William S.Burroughs. Naked lunch

(c) Copyright William S.Burroughs

Origin: http://www.bigtable.com/

I can  feel  the  heat  closing  in,  feel them  out there making  their  moves,  setting  up  their  devil  doll stool pigeons,  crooning  over  my  spoon  and  dropper   I  throw away  at  Washington  Square  Station,  vault   a  turnstile and  two  flights  down  the  iron  stairs,  catch  an uptown A  train...  Young,  good  looking,  crew  cut,  Ivy League, advertising  exec  type fruit  holds the  door back  for me. I  am  evidently  his  idea  of  a  character. You  know the type  comes  on  with  bartenders  and cab  drivers, talking about  right  hooks  and  the  Dodgers, call  the counterman in Nedick's by  his first  name. A  real asshole.  And right on  time this  narcotics dick  in a  white trench  coat (im- agine  tailing  somebody  in  a white  trench coat  -- trying to pass as a fag I guess ) hit the platform. I can  hear the way  he  would say  it holding  my outfit  in his  left hand, right  hand  on  his  piece:  "I  think  you  dropped  some- thing, fella"

But the subway is moving.

"So long flatfoot!" I yell, giving the  fruit his  B produc- tion. I look into the fruit's eyes, take in the  white teeth, the  Florida  tan,  the  two  hundred dollar  sharkskin suit, the   button-down   Brooks   Brothers   shirt   and  carrying The News as a prop. "Only thing I read is Little Abner."

A  square  wants  to  come  on  hip.... Talks  about "pod," and  smoke  it  now  and  then,  and  keeps  some  around  to offer the fast Hollywood types.

"Thanks, kid," I say, "I can  see you're  one of  our own." His  face  lights  up  like a  pinball machine,  with stupid, pink effect.

"Grassed  on  me  he  did,"  I   said  morosely.   (  Note: Grass  is  English  thief  slang for  inform.) I  drew closer and  laid  my dirty  junky fingers  on his  sharkskin sleeve. "And  us  blood  brothers  in  the same  dirty needle,  I can tell you  in confidence  he is  due for  a hot  shot." ( Note: This is  a cap  of poison  junk sold  to addict  for liquida- tion  purposes.  Often  given to  informers. Usually  the hot shot is strychnine since it tastes and looks like junk. )

"Ever  see  a  hot  shot  hit,  kid? I  saw the  Gimp catch one  in   Philly.  We   rigged  his   room  with   a  one-way whorehouse  mirror  and  charged  a   sawski  to   watch  it. He  never  got  the  needle  out  of his  arm. They  don't if the shot is  right. That's  the way  they find  them, dropper full  of  clotted  blood  hanging  out  of  a  blue  arm. The look in his eyes when it hit -- Kid, it was tasty....

"Recollect  when  I  am   traveling  with   the  Vigilante, best  Shake  Man  in  the  industry.  Out  in  Chi...  We  is working  the fags  in Lincoln  Park. So  one night  the Vigi- lante  turns  up  for  work  in  cowboy  boots  and  a  black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder.

"So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'

"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stran- ger' and hauls out an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker....

"Ever notice how many expressions carry over from queers to con men? Like 'raise,' letting someone know you are in the same line?

" 'Get her!'

" 'Get the Paregoric Kid giving that mark the build up!'

" 'Eager Beaver wooing him much too fast.'

"The Shoe Store Kid (he got that moniker shaking down fetishists in shoe stores) say: 'Give it to a mark with K.Y. and he will come back moaning for more.' And when the Kid spots a mark he begin to breathe heavy. His face swells and his lips turn purple like an Eskimo in heat. Then slow, slow he comes on the mark, feeling for him, palpating him with fingers of rotten ectoplasm.

"The Rube  has a  sincere little  boy look,  burns through him  like  blue  neon. That  one stepped  right off  a Sator- day  Evening  Post  cover  with a  string of  bullheads, and preserved  himself  in junk.  His marks  never beef  and the Bunko  people  are really  carrying a  needle for  the Rube. One  day Little  Boy Blue  starts to  slip, and  what crawls out   would   make   an   ambulance   attendant   puke.  The Rube  8flips  in  the  end,   running  through   empty  automats and   subway   stations,   screaming:   'Come    back,   kid!! Come  back!l'  and  follows  his  boy  right  into   the  East River,  down   through  condoms   and  orange   peels,  mosaic of  floating  newspapers,  down  into  the  silent  black  ooze with  gangsters  in  concrete,  and  pistols  pounded  Hat  to avoid the probing finger of prurient ballistic experts."

And  the  fruit  is  thinking:  "What  a   character!!  Wait till I tell the boys in Clark's about this one." He's  a char- acter  collector, would  stand still  for Joe  Gould's seagull act.  So I  put it  on him  for a  sawski and  make a  meet to sell him some  "pod" as  he calls  it, thinking,  "I'll catnip the  jerk."  ( Note:  Catnip  smells  like  marijuana  when it burns.   Frequently   passed  on   the  incautious   or  unin- structed. )

"Well,"  I  said,  tapping  my  arm,  "duty  calls.  As  one judge said  to another:  'Be just  and if  you can't  be just, be arbitrary.' "

I  cut  into  the automat  and there  is Bill  Gains huddled in  someone  else's  overcoat  looking  like  a   1910  banker with  paresis,  and  Old   Bart,  shabby   and  inconspicuous, dunking  pound  cake  with  his   dirty  fingers,   shiny  over the dirt.

I  had  some  uptown  customers  Bill  took  care   of,  and Bart  knew  a  few   old  relics   from  hop   smoking  times, spectral  janitors,  grey  as  ashes,  phantom  porters sweep- ing  out  dusty  halls  with  a  slow  old man's  hand, cough- ing  and  spitting  in the  junk-sick dawn,  retired asthmatic fences   in   theatrical   hotels,   Pantopon  Rose   the  old madam  from  Peoria,  stoical   Chinese  waiters   never  show sickness.  Bart  sought  them  out  with  his old  junky walk, patient and cautious and slow, dropped into  their blood- less hands a few hours of warmth.

I  made the  round with  him once  for kicks.  You know how  old  people  lose  all  shame  about eating,  and it makes  you  puke  to  watch  them?  Old  junkies  are the same about junk. They gibber and squeal  at sight  of it. The spit hangs off their chin, and their  stomach rumbles and all their guts grind in  peristalsis while  they cook up,  dissolving the  body's decent  skin, you  expect any moment  a  great blob  of protoplasm  will Hop  right out and surround the junk. Really disgust you to see it.

"Well, my boys will be  like that  one day,"  I thought philosophically. "Isn't life peculiar?"

So  back  downtown  by  the  Sheridan   Square  Station in case the dick is lurking in a broom closet.

Like I say it couldn't last. I knew they were out there powowing  and  making  their  evil  fuzz  magic,  putting dolls of me in Leavenworth. "No  use sticking  needles in that one, Mike."

I hear they  got Chapin  with a  doll. This  old eunuch dick just sat in the precinct basement hanging a  doll of him  day and  night, year  in year  out. And  when Chapin hanged in Connecticut, they find this old creep  with his neck broken.

"He fell downstairs," they  say. You  know the  old cop bullshit.

Junk  is  surrounded  by magic  and taboos,  curses and amulets.  I  could  find  my  Mexico  City  connection  by radar. "Not this street, the next, right... now left. Now right again," and there he is,  toothless old  woman face and cancelled eyes.

I   know  this   one  pusher   walks  around   humming  a tune and everybody he  passes takes  it up.  He is  so grey and  spectral  and  anonymous  they   don't  see   him  and think  it  is  their  own  mind  humming  the tune.  So the customers  come  in  on Smiles,  or I'm  in the  1Mood for Love,  or  They  Say  We're  Too  Young  to  Go  Steady, or whatever the song  is for  that day.  Sometime you  can see maybe  fifty ratty-looking  junkies squealing  sick, running along  behind  a  boy with  a harmonica,  and there  is The Man  on  a cane  seat throwing  bread to  the swans,  a fat queen  drag  walking  his  Afghan  hound  through  the East Fifties, an old wino pissing against an El post,  a radical Jewish student  giving out  leaflets in  Washington Square, a tree surgeon,  an exterminator,  an advertising  fruit in Nedick's  where  he  calls  the  counterman  by  his  first name.  The  world  network  of  junkies,  tuned  on  a cord of rancid jissom,  tying up  in furnished  rooms, shivering in  the  junk-sick morning.  (Old Pete  men suck  the black smoke  in  the  Chink  laundry  back  room  and  Melancholy Baby dies from  an overdose  of time  or cold  turkey with- drawal  of  breath.)  In  Yemen,  Paris, New  Orleans, Mex- ico City  and Istanbul  -- shivering  under the  air hammers and  the  steam  shovels,  shrieked  junky  curses  at  one another  neither  of  us  heard,  and  The  Man  leaned out of a passing steam roller and I coped in  a bucket  of tar. (Note:  Istanbul  is  being  torn  down and  rebuilt, espe- cially  shabby  junk  quarters.  Istanbul  has  more heroin junkies  than  NYC.  ) The  living and  the dead,  in sick- ness  or  on  the nod,  hooked or  kicked or  hooked again, come  in  on  the junk  beam and  the Connection  is eating Chop  Suey   on  Dolores   Street,  Mexico   D.F.,  dunking pound  cake  in  the  automat,  chased  up  Exchange  Place by  a  baying  pack  of  People.  (  Note:  People  is  New Orleans slang for narcotic fuzz. )

The  old  Chinaman  dips  river  water  into a  rusty tin can, washes  down a  yen pox  hard and  black as  a cinder. ( Note: Yen pox is the ash of smoked opium. )

Well,  the  fuzz  has my  spoon and  dropper, and  I know they  are  coming  in  on  my frequency  led by  this blind pigeon  known  as  Willy  the  Disk.  Willy  has  a  round, disk mouth lined with sensitive,  erectile black  hairs. He is blind from shooting in the eyeball, his nose  and palate eaten  away  sniffing  H,  his  body a  mass of  scar tissue hard  and  dry  as  wood.  He  can  only  eat the  shit now with  that  mouth,  sometimes  sways  out  on  a  long tube of  ectoplasm, feeling  for the  silent frequency  of junk. He follows my trail  all over  the city  into rooms  I move out  already,  and  the  fuzz   walks  in   some  newlyweds from Sioux Falls.

"All right, Lee! I  Come out  from behind  that strap-on! We  know  you"  and  pull  the  man's  prick  off straight- away.

Now  Willy is  getting hot  and you  can hear  him always out  there  in  darkness  (he  only  functions   at  night) whimpering, and feel  the terrible  urgency of  that blind, seeking  mouth.  When  they  move  in  for the  bust, Willy goes all out of control, and  his mouth  eats a  hole right through the  door. If  the cops  weren't there  to restrain him  with  a  stock probe,  he would  suck the  juice right out of every junky he ran down.

I  knew,  and  everybody  else  knew  they  had  the Disk on me.  And if  my kid  customers ever  hit the  stand: "He force me to commit all kinda awful sex  acts in  return for junk" I could kiss the street good-bye.

So  we  stock  up  on H,  buy a  second-hand Studebaker, and start West.

The Vigilante copped out as a schizo possession case:

"I  was  standing  outside myself  trying to  stop those hangings  with  ghost  fingers....  I  am  a  ghost wanting what every  ghost wants  -- a  body --  after the  Long Time moving  through  odorless  alleys of  space where  no life is only  the colorless  no smell  of death....  Nobody can breathe and smell it through pink convolutions  of gristle laced with crystal snot, time shit and black blood filters of flesh."

He  stood  there  in  elongated  court room  shadow, his face  torn  like  a broken  film by  lusts and  hungers of larval organs stirring in the tentative  ectoplasmic flesh of junk kick ( ten days on ice at time of the  First Hear- ing) flesh that fades at the first silent touch of junk.

I saw it happen. Ten pounds lost  in ten  minutes stand- ing  with the  syringe in  one hand  holding his  pants up with  the  other,  his  abdicated flesh  burning in  a cold yellow  halo,  there  in  the   New  York   hotel  room... night table litter of candy  boxes, cigarette  butts cas- cading out of three ashtrays,  mosaic of  sleepless nights and sudden food needs  of the  kicking addict  nursing his baby flesh....

The  Vigilante  is  prosecuted  in  Federal  Court under a lynch  bill and  winds up  in a  Federal Nut  House spe- cially designed  for the  containment of  ghosts: precise, prosaic   impact   of   objects...   washstand...  door... toilet...  bars...  there  they are...  this is  it... all lines  cut...  nothing  beyond...  Dead  End...   And  the Dead End in every face....

The  physical  changes  were slow  at first,  then jumped forward in black chunks, falling  through his  slack tissue, washing  away  the human  lines.... In  his place  of total darkness  mouth  and  eyes  are one  organ that  leaps for- ward  to  snap  with  transparent  teeth...  but  no  organ is constant as regards either  function or  position... sex organs  sprout  anywhere...  rectums  open,   defecate  and close...  the  entire  organism  changes  color   and  con- sistency in split-second adjustments....

The Rube is  a social  liability with  his attacks  as he calls  them.  The  Mark  Inside  was   coming  up   on  him and  that's  a rumble  nobody can  cool; outside  Philly he jumps  out  to  con  a  prowl  car and  the fuzz  takes one look at his face and bust all of us.

Seventy-two  hours  and  five  sick  junkies in  the cell with us. Now not  wishing to  break out  my stash  in front of these hungry  coolies, it  takes maneuvering  and laying of gold on the turnkey before we are in a separate cell.

Provident  junkies,  known  as  squirrels,  keep  stashes against a bust. Every time I take a shot I let a  few drops fall into my vest pocket, the lining is stiff with stuff. I had a plastic  dropper in  my shoe  and a  safety-pin stuck in  my  belt.  You know  how this  pin and  dropper routine is  put down:  "She seized  a safety  pin caked  with blood and  rust,  gouged  a great  hole in  her leg  which seemed to  hang  open  like  an  obscene, festering  mouth waiting for  unspeakable  congress  with  the  dropper   which  she now  plunged  out  of  sight  into  the  gaping  wound. But her  hideous  galvanized  need  (hunger  of insects  in dry places)  has broken  the dropper  off deep  in the  flesh of her ravaged  thigh (looking  rather like  a poster  on soil erosion).  But  what  does  she  care?  She does  not even bother  to remove  the splintered  glass, looking  down at her  bloody  haunch  with the  cold blank  eyes of  a meat trader.  What does  she care  for the  atom bomb,  the bed bugs,  the cancer  rent, Friendly  Finance waiting  to re- possess  her  delinquent  flesh....  Sweet  dreams,  Panto- pon Rose."

The  real scene  you pinch  up some  leg flesh  and make a quick stab hole with a pin. Then  fit the  dropper over, not in the  hole and  feed the  solution slow  and careful so  it  doesn't squirt  out the  sides.... When  I grabbed the  Rube's thigh  the flesh  came up  like wax  and stayed there, and  a slow  drop of  pus oozed  out the  hole. And I never touched a living body  cold as  the Rube  there in Philly....

I decided to lop him off  if it  meant a  smother party. (This  is  a  rural English  custom designed  to eliminate aged  and  bedfast  dependents.   A  family   so  afflicted throws  a  "smother  party"  where  the  guests  pile mat- tresses on the old liability, climb up on top of  the mat- resses and lush themselves out. )  The Rube  is a  drag on the industry and should be led out into  the skid  rows of the world. (This  is an  African practice.  Official known as  the  "Leader  Out"  has  the  function  of  taking old characters out into the jungle and leaving them there. )

The  Rube's  attacks   become  an   habitual  condition. Cops, doormen,  dogs, secretaries  snarl at  his approach. The  blond  God  has fallen  to untouchable  vileness. Con men  don't  change,  they break,  shatter --  explosions of matter in cold  interstellar space,  drift away  in cosmic dust,  leave  the  empty  body  behind.  Hustlers  of  the world,  there  is  one  Mark  you  cannot  beat:   The  Mark Inside....

I  left the  Rube standing  on a  corner, red  brick slums to the sky, under a steady rain of soot. "Going to  hit this croaker  I  know.  Right  back  with  that  good  pure drug- store  M....  No,  you  wait  here  --  don't  want   him  to rumble  you."  No  matter  how  long,  Rube,  wait   for  me right  on  that  corner.  Goodbye,  Rube,   goodbye  kid.... Where  do  they  go  when  they  walk  out  and   leave  the body behind?

Chicago:   invisible   hierarchy  of   decorated  wops, smell   of  atrophied   gangsters,  earthbound   ghost  hits you  at  North  and  Halstead,  Cicero,  Lincoln  Park, pan- handler  of  dreams,  past  invading  the   present,  rancid magic of slot machines and roadhouses.

Into the Interior: a vast  subdivision, antennae  of tele- vision  to  the  meaningless sky.  In lifeproof  houses they hover over  the young,  sop up  a little  of what  they shut out.  Only the  young bring  anything in,  and they  are not young  very  long.  (Through  the  bars  of  East  St. Louis lies the dead frontier, riverboat  days.) Illinois  and Mis- souri,   miasma   of   mound-building   peoples,   groveling worship  of  the  Food  Source,  cruel  and  ugly festivals, dead-end   horror   of  the   Centipede  God   reaches  from Moundville to the lunar deserts of coastal Peru.

America  is  not a  young land:  it is  old and  dirty and evil before the settlers,  before the  Indians. The  evil is there waiting.

And  always  cops:  smooth  college-trained   state  cops, practiced,  apologetic  patter,  electronic eyes  weigh your car  and  luggage,  clothes  and  face;  snarling  big  city dicks,  soft-spoken  country  sheriffs with  something black and  menacing  in  old  eyes  color of  a faded  grey flannel shirt....

And  always  car  trouble:  in St.  Louis traded  the 1942 Studebaker  in  (it  has  a  built-in  engineering  Haw like the  Rube)  on  an  old  Packard  limousine  heated  up  and barely  made  Kansas   City,  and   bought  a   Ford  turned out to be an  oil burner,  packed it  in on  a jeep  we push too  hard  (they  are  no  good for  highway driving)  -- and burn  something  out  inside,  rattling  around,  went  back to  the old  Ford V-8.  Can't beat  that engine  for getting there, oil burner or no.

And  the U.S.  drag closes  around us  like no  other drag in  the  world,   worse  than   the  Andes,   high  mountain towns,  cold  wind  down   from  postcard   mountains,  thin air like death in the  throat, river  towns of  Ecuador, ma- laria  grey  as  junk  under  black Stetson,  muzzle loading shotguns,  vultures  pecking  through  the  mud   streets  -- and  what  hits  you  when you  get off  the Malmo  Ferry in (no  juice  tax  on  the  ferry)  Sweden  knocks   all  that cheap, tax free juice right out  of you  and brings  you all the  way  down:  averted  eyes  and  the  cemetery   in  the middle  of  town  (every   town  in   Sweden  seems   to  be built  around  a  cemetery),  and  nothing  to  do   in  the afternoon,  not  a bar  not a  movie and  I blasted  my last stick of Tangier tea and I said, "K.E. let's get  right back on that ferry."

But there is no  drag like  U.S. drag.  You can't  see it, you  don't  know  where  it  comes from.  Take one  of those cocktail  lounges  at  the  end  of  a subdivision  street -- every  block  of  houses  has  its  own  bar  and  drugstore and market and liquorstore. You walk in and it hits you. But where does it come from?

Not the bartender, not the  customers, nor  the cream- colored  plastic rounding  the bar  stools, nor  the dim neon. Not even the TV.

And our habits build  up with  the drag,  like cocaine will build  you up  staying ahead  of the  C bring-down. And the junk was running low.  So there  we are  in this no-horse  town  strictly from  cough syrup.  And vomited up  the  syrup  and drove  on and  on, cold  spring wind whistling  through  that old  heap around  our shivering sick sweating bodies and the cold  you always  come down with when the junk runs  out of  you.... On  through the peeled landscape, dead armadillos in  the road  and vul- tures  over the  swamp and  cypress stumps.  Motels with beaverboard walls, gas heater, thin pink blankets.

Itinerant  short  con  and carny  hyp men  have burned down the croakers of Texas....

And no one  in his  right mind  would hit  a Louisiana croaker. State Junk Law.

Came at last  to Houston  where I  know a  druggist. I haven't been there  in five  years but  he looks  up and makes me with  one quick  look and  just nods  and says: "Wait over at the counter...."

So I sit down and drink a  cup of  coffee and  after a while he comes  and sits  beside me  and says,  "What do you want?"

"A quart of PG and a hundred nembies."

He nods, "Come back in half an hour."

So  when  I  come  back  he  hands  me  a  package and says, "That's fifteen dollars.... Be careful."

Shooting  PG  is  a  terrible hassle,  you have  to burn out the  alcohol first,  then freeze  out the  camphor and draw  this  brown  liquid  off  with a  dropper --  have to shoot it in the vein or  you get  an abscess,  and usually end  up  with  an abscess  no matter  where you  shoot it. Best deal is to drink it  with goof  balls.... So  we pour it  in  a  Pernod bottle  and start  for New  Orleans past iridescent  lakes and  orange gas  flares, and  swamps and garbage  heaps,  alligators  crawling  around   in  broken bottles  and  tin  cans,  neon  arabesques of  motels, ma- rooned  pimps  scream  obscenities  at  passing  cars from islands of rubbish....

New   Orleans  is   a  dead   museum.  We   walk  around Exchange  Place  breathing  PG  and  find  The  Man  right away. It's a  small place  and the  fuzz always  knows who is pushing so he figures what the hell does it  matter and sells  to  anybody.  We stock  up on  H and  backtrack for Mexico.

Back  through  Lake  Charles  and the  dead slot-machine country, south end of Texas, nigger-killing  sheriffs look us  over  and check  the car  papers. Something  falls off you  when  you  cross  the  border  into Mexico,  and sud- denly  the landscape  hits you  straight with  nothing be- tween  you  and  it,  desert  and mountains  and vultures; little wheeling specks and  others so  close you  can hear wings  cut  the  air  (a  dry  husking  sound),  and  when they spot something they pour  out of  the blue  sky, that shattering  bloody  blue sky  of Mexico,  down in  a black funnel....  Drove  all  night,  came  at  dawn  to  a warm misty  place,  barking  dogs  and  the  sound  of  running water.

"Thomas and Charlie," I said.

"What?"

"That's  the  name of  this town.  Sea level.  %We climb straight up from  here ten  thousand feet."  I took  a fix and  went  to  sleep  in  the  back seat.  She was  a good driver.  You  can  tell  as  soon  as someone  touches the wheel.

Mexico  City  where  Lupita  sits  like  an  Aztec Earth Goddess doling out her little papers of lousy shit. "Selling  is  more of  a habit  than using,"  Lupita says. Nonusing  pushers  have  a contact  habit, and  that's one you  can't  kick.  Agents  get  it  too. Take  Bradley the Buyer.  Best  narcotics  agent  in  the  industry.  Anyone would  make  him  for junk.  (Note: Make  in the  sense of dig or size up. ) I mean he can  walk up  to a  pusher and score direct. He is  so anonymous,  grey and  spectral the pusher  don't  remember  him  afterwards.  So   he  twists one after the other....

Well  the  Buyer  comes  to  look  more  and  more  like a junky. He can't  drink. He  can't get  it up.  His teeth fall out. (Like  pregnant women  lose their  teeth feeding the stranger, junkies lose their yellow fangs  feeding the monkey.  )  He is  all the  time sucking  on a  candy bar. Baby Ruths he digs special. "It really disgust you  to see the  Buyer sucking  on them  candy bars  so nasty,"  a cop says.

The  Buyer  takes  on   an  ominous   grey-green  color. Fact is his  body is  making its  own junk  or equivalent. The  Buyer  has  a  steady  connection.  A Man  Within you might say, Or so he thinks. "I'll just set in my room," he says. "Fuck 'em all. Squares on both sides. I am  the only complete man in the industry."

But  a  yen  comes  on  him  like  a  great  black  wind through  the   bones.  So   the  Buyer   hunts  up   a  young junky and gives him a paper to make it.

"Oh  all  right,"  the  boy  says.  "So  what  you  want to make?"

"I just want to rub up against you and get fixed."

"Ugh...  Well  all  right....  But  why  cancha   just  get physical like a human?"

Later  the  boy  is  sitting  in  a  Waldorf with  two col- leagues  dunking  pound  cake.  "Most  distasteful   thing  I ever  stand  still  for,"  he  says. "Some  way he  make him- self all soft like a blob of jelly and surround me  so nasty. Then  he  gets  wet  all  over  like with  green slime.  So I guess  he  come  to  some  kinda  awful  climax....   I  come near  wigging  with  that  green  stuff all  over me,  and he stink like a old rotten cantaloupe."

"Well it's still an easy score."

The  boy  sighed  resignedly;  "Yes,   I  guess   you  can get  used  to  anything.  I've  got  a  meet  with  him again tomorrow."

The  Buyer's   habit  keeps   getting  heavier.   He  needs a  recharged  every  half  hour.  Sometimes  he   cruises  the precincts  and  bribes  the  turnkey  to  let  him in  with a cell  of  junkies.  It  get  to  where  no amount  of contact will  fix  him.  At  this  point  he  receives a  summons from the District Supervisor:

"Bradley,  your  conduct  has  given rise  to rumors  -- and I  hope  for  your  sake  they  are  no more  than that  -- so unspeakably   distasteful  that...   I  mean   Caesar's  wife ...hrump...   that   is,   the   Department  must   be  above suspicion...   certainly   above   such  suspicions   as  you have  seemingly   aroused.  You   are  lowering   the  entire tone  of  the  industry.  We are  prepared to  accept your immediate resignation."

The  Buyer  throws  himself  on  the  ground  and crawls over  to  the  D.S.  "No, Boss  Man, no...  The Department is my very lifeline."

He kisses the D.S.'s hand thrusting his fingers into his mouth  (the  D.S.  must  feel  his  toothless  gums)  com- plaining he has  lost his  teeth "inna  thervith." "Please Boss Man. I'll  wipe your  ass, I'll  wash out  your dirty condoms,  I'll  polish  your  shoes  with  the  oil  on my nose....

"Really, this is  most distasteful11  Have you  no pride? I must tell you I feel a distinct revulsion. I  mean there is something, well, rotten about you,  and you  smell like a  compost  heap."  He  put  a  scented   handkerchief  in front of his face. "I must ask you to leave this  office at once.

"I'll do  anything, Boss,  anything." His  ravaged green face splits in a horrible smile.  "I'm still  young, Boss, and I'm pretty strong when I get my blood up."

The  D.S. retches  into his  handkerchief and  points to the door with  a limp  hand. The  Buyer stands  up looking at  the  D.S.  dreamily.  His  body begins  to dip  like a dowser's wand. He Bows forward....

"No! No!" screams the D.S.

"Schlup...  schlup  schlup."  An  hour  later  they find the Buyer on the  nod in  the D.S.'s  chair. The  D.S. has disappeared without a trace.

The  Judge:  "Everything  indicates  that  you  have, in some  unspeakable  manner   uh...  assimilated   the  Dis- trict Supervisor. Unfortunately there is no proof. I would recommend  that   you  be   confined  or   more  accurately contained  in  some  institution,  but I  know of  no place suitable  for  a man  of your  caliber. I  must reluctantly order your release."

"That  one  should  stand  in  an  aquarium,"   says  the arresting officer.

The  Buyer  spreads   terror  throughout   the  industry. Junkies  and  agents  disappear.  Like  a  vampire  bat  he gives  off  a  narcotic  effluvium, a  dank green  mist that anesthetizes his victims and renders  them helpless  in his enveloping  presence.  And  once  he  has  scored  he holes up for several days like a gorged boa  constrictor. Finally he is caught  in the  act of  digesting the  Narcotics Com- missioner and destroyed with  a flame  thrower --  the court of inquiry ruling that  such means  were justified  in that the  Buyer  had  lost  his  human  citizenship and  was, in consequence,  a  creature  without  species  and  a  menace to the narcotics industry on all levels.

In  Mexico  the  gimmick is  to find  a local  junky with a  government  script  whereby they  are allowed  a certain quantity  every  month.  Our  Man  was  Old  Ike   who  had spent most of his life in the States.

"I was traveling with Irene Kelly and  her was  a sport- ing  woman.  In  Butte,  state  of  Montana,  she  gets the coke  horrors  and  run  through  the  hotel  screaming Chi- nese  coppers  chase her  with meat  cleavers. I  knew this cop in  Chicago sniff  coke used  to come  in form  of cry- stals, blue  crystals. So  he go  nuts and  start screaming the  Federals  is  after him  and run  down this  alley and stick his head in the garbage  can. And  I said,  'What you think you are doing?' and he  say, 'Get  away or  I shoot you. I got myself hid good.'"

We are  getting some  C on  RX at  this time.  Shoot it in the mainline, son. You  can smell  it going  in, clean and cold  in your  nose and  throat then  a rush  of pure pleasure  right  through  the brain  lighting up  those C connections. Your head shatters in white  explosions. Ten minutes  later  you  want another  shot... you  will walk across town for another shot. But if you can't  score for C you eat, sleep and forget about it.

This is a yen of the brain alone, a need  without feel- ing  and  without  body,  earthbound  ghost  need, rancid ectoplasm swept out by  an old  junky coughing  and spit- ting in the sick morning.

One  morning you  wake up  and take  a speed  ball, and feel  bugs  under your  skin. 1890  cops with  black mus- taches block the doors  and lean  in through  the windows snarling  their  lips  back from  blue and  bold embossed badges.  Junkies  march  through  the  room  singing  the Moslem  Funeral  Song,  bear  the  body  of  Bill  Gains, stigmata  of  his  needle  wounds glow  with a  soft blue flame.  Purposeful schizophrenic  detectives sniff  at your chamber pot.

It's the coke horrors.... Sit back and play it cool and shoot in plenty of that GI M.

