It Was Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the street.....

[Loonman]

IT WAS Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the
street junksick and broke after seventy-two hours in
the precinct jail. It was a clear bright day, but
there was warmth in the sun. Danny shivered with an
inner cold. He turned up the collar of his worn,
greasy black overcoat.

This beat benny wouldn’t pawn for a deuce, he thought.

He was in the West Nineties. A long block of
brownstone rooming houses. Here and there a holy
wreath in a clean black window. Danny’s senses
registered everything sharp and clear, with the
painful intensity of junk sickness. The light hurt his
dilated eyes.

He walked past a car, darting his pale blue eyes
sideways in quick appraisal. There was a package on
the seat and one of the ventilator windows was
unlocked. Danny walked on ten feet. No one in sight.
He snapped his fingers and went through a pantomime of
remembering something, and wheeled around. No one.

A bad setup, he decided. The street being empty like
this, I stand out conspicuous. Gotta make it fast.

He reached for the ventilator window. A door opened
behind him. Danny whipped out a rag and began
polishing the car windows. He could feel the man
standing behind him.

"What’re yuh doin"?

Danny turned as if surprised. "Just thought your car
windows needed polishing, mister."

The man had a frog face and a Deep South accent. He
was wearing a camel’s-hair overcoat.

"My caah don’t need polishin’ or nothing stole out of
it neither."

Danny slid sideways as the man grabbed for him. "I
wasn’t lookin’ to steal nothing, mister. I’m from the
South too. Florida "

"Goddammed sneakin’ thief!"

Danny walked away fast and turned a corner.

"Better get out of the neighborhood. That hick is
likely to call the law."

He walked fifteen blocks. Sweat ran down his body.
There was an ache in his lungs. His lips drew back off
his yellow teeth in a snarl of desperation.

"I gotta score somehow. If I had some decent clothes"

Danny saw a suitcase standing in a doorway. Good
leather. He stopped and pretended to look for a
cigarette.

"Funny," he thought. "No one around. Inside maybe,
phoning for a cab."

The corner was only a few houses. Danny took a deep
breath and picked up the suitcase. He made the corner.
Another block, another corner. The case was heavy.

"I got a score here all night," he thought. "Maybe
enough for a sixteenth and a room." Danny shivered and
twitched, feeling a warm room and heroin emptying into
his vein." Let’s have a quick look."

He opened the suitcase. Two long packages in brown
wrapping paper. He took one out. It felt like meat. He
tore the package open at one end, revealing a woman’s
naked foot. The toenails were painted with purple-red
polish. He dropped the leg with a sneer of disgust.

"Holy Jesus!" he exclaimed. "The routines people put
down these days. Legs! Well I got a case anyway." He
dumped the other leg out. No bloodstains. He snapped
the case shut and walked away.

"Legs!" he muttered.




HE FOUND the Buyer sitting at a table in Jarrow’s
Cafeteria.

"Thought you might be taking the day off." Danny said,
putting the case down.

The Buyer shook his head sadly. "I got nobody. So
what’s Christmas to me ?" His eyes traveled over the
case, poking, testing, looking for flaws. "What was in
it?"

"Nothing."

"What’s the matter ? I don’t pay enough?"

" I tell you there wasn’t nothing in it."

" Okay. So somebody travels with an empty suitcase.
Okay." He held up three fingers.

" For Christ’s sake, Gimpy, give me a nickel."

" You got somebody else. Why don’t he give you a
nickel ?"

" It’s like I say, the case was empty."

Gimpy kicked at the case disparingly. "It’s all nicked
up and kinda dirty-looking. " He sniffed suspiciously.
"How come it stink like that? Mexican leather ?"

"So am I in the leather business?"

Gimpy shrugged- "Could be." He pulled out a roll of
bills and peeled off three ones, dropping them on the
table behind the napkin dispenser. "You want?"

"Okay." Danny picked up the money. "You see George the
Greek?" he asked.

"Where you been ? He got busted two days ago."

" Oh …That’s bad."

Danny walked out. "Now where can I score ?"he
thought. George the Greek had lasted so long, Danny
thought of him as permanent. "It was good H too, and
no short counts."

