Last Words. William Burroughs

deep space tan. We will head a streamlined Scientology takeover. He is dressed in what looks like deep-sea-fishing, certainly nautical, garb.

      Well, why not give it a glim? Recall he was human, then he wasn’t:

      “I am not from this planet, but I got the best intentions.”

      Sure, sure, we all do.

      “How papers slither away.”

      At this point paper with White Cat info slipped to the floor—at breakfast—now at 4:50 P.M. find paper on floor.

      The White Cat is really charged hot here. Something bad.

      American Narcotics—“bad,” says Dr. Dent. Evil, I say.

      And so many power-freak agents would roll in it like a dog rolls in carrion, and grunt, and squeal:

      “I am right.”

      I don’t stink so.

      (Jim here now.)

      The issue open? Reeds in water.

      The investigator, follower of the track, moon cat, white light cat, Cleanser of the Darkness, the night—

      So?

      Chain of Evidence falls into the Waste Basket. (Why capitalized?)

      “William Burroughs, is it?”

      —Ridley Pearson.

      So I into waste basket?

      The Son of Sam—Samson.

      January 12, 1997. Sunday

      Dreaming of insects, according to The News, may presage a deadly illness.

      (Peut-être … qui vivra verra.)

      Last night a quarter, barrio of rot, falling-down wood houses, crawling with roaches and flies. It seems that I have a “cottage” here, called “the May Cottage.” I reflect I would have to move in with pounds of insecticide, pyrethrum perhaps.

      I notice the barrio is not large and quite square, and that the infestation of insects is confined to this space (obviously transported, but separate from its environs).

      What else?

      I have had many dreams of stinging flies. Connected to Paul Bowles:

      “We must never allow anyone to leave this planet!”

      (Paul in state of collapse.)

      “Off the track! Off the track! Just no hope at all.”

      I see Paul’s face quite clear, out there in the snow, zero Fahrenheit.

      “… To think how they must ache in icy hoods and mail.”

      Keats, “St. Agnes’ Eve.”

      “They’ll have swift steeds that follow—”

      Fantasy of running a roadblock. I have this fantasy on the way to Kansas City, Thursday. I am a bit junk sick.

      Paul Bowles caught the junk feel in “Mr. Young and Mr. Woo,” a short story. Usually a nonuser is way off, like The Man With the Golden Arm—Algren. He didn’t know the first thing about junk. Later, I hear, admitting his ignorance.

      “A snitch in time saves a dime”—rhyme.

      So what does suburban Kansas say to me?

      It says: “Kill!”

      So I can see it. Get the dead off my sight.

      “Bring out your dead!”

      And give the Driver some head.

      New moon in the pale blue, like a sliver of white nail. A little silver sliver of a moon in the blue plate of sky.

      Why? Like nothing anywhere.

      Where it was all—

      St. Patrick:

      “I saw the old moon with the new moon in its eyes.”

      What is it that shines from the eyes of an atheist when he says: “When I die, I will be all the way dead”? Like it gives them some special grinning satisfaction?

      January 13, 1997. Monday

      There was some large insect under my sheets, like a large spider—and scorpion—turned back sheets and could not find it.

      I was junk sick. Looking for a little codeine. Anything.

      Talking to mother on phone—

      Was it always so? We are the only enlightened, illuminated to realize that you never give opiates for a cold? That dealers deserve the death penalty?

      What a lying, stupid bore—the war on drugs.

      They even had the gall to ask me to speak or write in support. My refusal was definitive.

      Out to feed the fish. All the places where Spooner used to be hit me with a physical impact. The cat was part of myself. He died October 4, Friday, 1996.

      “Sorry he didn’t make it,” the vet says.

      I knew when I held him in my lap he was dying—then he jumped down and pissed under the table.

      The White Cat is now with Roger Holden. A good home.

      Why the feeling of dread?

      (I think I forestalled some disaster, like the cat getting out, can’t find, etc.)

      Who will ever know what misfortunes were aborted.

      Or could be in the future, or refer to my own precarious state of health.

      January 14, 1997. Tuesday

      Reading a bio of Francis Bacon by Dan Farson. Years ago, [Farson] organized a TV show for me and Alex Trocchi.

      Francis calls attention to some graffiti, and I claim the all-time best from one of those outdoor pissoirs in Paris: