, painting and making furniture.”
As she talked she moved around the room, throwing herself from one chair to another, crossing and uncrossing her legs, adjusting her slip, so as to give me a view of her anatomy in installments.
She went on to tell me how her days were numbered by a rare disease. “Only twenty-six cases on record. In a few years I won’t be able to get around at all. You see, my system can’t absorb calcium and the bones are slowly dissolving. My legs will have to be amputated eventually, then the arms.”
There was something boneless about her, like a deep-sea creature. Her eyes were cold fish eyes that looked at you through a viscous medium she carried about with her. I could see those eyes in a shapeless, protoplasmic mass undulating over the dark sea floor.
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