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throwing bread to the swans, a fat queen
drag walking his Afghan hound through the
East Fifties, an old wino pissing against an El
post, a radical Jewish student giving out leaf-
lets in Washington Square, a tree surgeon,
an exterminator, an advertising fruit in
Nedick’s where he calls the counterman by
his first name. The world network of junkies,
tuned on a cord of rancid jissom, tying up in
furnished rooms, shivering in the junk-sick
morning. (Old Pete men suck the black
smoke in the Chink laundry back room and
Melancholy Baby dies from an overdose of
time or cold turkey withdrawal of breath.) In
Yemen, Paris, New Orleans, Mexico City and
Istanbul—shivering under the air hammers
and the steam shovels, shrieked junky curses
at one another neither of us heard, and The
Man leaned out of a passing steam roller and
Icopped in a bucket of tar. (Note: Istanbul is
being torn down and rebuilt, especially
shabby junk quarters. Istanbul has more
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