Call Me Burroughs

by Barry Miles

  Invites to read came thick and fast. On April 23, Burroughs read to 130 people at a party held at artist Wynn Chamberlain’s top-floor loft at 222 Bowery, an address where he would himself live for several years in the seventies. He shared the stage with Shell Thomas, his old friend from the Beat Hotel, who read from his new novel Gumbo and sang old Methodist hymns in a Texas accent. Once again Bill found himself surrounded by the New York art crowd: Diane Arbus, Frank O’Hara (Burroughs never liked him), Larry Rivers, Marisol with a green bow in her hair, Larry Poons, Richard Avedon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Barnett Newman, and Andy Warhol. Brion demonstrated the Dreamachine to the assembled guests. Bill ended his reading by tearing down a white backdrop to reveal a painting of horrifying tarantulas. Two days later, he was a guest at Lester Persky’s “Fifty Most Beautiful People” party cohosted with Andy Warhol at the Factory, which mixed Warhol superstars such as Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga with Hollywood stars such as Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift. Guests included Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Rudolf Nureyev, and Tennessee Williams.16

  Present at most of these events was Panna Grady, the society hostess who was attempting to run a literary salon at her huge eight-room apartment in the Dakota on Central Park West. Panna was the daughter of heiress Louise Marie St. John and Hungarian aristocrat Tibor de Cholnoky. No one was quite sure where the money came from, but there seemed to be plenty of it. The problem was in keeping out people like Herbert Huncke and Harry Smith—“shameless moochers,” as Burroughs called them—who were forever hitting on her for money and at the same time insulting her. She threw a party for Bill where he met Marshall McLuhan, whose Understanding Media was published in 1964; they had many areas of interest in common. Andy Warhol was there and all the usual art crowd. On another occasion, Panna hosted a meal at a Chinese restaurant for Bill and Warhol. Andy had a young man with him whose objectionable behavior infuriated Burroughs. When he finished a plate, the young man reached around and put the dirty plate on the next table where a group of Chinese people were eating. Bill found this the height of rudeness and left in the middle of the meal. Panna left with him.

  Panna let it be known to her friends that she was in love with Bill, but he made sure that he was never alone with her. He liked her but did not want to know about it. “It was so obvious that there was no possibility of reciprocity. She wasn’t stupid. She saw that it was not possible and it was not possible.”17 Panna did, however, know his weak spot. He told Ted Morgan, “She used to send me every Christmas a box of those now almost unprocurable candies with liquors inside. Oh my God, they were just heavenly, my dear. All different kinds of liquors, some of them were chocolate and some of them were pink and white cream, God they were good. She was the soul of generosity.”18

  At 3:00 a.m. one morning Bill received a phone call. It was Porter Tuck: El Rubio de Boston, the bullfighter he had known from his early days in Tangier at the Bar la Mar Chica. Bill had not seen him since 1957. “Can I come over and see you?” he asked. Bill was astonished and said, “For chrissakes Porter, it’s three in the morning. Come tomorrow.” Porter said, “Well, that’s a laugh.” The next day Bill happened to turn on the radio news and heard a report that Porter Tuck had killed himself on a bridge, a suicide. A passerby had even stolen the gun. But Bill felt that Tuck had already died when he had been gored by the bull. His life had gone downhill: working as a waiter in a Spanish restaurant, time spent in jail. He was dead already and didn’t know it.

  Despite their best efforts Brion and his various partners were unable to raise any interest in the Dreamachine. Brion did some paintings of the New York skyline as seen from his south-facing room at the Hotel Chelsea but found no buyers. From the beginning of May, he mostly busied himself working with Burroughs on The Third Mind, then called Right Where You Are Sitting Now. It was to be a definitive book of methods concerning cut-ups, fold-ins, tapes, intersection reading, newspaper-column formats, grids, and photo collages. Some of the layouts they produced together were the most beautiful collaborations they ever did, usually consisting of a grid with photographs attached. Bill wrote to Antony Balch for stills from their films to use in the layouts. Regrettably, the cost of reproducing illustrations in those days meant that the book would have been formidably expensive. Dick Seaver at Grove toyed with the idea of a deluxe illustrated edition selling at ten dollars, but in the end Grove Press didn’t think there would be enough buyers to justify publication. The Third Mind was not published until 1978, thirteen years later.