Day of the Dead:  I got  the chucks  and ate  my little Willy's sugar skull. He  cried and  I had  to go  out for another.  Walked  past  the  cocktail  lounge  where they blasted the Jai Lai bookie.

In  Cuernavaca  or  was  it  Taxco?  Jane meets  a pimp trombone player and disappears in a  cloud of  tea smoke. The pimp  is one  of these  vibration and  dietary artists --  which  is  a  means  he  degrades  the  female  sex  by forcing his chicks to swallow all this  shit. He  was con- tinually enlarging his theories... he  would quiz  a chick and threaten  to walk  out if  she hadn't  memorized every nuance  of  his  latest  assault  on  logic and  the human image.

"Now, baby.  I got  it here  to give.  But if  you won't receive it there's just nothing I can do."

He was a ritual  tea smoker  and very  puritanical about junk  the  way  some  teaheads  are.  He  claimed  tea put him  in  touch  with supra  blue gravitational  fields. He had  ideas  on  every  subject:  what  kind  of  underwear was  healthy,  when  to  drink  water,  and  how  to  wipe your  ass. He  had a  shiny red  face and  great spreading smooth nose, little red eyes  that lit  up when  he looked at  a  chick  and  went  out  when  he looked  at anything else.  His  shoulders  were   very  broad   and  suggested deformity. He acted as if  other men  did not  exist, con- veying his restaurant and store  orders to  male personnel through  a  female  intermediary.  And  no  Man  ever  in- vaded his blighted, secret place.

So  he  is  putting down  junk and  coming on  with tea. I  take  three  drags,  Jane  looked at  him and  her flesh crystallized. I leaped up screaming "I got the  fear" and ran out of the house. Drank a beer in a  little restaurant -- mosaic  bar and  soccer scores  and bullfight  posters -- and waited for the bus to town.

A year later in Tangier I heard she was dead. B E N W A Y

So  I  am  assigned  to  engage  the  services  of Doctor Benway for Islam Inc. Dr.  Benway  had  been  called  in  as  advisor   to  the Freeland Republic, a place  given over  to free  love and continual bathing.  The citizens  are well  adjusted, co- operatives, honest, tolerant and above all clean. But the invoking  of  Benway  indicates  all  is not  well behind that  hygienic  facade:  Benway  is  a   manipulator  and coordinator of symbol  systems, an  expert on  all phases of interrogation,  brainwashing and  control. I  have not seen  Benway  since  his  precipitate departure  from An- nexia,  where  his  assignment   had  been   T.D.--  Total Demoralization. Benway's  first act  was to  abolish con- centration camps, mass arrest  and, except  under certain limited and special circumstances, the use of torture. "I  deplore brutality,"  he said.  "It's not  efficient. On the other hand, prolonged  mistreatment, short  of physi- cal  violence,  gives rise,  when skillfully  applied, to anxiety and a feeling of  special guilt.  A few  rules or rather guiding principles are  to be  borne in  mind. The subject must not realize that the  mistreatment is  a de- liberate attack of  an anti-human  enemy on  his personal identity. He must be made  to feel  that he  deserves any treatment he receives because  there is  something (never specified)  horribly wrong  with him.  The naked  need of the  control  addicts  must  be  decently  covered  by an arbitrary and intricate bureaucracy  so that  the subject cannot contact his enemy direct." Every  citizen  of  Annexia  was  required  to  apply for and carry on his person  at all  times a  whole portfolio of  documents.  Citizens  were  subject  to  be   stopped  in the  street  at  any  time;  and the  Examiner, who  might be in plain  clothes, in  various uniforms,  often in  a bathing suit  or  pyjamas,  sometimes  stark   naked  except   for  a badge  pinned  to  his  left  nipple,  after   checking  each paper,  would   stamp  it.   On  subsequent   inspection  the citizen   was   required   to   show  the   properly  entered stamps  of  the  last  inspection.  The  Examiner,   when  he stopped  a  large  group,  would   only  examine   and  stamp the  cards  of  a  few.  The  others  were  then  subject  to arrest  because  their  cards  were  not   properly  stamped. Arrest  meant  "provisional  detention";  that is,  the pris- oner  would  be  released  if  and  when  his   Affidavit  of Explanation,   properly   signed   and   stamped,   was   ap- proved  by  the  Assistant  Arbiter  of  Explanations.  Since this  official  hardly  ever  came  to   his  o%office,   and  the A%fidavit  of  Explanation  had  to  be  presented  in  person, the  explainers  spent  weeks   and  months   waiting  around in unheated offices with no chairs and no toilet facilities.

Documents  issued  in  vanishing   ink  faded   into  old pawn  tickets.  New   documents  were   constantly  required. The  citizens  rushed  from  one  bureau  to  another   in  a frenzied attempt to meet impossible deadlines.

All  benches were  removed from  the city,  all fountains turned  off, all  flowers and  trees destroyed.  Huge electric buzzers  on  the  top  of   every  apartment   house  (every- one  lived  in  apartments)  rang  the  quarter  hour.  Often the  vibrations  would  throw  people  out  of  bed.  Search- lights  played  over  the   town  all   night  (no   one  was permitted to use shades, curtains, shutters or blinds).

No  one  ever  looked  at  anyone  else  because  of  the strict  law  against  importuning,  with  or  without  verbal approach,  anyone  for any  purpose, sexual  or otherwise. All  cafes  and  bars  were closed.  Liquor could  only be obtained  with  a special  permit, and  the liquor  so ob- tained could not be  sold or  given or  in any  way trans- ferred to  anyone else,  and the  presence of  anyone else in  the  room  was  considered  prima  facie  evidence  of conspiracy to transfer liquor.

No one was permitted to  bolt his  door, and  the police had  pass  keys  to  every room  in the  city. Accompanied by  a  mentalist  they  rush  into someone's  quarters and start "looking for it."

The   mentalist   guides  them   to  whatever   the  man wishes  to hide:  a tube  of vaseline,  an enema,  a hand- kerchief with come  on it,  a weapon,  unlicensed alcohol. And  they  always  submitted  the  suspect  to   the  most humiliating  search  of  his  naked  person on  which they make  sneering  and  derogatory  comments.  Many  a latent homosexual  was  carried  out   in  a   straitjacket  when they planted vaseline in his  ass. Or  they pounce  on any object. A pen wiper or a shoe tree.

"And what is this supposed to be for?"

"It's a pen wiper."

"A pen wiper, he says."

"I've heard everything now."

"I guess this is all we need. Come on, you."

After  a  few  months  of this  the citizens  cowered in corners like neurotic cats.

Of  course  the   Annexia  police   processed  suspected agents, saboteurs  and political  deviants on  an assembly line basis. As regards the interrogation of suspects, Ben- way has this to say:

"While  in general  I avoid  the use  of torture-torture locates   the   opponent   and   mobilizes  resistance-the threat of torture is useful to induce  in the  subject the appropriate feeling of helplessness  and gratitude  to the interrogator for withholding  it. And  torture can  be em- ployed  to  advantage  as  a penalty  when the  subject is far  enough  along  with the  treatment to  accept punish- ment  as  deserved. To  this end  I devised  several forms of   disciplinary   procedure.  One   was  known   as  The Switchboard.  Electric  drills  that can  be turned  on at any  time  are  clamped against  the subject's  teeth; and he is instructed to operate  an arbitrary  switchboard, to put certain connections in certain sockets in  response to bells  and  lights.  Every  time  he  makes a  mistake the drills are turned on for twenty  seconds. The  signals are gradually  speeded up  beyond his  reaction time.  Half an hour  on  the  switchboard  and  the  subject  breaks down like an overloaded thinking machine.

"The  study  of  thinking   machines  teaches   us  more about  the  brain  than  we  can  learn  by  introspective methods.  Western  man  is  externalizing  himself  in the form of gadgets. Ever pop  coke in  the mainline?  It hits you  right in  the brain,  activating connections  of pure pleasure.  The  pleasure  of morphine  is in  the viscera. You  listen  down  into yourself  after a  shot. But  C is electricity through the  brain, and  the C  yen is  of the brain  alone,  a  need without  body and  without feeling. The C-charged brain is a  berserk pinball  machine, flash- ing blue and pink  lights in  electric orgasm.  C pleasure could be felt by a thinking  machine, the  first stirrings of hideous insect  life. The  craving for  C lasts  only a few hours, as long as  the C  channels are  stimulated. Of course  the effect  of C  could be  produced by  an electric current activating the C channels....  "So  after a  bit the  channels wear  out like  veins, and the addict  has to  find new  ones. A  vein will  come back in  time, and  by adroit  vein rotation  a junky  can piece out the odds if he don't  become an  oil burner.  But brain cells  don't  come  back  once they're  gone, and  when the addict runs out of brain cells he is in a  terrible fucking position.  "Squatting   on   old  bones   and  excrement   and  rusty iron,  in  a  white  blaze  of  heat,  a panorama  of naked idiots stretches to the horizon.  Complete silence  -- their speech centers are destroyed  -- except  for the  crackle of sparks  and  the  popping  of  singed  flesh  as  they apply electrodes  up  and   down  the   spine.  White   smoke  of burning  Flesh  hangs  in  the  motionless  air. A  group of children  have tied  an idiot  to a  post with  barbed wire and  built  a  fire  between  his  legs  and  stand watching with bestial curiosity as  the Flames  lick his  thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.  "I  digress  as  usual.  Pending  more  precise  knowledge of  brain electronics,  drugs remain  an essential  tool of the interrogator in his assault  on the  subject's personal identity. The barbiturates are,  of course,  virtually use- less.  That  is,  anyone  who  can be  broken down  by such means  would  succumb  to  the  puerile  methods   used  in an  American  precinct.  Scopolamine  is often  effective in dissolving  resistance,  but  it  impairs  the  memory:  an agent might  be prepared  to reveal  his secrets  but quite unable to  remember them,  or cover  story and  secret life info  might  be  inextricably  garbled.  Mescaline,  harma- line,  LSD6,  bufotenine,  muscarine  successful   in  many cases.   Bulbocapnine   induces   a   state   approximating schizophrenic  catatonia...  instances  of  automatic  obe- dience  have  been  observed.   Bulbocapnine  is   a  back- brain  depressant  probably  putting  out  of   action  the centers  of motion  in the  hypothalamus. Other  drugs that have  produced  experimental  schizophrenia   --  mescaline, harmaline,  LSD6  --  are  backbrain stimulants.  In schizo- phrenia  the  backbrain   is  alternately   stimulated  and depressed.  Catatonia  is  often  followed  by a  period of excitement  and  motor  activity   during  which   the  nut rushes  through  the  wards  giving  everyone  a  bad time. Deteriorated  schizos  sometimes  refuse  to  move  at  all and spend their lives in  bed. A  disturbance of  the regu- latory  function of  the hypothalamus  is indicated  as the 'cause' (causal thinking never yields  accurate description of metabolic  process --  limitations of  existing language) of  schizophrenia.  Alternate  doses  of  LSD6  and  bulbo- capnine  --  the  bulbocapnine  potientiated  with  curare -- give the highest yield of automatic obedience.

"There  are  other  procedures.  The  subject can  be re- duced  to  deep  depression  by  administering  large doses of benzedrine for  several days.  Psychosis can  be induced by continual large doses of  cocaine or  demerol or  by the abrupt  withdrawal  of  barbiturates  after  prolonged  ad- ministration.  He  can  be  addicted  by dihydro-oxy-heroin and  subjected  to  withdrawal  (this  compound  should  be five  times  as  addicting  as  heroin,  and  the withdrawal proportionately severe ).

"There  are  various  'psychological   methods,'  compul- sory  psychoanalysis,  for  example.  The  subject  is  re- quested  to  free-associate  for  one  hour  every  day (in cases where time is not of the essence). 'Now, now. Let's not be  negative, boy.  Poppa call  nasty man.  Take baby walkabout switchboard.'

"The case of a female agent who  forgot her  real iden- tity and merged with  her cover  story --  she is  still a fricoteuse in Annexia -- put me  onto another  gimmick. An agent is trained to deny his agent identity  by asserting his cover story. So why not use psychic jiu-jitsu  and go along with him? Suggest that his cover story is his iden- tity and that he has no other. His agent identity becomes unconscious, that is, out of his control; and you can dig it  with  drugs  and  hypnosis.  You  can  make  a square heterosexual citizen queer with this angle... that is, rein- force and second his rejection  of normally  latent homo- sexual trends -- at the  same time  depriving him  of cunt and subjecting  him to  homosexual stimulation.  Then drugs, hypnosis, and --" Benway flipped a limp wrist.

"Many  subjects are  vulnerable to  sexual humiliation. Nakedness,  stimulation  with aphrodisiacs,  constant su- pervision to embarrass subject and prevent relief of mas- turbation (erections during  sleep automatically  turn on an  enormous  vibrating electric  buzzer that  throws the subject out  of bed  into cold  water, thus  reducing the incidence  of  wet dreams  to a  minimum). Kicks  to hyp- notize a priest and tell  him he  is about  to consummate a hypostatic union  with the  Lamb --  then steer  a randy old sheep  up his  ass. After  that the  Interrogator can gain complete hypnotic  control --  the subject  will come at  his  whistle, shit  on the  floor if  he but  say Open Sesame.  Needless to  say, the  sex humiliation  angle is contraindicated  for  overt  homosexuals. ( I  mean let's keep  our  eye  on  the  ball here  and remember  the old party  line... never  know who's  listening in.)  I recall this one kid, I condition to shit at sight  of me.  Then I wash his  ass and  screw him.  It was  real tasty.  And he was a lovely  fellah too.  And some  times a  subject will burst  into  boyish  tears  because  he  can't  keep  from ejaculate when  you screw  him. Well,  as you  can plainly see, the possibilities are  endless like  meandering paths in a  great big  beautiful garden.  I was  just scratching that  lovely  surface  when  I am  purged by  Party Poops. ...Well, 'son cosas de la vida.' "

I  reach  Freeland,  which  is  clean  and dull]1  my God. Benway  is  directing  the  R.C.,  Reconditioning  Center. I drop around,  and "What  happened to  so and  so'?" sets in like: "Sidi Idriss 'The Nark'  Smithers crooned  to the Senders for a longevity serum. No fool like an old queen." "Lester  Stroganoff Smuunn  -- 'El  Hassein' --  turned him- self  into  a  Latah trying  to perfect  A.O.P., Automatic Obedience  Processing.  A   martyr  to   the  industry..." (  Latah  is  a  condition occurring  in South  East Asia. Otherwise  sane,  Latahs  compulsively  imitate  every mo- tion  once their  attention is  attracted by  snapping the fingers  or  calling  sharply.  A  form of  compulsive in- voluntary  hypnosis.  They  sometimes   injure  themselves trying to imitate the motions of several people at once. )

"Stop me if you've heard this atomic secret...."

Benway's  face  retains its  form in  the flash  bulb of urgency,  subject  at  any  moment  to  unspeakable cleav- age or metamorphosis.  It flickers  like a  picture moving in and out of focus.

"Come  on,"  says  Benway,  "and  I'll  show  you around the R.C."

We  are  walking  down  a   long  white   hall.  Benway's voice  drifts  into  my  consciousness  from  no particular place...  a  disembodied  voice  that  is   sometimes  loud and  clear,  sometimes  barely  audible  like music  down a windy street.

"Isolated  groups  like  natives  of the  Bismarck Archi- pelago.   No   overt   homosexuality   among    them.   God damned   matriarchy.   All   matriarchies  anti-homosexual, conformist  and  prosaic.  Find  yourself  in  a matriarchy walk don't run to the  nearest frontier.  If you  run, some frustrate latent queer cop will likely shoot you.  So some- body  wants  to establish  a beach  head of  homogeneity in a  shambles  of  potentials  like  West Europe  and U.S.A.? Another   fucking   matriarchy,   Margaret   Mead  notwith- standing...  Spot  of  bother there.  Scalpel fight  with a colleague  in  the  operating  room.  And  my   baboon  as- sistant  leaped  on  the  patient and  tore him  to pieces. Baboons  always  attack  the weakest  party in  an alterca- tion. Quite right too.  We must  never forget  our glorious simian  heritage.  Doc  Browbeck  was  party   inna  second part.  A  retired  abortionist  and junk  pusher (he  was a veterinarian  actually)  recalled  to  service  during  the manpower  shortage.  Well,  Doc  had  been in  the hospital kitchen  all  morning  goosing  the  nurses and  tanking up on coal gas and  Klim --  and just  before the  operation he sneaked a double shot of nutmeg to nerve himself up."

(In  England  and  especially  in Edinburgh  the citizens bubble  coal gas  through Klim  -- a  horrible form  of pow- dered milk tasting like rancid chalk -- and  pick up  on the results.  They  hock everything  to pay  the gas  bill, and when  the  man  comes  around to  shut it  off for  the eon- payment,  you  can  hear  their screams  for miles.  When a citizen is sick from needing it he says "I got  the klinks" or "That old stove climbing up my back."

Nutmeg.  I  quote  from  the  author's  article  on  nar- cotic  drugs  in  the  British Journal  of Addiction  ( see Appendix  ):  "Convicts  and  sailors  sometimes  have  re- course  to   nutmeg.  About   a  tablespoon   is  swallowed with  water.  Result  vaguely  similar  to  marijuana  with side effects  of headache  and nausea.  There are  a number of  narcotics  of  the  nutmeg  family  in  use  among  the Indians  of  South America.  They are  usually administered by  sniffing  a  dried  powder  of  the plant.  The medicine men  take  these  noxious  substances  and go  into convul- sive states. Their twitchings  and mutterings  are thought to have prophetic significance." )

"I  had  a  Yage  hangover,  me, and  in no  condition to take  any  of  Browbeck's  shit.  First  thing he  comes on with I should start the incision from  the back  instead of the  front,  muttering  some  garbled nonsense  about being sure  to  cut out  the gall  bladder it  would fuck  up the meat.  Thought  he  was  on  the  farm cleaning  a chicken. I told him  to go  put his  head back  in the  oven, where- upon  he  had  the  effrontery  to  push  my  hand  severing the  patient's  femoral  artery.   Blood  spurted   up  and blinded  the  anesthetist,  who ran  out through  the halls screaming.  Browbeck  tried to  knee me  in the  groin, and I   managed   to   hamstring  him   with  my   scalpel.  He crawled  about  the  floor  stabbing  at  my feet  and legs. Violet,  that's  my baboon  assistant --  only woman  I ever cared a damn about  -- really  wigged. I  climbed up  on the table  and  poise  myself  to  jump  on Browbeck  with both feet and stomp him when the cops rushed in.

"Well,  this  rumble   in  the   operating  room,   'this  un- speakable  occurrence'  as  the  Super  called  it,   you  might say  was  the  blow  off.  The  wolf  pack  was closing  for the kill.  A crucifixion,  that's the  only word  for it.  Of course I'd  made  a  few  'dumheits'  here   and  there.   Who  hasn't? There  was  the  time  me  and  the  anesthetist  drank  up  all the  ether  and  the  patient  came   up  on   us,  and   I  was accused   of   cutting  the   cocaine  with   Sanifiush.  Violet did it actually. Had to protect her of course....

"So  the  wind-up   is  we   are  all   drummed  out   of  the industry.  Not  that  Violet  was  a  bona  fide  croaker,  nei- ther   was   Browbeck  for   that  matter,   and  even   my  own certificate  was  called  in  question.  But  Violet  knew  more medicine   than  the   Mayo  Clinic.   She  had   an  extraordi- nary intuition and a high sense of duty.

"So  there  I  was  flat  on  my  ass  with   no  certificate. Should  I  turn  to   another  trade?   No.  Doctoring   was  in my  blood.   I  managed   to  keep   up  my   habits  performing cutrate  abortions  in  subway  toilets.  I  even  descended  to hustling  pregnant  women   in  the   public  streets.   It  was positively  unethical.  Then  I  met   a  great   guy,  Placenta Juan  the  After  Birth  Tycoon.  Made  his  in   slunks  during the  war.  (Slunks  are  underage  calves  trailing  afterbirths and  bacteria,  generally  in  an   unsanitary  and   unfit  con- dition.  A  calf  may  not  be  sold  as  food until  it reaches a  minimum  age  of  six  weeks.  Prior  to  that  time   it  is classified  as  a  slunk.  Slunk  trafficking  is  subject  to a heavy  penalty.)  Well,  Juanito  controlled  a  fleet  of  cargo boats   he  register   under  the   Abyssinian  flag   to  avoid bothersome   restrictions.  He   gives  me   a  job   as  ship's doctor on the S.S. Filiarisis, as filthy a craft as  ever sailed the seas. Operating with one hand, beating the  rats offa my  patient  with  the  other  and bedbugs  and scorpions rain down from the ceiling.

"So  somebody  wants  homogeneity  at   this  juncture. Can do but it costs.  Bored with  the whole  project, me. ...Here we are.... Drag Alley."

Benway traces a pattern in  the air  with his  hand and a  door  swings  open.  We  step  through  and  the  door closes. A long ward gleaming with stainless  steel, white tile floors, glass brick  walls. Beds  along one  wall. No one smokes, no one reads, no one talks.

"Come  and  take  a  close  look,"  says  Benway.  "You won't embarrass anybody."

I walk over and stand in front of a man who  is sitting on his bed.  I look  at the  man's eyes.  Nobody, nothing looks back.

"IND's,"  says  Benway,  "Irreversible  Neural  Damage. Overliberated, you might say... a drag on the industry."

I pass a hand in front of the man's eyes.

"Yes," says  Benway, "they  still have  reflexes. Watch this."  Benway  takes  a chocolate  bar from  his pocket, removes the wrapper and holds  it in  front of  the man's nose. The man sniffs. His  jaws begin  to work.  He makes snatching motions with his hands.  Saliva drips  from his mouth  and  hangs  off  his chin  in long  streamers. His stomach rumbles. His whole  body writhes  in peristalsis. Benway  steps  back  and  holds  up  the  chocolate.  The man drops to his knees, throws back  his head  and barks. Benway  tosses  the  chocolate.  The  man  snaps  at  it, misses, scrambles  around on  the floor  making slobbering noises. He crawls under the bed, finds the  chocolate and crams it into his mouth with both hands.

"Jesus! These ID's got no class to them."

Benway  calls  over the  attendant who  is sitting  at one end of the ward reading a book of J. M. Barrie's plays.

"Get  these  fucking  ID's  outa here.  It's a  bring down already. Bad for the tourist business."

"What should I do with them?"

"How  in  the  fuck  should  I  know?  I'm a  scientist. A pure  scientist.  Just  get  them outa  here. I  don't hafta look at them is all. They constitute an albatross."

"But what? Where?"

"Proper  channels.  Buzz   the  District   Coordinator  or whatever  he   calls  himself...   new  title   every  week. Doubt if he exists."

Doctor  Benway  pauses  at  the  door  and  looks  back at the IND's. "Our failures," he says. "Well,  it's all  in the day's work."

"Do they ever come back?"

"They  don't  come  back,  won't  come back,  once they're gone,"  Benway  sings  softly.  "Now  this  ward   has  some innarest.'

The  patients  stand  in  groups  talking and  spitting on the floor. Junk hangs in the air like a grey haze.

"A  heart-warming  sight,"  says  Benway,  "those  junkies standing  around  waiting  for  the  Man.  Six   months  ago they  were  all  schizophrenic.  Some  of  them  hadn't been out of bed for years. Now look  at them.  In all  the course of  my  practices,  I  have   never  seen   a  schizophrenic junky,  and  junkies  are  mostly  of  the  schizo  physical type.  Want  to  cure  anybody  of  anything,  find  out who doesn't have it. So who don't got it'? Junkies don't got it. Oh,  incidentally,  there's  an  area  in  Bolivia  with  no psychosis. Right sane  folk in  them hills.  Like to  get in there, me, before it is loused up by  literacy, advertising, TV  and  drive-ins.  Make  a   study  strictly   from  meta- bolism:  diet,  use  of  drugs  and  alcohol, sex,  etc. Who cares  what  they  think?  Same  nonsense  everybody thinks, I daresay.

"And   why   don't   junkies   got   schizophrenia?  Don't know  yet.  A  schizophrenic  can  ignore hunger  and starve to death if he  isn't fed.  No one  can ignore  heroin with- drawal. The fact of addiction imposes contact.

"But  that's  only  one  angle.  Mescaline,  LSD6, deteri- orated   adrenaline,  harmaline   can  produce   an  approxi- mat~  schizophrenia. The  best stuff  is extracted  from the blood of  schizos; so  schizophrenia is  likely a  drug psy- chosis.  They  got  a  metabolic  connection,  a  Man Within you  might  say.  ( Interested readers  are referred  to Ap- pendix. )

"In  the  terminal  stage  of schizophrenia  the backbrain is  permanently  depressed,  and the  front brain  is almost without  content  since the  front brain  is only  active in response to backbrain stimulation.

"Morphine  calls  forth the  antidote of  backbrain stimu- lation  similar  to  schizo  substance.  (  Note  similarity between   withdrawal   syndrome   and    intoxication   with Yage or LSD6.  ) Eventual  result of  junk use  -- especially true  of heroin  addiction where  large doses  are available to  the  addict  --  is  permanent  backbrain  depression and a  state  much  like  terminal schizophrenia:  complete lack of affect, autism,  virtual absence  of cerebral  event. The addict  can  spend  eight  hours  looking at  a wall.  He is conscious  of  his  surroundings,  hut  they  have  no  emo- tional  connotation  and  in  consequence  no  interest. Re- membering  a  period  of  heavy  addiction  is  like playing back  a  tape  recording  of  events  experienced  by the front brain alone. Flat statements of external events. 'I went to the  store and  bought some  brown sugar.  I came home and  ate half  the box.  I took  a three  grain shot etc.' Complete  absence of  nostalgia in  these memories. However,  as  soon as  junk intake  falls below  par, the withdrawal substance floods the body.

"If all pleasure is relief  from tension,  junk affords relief from the whole life process, in  disconnecting the hypothalamus,  which  is  the  center  of  psychic energy and libido.

"Some  of  my  learned  colleagues  (nameless assholes) have  suggested  that  junk  derives  its  euphoric effect from direct stimulation  of the  orgasm center.  It seems more  probable  that  junk  suspends  the whole  cycle of tension, discharge and rest. The  orgasm has  no function in  the  junky.  Boredom, which  always indicates  an un- discharged  tension,  never troubles  the addict.  He can look at his shoe for eight  hours. He  is only  roused to action when the hourglass of junk runs out."

At  the  far  end of  the ward  an attendant  throws up an iron shutter and lets out a hog call. The junkies rush up grunting and squealing.

"Wise  guy,"  says  Benway.   "No  respect   for  human dignity. Now I'll show  you the  mild deviant  and crimi- nal  ward. Yes,  a criminal  is a  mild deviant  here. He doesn't  deny  the  Freeland  contract.  He  merely seeks to  circumvent  some  of  the clauses.  Reprehensible but not too serious. Down this hall...  We'll skip  wards 23, 86, 57 and 97... and the laboratory."

"Are homosexuals classed as deviants?'

"No.  Remember  the  Bismarck  Archipelago.   No  overt homosexuality.  A  functioning  police  state  needs   no  po- lice.  Homosexuality  does  not  occur   to  anyone   as  con- ceivable   behaviour....   Homosexuality   is    a   political crime  in  a  matriarchy.  No  society  tolerates   overt  re- jection  of  its basic  tenets. We  aren't a  matriarchy here, Insh'allah.   You   know  the   experiment  with   rats  where they  are  subject  to  this  electric  shock  and  dropped in cold  water  if  they so  much as  move at  a female.  So they all  become  fruit  rats  and that's  the way  it is  with the etiology.  And  shall  such  a  rat  squeak  out,  'I'm  queah and  I  luuuuuuuuve  it'  or  'Who  cut  yours  off,  you two- holed  freak?'  'twere  a  square  rat  so  to  squeak. During my  rather  brief  experience  as  a  psychoanalyst --  spot of bother  with  the  Society  --  one patient  ran amok  in Grand Central   with   a   flame   thrower,  two   committed  suicide and one died  on the  couch like  a jungle  rat (  jungle rats are  subject  to  die  if  confronted  suddenly  with  a hope- less situation). So his relations beef and I tell  them, 'It's all  in  the  day's  work. Get  this stiff  outa here.  It's a bring  down  for my  live patients'  -- I  noticed that  all my homosexual    patients    manifested     strong    unconscious heterosex   trends   and   all   my  hetero   patients  uncon- scious  homosexual  trends.  Makes   the  brain   reel,  don't it?"

"And what do you conclude from that?"

"Conclude?   Nothing   whatever.   Just  a   passing  obser- vation."

We  are  eating  lunch  in  Benway's  office  when  he  gets a call.

"What's   that?...   Monstrous!   Fantastic!...   Carry   on and stand by."

He  puts  down  the   phone.  "I   am  prepared   to  accept immediate   assignment   with   Islam   Incorporated.   It seems  the  electronic  brain  went  berserk  playing six- dimensional  chess  with   the  Technician   and  released every subject in the R.C.  Leave us  adjourn to  the roof. Operation Helicopter is indicated."

From  the  roof of  the R.C.  we survey  a scene  of un- paralleled  horror.  IND's  stand around  in front  of the cafe  tables, long  streamers of  saliva hanging  off their chins, stomachs noisily churning, others ejaculate  at the sight  of  women.  Latahs  imitate  the   passers-by  with monkey-like  obscenity.  Junkies  have  looted  the  drug- stores and fix on every street corner.... Catatonics deco- rate  the parks....  Agitated schizophrenics  rush through the  streets  with  mangled,  inhuman  cries.  A  group of P.R.'s --  Partially Reconditioned  -- have  surrounded some homosexual  tourists  with  horrible knowing  smiles show- ing the Nordic skull beneath in double exposure.

"What do you want?" snaps one of the queens.

"We want to understand you."

