Fuzz Against Junk

Akbar Del Piombo

Originally published in The Evergreen Review Issue 101 in 1998.
Collages and pictorials by Norman Rubington

Fuzz Against Junk
The Sage of the Narcotics Brigade

Sir Edwin Fuzz enjoying an hour of leisure in his London club. Foremost narcotics expert of the United Kingdom and sleuth par excellence, he reads, unaware of the impending significance for himself, stories of sudden outbreaks of violence ravaging the streets of New York...

Sir Edwin undergoing rapid debriefing. State and Federal authorities co-operated to put at his fingertips all the data accumulated in years of combating the spread of drug addiction. Some of the more striking exhibits are presented on the following pages and will convince the reader of both the thoroughness of the police, and the ingenuity and craft of certain of the more redoubtable criminals.

Fig. 1: Californian two-hour pelvic region "fix."
Fig. 2 : "Opium Vapor Bath"; upright position for two-hour "fix."
Fig. 3: "Quickie" vapour bath, upright position, for limbs only.

Here we find one of the most amazing hauls ever made in narcotics history. Intensive laboratory examination has not yet revealed the functions of all the curious instruments pictured. Sir Edwin is at a loss to explain the clocklike instrument in the lower right-hand corner, obviously the work of Swiss craftsmen. Most of the needle-like objects were meant for intravenous hypodermic syringes and their considerable variety of form, the use of wheels and drilling apparatus suggests they were employed by a fanatical sect of masochistic "junkies." (Junkies: criminal term for Heroin addicts.) At the top left, one sees the more classical syringes with gadgets that served equally for self punishment or clandestine obstetrics. Top right and bottom left show two possible functions for the clock mechanism; one of Sir Edwin's pet theories is that the addict of low means could hereby attain his daily dosage by some process of osmosis, whether by placing the special head on the surface of the lung or through the fingers as demonstrated.

Photos found in the possession of San Francisco "Beatnik" and representing a typical jazz-poetry gathering, complete with a prototype bongo drum and orator reciting. Often accompanied with the smoking of "pot." Pseudo-bohemian atmosphere and typical disarray customary with this group. Note the brutish attitudes also common to their type, characteristic of the dope action referred to as being "stoned." The host is a prominent writer for them, although his principal vocabulary centers predominantly on the use of four-letter words, and the stories contain no action other than what is normally considered obscene.

We come now to the mysterious personage known in the "milieu" as "The Man." Here is the key figure in the narcotic drama. Around him centers all the activity of the underworld for he is the principal dispensing agent of the drugs so desperately craved by the criminals. Note particularly the sadistic temperament of this criminal, his extraordinary capacity for dissimulating his appearance in the most outlandish of disguises, which has kept him for years out of the tentacles of the police. It was in fact their long-standing inability to capture him which induced the FBI to seek out the services of Sir Edwin Fuzz. It will later be related how Sir Edwin managed at long last to snare this prize catch, to his everlasting glory in the annals of police victories.

Special armament shipped overland to San Francisco, destined to implement Sir Edwin's campaign.

Detectives in San Francisco, waiting for the arrival of Sir Edwin Fuzz, obviously determined to sabotage New Yorkers butting into their affairs. Instantly aware that the San Francisco police had no intention of co-operating in his campaign, Sir Edwin Fuzz was obliged to resort to subterfuge. He thus ordered his men to disguise themselves as Californians. "You are now secret agents in every sense of the term," he told them. Consequently they were masked most of the time, rarely went abroad in daylight and then only to the nearest bookshop where they secured the necessary reading material to implement their disguise. "You are 'Beat' from now on," Sir Edwin instructed them, "and you will act accordingly. Bone up on 'Zen.' Refrain from washing and let your hair grow. Listen to music … the stuff they call 'Cool' … learn the names of the bands … become adept on the 'Bongo' drum … and …! I am afraid it is necessary also … learn to take a 'fix'! If you cannot familiarize yourselves with the 'Beat' vocabulary, keep your mouths shut and write poetry. For that you need only extract passages from the Farmer's Almanac and inject obscene words in the right places…"

Sir Edwin was not long in discovering that the prize he sought was on the premises. In fact "The Man" was in an upstairs room preparing a "fix." While Sir Edwin was smoking "pot," secret agents strategically deployed prepared to spring the trap. Among the "Beatniks" were several detectives who had succeeded in passing themselves off as criminals, following Sir Edwin's example.