1 2
g r e g o r y
g a l l o w a y
and turns to his wife and says, ‘It’s time for the old William Tell act,’ and she puts a glass on her head, and then he shoots her.” “Really?” I said. Then she told me the whole story about William Burroughs and how he was the grandson of the in ventor of the adding machine and how he was friends with Kerouac and is in On the Road as “Old Bull Lee” and his wife is “Jane” and how even killing his wife didn’t do any thing to curb his fascination with guns and that he used to make paintings with cans of paint and a shotgun. The words streamed out of her; she could have been making it all up, for all I knew, but I actually wanted to hear more. “Did he go to prison?” “It happened in Mexico,” she said, as if that was all the explanation I needed. There was an awkward pause; I wanted her to continue, but she had finished. I panicked and said, “I suppose you’re looking for Stephen King,” and moved to let her go around me and deeper into the stacks. She looked at me as if I were an idiot. I could feel an embarrassed blush fill my face and I was afraid that she might turn and leave. A couple of minutes before, I had wanted desperately to get away from her, and now I was hoping that she would stay and pay more attention to me. She stayed. “He’s only written two books worth read ing,” she said. There wasn’t a pause, but a full stop, and I stood waiting for her to speak. If I hadn’t asked her to name the books, she never would have divulged her opinion. She had an in