A  contingent  of  howling  simopaths  swing  from chan- deliers,  balconies  and  trees,  shitting and  pissing on passers-by.  (A  simopath  -- the  technical name  for this disorder escapes me -- is a citizen convinced he is  an ape or other simian. It is  a disorder  peculiar to  the army, and  discharge  cures  it.) Amoks  trot along  cutting off heads, faces sweet and  remote with  a dreamy  half smile. ...Citizens with incipient Bang-utot clutch  their penises and call on the  tourists for  help.... Arab  rioters yipe and  howl,   castrating,  disembowelling,   throw  burning gasoline....  Dancing  boys  strip-tease  with intestines, women stick severed genitals in  their cunts,  grind, bump and Hick it at the man of their choice.... Religious fanatics harangue the crowd from helicopters and rain stone tablets on their heads, inscribed with meaningless messages.... Leopard Men tear people to pieces with iron claws, coughing and grunting.... Kwakiutl Canni- bal Society initiates bite off noses and ears....

A coprophage calls for a plate, shits on it and eats the shit, exclaiming, "Mmmm, that's my rich substance."

A battalion of rampant bores prowls the streets and hotel lobbies in search of victims. An intellectual avant- gardist -- *'Of course the only writing worth considering now is to be found in scientific reports and periodicals" -- has given someone a bulbocapnine injection and is preparing to read him a bulletin on "the use of neo- hemoglobin in the control of multiple degenerative granuloma." ( Of course, the reports are all gibberish he has concocted and printed up. )

His opening words: "You look to me like a man of intelligence." (Always ominous words, my boy .. When you hear them stay not on the order of your going but go at once. )

An English colonial, assisted by five police boys, has detained a subject in the club bar: "I say, do you know Mozambique?" and he launches into the endless saga of his malaria. "So the doctor said to me, 'I can only advise you to leave the area. Otherwise I shall bury you.' This croaker does a little undertaking on the side. Piecing out the odds you might say, and throwing him- self a spot of business now and then." So after the third pink gin when he gets to know you, he shifts to dysen- tery. "Most extraordinary discharge. More or less of a white  yellow  color  like  rancid  jism  and  stringy  you know."

An  explorer  in sun  helmet has  brought down  a citizen with blow gun  and curare  dart. He  administers artificial respiration  with  one  foot.  (Curare kills  by paralyzing the lungs. It has no other toxic  effect, is  not, strictly speaking,  a  poison. If  artificial respiration  is admin- istered  the  subject  will not  die. Curare  is eliminated with great  rapidity by  the kidneys.)  "That was  the year of  the  rindpest  when everything  died, even  the hyenas. ...So  there  I  was completely  out of  K.Y. in  the head- waters  of  the  Baboonsasshole.   When  it   came  through by  air  drop  my  gratitude  was  indescribable....  As  a matter of  fact, and  I have  never told  this before  to a living soul -- elusive blighters" -- his voice echoes through a vast empty hotel lobby in 1890  style, red  plush, rubber plants,  gilt  and  statues  --  "I was  the only  white man ever  initiated  into  the  infamous  Agouti  Society, wit- nessed and participated in their unspeakable rites."

(The  Agouti  Society   has  turned   out  for   a  Chimu Fiesta.  (The  Chimu  of  ancient  Peru  were   much  given to  sodomy  and  occasionally  staged  bloody  battles with clubs,  running  up  several  hundred  casualties   in  the course of an afternoon.  ) The  youths, sneering  and goos- ing  each other  with clubs,  troop out  to the  field. Now the battle begins.

Gentle  reader,  the ugliness  of that  spectacle buggers description.  Who  can  be   a  cringing   pissing  coward, yet vicious  as a  purple-assed mandril,  alternating these deplorable  conditions  like  vaudeville  skits?   Who  can shit on a fallen adversary  who, dying,  eats the  shit and screams  with  joy?  Who  can  hang  a  weak  passive  and catch  his  sperm  in  mouth  like  a vicious  dog? Gentle reader,  I  fain  would spare  you this,  but my  pen hath its  will  like  the  Ancient  Mariner.  Oh Christ  what a scene  is  this!  Can  tongue  or  pen  accommodate  these scandals?  A  beastly  young hooligan  has gouged  out the eye  of  his  confrere and  fuck him  in the  brain. "This brain atrophy already, and dry as grandmother's cunt."

He  turns  into  Rock  and  Roll  hoodlum. "I  screw the old gash --  like a  crossword puzzle  what relation  to me is the outcome  if it  outcome? My  father already  or not yet?  I  can't  screw you,  Jack, you  is about  to become my  father,  and  better  'twere  to  cut your  throat and screw  my  mother  playing  it   straight  than   fuck  my father  or  vice versa  mutatis mutandis  as the  case may be,  and  cut  my  mother's  throat,  that  sainted  gash, though  it  be  the  best  way  I  know  to stem  her word horde  and  freeze  her  asset.  I mean  when a  fellow be caught  short  in  the switches  and don't  know is  he to over up his ass  to 'great  big daddy'  or commit  a torso job  on  the  old  lady.  Give  me two  cunts and  a prick of  steel  and  keep  your  dirty finger  out of  my sugar bum  what  you  think  I   am  a   purple-assed  reception already   fugitive   from   Gibraltar?  Male   and  female castrated  he  them.  Who  can't  distinguish  between the sexes?  I'll  cut  your  throat  you white  mother fucker. Come  out  in  the open  like my  grandchild and  meet thy unborn  mother  in  dubious  battle.  Confusion  hath fuck his masterpiece. I have cut the janitor's throat  quite by mistake of identity, he  being such  a horrible  fuck like the old man. And in the coal bin all cocks are alike."

So  leave  us return  to the  stricken field.  One youth hath  penetrate  his  comrade,  whilst  another  youth does amputate  the  proudest  part  of  that   cock's  quivering beneficiary so that  the visiting  member projects  to fill the  vacuum  nature  abhors  and  ejaculate into  the Black Lagoon   where   impatient  piranha   snap  up   the  child not  yet born  nor --  in view  of certain  well established facts -- at all likely. )

Another bore carries around a  suitcase full  of trophies and  medals,  cups  and ribbons:  "Now this  I won  for the Most  Ingenious  Sex  Device  Contest  in  Yokohama.  (Hold him,  he's  desperate.)  The  Emperor  gave  it to  me him- self and there were tears in his  eyes, and  the runners-up all castrated theirselves with harakiri  knives. And  I won this  ribbon  in  a  Degradation  Contest  at  the  Teheran meeting of Junkies Anonymous."

"Shot  up  my  wife's  M.S,  and her  down with  a kidney stone  big  as  the  Hope  Diamond.  So I  give her  half a Vagamin  and  tell  her,  "You  can't  expect too  much re- lief....  Shut  up  awready.  I  wanta  enjoy   my  medica- tions.

"Stole  an  opium  suppository  out  of  my grandmother's ass."

The  hypochondriac  lassoes  the  passer-by   and  admin- isters a straitjacket and starts talking about  his rotting septum:  "An  awful  purulent discharge  is subject  to How out... just wait till you see it."

He does  a strip  tease to  operation scars,  guiding the reluctant  fingers  of  a  victim.  "Feel  that  suppurated swelling  in  my  groin  where   I  got   the  lymphogranu- lomas....  And  now  I  want  you  to  palpate  my internal hemorrhoids."

(The   reference   is   to   lymphogranuloma,  "climactic

i buboes." A  virus venereal  disease indigenous  to Ethio- pia.  "Not  for  nothing  are we  known as  feelthy Ethi- opians," sneers  an Ethiopian  mercenary as  he sodomizes Pharaoh,  venomous  as  the  King's cobra.  Ancient Egyp- tian  papyrus  talk  all  the  time  about  them  feelthy Ethiopians.

So it started in  Addis Ababa  like the  Jersey Bounce, but  these  are  modern  times, One  World. Now  the cli- mactic  buboes  swell  up  in  Shanghai  and  Esmeraldas, New  Orleans  and  Helsinki,  Seattle  and  Capetown. But the heart  turns home  and the  disease shows  a distinct predilection  for  Negroes,  is  in fact  the whitehaired boy  of  white  supremacists.  But  the  Mau  Mau  voodoo men are said to be cooking up a  real dilly  of a  VD for the  white folks.  Not that  Caucasians are  immune: five British sailors contracted the  disease in  Zanzibar. And in  Dead  Coon  County,  Arkansas ("Blackest  Dirt, Whit- est People in the U.S.A.-- Nigger, Don't  Let The  Sun Set On  You  Here")  the  County   Coroner  come   down  with the  buboes  fore  and  aft.  A  vigilante  committee  of neighbors  apologetically  burned  him  to death  in the Court  House  privy when  his interesting  condition came to light. "Now,  Clem, just  think of  yourself as  a cow with the  aftosa." "Or  a poltroon  with the  fowl pest." "Don't crowd too close, boys.  His intestines  is subject to explode in the fire."  The disease  in short  arm hath a  gimmick  for going  places unlike  certain unfortunate viruses  who  are  fated  to  languish   unconsummate  in the guts of a tick or  a jungle  mosquito, or  the saliva of  a  dying  jackal slobbering  silver under  the desert moon. And after an initial lesion at the point  of infee- tion the disease passes to the lymph glands of  the groin, which  swell  and  burst  in  suppurating  fissures, drain for  days,  months,  years,  a purulent  stringy discharge streaked  with  blood  and  putrid   lymph.  Elephantiasis of the genitals is a frequent  complication, and  cases of gangrene   have   been   recorded  where   the  amputation in  medio of  the patient  from the  waist down  was indi- cated  but  hardly  worth   while.  Women   usually  suffer secondary  infection  of  the   anus.  Males   who  resign themselves up  for passive  intercourse to  infected part- ners  like  weak  and  soon  to  be  purple-assed baboons, may also nourish a little stranger. Initial  proctitis and the  inevit4ble purulent  discharge --  which may  pass un- noticed in the  shuRe --  is followed  by stricture  of the rectum  requiring intervention  of an  apple corer  or its surgical  equivalent,  lest  the  unfortunate  patient  be reduced  to  fart  and shit  in his  teeth giving  rise to stubborn  cases  of  halitosis  and unpopularity  with all sexes,  ages  and conditions  of homo  sapiens. In  fact a blind  bugger  was  deserted  by  his  seeing  eye  police dog  --  copper at  heart. Until  quite recently  there was no  satisfactory  treatment.  "Treatment  is  symptomatic" --  which  means  in  the  trade  there  is none.  Now many cases  yield  to intensive  therapy with  aureomycin, ter- ramycin   and  some   of  the   newer  molds.   However  a certain  appreciable   percentage  remain   refractory  as mountain  gorillas....  So,  boys,  when  those  hot licks play  over  your  balls  and  prick and  dart up  your ass like  an  invisible  blue  blow torch  of orgones,  in the words  of  I.  B.  Watson, Think.  Stop panting  and start palpating...  and  if  you  palpate  a  bubo   draw  your- self back in and say in  a cold  nasal whine:  "You think I am innarested to contact  your horrible  old condition? I am not innarested at all.")

Rock  and  Roll adolescent  hoodlums storm  the streets of  all  nations.  They  rush into  the Louvre  and throw acid  in  the Mona  Lisa's face.  They open  zoos, insane asylums,  prisons,  burst water  mains with  air hammers, chop the floor  out of  passenger plane  lavatories, shoot out lighthouses, file elevator cables  to one  thin wire, turn  sewers  into  the  water  supply, throw  sharks and sting  rays,  electric  eels  and  candiru  into swimming pools  (the  candiru  is  a small  eel-like fish  or worm about  one-quarter  inch  through  and  two  inches  long patronizing certain rivers of ill  repute in  the Greater Amazon Basin,  will dart  up your  prick or  your asshole or  a  woman's  cunt  faute  de  mieux, and  hold himself there  by  sharp  spines with  precisely what  motives is not known  since no  one has  stepped forward  to observe the candiru's life-cycle in  sito), in  nautical costumes ram  the  Queen  Mary  full speed  into New  York Harbor, play  chicken  with  passenger  planes  and  busses, rush into hospitals in white coats carrying saws and  axes and scalpels three feet  long; throw  paralytics out  of iron lungs  (mimic  their suffocations  flopping about  on the floor and  rolling their  eyes up),  administer injections with  bicycle pumps,  disconnect artificial  kidneys, saw a  woman  in  half  with  a  two-man  surgical  saw, they drive herds of squealing  pigs into  the Curb,  they shit on  the floor  of the  United Nations  and wipe  their ass with treaties, pacts, alliances.

By plane, car, horse, camel, elephant, tractor, bicycle and steam roller, on foot, skis,  sled, crutch  and pogo- stick the  tourists storm  the frontiers,  demanding with inflexible  authority  asylum  from the  "unspeakable con- ditions  obtaining  in  Freeland,"  the  Chamber  of Com- merce  striving  in  vain  to  stem the  debacle: "Please to be restful. It  is only  a few  crazies who  have from the crazy place outbroken."

JOSELITO

And  Joselito  who  wrote  bad,  class-conscious poetry began  to  cough.  The  German  doctor  made a  brief ex- amination, touching Joselito's  ribs with  long, delicate fingers. The doctor was also a concert violinist, a math- ematician, a chess master, and a Doctor  of International Jurisprudence with license to practice in  the lavatories of the Hague. The  doctor flicked  a hard,  distant glance across  Joselito's  brown  chest. He  looked at  Carl and smiled -- one educated man to another  smile --  and raised his eyebrow, saying without words:

"Alzo  for  the  so  stupid peasant  we must  avoid use of the word  is it  not? Otherwise  he shit  himself with fear. Hoch and spit they are both nasty words I think?"

He said aloud: "It is a catarro de los pulmones."

Carl  talked  to  the doctor  outside under  the narrow arcade  with  rain  bouncing up  from the  street against his pant legs, thinking how  many people  he tell  it to, and  the  stairs,  porches,  lawns,  driveways, corridors and streets of the  world there  in the  doctor's eyes... stuffy  German  alcoves,  butterfly  trays to  the ceiling, silent  portentous  smell  of  uremia  seeping  under the door,  suburban  lawns  to sound  of the  water sprinkler, in  calm  jungle night  under silent  wings of  the Anoph- eles  mosquito.  (Note:  This is  not a  figure. Anopheles mosquitoes are silent. ) Thickly carpeted,  discreet nurs- ing  home  in Kensington:  stiff brocade  chair and  a cup of  tea,  the  Swedish  modern  living  room   with  water hyacinths  in  a  yellow  bowl  --  outside the  China blue Northern  sky  and  drifting  clouds,  under   bad  water- colors of the dying medical student.

"A schnaps I think Frau Underschnitt."

The  doctor  was  talking  into  a  phone  with  a chess board in front of him. "Quite a  severe lesion  I think... of  course  without to  see the  Horoscope." He  picks up the  knight  and  then  replaces it  thoughtfully. "Yes... Both  lungs...  quite  definitely."  He  replaces  the  re- ceiver and turns to  Carl. "I  have observed  these people show  amazingly  quick  wound   recovery,  with   low  in- cidence  of  infection.  It  is  always the  lungs here... pneumonia  and,  of  course,  Old  Faithful."  The  doctor grabs  Carl's  cock, leaping  into the  air with  a coarse peasant  guffaw.  His  European  smile  ignores  the  mis- behavior  of a  child or  an animal.  He goes  on smoothly in  his  eerily  unaccented,  disembodied   English.  "Our Old Faithful Bacillus Koch." The  doctor clicks  his heels and  bows  his  head.   "Otherwise  they   would  multiply their stupid peasant asshole into the sea, is it  not?" He shrieks,  thrusting  his face  into Carl's.  Carl retreats sideways with the grey wall of rain behind him.

"Isn't there some place where he can be treated?"

"I think  there is  some sort  of sanitarium,"  he drags out  the  word  with  ambiguous  obscenity,  "up   at  the District Capital. I will write for you the address."

"Chemical therapy?"

His voice falls Hat and heavy in the damp air.

"Who  can  say.   They  are   all  stupid   peasants,  and the  worst  of  all  peasants  are  the  so-called educated. These  people  should  not  only  be  prevented  from learn- ing to  read, but  from learning  to talk  as well.  No need to prevent them from thinking; nature has done that."

"Here  is  the  address,"  the  doctor  whispered  without moving his lips.

He  dropped  a  pill  of  paper  into  Carl's   hand.  His dirty fingers, shiny over the dirt, rested on Carl's sleeve.

"There is the matter of my fee."

Carl   slipped   him   a   wadded   banknote...   and  the doctor  faded  into  the  grey  twilight, seedy  and furtive as an old junky.

Carl  saw  Joselito  in a  big clean  room full  of light, with  private  bath  and   concrete  balcony.   And  nothing to  talk  about  there  in  the   cold  empty   room,  water hyacinths   growing  in   a  yellow   bowl  and   the  China blue  sky  and drifting  clouds, fear  flickering in  and out of  his  eyes.  When  he  smiled  the  fear  flew   away  in little  pieces of  light, lurked  enigmatically in  the high cool  corners  of  the room.  And what  could I  say feeling death  around  me,  and  the   little  broken   images  that come before sleep, there in the mind?

"They  will  send  me  to  the  new  sanitarium  tomorrow. Come and visit me. I will be there alone."

He coughed and took a codeineeta.

"Doctor  I  understand,  that  is  I  have  been  given to understand,  I  have  read  and  heard --  not a  medical man myself  --  don't  pretend  to be-that  the concept  of sani- tarium  treatment  has  been   more  or   less  supplanted, or  at  least  very  definitely  supplemented,  by  chemical therapy.  Is  this accurate  in your  opinion? What  I mean to say is, Doctor, please tell me in all sincerity,  as one human  being  to another,  what is  your opinion  of chemi- cal versus sanitarium therapy? Are you a partisan?"

The  doctor's  liver  sick  Indian  face  was blank  as a dealer's.

"Completely  modern,  as  you   can  see,"   he  gestures toward  the  room  with  the  purple  fingers of  bad circu- lation.  "Bath...  water...  flowers.  The  lot."   He  fin- ished  in   Cockney  English   with  a   triumphant  smirk. "I will write for you a letter."

"This letter? For the sanitarium?"

The  doctor  was  speaking  from  a  land of  black rocks and  great,  iridescent  brown  lagoons.  "The furniture... modern and comfortable. You find it so of course?"

Carl  could  not  see  the  sanitarium  owing to  a false front  of  green stucco  topped by  an intricate  neon sign dead and sinister  against the  sky, waiting  for darkness. The  sanitarium  was  evidently  built  on  a  great  lime- stone  promontory,  over  which  flowering  trees  and vine tendrils  broke  in   waves.  The   smell  of   flowers  was heavy in the air.

The  commandante  sat  at  a  long  wooden  trestle under a  vine  trellis.  He  was  doing  absolutely  nothing.  He took  the  letter  that  Carl  handed  him   and  whispered through  it,  reading  his  lips  with  the  left  hand. He stuck the letter on a spike over a  toilet. He  began tran- scribing  from a  ledger full  of numbers.  He wrote  on and on.

Broken  images  exploded  softly  in  Carl's  head, and he was moving  out of  himself in  a silent  swoop. Clear and sharp from a  great distance  he saw  himself sitting in  a  lunchroom.  Overdose  of H.  His old  lady shaking him and holding hot coffee under his nose.

Outside  an  old  junky  in  Santa  Claus  suit selling Christmas  seals. "Fight  tuberculosis, folks,"  he whis- pers  in  his  disembodied,  junky voice.  Salvation Army choir  of  sincere,  homosexual  football  coaches sings: "In the Sweet Bye and Bye."

Carl  drifted back  into his  body, an  earthbound junk ghost.

"I could bribe him, of course."

The  commandante  taps  the   table  with   one  finger and  hums  "Coming  Through  the  Rye."  Far  away,  then urgently near like a  foghorn a  split second  before the grinding crash.

Carl pulled a note half out  of his  trouser pocket.... The  commandante  was  standing  by   a  vast   panel  of lockers  and  deposit  boxes.  He  looked  at  Carl, sick animal  eyes gone  out, dying  inside, hopeless  fear re- flecting the face of death. In the smell of flowers a note half out of his pocket, the  weakness hit  Carl, shutting of  his breath,  stopping his  blood. He  was in  a great cone spinning down to a black point.

"Chemical  therapy?" The  scream shot  out of  his flesh through  empty  locker rooms  and barracks,  musty resort hotels, and  spectral, coughing  corridors of  T,B. sani- tariums,  the  muttering,  hawking, grey  dishwater smell of  flophouses  and  Old  Men's  Homes, great,  dusty cus- tom  sheds  and  warehouses,  through   broken  porticoes and  smeared  arabesques,  iron  urinals worn  paper thin by the urine  of a  million fairies,  deserted weed-grown privies with a musty smell  of shit  turning back  to the soil, erect wooden phallus on the grave of  dying peoples plaintive as leaves in the wind,  across the  great brown river where  whole trees  float with  green snakes  in the branches  and sad-eyed  lemurs watch  the shore  out over a vast plain  (vulture wings  husk in  the dry  air). The way  is  strewn  with  broken  condoms  and empty  H caps and  K.Y. tubes  squeezed dry  as bone  meal in  the sum- mer sun.

"My  furniture."  The  commandante's  face  burned like metal in the  Hash bulb  of urgency.  His eyes  went out. A whif  of ozone  drifted through  the room.  The "novia" muttered over her candles and altars in one corner.

"It  is all  Trak... modern,  excellent..." he  is nod- ding  idiotically  and  drooling. A  yellow cat  pulls at Carl's pant leg and runs onto a concrete  balcony. Clouds drift by.

"I could get back my deposit. Start  me a  little busi- ness  someplace." He  nods and  smiles like  a mechanical toy.

"Joselito!!!"  Boys  look  up  from street  ball games, bull  rings  and bicycle  races as  the name  whistles by and slowly fades away.

"Joselito!...   Paco!...   Pepe!...   Enrique!..."  The plaintive  boy  cries  drift  in on  the warm  night. The Trak sign stirs like a nocturnal  beast, and  bursts into blue flame. THE BLACK MEAT

"We friends, yes?" The  shoe  shine  boy  put  on  his hustling  smile and looked up into the Sailor's dead, cold,  undersea eyes, eyes without a trace of warmth or lust  or hate  or any feeling  the  boy  had ever  experienced in  himself or seen in another, at once  cold and  intense, impersonal and predatory. The  Sailor  leaned  forward  and put  a finger  on the boy's inner arm  at the  elbow. He  spoke in  his dead, junky whisper. "With veins like that, Kid, I'd have myself a time." He  laughed,  black  insect  laughter  that  seemed  to serve some obscure function of orientation like a bat's squeak.  The  Sailor  laughed  three times.  He stopped laughing  and  hung  there  motionless  listening  down into  himself. He  had picked  up the  silent frequency of junk.  His face  smoothed out  like yellow  wax over the high cheek-bones. He waited  half a  cigarette. The Sailor  knew  how  to wait.  But his  eyes burned  in a hideous dry hunger.  He turned  his face  of controlled emergency  in a  slow half  pivot to  case the  man who had just come  in. "Fats"  Terminal sat  there sweeping the  cafe  with  blank, periscope  eyes. When  his eyes passed the Sailor he nodded  minutely. Only  the peeled nerves of junk sickness would  have registered  a move- ment. The  Sailor  handed  the  boy a  coin. He  drifted over to  Fat's  table with  his floating  walk and  sat down. They sat a  long time  in silence.  The cafe  was built into one side of a stone ramp at the  bottom of  a high white  canyon  of  masonry.  Faces  of  The  City  poured through silent as fish, stained with vile  addictions and insect lusts. The lighted cafe was  a diving  bell, cable broken, settling into black depths.

The Sailor  was polishing  his nails  on the  lapels of his glen plaid suit.  He whistled  a little  tune through his shiny, yellow teeth.

When  he  moved  an  effluvia  of  mold drifted  out of his  clothes,  a  musty smell  of deserted  locker rooms. He studied his nails with phosphorescent intensity.

"Good  thing  here,  Fats. I  can deliver  twenty. Need an advance of course."

"On spec?"

"So  I  don't  have  the  twenty eggs  in my  pocket. I tell  you it's  jellied consomme,  One little  whoops and a push." The Sailor  looked at  his nails  as if  he were studying a chart. "You know I always deliver."

"Make  it  thirty. And  a ten  tube advance.  This time tomorrow.

"Need a tube now, Fats."

"Take a walk, you'll get one."

The  Sailor  drifted  down  into  the  Plaza.  A street boy  was  shoving  a  newspaper in  the Sailor's  face to cover his  hand on  the Sailor's  pen. The  Sailor walked on. He pulled  the pen  out and  broke it  like a  nut in his thick, fibrous, pink  fingers. He  pulled out  a lead tube. He cut one  end of  the tube  with a  little curved knife.  A  black  mist  poured  out and  hung in  the air like boiling fur. The Sailor's face dissolved.  His mouth undulated  forward  on  a  long  tube  and sucked  in the black  fuzz, vibrating  in supersonic  peristalsis disap- peared in a silent,  pink explosion.  His face  came back into  focus  unbearably  sharp  and  clear,   burning  yellow brand  of  junk  searing  the  grey   haunch  of   a  million screaming junkies.

"This  will  last  a  month,"  he  decided,  consulting  an invisible mirror.

All  streets  of  the  City  slope  down   between  deepen- ing  canyons  to   a  vast,   kidney-shaped  plaza   full  of darkness.  Walls  of  street  and  plaza  are  perforated  by dwelling  cubicles  and   cafes,  some   a  few   feet  deep, others  extending  out  of sight  in a  network of  rooms and corridors.

At  all  levels  criss-cross of  bridges, cat  walks, cable cars.  Catatonic  youths  dressed  as   women  in   gowns  of burlap   and   rotten   rags,   faces  heavily   and  crudely painted  in  bright  colors  over   a  strata   of  beatings, arabesques  of  broken,  suppurating   scars  to   the  pearly bone,  push   against  the   passer-by  in   silent  clinging insistence.

Traffickers  in  the   Black  Meat,   flesh  of   the  giant aquatic  black  centipede  --  sometimes  attaining  a  length of six feet -- found in a lane of black rocks  and iridescent, brown   lagoons,  exhibit   paralyzed  crustaceans   in  cam- ouflage  pockets  of  the  Plaza  visible  only  to  the  Meat Eaters.

Followers   of   obsolete   unthinkable   trades,  doodling in  Etruscan,  addicts  of drugs  not yet  synthesized, black marketeers  of   World  War   III,  excisors   of  telepathic sensitivity,  osteopaths  of  the  spirit,  investigators  of infractions  denounced  by  bland  paranoid   chess  players, servers  of   fragmentary  warrants   taken  down   in  hebe- phrenic   shorthand   charging  unspeakable   mutilations  of the spirit, officials of unconstituted police  states, brokers of exquisite dreams and nostalgias  tested on  the sensi- tized cells of junk sickness and  bartered for  raw mate- rials of the will, drinkers of the Heavy Fluid  sealed in translucent amber of dreams.

The  Meet  Cafe  occupies  one  side  of  the  Plaza, a maze of kitchens, restaurants, sleeping  cubicles, peril- ous  iron  balconies  and  basements  opening   into  the underground baths.

On  stools  covered  in  white  satin  sit  naked  Mug- wumps   sucking   translucent,  colored   syrups  through alabaster  straws.  Mugwumps  have  no liver  and nourish themselves  exclusively  on  sweets.   Thin,  purple-blue lips cover a razor-sharp  beak of  black bone  with which they  frequently  tear  each  other  to shreds  in fights over clients. These creatures secrete an  addicting fluid from  their erect  penises which  prolongs life  by slow- ing  metabolism.  (In  fact  all  longevity  agents  have proved addicting  in exact  ratio to  their effectiveness in  prolonging  life.  )  Addicts  of  Mugwump  fluid are known  as  Reptiles. A  number of  these How  over chairs with  their  flexible  bones  and  black-pink flesh.  A fan of green  cartilage covered  with hollow,  erectile hairs through  which  the  Reptiles  absorb  the  fluid sprouts from  behind  each ear.  The fans,  which move  from time to time touched  by invisible  currents, serve  also same form of communication known only to Reptiles.

During  the  biennial  Panics  when  the   raw,  pealed Dream   Police   storm  the   City,  the   Mugwumps  take refuge in the deepest crevices of the wall  sealing them- selves  in  clay cubicles  and remain  for weeks  in bio- stasis. In those days  of grey  terror the  Reptiles dart about  faster  and  faster,  scream  past  each  other at supersonic speed, their flexible skulls flapping in black winds of insect agony.

The  Dream  Police  disintegrate  in  globs  of  rotten ectoplasm  swept  away  by  an  old  junky,  coughing and spitting   in   the   sick   morning.  The   Mugwump  Man comes with alabaster jars of fluid  and the  Reptiles get smoothed out.

The air is once again still and clear as glycerine.

The  Sailor spotted  his Reptile.  He drifted  over and ordered a green syrup.  The Reptile  had a  little, round disk mouth  of brown  gristle, expressionless  green eyes almost  covered  by  a  thin  membrane  of   eyelid.  The Sailor  waited  an  hour  before  the creature  picked up his presence.

"Any  eggs  for  Fats?"  he  asked, his  words stirring through the Reptile's fan hairs.

It took two hours for the Reptile  to raise  three pink transparent fingers covered with black fuzz.

Several Meat  Eaters lay  in vomit,  too weak  to move. (The  Black  Meat  is like  a tainted  cheese, overpower- ingly  delicious and  nauseating so  that the  eaters eat and vomit and eat again until they fall exhausted.)

A  painted  youth slithered  in and  seized one  of the great black claws sending the  sweet, sick  smell curling through the cafe.

HOSPITAL

Disintoxication Notes. Paranoia of early withdrawal.

. Everything looks blue.... Flesh dead, doughy, toneless.

Withdrawal  Nightmares.  A  mirror-lined  cafe. Empty. ...Waiting  for  something....  A man  appears in  a side door.... A slight, short Arab dressed in a  brown jellaba with grey beard and grey  face... There  is a  pitcher of boiling acid  in my  hand.... Seized  by a  convulsion of urgency, I throw it in his face....

Everyone looks like a drug addict....

