 Why might the narrator feel that he is "so dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every hour for the rest of my life"?
Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! The golden Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. "Sure," the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc's arthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose, one finger at a time. If a half dozen winos in Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have been wanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame, layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side. "'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse three doors down. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, for all I knew. It had happened a few times right after I first found him, but now it was worse. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-specked flophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one of those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown before I could move, what with holding up Doc. "Had a quarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents." "You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I say so. There was a wino singing on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn't have any lock on it. My shaggy scalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible's gas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never needed to shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that I didn't need to. I stared at a jagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving it an unreal distortion.
 Because he unknowingly feels debasement in desiring something material.
 Because he is homeless and unclean.  Because he has cooties.  Because his addiction prevents him from bathing.  Because he unknowingly feels debasement in desiring something material.