Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 2, April/May 1966

Needle Street by J. Kenneth O’Street

He’d been away for three years. Now he was back on the street and nothing had changed. Nothing and no one... except Carol.

I paused, my back to the lighted subway exit, and glanced around the small park. The gathering dusk hid the dirt and the litter — the squalor I knew was there and had always been there.

Home, sweet home. The phrase popped into my mind unbidden, and I grimaced.

I might have been away three days instead of the three years which had passed for me like three centuries. Nothing had changed.

A couple of winos, imagining that they were hidden in the shadows beneath the large, guano-frosted statue of a long dead and forgotten mayor of New York, sat passing a bottle of white port. In small, scattered groups and singly drunks, bums and hopheads stood or walked aimlessly, waiting — for nothing. A junkie sat alone on a bench by the scum-streaked water fountain staring fixedly up the graveled walk. I walked toward him.

It’s easy to spot a junkie, if you know what to look for. And I do. This one was waiting for his pusher. Any narcotics agent would have spotted him at a glance. Or any long-time junkie.

And I’m not a cop.

As I sat down on the other end of his bench the junkie jerked his head around and started to get up.

“Cool it, baby,” I said quietly, shaking my head, “I’m just trying to locate an old friend. Get it?” A beautiful girl. Her name is Carol, Carol, Carol and I am going to kill, kill—

I forced my mind to break the familiar, tight little circle before it could get started, and watched the junkie. He was young and thin, hollow-cheeked and dirty. The pupils of his eyes were widely dilated.

“So?” he said flatly, not relaxing.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out two crumpled bills — a five and a single — my last. I rubbed them slowly one against the other between thumb and curled forefinger, letting him see the denominations. Six bucks. Not much to most people. Not much unless you’ve got a twenty dollar a day habit that demands satisfaction.

“Who?” asked the kid. He eyed the two bills.

“Gig Madison! Willie the Creep. A kid called Doodle. Bo Wheeler.” I paused, surprised at the limited number of names I could dredge up from the old days. “Any of those,” I finished lamely.

The kid frowned, licking his lips. “That last guy — Bo something. He a tall skinny cat, big nose?”

“Yeah,” I said quickly, “know where he is?” I held out the bills, drawing my hand back fast as he reached for them.

“You first,” I said, and waited.

He stared at the money for a moment, his hand outstretched, then spoke. “The Dalton. He’s got a room there, second floor. O.K.?”

I stood and slipped the bills back into my pocket. “Thanks,” I said as I turned to go.

“Hey! Wait a minute. What about the dough?”

“Bill me for it, punk,” I tossed over my shoulder and grinned to myself.

Bo Wheeler. He’ll know. And if he doesn’t someone will. She won’t be far away and she won’t be hard to find.

I left the park and entered the narrow canyon beyond called Needle Street by the junkies, pushers and cops who walked its dingy length each day; past dark pawnshops namless flophouses; past the dirty store with its bottledlined shelves, a sign in the window advertising VINTAGE WINES — 35¢ PINT, where the neighborhood cops sometimes stood hidden in the rear watching the winos come in, waiting for one to flash more money than was good for him to keep; past the human derelicts with their blank eyes and the inevitable heavily made-up hooker, her wares displayed with the aid of a supposedly sexy off-the-shoulder peasant blouse.

Just before reaching the end of that first block of Needle Street I passed a pair of New York’s finest, their badges dully reflecting colored light cast by cheap neon. One nudged the other and I ignored the knowing glance they exchanged as they made me for a brand-new ex-con, which is another easy trick if you know what to look for. I crossed the street feeling their eyes on my back, not caring.

I stopped on the corner and stared at the faded sign hanging over a dimly lighted doorway. “HOTEL” it stated tiredly — nothing more. A stylized red neon martini glass with swizzle stick hung suspended in a plate glass window by an open door through which poured the blare of a juke along with the odor of stale beer and stale bodies. There was no name but I knew that the bar was called “Harry’s” by everyone who knew it, although the original possessor of the name had sold out and moved away so long ago that no one here remembered him, or cared.

And the hotel was called the Dalton.

I hesitated beneath the hanging sign then pushed open the glass door of the cheap hotel and stepped inside.

