(I found this excerpt in 'The Beat Reader' edited by Ann Charters. I haven't read the actual book yet, so I can't give any background. But I love this distressing little anecdote.)
Tell me a story,' says Jarman ... Jarman's wife Norah lies on the floor looking into an imagined rosy sunset that she sees behind her closed eyes ... Brooder lies looking up and out the window mumbling and humming a song happily to himself ... Neri sits with her back against the wall and eyes closed. Her lids are heavy and lovely with a stripe of blue make-up on them. Quiet and mysterious Cathy does saintly things in the other room only making a few noises like the moving of dishes ... The early evening is very still ...
'Sure,' I say ... 'There's a barber shop downtown and I walked by it one day ... In the big window of the barber shop there was a cat just sitting there ... hunched down on his hind legs and standing up on his front legs looking out the window at nothing in particular ... I saw a canary fluttering around in the window like a little yellow streak ... I stopped to watch. The canary flew down and landed right on top of the cat's head. WHAT I SAW GONG THROUGH THE CAT'S MIND AND SPIRIT WAS TERRIBLE! It was one of those striped alley Toms only big and well-groomed and cared for ... I saw every detail of the cat's expression when the canary landed on the cat's head ... An urge to kill started moving up from the cat's insides -- from it's guts -- and the urge rose higher and higher -- there wasn't a visible ripple of flesh or movement just the urge to kill rising up through the body of the cat toward that sassy perky little canary sitting on the top of his head ... The cat's huge yellow eyes rolled upward just a little ... Then the urge to kill reached the cat's head and CLONG! BLOCK! The urge was stopped at the head. CLONG! BLOCK! -- it stopped right there and the cat stiffened almost imperceptibly and its face and eyes just blanked out ... The cat sat there like a ninny ... The urge to kill met the trained repression of the urge to kill and the mind of the cat was wiped out ... The cat ceased to exist and became a comical statue of a baffled and stupefied cat ... It was an agonizing thing to see ... The people getting their haircuts all sat up to watch but they couldn't see the cat's expression ... The funny little canary flew off and the cat just sat there. I had to run half a block to get away from the sight ...