"As a wise old black faggot said to me, 'Some people are shits, darling.'
A basic split between shits and Johnsons has emerged. I see the world as a stage on which different actors are assigned to different roles. Of course, any Johnson does do shitty things at times. But he knows enough to regret such actions. It is very rare that a hardcore shit acts like a Johnson. He simply does not understand what it means to be a Johnson, and is irrevocably committed to a contrary viewpoint. A direct confrontation of the shits and the Johnsons could be as drastic as the conjunction of matter and antimatter: POOF! No reconciliation, no agreeing to disagree, is possible."
-- WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
This is an excerpt from the foreward Burroughs wrote for Jack Black's "You Can't Win." The book is known as Burroughs' favorite book, he even used pieces of it for his own book "Junky."
The book is a gem and its style, let alone the story, can't be found in any literature since.
The writing and content is straightforward and simple. Black's autobiographical story describes his life in the hobo underground at the turn of the century. He describes freight-hopping his way across the west, while meeting the unsavory and the surprisingly kind in the yegg community. Becoming a member of the Johnson crime family, Black thieves with the salt-of-the-earth folk who live according to a tough and fair code; people who would stick their necks out for a friend.
Black spends his life in crime, opium dens, and penitentiaries, writing all the while. This book details a past way of life that will never be again. It's a strange and insightful translation of this country's history; good, but mostly grim.
Black may have disappeared, but he preserved a portion of the beginnings that you wouldn't have known otherwise.