At the top of the single long flight of stairs a bare bulb dangled at the end of its cord, casting a few faint rays of illumination down to struggle fitfully with the pool of darkness gathered at the foot of the stairwell. I climbed the stairs slowly, listening to their creaking protest against my 180 pounds. As my head came above floor level the night clerk looked up from the comic book he had been reading in the small cubicle which served as an office.

“Yeah?” he said, not rising.

“A room. Second floor if you’ve got one,” I said;

He stood, holding a can of beer down out of sight, a quick, appraising glance taking in my brand-new, cheap suit and fresh, short haircut. I could almost see the wheels turning behind his dull eyes as he rubbed a two-day growth of beard.

“Well, let me think.” He turned and pretended to study an unpainted plywood board nailed to the wall behind him, tagged room keys hanging against black silhouettes of themselves from a triple row of pegs. “I got one three-dollar room left on two—” he shot a look at my unresponding face and added, “oh, yeah, here’s a two-buck room.” He reached for a key. “Two-oh-five.”

I dropped the single on the bare counter and smiled, “It’s only a buck tonight, friend. Right?” The landlord collected one dollar per signature in the register each morning in these dumps and didn’t care what the night clerk squeezed out of each room; but if the owner ever learned that anyone had been turned away simply because he wouldn’t come across with a buck for the boy, then the boy would be looking for a new job.

Not that the buck mattered to me as such. But it might take a couple of days to find Carol, and a dollar might make a difference. And when I find her I will kill her and she will know that she is dying and why. And when she is dead they will come for me and eventually they will kill me, not knowing that I am already dead.

The grubby clerk shoved the open register across the counter, resentment apparent in his voice as he said shortly, “Sign the book,” and resumed his seat, jamming the bill into his shirt pocket.

I ran my eye quickly over the registrations for the last three days — some illegible, others sprawled across the page, ninety percent phoney. There was no “Bo Wheeler” listed — nor had I expected there would be.

I shrugged and wrote “James Conway” beneath the last of several John Smiths, feeling a vague satisfaction in not having to add another John Smith to the list. I picked up the key and went up the next flight of stairs.

The hall was long and narrow, lined on each side with closed doors about ten feet apart. Yellow light fell through dirty glass transoms above several doors. The worn rubber runner muffled my footsteps as I moved down the hall, pausing briefly to listen before each door with a lighted transom. Toward the end of the hall I found the door I wanted.

The light shone very dimly through the transom. I stood and listened for a full two minutes to the muted sounds in the room. I could distinguish at least five different voices engaged in a desultory conversation against the background of a steady, pleading monotone. Twice came the flat sound of an open palm striking bare flesh. Dropping to my hands and knees I sniffed at the crack beneath the door. The smell was of sweat and smoke and heroin.

As I climbed to my feet my heart began to beat faster. I took a deep breath and released it slowly before knocking on the flimsy, paneled door. There was a sudden silence in the room broken after a moment by a voice I remembered well.

“What the hell. Who is it?”

“Jim,” I answered, “open up, Bo.”

Another pause then a key rattled in the lock. The door opened a crack sending a thin line of light cutting across the hall and up the opposite wall. An eye peered through the narrow opening, squinted at the darkness, and the door opened wider. I put my shoulder against the door and shoved. The guy behind the door yelped and fell as I stepped into the room, closing the door behind me.

The room was so familiar that I gagged a little. It was a “shooting gallery”. One junkie gets a room and the word gets around. All his friends and their friends stream in. It’s somewhere to go.

The room was littered with the debris of addiction — bits of toilet paper and rags that had been used to wipe blood from arms and the soft inner sides of thighs; paper cups half-filled with pinkish fluid — water tinted with blood from the cleaning of needles; scraps of electric-light cord chopped up and separated into thin strands with which to unplug needles; charred metal bottle tops used to cook the heroin. Everywhere on the floor clothing, magazines and cigarette butts were strewn. There was a large burn in the bare mattress on the narrow bed. Nodding junkies sat and lay on the littered floor, dreaming.

A girl was being supported by two guys in the corner by the bed. She was wearing a thin slip, a strap down over one shoulder half-exposing her breast. When they saw that I was not the fuzz one of them turned back to her, begging in a crooning, desperate voice, “Come on, baby, get straight — you’ve got to meet that john in a half-hour. I’ve already got the room, baby, and you gotta be there. No play, no pay, and we got no wake-up fix. Come on, goddam it, get straight.” He slapped her face sharply.

