maya restifo’s Reviews > Junky > Status Update

“when i jumped bail and left the States, the heat on junk already looked like something new and special. initial symptoms of nationwide hysteria were clear. louisiana passed a law making it a crime to be a drug addict. since no place or time is specified and the term ‘addict’ is not clearly defined, no proof is necessary or even relevant under a law so formulated. no proof, and consequently, no trial.”

“some people you can spot as far as you can see; others you can’t be sure of until you are close enough to touch them. junkies are mostly in sharp focus. there had been a time when my blood pressure rose with pleasure at the sight of Old Ike. when you are on the junk, the pusher is like the loved one to a lover.”

“a mild degree of junk sickness always brought me the magic of childhood. ‘it never fails,’ i thought. ‘just like a shot. i wonder if all junkies score for this wonderful stuff.’”

“i do not accept the theory that junk is lurking in the body at all time — the spine is where it supposedly holes up — and i disagree with all psychological answers. i think the use of junk causes permanent cellular alteration. once a junkie, always a junkie. you can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit.”

“perhaps he stores something in his body — a substance to prolong life — of which he is periodically milked by his masters. he is as specialized as an insect, for the performance of some inconceivably vile function.”

“criminal law is one of the few professions where the client buys someone else’s luck. the luck of most people is nontransferable. but a good criminal lawyer can sell all his luck to his client, and the more luck he sells the more he has to sell.”

“as the wagon jolted along on the way back to the precinct, i felt the morphine spread through all my cells. my stomach moved and rumbled. a shot when you are very sick always starts the stomach moving. normal strength came back to all my muscles. i was hungry and sleepy.”

shmecker - jewish drug enthusiast

“pushing junk is a constant strain on the nerves. sooner or later, you get the ‘copper jitters,’ and everybody looks like a cop. people moving about in the subway seem to be edging closer so they can grab you before you have a chance to throw away the junk.”

“the american upper-middle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. he is largely delineated by what he is not. gains went further. he was not mere negative. he was positively invisible; a vagud respectable presence. there is a certain kind of ghost that can only materialize with the aid of a sheet or other piece of cloth to give it outline. gaines was like that. he materialized in someone else’s overcoat.”