Take  a  little walk  in the  hospital patio....  In my absence someone has  used my  scissors, they  are stained with  some  sticky,  red  brown  gick....  No  doubt that little bitch of a criada trimming her rag.

Horrible-looking Europeans clutter  up the  stairs, in- tercept  the  nurse  when  I  need  my   medicine,  empty piss  into  the  basin  when  I  am  washing,  occupy the toilet for hours on end -- probably  fishing for  a finger stall of diamonds they have stashed up their asshole....

In  fact  the  whole  clan  of  Europeans has  moved in next  to  me....The  old mother  is having  an operation, and  her  daughter  move  right  in to  see the  old gash receive  proper  service.  Strange  visitors,  presumably relatives...  One  of  them wears  as glasses  those gad- gets jewelers screw into their  eyes to  examine stones. ...Probably  a  diamond-cutter  on  the skids...  The man who   loused   up  the   Throckmorton  Diamond   and  was drummed  out  of  the  industry....  All  these  jewelers standing around the Diamond in  their frock  coats, wait- ing  on  The  Man.  An  error  of  one  thousandth  of an inch  ruins  the rock  complete and  they have  to import this  character  special  from Amsterdam  to do  the job. ...So  he  reels  in dead  drunk with  a huge  air hammer and pounds the diamond to dust....

I  don't  check these  citizens.... Dope  peddlers from Aleppo?...  Slunk  traffickers  from  Buenos  Aires?  Il- legal   diamond   buyers  from   Johannesburg?...  Slave traders  from  Somaliland?  Collaborators  at  the  very least...

Continual dreams  of junk:  I am  looking for  a poppy field....  Moonshiners  in black  Stetsons direct  me to a Near East cafe.... One of the waiters is  a connection for Yugoslav opium....

Buy  a  packet  of  heroin  from  a  Malay  Lesbian in white belted trenchcoat.... I cop  the paper  in Tibetan section of a museum. She keeps trying to steal  it back. ...I am looking for a place to fix....

The  critical  point  of withdrawal  is not  the early phase of acute sickness,  but the  final step  free from the  medium  of junk....There  is a  nightmare interlude of cellular panic,  life suspended  between two  ways of being....  At this  point the  longing for  junk concen- trates in a last, all-out yen, and seems to gain a dream power:  circumstances  put  junk  in  your  way....  You meet  an  old-time Schmecker,  a larcenous  hospital at- tendant, a writing croaker....

A  guard  in  a  uniform  of  human  skin,  black buck jacket  with  carious yellow  teeth buttons,  an elastic pullover shirt in  burnished Indian  copper, adolescent- nordic-sun-tan slacks, sandals from calloused foot soles of  young  Malayan  farmer,  an ash-brown  scarf knotted and  tucked  in the  shirt. (Ash-brown  is a  color like grey under brown skin.  You sometimes  find it  in mixed Negro  and  white  stock,  the mixture  did not  come of and the colors separated out like oil on water.... )

The Guard  is a  sharp dresser,  since he  has nothing to  do  and  saves  all his  pay to  buy fine  clothes and changes three times  a day  in front  of an  enormous mag- nifying  mirror.  He  has  a  Latin  handsome-smooth  face with  a  pencil  line  mustache,  small black  eyes, blank and greedy, undreaming insect eyes.

When  I  get  to  the  frontier  the  Guard  rushes  out of  his casita,  a mirror  in a  wooden frame  slung round his neck. He is trying to get the mirror off  his neck.... This  has  never  happened  before,  that  anyone  reached the  frontier.  The  Guard has  injured his  larynx taking of  the  mirror  frame....  He has  lost his  voice.... He opens  his  mouth,   you  can   see  the   tongue  jumping around  inside.  The  smooth  blank  young  face  and  the open  mouth  with  the  tongue   moving  inside   are  in- credibly  hideous.  The  Guard  holds  up  his  hand.  His whole  body  jerks  in  convulsive  negation.  I  go  over and  unhook the  chain across  the road.  It falls  with a clank  of  metal  on  stone.  I  walk  through.  The Guard stands  there  in  the  mist  looking  after  me.  Then he hooks the chain up again,  goes back  into the  casita and starts plucking at his mustache.

They  just  bring  so-called  lunch....   A  hard-boiled egg with the  shell of  revealing an  object like  I never seen  it  before.... A  very small  egg of  a yellow-brown color...  Perhaps  laid   by  the   duck-billed  platypus. The  orange  contained  a  huge   worm  and   very  little else.... He really got there firstest with  the mostest.... In  Egypt  is  a  worm  gets into  your kidneys  and grows to  an  enormous  size.  Ultimately the  kidney is  just a thin  shell  around  the  worm.  Intrepid  gourmets esteem the  flesh  of  The  Worm above  all other  delicacies. It is  said  to  be  unspeakably  toothsome...,  An Interzone coroner  known  as  Autopsy  Ahmed  made  a  fortune traf- ficking The Worm.

The  French  school   is  opposite   my  window   and  I dig  the  boys  with my  eight-power field  glasses.... So close  I  could  reach  out and  touch them....  They wear shorts....  I  can  see  the  goose-pimples on  their legs in  the  cold  Spring  morning....  I  project  myself out through the glasses and across the street, a ghost  in the morning sunlight, torn with disembodied lust.

Did  I  ever tell  you about  the time  Marv and  me pay two  Arab  kids  sixty  cents  to  watch  them  screw each other? So I ask Marv, "Do you think they will do it?"

And he says, "I think so. They are hungry."

And I say, "That's the way I like to see them."

Makes  me  feel  sorta like  a dirty  old man  but, "Son cosas de la vida,"  as Soberba  de la  Flor said  when the fuzz upbraids him for  blasting this  cunt and  taking the dead body to the Bar 0 Motel and fucking it....

"She  play  hard  to  get already,"  he say...  "I don't hafta  take  that  sound."  (Soberba  de  la  Flor  was  a Mexican  criminal  convict  of several  rather pointless murders. )

The  lavatory  has  been locked  for three  hours solid. ...I think they are using it for an operating room....

NURSE: "I can't find her pulse, doctor."

DR.  BENWAY:  "Maybe  she  got  it  up  her   snatch  in a finger stall."

NURSE: "Adrenalin, doctor?"

DR..  BENWAY:  "The  night  porter  shot  it  all  up for kicks."  He  looks  around  and  picks  up  one  of  those rubber vacuum  cups at  the end  of a  stick they  use to unstop  toilets....  He   advances  on   the  patient.... "Make  an  incision, Doctor  Limpf," he  says to  his ap- palled assistant.... "I'm going to massage the heart."

Dr.  Limpf  shrugs  and begins  the incision.  Dr. Ben- way  washes  the  suction  cup by  swishing it  around in the toilet-bowl....

NURSE: "Shouldn't it be sterilized, doctor?"

DR.  BENWAY:  "Very  likely  but  there's no  time." He sits on the  suction cup  like a  cane seat  watching his assistant  make  the  incision....  "You   young  squirts couldn't  lance  a pimple  without an  electric vibrating scalpel with  automatic drain  and suture....  Soon we'll be  operating  by  remote  control  on patients  we never see....  We'll  be  nothing but  button pushers.  All the skill is going out  of surgery....  All the  know-how and make-do...  Did I  ever tell  you about  the time  I per- formed  an  appendectomy  with   a  rusty   sardine  can? And  once  I  was  caught  short  without  instrument one and  removed  a  uterine  tumor   with  my   teeth.  That was in the Upper Effendi, and besides..."

DR. LYMPH F: "The incision is ready, doctor."

Dr.  Benway  forces  the  cup  into  the  incision  and works it up and down. Blood spurts all over  the doctors, the  nurse  and  the  wall.... The  cup makes  a horrible sucking sound.

NURSE: "I think she's gone, doctor."

DR.  BENWAY:  "Well, it's  all in  the day's  work." He walks  across the  room to  a medicine  cabinet.... "Some fucking drug addict  has cut  my cocaine  with Saniflush! Nurse! Send the boy out to fill this RX on the double!"

Dr. Benway is  operating in  an auditorium  filled with students:  "Now,   boys,  you   won't  see   this  operation performed  very  often  and  there's  a reason  for that.... You  see  it  has  absolutely  no  medical  value.   No  one knows what the purpose  of it  originally was  or if  it had a purpose at all. Personally I think it was a  pure artistic creation from the beginning.  "Just  as  a  bull  fighter  with  his skill  and knowledge extricates  himself  from  danger  he  has  himself invoked, so  in  this  operation  the surgeon  deliberately endangers his  patient,  and  then, with  incredible speed  and celer- ity,  rescues  him  from  death at  the last  possible split second....  Did  any  of  you ever  see Dr.  Tetrazzini per- form?  I  say  perform  advisedly  because   his  operations were  performances.  He  would  start  by  throwing  a scal- pel  across  the  room into  the patient  and then  make his entrance  like a  ballet dancer.  His speed  was incredible: 'I  don't  give  them  time  to die,'  he would  say. Tumors put  him  in  a  frenzy  of  rage.   'Fucking  undisciplined cells!'  he  would  snarl,  advancing  on  the tumor  like a knife-fighter."  A  young  man  leaps  down   into  the   operating  theatre and, whipping out a scalpel, advances on the patient.  DR.   BENWAY:   "An   espontaneo   Stop   him   before  he guts my patient!"  (Espontaneo  is  a  bull-fighting  term  for  a  member  of the  audience  who  leaps  down  into  the  ring,  pulls out a  concealed  cape  and  attempts  a  few  passes  with  the bull before he is dragged out of the ring. )  The   orderlies   scuffle  with   the  espontaneo,   who  is finally  ejected from  the hall.  The anesthetist  takes ad- vantage  of  the  confusion  to  pry  a  large  gold filling from the patient's mouth....

I  am passing  room 10  they moved  me out  of yester- day....  Maternity  case  I  assume...  Bedpans  full of blood and Kotex and  nameless female  substances, enough to pollute a continent... If someone  comes to  visit me in my old room he will think I gave  birth to  a monster and the State Department is trying to hush it up....

Music  from  I  Am  an  American...  An   elderly  man in the striped pants  and cutaway  of a  diplomat stands on  a  platform  draped  with the  American flag.  A de- cayed, corseted tenor -- bursting out  of a  Daniel Boone costume -- is singing the Star  S pangled  Banner, accom- panied  by  a  full  orchestra. He  sings with  a slight lisp....

THE DIPLOMAT (reading  from a  great scroll  of ticker tape that keeps growing and  tangling around  his feet): "And  we  categorically  deny that  any male  citizen of the United States of America..."

TENOR:  "Oh  thay  can you  thee..." His  voice breaks and shoots up to a high falsetto.

In  the  control  room the  Technician mixes  a bicar- bonate of soda and  belches into  his hand:  "God damned tenor's  a  brown  artist1"  he  mutters  sourly. "Mikel rumph,"  the  shout  ends  in a  belch. "Cut  that swish fart  off the  air and  give him  his purple  slip. He's through  as  of  right now....  Put in  that sex-changed Liz  athlete....  She's  a  fulltime tenor  at least.... Costume?  How  in  the  fuck  should  I  know?   I'm  no dress  designer  swish  from  the   costume  department! What's  that?  The  entire  costume  department occluded as a security risk? What am I, an octopus?  Let's see... How  about  an  Indian   routine?  Pocahontas   or  Hia- watha?...  No,  that's  not  right. Some  citizen cracks wise about giving it back to the Indians.... A Civil War uniform,  the  coat North  and the  pants South  like it show  they  got  together  again? She  can come  on like Buffalo  Bill or  Paul Revere  or that  citizen wouldn't give up the shit, I mean the ship, or a G.I. or a Dough- boy  or the  Unknown Soldier....  That's the  best deal. ...Cover  her  with  a  monument,  that  way  nobody has to look at her...."

The  Lesbian,  concealed  in  a  paper  mache  Arc de Triomphe fills her great lungs  and looses  a tremendous bellow.

"Oh say do that Star Spangled Banner yet wave..."

A  great  rent  rips  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  from top to  bottom.  The  Diplomat  puts  a  hand  to  his fore- head....

The Diplomat:   "That  any   male  citizen   of  the United States  has given  birth in  Interzone or  at any other place...."

"O'er the land of the FREEEEEEEEEEE..."

The  Diplomat's  mouth  is  moving  but  no  one  can hear  him.  The  Technician  clasps  his hands  over his ears:  "Mother  of  God!" he  screams. His  plate begins to vibrate like a Jew's harp, suddenly  flies out  of his mouth.... He snaps  at it  irritably, misses  and covers his mouth with one hand.

The Arc de  Triomphe falls  with a  ripping, splinter- ing crash, reveals  the Lesbian  standing on  a pedestal clad  only  in  a  leopard-skin jockstrap  with enormous falsie basket.... She stands there smiling  stupidly and flexing  her  huge  muscles....  The Technician  is craw- pleasure  to  the  head.... Ten  minutes later  you want another  shot....  The  pleasure of  morphine is  in the viscera.... You listen down into yourself after  a shot. ...But intravenous C is  electricity through  the brain, activating cocaine pleasure connections.... There  is no withdrawal syndrome with C. It  is a  need of  the brain alone -- a need without body and without  feeling. Earth- bound ghost need.  The craving  for C  lasts only  a few hours as  long as  the C  channels are  stimulated. Then you forget  it. Eukodol  is like  a combination  of junk and C.  Trust the  Germans to  concoct some  really evil shit. Eukodol like morphine is  six times  stronger than codeine. Heroin  six times  stronger than  morphine. Di- hydro-oxy-heroin  should  be  six  times  stronger  than heroin. Quite possible to develop a drug  so habit-form- ing that one shot would cause lifelong addiction.

Habit  Note  continued:  Picking  up  needle  I  reach spontaneously for the  tie-up cord  with my  left hand.' This I take as a  sign I  can hit  the one  useable vein in  my left  arm, (The  movements of  tying up  are such that  you  normally  tie  up  the  arm  with  which  you reach for the cord. ) The needle slides in easily on the edge of a callous. I feel around. Suddenly a thin column of blood shoots up into the syringe, for a  moment sharp and solid as a red cord.

The  body  knows what  veins you  can hit  and conveys this   knowledge  in   the  spontaneous   movements  you make  preparing  to  take   a  shot....   Sometimes  the needle  points  like  a dowser's  wand. Sometime  I must wait for the  message, But  when it  comes I  always hit blood.

A  red  orchid bloomed  at the  bottom of  the dropper. He hesitated for a  full second,  then pressed  the bulb, watching the liquid rush into  the vein  as if  sucked by the silent thirst of his blood. There was  an iridescent, thin coat of  blood left  in the  dropper, and  the white paper  collar  was  soaked  through  with  blood  like  a bandage.  He  reached  over and  filled the  dropper with water. As he  squirted the  water out,  the shot  hit him in the stomach, a soft sweet blow.

Look  down   at  my   filthy  trousers,   haven't  been changed  in  months....  The  days  glide  by  strung  on a syringe with a long  thread of  blood.... I  am forget- ting sex and all sharp pleasures  of the  body --  a grey, junk-bound  ghost.  The  Spanish  boys  call  me  El Hom- bre Invisible -- the Invisible Man....

Twenty  push  ups  every  morning.  Use  of   junk  re- moves fat, leaves muscle more or less intact.  The addict seems  to  need  less tissue....Would  it be  possible to isolate the fat-removing molecule of junk?

More  and  more  static at  the Drug  Store, mutterings of  control  like a  telephone off  the hook...  Spent all day until 8 P.M. to score for two boxes of Eukodol....

Running out of veins and out of money.

Keep  going  on  the  nod.  Last night  I woke  up with someone  squeezing  my  hand.  It  was my  other hand.... Fall asleep reading and the words  take on  code signifi- cance....  Obsessed  with   codes....  Man   contracts  a series of diseases which spell out a code message....

Take a  shot in  front of  D.L. Probing  for a  vein in my  dirty   bare  foot....   Junkies  have   no  shame.... They  are  impervious  to  the  repugnance  of  others. It is doubtful if shame can  exist in  the absence  of sexual libido....  The  junky's  shame  disappears with  his non- sexual sociability which is  also dependent  on libido.... The  addict regards  his body  impersonally as  an instru- ment to  absorb the  medium in  which he  lives, evaluates his tissue with the cold hands of a horse trader.  "No use trying to hit there." Dead fish eyes  Hick over  a ravaged vein.

Using  a  new  type  sleeping  pill  called  Soneryl.... You  don't  feel  sleepy....  You  shift to  sleep without transition, fall abruptly into the  middle of  a dream.... I  have been  years in  a prison  camp suffering  from mal- nutrition....

The  President  is  a  junky  but  can't take  it direct because  of  his  position.  So  he  gets   fixed  through me....  From  time  to  time  we   make  contact,   and  I recharge  him.  These  contacts  look,  to the  casual ob- server,  like  homosexual  practices,  but the  actual ex- citement is not primarily  sexual, and  the climax  is the separation  when  the  recharge  is  completed.  The erect penises are brought into contact -- at  least we  used that method  in  the  beginning,  but  contact points  wear out like  veins.  Now  I  sometimes  have  to  slip  my  penis under  his left  eyelid. Of  course I  can always  fix him with  an   Osmosis  Recharge,   which  corresponds   to  a skin shot, but that is admitting defeat. An O.R.  will put the  President in  a bad  mood for  weeks, and  might well precipitate  an  atomic shambles.  And the  President pays a  high  price for  the Oblique  Habit. He  has sacrificed all  control,  and is  dependent as  an unborn  child. The Oblique  Addict  suffers  a  whole spectrum  of subjective horror, silent protoplasmic frenzy, hideous agony  of the bones.  Tensions  build  up,  pure  energy  without  emo- tional content  finally tears  through the  body throwing him  about  like  a  man  in  contact  with  high tension wires.  If  his charge  connection is  cut off  cold, the Oblique Addict falls into  such violent  electric convul- sions that his bones shake  loose, and  he dies  with the skeleton straining to climb out of his  unendurable flesh and run in a straight line to the nearest cemetery.

The  relation  between  an  O.A.  (Oblique  Addict) and his R.C. (Recharge  Connection) is  so intense  that they can  only  endure  each  other's  company  for  brief and infrequent intervals -- I mean aside from  recharge meets, when  all personal  contact is  eclipsed by  the recharge process.

Reading  the  paper.... Something  about a  triple mur- der  in  the  rue de  la Merde,  Paris: "An  adjusting of scores."...I  keep  slipping  away....  "The  police have identified  the  author... Pepe  El Culito...  The Little Ass  Hole,  an  affectionate  diminutive." Does  it really say that?... I try  to focus  the words...  they separate in meaningless mosaic....

LAZARUS GO HOME

Fumbling through faded tape at the pick up frontier, a languid grey area of hiatus miasmic with yawns and gaping goof  holes, Lee  found out  that the  young junky standing  there  in  his  room  at  10  A.M. Was  back from two months skin diving in Corsica and off the junk....

"Here  to  show off  his  new  body,"  Lee  decided  with a  shudder  of  morning  junk  sickness.  He  knew  that he was  seeing  --  ah  yes  Miguel  thank  you --  three months back  sitting  in  the  Metropole nodded  out over  a stale yellow  eclair  that would  poison a  cat two  hours later, decided  that  the  effort  involved  in  seeing  Miguel  at all  10  A.M.  was  enough  without  the  intolerable chore of correcting an error -- ("what is  this a  fucking farm?") which  would  also  entail  current  picture  of  Miguel in much  used  areas  like  some  great,   inconvenient  beast of an object on top in the suitcase.

"You  look   marvelous,"  Lee   said,  wiping   away  the more  obvious  signs  of  distaste  with  a  sloppy, casual napkin,  seeing  the grey  ooze of  junk in  Miguel's face, studying  patterns  of  shabbiness  as  if man  and clothes had  moved  for  years  through  back  alleys of  time with never a space station to tidy up....

"Besides  by  the  time  I  could  correct   the  error... Lazarus   go  home....   Pay  The   Man  and   go  home.... What I want to see your old borrowed meat for?'

"Well  it's  great  to  see   you  off....Do   yourself  a favor."  Miguel  was  swimming   around  the   room  spear- ing fish with his hand....

"When   you're   down   there   you  never   think  about horse."

"You're better off like this," said Lee, dreamily caress- ing a needle  scar on  the back  of Miguel's  hand, follow- ing  the  whorls  and  patterns  of  smooth purple  flesh in a slow twisting movement....

Miguel  scratched  the  back  of  his hand....  He looked out  the  window....   His  body   moved  in   little,  gal- vanized  jerks  as junk  channels lit  up.... Lee  sat there waiting. "One snort never put anybody back on, kid."

"I know what I'm doing."

"They always know."

Miguel took the nail file.

Lee closed his eyes: "It's too tiresome."

"Uh  thanks  that  was  great."  Miguel's  pants  fell  to his  ankles.  He  stood  there  in  a misshapen  overcoat of Hesh  that  turned  from  brown  to  green  and  then color- less  in  the  morning  light,  fell off  in globs  onto the floor.

Lee's  eyes  moved  in  the  substance  of  his  face... a little, cold, grey Hick.... "Clean it up," he  said. "Enough dirt in here now."

"Oh uh sure," Miguel fumbled with a dustpan.

Lee put the packet of heroin away.

Lee  lived  in  a  permanent  third-day  kick,   with,  of course,  certain  uh essential  intermissions to  refuel the fires   that  burned   through  his   yellow-pink-brown  ge- latinous  substance  and  kept  off  the  hovering  flesh. In the  beginning  his  flesh  was  simply  soft,  so  soft that he  was  cut  to the  bone by  dust particles,  air currents and  brushing  overcoats  while  direct  contact  with doors and  chairs  seemed  to  occasion  no  discomfort.  No wound healed  in  his  soft, tentative  flesh.... Long  white ten- drils  of  fungus  curled  round   the  naked   bones.  Mold odors of  atrophied testicles  quilted his  body in  a fuzzy grey fog....

During  his  first severe  infection the  boiling thermom- eter  Hashed  a  quicksilver bullet  into the  nurse's brain and  she  fell  dead  with  a  mangled  scream.  The  doctor took one look and slammed  steel shutters  of survival. He  ordered the  burning bed  and its  occupant immedi- ately evicted from the hospital premises.

"Guess he can make his  own penicillin!"  snarled the doctor.

But the infection  burned the  mold out...  Lee lived now  in  varying degrees  of transparency...  While not exactly invisible he was at least difficult to  see. His presence attracted no special notice.... People covered him with  a project  or dismissed  him as  a reflection, shadow:  "Some  kinda  light  trick or  neon advertise- ment."

Now Lee felt the first seismic  tremors of  Old Faith- ful the Cold Burn. He pushed  Miguel's spirit  into the hall with a kind, firm tendril.

"Jesus!" said Miguel. "I gotta go!" He rushed out.

Pink  fires  of histamine  spurted from  Lee's glowing core  and  covered  his  raw  periphery. (The  room was fireproof, the walls of iron blistered and  spotted with moon craters.) He took  a large  fix and  falsified his schedule.

He  decided  to visit  a colleague,  NG Joe,  who got hooked during a Bang-utot attack in Honolulu.

(Note:  Rang-utot, literally,  "attempting to  get up and  groaning..." Death  occurring in  the course  of a nightmare...  The  condition  occurs  in males  of S.E. Asiatic extraction.... In Manila about twelve  cases of death by Bang-utot are recorded each year.

One  man  who  recovered  said  that  "a  little man" was sitting on his chest and strangling him.

Victims often know that  they are  going to  die, ex- press the fear that their penis will enter the body and kill them. Sometimes they cling  to the  penis in  a state of shrieking hysteria calling on others for help  lest the penis  escape  and  pierce  the  body. Erections,  such as normally occur  in sleep,  are considered  especially dan- gerous  and  liable to  bring a  fatal attack....  One man devised  a  Rube  Goldberg  contraption  to  prevent erec- tion during sleep. But he died of Bang-utot.

Careful  autopsies  of  Bang-utot victims  have revealed no  organic  reason for  death. There  are often  signs of strangulation   (caused   by   what?);   sometimes  slight hemorrhages  of  pancreas  and  lungs  -- not  sufficient to cause  death  and  also  of  unknown  origin.  It  has oc- curred to the author  that the  cause of  death is  a mis- placement of sexual  energy resulting  in a  lung erection with  consequent  strangulation....  [See article  by Nils Larsen  M.D.,  The  Men  with  the  Deadly  Dream  in  the Saturday  Evening  Post,  December   3,  1955.   Also  ar- ticle by Erle Stanley Gardner for Time Magazine.] )

NG  lived  in  constant  fear of  erection so  his habit jumped  and  jumped.  (Note:  It  is  a  well  known tire- some fact, it is a notoriously dull and long  winded fact, that  anyone  who  gets  hooked  because  of  any disabil- ity  whatever, will  be presented,  during the  periods of shortage  or  deprivation [such  a thing  as too  much fun you  know]  with  an  outrageously  padded,  geometrically progressing, proliferating account. )

An  electrode  attached  to  one testicle  glowed briefly and  NG  woke  up  in  the  smell  of  burning   flesh  and reached  for  a loaded  syringe. He  rolled into  a foetal position and  slid the  needle into  his spine.  He pulled the needle out  with a  little sigh  of pleasure,  and re- alized that Lee  was in  the room.  A long  slug undulated out of  Lee's right  eye and  wrote on  the wall  in iri- descent  ooze: "  The Sailor  is in  the City  buying up TIME."

I am waiting in  front of  a drugstore  for it  to open at  nine  o'clock.  Two  Arab boys  roll cans  of garbage up  to  a  high heavy  wood door  in a  whitewashed wall. Dust in front  of the  door streaked  with urine.  One of the boys bent over, rolling the  heavy cans,  pants tight over his lean young  ass. He  looks at  me with  the neu- tral,  calm  glance  of  an  animal I  wake with  a shock like  the boy  is real  and I  have missed  a meet  I had with him for this afternoon.

"We  expect  additional  equalizations,"  says  the In- spector in  an interview  with Your  Reporter. "Otherwise will occur,"  the Inspector  lifts one  leg in  a typical Nordic  gesture,  "the bends  is it  not? But  perhaps we can provide the suitable chamber of decompression."

The  Inspector  opens  his  fly  and begins  looking for crabs, applying ointment from a little clay  pot. Clearly the interview is at an  end. "You're  not going?"  he ex- claims. "Well, as one judge said to  the other,  'Be just and if  you can't  be just  be arbitrary.'  Regret cannot observe  customary  obscenities." He holds  up  his right hand covered with a foul-smelling yellow ointment.

One's  Reporter  rushes forward  and clasps  the soiled hand in both of his. "It's been a pleasure, Inspector, an unspeakable pleasure,"  he says  peeling off  his gloves, rolling  them  into  a  ball  and  tossing them  into the wastebasket. "Expense account," he smiles.

HASSAN'S RUMPUS ROOM

Gilt and red plush. Rococo bar  backed by  pink shell. The  air  is  cloyed  with a  sweet evil  substance like decayed  honey.  Men  and  women  in  evening  dress sip pousse-cafes through alabaster tubes.  A Near  East Mug- wump sits naked  on a  bar stool  covered in  pink silk. He licks warm honey from  a crystal  goblet with  a long black tongue. His genitals are  perfectly formed  -- cir- cumcised  cock, black  shiny pubic  hairs. His  lips are thin and purple-blue like the lips of a penis,  his eyes blank  with  insect  calm.  The  Mugwump  has  no liver, maintaining   himself   exclusive  on   sweets.  Mugwump push  a slender  blond youth  to a  couch and  strip him expertly.

"Stand up and  turn around,"  he orders  in telepathic pictographs.  He ties  the boy's  hands behind  him with a red silk cord. "Tonight we make it all the way."

"No, no!" screams the boy.

"Yes. Yes."

Cocks  ejaculate  in silent  "yes." Mugwump  part silk curtains,  reveal  a teak  wood gallows  against lighted screen  of  red  Hint.  Gallows  is on  a dais  of Aztec mosaics.

The   boy   crumples   to  his   knees  with   a  long "OOOOOOOOH,"   shitting  and   pissing  in   terror.  He feels the  shit warm  between his  thighs. A  great wave of hot blood swells his lips and  throat. His  body con- tracts into a foetal position and sperm spurts  hot into his  face.  The  Mugwump  dips  hot perfumed  water from alabaster  bowl,  pensively  washes  the  boy's  ass and cock,  drying  him  with  a  soft  blue  towel. A  warm wind plays  over  the  boys  body  and the  hairs float  free. The Mugwump   puts   a   hand   under   the   boy's   chest  and pulls  him  to  his  feet.  Holding  him  by  both  pinioned elbows,  propels  him  up  the  steps  and under  the noose. He  stands  in  front  of  the  boy  holding  the  noose  in both hands.

The  boy  looks  into  Mugwump  eyes  blank  as  obsidian mirrors,  pools  of  black  blood, glory  holes in  a toilet wall closing on the Last Erection.

An  old  garbage  collector,  face  fine  and   yellow  as Chinese  ivory,  blows  The  Blast   on  his   dented  brass horn,  wakes  the  Spanish  pimp   with  a   hard-on.  Whore staggers  out  through  dust  and  shit  and litter  of dead kittens,  carrying  bales of  aborted foetuses,  broken con- doms,   bloody   Kotex,   shit   wrapped  in   bright  color comics.

A  vast still  harbor of  iridescent water.  Deserted gas well  flares  on  the  smoky  horizon.   Stink  of   oil  and sewage.   Sick   sharks  swim   through  the   black  water, belch  sulphur  from  rotting   livers,  ignore   a  bloody, broken   Icarus.   Naked   Mr.   America,   burning  frantic with  self  bone  love,  screams   out:  "My   asshole  con- founds  the  Louvre!  I  fart  ambrosia  and shit  pure gold turds!  My  cock  spurts  soft   diamonds  in   the  morning sunlight!"   He  plummets   from  the   eyeless  lighthouse, kissing  and  jacking  off  in  face  of  the  black  mirror, glides  oblique  down  with   cryptic  condoms   and  mosaic of  a  thousand  newspapers  through   a  drowned   city  of red brick  to settle  in black  mud with  tin cans  and beer bottles,  gangsters  in  concrete,  pistols pounded  Hat and meaningless  to  avoid  short-arm  inspection  of  prurient ballistic experts. He waits the slow striptease  of erosion with fossil loins.

