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Chapter 37
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Or put your girl to sleep sometimes
with rats instead of nursery rhymes
with hunger and your other children by her side. |
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And wonder if you'll share your
bed
with something else that must be fed |
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for fear may lie beside you
or it may sleep down the hall. |
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And it might begin to teach you
how to give a damn
about your fellow man!
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The Americans I have the strongest feelings for are the addicts, who have
been too sensitive and human to - survive the brutal American drive for success.
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They are not only victims of that violence, but are capable of
hitting back with all the viciousness injected into them by the "American way
of life." |
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Often on the roofs of New York I helped tie up these bound souls. On
certain street corners in Harlem you see thousands of addicts every day waiting
for heroin. |
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At night not even the police dare move in these neighborhoods from
whose shooting galleries we sometimes could enjoy an incredible view of the "big
needle" on the Empire State Building.
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In my vagabond years I could easily knock the guns
from listless heroin addicts, but the far more dangerous crack
today makes addicts so paranoid that they riddle everyone around
with bullets. |
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These shooting galleries are condemned
buildings taken over by junkies who are partly "shooting up" and partly "shooting
down" anyone suspected of being a cop or a bustman. |
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Since the penalty for being
an addict and the criminal existence it leads to - or in other words a victim -
is the same as for being a murderer, they have no real choice. |
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They get a
mandatory life sentence whether they act as victims or executioners. The
shooting galleries are therefore extremely dangerous. |
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This man, who had been an
addict for 16 years, suffered from malnutrition and running sores all over his
body. He was unable to find any more healthy spots to shoot up in and therefore
had to take the foul-smelling bandage off his leg to find a vein. |
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He suffered
terribly and knew all too well that he had less than two years left to live.
Therefore he had nothing to lose, and urged me to show the pictures to the
world in order to frighten other young people so that they should never come to
suffer like himself. |
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AND IT MIGHT BEGIN TO TEACH YOU
HOW TO GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR FELLOW MAN ! |
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