Danny went up to 103rd and Broadway. Nobody in
Jarrow’s. Nobody in the Automat.

"Yeah, " he snarled. "All the pushers off on the nod
someplace. What they care about anybody else? So long
as they get in the vein. What they care about a sick
junky?"

He wiped his nose with one finger, looking around
furtively.

There was no one he knew in the 23rd Street
Thompson’s.

"Jesus," he thought. "Where is Everybody?"

He clutched his coat collar together with one hand,
looking up and down the street. "There’s Joey from
Brooklyn. I’d know that hat anywhere."

"Joey was walking away, with his back to Danny. He
turned around. His face was sunken, skull-like. The
gray eyes glittered under a greasy felt hat. Joey was
sniffing at regular intervals and his eyes were
watering."

"No use asking him," Danny thought. They looked at
each other with the hatred of disappointment.

" Guess you heard about George the Greek, " Danny
said.

" Yeah. I heard. You been up to 103rd?"

" Yeah. Just came from there. Nobody around."

"Nobody around anyplace, " Joey said. "I can’t even
score for goofballs."

"Well, Merry Christmas, Joey. See you."


"Yeah. See you."



DANNY WAS walking fast. He had remembered a croaker on
18th Street. Of course the croaker had told him not to
come back. Still, it was worth trying.

A brownstone house with a card in the window: "P. H.
Zunniga, M.D." Danny rang the bell. He heard slow
steps. The door opened, and the doctor looked at Danny
with bloodshot brown eyes. He was weaving slightly and
supported his plumb body against the doorjamb. His
face was smooth, Latin, the little red mouth slack. He
said nothing. He just leaned there, looking at Danny.

"Goddammed alcoholic," Danny thought. He smiled.

" Merry Christmas, Doctor."

The doctor did not reply.

" You remember me, Doctor. " Danny tried to edge past
the doctor, into the house. "I’m sorry to trouble you
on Christmas Day, but I’ve suffered another attack."

" Attack? "

" Yes. Facial neuralgia." Danny twisted one side of
his face into a horrible grimace. The doctor recoiled
slightly, and Danny pushed into the dark hallway.

"Better shut the door or you’ll be catching cold, " he
said jovially, shoving the door shut.

The doctor looked at him, his eyes focusing visibly.
"I can’t give you a prescription, " he said.

" But Doctor, this is a legitimate condition. An
emergency, you understand."

" No prescription. Impossible. It’s against the law."

" You took an oath, Doctor. I’m in agony. " Danny’s
voice shot up to a hysterical grating whine.

The doctor winced and passed a hand over his forehead.

"Let me think. I can give you one quarter-grain
tablet. That’s all I have in the house."

" But, Doctor – a quarter G …."

The doctor stopped him. "If your condition is
legitimate, you will not need more. If it isn’t, I
don’t want anything to do with you. Wait right here."

The doctor weaved down the hall, leaving a wake of
alcoholic breath. He came back and dropped a tablet
into Danny’s hand. Danny wrapped the tablet in a piece
of paper and tucked it away.

"There is no charge. " The doctor put his hand on the
doorknob. "And now, my dear …"

"But, Doctor – can’t you object the medication?"

"No. You will obtain longer relief in using orally.
Please not to return. " The doctor opened the door.

"Well, this will take the edge off, and I still have
money to put down on a room," Danny thought.

He knew a drugstore that sold needles without
question. He bought a 26-gauge insulin needle and
eyedropper, which he selected carefully, rejecting
models with a curved dropper or a thick end. Finally
he bought a baby pacifier, to use instead of the bulb.
He stopped in the Automat and stole a teaspoon.

Danny put down two dollars on a six-dollar-a-week room
in the West Forties, where he knew the landlord. He
bolted the door and put his spoon, needle and dropper
on a table by the bed. He dropped the tablet in the
spoon and covered it with a dropperful of water. He
held a match under the spoon until the tablet
dissolved. He tore a strip of paper, wet it and
wrapped it around the end of the dropper, fitting the
needle over the wet paper to make an airtight
connection. He dropped a piece of lint from his pocket
into the spoon and sucked the liquid into the dropper
through the needle, holding the needle in the lint to
take up the last drop.