The  Mugwump  slips  the  noose   over  the   boy's  head and  tightens  the  knot caressingly  behind the  left ear. The boy's  penis is  retracted, his  balls tight.  He looks straight  ahead  breathing   deeply.  The   Mugwump  sidles around  the  boy  goosing  him  and caressing  his genitals in  hieroglyphs  of  mockery.  He   moves  in   behind  the boy  with  a series  of bumps  and shoves  his cock  up the boy's ass. He stands there moving in circular gyrations.

The guests shush each other, nudge and giggle.

Suddenly  the  Mugwump  pushes   the  boy   forward  into space, free of  his cock.  He steadies  the boy  with hands on  the  hip  bones,  reaches up  with his  stylized hiero- glyph  hands  and snaps  the boy's  neck. A  shudder passes through  the  boy's body.  His penis  rises in  three great surges pulling his pelvis up, ejaculates immediately.

Green  sparks  explode  behind his  eyes. A  sweet tooth- ache  pain  shoots  through  his  neck  down  the  spine to the  groin,  contracting  the  body  in spasms  of delight. His   whole  body   squeezes  out   through  his   cock.  A final  spasm  throws  a  great  spurt  of sperm  across the red screen like a shooting star.

The  boy  falls with  soft gutty  suction through  a maze of penny arcades and dirty pictures.

A  sharp  turd  shoots  clean  out  his ass.  Farts shake his  slender  body.  Skyrockets  burst  in  green  clusters across  a  great  river. He  hears the  faint put-put  of a motor  boat  in  jungle  twilight....  Under  silent  wings of the anopheles mosquito.

The  Mugwump  pulls  the  boy   back  onto   his  cock. The  boy  squirms,  impaled  like  a  speared  fish.  The Mugwump  swings  on  the  boy's   back,  his   body  con- tracting  in  fluid  waves.  Blood  flows down  the boy's chin  from  his  mouth,  half-open,  sweet, and  sulky in death. The Mugwump falls with a fluid, sated plop.

Windowless   cubicle  with   blue  walls.   Dirty  pink curtain  cover  the  door.  Red bugs  crawl on  the wall, cluster in corners. Naked boy in the  middle of  the room twang  a  two-string  ouad,  trace  an  arabesque  on the floor.  Another  boy  lean  back on  the bed  smoking keif and  blow  smoke  over  his  erect  cock. They  play game with  tarot  cards  on  the  bed  to  see  who  fuck who. Cheat. Fight. Roll on the floor snarling and spitting like young animals. The loser sit on the  floor chin  on knees, licks  a broken  tooth. The  winner curls  up on  the bed pretending  to  sleep.  Whenever   the  other   boy  come near  kick  at  him.  Ali  seize him  by one  ankle, tuck the  ankle under  his arm  pit, lock  his arm  around the calf.  The  boy  kick  desperately  at Ali's  face. Other ankle pinioned. Ali tilt the boy  back on  his shoulders. The  boy's  cock  extends  along  his stomach,  float free pulsing. Ali put  his hands  over his  head. Spit  on his cock. The other sighs deeply as Ali  slides his  cock in. The   mouths   grind   together  smearing   blood.  Sharp musty  odor  of  penetrated rectum.  Nimun drive  in like a  wedge,  force  jism  out  the other  cock in  long hot spurts.  (The  author  has   observed  that   Arab  cocks tend to be wide and wedge shaped.)

Satyr  and  naked  Greek  lad  in  aqualungs   trace  a ballet  of  pursuit  in  a   monster  vase   of  transparent alabaster.  The  Satyr  catches  the   boy  from   in  front and  whirls  him  around.  They  move  in  fish  jerks.  The boy  releases  a silver  stream of  bubbles from  his mouth. White  sperm  ejaculates  into  the  green  water  and floats lazily around the twisting bodies.

Negro  gently  lifts  exquisite  Chinese  boy into  a ham- mock.  He  pushes  the  boy's  legs  up  over  his  head and straddles  the  hammock.  He  slides his  cock up  the boy's slender  tight  ass.  He  rocks  the  hammock   gently  back and  forth.  The  boy  screams,  a  weird  high wail  of un- endurable delight.

A  Javanese  dancer  in  ornate  teak  swivel  chair,  set in  a  socket  of  limestone  buttocks,  pulls  an  American boy  --  red hair,  bright green  eyes --  down onto  his cock with  ritual  motions.  The  boy  sits  impaled  facing  the dancer  who  propels  himself  in circular  gyrations, lend- ing  fluid  substance  to  the  chair.  "Weeeeeeeeee!" scream the  boy  as  his  sperm  spurt  up  over the  dancer's lean brown  chest.  One  gob  hit  the  corner  of  the  dancer's mouth.  The  boy  push  it  in  with  his finger  and laugh: "Man, that's what I call suction!"

Two   Arab   women   with   bestial   faces   have  pulled the shorts off  a little  blond French  boy. They  are screw- ing  him  with  red  rubber  cocks.  The boy  snarls, bites, kicks, collapses in tears as his cock rises and ejaculates.

Hassan's  face  swells,  tumescent  with  blood.  His lips turn  purple.  He  strip  off  his  suit  of  banknotes  and throw it into an open vault that closes soundless.

"Freedom  Hall  here,  folks!"  he  screams in  his phoney Texas  accent.  Ten-gallon  hat   and  cowboy   boots  still on,  he  dances  the  Liquefactionist  Jig,  ending  with  a grotesque  can-can  to  the  tune of  She Started  a Heat Wave.

"Let it be! And no holes barred!("

Couples attached to  baroque harnesses  with artificial wings copulate in the air, screaming like magpies.

Aerialists ejaculate each other in space with  one sure touch.

Equilibrists suck  each other  off deftly,  balanced on perilous poles and chairs  tilted over  the void.  A warm wind brings  the smell  of rivers  and jungle  from misty depths.

Boys  by   the  hundred   plummet  through   the  roof, quivering  and  kicking  at  the end  of ropes.  The boys hang at different levels, some near the ceiling  and oth- ers  a  few inches  off the  floor. Exquisite  Balinese and Malays,  Mexican  Indians   with  fierce   innocent  faces and bright red gums. Negroes  ( teeth, fingers,  toe nails and  pubic  hair  gilded),   Japanese  boys   smooth  and white  as China,  Titian-haired Venetian  lads, Americans with  blond or  black curls  falling across  the forehead (the  guests tenderly  shove it  back), sulky  blond Pol- lacks  with animal  brown eyes,  Arab and  Spanish street boys,  Austrian  boys  pink  and  delicate  with  a faint shadow  of  blond  pubic  hair,  sneering  German  youths with bright blue eyes scream "Heil Hitler!" as  the trap falls under them. Sollubis shit and whimper.

Mr.   Rich-and-Vulgar   chews   his  Havana   lewd  and nasty,  sprawled  on  a   Florida  beach   surrounded  by simpering blond catamites:

"This  citizen  have  a  Latah  he  import  from  Indo- China.  He  figure  to  hang  the  Latah  and send  a Xmas TV short to  his friends.  So he  fix up  two ropes  -- one gimmicked  to  stretch,  the other  the real  McCoy. But that Latah get up  in feud  state and  put on  his Santa Claus  suit  and  make  with  the  switcheroo.  Come the dawning.  The  citizen put  one rope  on and  the Latah, going  along  the  way  Latahs will,  put on  the other. When  the  traps  are  down  the  citizen hang  for real and  the  Latah  stand  with  the  carny-rubber  stretch rope. Well, the  Latah imitate  every twitch  and spasm. Come three times.

"Smart young Latah  keep his  eye on  the ball.  I got him working in one of my plants as an expeditor."

Aztec priests strip blue feather  robe from  the Naked Youth. They  bend him  back over  a limestone  altar, fit a crystal skull over  his head,  securing the  two hemi- spheres  back and  front with  crystal screws.  A water- fall pour  over the  skull snapping  the boy's  neck. He ejaculate in a rainbow against the rising sun.

Sharp protein odor of semen fills the air.  The guests run hands over  twitching boys,  suck their  cocks, hang on their backs like vampires.

Naked lifeguards carry in iron-lungs full of paralyzed youths.

Blind  boys  grope  out  of  huge  pies,  deteriorated schizophrenics  pop  from  a  rubber  cunt,   boys  with horrible skin diseases rise from a black  pond (sluggish fish nibble yellow turds on the surface).

A  man  with  white  tie and  dress shirt,  naked from the waist down except  for black  garters, talks  to the Queen  Bee  in  elegant  tones.  (Queen  Bees   are  old women  who  surround  themselves  with  fairies  to form a "swarm." It is a sinister Mexican practice. )

"But where is the statuary?" He talks out of  one side of his face, the other is  twisted by  the Torture  of a Million  Mirrors.  He  masturbates  wildly.   The  Queen Bee continues the conversation, notices nothing.

Couches,  chairs,  the whole  floor begins  to vibrate, shaking the guests to blurred  grey ghosts  shrieking in cock-bound agony.

Two  boys  jacking  off  under  railroad   bridge.  The train shakes through their bodies, ejaculate them, fades with  distant  whistle.  Frogs  croak.  The   boys  wash semen off lean brown stomachs.

Train  compartment:  two sick  young junkies  on their way to Lexington  tear their  pants down  in convulsions of lust. One of them soaps his cock and works it  up the other's ass with  a corkscrew  motion. "Jeeeeeeeeeeeeee- sus!"  Both  ejaculate  at once  standing up.  They move away from each other and pull up their pants.

"Old  croaker  in  Marshall  writes  for  tincture and sweet oil."

"The  piles  of  an  aged  mother  shriek out  raw and bleeding  for  the  Black Shit....  Doc, suppose  it was your  mother,  rimmed  by  resident  leaches,  squirming around  so  nasty....  De-active  that pelvis,  mom, you disgust me already"

"Let's stop over and make him for an RX."

The  train  tears on  through the  smoky, neon-lighted June night.

Pictures of men  and women,  boys and  girls, animals, fish, birds, the copulating rhythm of the  universe Hows through the room, a great blue tide of  life. Vibrating, soundless hum of deep  forest --  sudden quiet  of cities when  the  junky copes.  A moment  of stillness  and won- der. Even the  Commuter buzzes  clogged lines  of choles- terol for contact.

Hassan  shrieks  out:  "This is  your doing,  A.J.! You poopa my party!"

A.J.  looks  at  him, face  remote as  limestone: "Uppa your ass, you liquefying gook."

A   horde   of   lust-mad   American  women   rush  in. Dripping  cunts,  from  farm  and  dude  ranch,  factory, brothel,  country  club,  penthouse  and   suburb,  motel and yacht and cocktail bar, strip off riding  clothes, ski togs, evening dresses, levis,  tea gowns,  print dresses, slacks,  bathing  suits  and  kimonos.  They  scream  and yipe  and howl,  leap on  the guests  like bitch  dogs in heat with rabies. They  claw at  the hanged  boys shriek- ing:  "You  fairy!  You  bastard!   Fuck  me!   Fuck  me! Fuck  me!"   The  guests   flee  screaming,   dodge  among the hanged boys, overturn iron lungs.

A.J.:  "Call  out  my  Sweitzers,  God  damn  it! Guard me from these she-foxest"

Mr. Hyslop, A. J.'s secretary, looks up from  his comic book: "The Sweitzers liquefy already."

(Liquefaction  involves  protein  cleavage  and  reduc- tion  to  liquid  which is  absorbed into  someone else's protoplasmic being. Hassan, a  notorious liquefactionist, is probably the beneficiary in this case.)

A.J.:   "Gold-bricking   cocksuckers!  Where's   a  man without his Sweitzers? Our  backs are  to the  wall, gen- tlemen.  Our  very  cocks  at stake.  Stand by  to resist boarders, Mr. Hyslop, and issue short arms to the men."

A.J. whips out  a cutlass  and begins  decapitating the American Girls. He sings lustily: Fifteen men on the dead man's cheat Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum.

Mr.  Hyslop,  bored  and  resigned:  "Oh Gawd!  He's at it again." He waves the Jolly Roger listlessly. A.J.,  surrounded  and  fighting  against  overwhelming odds,  throws  back his  head and  makes with  the hog- call. Immediately  a thousand  rutting Eskimos  pour in grunting and squealing, faces  tumescent, eyes  hot and red, lips purple, fall on the American women. (Eskimos  have  a  rutting   season  when   the  tribes meet in short Summer to  disport themselves  in orgies. Their faces swell and lips turn purple. ) A  House  Dick  with  cigar  two  feet long  sticks his head in  through the  wall: "Have  you got  a menagerie in here?" Hassan  wrings  his  hands:   "A  shambles!   A  filthy shambles! By Allah  I never  see anything  so downright nasty!" He whirls on A.J. who is sitting on a sea chest, parrot on  shoulder,  patch  over one  eye, drinking  rum from a  tankard.  He  scans  the horizon  with a  huge brass telescope. Hassan:  "You  cheap  Factualist  bitch!  Go  and never darken my rumpus room again!"

CAMPUS OF INTERZONE UNIVERSITY

Donkeys, camels, llamas,  rickshaws, carts  of merchan- dise  pushed  by  straining  boys,  eyes  protruding like strangled  tongues  --  throbbing  red  with  animal hate. Herds  of   sheep  and   goats  and   long-horned  cattle pass  between  the  students  and  the  lecture platform. The  students  sit  around on  rusty park  benches, lime- stone blocks, outhouse seats, packing crates,  oil drums, stumps,  dusty  leather hassacks,  mouldy gym  mats. They wear levis -- jellabas...  hose and  doublet --  drink corn from  mason  jars,  coffee  from  tin  cans,  smoke  gage (marijuana)  in  cigarettes  made  of wrapping  paper and lottery  tickets...  shoot  junk  with  a safety  pin and dropper,  study  racing  forms,  comic  books,  Mayan co- dices....

The Professor arrives  on a  bicycle carrying  a string of  bull  heads.  He  mounts  the  platform  holding  his back (crane swings a bellowing cow over his head).

Prof:  "Fucked  by  the   Sultan's  Army   last  night. I have dislocate the back in the  service of  my resident queen....  Can't  evict  that old  gash. Need  a licensed brain  electrician  disconnect  her synapsis  by synapsis and a surgical bailiff put her guts out on  the sidewalk. When  Ma  move  in  on  a  boy  bag  and buggage  he play Hell dispossess that Gold Star Boarder...."

He  looks  at  the  bull heads  humming tunes  from the 1920s.  "The nostalgia  fit is  on me  boys and  will out willy   silly...   boys  walk   down  the   carny  Midway eating  pink  spun  sugar...  goose  each  other  at  the peep show...  jack off  in the  Ferris Wheel  throw sperm at  the  moon  rising  red and  smoky over  the foundries across the river. A Nigra hangs from a cotton wood in front of The Old Court House... whimpering women catch his sperm in vaginal teeth.... (Husband looks at the little changeling with narrow eyes the color of a faded grey flannel shirt.... 'Doc, I suspect it to be a Nigra.'

The Doctor shrugs: 'It's the Old Army Game, son. Pea under the shell... Now you see it now you don't....')

"And Doc Parker in the back room in his drugstore shooting horse heroin three grains a jolt -- 'Tonic,' he mutters. 'It's always Spring.'

" 'Hands' Benson Town Pervert has took up a queren- cia in the school privy (Querencia is bullfight term.... The bull will find a spot in the ring he likes ".nd stay there and the bullfighter has to go in and meet the bull on his bull terms or coax him out -- one or the other). Sheriff A.Q. 'Flat' Larsen say 'Some way we gotta lure him outa that querencia.'...And Old Ma Lottie sleep ten years with a dead daughter and home cured too, wakes shivering in the East Texas dawn... vultures out over the black swamp water and cypress stumps....

"And now gentlemen -- I trust there are no transvest- ites present -- he he -- and you are all gentlemen by act of Congress it being only remain to establish you male humans, positively no Transitionals in either direction will be allowed in this decent hall. Gentlemen, present short arms. Now you have all been briefed on the im- portance of keeping your weapons well lubricated and ready for any action flank or rear guard."

Students: "Hear! Hear!" They wearily unbutton their flies. One of them brandishes a huge erection.

PROF:  "And  now,   gentlemen,  where   was  I?   Oh  yes, Ma  Lottie...  She  wake  shivering   in  the   gentle  pink dawn, pink as the candles on a little girl's  birthday cake, pink as  spun sugar,  pink as  a sea-shell,  pink as  a cock pulsing  in  a  red  fucking  light....  Ma   Lottie...  hu- rumph... if  this prolixity  be not  cut short  will succumb to  the  infirmities  of age  and join  her daughter  in for- maldehyde.

"The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  by   Coleridge  the poet...  I  should  like  to  call  your  attention  to  the symbolism of the Ancient Mariner himself."

Students: "Himself the man says."

"Thereby   call   attention   to   his   own  unappetizing person.

"That wasn't a nice thing to do, Teach."

A   hundred   juvenile   delinquents...    switch   blades clicking like teeth move at him.

Prof:  "Oh  Landsakes!"  He  tries  desperately   to  dis- guise  himself  as  an  old  woman  with  high  black  shoes and  umbrella....  "If  it  wasn't  for  my   lumbago  can't rightly  bend  over  I'd  turn  them  offering my  Sugar Bum the  way  baboons  do  it....  If  a  weaker  baboon  be at- tacked  by  a  stronger  baboon   the  weaker   baboon  will either  (a)  present  his  hrump  fanny  I  believe  is  the word,  gentlemen,  heh  heh   for  passive   intercourse  or (b)  if  he  is a  different type  baboon more  extrovert and well-adjusted,  lead  an  attack  on  an even  weaker baboon if he can find one."

Dilapidated  Disease  in  1920 clothes  like she  sleep in them   ever  since   undulates  across   dreary  neonlighted Chicago  street...  dead  weight  of  the  Dear   Dead  Days hanging  in the  air like  an earth-bound  ghost. Disease: (canned heat tenor). "Find the weakest baboon."

Frontier saloon: Fag Baboon dressed in little  girl blue dress  sings  in  resigned  voice  to  tune of  Alice Blue Gown: "I'm the weakest baboon of them all."

A freight train separates the Prof. from  the juveniles. ...When  the  train  passes  they  have  fat  stomachs and responsible jobs....

STUDENTS: "We want Lottie!"

Prof:  "That  was  in  another   country,  gentlemen.... As I was saying before I was so rudely irrupted by  one of my multiple personalities... troublesome  little beasts... consider the Ancient Mariner  without curare,  lasso, bul- bocapnine  or  straitjacket,  albeit  able to  capture and hold  a  live  audience....  What  is  his  hurmp gimmick? He  he he  he... He  does not,  like so-called  artists at this  time,  stop just  anybody thereby  inflicting unsent for   boredom   and   working   random   hardship....   He stops  those  who  cannot  choose  but  hear owing  to al- ready  existing  relation  between  The  Mariner  (however ancient) and the uh Wedding Guest....

"What  the  Mariner actually  says is  not important.... He  may  be  rambling,  irrelevant,  even  crude  and ram- pant  senile.  But  something   happens  to   the  Wedding Guest  like  happens  in  psychoanalysis  when  it happens if it happens. If I may be  permitted a  slight digression ...an  analyst  of  my  acquaintance  does all  the talking -- patients  listen patiently  or not....  He reminiscences ...tells  dirty  jokes  (old ones)  achieves counterpoints of  idiocy  undreamed  of  by  The  County  Clerk.  He  is illustrating  at  some  length  that  nothing can  ever be accomplished on the verbal level....  He arrived  at this method  through observing  that The  Listener --  The Ana- lyst -- was not reading  the mind  of the  patient.... The patient -- The Talker -- was reading  his mind....  That is the  patient has  ESP awareness  of the  analyst's dreams and  schemes  whereas  the  analyst contacts  the patient strictly from front  brain.... Many  agents use  this ap- proach -- they are notoriously  long-winded bores  and bad listeners....

"Gentlemen I will slop a pearl: You  can find  out more about someone by talking than by listening."

Pigs rush up and the Prof. pours buckets of pearls into a trough....

"I am not worthy to eat his feet," says the fattest hog of them all.

"Clay anyhoo."

A.J.'S ANNUAL PARTY

A.J. turns to the guests. "Cunts, pricks,  fence strad- dlers, tonight I give you -- that  international-known im- pressario  of  blue  movies and  short-wave TV,  the one, the only, The Great Slashtubitch!"

He  points  to a  red velvet  curtain sixty  feet high. Lightning  rends  the  curtain  from  top to  bottom. The Great Slashtubitch stands revealed. His face  is immense, immobile like  a Chimu  funeral urn.  He wears  full eve- ning dress, blue cape  and blue  monocle. Huge  grey eyes with tiny black pupils that seem  to spit  needles. (Only the  Coordinate Factualist  can meet  his gaze. )  When he is angered the charge of  it will  blow his  monocle across the room. Many an ill-starred actor has felt the  icy blast of  Slashtubitch's  displeasure:  "Get  out  of  my studio, you  cheap  four-flushing  ham!  Did  you  think to  pass a counterfeit    orgasm   on    me!   THE    GREAT   SLASHTU- BITCH!  I  could  tell  if  you  come  by  regard  the beeg toe.  Idiot!  Mindless scum!!  Insolent baggage!!!  Go ped- dle thy ass and know that it takes  sincerity and  art, and devotion, to  work for  Slashtubitch. Not  shoddy trickery, dubbed  gasps,  rubber  turds and  vials of  milk concealed in  the  ear  and  shots  of   Yohimbine  sneaked   in  the wings."  (  Yohimbine,  derived  from  the  bark of  a tree growing in  Central Africa,  is the  safest and  most effi- cient  aphrodisiac.  It  operates  by  dilating  the  blood vessels on  the surface  of the  skin, particularly  in the genital area. )

Slashtubitch ejects his monocle. It  sails out  of sight, returns  like  a  boomerang  into  his  eye.  He pirouettes and  disappears  in  a  blue  mist,  cold as  liquid air... fadeout....

On  Screen.  Red-haired,   green-eyed  boy,   white  skin with  a  few freckles...  kissing a  thin brunette  girl in slacks. Clothes and hair-do suggest existentialist  bars of all the world cities. They  are seated  on low  bed covered in white silk. The girl opens his pants with gentle fingers and pulls  out his  cock which  is small  and very  hard. A drop  of  lubricant  gleams at  its tip  like a  pearl. She caresses  the crown  gently: "Strip,  Johnny." He  takes off his  clothes  with  swift sure  movements and  stands naked before  her,  his  cock  pulsing.  She  makes a  motion for him  to  turn  around  and  he  pirouettes across  the floor parodying a model,  hand on  hip. She  takes off  her shirt. Her breasts  are high  and small  with erect  nipples. She slips off her underpants.  Her pubic  hairs are  black and shiny.  He  sits  down  beside  her  and  reaches  for her breast. She stops his hands.

"Darling, I want to rim you," she whispers.

"No. Not now."

"Please, I want to."

"Well, all right. I'll go wash my ass."

"No, I'll wash it."

"Aw shucks now, it ain't dirty."

"Yes it is. Come on now, Johnny boy."

She  leads  him  into  the  bathroom. "All  right, get down."  He  gets  down  on  his  knees and  leans forward, with his chin on the bath mat. "Allah," he says.  He looks back and grins at her. She  washes his  ass with  soap and hot water sticking her finger up it.

"Does that hurt?"

"Noooooooooo."

"Come along, baby." She  leads the  way into  the bed- room.  He  lies  down  on  his  back  and throws  his legs back  over  his  head, clasping  elbows behind  his knees. She kneel down  and caress  the backs  of his  thighs, his balls,  running  her  fingers  down the  perennial divide. She push  his cheeks  apart, lean  down and  begin licking the anus, moving her head in  a slow  circle. She  push at the sides of the  asshole, licking  deeper and  deeper. He close  his  eyes  and  squirm. She  lick up  the perennial divide. His small,  tight balls....  A great  pearl stands out on the tip of his circumcised  cock. Her  mouth closes over  the  crown.  She  sucks  rhythmically  up  and down, pausing  on  the  up  stroke  and  moving her  head around in a circle. Her hand plays gently  with his  balls, slide down  and  middle  finger  up  his ass.  As she  suck down toward the root of his cock she tickle his  prostate mock- ingly. He grin and fart. She  is sucking  his cock  now in a  frenzy.  His body  begins to  contract, pulling  up to- ward  his  chin.  Each  time  the  contraction  is longer. "Wheeeeeeee!"  the  boy  yell,  every  muscle  tense,  his whole body strain to  empty through  his cock.  She drinks his jissom which fills her mouth in  great hot  spurts. He lets his feet Hop back onto  the bed.  He arches  his back and yawns.

Mary is  strapping on  a rubber  penis: "Steely  Dan III from  Yokohama,"  she  says,  caressing  the  shaft.  Milk spurts across the room.

"Be sure that milk  is pasteurized.  Don't go  giving me some  kinda  awful  cow disease  like anthrax  or glanders or aftosa...."

"When  I  was  a transvestite  Liz in  Chi used  to work as  an  exterminator.  Make  advances  to pretty  boys for the thrill of being beaten as  a man.  Later I  catch this one  kid,  overpower  him with  supersonic judo  I learned from an  old Lesbian  Zen monk.  I tie  him up,  strip off his clothes with a razor and fuck him  with Steely  Dan I. He is so relieved I don't castrate him literal he come all over my bedbug spray."

"What happen to Steely Dan II"

"He  was  torn  in  two  by a  bull dike.  Most terrific vaginal  grip  I  ever  experienced. She  could cave  in a lead pipe. It was one of her parlor tricks."

"And Steely Dan II"

"Chewed  to  bits  by  a famished  candiru in  the Upper Baboonsasshole. And don't say 'Wheeeeeeee!' this time."

"Why not? It's real boyish."

"Barefoot  boy,  check  thy   bullheads  with   the  ma- dame."

He looks  at the  ceiling, hands  behind his  head, cock pulsing. "So what shall I do? Can't shit with  that dingus up me. I wonder is it possible  to laugh  and come  at the same time? I recall, during  the war,  at the  Jockey Club in  Cairo,  me and  my asshole  buddy, Lu,  both gentlemen by  act  of  Congress...  nothing  else  could  have  done such a thing to  either of  us.... So  we got  laughing so hard we piss all over ourselves and  the waiter  say: 'You bloody  hash-heads, get  out of  here!' I  mean, if  I can laugh the piss out of  me I  should be  able to  laugh out jissom.  So  tell  me  something real  funny when  I start coming.  You  can tell  by certain  premonitory quiverings of the prostate gland...."

She  puts  on  a  record,  metallic cocaine  be-bop. She greases the dingus, shoves  the boy's  legs over  his head and works it up his ass with a  series of  corkscrew move- ments of her fluid hips. She moves in  a slow  circle, re- volving  on  the  axis  of  the shaft.  She rubs  her hard nipples  across  his  chest.  She kisses  him on  neck and chin and  eyes. He  runs his  hands down  her back  to her buttocks, pulling her into his  ass. She  revolves faster, faster. His body jerks and  writhes in  convulsive spasms. "Hurry up, please," she says. "The milk is  getting cold." He  does  not  hear.  She presses  her mouth  against his. Their faces run together. His sperm  hits her  breast with light, hot licks.

Mark  is  standing in  the doorway.  He wears  a turtle- neck  black  sweater.  Cold, handsome,  narcissistic face. Green  eyes  and  black hair.  He looks  at Johnny  with a slight sneer, his head on  one side,  hands on  his jacket pockets, a  graceful hoodlum  ballet. He  jerk his  head and Johnny   walk   ahead   of  him   into  the   bedroom.  Mary follow.  "All  right,  boys,"  she  say, sitting  down naked on a pink silk dais overlooking the bed. "Get with it!"

Mark  begin   to  undress   with  fluid   movements,  hip- rolls, squirm out of his  turtle-neck sweater  revealing his beautiful  white  torso  in  a  mocking belly  dance. Johnny deadpan,  face  frozen,  breath  quick,  lips   dry,  remove his  clothes  and  drop  them  on the  floor. Mark  lets his shorts fall on one foot. He kick like a chorus-girl, sending the  shorts  across  the  room.  Now  he  stand  naked,  his cock  stiff, straining  up and  out. He  run slow  eyes over Johnny's body. He smile and lick his lips,

Mark  drop  on  one  knee,   pulling  Johnny   across  his back  by  one  arm.  He  stand  up  and  throw him  six feet onto  the  bed.  Johnny  land  on   his  back   and  bounce. Mark  jump  up  and  grab  Johnny's  ankles, throw  his legs over  his  head.  Mark's  lips  are  drawn  back in  a tight snarl.  "All  right,  Johnny  boy."  He contracts  his body, slow  and  steady  as  an  oiled machine,  push his  cock up Johnny's  ass.  Johnny  give  a  great  sigh,  squirming  in ecstasy.  Mark  hitches  his  hands  behind  Johnny's shoul- ders,  pulling  him  down  onto  his  cock  which  is buried to  the  hilt in  Johnny's ass.  Great whistles  through his teeth.  Johnny  screams  like  a bird.  Mark is  rubbing his face  against  Johnny's,  snarl  gone,  face   innocent  and boyish  as  his  whole  liquid  being  spurt  into  Johnny's quivering body.

