At the age of 12, Carr met David Kammerer (b. 1911), a man who would have a profound influence on the course of his life. Kammerer was a teacher of English and a physical education instructor at Washington University in St. Louis. Kammerer was a childhood friend of William S. Burroughs, another of St. Louis wealth who knew the Carr family. Burroughs and Kammerer had gone to primary school together, and as young men they traveled together and explored Paris's nightlife: Burroughs said Kammerer "was always very funny, the veritable life of the party, and completely without any middle-class morality." Kammerer met Carr when he was leading a Boy Scout Troop of which Carr was a member, and quickly became infatuated with the teenager.