Junky (27 page)

“
horror that has grown inside it
”: the original
Queer
MS. version of this material continues;
“Lee saw penises grow centipede legs, others moving about like jointed caterpillars. Lee watched curiously. ‘Very artistic' he said in a pansy voice. He did not feel fear.”

“
I sent my wife
”: from here to “I will try” restore lines inserted on the
Queer
MS. version of this material at the time Burroughs prepared the material for transposition to “Junk.”

“
with the cellular stoicism that junk bestows on the user
”: restores unused phrasing from the “Junk” MS. (cf “stoically” in
Junky
[1977] 134).

“
play with the cat some time
”: the “Junk” MS. continues with lines marked for omission;
“When I am on junk, I take pleasure in tormenting and terrorizing cats. I hold a cat out the window or provoke the unfortunate animal into biting or scratching, then slap it across the face with brutal force. I give the cats a bath and hold their heads under water.”

“
where everything is exactly
”: from here to “possible” restore lines struck through on the “Junk” MS. Note that in the same line, “inanity” is a correction of “insanity” (in
Junky
[1977] 139).

“
Every time exactly that much less
”: restores a line struck through on the “Junk” MS.

“
with the children
”: restores a phrase struck through on the “Junk” MS.

“
twisted with hate
”: this marks the end of material transposed from the
Queer
MS. (which carries on as per
Queer
18).

“
free junk and immunity
”: at this point, Ace inserted a note in
Junkie
(143): “Ed. note: This statement is hearsay and the publisher excepts [
sic
] no responsibility for its accuracy.”

“
I kept a little on hand
”: from here to “dropped in sick” restores a line struck through on the “Junk” MS., which did appear in
Junkie
(144), but not in
Junky
(1977) (145).

“
Lexington is full of young kids now
”: a retyped page of the “Junk” MS. continues;
“I fixed Bill up with Old Ike, but Bill wasn't satisfied. He couldn't limit himself to a schedule, so he was always running short. Besides he didn't really like M, and kept asking me to find him an H connection.”

“
One day I was in the Opera Bar
”: from here to “it was so full of crisp money” (126) did not appear in
Junkie.
This material, introduced on the MS. as “The Bad Piece of H,” was originally written as a separate piece from “Junk” during late summer 1952, and was inserted for
Junky
(1977) (149–51).

GLOSSARY

Glossary
: Burroughs' first draft (Ginsberg Collection, Stanford University) begins with a different opening paragraph, and a different first line to the second:
“The purpose of a glossary is to explain the meaning of words and expressions used in a book. It seems logical to put the glossary at the beginning so the reader will be able to understand what he is about to read. I don't know why glossaries are always found at the end of a book. Anyway, here is my glossary at the beginning of this book.
   
“
‘Jive talk,' which seems to be largely a Negro invention, is used more in connection with marijuana than junk.”

This draft was divided into four separate sections of entries. The second was introduced as “largely ‘jive talk'”; the third as “specific to ‘lush workers
'
”; and the fourth as “miscellaneous expressions.”

“Heat”:
this entry is restored from Burroughs' first draft glossary, and seems to have been lost in revision.

“
Nembies”:
after the phrase “to take the edge off,” Burroughs' first draft glossary continued;
“Sometimes injected
intravenously. If you miss the vein you will surely get an
abscess. Barbiturates are more dangerous than junk because a user of barbiturates—eight or more capsules per day—gets the horrors when he is cut off barbiturates, and he is subject to epileptic fits with frequent head injury from flopping around on concrete
floors. He is most likely to find himself cut off in a place where the floors are concrete.”

“The People . . .
Narcotics agents. A New Orleans expression”; corrects a continuity error (cf “Another New Orleans expression” in
Junky
[1977]) introduced because in Burroughs' first draft glossary, not made in alphabetical order, his entry for “The People” followed the one for “Pusher.”

“Score:
To buy junk or marijuana”; restores a correction made in Burroughs' first draft glossary (cf “To buy weed or marijuana” in
Junky
[1977] 157).

“
For example, ‘Fey'”: in
Junkie
this was followed by “also now (1953)”; deleted for
Junky
(1977).

APPENDIX 1: CHAPTER 28 OF
THE ORIGINAL “JUNK”
Manuscript
(Ginsberg Collection, Stanford University)

“he calls ‘orgones
'
”: on the manuscript Burroughs spells it “Orgonne,” an error that suggests he wrote this material without refreshing his memory by reading any of Reich's books. Note the glossary definition: “ORGONE ENERGY: Primordial Cosmic Energy; universally present and demonstrable visually, thermically, electroscopically and by means of Geiger-Mueller counters. In the living organism: Bioenergy, Life Energy. Discovered by Wilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1940.” (See Wilhelm Reich,
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
[Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975], 34.)

APPENDIX 3: LETTER FROM WILLIAM BURROUGHS
TO A. A. WYN [1959]
(Ginsberg Collection, Columbia University)

“Preface. Page 8, Line 8”
: see “Prologue” xlii.

“Page 21, Line 1
”: see
Junky
4.

“Page 85, Line 22”:
see
Junky
68.

“Page 93, Line
5
”: see
Junky
75.

“
Page 120, last line”:
see
Junky
110.

“
Page 150 in the original M.S.
”: see
Junky
107–8.

APPENDIX 4: “
JUNKIE
: AN APPRECIATION”(1952)
BY ALLEN GINSBERG

“Junkie
—An Appreciation”: excerpted from a letter to Ace Books, April 12 1952, previously published in Allen Ginsberg,
Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays
, 1952–1995 (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), edited by Bill Morgan, 380–82.

APPENDIX 6: FOREWORD TO
JUNKIE
(1964)
BY CARL SOLOMON

“
Foreword
”: the text of this piece is reprinted from the 1973 Bruce and Watson edition of
Junkie
.