The punk I had upended was crawling to his feet, cursing. He got a good look at me and shut up fast. I looked past him at the tall, thin, dark-haired figure standing barechested at the foot of the bed, a narrow belt pulled tight around a thin arm, its end swinging as if it had just been dropped.

“Hello, Bo,” I said softly.

Bo peered at me, trying to place my face in a past in which one day was the same as the last — one face pretty much the same as another — the next fix being the only, all-consuming reality. Then his eyes lighted as he remembered.

“Jim — Jim boy! Goddam! When did you get out?”

I stepped over a nodding addict sitting on the floor and took Bo’s outstretched hand. “This morning, Bo. How’ve you been?”

Bo shrugged his narrow shoulders. “You know how it is, man,” he said, dropping his eyes. “Excuse me a minute, Jim boy,” he added as he picked up the belt end and placed it between his teeth, drawing it tighter around his arm, forcing the veins to stand out.

I nodded and watched as Bo dumped the powder from a tiny bag of heroin into a bottle top already filled with water. He held a match under the “cooker” until the white powder dissolved. Then he placed the tip of a needle into the liquid, drawing it up from the bottom of the container. He stuck the needle into a vein and waited for the blood to start backing up into the syringe.

I waited while he squeezed in a few drops, let it back into the syringe again, squeezed in a little more, let it back up, squeezed in more, and continued the in and out process until the fluid was dark red with blood. Then he shot it all in and withdrew the needle.

Bo rubbed his arm with a dirty rag, his eyes closed, waiting for the drug to take effect. Then he opened his eyes and smiled. “Good stuff. Get it from Carlos. His stuff is always good. Hey, you want a fix, Jim boy?” he asked suddenly.

I shook my head not letting the old wanting that had began to churn up my insides as I had watched Bo mainline show in my face. “I’m not looking for junk, Bo,” I answered. “I came to find Carol. Do you know where she is?”

Bo raised his eyebrows and looked at me searchingly, his eyes bright, the pupils already pinpoints. Then he laughed — a short, nasty laugh — and jerked his grinning head sideways.

I turned, not understanding, as the two junkies sat the girl down on the edge of the bed. She fell back, anesthetized, face up to the light filtering down from a hanging bulb shaded by a pair of scorching shorts. Then recognition hit me and I must have shown the shock, because Bo laughed again, as if something were infinitely amusing.

I spun on him and hit him in his bare white belly with everything I had. He folded up on the floor making funny noises as he tried to force his paralyzed diaphragm to pull air back into his emptied lungs. I stepped past him and the two hop-heads standing over Carol crowded back into the corner out of my way as I walked over and looked down at her sprawled form.

I had seen Carol before, often when she needed a fix badly, but I had never imagined that I would ever see her looking like this. Her eyes were widely dilated from heroin withdrawal. She obviously had been without a fix for at least six or seven hours. Her face looked as if make-up had been laid on it with a trowel, and one side was red and swollen slightly from her boyfriend’s abortive attempts to slap sensibility into her. Her hair, which had been a rich, dark brown, was a ridiculous orange-red. One breast was fully exposed now and the dull red nipple stood out starkly against the flaccid, gray-tinged flesh. She was just barely conscious.

I became aware that I had been holding my breath and let it out slowly, closing my eyes on the pitiful wreck that was, still, Mrs. James Conway — whose memory had made me a model prisoner for three, long years; a model prisoner so I could get an early parole for good behavior and go to her and feel her soft, white throat under my hands and watch her face as I strangled the life from her lovely, rotten body.

And now her body was no longer lovely or even remotely desirable — and she wasn’t even aware that I was in the room.

I let the memories come welling up-memories which, along with the sweet contemplation of death, had been my sole mental activity for the last three years: Carol, Carol — the wild and beautiful girl whom I had met and married in my senior year at Columbia. Carol, so hungry for life and greedy for new experiences that I had flunked my finals in the effort to keep up with her.

At first it had been like a wonderful dream. We had eagerly explored each other’s bodies, dreaming up wild sexual variations and, exhausting our imaginations but not our desire, turning to illustrated pornography for new ideas. I had been enough for her sexually, but Carol needed new people and new experiences like a flower needs the sun.

She was a magnet for off-beat characters, turning up with one new weird-o after another, and I followed her to parties and met people the likes of which I had never dreamed existed. Heavy drinking and marijuana had been the order of the day and the odor of the night, and where I only sampled she indulged deeply, which was her nature. I never did know where she had first experimented with heroin, but I do know that one day the dream had begun to turn into nightmare — she was hooked.

And I was hooked on her. I lied to my parents, cheated my friends, and stole anything I could lay hand to get the money with which to supply her need, because I knew that if I did not she would sell her beautiful body for the little bags of white powder — and that final degradation I would not let happen.

Somewhere along the line I had become hooked myself and to supply both habits I had turned to pushing. I would not allow Carol to help me directly. Not my Carol, my life. I wanted her in no danger.

She did help out, though. For the six hours that I pushed the junk each day Carol sat in the bar across from our hotel, watching for narcotics agents. In case one did enter the building she was to have telephoned, giving me time to flush the snow down the toilet before the three flights of stairs could be climbed. It worked well in practice. I never found out if it would work in actuality, because the first and only time the narcos came calling the phone didn’t ring.

I had not seen or heard from Carol since the morning of the day of my arrest, but the bartender from the joint across the street had come to see me one day before the trial. I was still sick and shaking from the hell of cold-turkey withdrawal from heroin. Mike, the bartender, had come to apologize — for failing to spot the narcos when they had entered the hotel. He thought I knew that Carol was in the habit of making pick-ups in the bar during the day, leaving Mike to keep a casual eye on the hotel for a small cut with the promise of a substantial bonus if it ever were necessary to actually call me.

It had not seemed odd to Mike that my wife would be hustling while I was pushing. We were junkies. At the time of my arrest Carol had been entertaining two sailors in a cheap hotel room and Mike had missed the narcos. It had taken three guards to get me back into my cell, and if the partition had not been between us, three guards or thirty guards could not have saved Mike.

Bo was on his feet now, slightly bent, holding his gut with crossed arms. The two junkies who had been trying to get Carol in shape to make her date had slid along the wall behind me and were standing in front of the door, watching me.

Bo managed to gasp, “Jesus, Jim, that was a hell of a thing to do.” He spat on the bare mattress, perspiration beading his upper lip.

I ignored him and looked at the pair by the door. “Which one of you does she stay with?” I asked.

They exchanged a look and the one who had slapped Carol answered, a half-hearted sneer in his voice, his hand on the doorknob.

“She’s been with me about four months. I was gonna ditch her. She don’t make enough anymore — besides, her habit is too damn big and... well, look at her.”

I looked. At the tangled hair and slack mouth; at the exposed breast and pasty skin; at the scarred arms and, where the dirty slip was hiked up the thin legs, the scarred thighs. And I thought: You poor, pitiful bitch. Twenty-five years old and burned out. You can’t make enough from your body to supply its demands. You poor, pitiful bitch. And I felt no pity.

I turned to Bo, who was still holding his belly, and said, “Listen to me, Bo. Listen good. When she’s had a fix and can understand tell her this for me: Tell her Jim was here, that I came to take her away. Tell her it was going to be just like the old days — me pushing and her watching and all the snow we wanted. Just like the old days. Then tell her I took one look at her and threw up. Got that, Bo?”

Bo repeated what I had said and I could see that he believed it. When he finished I nodded and walked out. In the darkness of the hallway I suddenly wanted to cry. The feeling passed and I laughed instead.

Kill her? The mirth welled up from deep inside. Hell, I wouldn’t think of interrupting the beautiful job she’s doing on herself.

I pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into the night. I walked back down Needle Street toward the subway station in the park where junkies and pushers always hang out, my hand in my pocket fingering the lone five-spot. I felt elated. Carol was dead and I was alive.

Jesus, I wish I had a fix. The thought came, crystal clear and whole, as if someone had spoken suddenly inside my head. I rejected it, but the gate had been opened and I could not close it so easily.

The voice whispered: Just one. Because you feel so great. You don’t want to lose this feeling yet, do you? Just one fix can’t hurt you, Jim boy, can it?

I walked on down Needle Street, listening to the voice in my head.