Art Lies, Volume 11, June-September 1996 Page: 19
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facade, then approach the stairs
after looking over their shoulders.
Half-way up, they look back, stop,
talk, act cool. "Por Dios, Rafael,"
she pleads. The chippers wait for
passersby to go away, then disap-
pear into the dark interior. They
leave the place about fifteen min-
utes later, after shooting up some
smack, some H, wearing orgasmic
looks.
The neighborhood wasn't
always like that but headed toward
post-gentrification after the middle
class moved away to populate
Polanco, Lomas and other parts
north of the city. Soon the last
wave of Americans stopped arriv-
ing to attend Mexico City College
- the English language,U.S.
accredited school-when it moved
away to a new campus. Aspiring
artists, writers,ex-patriots and
some combat veterans who
attended college on the G.I. bill
had been the main stay of many
cafes, bookshops, tailors, clean-
ers, and their favorite bar, The
Bounty.
The heavy metal entry door at
210 Orizaba splits in half. Only the
right half swings open. A short,
agile person can get in easily. A
tall person, like William Burroughs,
would have to stoop to enter.
Inside, the apartments are num-
bered sequentially around the
patio: No.1 on the right, No.2
beside it, and they continue that
way almost full circle, with No. 8
directly across from No. 1. Building
administrator, Benjamin Serrano,
who lives in No. 1, can look
through the bay window in his liv-
ing room to keep an eye on who
comes and goes from the building.
He also has a view of the shooting
gallery across the street andkeeps the heavy drapes drawn
most of the time to help him mind
his own business.
Opposite Serrano's place, the
numbers go down-8, 7, then 6.
No. 5 is the last apartment in the
far interior. That's where William
Burroughs lived forty-five years
ago, making it the counter-cul-
ture's first address: 210 Orizaba
No. 5.
The apartment stays cool
through most of the day. Splashes
of occasional sunlight get through
when the smog and the clouds
clear. Otherwise, only an opaque
daylight enters the place.
French doors lead into the
apartment's narrow hallway with
barely any room to move around.
The bedroom, with its queen-size
bed is to the right; the living room,
with an uncomfortable-looking
green vinyl divan, on the left. The
place is small, functional, austere.
The kind of place where a student
would live, a penitent, or a writer-
someone seeking anonymity or a
place to hide.
The windows face the patio and
its fading black-and-white check-
ered ceramic tile floor. Julieta--a
diminutive, dark Nahua Indian with
pink cheeks-stands looking out
the window, down the passage-
way toward the entrance. Her
young daughter, about six, follows
her around not wanting to let her
mother out of sight, while the two
infants play on the queen-size
bed. Maineta Soto, the building's
oldest resident, who has a roof
apartment with geranium pots
hanging from the railing is down-
stairs shooting the breeze. She
remembers the '50s. No, she
says, she never heard of this man
Burroughs. Neither has Julieta.William Burroughs arrived there
in 1951. He was a brilliant man
from a thoroughly bourgeois Mid-
western background who had
developed a vicious narcotic
addiction long before going to
Mexico. His habit took him regu-
larly into new realms between
dream and reality. When he was-
n't nodding off, or trying to make
living; he admitted getting a rush
eluding cops, prosecutors, and
judges. He became resistant to
the usual conformity and pursued
a quest to live according to his
weird thoughts and compulsions.
He either must have felt too much
or not enough.
Bill met and befriended Allen
Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in
New York where he went to live
after graduating from Harvard.
Ginsberg and Kerouac were stu-
dents at Columbia. Joan Vollmer,
a bright and vivacious woman was
too; she shared an off-campus
apartment with Edie Parker (who
later married Kerouac). Joan was
very much Bill's equal-some
thought smarter and wittier than
her strange boyfriend. Burroughs,
Ginsberg, and Kerouac made the
apartment their hangout, took
Benzedrine for kicks. Joan joined
in and soon got seriously hooked.
She became as addicted to ben-
nies as Bill was hooked to nar-
cotics.
They were also addicted to
each other. Though she married
and had a daughter, Bill and Joan
carried on, despite the fact that Bill
was gay. After the Columbia
crowd scattered, Bill left New York,
took up farming, and had Joan join
him in Texas where their son
William Burroughs Jr. was born, in
Conroe. Then they left for NewArLies 11 - 19 -- June - September 1996
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Calledare, Donald. Art Lies, Volume 11, June-September 1996, periodical, June 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228042/m1/19/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .