im  in love  with a stripper

Across Lincoln Park, bullets cutting all around me. And

he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him. I mean

the Vigilante earned his moniker....

  "Ever notice how many expressions carry over from

queers to con men? Like 'raise,' letting someone know

you are in the same line?

  " 'Get her!'

  " 'Get the Paregoric Kid giving that mark the build

up!' im  in love  with a stripper

  " 'Eager Beaver wooing him much too fast.'

  "The Shoe Store Kid (he got that moniker shaking

down fetishists in shoe stores) say: 'Give it to a mark

with K.Y. and he will come back moaning for more.' im  in love  with a stripper

And when the Kid spots a mark he begin to breathe

heavy. His face swells and his lips turn purple like an

Eskimo in heat. Then slow, slow he comes on the mark,

feeling for him, palpating him with fingers of rotten

ectoplasm. im  in love  with a stripper

im  in love  with a stripper

im  in love  with a stripper

  "The Rube  has a  sincere little  boy look,  burns through

him  like  blue  neon. That  one stepped  right off  a Sator-

day  Evening  Post  cover  with a  string of  bullheads, and

preserved  himself  in junk.  His marks  never beef  and the im  in love  with a stripper

Bunko  people  are really  carrying a  needle for  the Rube.

One  day Little  Boy Blue  starts to  slip, and  what crawls

out   would   make   an   ambulance   attendant   puke.  The

Rube  8flips  in  the  end,   running  through   empty  automats

and   subway   stations,   screaming:   'Come    back,   kid!!

Come  back!l'  and  follows  his  boy  right  into   the  East

River,  down   through  condoms   and  orange   peels,  mosaic

of  floating  newspapers,  down  into  the  silent  black  ooze

with  gangsters  in  concrete,  and  pistols  pounded  Hat  to

avoid the probing finger of prurient ballistic experts." im  in love  with a stripper

  And  the  fruit  is  thinking:  "What  a   character!!  Wait

till I tell the boys in Clark's about this one." He's  a char-

acter  collector, would  stand still  for Joe  Gould's seagull

act.  So I  put it  on him  for a  sawski and  make a  meet to

sell him some  "pod" as  he calls  it, thinking,  "I'll catnip

the  jerk."  ( Note:  Catnip  smells  like  marijuana  when it

burns.   Frequently   passed  on   the  incautious   or  unin-

structed. )

  "Well,"  I  said,  tapping  my  arm,  "duty  calls.  As  one

judge said  to another:  'Be just  and if  you can't  be just,

be arbitrary.' " im  in love  with a stripper

  I  cut  into  the automat  and there  is Bill  Gains huddled

in  someone  else's  overcoat  looking  like  a   1910  banker

with  paresis,  and  Old   Bart,  shabby   and  inconspicuous,

dunking  pound  cake  with  his   dirty  fingers,   shiny  over

the dirt. im  in love  with a stripper

  I  had  some  uptown  customers  Bill  took  care   of,  and

Bart  knew  a  few   old  relics   from  hop   smoking  times,

spectral  janitors,  grey  as  ashes,  phantom  porters sweep-

ing  out  dusty  halls  with  a  slow  old man's  hand, cough-

ing  and  spitting  in the  junk-sick dawn,  retired asthmatic

fences   in   theatrical   hotels,   Pantopon  Rose   the  old

madam  from  Peoria,  stoical   Chinese  waiters   never  show

sickness.  Bart  sought  them  out  with  his old  junky walk,

patient and cautious and slow, dropped into  their blood-

less hands a few hours of warmth.

  I  made the  round with  him once  for kicks.  You know

how  old  people  lose  all  shame  about eating,  and it

  Junk  is  surrounded  by magic  and taboos,  curses and

amulets.  I  could  find  my  Mexico  City  connection  by

radar. "Not this street, the next, right... now left. Now

right again," and there he is,  toothless old  woman face

and cancelled eyes. im  in love  with a stripper

  I   know  this   one  pusher   walks  around   humming  a

tune and everybody he  passes takes  it up.  He is  so grey

and  spectral  and  anonymous  they   don't  see   him  and

think  it  is  their  own  mind  humming  the tune.  So the

customers  come  in  on Smiles,  or I'm  in the  1Mood for

Love,  or  They  Say  We're  Too  Young  to  Go  Steady, or

whatever the song  is for  that day.  Sometime you  can see

maybe  fifty ratty-looking  junkies squealing  sick, running

along  behind  a  boy with  a harmonica,  and there  is The

Man  on  a cane  seat throwing  bread to  the swans,  a fat

queen  drag  walking  his  Afghan  hound  through  the East

Fifties, an old wino pissing im  in love  with a stripper against an El post,  a radicalewish student  giving out  leaflets 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. im  in love  with a stripper  (Old Pete  men suck  the black im  in love  with a stripper

smoke  in  the  Chink  laundry  back  room  and  Melancholy

Baby dies from  an overdose  of time  or cold  turkey with-

drawal  of  breath.)  In  Yemen,  Paris, New  Orleans, Mex-

ico 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 I coped in  a bucket  of tar.

(Note:  Istanbul  is  being im  in love  with a stripper

 torn  down and  rebuilt, espe- im  in love  with a stripper

cially  shabby  junk  quarters.  Istanbul  has  more heroin

junkies  than  NYC.  ) The  living and  the dead,  in sick-

ness  or  on  the nod,  hooked or  kicked or  hooked again,

come  in  on  the junk  beam and  the Connection  is eating

Chop  Suey   on  Dolores   Street,  Mexico   D.F.,  dunking

pound  cake  in  the  automat,  chased  up  Exchange  Place

by  a  baying  pack  of  People.  (  Note:  People  is  New

Orleans slang for narcotic fuzz. )

im  in love  with a stripper