Danny’s hands trembled with excitement and his breath
was quick. With a shot in front of him, his defences
gave way, and junk sickness flooded his body. His legs
began to twitch and ache. A cramp stirred in his
stomach. Tears ran down his face from his smarting,
burning eyes. He wrapped a handkerchief around his
right arm, holding the end in his teeth. He tucked the
handkerchief in, and began rubbing his arm to bring
out a vein.

"Guess I can hit that one," he thought, running one
finger along a vein. He picked up the dropper in his
left hand.

Danny heard a groan from the next room. He frowned
with annoyance. Another groan. He could not help
listening. He walked across the room, the dropper in
his hand, and inclined his ear to the wall. The groans
were coming at regular intervals, a horrible inhuman
sound pushed out from the stomach.

Danny listened for a full minute. He returned to the
bed and sat down. "Why don’t someone call a doctor?"he
thought indignantly. "It’s a bringdown." He
straightened his arm and poised the needle. He tilted
his head, listening again.

"Oh, for Christ’s sake!" He tore off the handkerchief
and placed the dropper in a water glass, which he hid
behind the wastebasket. He stepped into the hall and
knocked on the door of the next room. There was no
answer. The groans continued. Danny tried the door. It
was open.

The shade was up and the room was full of light. He
had expected an old person somehow, but the man on the
bed was very young, eighteen or twenty, fully clothed
and doubled up, with his hands clasped across his
stomach.

"What’s wrong, kid?" Danny asked.

The boy looked at him, his eyes blank with pain.
Finally he got one word: "Kidneys."

" Kidney stones?" Danny smiled. " I don’t mean it’s
funny, kid. It’s just … I’ve faked it so many times.
Never saw the real thing before. I’ll call an
ambulance."

The boy bit his lip. " Won’t come. Doctor’s won’t
come. " The boy hid his face in the pillow.

Danny nodded. "They figure it’s just another junky
throwing a wingding for a shot. But your case is
legit. Maybe if I went to the hospital and explained
things… No, I guess that wouldn’t be so good. "

Don’t live here, " the boy said, his voice muffled. "
They say I’m not entitled."

" Yeah, I know how they are, the bureaucrat bastards.
I had a friend once, died of snakebite right in the
waiting room. They wouldn’t even listen when he tried
to explain a snake bit him. He never had enough moxie.
That was fifteen years ago, down in Jacksonville …"

Danny trailed off. Suddenly he put out his thin, dirty
hand and touched the boy’s shoulder.

" I – I’m sorry, kid. You wait. I’ll fix you up."

He went back to his room and got the dropper, and
returned to the boy’s room.

" Roll up your sleeve, kid. " The boy fumbled his coat
sleeve with a weak hand.

"That’s okay. I’ll get it." Danny undid the shirt
button at the wrist and pushed the shirt and coat up,
baring a thin brown forearm. Danny hesitated, looking
at the dropper. Sweat ran down his nose. The boy was
looking up at him. Danny shoved the needle in the
boy’s forearm and watched the liquid drain into the
flesh. He straightened up.

The boy lay down, stretching. "I feel real sleepy.
Didn’t sleep all last night." His eyes were closing.

Danny walked across the room and pulled the shade
down. He went back to his room and closed the door
without locking it. He sat on the bed, looking at the
empty dropper. It was getting dark outside. Danny’s
body ached for junk, but it was a dull ache now, dull
and hopeless. Numbly, he took the needle of the
dropper and wrapped it in a piece of paper. Then he
wrapped the needle and dropper together. He sat there
with the package in his hand. "Gotta stash this
someplace", he thought.

Suddenly a warm flood pulsed through his veins and
broke in his head like a thousand golden speedballs.

"For Christ’s sake," Danny thought. "I must have
scored for the immaculate fix!

The vegetable serenity of junk settled in his tissues.
His face went slack and peaceful, and his head fell
forward.

Danny the Car Wiper was on the nod.


Junky's Christmas
William S Burroughs