A  train   roar  through   him  whistle   blowing...  boat whistle,  foghorn,  sky  rocket  burst over  oily lagoons... penny  arcade  open  into  a   maze  of   dirty  pictures... ceremonial   cannon   boom   in   the  harbor...   a  scream shoots  down  a  white  hospital  corridor... out  along a wide  dusty  street  between  palm  trees,   whistles  out across the  desert like  a bullet  (vulture wings  husk in the  dry  air),  a  thousand  boys  come  at once  in out- houses,  bleak public  school toilets,  attics, basements, treehouses,  Ferris  wheels,  deserted  houses,  limestone caves, rowboats,  garages, barns,  rubbly windy  city out- skirts  behind  mud  walls  (smell of  dried excrement)... black  dust  blowing  over  lean  copper  bodies... ragged pants  dropped  to  cracked  bleeding bare  feet... (place where  vultures fight  over fish  heads)... by  jungle la- goons, vicious fish snap at white sperm floating  on black water,  sand  flies  bite the  copper ass,  howler monkies like  wind  in  the trees  (a land  of great  brown rivers where  whole  trees  float,  bright  colored snakes  in the branches,  pensive  lemurs  watch   the  shore   with  sad eyes),  a red  plane traces  arabesques in  blue substance of sky, a rattlesnake strike, a  cobra rear,  spread, spit white venom, pearl and opal  chips fall  in a  slow silent rain  through  air clear  as glycerine.  Time jump  like a broken  typewriter,  the  boys  are  old  men,  young hips quivering  and  twitching  in  boy-spasms  go   slack  and flabby,  draped  over  an  outhouse seat,  a park  bench, a stone  wall  in  Spanish  sunlight,  a  sagging  furnished room  bed  (outside red  brick slum  in clear  winter sun- light)...  twitching  and  shivering  in  dirty underwear, probing for a vein in  the junk-sick  morning, in  an Arab cafe  muttering  and  slobbering   --  the   Arabs  whisper "Medjoub" and edge  away --  (a Medjoub  is a  special sort of  religious  Moslem  lunatic...  often  epileptic  among other  disorders).  "The  Moslems  must  have   blood  and jissom.... See, see  where Christ's  blood streams  in the spermament,"   howls   the   Medjoub....   He    stand   up screaming  and  black  blood  spurt  solid  from  his  last erection, a pale white statue standing there, as if  he had stepped  whole  across  the Great  Fence, climbed  it inno- cent  and calm  as a  boy climb  the fence  to fish  in the forbidden pond  -- in  a few  seconds he  catch a  huge cat- fish -- The  Old Man  will rush  out of  a little  black hut cursing,  with  a  pitchfork  and  the  boy   run  laughing across the Missouri field -- he find a beautiful pink arrow- head  and  snatch it  up as  he runs  with a  flowing swoop of  young  bone  and  muscle  -- (his  bones blend  into the Beld,  he  lies  dead  by  the  wooden  fence a  shotgun by his side, blood on frozen  red clap  seeps into  the winter stubble  of  Georgia)....  The  catfish billows  out behind him....  He  come  to  the  fence  and  throw  the  catfish over into blood-streaked grass...  the fish  lies squirming and  squawking  --  vaults  the  fence.  He  snatch  up  the catfish  and  disappear  up a  flint-studded red  clay road between    oaks    and   persimmons    dropping   red-brown leaves  in  a  windy  fall  sunset,  green and  dripping in Summer  dawn,  black  against  a  clear  winter  day... the Old  Man  scream  curses  after  him...  his teeth  fly from his  mouth  and  whistle  over  the  boy's head,  he strain forward, his neck-cords tight as  steel hoops,  black blood spurt  in  one solid  piece over  the fence  and he  fall a fleshless   mummy   by   the   fever  grass.   Thorns  grow through  his  ribs,  the  windows break  in his  hut, dusty glass-slivers in black putty -- rats run over the  floor and boys  jack  off  in  the  dark  musty  bedroom   on  summer afternoons  and  eat the  berries that  grow from  his body and bones, mouths smeared with purple-red juices....

The  old  junky  has  found a  vein... blood  blossoms in the  dropper  like a  Chinese flower...  he push  home the heroin and the boy who  jacked off  fifty years  ago shine immaculate through  the ravaged  flesh, fill  the outhouse with the sweet nutty smell of young male lust....

How  many  years   threaded  on   a  needle   of  blood? Hands  slack  on  lap  he  sit looking  out at  the winter dawn  with  the  cancelled  eyes  of  junk. The  old queer squirm  on  a  limestone  bench  in  Chapultepec  Park  as Indian  adolescents  walk  by,  arms  around  each other's necks  and  ribs,  straining  his  dying  flesh  to occupy young  buttocks  and  thighs,  tight  balls  and  spurting cocks.

Mark and  Johnny sit  facing each  other in  a vibrating chair, Johnny impaled on Mark's cock.

"All set, Johnny?"

"Turn it on."

Mark  flips the  switch and  the chair  vibrate.... Mark tilt his head looking up at Johnny, his face  remote, eyes cool  and  mocking  on  Johnny's  face....  Johnny  scream and  whimper....  His  face  disintegrates  as  if  melted from  within....  Johnny  scream  like  a  mandrake, black out  as  his  sperm  spurt, slump  against Mark's  body an angel  on the  nod. Mark  pat Johnny's  shoulder absently. ...Room  like  gymnasium....  The  floor  is  foam rubber, covered  in  white  silk....  One  wall  is  glass.... The rising sun fills the room with pink  light. Johnny  is led in,  hands  tied,  between  Mary  and  Mark.  Johnny  sees the  gallows  and  sags   with  a   great  "Ohhhhhhhhhhh!" his chin  pulling down  towards his  cock, his  legs bend- ing at the  knees. Sperm  spurts, arching  almost vertical in front of  his face.  Mark and  Mary are  suddenly impa- tient  and  hot....  They  push  Johnny  forward  onto the gallows  platform  covered  with  moldy  jockstraps  and sweat shirts. Mark is adjusting the noose.

"Well, here  you go."  Mark starts  to push  Johnny off the platform.

Mary:  "No,  let  me."  She  locks  her  hands  behind Johnny's buttocks, puts her forehead against  him, smil- ing into his eyes she  moves back,  pulling him  off the platform into space.... His  face swells  with blood.... Mark  reaches  up  with  one  lithe  movement  and snaps Johnny's  neck...  sound  like  a  stick  broken  in wet towels. A shudder  runs down  Johnny's body...  one foot flutters like a trapped bird.... Mark has  draped himself over a swing  and mimics  Johnny's twitches,  closes his eyes and sticks his tongue out.... Johnny's cock springs up  and  Mary guides  it up  her cunt,  writhing against him in a fluid belly dance, groaning and  shrieking with delight... sweat pours  down her  body, hair  hangs over her  face  in  wet  strands. "Cut  him down,  Mark," she screams. Mark reaches over  with a  snap knife  and cuts the rope, catching Johnny as he  falls, easing  him onto his back with  Mary still  impaled and  writhing.... She bites away Johnny's lips and nose and sucks out his eyes with a pop.... She  tears off  great hunks  of cheek.... Now  she  lunches on  his prick....  Mark walks  over to her and she looks up from Johnny's  half-eaten genitals, her  face  covered  with blood,  eyes phosphorescent.... Mark puts his foot on  her shoulder  and kicks  her over on her back.... He  leaps on  her, fucking  her insanely ...they  roll from  one end  of the  room to  the other, pinwheel  end-over-end  and  leap high  in the  air like great hooked fish.

"Let  me  hang  you,  Mark....   Let  me   hang  you.... Please, Mark, let me hang you!"

"Sure  baby."  He  pulls  her brutally  to her  feet and pins her hands behind her.

"No,  Mark!!  No!  No!  No,"  she screams,  shitting and pissing  in terror  as he  drags her  to the  platform. He leaves her  tied on  the platform  in a  pile of  old used condoms,  while  he  adjusts the  rope across  the room... and comes back  carrying the  noose on  a silver  tray. He jerks her to her feet  and tightens  the noose.  He sticks his cock up her and  waltzes around  the platform  and off into  ~pace  swinging  in a  great arc....  "Wheeeeee!" he screams,  turning  into  Johnny. Her  neck snaps.  A great fluid  wave  undulates  through  her  body.   Johnny  drops to  the floor  and stands  poised and  alert like  a young animal.

He  leaps  about  the  room.  With  a scream  of longing that  shatters  the glass  wall he  leaps out  into space. Masturbating  end-over-end,  three  thousand   feet  down, his  sperm  floating beside  him, he  screams all  the way against the shattering blue of sky,  the rising  sun burn- ing  over  his body  like gasoline,  down past  great oaks and   persimmons,   swamp   cypress   and   mahogany,   to shatter in  liquid relief  in a  ruined square  paved with limestone.  Weeds  and  vines  grow  between  the  stones, and rusty iron bolts three feet thick penetrate  the white stone, stain it shit-brown of rust.

Johnny  dowses  Mary  with  gasoline  from   an  obscene Chimu  jar  of  white  jade.... He  anoints his  own body. ... They  embrace,  fall  to  the floor  and roll  under a great  magnifying  glass  set  in  the roof...  burst into flame with a cry that shatters the  glass wall,  roll into space, fucking and screaming through  the air,  burst in blood  and  flames  and  soot  on  brown. rocks  under a desert sun. Johnny leaps about the  room in  agony. With a scream that shatters the glass wall he  stands spread- eagle to the rising sun, blood spurting out  his cock... a  white  marble  god,  he  plummets  through  epileptic explosions  into  the  old  Medjoub  writhe in  shit and rubbish by a mud  wall under  a sun  that scar  and grab the  flesh into  goose-pimples.... He  is a  boy sleeping against the  mosque wall,  ejaculates wet  dreaming into a thousand cunts pink and smooth as sea  shells, feeling the delight of prickly pubic hairs slide up his cock.

John  and  Mary  in  hotel  room  (music  of  East St. Louis  Toodleoo).  Warm  spring  wind  blows  faded pink curtains  in  through  open  window....  Frogs  croak in vacant lots where corn grows and boys catch little green garter  snakes  under  broken  limestone  stelae stained with shit and threaded with rusty barbed wire....

Neon -- chlorophyll green, purple, orange --  flashes on and off. )

Johnny extracts a  candiru from  Mary's cunt  with his calipers.... He drops it into a  bottle of  mescal where it turns into a Maguey  worm.... He  gives her  a douche of  jungle  bone-softener,  her  vaginal teeth  flow out mixed  with blood  and cysts....  Her cunt  shines fresh and sweet as spring grass.... Johnny licks  Mary's cunt, slow at first, with rising excitement parts the lips and licks inside feeling the prickle of  pubic hairs  on his tumescent  tongue....  Arms  thrown back,  breasts poin- ing  straight  up,  Mary  lies  transfixed  with  neon nails. ...Johnny  moves  up  her  body,  his  cock  with  a  shining round  opal  of lubricant  at the  open slit,  slides through her pubic hairs and  enters her  cunt to  the hilt,  drawn in by  a  suction  of  hungry  flesh....  His  face  swells  with blood,  green  lights  burst  behind  his  eyes and  he falls with a scenic railway through screaming girls....

Damp  hairs  on  the  back  of  his balls  dry to  grass in the  warm  spring  wind.  High  jungle  valley,  vines  creep in  the  window.  Johnny's  cock  swells,  great   rank  buds burst  out.  A  long  tuber  root  creeps  from  Mary's cunt, feels  for  the  earth.  The  bodies  disintegrate  in  green explosions.  The  hut  falls  in ruins  of broken  stone. The boy  is  a  limestone  statue,  a  plant  sprouting  from his cock, lips parted in the half-smile  of a  junky on  the nod.

4

0 0

The Beagle has stashed the heroin in a lottery ticket,

One more shot -- tomorrow the cure.

The  way  is  long.  Hard-ons  and  bring-downs   are  fre- quent.

It  was a  long time  over the  stony reg  to the  oasis of date  palms  where  Arab  boys  shit  in  the  well  and rock n'  roll  across the  sands of  muscle beach  eating hot-dogs and spitting out gold teeth in nuggets.

Toothless  and  strictly  from  the  long hunger,  ribs you could  wash  your  filthy overalls  on, that  corrugate, they quaver  down  from  the  outrigger   in  Easter   Island  and stalk ashore on legs stiff and brittle as stilts...  they nod in  club  windows...  fallen  into the  fat of  lack-need to sell a slim body.

The date palms  have died  of meet  lack, the  well filled with  dried  shit  and  mosaic  of  a  thousand  newspapers: "Russia   denies...   The   Home   Secretary    views   with pathic   alarm...  The   trap  was   sprung  at   12:02.  At 12:30  the  doctor  went  out  to  eat oysters,  returned at 2:00  to  clap  the  hanged  man   jovially  on   the  back. 'what? Aren't you  dead yet?  Guess I'll  have to  pull your leg. Haw Haw! Can't let  you choke  at this  rate --  I'd get a  warning  from  the  President.  And  what  a  disgrace if the  dead  wagon  cart you  out alive.  My balls  would drop off with  the shame  of it  and I  apprenticed myself  to an experienced ox. One two three pull.' "

The sail plane falls silent as erection, silent as greased glass  broken  by  the  young  thief  with  old-woman  hands a;id  cancelled eyes  of junk....  In a  noiseless explosion he   penetrates   the  broken   house,  stepping   over  the greased crystals,  a clock  ticks loud  in the  kitchen, hot air ruffles his hair, his head disintegrates in a  heavy duck load....  The  Old  Man  flips  out a  red shell  and pirou- ettes  around  his shotgun.  "Aw, shucks,  fellers, tweren't nothing....  Fish  in  the  barrel....  Money  in  the  bank ...round-heeled  boy,  one  greased  shot  brain  goose  and he  Hop  in  an  obscene  position....   Can  you   hear  me from where you are, boy?

"I  was  young  myself once  and heard  the siren  call of easy   money  and   women  and   tight  boy-ass   and  lands sake  don't get  my blood  up I  am subject  to tell  a tale make  your  cock  stand  up  and  yipe  for the  pink pearly way  of  young  cunt  or  the  lovely  brown  mucous-covered palpitating  tune  of  the  young  boy-ass  play  your  cock like a  recorder... and  when you  hit the  prostate pearl sharp  diamonds gather  in the  golden lad  balls inexora- ble  as a  kidney stone....  Sorry I  had to  kill you.... The  old  grey  mare  aint  what she  used to  be.... Cant run  down  an  audience...  got to  bring down  that house on the  wing, run  or sit....  Like an  old lion  took bad with  cavities  he  need  that  amident toothpaste  keep a feller biting fresh at all times....  Them old  lions shit sure  turn  boyeater....  And  who  can  blame  them, boys being so sweet so cold so fair  in St.  James Infirmary?'? Now,  son,  don't  you get  rigor mortis  on me.  Show re- spect for the  aging prick....  You may  be a  tedious old fuck yourself  some day....  Oh, uh;  I guess  not.... You have,  like  Housman's  barefoot  shameless  catamite  The Congealed Shropshire Ingenue  set your  fleet foot  on the silo  of  change....  But you  cant kill  those Shropshire boys... been hanged  so often  he resist  it like  a gono- coccus half castrate with pencillin  rallies to  a hideous strength  and  multiplies geometric....  So leave  us cast a  vote  for  decent  acquittal  and put  an end  to those beastly exhibitions for which the sheriff levy a  pound of fiesh."

Sheriff: "I'll lower his pants for a pound,  folks. Step right up. A serious and scientific exhibit  concerning the locality  of  the  Life  Center.  This character  has nine inches,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  measure   them  yourself inside. Only  one pound,  one queer  three dollar  bill to see a young boy come three times  at least  -- I  never de- mean  myself  to  process  a  eunuch --  completely against his will. When his neck snaps sharp, this  character will shit-sure come to rhythmic attention and spurt it  out all over you.

The boy stands on the trap  shifting his  weight from one leg to the other: "Gawd!  What a  boy hasta  put up with in this business. Sure as  shit some  horrible old character get physical."

Traps falls, rope sings like wind in wire, neck snaps loud and clear as a Chinese gong.

The  boy  cuts  himself  down  with  a  switch-blade, chases  a  screaming  fag down  the midway.  The faggot dives  through the  glass of  a penny  arcade peep-show and rims a grinning Negro. Fadeout.

(Mary,  Johnny  and Mark  take a  bow with  the ropes around  their  necks.  They  are not  as young  as they appear  in  the  Blue  Movies....  They look  tired and petulant. )

MEETING OF INTERNATIONAL

CONFERENCE OF TECHNOLOGICAL

PSYCHIATRY

Doctor  "Fingers"  Schafer,  the Lobotomy  Kid, rises and turns on the Conferents the cold blue blast  of his gaze:

"Gentlemen,  the  human  nervous  system  can  be re- duced  to  a  compact  and  abbreviated  spinal column. The brain, front, middle and rear must follow  the ade- noid,  the wisdom  tooth, the  appendix.... I  give you my  Master   Work:  The   Complete  All   American  De- anxietixed Man...."

Blast of  trumpets: The  Man is  carried in  naked by two Negro  Bearers who  drop him  on the  platform with bestial,  sneering  brutality....  The  Man wriggles.... His flesh turns to viscid, transparent jelly  that drifts away  in green  mist, unveiling  a monster  black centi- pede.  Waves of  unknown stench  fill the  room, searing the lungs, grabbing the stomach....

Schafer  wrings  his  hands sobbing:  "Clarence! How can you do  this to  me?? Ingrates!!  Every one  of them ingrates!'

The Conferents start back muttering in dismay:

"I'm afraid Schafer has gone a bit too far...."

"I sounded a word of warning...."

"Brilliant chap Schafer... but..."

"Man will do anything for publicity...."

"Gentlemen, this  unspeakable and  in every  sense il- legitimate  child  of  Doctor Schafer's  perverted brain must not see the light....  Our duty  to the  human race is clear...."

"Man he done seen the  light," said  one of  the Negro Bearers.

"We  must  stomp  out  the Un-American  crittah,' says a fat, frog-faced  Southern doctor  who has  been drink- ing  corn  out of  a mason  jar. He  advances drunkenly, then halts, appalled by the  formidable size  and menac- ing aspect of the centipede....

"Fetch gasoline!" he bellows. "We  gotta burn  the son of a bitch like an uppity Nigra!"

"I'm not sticking my neck  out, me,"  says a  cool hip young  doctor  high  on  LSD25....  "Why  a  smart  D.A. could..."

Fadeout. "Order in The Court1"

D.A.:"Gentlemen  of the  jury, these  'learned gentle- men' claim that  the innocent  human creature  they have so wantonly slain suddenly turned himself into a huge black centipede and it was 'their duty to the human race' to destroy this monster before it could, by any means at its disposal, perpetrate its kind....

"Are we to gulp down this tissue of horse shit! Are we to take these glib lies like a greased and nameless asshole? Where is this wondrous centipede?

" 'We have destroyed it,' they say smugly.... And I would like to remind you, Gentlemen and Hermaphro- dites of the Jury, that this Great Beast" -- he points to Doctor Schafer -- "has, on several previous occasions, appeared in this court charged with the unspeakable crime of brain rape.... In plain English" -- he pounds the rail of the jury box, his voice rises to a scream -- "in plain English, Gentlemen, forcible lobotomy...."

The Jury gasps..., One dies of a heart attack.... Three fall to the floor writhing in orgasms of pruri- ence....

The D.A. points dramatically: "He it is.... He and no other who has reduced whole provinces of our fair land to a state bordering on the far side of idiocy.... He it is who has filled great warehouses with row on row, tier on tier of helpless creatures who must have their every want attended.... 'The Drones' he calls them with a cynical leer of pure educated evil.... Gentlemen, I say to you that the wanton murder of Clarence Cowie must not go unavenged: This foul crime shrieks like a wounded faggot for justice at least!"

The centipede is rushing about in agitation.

"Man, that mother fucker's hungry," screams one of the Bearers.

"I'm getting out of here, me."

A  wave  of  electric  horror  sweeps through  the Con- ferents....  They  storm  the  exits screaming  and claw- ing....

THE MARKET

Panorama  of  the  City of  Interzone. Opening  bars of East  St.  Louis  Toodleoo...  at  times  loud  and clear then  faint  and  intermittent  like  music down  a windy street....

The  room  seems  to  shake  and  vibrate  with motion. The  blood  and  substance  of  many races,  Negro, Poly- nesian,  Mountain  Mongol,  Desert  Nomad,  Polyglot Near East,  Indian  --  races  as  yet unconceived  and unborn, combinations  not  yet realized  pass through  your body. Migrations,  incredible  journeys  through   deserts  and jungles and mountains (stasis and  death in  closed moun- tain  valleys  where  plants grow  out of  genitals, vast crustaceans  hatch inside  and break  the shell  of body) across the Pacific in an outrigger canoe to Easter Island. The  Composite  City  where  all  human   potentials  are spread out in a vast silent market.

Minarets,  palms,   mountains,  jungle...   A  sluggish river jumping  with vicious  fish, vast  weed-grown parks where boys lie in the  grass, play  cryptic games,  Not a locked  door  in the  City. Anyone  comes into  your room at any time. The Chief of Police is a Chinese  who picks his  teeth and  listens to  denunciations presented  by a lunatic.  Every  now  and  then  the  Chinese  takes  the toothpick out of his mouth and  looks at  the end  of it. Hipsters  with  smooth  copper-colored  faces   lounge  in doorways  twisting  shrunk  heads  on  gold  chains, their faces blank with an insect's unseeing calm.

Behind  them,  through  open  doors,  tables  and booths and  bars,  and  kitchens  and  baths,  copulating couples on  rows  of  brass  beds, crisscross  of a  thousand ham- mocks,  junkies  tying  up  for  a  shot,  opium  smokers, hashish  smokers,  people  eating  talking   bathing  back into a haze of smoke and steam.

Gaming  tables  where  the  games  are  played  for  in- credible  stakes.  From  time  to time  a player  leaps up with a despairing  cry, having  lost his  youth to  an old man  or  become  Latah  to  his  opponent.  But  there are higher  stakes  than  youth  or  Latah,  games  where only two players in the world know what the stakes are.

All houses in the City are joined. Houses of sod  -- high mountain  Mongols  blink  in  smokey  doorways   --  houses of  bamboo  and  teak,  houses  of  adobe,  stone  and red brick,  South Pacific  and Maori  houses, houses  in trees and  river  boats,  wood  houses  one  hundred  feet  long sheltering entire tribes, houses  of boxes  and corrugated iron  where  old  men  sit  in  rotten  rags  cooking down canned  heat, great  rusty iron  racks rising  two hundred feet  in  the air  from swamps  and rubbish  with perilous partitions  built  on  multi-levelled platforms,  and ham- mocks swinging over the void.

Expeditions  leave  for  unknown  places   with  unknown purposes. Strangers arrive on rafts of old  packing crates tied together  with rotten  rope, they  stagger in  out of the  jungle  their  eyes swollen  shut from  insect bites, they  come  down  the  mountain  trails on  cracked bleed- ing feet through the  dusty windy  outskirts of  the city, where  people  defecate   in  rows   along  adobe   walls  and vultures   fight  over   fish  heads.   They  drop   down  into parks  in   patched  parachutes,...   They  are   escorted  by a  drunken  cop  to register  in a  vast public  lavatory. The data  taken  down  is  put  on  pegs  to  be  used  as  toilet paper.

Cooking  smells  of  all  countries  hang  over   the  City, a  haze  of  opium,  hashish,  the   resinous  red   smoke  of Yage,  smell  of  the jungle  and salt  water and  the rotting river and dried excrement and sweat and genitals.

High   mountain   flutes,   jazz  and   bebop,  one-stringed Mongol   instruments,   gypsy   xylophones,   African   drums, Arab bagpipes...

The  City  is  visited  by  epidemics  of violence,  and the untended  dead  are   eaten  by   vultures  in   the  streets. Albinos  blink  in  the  sun.  Boys  sit  in  trees, languidly masturbate.   People   eaten   by   unknown   diseases   watch the passerby with evil, knowing eyes.

In  the  City  Market  is  the Meet  Cafe. Followers  of ob- solete,  unthinkable  trades  doodling  in  Etruscan,  addicts of  drugs  not  yet  synthesized,  pushers  of  souped-up Har- maline,  junk  reduced  to  pure  habit   offering  precarious vegetable  serenity,  liquids   to  induce   Latah,  Tithonian longevity  serums,   black  marketeers   of  World   War  III, excisors of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of  the spirit, investigators   of  infractions   denounced  by   bland  para- noid   chess   players,   servers   of   fragmentary  warrants taken   down   in    hebephrenic   shorthand    charging   un- speakable  mutilations  of  the  spirit, bureaucrats  of spec- tral  departments,  officials  of unconstituted  police states, a   Lesbian   dwarf   who   has   perfected   operation  Bang- utot,  the  lung  erection  that  strangles a  sleeping enemy, sellers  of  orgone tanks  and relaxing  machines, brokers of  exquisite  dreams  and memories  tested on  the sensi- tized cells of junk  sickness and  bartered for  raw mate- rials of  the will,  doctors skilled  in the  treatment of diseases  dormant  in  the  black  dust of  ruined cities, gathering virulence in  the white  blood of  eyeless worms feeling slowly to the  surface and  the human  host, mala- dies  of  the  ocean floor  and the  stratosphere, maladies of the  laboratory and  atomic war....  A place  where the unknown  past  and  the  emergent  future  meet  in  a vi- brating  soundless  hum... Larval  entities waiting  for a Live One...

(Section  describing   The  City   and  the   Meet  Cafe written  in  state  of  Yage  intoxication...  Yage, Ayua- huasca,  Pilde,  Nateema  are  Indian  names   for  Banni- steria  Caapi,  a  fast  growing  vine  indigenous  to the Amazon region. See discussion of Yage in Appendix. )

Notes  from  Yage  state:  Images  fall slow  and silent like  snow....  Serenity...  All  defenses  fall... every- thing is free to  enter or  to go  out.... Fear  is simply impossible....  A  beautiful  blue  substance   Hows  into me.... I see an archaic grinning  face like  South Pacific mask....   The   face  is   blue  purple   splotched  with gold....

The  room  takes  on  aspect  of  Near  East  whorehouse with blue walls and red tasseled  lamps.... I  feel myself turning into a Negress, the black color  silently invading my  flesh....  Convulsions of  lust... My  legs take  on a well  rounded  Polynesian  substance....  Everything stirs with a writhing furtive  life.... The  room is  Near East, Negro,  South  Pacific,  in some  familiar place  I cannot locate....   Yage  is   space-time  travel....   The  room seems  to  shake  and  vibrate  with  motion....   The  blood and  substance  of  many  races,  Negro,   Polynesian,  Moun- tain   Mongol,   Desert  Nomad,   Polyglot  Near   East,  In- dian,   races   as   yet   unconceived  and   unborn,  passes through   the   body....   Migrations,   incredible  journeys through  deserts  and  jungles  and  mountains   (stasis  and death  in  closed  mountain  valley  where  plants  grow  out of  genitals,  vast  crustaceans hatch  inside and  break the shell  of  body)  across  the Pacific  in an  outrigger canoe to Easter Island,...

(It  occurs  to  me  that  preliminary  Yage   nausea  is motion sickness of transport to Yage state....)

"All medicine men use  it in  their practice  to foretell the future, locate lost  or stolen  objects, to  diagnose and treat illness,  to name  the perpetrator  of a  crime." Since the Indian ( straitjacket for Herr Boas -- trade joke  -- noth- ing   so   maddens  an   anthropologist  as   Primitive  Man) does  not  regard  any  death  as  accidental,  and  they are unacquainted  with  their  own  self-destructive   trends  re- ferring  to  them  contemptuously  as  "our  naked  cousins," or  perhaps  feeling  that  these trends  above all  are sub- ject  to  the manipulation  of alien  and hostile  wills, any death  is  murder.  The  medicine  man  takes  Yage  and  the identity  of  the  murderer is  revealed to  him. As  you may imagine,  the  deliberations  of  the  medicine   man  during one of these jungle  inquests give  rise to  certain feelings of uneasiness among his constituents.

"Let's  hope  Old  Xiuptutol  don't wig  and name  one of the boys."

"Take a curare and relax. We got the fix in..."

"But  if  he  wig? Picking  up on  that Nateema  all the time  he  don't  touch  the  ground  in  twenty  years....  I tell you, Boss, nobody can hit the stuff like  that.... It cooks the brains...."

"So we declare him incompetent...."

So Xiuptutol reels out of the jungle  and says  the boys in  the Lower  Tzpino territory  done it,  which surprises no one.... Take it from an old  Brujo, dearie,  they don't like surprises....

A  funeral  passes  through  the  market. Black  coffin -- Arabic inscriptions in filigreed silver -- carried  by four pallbearers.  Procession of  mourners singing  the funeral song...  Clem  and  Jody  fall  in  beside  them  carrying coffin, the corpse of a hog bursts out  of it....  The hog is dressed in a jellaba, a keif pipe juts from  its mouth, one hoof holds a packet of  feelthy pictures,  a mezuzzoth hangs about its  neck.... Inscribed  on the  coffin: "This was the noblest Arab of them all."

They sing hideous parody  of the  funeral song  in false Arabic. Jody can do a fake Chinese spiel that'll just kill you -- like a hysterical ventriloquist's dummy. In fact, he precipitated an anti-foreign riot in Shanghai that claimed 3,000 casualties.

"Stand  up,  Gertie,  and  show  respect  for  the local gooks."

"I suppose one should."

"My  dear,  I'm  working  on  the most  marvelous inven- tion...  a  boy  who  disappears  as  soon  as   you  come leaving a smell of burning  leaves and  a sound  effect of distant train whistles."

"Ever  make  sex  in  no gravity?  Your jism  just floats out in the air  like lovely  ectoplasm, and  female guests are  subject to  immaculate or  at least  indirect concep- tion....  Reminds  me  of an  old friend  of mine,  one of the  handsomest  men  I have  ever known  and one  of the maddest  and  absolutely  ruined  by  wealth. He  used to go  about  with a  water pistol  shooting jism  up career women  at  parties.  Won  all  his paternity  suits hands down. Never use his own jism you understand."

