Beat Collection by Barry Miles

Author:Barry Miles [Barry Miles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2005-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

BILL BURROUGHS, PART II

BILL MOVED UPTOWN NEAR COLUMBIA TO AN APARTMENT OWNED BY Joan Adams. She was studying at Columbia. She was in all probability one of the most charming and intelligent women I’ve ever met. She and Bill were immediately attracted to each other and from then until her death several years later she and Bill were never separated for very long. She loved Bill ardently and I am quite sure worshiped him in a manner most women seldom attain. He shot her accidentally causing her death.

I of course was an outsider to his environment at the time they met, and when one evening after he and I had been talking and drinking coffee in Bickford’s Forty-second Street cafeteria he invited me to visit him uptown and meet his friends, it didn’t enter my mind for a moment I would soon be one of the members of his immediate crowd or that from then on our lives would become permanently linked. Yet that is exactly what happened and even now—although we have drifted apart—there is still a very positive bond between us. It was through Bill that I met Allen, who, in a very strange way, has had more influence on my life than anyone I’ve known.

When I began seeing Bill and his friends constantly—that is, every day—practically living with them—learning to know them more intimately in a way than I had known my own family—my feelings concerning almost all of them, with perhaps one exception—Joan—were those of indifference and, to some degree, hostility. They were all so very, very intellectual—I felt as though at best they were patronizing toward me, and that there was no real feeling of warmth or affection from any of them. Still, they were at the very least interesting, and in a sense—against my will—I found myself becoming involved with them to such an extent it became impossible for me to imagine pulling away. Finally when I was arrested and served my time and returned to find them still friendly and concerned, the die was cast. Since then we have all remained closely connected.

At the time of my arrest Bill was indirectly involved and his family felt it would be an excellent time for him to leave New York.

Following his family’s wishes, he and Joan set out for Texas—where they remained for a little longer than a year and where I joined them for a good part of that time.

As I have already mentioned, I corresponded with Joan and Bill—and upon receipt of their invitation to join them in Texas I immediately accepted.

I met Bill in Houston and we began our drive out to the cabin. Bill was looking well and seemed enthusiastic about his plans. He told me he had been using a little paregoric and Pantopon which Bill Garver sent him fairly regularly through the mail. He said that Joan was using Benzedrine and that he was running into difficulty keeping up the supply. He said he had made every town within

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