I long wondered how Burroughs escaped a murder rap
after his drunken reenactment of William Tell
in an American friend’s apartment in Mexico City,

in 1951, when he missed the apple disguised
as a whiskey glass on Joan Vollmer’s head.
Turns out he was convicted of man slaughter

In absentia after he skipped bail & fled to Louisiana.
This after his Mexican lawyer fled to Brazil
after shooting & killing a man for damaging his Cadillac.

Some say Joan wanted to die due to her years of addiction
& some think, because she was suicidal, that William
unconsciously wanted to mercy kill her. Their 4 y/o son

was in the same room when the shot was fired
& the bullet entered his mother’s brain. He died at age 33
from cirrhosis after he wrote a book, Cursed from birth.