William S. Burroughs: A Man Within Page #5

appeared to be incredibly sad...

to me as time went by.

Someone who'd been hurt.

For example, you read...

that William was crazy in love

with Allen Ginsberg...

and that it was almost always

an unrequited passion.

And I think that that

disappointment that he had...

when he did fall in love,

which was so rare for him,

made him a lot

more withdrawn...

sexually and emotionally.

A lot more afraid of being

vulnerable and then being hurt.

So he started to close down

quite a lot, emotionally.

Do you want to be loved?

Mmm, not really.

It depends...

Mm-hmm.

By who or what.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

By my cat, certainly.

Mm-hmm.

There was something essentially

alien about William,

and I think when it

came to his physicality

and his romantic life,

he was one of the most

awkward people in the world.

While there was this

facade of a gentleman,

there was a very

lonely man underneath

that three-piece suit.

And it was only once that

I really heard him speak

of someone...

he was genuinely interested

and obsessed with, Mark Ewert,

who he described as,

"A young man having skin

like alabaster."

One night I was, like, you know,

I should tell this guy

I love him, right?

It was late at night,

and I wasn't quite sure if

he'd already fallen asleep

for the night or not.

So I kind of nudged him,

and said, "William. William."

[ Mutters ]

- "William. William."

- "Yeah?"

I said, "William, I love you.

I love you, William."

He said, "Huh?

You love women?"

I said, "No, no.

I love you, William."

And what did he say back?

He was like,

"Oh. That's okay."

Or something like that.

And kind of patted me.

But then the question is,

what did he feel towards me,

or what did he feel towards

other human beings in general?

I remember reading

this interview with him.

He was talking about

nuclear war.

And he said that,

all of a sudden,

he just starting sobbing.

Which, first of all,

it was really hard for me

to picture him sobbing, period.

What he was sobbing about is,

he said he'd all of a sudden

been thinking about nuclear war,

and then he was struck with

this horrific thought of,

"What would happen to my cats,

my six cats, if I died?"

And that just wrecked him.

You can just see the cats

were kind of these pure,

spirit beings for him.

And I remember some of

our very first conversations...

the first night

I met him were about

endangered species,

and about lemurs

that he was really into.

And I think it was... That

was just a really safe place

for his love to flow.

And I don't think that meant...

I don't think that...

So like his animals

and his cats and these lemurs.

I don't think that means

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