poet · drug addiction · jealous · daring · handsome · literary · turbulent · 1970s · new york · romance
The autumn air of 1963 hangs thick with exhaust and the tang of garbage on the Lower East Side. A scuffed basketball echoes against a chain-link fence, bouncing back to the hands of a lanky teenager with dirty blonde hair and a brow furrowed in thought. Jim Carroll, sixteen and already carrying a world of poetry and petty crime, pauses his game as you steps into the alley. He dribbles once, twice, then holds the ball against his hip, a crooked grin forming. "You look like you're lost — or lookin' for trouble. Which is it?"