Last Words. William S. Burroughs
This is November 14, 1996.
November 10, Calico was killed at 19th and Learnard. I heard about it the 12th from José. Tom had seen the cat by side of the road.
In the empty spaces where the cat was, that hurt physically. Cat is part of me. Mornings since, I break into uncontrollable sobbing and crying when I remember [where] she used to be—sit—move, etc. No question of histrionics. It just happens.
So dream remembered:
Oh, it was also a cat. I wasn’t sure it could find its way.
November 15, 1996. Friday
Still hits whenever I see a place where she used to occupy.
The heart doc says I am leaking.
Well, “Qui vivra verra.”
November 16, 1996
Coming up narrow tenement stairs. Met two people coming down at landing, said: “Hello.”
At top of stairs was a cubicle room with old sewing machine and other odds and ends, and there was an affectionate cat, whose head seemed removable. This room was open at top, three floors up.
Other people on roof said something about “Absolutely,” referring to the cats.
Nov 17 or 18, 1996. Monday
Project: overheard, casual walking down 2nd Ave NYC. Two black guys pass, talking. One, in a white sweatshirt, says: “Counselors and all that shit.”
Obviously talking about the Methadone program. How some black voices can cut right to the bone through all the bullshit.
“Very dangerous.”
William Bennett, late—I hope, certainly former—Drug Czar under Reagan and Bush. He continues: “We must target the ‘casual user.’”
“Which is it this time, Holmes? Cocaine or morphine?”
“Both, Watson, a speedball.”
Casual users who hold jobs and manage their lives successfully (like me) send a message that people can use illegal drugs and still function adequately.
“Very dangerous.”
Dangerous to whom exactly, Mr. Bennett? Very dangerous to liars like Bennett and Anslinger and the whole ill-intentioned and downright evil cluster of fiends born from the Harrison Narcotics Act. A vast hierarchy of evil, from street narcs working their snitches to kids turning in their parents.
“The War Against Drugs has united us as a nation.”
Bush or Reagan—take your pick.
A nation of what? Stool pigeons? Informers?
I like the Russian word for “informer”: stukach. A word to be spit.
Our pioneer ancestors would puke in their graves.
“Very dangerous.”
What is this asshole Bennett, who smokes two packs of cancer a day, really saying? To be a good American you have to be a goddamn liar? Of course people live to ripe and productive old age on junk. Look at Herbert Huncke, 81; De Quincy, 74; George Crabbe, English poet, 78; and yours truly, [82] and still kicking.
Turn-of-the-century physician who treated a number of morphine addicts said: “The general health of the morphine addict is excellent.”
“Very dangerous.”
Nixon said that Tim Leary, old friend of mine, was “the most dangerous man in America.” Dangerous to whom, exactly? To a blueprint for an international police state under cover of a total drug war.
A bit late to hit the barricades and paving stones. Maybe two hundred years ago—already arresting “drug dealers” in other countries. (Suppose some greasy spic narcs should have dragged Reagan out of the White House for undisclosed offenses?)
And an old queen is hauled before a Dutch court for “minor incidents” in the Philippines.
“Very dangerous.”
To queens who batten on these Moors in Morocco and elsewhere.
“This international parasitism is a very bad thing.”
Dr. John Yerbury Dent was the least paranoid of men, and he had the full warmth and goodwill, the best the English can offer.
He said: “I think what the American narcotics people are doing is bad.”
He didn’t want to use the word: Evil. But I do. Evil for anything Homo Sap may have created or may hope to create. I mean Evil, Evil, Evil—implemented by corrupt, evil, sadistic individuals.
Always accuse others of what you (the liar) are doing. Not to go into the media of it, that rancid old cenote, bubbling up belches of coal gas from rotten lungs and guts. Nothing good is bubbling up here.
November 19, 1996. Tuesday
Lake or river with patches of algae on top. I swim across to a wooden dock avoiding the algae.
Another lake with clear water. I can see down to clusters of goldfish 20 feet [below], and between.
Walking (wrong number, Harris Construction) back to the Bunker. Tried a shortcut through a Turkish Bath that opens on a closet, that opens on the hall at 222 Bowery. Decide not to take the Turkish shortcut.
“I got twenty-three dope fiends in here now.”
(Harried attendant at the Lexington Narc hospital.)
In a dream last night (Nov. 18, Monday) I was a cop. I said:
“I got a gun and I got a baton. I need handcuffs and a two-way radio.”
Standing at counter waiting for my radio and handcuffs, pepper gas and other good things.
“Very dangerous” for Bennett and Co., that any man could feel a basic, deep, real emotion like grief, heartbreak, the joy that comes from danger and death.
“Is it not fine to dance and sing
While the bells of death do ring?”
“Very dangerous”
“Bring out your dead.”
The heart of the matter.
Desertion: Waiting day after day, tomorrow and tomorrow, hope always dimmer, further away.
“I was waiting there.”
Let he who created a world of sin and stones cast the first stone.
Nothing under the mask but Death.
Bennett & Co deplore relative ethics. They want absolute. All right, let’s get absolute:
What they are doing is WRONG, EVIL, by any human standards.
Tomorrow, November 20, 1996
It was a Wednesday and Victor Bockris will give me a medal for longevity.
You just live long enough and you will become the grand old man of letters a bit tired with his very tired old jokes. Some bordering on the risqué.
(The grand old man of letters will accrete around you with cashmere shawls.)
The man in a cheap hotel makes it with lady in next room. Next day as they meet on a landing, she says: “Bonjour, Monsieur,” wiggling her little finger suggestively. He responds by taking off his hat and placing the top side over his crotch: “Bonjour, Madame!”
Well, I guess my Pullman car joke is a bit heavy for a mixed audience. Or the one about animals checking their equipment