Burroughs: The Movie Page #4

through thousands of human agents...

but he must have a line

of coordinate points.

Some move on junk lines

through addicts of the earth.

Others move on lines

of certain, uh, sexual practices.

It is only when

we can block a controller

out of all coordinate points...

and flush him out

that we can make an arrest.

Fade out to a shabby hotel

near Earls Court in London.

One of our agents

is posing as a writer.

He has written

a so-called pornographic novel

called Naked Lunch...

in which the orgasm death

gimmick is described.

That was the bait,

and they walked right in.

"The lavatory had been locked

for three hours solid.

I think they're using it

for an operating room.

'Nurse!'"

I can't find his pulse, Doctor.

"Doctor Benway."

- Cardiac arrest, goddamn it!

- Adrenaline, Doctor?

No, the night porter shot it

all up for kicks.

"Picks up one of those vacuum cups...

at the end of a stick

they use to unstop toilets.

He advances on the patient."

Make an incision, Doctor Limpf.

I'm gonna massage the heart.

"Dr. Limpf shrugs

and begins the incision.

Doctor Benway washes

the suction cup...

by swishing it around the toilet bowl."

Shouldn't that be sterilized,

Doctor?

Very likely,

but there's no time.

"Watching his assistant make

the incision...

he sits on the suction cup

like a cane seat."

You young squirts

couldn't lance a pimple...

without an electric vibrating scalpel...

with automatic drain and suture.

All the skill is going out of surgery...

all the know-how and make-do.

"'Did I ever tell you about the time

I performed an appendectomy...

with a rusty sardine can?'"

And once I was caught short

without instrument one...

and removed an uterine tumor

with my teeth.

Mmm.

That was in the Upper Effendi...

and besides, the wench is dead.

The incision is ready, Doctor.

"Dr. Benway forces the cup

into the incision...

and works it up and down.

Blood spurts all over the doctors,

the nurses and the wall...

and the cup makes

a horrible sucking sound."

I think he's gone, Doctor.

Well, it's all in a day's work.

"He walks across the room

to a medicine cabinet."

Some f***ing drug addict has

cut my cocaine with Sani-Flush.

"'Nurse, send the boy out

to fill this Rx on the double.'"

- Thank you.

We thought

you went into exterminating.

Weren't you doing that also

in Chicago? Yeah.

Yep.

I was known as the exterminator.

By whom?

- Housewives.

Housewives and cockroaches.

Exterminator.

You got any bugs, lady?

- Oh, you're gonna leave?

- Have a good supper, Willy.

Pass our regards around.

With Herbert Huncke?

- Good night.

- Good night, Willy.

Have a nice supper.

Bill had moved in with Joan Adams...

in her apartment

up on 115th Street and -

Right next to the university.

Jack and I decided that Joan

and Bill would make a great couple...

that they were a match for each other,

fit for each other...

equally attuned and equally witty

and equally intelligent...

equally well read,

equally refined of mind.

She was a very, very learned,

very bright...

very beautiful woman.

- So she and Bill -

- And she adored Bill.

Well, we had all these very,

really, in retrospect...

very deep conversations...

about very fundamental things.

I say,

her intuition was absolutely amazing.

He would lie around

on the long couch talking.

She sometimes

would lie down next to him...

and put her arm

around his, uh, abdomen.

One time she said...

"Well, you're supposed

to be a f*ggot...

but you're as good as a pimp in bed."

Those were her very words.

Well, I thought this was nonsense

and I still do.

I was, uh, with Lucien

on a trip to Mexico...

and we were with Joan

until about, uh...

24 or 48 hours before she died.

It had to be the longest

drunken driving trip...

that I've ever taken in my life, which -

Joan Burroughs and I were

at the wheel...

and Allen, who didn't drive...

and Billy Jr. and Julie were

the unwilling passengers.

He was going around

these hairpin turns - turns...

and she was urging him on,

saying, "How fast can this heap go?"

While me and the kids were

cowering in the back.

Joan and I were drinking

and driving so heavily...

that at one point

we could only make the car go...

if I lay on the floor

and pushed on the gas pedal...

while she used her one good leg

to work the brake and the clutch.

It was a pretty hairy trip, but Joan

and I thought it was great fun.

Allen, I don't think, did,

and surely the kids didn't.

"Dream record, June 8, 1955.

A drunken night in my house

with a boy. San Francisco.

I lay asleep. Darkness.

I went back to Mexico City...

and saw Joan Burroughs

leaning forward in a garden chair...

arms on her knees.

She studied me with clear eyes

and downcast smile.

Her face restored to a fine beauty

tequila and salt had made strange...

before the bullet in her brow.

We talked of a life since then.

'Well, what's Burroughs doing now?'

'Still on earth. He's in North Africa.'

'Oh? And Kerouac?'

'Jack still jumps

with the same beat genius as before.

Notebooks filled with Buddha.'

'I hope he makes it,' she laughed.

'Is Huncke still in the can?'

'No, last time I saw him

on Times Square.'

'And how is Lucien?'

'Married, drunk and golden

in the East.'

'You?'

'New love is in the West.'

Then I knew she was a dream

and questioned her.

'Joan, what kind of knowledge

have the dead?'"

Joan was, uh, not making it with Bill...

and was a little irritated with him.

Bill had been off

with a young friend.

Um, I had talked to her

the day before.

Julie, her daughter,

was actually quite cute...

and was flirtatious.

And I said, "She's gonna

give you some competition."

And Joan said,

"Oh, I'm out of the competition."

So she'd sort of given up

on love life.

We were down in Mexico...

when she began, uh,

drinking quite heavily.

She'd put away a quart

of tequila a day.

Just sort of slugging it down

all day, you know?

Never showed the least sign

of, uh, being drunk.

My impression, when we left...

was that there was something

scary about her, suicidal.

That day I knew something awful

was going to happen.

I remember

I was walking down the street...

and tears started

just streaming down my face.

Well, if that happens to you,

watch out, baby.

You see, I've always felt myself

to be controlled at some times...

by this completely malevolent force...

which Brion described

as the "ugly spirit."

But my walking down the street...

and tears streaming down my face...

meant that I knew

that the ugly spirit...

which is always the worst part

of everyone's character...

would take over and that

something awful would happen.

I took a knife

that I had bought in Ecuador...

uh, and left it with a knife sharpener

to be sharpened.

I went back to the apartment...

where we were all meeting...

and with this terrible sense

of depression.

And foolishly, of course,

in order to alleviate the depression...

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