keep crime in existence, and preparing the way for one of the most heinous usurpations of power of all
times... all over the world...
Such might have been my thoughts as I walked away from Sheridan Square where I left Tom Tear. He went into Jim Moore’s. Sometimes he sat there for hours, usually in the
middle of the night from about twelve till three or four; the countermen liked him and they were generous when he ordered anything. The diner, because it was open all night, was a useful meeting
place. The coffee counter is composed of two U’s linked by a very short counter which supports the cash register. Its top is of green plastic. The stools are red and chrome. There is a
jukebox, a cigarette machine, glass everywhere, and windows... that’s the advantage of the place, the huge uncurtained windows which look out onto the centre of the square. You can only sit
there so long without being seen by your little junkie friends who can see you waiting. It’s like being in a goldfish bowl in a display window of a pet shop. (In New York people look in at
you through the glass windows of snack bars; Paris cafés spill out onto the street where those who are walking by are open to inspection.) It has also, from another point of view, its
disadvantage. If our friends can look in, so can the police, and many of the anonymous men who sit at the counter or who lounge about outside in the small hours could conceivably fink. So it is
dangerous to be seen there too often, especially if you are high. Most of us returned there eventually because we were often hung up for shit.
He had asked me to go and have a coffee with him but I knew that once I was inside I would find it difficult to leave. And of all the hours I spent, the hours of vigil I spent in that diner,
waiting, were probably the worst.
I walked up 7th Avenue and turned west on 23rd Street and made directly for the river. The bars were still open so the streets weren’t deserted. On 23rd a police car trailed me for a few
seconds and then glided past. Without turning my head I caught a glimpse of the man beside the driver, his head turned my way. I wasn’t carrying anything that night.
I kept walking past 8th, 9th, and I walked up 9th and turned left a few blocks later. I was walking slowly. Suddenly I was opposite an alley and in the alley about twenty yards away was the dark
figure of a man standing close to a wall. He was alone under a small light near a garage door and he was exposing himself to a brick wall.
In terms of literal truth my curiosity was pointless. A man goes to a lane to urinate, an everyday happening which concerns only himself and those who are paid to prevent public nuisance. It
concerned me only because I was there and doing nothing in particular as was quite ordinary for me, like a piece of sensitive photographic paper, waiting passively to feel the shock of impression.
And then I was quivering like a leaf, more precisely like a mute hunk of appetitional plasm, a kind of sponge in which the business of being excited was going on, run through by a series of
external stimuli; the lane, the man, the pale light, the flash of silver at the ecstatic edge of something to be known.
The flash of silver comes from earlier; it was a long time ago in my own country and I saw a man come out of an alley. He had large hands. The thought of his white front with
its triangle of coarse short hair came to me. I thought of the mane of a wolf, of the white Huns, perhaps because he stooped. Or perhaps because my own ears were pricked back and alert. In his
other hand was the glint of something silver. As he walked past me he put his hands in his pockets. I looked after him. I realized I hadn’t seen his face. Before I reached the corner he had
turned into an adjacent street. I reached the intersection and he was entering a public house. I didn’t see him in the bar nor in any of the side rooms. The bar was crowded with workmen: the
same caps, the
times... all over the world...
Such might have been my thoughts as I walked away from Sheridan Square where I left Tom Tear. He went into Jim Moore’s. Sometimes he sat there for hours, usually in the
middle of the night from about twelve till three or four; the countermen liked him and they were generous when he ordered anything. The diner, because it was open all night, was a useful meeting
place. The coffee counter is composed of two U’s linked by a very short counter which supports the cash register. Its top is of green plastic. The stools are red and chrome. There is a
jukebox, a cigarette machine, glass everywhere, and windows... that’s the advantage of the place, the huge uncurtained windows which look out onto the centre of the square. You can only sit
there so long without being seen by your little junkie friends who can see you waiting. It’s like being in a goldfish bowl in a display window of a pet shop. (In New York people look in at
you through the glass windows of snack bars; Paris cafés spill out onto the street where those who are walking by are open to inspection.) It has also, from another point of view, its
disadvantage. If our friends can look in, so can the police, and many of the anonymous men who sit at the counter or who lounge about outside in the small hours could conceivably fink. So it is
dangerous to be seen there too often, especially if you are high. Most of us returned there eventually because we were often hung up for shit.
He had asked me to go and have a coffee with him but I knew that once I was inside I would find it difficult to leave. And of all the hours I spent, the hours of vigil I spent in that diner,
waiting, were probably the worst.
I walked up 7th Avenue and turned west on 23rd Street and made directly for the river. The bars were still open so the streets weren’t deserted. On 23rd a police car trailed me for a few
seconds and then glided past. Without turning my head I caught a glimpse of the man beside the driver, his head turned my way. I wasn’t carrying anything that night.
I kept walking past 8th, 9th, and I walked up 9th and turned left a few blocks later. I was walking slowly. Suddenly I was opposite an alley and in the alley about twenty yards away was the dark
figure of a man standing close to a wall. He was alone under a small light near a garage door and he was exposing himself to a brick wall.
In terms of literal truth my curiosity was pointless. A man goes to a lane to urinate, an everyday happening which concerns only himself and those who are paid to prevent public nuisance. It
concerned me only because I was there and doing nothing in particular as was quite ordinary for me, like a piece of sensitive photographic paper, waiting passively to feel the shock of impression.
And then I was quivering like a leaf, more precisely like a mute hunk of appetitional plasm, a kind of sponge in which the business of being excited was going on, run through by a series of
external stimuli; the lane, the man, the pale light, the flash of silver at the ecstatic edge of something to be known.
The flash of silver comes from earlier; it was a long time ago in my own country and I saw a man come out of an alley. He had large hands. The thought of his white front with
its triangle of coarse short hair came to me. I thought of the mane of a wolf, of the white Huns, perhaps because he stooped. Or perhaps because my own ears were pricked back and alert. In his
other hand was the glint of something silver. As he walked past me he put his hands in his pockets. I looked after him. I realized I hadn’t seen his face. Before I reached the corner he had
turned into an adjacent street. I reached the intersection and he was entering a public house. I didn’t see him in the bar nor in any of the side rooms. The bar was crowded with workmen: the
same caps, the
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