Herbert Huncke
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Early Life
Raised in Chicago, Herbert Huncke was a street hustler, high school drop out and drug addict who lived the lifestyle described by Jack Black (author) in his autobiography You Can't Win. The book -- and Huncke's life -- was centered around living as an outlaw hobo, jumping trains across the vast expanse of the United States, bonding through a shared destitution and comradery with other hoboes of all walks of life. Although Huncke later came to regret his loss of family ties, in his autobiography, Guilty of Everything he states his lenghty jail sentences were a partial result of his lack of family support, Huncke left Chicago as a teenager after his parents divorced.
New York City & Times Square
Huncke arrived in New York City in 1939. He was dropped off at 103rd and Broadway and he asked the person he had hitched a ride with how to find 42nd Street. "You walk straight down Broadway," he was told, "and you will find 42nd Street." Huncke, always a good dresser, bought a boutonniere for his jacket and headed for 42nd Street. For the next ten years Huncke was a 42nd Street regular and became known as the "Mayor of 42nd Street." Times Square, New York City
At this point Huncke's regular haunts were 42nd Street Times Square, where he associated with people of all kinds including [prostitute]]s (both male and female) and sailors. During World War II, Huncke shipped out to sea as a Merchant Marines to ports in South America, Africa and Europe. He landed on the beach of Normandy three days after the invasion.
Aboard ships, Huncke would kick his drug habit or keep it up with morphine syrettes supplied by the ship medic. When he returned to New York he returned to 42nd Street and it was after one of these trips where he met then-unknown writer William S. Burroughs who was selling a sawed-off shotgun and a box of morphine syrettes. Huncke took an immediate dislike to Burroughs and thought he was "heat," slang for undercover police or FBI. Assured that Burroughs was all right, Huncke bought the morphine and, at Burroughs request, immediately gave him an injection.
Thus began a long career of drug use by Burroughs and Huncke became a lead character in William Burrough's first pulp novel, written under the pseudonyme Bull Lee: "JUNKIE Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict."
Huncke was a bi-sexual hustler, drug user, thief and burglar. His autobiography, titled "Guilty of Everything," was lived in the 40s and 60s but published in the 1990s. He was a non-violent man and an exceptionally good story teller.
During the late 40s, Huncke was recruited to be a subject in Alfred Kinsey's research on the sexual habits of the American male. He was interviewed by Kinsey, and recruited fellow addicts and friends to participate. Huncke was a writer, unpublished, since his days in Chicago and osscialated toward literary types and musicians. In the music world Huncke visited all the jazz clubs and associated with Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon (whom he was once busted with on 42nd Street for breaking into a parked car.) When he first met Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs they were interested in writing and also unpublished. They were inspired by his stories of 42nd Street life, criminal life, street slang and Huncke's vast experience with drugs.
It is through Huncke that Burroughs was first exposed to jive talk and morphine --elements that would become central to Burroughs' writing. Huncke appears in Junky, William Burroughs’ first novel published under the pen name William Lee in 1952. Huncke was a close friend of Joan Adams Vollmer Burroughs, William's common-law wife, as he shared a fondness for amphetamines with her. In the late 40s Huncke was invited to Texas to grow marijuana on the Burroughs farm.
Huncke told them stories of life on 42nd Street, his life on the road prior to New York City and, obligingly, turned them on to drugs.
Although it was his passion for thievery, heroin use and the outlaw lifestyle which fueled his daily activities, ultimately, when he was caught he never ratted out his friends. In the late 40s Allen Ginsberg, Jack Melody and "Detroit Redhead" flipped a car in Queens, New York while trying to run down a motorcycle cop. Although Huncke was not at the scene of the crime, he was picked-up in Manhattan because he lived with Ginsberg and Huncke received the heavy prison sentence.
"Someone had to do the bit." Huncke said years later.
Writing Career
Huncke himself was a natural storyteller, a unique character with a paradoxically honest take on life. Later, after the formation of the so-called Beat Generation, members of the Beats encouraged Huncke to publish his notebook writings -- which he did with limited success in 1964 with Diane DiPrima's Poet"s Press. (Huncke's Journal) Huncke used the phrase 'Beat' to describe someone living roughly, with no money and few prospects. Huncke was considered to have coined the phrase that eventually came to describe an entire generation. Jack Kerouac later insisted that 'Beat' was derived from beatification, to be supremely happy. However, it is thought that this definition was a defense of the beat way of life, which was frowned upon and offended many American sensibilities.
Huncke died in 1996. He had been living for a number of years in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, supported fiancially in old age by his friends David Sands, Jerome Poynton, Tim Moran, Raymond Foye and many others including financial support from someone whom Huncke never met, Gerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead who paid for his rent at the Hotel.
Works
- Guilty of Everything: The Autobiography of Herbert Huncke (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1990), ISBN 1557780447.
- The Evening Sun Turned Crimson (Cherry Valley, NY: Cherry Valley Editions, 1980), ISBN 0916156435.
- Huncke's Journal (Poets Press, 1965). Out of Print.
- The Herbert Huncke Reader (New York: Morrow, 1997), ISBN 068815266X. (Includes the complete texts of The Evening Sun Turned Crimson and Huncke's Journal).
External Links
- Metroactive.com article, Herbert Huncke, the unsung Beat, finally gets his due, by Harvey Pekar
- Lit Kicks Bio
- Huncke and Louis A Video Documentary by Laki Vazakas