The Johnson Family (by Old Bull Burroughs)

"I first heard this expression in a book called  'You Can't Win' by Jack Black, the life story of a burglar. The book was published in 1924 and I read it as a boy, fascinated by this dark furtive purposeful world. I managed to get a copy and re-read the book with poignant nostalgia. Between the reader in 1924 and the reader in 1980 falls the shadow of August 6, 1945, one of the most portentous dates of history.

Train wishtles across a distant sky. This is a peep show back to the world of rod-riding yeggs and peat men ans cat burglars, bindle stiffs, gay cats and hobo jungles and Salt Chunk Mary the fence in her two-story red brick house down by the tracks somewhere in Idaho. She keeps a blue porcelain coffee pot and and iron pot of pork and beans always in the fire. You eat first and talk business later the watches and rings sloped out on the kitchen table by the chipped coffee mugs. She named a price and she didn't name another. Mary could say no quicker than any woman I ever know and none of then ever meant yes. She kept the money in a cookie jar but nobody ever thought about that. Her cold grey eyes would have seen the thought and maybe something goes wrong on the next lay. John Law just happens by or a citizen comes up with a load of .00 buck shot into your soft and tenders.

In this world of shabby rooming houses, furtive grey figures in dark suits, hop joints and chili parlors the Johnson Family took shape as a code of conduct. To say someone is a Johnson means he keeps his word and honors his obligations. He's a good man to do business with and a good man to have on your team. He is not malicious, snooping, interfering, self-righteous trouble-making person.

You get to know a Johnson when you see one, and you get to know those of another persuasion. I remember in the Merchant Marine training center at Sheepshead Bay when the war ended. Most of the trainees quit right then and there was a long line to turn in equipment which had to be checked out itme by item; some of us had only been there a few days  and we had no equipment to turn in. So we hoped to avoid standing for hours, days perhaps in line for no porpuse. I remember this spade cat said: Well, we're going to meet a nice guy or we're going to meet a prick. We met a prick but we managed to find a Johnson.

Yes, you get to know a Johnson when you see one. The cop who gave me a joint to smoke in the wagon. The hotel clerk who tipped me off I was hot. And sometimes you don't see  the Johnson. I remember a friend of mine asked someone to send him a cake of hash from France. Well, the asshole put it into a cheap envelope with no wrapping and it cut through the envelope. But some Johnson had put it back in and sealed the envelope with the tape.

Years ago I was stranded in the wilds of East Texas and Bill Gains was sending a little Pantapon through the mail and he invented this clever code and the telegrams are flying back and forth.

'Urgently need pants'

'Panic among dealers. No pants avaliable.'

This was during the war in a town of 200 people. By rights we should have the FBI swarming all over us. I remember the telegraph operator in his office in the railroad station. He had a kind, unhappy, face. I suspect he was having troubles with his wife. Never a question or comment. He just didn't care what pants stood for. He was a Johnson.

A Johnson minds his own business. But he will help when help is needed. He doesn't stand by while someone is drowning or trapped in a wrecked car. Kells Elvins, a friend of mine, was doing 90 in his Town and Country Chrysler on the way from Pharr, Texas to Laredo. He comes up over a rise and there is a fucking cow right in the middle of the road on the bridge. He slams on the brakes and hits the cow doing 60. The car flips over and he is pinned under it with a broken collar bone covered from head to foot with blood and guts and cowshit. So along comes a car with some salesmen in it. They get cautiosly. He tells them just how to jack the car up and get it off him but they see that blood they don't want to know. They don't want to get mixed up with anything like that. They get back in their car and drive away. Then a truck driver comes along. He doesn't need to be told exactly what to do, gets the car off Kells and drives him to a hospital. The truck driver was a Johnson. The salesmen were shits like most salesmen. Selling shit and they are shit.

(...)"

The Johnson Family; W.S. BURROUGHS

source: http://www.dennisdread.com/destroying-angels.html

Pssssss, thanks Rob for the bulldada documents!!!

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