  During his time in New York Bill had found no new lover and was clearly missing Ian. In July he wrote him, saying, “I have missed you a great deal. Nothing here really, just stay in my loft and work.”19 It was at this time that Burroughs first met Brion’s new boyfriend, John Giorno, who was living with Brion at the Chelsea. Burroughs observed a profound change in Giorno over the years: “At that time he was pathologically silent. He just wouldn’t say anything. You could be there with him the whole evening, he wouldn’t say a word. It was not the shyness of youth, it was much more than that, it was a very deep lack of ability to communicate. Then he had cancer and after the operation that was completely reversed and now he is at times a compulsive talker, when he gets going there is no stopping him.”20

  For Burroughs, this was a difficult time to be in New York, as the effects of Harry Anslinger’s thirty-two-year reign of terror as commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics were still being felt.21 Penalties for dealing and being in possession of marijuana or opiates were harsh, but it was the attempts at entrapment by the police that worried Burroughs. A narcotics agent had asked Herbert Huncke to set Bill up for a bust. Fortunately Huncke had told Allen Ginsberg about it when Allen passed briefly through New York at the end of June, on his way to the West Coast, asking him what should he do. Allen of course told Bill. Bill was concerned. He knew that it was now unlikely that Huncke would set him up, after telling Allen about it, but if they couldn’t get him, the narcs would simply get someone else. He was not addicted to anything, just smoking a little pot, but he knew it was not difficult for one of his visitors to stick a needle and a wrap to the underside of the table with gum and tell the cops where it was. Bill made arrangements to finish his business with Grove and return to London.

  By the beginning of September, Bill was ensconced in the Rushmore Hotel in Earl’s Court. When Ginsberg returned to New York in March 1966 he went to see newly elected Mayor John Lindsay22 and complained that William Burroughs, a distinguished writer, had been forced to leave the country for fear of a police conspiracy. Lindsay was contrite—“Oh that’s terrible”—but did nothing to rein in the police. In fact an attempt to set up Ginsberg himself was made shortly afterward.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  And there was Ian and I don’t want to talk about that. There are mistakes too monstrous for remorse to tamper or to dally with.1

  1. The Rushmore

  Burroughs returned to London early in September 1965, saying that he was absolutely fed up with New York and that there was nothing of interest happening there. The fact that the Bureau of Narcotics was attempting to frame him only increased Bill’s belief that he was in the wrong place. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to bring Ian to New York, but the Americans would not let him in, so, as Bill said, “Things were drawing me away from New York more than back to London,” though he recognized that London at that time was cheap and a much more pleasant place to live.

  When he arrived at Gatwick Airport, the customs agent limited his stay in the UK to one month, instead of his usual three months. Bill thought this was because of pressure from the State Department, which was already cracking down on beatniks and undesirables. He went straight to Lord Goodman, who knew the home secretary, Sir Frank Soskice. “Well, if they suspect you of drug smuggling, they shouldn’t let you in at all!” said Goodman. “Mr. Burroughs, give me your passport.” About a month later he returned it to Bill, saying, “Come as often as you want, stay as long as you want.” Goodman
was a great fixer. In fact the final approval of Burroughs’s status as a resident alien probably came from Roy Jenkins, who took over as home secretary in December. It was Jenkins who later put a stop to attempts by the Obscene Publications Squad to prosecute Naked Lunch in Britain.

