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was especially brighter, as if a dirty window had been washed clean. The neon had already entranced me; now it transfixed me as if super-naturally brilliant. Willy turned on a dashboard radio and the music, intricate piano jazz, was so simple to my perceptions that I could pick each note from the air—and almost see it. For no reason except that it bubbled in me, I began to giggle. The world was crystal clear.
    â€œMan, you’re stoned,” Willy said.
    â€œGoddam sure am …” but kept laughing. “It’s been a long time. This is like cherry kicks.”
    â€œWhat gets me is this—we’ve been smokin’ pot in the ghetto all our lives, and it used to be the most terrible crime. You never got a break in court if you got busted. Now that all those sons and daughters of senators and shit are smokin’ grass and gettin’ busted they’re changin’ the laws. They didn’t give a fuck when it was us poor suckers.”
    â€œThat’s saying something—but we were out of step with the time.”
    Willy started the motor and we cruised aimlessly, recalling other days. Soon his brother was mentioned, and Willy cursed him as a “dirty stool pigeon motherfucker—not my brother”. I doubted that Willy’s feelings were anywhere near so intense as his words (he was probably saddened), but he knew my feelings about stool pigeons and wanted to disassociate himself from his brother.
    A lighted clock in a dry cleaner’s window gave the time as 11:40. Sleep was the farthest thing from my mind (fuck sleeping the first night out), yet tomorrow I had to see Rosenthal, find lodging, look for a job. I needed a chemical substitute for sleep.
    â€œWhere can we get some bennies?” I asked.
    â€œL&L Red is the only one I know who fucks with them, but he won’t be at his pad yet.”
    â€œIs that old freak still around?”
    â€œWorse than ever.”
    â€œLet’s make one of those fruiter bars downtown. They drop stimulants like chickens peckin’ corn.”
    Willy started to protest that we were too likely to get stopped by the police downtown, but finally deferred to me—and I knew it was because it was my first night. I remembered when he’d jump at the chance to go wherever I wanted—when I had a pocketful of money and picked up the tabs.
    Main Street was as bright as Hollywood Boulevard. Willy drove slowly while I scanned the teeming sidewalks. Only ground floor businesses were open, pawn shops, hot dog stands, penny arcades, movie theatres showing porno films twenty-four hours a day. Mainly there were the bars, Western, Mexican, Rock and Roll, each with its front door flung wide and the particular style of music cascading forth. I suddenly remembered how the all-night theatres smelled of piss.
    Vice here was bargain basement and wore no masks. A whore was liable to grab a sucker through his pants and drag him by his tool into a bust-out hotel. Clots of seedy blacks were on the sidewalks. They viewed themselves as con men and pimps, but with beaver hats, pointed shoes, and zircon rings looked so hip they scared all but the stupidest suckers, which were young servicemen.
    But homosexuality was the reigning vice here. Young male prostitutes outnumbered female whores, posturing so masculinely as to be a parody. And the feminine “queens” were everywhere, roaming up and down, alone or in groups, congregated most thickly around certain gay bars, posing and swishing, each fluttering hand gesture or thrown shoulder a caricature of womanhood. Their loud gaiety was defiant, if not hysterical.
    Pairs of uniformed police with nightsticks patrolled each block, looking for a cripple—the drunks, brawlers, or those who otherwise disturbed peaceful order. A paddy wagon journeyed constantly between Main Street and the city jail. Plainclothes police also prowled around in search of whatever luck and someone’s stupidity