Burroughs: The Movie Page #9

It's a little spooky.

He said it gave off

this strange blue light.

- Damn. Well, that looks like -

- Would you like to get in there, Terry?

- I'll get in there with you, William.

- I'll get in.

- All right. I'll get in there with you.

- Okay.

- I'll get in back. You get in front.

- Okay.

- Don't you try and, you know -

- Don't you worry, Terry.

All right. Let's close this for a minute.

Close the door. We gotta get

our orgones here organized!

- Yeah. Good.

- I feel it.

You can feel it, yes.

Well, I don't know about that.

Sort of tingling.

That's not - That might be the dope.

I think - Yeah. Well,

maybe you've had enough exposure.

- I think the first exposure

should not be too long.

- Is that a cut there?

I wouldn't want you to be overexposed

to these potent rays...

- which are unlike -

- I'll tell you one thing, I wouldn't

want to spend my life in there.

Like California, I like to visit it,

but I don't wanna live there.

The rays given off by radiation,

these are beneficent.

It's a beneficent radiation.

- Ah, yes. Well, I feel a little better.

- I'm sure you do.

Great poet and prophet...

and perhaps the most

influential writer of our times...

grand, groovy and beloved

William Burroughs.

Thank you.

Well, I'm sorry that Dr. Benway

can't be here in person...

but he does send a message.

"I am a practitioner of medicine.

I learn from my patients,

and my patients learn from me.

I am glad to report that everything is

now well under control in Jonestown...

and I have a few more calls

to make tonight."

But you, William Burroughs...

you realize that your body...

you're moving towards death.

I wonder, just finally, will death

come to you as a kind of cheat?

Do you think

"I'm cheated of more experience"...

or will you think, "What a relief!"

No, neither.

Um, quoting again from my book...

"Kim felt that immortality was

the only goal worth striving for."

Um, I feel that an afterlife

is quite a possibility.

It depends on you.

- I've just finished.

Time Out.

I just happened to get that number...

with you on the cover.

That's really how I knew that you

were first here before you rang me.

But, um, it's, um -

I was interested in what you said,

that, um, you really write

to make people aware...

what they know themselves.

Well, that is perfectly true.

I haven't got - I just paint.

Just not for that reason at all.

I just paint...

to try and excite myself,

which doesn't often happen.

One of my more successful readings...

is on the whole mummy idea.

See, their belief was that

you had to have a mummy

in order to be immortal.

If anything happened

to your mummy, your immortality

was completely nullified...

which seems

a pretty extraordinary idea...

and a very precarious

sort of immortality.

"The most precarious...

shortsighted, unpleasant...

and downright stupid

immortality blueprint...

was drafted by the ancient Egyptians.

First, you had to

get yourself mummified,

and that was very expensive...

making immortality

a monopoly of the truly rich."

"Well, here is plain G.I. Ollie.

He's got enough baraka -

that's sort of vigor and vitality -

to survive his physical death.

Well, he won't get far.

He's got no mummy,

he's got no name, he's got nothing.

What happens to a bum like that?

A nameless, mummiless a**hole?

Demons will swarm all over him

at the first checkpoint.

Mummies are sittin' ducks.

No matter who you are,

what can happen to your mummy...

is a pharaoh's nightmare.

The dreaded mummy bashers

and grave robbers...

scavengers, floods, volcanoes,

earthquakes, explosions.

'For Ra's sakes, get us

into the vaults!' they scream...

without a throat, without a tongue...

a silent scream of abject terror.

Now perhaps a mummy's best friend

is an Egyptologist."

That's why they - Of course, that's

how they produce this marvelous stuff.

'Cause in a way, they thought -

Because a lot of that stuff was

not made by individual artists.

It was just made by

a lot of workmen, you know...

who were working on prolonging,

as it were, the idea of prolonging life.

Well, they were working on

prolonging someone else's life.

Someone else's. Exactly.

Yes, they got a raw deal, didn't they?

A very raw deal.

A very raw deal indeed.

"Daddy Long Legs looked like

Uncle Sam on stilts...

and he ran this osteopath clinic

outside East St. Louis...

and took in a few junkie patients.

Doc Benway and me was holed up

there after a rumble in Dallas...

involving this aphrodisiac ointment...

and Doc goofed on ether

and mixed in too much Spanish Fly...

and burned the prick off

the police commissioner.

So we come to Daddy Long Legs

to cool off.

One day, we were sittin' out in

the lawn chairs with lap robes -

it was a fall day -

leaves turning, sun cold on the lake.

Doc picks up a piece of grass.

'Junk turns you on vegetable.

It's green, see?

A green fix should last a long time.'

We check out of the clinic

and rent a house...

and Doc starts cooking up

this green junk.

The basement is full of tanks,

smell like a compost heap of junkies.

So finally he draws off

this heavy green fluid...

and loads it into a hypo

big as a bicycle pump.

'Now, we must find a worthy vessel,'

he says.

We flush out this old goofball artist...

and tell him it is pure Chinese "H"

from the Ling Dynasty...

and Doc shoots the whole pint

of green right into the mainline...

and the yellow jacket

turns fibrous gray-green...

and withers up like an old turnip.

And I say, 'I'm gettin' out of

here, me.'

And Doc says,

'An unworthy vessel, obviously.

I withdraw from the case.'"

Oh, it's a long, long while

From May to December

You know, this is nice. You can come

back and settle down with one's cats.

And the days grow short

Plant asparagus beds and birdseed.

I mean, excuse me, grass seed.

Well, it'll be birdseed

if we don't get it in pretty soon.

Hunting and fishing, you know.

Come here, Russki.

Ah, very well.

That better be good enough.

Good cat, Russki.

And these few precious days

I'd like to kill a pheasant, and

Kansas is known for its pheasants.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And

pheasant season's coming up too.

- I know it is.

- Wayne knows all about that stuff.

Well, you'll -

By God, get out and kill a pheasant.

- If it's the last thing we do.

- Yes, absolutely.

I will do this then.

You have to be awfully careful

cooking pheasants.

- They tend to get dry.

- Mmm.

Same problem with quail.

- I almost forgot. We have to cook it.

- What?

- Oh, we have to cook it and eat it.

- Well, naturally.

That's the whole point.

That's the whole point

in killing a bird is to eat it.

I wouldn't kill anything I didn't

intend to eat, except a possum.

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