  Bill moved into the Hotel Rushmore at 11 Trebovir Road in Earl’s Court, where Ian Sommerville had been living while Bill was in New York. The rooms were laid out like a ship’s cabin with a bed, cupboards, and shelves arranged for maximum efficiency. It was another hotel that began life as a porticoed Regency row house and was later converted into a rooming house. It was bought by Jeffrey Benson, an antiques dealer and interior decorator who was a close friend of John Richardson’s, the art critic. Benson didn’t know what to call it because it was so drab and ordinary-looking. Richardson had a musicologist friend named Robert Rushmore, whom Benson thought was the most boring person in the whole world, which gave Benson an idea. “It’s really drab, dear, just how drab can you get? The Rushmore, we’ll call it the Rushmore.”2 There was a circle of transvestites known as “the Maids” who all lived at the Rushmore. They were called Babs, Carlotta, and Scotch Agnes. There was no bar, but Benson ran a sort of salon in his parlor, featuring the Maids. Christopher Gibbs knew the Rushmore well. “Jeffrey Benson was always referred to as Madame. And Madame’s acquaintanceships were always very wide and varied. And Madame was always the same, in sort of half drag, very painted up, falsies. Very sure of what he thought was the best kind of life to lead.” One of the regulars at the salon was April Ashley, who in those days, before her operation, was known as Mental Mary. To Benson, Bill was an ideal tenant, being dignified, appreciative, and financially stable. For his part, Bill found the atmosphere congenial and of course he could bring boys back to the room. Christopher commented, “Bill had a good nose for what was going to be amusing, gamey, and something that was so ghastly that there was a ring of poetry about it. He got that. I always thought Bill had a very subtle antenna, apart from being a man of very considerable culture.”3

  Ian Sommerville moved in with him, but it was not as simple as it might have seemed. Not knowing if Bill was ever going to return to Britain, he had found himself a new boyfriend, Alan Watson, from his hometown of Darlington in County Durham. Ian met him when he went home for a visit. Alan was thin, very camp, an artificial blond, constantly flicking back his hair and tossing his head, his sentences emphasized by raised eyebrows and pouted lips. Bill described him as a “100% swishy queen.” He worked as a cook at Scotland Yard, and was very good at it. The police loved him, and even though homosexuality was still illegal, they encouraged him to be as outrageous as possible. His normal outfit consisted of a pair of very tight trousers cut so low that they were little more than a pair of legs attached to a belt. He strutted around the canteen, hand on hip, throwing back his head, sometimes even dancing on the tables when the right policemen were there to urge him on. Bill disapproved highly of this consorting with the enemy, though he was pleased that Alan had a job. Ian was freelancing and installed the electrical wiring and lighting at the new Indica Bookshop and Gallery in September 1965, but was also borrowing money from Bill, Antony Balch, and Tom Neurath at Thames and Hudson, whom he knew from the Beat Hotel.

  Burroughs recognized that it was entirely his fault that Ian was with someone new. Ian had wanted to join Bill in New York, but Bill hadn’t done enough to get him an entry visa. The U.S. embassy needed proof that he had money, but Bill didn’t send him adequate funds, even though he was doing well financially and could easily have afforded to. He told Ted Morgan, “The whole thing was my fault completely and I got exactly what I deserved. I could have done all sorts of things and I didn’t do them. In other words, the whole thing was my fuckup.”4 He quoted Charles Gallagher from Tangier: “Everybody always gets exactly what they want and exactly what they deserve in this life.” Bill felt that this was true: “It was certainly what I deserved. I fucked up. Look, man, you only get one chance in this life, and you don’t take it, it’s your fault. There are no excuses in this life, no excuses. You fuck up, you fuck up, and you pay for it. I relinquished and I tried to reclaim. It was gone. I’d lost.”

  There had been a fundamental shift in the relationship. When they first got together in 1959, Bill was the master; he was in charge and had been so all the time they were in Tangier when Bill didn’t want Ian sexually and Ian wanted him. Now the situation was reversed. Bill desired him, but Ian wasn’t interested. Ian may have moved in, but Bill no longer had the upper hand. After a while, Alan Watson also moved in to the Rushmore, to a different room.

  In December, Bill’s three-month entry permit expired, and rather than just go to Paris for a weekend, he decided to spend Christmas in Tangier with Brion. The visit was going well, when on Christmas Day, Bill felt a sudden wave of depression. Shortly afterward, someone came in and told them that Jay Haselwood, the owner of the Parade Bar, had just dropped dead. Bill had always liked him. “He was one of the lights of Tangier. There was something very special there.”5 Jay had gone to the bathroom and came back with sweat pouring down his face, looking terrible. He went into the restaurant kitchen and lay down on the floor and died of a heart attack. All the nights of heavy drinking combined with vigorous gymnastics each morning to try and bring down his weight had killed him. Leslie Eggleston took advantage of the confusion to steal 1,000 francs from Jane Beck’s purse.

