Last Words

“Head it off. Must kill it.”

Too late, I turn back to the empty chrysalis of the body that once had been Parker, and even as I watched, the very flesh and bones disintegrated into a lost ballpoint pen on the floor.

Oh here it is—on the bed.

So.

December 8, 1996. Sunday

Dream last night that I was in a cubicle room with mosquitoes. (According to the news, Nov. 26, 1996: dreams of insects on one can precede a deadly illness. Recall another recent dream of biting flies.)

I take train for Manhattan. Got off at 10th Street. Can I walk from here to where?

Dec 9, 1986—hum—I mean ’96

Check back on this date ten years ago.

In Paul’s dream we see a potential scenario, which should be indicated by a special mode or style—screaming in all languages known and unknown, suddenly cut off—dimmed down—old man with cat. Has 1890s look:

“Is it the end, Holmes?”

“’Fraid so, old chap. Tried to get a warning out. No one could believe it. I mean, they were designed not to believe it.”

“What do you propose to do, Holmes?”

“Nothing whatever, Watson. The time for intervention is gone.”

Back to September 17, 1996:

He steps to his modest balcony: to the sky, the powerful and rich of the earth on their knees beg his help.

“Aw, why dontcha ask your mother,” he snarls into the big mic, for all to hear.

The mob writhes forward, hands clasped in the [begging posture].

“Please—”

“‘These are unsightly tricks,’ in the words of the Immortal Bard.”

Fear! What is fear of. What is subject afraid of? The unknown?

Of course not. The half-known, the you-don’t-want-to-know. And what is that?

A reed in water—hieroglyph for “?”

Endangered hats on female heads shift in winds of instant fashion. Wives trail by each other at cocktails, vernissages, faster, faster—

“Off the track! Off the track!” Great chunks of suburban houses tilt, slide, crumble.

Present time feeling of being deracinated, without roots—moving—(someone just called for Jim Patterson. Wrong Jim. McCrary? Sorry)—moving where?

Mutie cat holds out paw as if to restrain me. Now she is purring round my feet. Took food to Ginger on front porch.

A sudden rent in the sky, clouds pulled in—the hole is more “real” than the sky.

December 11, 1996

Let the little growth on my head rest. It is an inoperable, benign, nonentity. So let it stay like that. If the soft machine works, don’t fix it. If it works, don’t fix it.

The words under the words, bubbling up with a belch of coal gas:

“We are—They are—come on! Hit! Hit!”

He cowered there, nursing the welt inflicted.

December 12, 1996

Story of the rich junky.

I [was] described by a moron critic as the world’s richest ex-junky. If $1,500 in [the] bank and no other assets made me the richest.

Had I been as rich as I would have been if my father had kept his Burroughs stock (ten million $$ right there), Naked Lunch would never have been written, nor any comparable work.

Show me a great writer very rich on inherited money. In France some good writers, like Gide, were well off, but not stratospheric rich.

Big $$ is a tight club. The staff has to be sure [the] applicant won’t do anything contradictory to big money. Anything creative is not indicated and will not be tolerated.

Like what would I do if I were president. I would never be president. You gotta qualify, see. Same way with Big $ Daddy. I mean big enough to have political influence. Chemical Co. purchasing Apomorphine variations, and endorphin, etc. Own a newspaper, that kinda money.

No way he can get that $$ without the big OK, and without that $$ he’s just an “eccentric.”

Lovable, of course.

December 13, 1996

Tomorrow James’s birthday—

Last night some sexy nonsense, no get—dreams about Mikey Portman, dead these many years.

So: “I paid for that C, Mikey, and I aims to use it.”

Had to put my foot down heavy with Mikey. It was freezing, windy London night—down to get this C from this old coke hag, bugs was crawling out of her—

Her said: “Coke bugs, sure”—transparent.

December 14, 1996. James Day.

The story of the Burroughs Family. Vague, disreputable ghosts—begging letters from widows of remote uncles: