by William S. Burroughs
Let me tell you about a score of years on the window one
Summer The Speaking Clock his past history..I remember as I
write it September 17, 1899..Remember pale reflection trembling
in the park..fragrant blossoms drifted from time gone by to kiss
us on the cheek..clothes in a heap..the Milk Bar..the weight of
clothes on my fragile famished body..’come with me’ she said and
I followed her out on the porch of the Asphyxia Hotel..It was
agony to breathe in the No. 2 Intake..boiling in horror the cabin
reeks of exploded star..cool evening body of an idiot..’Aha
my son’ he said whimsical first novel on his mouth..’ You are fort-
unate I recognized your hidden talent when I did, my young man:
1940 to July 17, 1951 which amounted to 4,399 teas and 9,281
dinners..Tell me again cabin reeks of exploded star? Winner or
loser only one caller this week plain Mr. Jones or Mr. J. if you
prefer Billy club days..Remember a young cop whistling ‘Annie
Laurie’ down cobble stone streets twirling his club drew Sept. 17,
1899 over New York that morning the empty room said: ‘A chair
that folds’..Pietro Beregio, screaming something in Italian thinks
different: ‘wiped to shit by the fucking rebels what do we do?’
A whistling in the air. My camera is broken. In the early dawn
light several dogs lay dead in the brown dry fields..I could not
see.. I could not move..The heat scorching my skin..half thing
neither existing nor actors..sick of it you hear?..clothes in
a heap the blast of the Milk Bar..throwing blood strawberry
malt, intestines, semen, rocks, through the air..dust and smoke
the man who never was T. (for Terrence) Haming Gibraltar Security
policeman killed in a mysterious explosion on the quai of Tangier
Feb. 6, 1942..(during this time I wrote novels letters to the editor
and so forth)..Where did he die?..On my breath in this saloon
of the Mons Calpe out of Tangier for Gibraltar..cold coffee sitting
right where you are sitting now..a chair that folds..I picked up
my little bag and walked into the Missouri night stepping over
the ashes..Find out now the world is dead? Tell me again?