  On December 30, 1965, Jay’s funeral was held at the English church, St. Andrew’s, for which he had always provided “wonderful flower arrangements” for major feast days. It was very well attended: lots of waiters and past kitchen staff and, as Bill put it, “all the old biddies who used to drink there and that whole crew of old lushes.” The funeral was held on the same day as a little birthday party for Paul Bowles to which Bill and Brion were invited. Bill arrived immaculately dressed in funereal black with a tightly furled umbrella, peeled off his gloves, put them on the table, and said, “Well, Paul, you missed a very enjoyable funeral.” Bowles, as usual, didn’t know how to interpret Bill’s remark: “Was it a serious remark—some funerals are better than others—or was it we were very happy to see the end of that one? One didn’t know.”

  Bill returned to the Rushmore and his increasingly rocky relationship with Ian, who still had Alan Watson firmly in tow and only granted Bill sex as a special favor. Part of the problem was money. Ian was out of work and Alan didn’t earn enough for a central London flat big enough for them both. Ian was now helping Bill with a series of tape recorder experiments, so they were together all the time while Alan was at work.

  2. Chappaqua Continues

  Some immediate help was at hand when Bill arranged for Ian to be hired as the sound engineer when the filming of Conrad Rooks’s Chappaqua moved to Paris. But Ian, wary from past experience of people like Rooks, refused to go until he saw the money in cash. It was delivered in a large black leather bag. Ian bought a new black business suit and a new tape editing block, and in March 1966 Bill and Ian set off for Paris, where Rooks had booked them into a cheap hotel on the rue Saint-André-des-Arts.

  Bill was hired to help with the dialogue and perform in a skating scene at the Palais des Glaces skating rink, but although he thought he could skate, once on the ice he found that he could no longer remember how, and a double had to be found as Bill kept falling over. Alan Ansen, who had come to Paris for a week to watch, was much amused. Burroughs, for a fee, wrote the essay to accompany the Chappaqua press kit: “ ‘Glad to see you back Harwich, been away a while things have been tough here only stay in business because of you and it’s dangerous see?’ he throws back his cloak to show some ketchup stain smeared with the blood of old movies, goes into a prat fall… Death forgets his skating… ‘I’ll get my legs in a minute here,’ ‘We should live so long.’ ”6 Bill was in another scene set in a large mansion in Saint-Cloud that Rooks had rented to represent the Swiss sanatorium in the story. Bill played Death and appeared in a wheelchair and shot someone.


  As far as Bill was concerned the whole thing was a complete fiasco, just a rich kid playing at being a filmmaker, giving people license to improvise, then coming down heavily on them when they did, arguing and screaming, thinking he knew better than the professionals. Ian couldn’t stand him, but Bill just watched with amusement. Relations between Rooks and the crew became so bad that many of them refused to continue working with him at any price and told him, sometimes quite forcefully, where to put his money. Bill made fifteen hundred dollars for three days of shooting: a whole day in New York, one day in Paris, and another in the Paris suburbs. The film, called Chappaqua, after a Quaker settlement in New York State, was released on November 5, 1967.

  From Paris, Bill went to Germany to see one of his correspondents. The German writer and translator Carl Weissner began writing to Burroughs in 1965. Seeing that Carl was quick to pick up on his experiments with the cut-ups, Burroughs decided to visit him in Heidelberg.7 The visit formed the basis for a lifelong friendship, and Carl, who was able to write equally pungent German and English, went on to translate many of Bill’s books. Bill checked into the Hotel Kaiserhof, had dinner, then went to see Carl. Weissner was living at 1–3a Mühltalstrasse when Burroughs came to visit. Weissner later reported the visit to Victor Bockris. Weissner let Burroughs into his small apartment: