Burroughs: The Movie Page #2

There was a toad who lived

under a rock right by the pool...

and he'd come hopping out

right to my feet.

- Familiar.

- How was this toad called?

- I don't remember.

It was a little sound.

You could hardly hear it,

sort of a hum.

You'd sort of move around...

and then you'd zero in.

Now you've got the toad.

- There he is, and out he comes.

A lost art,

calling - calling the toads.

Yeah.

This porch was here.

Now one of the pictures

that we have...

of me and my brother together

in Western clothes...

was taken on that porch.

I'm sure that's Dad.

- Yeah.

- It looks just like him.

Well, I don't know who this is.

Do you know who this is?

Any idea?

It says "Mortimer Perry Burroughs."

So maybe it's Dad

when he was young.

Uh, yes, I think it probably is.

Weird.

The whole family story

of my father's side,

it gets very, very shady.

What kind of man was your father?

He was very mysterious, very reticent.

The only thing he told me was...

that he was beaten

if he ever went into his father's study...

or disturbed his father

while he was working.

That he had very little time

for the children.

That was the impression I had.

My grandfather invented

the Burroughs adding machine...

and founded

the Burroughs Corporation.

The family shares would be worth

$60 million today...

but the family sold out

for a fraction of that...

so I never got a penny from it.

What did your mother look like?

Oh, she was, uh, she was thin.

She had a thin face.

She had a very spiritual,

a very ethereal face.

She had a great, um,

sort of instinct about people...

and we were quite chummy.

- Your mother and you?

- Yes, oh, very.

Oh, Grandma,

she'd had about 13 kids.

This grim old woman who said...

"I'd rather see a son of mine

come home dead than drunk."

And all her sons were

these alcoholics, you know?

Oh, Grandmother,

oh, Grandmother, what the f***?

And her husband -

She-She kept forgetting

her husband's intemperance.

Her husband drank, it seems.

- Another drunk.

Yes. Yes, indeed.

It's in the family.

That is me.

It's one of the, uh -

"William Seward Burroughs."

Well, that must be Laura Belle.

That's when we were very young.

You've got a sweet,

angelic expression there, Mort.

You looked pretty cute yourself.

I tried to read Naked Lunch.

I read halfway through it

and I pitched it.

It-It didn't make much sense to me.

And, frankly, it didn't appeal to me.

I didn't see any real necessity

for the language he used.

I know he was using it

for the shock, uh, purpose.

But, uh, to me, it doesn't do that.

It just sort of disgusts me.

Well, this was the bedroom

that I shared with Morty.

As a child I was very much

afraid of the dark...

and afraid to be alone...

particularly at night.

So I preferred to have someone

in the room with me.

Sometimes when we were out

at the other place, I remember...

if my parents were out...

the butler would have to come up

and sit in my room...

and if Mort was out,

until Mort came home.

Yes, I was afraid of the dark.

I was afraid of lightning,

all these things.

They don't bother me anymore.

You begin to see there is no boy

there in the dark room.

He was looking at something

a long time ago.

Changed place, sad image...

circulates through

backwards time.

Dead young flesh and stale

underwear. Bending sex words.

Little Blue Books.

Adventure stories.

Coming of Age in Samoa...

The Book of Knowledge

and Dorian Gray.

Music of East St. Louis.

Toodle-oo.

Warm spring wind blows

faded pink curtains...

in through the open window.

A child reads a letter.

"Dear Mom and Dad,

I am going to join the wild boys.

When you read this,

I will be far away."

Well, all these, um,

experiences from my childhood...

typical of Saint Louis in the '20s...

and any Midwestern town

in the '20s...

actually was a very important

source material for my books.

It's found in - in every book actually.

In Junkie, in Naked Lunch...

in The Wild Boys, Exterminator!

- You've -

- A recurrent theme.

You've said that a lot of your work,

or almost all your work...

is essentially autobiographical.

Yes, anyone's is.

Do you ever wish

you could go back to live then...

live here again back in the early '20s?

Oh, that's a recurrent, um...

a recurrent theme

in many, many books...

- of people going back to another era.

- Mmm.

Yeah, yes, well, I don't -

It just, uh, it just won't work.

That's all.

You can't get there.

Now if you can,

certainly only as a spectator.

At 15, I was sent to Los Alamos

Ranch School for my health...

where they later made

the atom bomb.

It seemed so right somehow,

like the school song.

Far away

and high on the mesa's crest

Here's the life

that all of us love the best

Far away

and high on the mesa's crest...

I was forced to become a Boy Scout...

exercise before breakfast...

and ride a stubborn, spiteful,

recalcitrant horse.

I formed a romantic attachment

to one of the boys at Los Alamos...

and kept a diary of this affair...

that was to put me off writing

for many years.

I persuaded my family

to let me remain in Saint Louis...

so my things were packed

and sent to me from the school.

And I used to turn cold...

thinking maybe the boys are

reading it aloud to each other.

When the box finally arrived...

I pried it open

and threw everything out...

until I found the diary

and destroyed it forthwith...

without even a glance

at those appalling pages.

This still happens

from time to time.

I will write something

I think is good at the time...

and looking at it later, I say...

"My God,

tear it into very small pieces...

and throw it

into somebody else's garbage can."

After graduating from Harvard...

I studied medicine in Vienna

for about six months...

when the war broke out in 1942.

I was in the army

for about six months...

discharged.

In 1944, I met Jack Kerouac...

Joan Vollmer, Allen Ginsberg...

and also, um, Herbert Huncke...

and some of the characters

that later appear in Junkie.

I know Allen and Greg

and, uh, and Kerouac...

and they all spoke of him

as the sort of daddy...

big daddy.

Bull. Jack called him Bull.

Everything that Jack says is

to be taken with,

uh, considerable reserve.

He was always writing fiction...

and, uh, he liked to think of me

as a teacher.

He pushed these categories

onto people.

Now you're going to be a teacher,

and you're going to be whatever.

So I don't think they're to be taken,

um, too seriously, but I -

Well, I turned him on

to some books...

Spengler and on to Cline.

You know what line of yours

Kerouac liked the best?

What?

"Motel, motel, motel.

Loneliness moans

across the still, oily tidal waters

of an East Texas bayou."

- You remember? Is there -

Do you know that?

- Yes, yes.

He wrote me a letter

and then he spoke about it.

He said that that was

the first time he dug your prose...

because of your ear as a musician.

They were quick to pick up on his work...

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