Junky by William S. Burroughs

miscellaneous and unrelated, so that you never know what sort of behavior to expect from anybody.
    New Orleans was a strange town to me and I had no way of making a junk connection. Walking around the city, I spotted several junk neighborhoods: St. Charles and Poydras, the area around and above Lee Circle, Canal and Exchange Place. I don’t spot junk neighborhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like the dowser’s wand: “Junk here!”
    I didn’t see anybody around, and besides I wanted to stay off, or at least I thought I wanted to stay off.
    â€¢
    One night, I was in Frank’s Bar off Exchange Place drinking a rum and Coke. It was an equivocal place; seamen and longshoremen, queers, dealers from the all-night poker game next door, and some characters who could not be classified. Standing next to me was a middle-aged man with a long, thin face and gray hair. I asked him if he would join me in a beer.
    He said, “I would, but unfortunately . . . unfortunately I am not in a condition to reciprocate.” Clearly a man who made his living by physical work, self-educated, a terrific bore once he has spotted you as “a man of intelligence.”
    I ordered two beers, and he went on telling me how he was accustomed to reciprocate. When the beers came, he said, “Shall we find a table where we can discuss the state of the world and the meaning of life without being disturbed?” We took our glasses to a table. I was preparing an excuse to leave. The man said, suddenly, “Now, for example, I know that you are interested in narcotics.”
    â€œHow do you know that?” I asked.
    â€œI know,” he said, smiling. “I know that you are here to investigate narcotics. I’ve done a lot of work in that line myself. I’ve been up to the FBI here fifty times to tell them what I know. You know, of course, how narcotics ties right in with Communism? I shipped out with the C and A line last year. That line is Communist-­controlled. The chief engineer was one of them. I spotted him right away. He used to smoke a pipe and light it with a cigarette lighter. He used the lighter to signal.” He showed me how the engineer lighted his pipe with a cigarette lighter and covered and uncovered the lighter to signal. “Oh, he was smooth.”
    â€œSignal to whom?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know exactly. There was a plane that followed us for a while. I could hear it every time he went out to light his pipe. Let me tell you something that may save you a lot of time. The place to look for the information you want is the Frontier Hotel. The same people that run the Frontier Hotel here control the Standish Hotel in Philadelphia. They are in on narcotics, and they are connected with Communism.”
    â€œIsn’t it dangerous for you to talk this way? You don’t know who I am. Suppose I was on the other side.”
    â€œI know who I’m talking to,” he said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead. Out of all the people in this bar I picked you, didn’t I?”
    â€œYes, but why?”
    â€œThere is something that tells me what to do.” He showed me a religious medal he wore around his neck. “If I didn’t carry this I would have stopped a knife or a bullet long ago.”
    â€œWhy are you concerned about narcotics?”
    â€œBecause I don’t like what it does to people. I had a shipmate who used it.”
    â€œTell me,” I said, “exactly what is the tie-up between narcotics and Communism?”
    â€œYou know the answer to that one a lot better than I do. I see you are trying to find out how much I know. All right. The same people are in both narcotics and Communism. Right now they control most of America. I’m a seaman. I’ve been shipping