Burroughs

I saw you from behind, rounding a corner in Mexico City. Trailing a cherubic boy, you were desperate, downtrodden, nearly devoid of flesh.
Many days I waited in the same place, until you came again and I cornered you and begged you breathlessly for your presence at my table.
As you eyed me suspiciously from under the brim of your hat, stroking your wizened chin with sharp, deft fingers.
I clutched your coat and drug you to a filthy cantina.
Sat across from you for hours.
Stared at you. Took off my shoe. Rubbed my foot between your legs.
You sneered and kicked it away. You refused all offers of alcohol.
I prodded you. Poked you with questions.
With insane praises of your emaciated frame.
You asked me what my game was.
You asked me if I was on the nod.
You kept calling me Jack.
You asked me what day it was.
A cat wandered into the cantina and leapt into your lap.
You stroked its fur the opposite way.
It clawed its way up onto your shoulder and stared at me from there.
Two sets of feline eyes gorged into my head.
I started to sweat.
I reached across the table as though I were dreaming
And put my finger into the hollow of your cheek.
You grabbed me by the wrist and smiled.
I tilted my head back in ecstasy and sighed at the ceiling.
(The cat dug its claws into your shoulder.)
You screamed and gripped my wrist harder.
I shuffled my feet.
You rubbed the back of your neck.
I whimpered.
You exhaled.
I flushed.
You moved your mouth.
I did not hear a word.
The ceiling was white with one black speck.
The ceiling was white with one black speck.
One black speck.

Then we were in glaring white sunlight,
You and I.
You were pointing over my right shoulder.
I spun around.
“There,” you were shouting,
“There.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun.
I was looking into the flashing spectacles of another man.
“He’s got what you need,” you told me, smiling.
The thin brown man took my hand.

“No!” I screamed, “No, he hasn’t got what I need.”
“Junk,” you said resignedly and started to walk away.
The man was dragging me in the opposite direction. Oh. God.
I screamed your name and you ignored me.
I screamed again and you shook you head.
I twisted my wrist away from the other man and ran to you
As fast as I could.
Ran right up to you and fell on my knees,
“Oh, Burroughs, please, it’s you, oh please.”

“You can not seduce me out of my fix, lady, believe me.”

“It’s not the drugs I want.
It’s you Burroughs, let me in there,
Ol’ Crusty Face, Ol’ Stern-Faced Granddaddy of a whole
Heavenly host of lesser writers.
Of the rest of them there bullshitting, bead wearing beats
Back in gray New York and the others
Tripping face laughing zen men out in orange California mountains.
You Burroughs, you are the legend of legends.
You who walk among the dead like Orpheus.
You who left something dear with them there on the other side,
That you know you can always go back and pick up,
As long as you’ve got a few pasetas in your pants.”

You lit a cigarette and tossed me one.
(It looked like half of it had already been smoked, but no matter.)
You put your arm around my shoulders and we walked together
Through Mexican streets alive with mysteries and demons.
My senses were wide awake.
My mind, lucid and full.

“Where are we going, Burroughs?” I asked.
“Back to my place,” you said.

We sat in your barely furnished apartment.
A few books, a few records, a few chairs.
Pillows on the floor.
I sat.
“Burroughs,” I said, “I am asking you to do your part, as you are. It wasn’t junk that brought you to Mexico from the Midwest. You are trying to out run death, but you will go back to the tomb of St. Louis to die despite your best efforts to avoid your fate. Still, Burroughs, your fortune is great and important. The legacy of your strength as a human transcends all roach infested rooms with underage boys offering you their bodies. It transcends the sickness. It transcends the pain of the cure. It transcends all images of lonely, depraved men butchering their arms with pins and needles and going cold and blue in rooms with no friends, nay, not even the friendliness of furniture or portraits on walls. Terrible.”
You shifted where you sat on the floor.
“Does this mean the madness will subside?” you asked.
“It only gets worse from here on in,” I told you.
I put my cigarette out.

Meekly, you touched my breast.
I stared into your eyes. You smiled. I touched your knee. You shivered. I put my fingers through what was left of your hair.
A cat came in through the door of the room chasing a bug.
You tensed. I gripped your thigh.
The roach scuttled across the floor.
The cat got bored, came to rest behind you and you put your hand on her back.
“Look at me, Burroughs,” I commanded,
“I have seen the worst and the best things you’ve done. Do not be afraid.”
You met my gaze with guilty eyes.
The cat padded over to me to rest its head in my lap.
You closed your eyes.
You wept and took me by the shoulders.
You shook and wept deep heaving sobs.
I looked at the top of your head and was still.
You locked me in a fitful embrace and drew back again to look at my face.
You moved to lie across my legs and I held you like a mother cradling a dying child.
You stared at the window and I did too.
We exhaled exalted.
We inhaled Alleluia.
We exhaled again, exalted.
The window showed us our reflection,
Beyond was black,
Black encompassing and comforting our combined form.
We slept entwined; a two headed four-footed angel taking a nap.
The ecstasy complete.