Fadeout... "Order in the Court." Attorney for  A. J., "Conclusive  tests  have established  that my  client has no  uh personal  connection with  the uh  little accident of the  charming plaintiff....  Perhaps she  is preparing to  emulate  the  Virgin  Mary and  conceive immaculately naming  my  client  as  a  hurumph  ghostly  pander.... I am  reminded  of  a  case  in  fifteenth-century  Holland where  a  young  woman  accused  an elderly  and respect- able sorcerer  of conjuring  up a  succubus who  then had uh  carnal  knowledge  of  the  young person  in question with the  under the  circumstances regrettable  result of pregnancy.  So  the  sorcerer was  indicted as  an accom- plice  and  rampant  voyeur before  during and  after the fact.  However,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  we  no longer credit  such uh  legends; and  a young  woman attributing her uh interesting condition to the attentions of  a suc- cubus  would  be  accounted,  in these  enlightened days, a  romanticist  or  in  plain English  a God  damned liar hehe hehe heh...."

And now The Prophet's Hour:

"Millions died in the mud fiats. Only one blast free to lungs.

" 'Eye Eye, Captain,' he said, squirting his eyes out on the deck.... And who would put on the chains to- night? It is indicate to observe some caution in the up-wind approach, the down wind having failed to turn up  anything  worth  a rusty  load.... Senoritas  are the wear this season in Hell, and  I am  tired with  the long climb to a pulsing Vesuvius of alien pricks."

Need Orient  Express out  of here  to no  hide place(r) mines are frequent in the area.... Every day dig a little it takes up the time....

Jack off phantoms whisper hot into the bone ear....

Shoot your way to freedom.

"Christ?" sneers the vicious, fruity old Saint applying pancake  from  an  alabaster  bowl....  "That  cheap ham! You  think  I'd  demean  myself  to commit  a miracle?... That one should have stood in carny....

"'Step right up,  Marquesses and  Marks, and  bring the little  Marks  too.  Good  for  young  and  old,  man and beast.... The one  and only  legit Son  of Man  will cure a  young boy's  clap with  one hand  -- by  contact alone, folks -- create marijuana with  the other,  whilst walking on  water  and squirting  wine out  his ass....  Now keep your distance, folks, you is subject to be  irradiated by the sheer charge of this character.'

"And  I  knew  him  when,  dearie....  I recall  we was doing an Impersonation  Act --  very high  class too  -- in Sodom,  and  that  is  one  cheap town....  Strictly from hunger...  Well,  this  citizen, this  fucking Philistine wandered  in  from  Podunk  Baal  or  some  place, called me a fuckin fruit right on the floor. And I said  to him: 'Three  thousand  years  in  show  business and  I always keep my nose clean. Besides I don't  hafta take  any shit off  any   uncircumcised  cocksucker.'...Later   he  come to  my  dressing  room  and  made  an  apology....  Turns out he is a big physician.  And he  was a  lovely fellah, too....

"Buddha? A notorious metabolic junky... Makes his own you dig. In India, where they got no sense of time, The Man is often a month late.... 'Now let me see, is that the second or the third monsoon? I got like a meet in Ketchupore about more or less.'

"And all them junkies sitting around in the lotus posture spitting on the ground and waiting on The Man.

"So Buddha says: 'I don't hafta take this sound. I'll by God metabolize my own junk.'

"'Man, you can't do that. The Revenooers will swarm all over you.'

"'Over me they won't swarm. I gotta gimmick, see? I'm a fuckin Holy Man as of right now.'

"'Jeez, boss, what an angle.'

"'Now some citizens really wig when they make with the New Religion. These frantic individuals do not know how to come on. No class to them... Besides, they is subject to be lynched like who wants somebody hanging around being better'n other folks? "What you trying to do, Jack, give people a bad time?..." So we gotta play it cool, you dig, cool.... We got a take it or leave it proposition here, folks. We don't shove any- thing up your soul, unlike certain cheap characters who shall be nameless and are nowhere. Clear the cave for action. I'm gonna metabolize a speed ball and make with the Fire Sermon.'

"Mohammed? Are you kidding? He was dreamed up by the Mecca Chamber of Commerce. An Egyptian ad man on the skids from the sauce write the continuity.

" 'I'll have one more, Gus. Then, by Allah, I will go home and receive a Surah.... Wait'll the morning edi- tion hits the souks. I am blasting Amalgamated Images wide open.'

"The bartender looks up from his racing form. 'Yeah. And theirs will be a painful doom.'

" 'Oh... uh... quite. Now, Gus, I'll write you a check.'

"'You are only being the most notorious paper hanger in Greater Mecca. I am not a wall, Mr. Mohammed.'

" 'Well, Gus, I got like two types publicity, favorable and otherwise. You want some otherwise already? I am subject to receive a Surah concerning bartenders who extendeth not credit to those in a needy way.'

" 'And theirs will be a painful doom. Sold Arabia.' He vaults over the bar. 'I'm not taking any more, Ahmed. Pick up thy Surahs and walk. In fact, I'll help you. And stay out.'

"'I'll fix your wagon good, you unbelieving cock- sucker. I'll close you up tight and dry as a junky's ass- hole. I'll by Allah dry up the Peninsula.'

" 'It's a continent already....'

"Leave what Confucius say stand with Little Audrey and the shaggy dogs. Lao-Tze? They scratch him al- ready...'. And enough of these gooey saints with a look of pathic dismay as if they getting fucked up the ass and try not to pay it any mind. And why should we let some old brokendown ham tell us what wisdom is? 'Three thousand years in show business and I always keep my nose clean....'

"First, every Fact is incarcerate along with the male hustlers and those who desecrate the gods of commerce by playing ball in the streets, and some old white- haired fuck staggers out to give us the benefits of his ripe idiocy. Are we never to be free of this grey-beard loon lurking on every mountain top in Tibet, subject to drag himself out of a hut in the Amazon, waylay one in the Bowery? 'I've been expecting you, my son,' and he make with a silo full of corn. 'Life is a school where every pupil must learn a different lesson. And now I will unlock my Word Hoard....'

" 'I do fear it much.'

" 'Nay, nothing shall stem the rising tide.'

" 'I can't stem him, boys. Sauve qui peut.'

" 'I tell you when I leave the Wise Man I don't even feel like a human. He converting my live orgones into dead bullshit.'

"So I got an exclusive why don't I make with the live word? The word cannot be expressed direct.... It can perhaps be indicated by mosaic of juxtaposition like articles abandoned in a hotel drawer, defined by nega- tives and absence....

"Think I'll have my stomach tucked.... I may be old, but I'm still desirable."

(The Stomach Tuck is surgical intervention to re- move stomach fat at the same time making a tuck in the abdominal wall, thus creating a flesh corset, which is, however, subject to break and spurt your horrible old guts across the Boor.... The slim and shapely F.C. models are, of course, the most dangerous. In fact, some extreme models are known as O.N.S.-- One Night Stands -- in the industry.

Doctor "Doodles" Rindfest states bluntly: "Bed is the most dangerous place for an F.C. man."

The F.C. theme song is "Believe Me If All These Endearing  Young  Charms."  An  F.C.  partner  is indeed subject to "fleet from your arms like fairy gifts fading away.")

In a  white museum  room full  of sunlight  pink nudes sixty feet high. Vast adolescent muttering.

Silver guard rail... chasm a  thousand feet  down into the glittering sunlight. Little: green plots  of cabbage and lettuce. Brown youths  with adzes  spied by  the old queen across a sewage canal.

"Oh dear, I wonder  if they  fertilize with  human ex- crement.... Maybe they'll do it right now."

He  Hips  out mother  of pearl  opera glasses  -- Aztec mosaic in the sun.

Long  line  of  Greek  lads  march  up  with alabaster bowls of shit, empty into the limestone marl hole.

Dusty  poplars  shake  across the  red brick  Plaza de Toros in the afternoon wind.

Wooden  cubicles  around  a  hot  spring...  rubble of ruined walls in  a grove  of cottonwoods...  the benches worn smooth as metal by a million masturbating boys.

Greek  lads  white  as  marble fuck  dog style  on the portico  of  a  great  golden  temple...  naked  Mugwump twangs a lute.

Walking  down  by the  tracks in  his red  sweater met Sammy the Dock Keeper's son with two Mexicans.

"Hey, Skinny," he said, "want to get screwed?"

"Well... Yeah."

On  a  ruined  straw mattress  the Mexican  pulled him up on all fours --  Negro boy  dance around  them beating out the strokes... sun  through a  knot hole  pink spot- lights his cock.

A  waste of  raw pink  shame to  the pastel  blue horizon where vast iron mesas crash into the shattered sky,

"It's  all  right."  The  God  screams through  you three thousand year rusty load....

Hail  of  crystal  skulls  shattered  the  greenhouse  to slivers in the winter moon....

The  American  woman  has  left  a  whiff  of  poison be- hind in the dank St. Louis garden party.

Pool  covered  with  green  slime  in  a   ruined  French garden.  Huge  pathic  frog  rises  slowly  from  the water on a mud platform playing the clavichord.

A Sollubi rushes into  the bar  and starts  polishing The Saint's shoes with the oil on his nose.... The  Saint kicks him  petulantly   in  the   mouth.  The   Sollubi  screams, whirls  around  and  shits  on the  Saint's pants.  Then he dashes into  the street.  A pimp  looks after  him specula- tively....

The  Saint  calls  the  manager:  "Jesus, Al,  what kinda creep  joint  you  running  here?  My  brand  new  fishskin Degagees..."

"I'm sorry, Saint. He slipped by me."

(The  Sollubi are  an untouchable  caste in  Arabia noted for  their  abject  vileness.  De  luxe cafes  are equipped with  Sollubi who  rim the  guests while  they eat  -- holes in  the seating  benches being  provided for  this purpose. Citizens  who  want  to  be  utterly  humiliated   and  de- graded  --  so  many  people  do,  nowadays, hoping  to jump the  gun  --  over  themselves  up  for  passive  homosexual intercourse  to  an  encampment  of   Sollubis....  Nothing like it, they tell me.... In fact, the Sollubi  are subject to  become  wealthy  and  arrogant  and  lose  their native vileness. What is origin of  untouchable? Perhaps  a fallen priest  caste.  In fact,  untouchables perform  a priestly function  in  taking  on  themselves all  human vileness.)

A. J. strolls through the Market in black cape with a vulture perched on one shoulder. He stands by a table of agents.

"This you gotta hear. Boy in Los Angeles fifteen year old. Father decide it is time the boy have his first piece of ass. Boy is lying on the lawn reading comic books, father go out and say: 'Son, here's twenty dollars; I want you to go to a good whore and get a piece of ass off her.'

"So they drive to this plush jump joint, and the father say, 'All right, son. You're on your own. So ring the bell and when the woman come give her the twenty dollars and tell her you want a piece of ass.'

" 'Solid, pop.'

"So about fifteen minutes later the boy comes out:

" 'Well, son, did you get a piece of ass?'

" 'Yeah. This gash comes to the door, and I say I want a piece of ass and lay the double sawski on her. We go up to her trap, and she remove the dry goods. So I switch my blade and cut a big hunk off her ass, she raise a beef like I am reduce to pull off one shoe and beat her brains out. Then I hump her for kicks."

Only the laughing bones remain, flesh over the hills and far away with the dawn wind and a train whistle. We are not unaware of the problem, and the needs of our constituents are never out of our mind being their place of residence and who can break a ninety-nine year synapses lease?

Another installment in the adventures of Clem Snide the Private Ass Hole: "So I  walk in  the joint,  and this female  hustler  sit  at  the  bar, and  I think,  'Oh God you're poule de luxe already.' I mean it's like I  see the gash before. So I  don't pay  her no  mind at  first, then I dig she  is rubbing  her legs  together and  working her feet up behind  her head  shoves it  down to  give herself a douche  job with  a gadget  sticks out  of her  nose the way a body can't help but notice."

Iris -- half Chinese and half Negro  -- addicted  to dihy- dro-oxy-heroin  -- takes  a shot  every fifteen  minutes to which  end she  leaves droppers  and needles  sticking out all over her.  The needles  rust in  her dry  flesh, which, here  and  there,  has  grown completely  over a  joint to form  a  smooth  green brown  wen. On  the table  in front of  her  is  a samovar  of tea  and a  twenty-pound hamper of  brown sugar.  No one  has ever  seen her  eat anything else. It -is only just before a shot  that she  hears what anyone says or talks  herself. Then  she makes  some flat, factual statement relative to her own person.

"My asshole is occluding."

"My cunt got terrible green juices."

Iris  is  one  of  Benway's  projects.  "The  human body can  run  on  sugar  alone,  God  damn  it.... I  am aware that certain of  my learned  colleagues, who  are attempt- ing to belittle my genius work, claim that I  put vitamins and proteins into Iris's  sugar clandestinely....  I chal- lenge these  nameless assholes  to crawl  up out  of their latrines and run a spot analysis on  Iris's sugar  and her tea. Iris is a wholesome American  cunt. I  deny categori- cally  that  she nourishes  herself on  semen. And  let me take this opportunity to state that I am a  reputable sci- entist, not a charlatan, a lunatic, or a  pretended worker of miracles.... I never claimed  that Iris  could subsist exclusive on photosynthesis.... I did  not say  she could breathe in carbon dioxide and  give off  oxygen --  I con- fess I have been  tempted to  experiment being  of course restrained by my  medical ethics....  In short,  the vile slanders of  my creeping  opponents will  inevitably fall back  onto them  and come  to roost  like a  homing stool pigeon."

ORDINARY MEN AND WOMEN

Luncheon  of  Nationalist  Party  on  balcony overlook- ing the  Market. Cigars,  scotch, polite  belches.... The Party Leader strides about in a  jellaba smoking  a cigar and drinking  scotch. He  wears expensive  English shoes, loud socks, garters, muscular, hairy legs -- overall effect of successful gangster in drag.

P.L.  (pointing  dramatically):  "Look out  there. What do you see?"

LIEUTENANT: "Huh? Why, I see the Market."

P.L.:  "No  you  don't.  You see  men and  women. Ordi- ruzry  men and  women going  about their  ordinary every- day tasks. Leading their ordinary  lives. That's  what we need...."

A street boy climbs over the balcony rail.

Lieutenant:  "No,  we  do  not  want  to  buy  any  used condoms! Cut!"

P.L.:  "Wait!...  Come  in, my  boy. Sit  down.... Have a cigar.... Have a drink."

He paces around the boy like an aroused tom cat.

"What do you think about the French?"

-Huh?"

'The  French.  The  Colonial  bastards  who  is  sucking your live corpuscles."

"Look  mister.  It cost  two hundred  francs to  suck my corpuscule.  Haven't  lowered  my  rates  since  the  year of  the  rindpest  when  all the  tourists died,  even the Scandinavians."

P.L.: "You see? This is pure uncut boy in the street."

"You sure can pick'em, boss."

"M.I. never misses."

P.L.: "Now look, kid, let's put it this way.  The French have dispossessed you of your birthright."

"You  mean  like  Friendly  Finance?...  They  got  this toothless  Egyptian eunuch  does the  job. They  figure he arouse  less  antagonism,  you  dig,  he always  take down his  pants  to  show you  his condition.  'Now I'm  just a poor  old eunuch  trying to  keep up  my habit.  Lady, I'd like to give you an extension on that artificial  kidney, I got  a  job  to do  is all....  Disconnect her,  boys.' He shows  his  gums in  a feeble  snarl.... 'Not  for nothing am I known as Nellie the Repossessor.'

"So  they  disconnect  my  own  mother, the  sainted old gash,  and  she  swell  up  and turn  black and  the whole souk stink of  piss and  the neighbors  beef to  the Board of Health and my father say: 'It's the will of  Allah. She won't piss any more of my loot down the drain.'

"Sick  people  disgust  me  already.  When  some citizen start telling me about his cancer of  the prostate  or his rotting  septum  make  with  that  purulent   discharge  I tell him: 'You think I  am innarested  to hear  about your horrible old condition? I am not innarested at all.' "

P.L.: "All right. Cut... You  hate the  French, don't you?"

"Mister, I  hate everybody.  Doctor Benway  says it's metabolic, I got this condition  of the  blood.... Arabs and  Americans  got  it  special....  Doctor  Benway  is concocting this serum."

P.L.: "Benway is an infiltrating Western Agent."

L.l: "A rampant French Jew..."

L.2:  "A hog-balled,  black-assed Communist  Jew Nig- ger.

P.L.: "Shut up, you fool!"

L.2:  "Sorry, chief.  I am  after being  stationed in Pigeonhole."

P.L.: "Don't go  near Benway."  (Aside: "I  wonder if this will  go down.  You never  know how  primitive they are....") "Confidentially he's a black magician."

L.l: "He's got this resident djinn."

"Uhuh... Well I got  a date  with a  high-type Ameri- can client. A real classy fellah."

P.L.: "Don't you  know it's  shameful to  peddle your ass to the alien unbelieving pricks?"

"Well that's a point of view. Have fun."

P.L.: "Likewise." Exit boy. "They're hopeless  I tell you. Hopeless."

L.l. "What's with this serum?"

P.L.: "I don't know, but it sounds ominous. We better put a telepathic  direction finder  on Benway.  The man's not  to be  trusted. Might  do almost  anything.... Turn a massacre into a sex orgy....

"Or a joke."

"Precisely. Arty type... No principles..."

AMERICAN  HOUSEWIFE  (opening  a   box  of   Lux):  "Why don't it have an  electric eye  the box  Hip open  when it see  me  and  hand  itself  to  the  Automat Handy  Man he should  put  it  inna  water  already....  The  Handy  Man is outa control since Thursday,  he been  getting physical with me and I didn't put it in his combination  at all.... And  the  Garbage  Disposal  Unit  snapping  at   me,  and the  nasty  old  Mixmaster  keep  trying  to get  up under my  dress.... I  got the  most awful  cold, and  my intes- tines  is  all  constipated....  I'm gonna  put it  in the Handy  Man's  combination  he   should  administer   me  a high colonic awready."

SALESMAN (he is something between an aggressive Latah and a timid Sender): "Recollect when I am travelling with K. E., hottest idea man in the gadget industry.

"'Think of it!' he snaps. 'A cream seperator in your own kitchen!'

" 'K. E., my brain reels at the thought.'

" 'It's five, maybe ten, yes, maybe twenty years away. ...But it's coming.'

"'I'll wait, K. E. No matter how long it is I'll wait. When the priority numbers are called up yonder I'll be there.'

"It was K. E. put out the Octopus Kit for Massage Parlors, Barber Shops and Turkish Baths, with which you can administer a high colonic, an unethical mas- sage, a shampoo, whilst cutting the client's toenails and removing his blackheads. And the M.D.'s Can Do Kit for busy practitioners will take out your appendix, tuck in a hernia, pull a wisdom tooth, ectomize your piles and circumcise you. Well, K. E. is  such an  atomic sales- man  if  he runs  out of  Octopus Kits  he is  subject, by sheer charge,  to sell  an M.D.  Can Do  to a  barber shop and some citizen wakes up with his piles cut out....

"'Jesus,  Homer,  what  kinda  creep  joint  you running here? I been gang fucked.'

"'Well, landsake, Si,  I was  just aiming  to administer our  complimentary  high  colonic   free  and   gratis  on Thanksgiving  Day.  K.  E.  musta  sold  me the  wrong kit again....' "

Marz  Hvsvrxa:  "What  a  boy  hasta  put  up   with  in this business. Gawd! The propositions  I get  you wouldn't believe  it....   They  wanta   play  Latah,   they  wanta merge  with my  protoplasm, they  want a  replica cutting, they  wanta  suck  my  orgones,  they  wanta take  over my past  experience  and  leave  old  memories  that  disgust me....

"I am fucking this citizen so I think, 'A  straight John at last'; but he comes to a climax and turns  himself into some  kinda  awful  crab....  I told  him, 'Jack,  I don't hafta stand still for such a routine like this.... You can take  that  business  to Walgreen's.'  Some people  got no class to them.  Another horrible  old character  just sits there and  telepathizes and  creams in  his dry  goods. So nasty."

The  bum  boys  fall  back  in  utter  confusion  to the brink  of the  Soviet network  where Cossacks  hang parti- sans to the wild wail of  bagpipes and  the boys  march up Fifth  Avenue  to  be  met  by  Jimmy  Walkover  with  the keys  to  The  Kingdom  and  no  strings   attached  carry them loose in your pocket....

Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fair  bugger?  Smell  of dead leeches in a rusty tin  can latch  onto that  live wound, suck  out  the  body  and blood  and bones  of Jeeeeesus, leave him paralyzed from the waist down.

Yield up thy  forms, boy,  to thy  sugar daddy  got the exam  three  years early  and know  all the  answer books fix the World Series.

Slunk traffickers tail a  pregnant cow  to her  labor. The farmer declares a couvade,  rolls screaming  in bullshit. The veterinarian wrestles with a cow skeleton.  The traf- fickers  machinegun  each   other,  dodging   through  the machinery and silos, storage  bins, haylofts  and mangers of a vast red barn. The calf is born. The forces of death melt in morning. Farm boy kneels reverently --  his throat pulses in the rising sun.

Junkies  sitting  on the  courthouse steps,  waiting on The  Man.  Red Necks  in black  stetsons and  faded Levis tie a Nigra boy  to an  old iron  lamppost and  cover him with  burning  gasoline....  The  junkies  rush  over and draw  the  flesh  smoke deep  into their  aching lungs.... They really got relief....

The  County  Clerk: "So  there I  was sitting  in front of Jed's store  over in  Cunt Lick  my peter  standing up straight as a jack pine under my  Levis just  apulsin' in the  sun....  Weell, old  Doc Scranton  walks by,  a good old boy too, there's not a finer man in this  valley than Doc  Scranton.  He's  got  a  prolapsed asshole  and when he wants to get screwed he'll pass you  his ass  on three feet of in-tes-tine.... If he's a mind to it he  can drop out a piece of gut reaches from his  office clear  over to Roy's Beer Place, and it go feelin' around lookin'  for a peter, just afeelin' around like a blind worm.... So old Doc Scranton sees my peter and he stops like  a pointin' dog and  he says  to me,  'Luke, I  can take  your pulse from here.' "

Browbeck  and  Young  Seward  fight  with  hog  castra- tors  through  barns  and  cages  and  yiping kennels... whinnying horses bare great  yellow teeth,  cows bellow, dogs howl, copulating cats scream like babies, a  pen of huge hogs, spines bristling, give  a great  Bronx cheer. Browbeck  the  Unsteady  has  fallen  to  the  sword  of Young  Seward,  clutches  at  blue  intestines  spurting from  an  eight-inch  gash. Young  Seward cuts  off Brow- beck's cock and holds it pulsing in the smoky  rose sun- rise....

Browbeck screams... subway brakes spit ozone....

"Stand back, folks.... Stand back."

"They say somebody pushed him."

"He  was  weaving  around  unsteady  like  he couldn't see good."

"Too much smoke in the eyes, I guess."

Mary  the  Lesbian  Governess has  slipped to  the pub floor  on  a bloody  kotex.... A  three-hundred-pound fag tramples her to death with pathic whinnies....

He sings in hideous falsetto:

He is trampling out the vintage cohere the grapes of

[wrath are stored, He has loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift

[sword.

He  pulls  a gilded  wooden sword  and chops  the air. His corset flies off and whistles into the dart board.

The  old   bullfighter's  sword   buckles  on   bone  and whistles into  the heart  of the  Espontaneo, pins  his un- consummate valor to the stands.

"So  this  elegant  faggot  comes to  New York  from Cunt Lick, Texas, and he is the  most piss  elegant fag  of them all. He is  taken up  by old  women of  the type  batten on young  fags,  toothless  old  predators  too  weak  and too slow  to  run  down  other  prey.  Old  moth-eaten  tigress shit sure turn into a fag eater.... So this  citizen, being an  arty  and  crafty  fag,  begins making  costume jewelry and  jewelry  sets.  Every  rich  old  gash in  Greater New York  wants  he  should  do  her  sets,  and  he  is making money,  21, El  Morocco, Stork,  but no  time for  sex, and all the  time worrying  about his  rep..., He  begins play- ing  the  horses,  supposed  to  be  something  manly about gambling  God  knows  why,  and  he  figures it  will build him up to  be seen  at the  track. Not  many fags  play the horses,  and  those that  play lose  more than  the others, they  are  lousy  gamblers  plunge in  a losing  streak and hedge  when  they  win...  which   being  the   pattern  of their  lives....  Now every  child knows  there is  one law of  gambling: winning  and losing  come in  streaks. Plunge when  you  win, fold  when you  lose. ( I  once knew  a fag dip into  the till  -- not  the whole  two thousand  at once on  the  nose  win  or  Sing  Sing.  Not  our  Gertie... Oh no a deuce at a time... )

"So  he  loses  and  loses  and lose  some more.  One day he is about to put a  rock in  a set  when the  obvious oc- cur. 'Of course, I'll replace it later.' Famous last words. So  all  that winter,  one after  the other,  the diamonds, emeralds,  pearls, rubies  and star  sapphires of  the haut monde go in hock and replaced by queer replicas....

"So the opening night of the Met this old hag appear as she thinks resplendent in her diamond tiara. So this other old whore approach and say, 'Oh, Miggles, you're so smart... to leave the real ones at home.... I mean we're simply mad to go around tempting fate.'

" 'You're mistaken, my dear. These are real.'

" 'Oh but Miggles dahling, they're not.... I mean ask your jeweler.... Well just ask anybody. Haaaaaa.'

"So a Sabbath is hastily called. (Lucy Bradshinkel, look to thy emeralds. ) All these old witches examining their rocks like a citizen find leprosy on himself.

" 'My chicken blood ruby!'

" 'My black oopalls!' Old bitch marry so many times so many gooks and spics she don't know her accent from her ass....

" 'My stah sahphire!' shriek a poule de luxe. 'Oh it's all so awfull'

" 'I mean they are strictly from Woolworth's....'

" 'There's only one thing to do. I'm going to call the police,' says a strong-minded, outspoken old thing; and she clump across the floor on her low heels and calls the fuzz."

"Well, the faggot draws a deuce; and in the box he meets this cat who is some species of cheap hustler, and love sets in or at least a facsimile thereof convince the parties inna first and second parts. As continuity would have it, they are sprung at the same time more or less and take up residence in a fiat on the Lower East Side. ...And cook in and both are working legit modest jobs. ...So Brad and Jim know happiness for the first time.

"Enter the powers of evil.... Lucy Bradshinkel has come to say all is forgiven She has faith in Brad and wants to set him up in a studio. Of course, he will have to move to the East Sixties.... 'This place is impossible, dahling; and your friend...' And a safe mob wants Jim back to drive a car. This is a step up, you dig? Offer from citizens hardly see him before.

"Will Jim go back to crime? Will Brad succumb to the blandishments of an aging vampire, a ravening Maw?... Needless to say, the forces of evil are routed and exit with ominous snarls and mutterings.

" 'The Boss isn't going to like this.'

" 'I don't know why I ever wasted my time with you, you cheap, vulgar little fairy.'

"The boys stand at the tenement window, their arms around each other, looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. A warm spring wind ruffles Jim's black curls and the fine hennaed hair of Brad.

" 'Well, Brad, what's for supper?'

" 'You just go in the other room and wait.' Playfully he shoos Jim out of the kitchen, and puts on his apron.

"Dinner is Lucy Bradshinkel's cunt saignant cooked in kotex papillon. The boys eat happily looking into each other's eyes. Blood runs down their chins."

Let  the  dawn  blue as  a flame  cross the  city.... The backyards  are  clean  of fruit,  and the  ash pits  give up their hooded dead....

"Could you show me the way to Tipperary, lady?"

Over the  hills and  far away  to Blue  Grass.... Across the  bone  meal  of  lawn  to  the  frozen  pond  where sus- pended goldfish wait for the spring Squaw Man.

The screaming  skull rolls  up the  back stairs  to bite off  the  cock  of  erring  husband taking  dour advantage of his wife's earache to do  that which  is inconvenient. The  young  landlubber  dons  a  southwester,  beats  his wife to death in the shower....

Benway: "Don't take  it so  hard, kid....  'Jeder macht eine   kleine  Dummheit.'"   (Everyone  makes   a  little dumbness. )

Schafer: "I  tell you  I can't  escape a  feeling... well, of evil about this."

Benway:  "Balderdash,   my  boy...   We're  scientists. ...Pure  scientists.  Disinterested  research  and damned be him who  cries 'Hold,  too much1'  Such people  are no better than party poops."

Schafer:  "Yes, yes,  of course...  and yet...  I can't get that stench out of my lungs...."

Benway   (irritably):   "None   of  us   can....  Never smelled  anything remotely  like it....  Where was  I? Oh yes, what would  be result  of administering  curare plus iron lung during acute mania?  Possibly the  subject, un- able to discharge his tensions  in motor  activity, would succumb on the spot like a jungle rat.  Interesting cause of death, what?"

Schafer is not  listening. "You  know," he  says impul- sively, "I think I'll go back to plain old-fashioned sur- gery.   The   human   body  is   scandalously  ineffcient. Instead of a mouth and an anus  to get  out of  order why not have one all-purpose  hole to  eat and  eliminate? We could seal up nose and mouth, fill  in the  stomach, make an air hole direct into  the lungs  where it  should have been in the first place...."

Benway:  "Why  not  one  all-purpose  blob?  Did  I ever tell you about  the man  who taught  his asshole  to talk? His  whole  abdomen  would  move  up  and  down   you  dig farting  out  the  words.  It was  unlike anything  I ever heard.

"This ass talk had a sort of gut  frequency. It  hit you right  down there  like you  gotta go.  You know  when the old  colon gives  you the  elbow and  it feels  sorta cold inside, and you know  all you  have to  do is  turn loose? Well  this  talking hit  you right  down there,  a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.

"This  man  worked  for  a  carnival  you  dig,  and  to start with it was like a  novelty ventriloquist  act. Real funny,  too,  at  first. He  had a  number he  called 'The Better 'Ole' that was a scream, I tell you. I  forget most of it but it was clever. Like,  'Oh I  say, are  you still down there, old thing?'

"'Nah! I had to go relieve myself.'

"After a while the ass  started talking  on its  own. He would  go  in  without  anything  prepared  and   his  ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time.

"Then it developed sort of  teeth-like little  raspy in- curving  hooks  and  started eating.  He thought  this was cute at first and built an act around it, but  the asshole would  eat  its way  through his  pants and  start talking on the  street, shouting  out it  wanted equal  rights. It would  get  drunk,  too,  and  have  crying   jags  nobody loved it  and it  wanted to  be kissed  same as  any other mouth. Finally it talked all the time  day and  night, you could  hear him  for blocks  screaming at  it to  shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles  up it, but  nothing did  any good  and the  asshole said  to him: 'It's you who will  shut up  in the  end. Not  me. Because we  don't  need  you  around  here  any  more.  I  can talk and eat and shit.'

"After  that  he  began  waking  up  in the  morning with a  transparent  jelly like  a tadpole's  tail all  over his mouth.  This jelly  was what  the scientists  call un-D.T., Undifferentiated  Tissue,  which  can  grow  into  any kind of  flesh  on  the  human  body.  He  would  tear it  off his mouth  and  the  pieces  would  stick  to  his  hands  like burning  gasoline  jelly  and  grow  there,  grow  anywhere on him a glob of it fell. So finally his mouth sealed over, and  the   whole  head   would  have   amputated  spontane- ous -- (did you know there  is a  condition occurs  in parts of  Africa  and  only  among Negroes  where the  little toe amputates  spontaneously?)  --  except  for  the   eyes  you dig. That's one thing the  asshole couldn't  do was  see. It needed  the  eyes.  But  nerve  connections   were  blocked and  infiltrated and  atrophied so  the brain  couldn't give orders any more. It was trapped in  the skull,  sealed off. For a while you  could see  the silent,  helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes, then  finally the  brain must have died, because  the eyes  went out,  and there  was no more feeling in  them than  a crab's  eye on  the end  of a stalk.

"That's  the  sex  that   passes  the   censor,  squeezes through   between   bureaus,   because  there's   always  a space  between,  in  popular  songs  and  Grade  B movies, giving  away  the   basic  American   rottenness,  spurting out like  breaking boils,  throwing out  globs of  that un- D.T.  to  fall  anywhere  and  pow  into   some  degenerate cancerous  life-form,  reproducing  a  hideous  random  im- age.  Some would  be entirely  made of  penis-like erectile tissue,  others  viscera  barely  covered  over  with skin, clusters  of  3  and  4 eyes  together, criss-cross  of mouth and   assholes,   human  parts   shaken  around   and  poured out any way they fell.

"The end  result of  complete cellular  representation is cancer.  Democracy   is  cancerous,   and  bureaus   are  its cancer.  A  bureau takes  root anywhere  in the  state, turns malignant   like   the   Narcotic   Bureau,  and   grows  and grows,  always  reproducing  more  of  its  own  kind,  until it  chokes  the host  if not  controlled or  excised. Bureaus cannot  live  without  a  host,  being true  parasitic organ- isms.  (A  cooperative  on  the other  hand can  live without the state. That is  the road  to follow.  The building  up of independent   units  to   meet  needs   of  the   people  who participate  in  the  functioning  of  the  unit.   A  bureau operates  on  opposite  principle   of  inventing   needs  to justify its existence. )  Bureaucracy is  wrong as  a cancer, a  turning  away  from   the  human   evolutionary  direction of  infinite  potentials   and  differentiation   and  indepen- dent  spontaneous  action,  to  the  complete  parasitism  of a virus.

"(It is  thought that  the virus  is a  degeneration from more  complex  life  form.  It  may  at  one  time  have been capable  of  independent   life.  Now   has  fallen   to  the borderline  between  living  and  dead  matter.  It  can  ex- hibit living qualities only in a host, by  using the  life of another -- the renunciation of life itself, a  falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter. )

"Bureaus die when the structure  of the  state collapses. They  are  as  helpless  and  unfit  for  independent  exist- ences as a  displaced tapeworm,  or a  virus that  has killed the host.

"In  Timbuctu  I  once   saw  an   Arab  boy   who  could play a flute with his ass, and the fairies told me he was really an individual in bed. He could play a tune up and down the  organ hitting  the most  erogenously sensitive spots, which are different on everyone, of  course. Every lover had his special theme song  which was  perfect for him and rose to his climax. The boy  was a  great artist when  it  came  to  improving  new combines  and special climaxes,  some of  them notes  in the  unknown, tie-ups of seeming  discords that  would suddenly  break through each  other  and  crash  together  with a  stunning, hot sweet impact.

"Fats"  Terminal has  organized a  purple-assed baboon stick from motorcycles.

The  Huntsmen  have  gathered  for the  Hunt Breakfast in The Swarm Bar,  a hang-out  for elegant  pansies. The Huntsmen strut about with  imbecile narcissism  in black leather jackets and studded belts, flexing their muscles for  the  fags to  feel. They  all wear  enormous falsie baskets. Every now  and then  one of  them throws  a fag to the floor and pisses on him.

They  are  drinking   Victory  Punch,   compounded  of paregoric,  Spanish  Fly,  heavy  black   rum,  Napoleon brandy  and  canned  heat.  The punch  is served  from a great, hollow, gold baboon, crouched in snarling terror, snapping at a spear in his side. You twist  the baboon's balls and punch  runs out  his cock.  From time  to time hot hors-d'oeuvres pop out the baboon's ass with  a loud farting  noise.  When  this  happens  the  Huntsmen roar with bestial laughter, and the fags shriek and twitch.

Master  of  the  Hunt  is  Captain  Everhard,  who was drummed  out  of the  Queen's 69th  for palming  a jock- strap  in a  game of  strip poker.  Motorcycles careening, jumping,  overturning.  Spitting, shrieking,  shitting ba- boons  fighting  hand  to hand  with the  Huntsmen. Rider- less  cycles scrabbling  about in  the dust  like crippled insects, attacking baboon and Huntsman....

The  Party  Leader  rides  in  triumph   through  yiping crowds.  A dignified  old man  shits at  sight of  him and tries to sacrifice himself under the wheels of the car.

Party  Leader:  "Don't  sacrifice   your  old   dried  up person  under  the  wheels  of  my  brand new  Buick Road- master  Convertible  with  white-walled  tires,  hydraulic windows and all the trimmings.  It's a  chip Arab  trick -- look to thy accent, Ivan -- save  it for  fertilizer.... We refer  you  to  the  conservation  department  to  consum- mate your swell purpose...."

The  washing  boards  are  down,  and  the   sheets  are sent  to  the Laundromat  lose those  guilty stains  -- Em- manuel prophesies a Second Coming....

There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach; alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.

The  junky  sits with  needle poised  to the  message of blood,  and  the con  man palpates  the mark  with fingers of rotten ectoplasm....

Dr. Berger's Mental Health Hour.... Fadeout.

TECHNICIAN: "Now listen, I'll say it again, and I'll say it slow. 'Yes.'" He nods. "And make with the smile.

. The smile." He shows his false teeth in hideous parody of a toothpaste ad. "'We like apple pie, and we like each other. It's just as simple as that,' -- and make it sound simple, country simple.... Look bovine, whyncha?   You   want  the   switchboard  again?   Or  the pail?"

Subject  --  Cured  Criminal  Psychopath  --  "No!...  No! ...What's this bovine?"

Technician: "Look like a cow."

SUBJECT -- with cow's head -- "Moooo Moooo."

TECHNICIAN  (starting  back):   "Too  much!!   No!  Just look square, you dig, like a nice popcorn John...."

Subject: "A mark?"

Technician:  "Well,  not  exactly  a  mark.  Not  enough larceny in this citizen. He is after  light concussion.... You  know  the  type. Telepathic  sender and  receiver ex- cised. The Service Man Look... Action, camera."

SUBJECT:  "Yes,  we  like apple  pie." His  stomach rum- bles  loud  and  long.  Streamers of  saliva hang  off his chin....

Dr.  Berger  looks  up  from  some  notes. He  look like Jewish owl with black  glasses, the  light hurt  his eyes: "I think he is  an unsuitable  subject.... See  he reports to Disposal."

TECHNICIAN:  "Well,  we  could  cut  that rumble  out of the sound track, stick a drain in his mouth and..."

DR.  BERGER:  "No...  He's  unsuitable."  He   looks  at the subject with distaste as if  he commit.  some terrible faux-pas  like look  for crabs  in Mrs.  Worldly's drawing room.

TECHNICIAN   (resigned   and  exasperated):   "Bring  in the cured swish."

The  cured  homosexual  is   brought  in....   He  walks through invisible contours of hot metal. He sits  in front of the camera  and starts  arranging his  body in  a coun- trified sprawl.  Muscles move  into place  like autonomous parts  of  a  severed insect.  Blank stupidity  blurs and softens his  face: "Yes,"  he nods  and smiles,  "we like apple pie and we like each other. It's just as  simple as that." He nods and smiles and nods and smiles and --

"Cut1..."  screams  the  Technician.  The  cured  homo- sexual is led out nodding and smiling.

"Play it back."

The Artistic Adviser shakes his  head: "It  lacks some- thing. To be specific, it lacks health."

Berger (leaps to his feet): "Preposterous!  It's health incarnate!..."

ARTISTIC  ADVISER  (primly):  "Well  if  you  have any- thing to enlighten me on this subject  I'll be  very glad to hear it, Doctor Berger.... If you with  your brilliant mind can carry the project  alone, I  don't know  why you need an Art Adviser at all."  He exits  with hand  on hip singing softly: "I'll be around when you're gone."

TECHNICIAN:  "Send  in  the  cured writer....  He's got what? Buddhism?... Oh, he can't talk.  Say so  at first, whyncha?"  He turns  to Berger:  "The writer  can't talk. ...Overliberated,  you might  say. Of  course we  can dub him...."

BERGER  (sharply):  "No,  that  wouldn't do  at all.... Send in someone else."

TECHNICIAN:  "Those  two   was  my   white-haired  boys. I  put  in  a hundred  hours overtime  on those  kids for which I am not yet compensate...."

BERGER: "Apply triplicate.... Form 6090."

TECHNICIAN:  "You  telling  me  how  to   apply  already? Now  look,  Doc,  you  say something  once. 'To  speak of a healthy homosexual it's like how can  a citizen  be per- fectly healthy with terminal cirrhosis.' Remember?"

BERGER: "Oh yes. Very well put,  of course,"  he snarls viciously. "I don't pretend to be a writer." He  spits the word out with such  ugly hate  that the  Technician reels back appalled....

TECHNICIAN  (aside): "I  can't bear  the smell  of him. Like old rotten  replica cultures....  Like the  farts of a  maneating  plant....  Like  Schafer's  hurumph" (paro- dies  academic  manner)  "Strange  Serpent...   What  I'm getting  at,  Doc, is  how can  you expect  a body  to be healthy  with  its brains  washed out?...  Or put  it an- other  way.  Can  a  subject be  healthy in  abstentia by proxy already?"

BERGER  (leaps  up):  "I  got  the  health!...  All the health!  Enough  health  for the  whole world,  the whole fuckin world! t I cure everybody!"

The  Technician  looks  at  him  sourly.  He   mixes  a bicarbonate of soda and  drinks it  and belches  into his hand. "Twenty years I've been a martyr to dyspepsia."

Lovable Lu  your brainwashed  poppa say:  "I'm strictly for fish, and  I luuuuuve  it.... Confidentially,  girls, I use  Steely  Dan's  Yokohama,  wouldn't  you?  Danny  Boy never  lets  you  down. Besides  it's more  hygienic that way  and  avoids  all  kinda awful  contacts leave  a man paralyzed  from  the  waist   down.  Women   have  poison juices....

"So I told him, I said: 'Doctor Berger, don't think you can pass  your tired  old brainwashed  belles on  me. I'm the  oldest  faggot in  the Upper  Baboon's Asshole....'"

Switch envelopes in clip clap joint where fraudulent girls put the B on you in favor of the House 666 and there  is no  health in  them clap  broads rotten  to the apple  corer  of  my  unconsummate  cock.  Who  shot  Cock Robin?...  The  sparrow  falls  to  my   trustful  Webley, and a drop of blood gathers at his beak....

Lord  Jim  has  turned  bright yellow  in the  woe with- ered moon  of morning  like white  smoke against  the blue stuff, and shirts whip in a cold spring wind  on limestone cliffs across the river, Mary, and the  dawn is  broken in two pieces like Dillinger on the lamster  way to  the Bio- graph.  Smell  of  neon and  atrophied gangsters,  and the criminal  manque  nerves  himself  to  crack a  pay toilet sniffing  ammonia  in  a  bucket....  "A  caper,"  he says. "I'll pull this capon I mean caper."

PARTY   LEADER   (mixing   another  scotch):   "The  next riot goes off  like a  football play.  We have  imported a thousand  bone  fed,  blue  ribbon Latahs  from Indochina. ...All we need  is one  riot leader  for the  whole unit." His eyes sweep the table.

LIEUTENANT:  "But,  chief,  can't  we  get  them  started and they imitate each other like a chained reaction?"

The  Diseuse  undulate   through  the   Market:  "What's a Latah do when he's alone?'

P.L.:  "That a  technical point.  We'll have  to consult Benway.   Personally,  I   think  someone   should  follow through on the whole operation."

"I  do  not  know," he  said for  lack of  the requisite points and ratings to secure the appointment.

"They  have  no  feelings,"  said Doctor  Benway, slash- ing his patient to shreds. "Just  reflexes... I  urge dis- traction. '

"The age of consent is when they learn to talk."

"May  all  your troubles  be little  ones as  one child molester say to the other."

"It's really ominous, my dear,  when they  start trying on  your   clothes  and   give  you   those  doppelganger kicks...."

Frantic queen trying to claw  sport jacket  off depart- ing boy.

"My   two   hundred   dollar   cashmere   jacket,"  she screeches....

"So he has an affair with this Latah, he wants to domi- nate  someone  complete  the  silly  old   thing....  The Latah  imitates  all his  expressions and  mannerisms and simply  sucks all  the persona  right out  of him  like a sinister  ventriloquist's  dummy....  'You've  taught  me everything  you  are.... I  need a  new amigo.'  And poor Bubu can't answer for himself, having no self left."

JUNKY: "So there we are in this no-horse  town strictly from cough syrup."

PROFESSOR:   "Coprophilia...   gentlemen...   might  be termed the hurumph... redundant vice...."

"Twenty  years  an  artist  in  the  blue movies  and I never sink so low as fake an orgasm."

"No  good  junky  cunt  hang  up  her  unborn child.... Women are no good, kid."

"I  mean  this  dead level  conscious sex,...  Might as well take your old clothes to the Laundromat...."

"And  right in  the heat  of passion  he says,  'Do you have an extra shoetree?' "

"She tell me  how forty  Arabs drag  her into  a mosque and   rape   her   presumably   in   sequence....  Though they're bad to push -- all  right, end  of the  line, Ali. Really, my pets, most distasteful  routine I  ever listen to. I was after being raped  myself by  a pride  of rampant bores."

A group of sour Nationalists  sits in  front of  the Sar- gasso  sneering  at  the  queens  and jabbering  in Arabic. ...Clem  and  Jody  sweep  in  dressed like  The Capitalist in a communist mural.

CLEM:   "We  have   come  to   feed  on   your  backward- ness."

JODY:  "In  the  words  of the  Immortal Bard,  to batten on these Moors."

NATIONALIST:  "Swine!  Filth!  Son  of  dogs!  Don't  you realize my people are hungry?"

CLEM: "That's the way I like to see them."

The   Nationalist  drops   dead,  poisoned   by  hate.... Dr.  Benway  rushes  up:  "Stand  back  everybody,  give me air." He takes a blood sample. "Well, that's all I  can do. When you gotta go you gotta go."

The  traveling  queer  Christmas  tree  burns  bright on the  rubbish  heaps  of  home  where boys  jack off  in the school  toilet  --  how  many  young  spasms  on   that  old oaken seat worn smooth as gold....

Sleep  long  in  the valley  of the  Red River  where cob- webs hang black windows and boy bones....

Two Negro fags shriek at each other.

FAG  1:  "Shut  up,  you  cheap  granuloma  gash....  You known as Loathsome Lu in the trade."

DISEUSE: "The girl with the innaresting groin."

FAG  2:  "Meow.  Meow."  He  slips  on  leopard  skin and iron claws....

FAG  1:  "Oh  oh.  A  Society  Woman."  He  flees scream- ing  through the  Market, pursued  by the  grunting, growl- ing transvestite....

Clem trips a spastic cripple and takes his crutches.... He does a hideous parody twitching and drooling....

Riot  noises in  the distance  -- a  thousand hysterical Pomeranians.

Shop shutters slam like  guillotines. Drinks  and trays hang in the air as the patrons are whisked inside  by the suction of panic.

CHORUS  OF  FAGS:  "We'll all  be raped.  I know  it, I know it." They rush into a  drugstore and  buy a  case of KY.

PARTY  LEADER  (holding  up  his   hand  dramatically): "The voice of the People."

Pearson  the  Money  Changeling  comes   acropping  the short  grass  seized  by  the extortionate  commandant of Karma, hiding in a vacant lot with the garter  snakes, to be sniffed out by the scrutable dog....

The  Market  is  empty  except for  an old  drunkard of indeterminate nationality passed out with  his head  in a pissoir.  The rioters  erupt into  the Market  yiping and screaming  "Death to  the French"  and tear  the drunkard to pieces.

SALVADOR  HASSAN  (squirming   at  a   keyhole):  "Just look  at  those expressions,  the whole  beautiful proto- plasmic being all  exactly alike."  He dances  the Lique- factionist Jig.

Whimpering  queen  falls  to  the  floor  in  an orgasm. "Oh God it's too exciting. Like  a million  hot throbbing cocks."

BENWAY: "Like to run a blood test on those boys."

A  portentously  inconspicuous  man,  grey   beard  and grey face and shabby brown jellaba,  sings in  slight un- placeable accent without opening his lips:

"Oh you dolls, you great big beautiful dolls."

Squads of police with thin lips, big noses and cold grey eyes move into the Market from every entrance street. They club and kick the rioters with cold, meth- odical brutality.

The rioters have been carted away in trucks. The shutters go up and the citizens of Interzone step out into the square littered with teeth and sandals and slippery with blood.

The sea chest of the dead man is in the Embassy, and the vice consul breaks the news to mother.

There is no... Morning... Daybreak... n'existe plus.... If I knew I'd be glad to tell you. Either way is a bad move to the East Wing.... He is gone through an invisible door.... Not here... You can look any place.... No good... No bueno... Hustling myself. ...C'lom Fliday.

( Note: Old time, veteran Schmeckers, faces beaten by grey junk weather, will remember.... In 1920s a lot of Chinese pushers around found The West so unreli- able, dishonest and wrong, they all packed in, so when an Occidental junky came to score, they say:

"No glot.... C'lom Fliday....")

ISLAM INCORPORATED AND THE

PARTIES OF INTERZONE

I was working for an outfit known as Islam Inc., financed by A. J., the notorious Merchant of Sex, who scandalized  international society  when he  appeared at the  Duc  de  Ventre's  ball  as a  walking penis  covered by a  huge  condom  emblazoned  with  the  A.  J.   motto  "They Shall Not Pass."

"Rather bad taste, old boy," said the Duke.

To  which  A.   J.  replied:   "Up  yours   with  Interzone K.Y."  The  reference  is  to  the  K.Y.  scandal  which  was still in a larval state at that time. A. J.'s  repartee often refers  to  future  events.  He  is a  master of  the delayed squelch.

Salvador  Hassan  O'Leary,  the  After  Birth   Tycoon,  is also  involved.  That  is,  one  of his  subsidiary companies has  made  unspecified  contributions,  and  one of  his sub- sidiary  personalities  is  attached  to the  organization in an   advisory   capacity  without   in  any   way  committing himself  to,  or  associating  himself  with,  the  policies, aetions  or  objectives  of  Islam  Inc. Mention  should also be  made  of  Clem   and  Jody,   the  Ergot   Brothers,  who decimated  the   Republic  of   Hassan  with   poison  wheat, Autopsy  Ahmed,  and  Hepatitis  Hal,  the  fruit  and  vege- table broker.

A  rout  of  Mullahs  and  Muftis  and  Musseins  and Caids and  Glaouis  and  Sheiks  and  Sultans  and  Holy   Men  and representatives   of  every   conceivable  Arab   party  make up  the  rank  and  file  and  attend  the   actual  meetings from  which   the  higher   ups  prudently   abstain.  Though the  delegates  are  carefully  searched  at the  door, these gatherings  invariably  culminate  in  riots.   Speakers  are often  doused  with  gasoline  and burned  to death,  or some uncouth  desert  Sheik  opens  up  on  his  opponents  with a machine  gun  he  had  concealed  in  the  belly  of   a  pet sheep.  Nationalist   martyrs  with   grenades  up   the  ass mingle  with  the  assembled  conferents  and   suddenly  ex- plode,  occasioning  heavy  casualties....  And  there was the  occasion when  President Ra  threw the  British Prime Minister  to the  ground and  forcibly sodomized  him, the spectacle  being  televised  to  the  entire  Arab  World. Wild  yipes  of  joy  were  heard in  Stockholm. Interzone has  an  ordinance  forbidding  a  meeting  of  Islam Inc. within five miles of the city limits.

A. J.-- he is  actually of  obscure Near  East extraction --  had  at  one time  come on  like an  English gentleman. His  English  accent  waned with  the British  Empire, and after  World  War  II  he  became  an  American by  Act of Congress. A. J. is an agent like me, but  for whom  or for what no  one has  ever been  able to  discover. It  is ru- mored that  he represents  a trust  of giant  insects from another galaxy.... I believe he is on the  Factualist side ( which I also represent ); of course he could be a Lique- factign  Agent  (the  Liquefaction  program  involves  the eventual  merging  of  everyone  into One  Man by  a proc- ess  of protoplasmic  absorption). You  can never  be sure of anyone in the industry.

A.  J.'s  cover  story?  An  international  playboy  and harmless practical joker. It was  A. J.  who put  the pir- anha  fish  in  Lady  Sutton-Smith's  swimming  pool,  and dosed  the  punch  with  a  mixture  of Yage,  Hashish and Yohimbine during a Fourth  of July  reception at  the U.S. Embassy,  precipitating  an  orgy. Ten  prominent citizens -- American, of course  -- subsequently  died of  shame. Dy- ing  of shame  is an  accomplishment peculiar  to Kwakiutl Indians and Americans -- others simply  say "Zat  alors" or "Son  cosas  de  la  vida"  or "Allah  fucked me,  the All Powerful...."

And   when  the   Cincinnati  Anti-Fluoride   Society  met to toast their victory in pure spring water, all their teeth dropped out on the spot.

"And I say  unto you,  brothers and  sisters of  the Anti- Fluoride  movement,  we   have  this   day  struck   such  a blow  for purity  as will  never call  a retreat....  Out, I say, with the filthy  foreign fluorides!  We will  sweep this fair  land sweet  and clean  as a  young boy's  tensed Hank. ...I  will  now  lead  you   in  our   theme  song   The  Old Oaken Bucket."

A  well  head is  lighted by  fluorescent lights  that play over  it  in  hideous  juke-box  colors.  The Anti-Fluorides file past  the well  singing as  each dips  up a  drink from the oaken bucket....

"The old oaken bucket, the gold oaken bucket

The glublthulunnubbeth..."

A.  J.  had  tampered  with the  water, inserting  a South American vine that turns the gums to mush.

(I  hear  about  this  vine  from  an old  German prospec- tor  who  is  dying  of  uremia  in  Pasto,  Columbia.  Sup- posed  to  grow  in  the Putumayo  area. Never  located any. Didn't  try  very  hard....  The   same  citizen   tells  me about  a  bug  like a  big grasshopper  known as  the Xiucu- til: "Such a powerful aphrodisiac  if one  flies on  you and you  can't  get  a  woman right  away you  will die.  I have seen  the  Indians  running  around  pulling  themselves off from  the  contact  with   this  animal."   Unfortunately  I never score for a Xiucutil.... )

On   opening   night   of   the  New   York  Metropolitan, A.  J.,  protected  by  bug repellent,  released a  swarm of Xiucutils.

Mrs.   Vanderbligh   swatting   at  a   Xiucutil:  "Oh!... Oh!...       OOOOOOOOOOOH!1!"       Screams,      breaking glass,  ripping cloth.  A rising  crescendo of  grunts and squeals  and  moans  and   whimpers  and   gasps....  Reek of  semen  and  cunts  and  sweat  and  the musty  odor of penetrated  rectums,...  Diamonds  and  fur  pieces,  eve- ning  dresses,  orchids,  suits  and underwear  litter the floor  covered by  a writhing,  frenzied, heaving  mass of naked bodies.

A.  J.  once  reserved a  table a  year in  advance Chez Robert  where  a  huge,  icy   gourmet  broods   over  the greatest cuisine in the world.  So baneful  and derogatory is  his  gaze  that  many a  client, under  that withering blast, has rolled on the floor and pissed all over himself in convulsive attempts to ingratiate.

So  A.  J. arrives  with six  Bolivian Indians  who chew coca  leaves  between  courses.  And  when Robert,  in all his  gourmet  majesty,  bears  down  on  the table,  A. J. looks up and yells: "Hey, Boy! Bring me some ketchup."

(Alternative: A. J. whips  out a  bottle of  ketchup and douses the haute cuisine. )

Thirty  gourmets  stop  chewing   at  once.   You  could have heard a souffle drop. As  for Robert,  he lets  out a bellow  of  rage  like  a  wounded  elephant, runs  to the kitchen  and  arms  himself  with  a meat  cleaver.... The Sommelier  snarls  hideously, his  face turning  a strange iridescent purple.... He breaks off a bottle of Brut Cham- pagne...  '26....  Pierre,  the  Head Waiter,  snatches up a boning knife.  All three  chase A.  J. through  the res- taurant   with   mangled   inhuman  screams   of  rage.... Tables   overturn,  vintage   wines  and   matchless  food crash to the floor.... Cries of  "Lynch him!"  ring through the  air.  An  elderly gourmet  with the  insane bloodshot eyes of  a mandril,  is fashioning  a hangman's  knot with a  red  velvet  curtain  cord.... Seeing  himself cornered and  in imminent  danger of  dismemberment at  least, A.J. plays  his  trump  card....  He throws  back his  head and lets out a hog call; and  a hundred  famished hogs  he had stationed nearby  rush into  the restaurant,  slopping the haute cuisine. Like a great tree Robert falls to the fioor in a  stroke where  he is  eaten by  the hogs:  "Poor bas- tards don't know enough to appreciate him," says A. J.

Robert's  brother  Paul  emerges  from  retirement  in a local  nut  house and  takes over  the restaurant  to dis- pense  something  he  calls the  "Transcendental Cuisine." ...Imperceptibly the  quality of  the food  declines until he is serving literal garbage, the  clients being  too in- timidated  by the  reputation of  Chex Robert  to protest.

Sample Menu: The Clear Camel Piss Soup with boiled Earth Worms

The Filet of Sun-Ripened Sting Ray

basted with Eau de Cologne and garnished with nettles

The After-Birth Supreme de Boeuf,

cooked in drained crank case oil,

served with a piquant sauce of rotten egg yolks

and crushed bed bugs

The Limburger Cheese sugar cured in diabetic orine

doused in Canned Heat Flamboyant....

So the clients are quietly dying of botulism.... Then A. J. returns with an entourage of Arab refugees from the Middle East. He takes one mouthful and screams:

"Garbage  God  damn  it.  Cook this  wise citizen  in his own swill!"

And so the legend of A. J. the laughable, lovable ec- centric grew and grew.... Fadeout to Venice.... Gondoliers singing and pathic cries swell up from San Marco and Harry's.

Charming old Venetian anecdote about this bridge, it seems some Venetian sailors take a trip around the world and all turn into fruits they fuck the cabin boy already, so when they get back to Venice it is necessary women walk over this bridge with their lungs hanging out to arouse the desires of these dubious citizens. So get a battalion of shock troops up to San Marco on the double.

"Girls, this is O.A.O., Operation All Out. If your tits won't stop them bring up your cunts and confound these faggots."

"Oh Gertie it's true. It's all true. They've got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing."

"I can't face it."

"Enough to turn a body to stone."

Paul spoke wiser than he know being a really evil old shit when he talk about men lying with men doing that which is inconvenient. Inconvenient is the word. So who want to trip over a cock on the way to a cunt, and when a citizen get the yen to hump a gash, some evil stranger rush in and do that which is inconvenient to his ass.

A. J. rush across San Marco slashing at pigeons with a cutlass: "Bastards! Sons of bitches!" he screams.... He  staggers  aboard his  barge, a  monstrous construction in gilt and pink and blue with sails of purple  velvet. He is  dressed  in  a  preposterous  naval  uniform  covered with braid  and ribbons  and medals,  dirty and  torn, the coat  buttoned in  the wrong  holes.... A.  J. walks  to a huge  reproduction  of  a  Greek  urn  topped  by  a  gold statue  of a  boy with  an erection.  He twists  the boy's balls and a  jet of  champagne spurts  into his  mouth. He wipes his mouth and looks around.  "Where are my Nubians, God damn it?" he yells.  His  secretary  looks  up  from  a comic  book: "Juicing. ...Chasing cunt."  "Goldbricking   cocksuckers.   Where's   a   man  without his Nubians?"  "Take a gondola whyncha?'  "A gondola?" A.  J. screams.  "I put  out for  this cock- sucker  I  should  ride  in  a  gondola already?  Reef the mainsail  and  ship  the  oars,  Mr. Hyslop....  I'm gonna make with  the auxiliary."  Mr. Hyslop  shrugs resignedly. With  one  finger  he  begins  punching  a switchboard.... The sails drop, the oars draw into the hull.  "And  turn  on  the  perfume  whyncha?  The  canal stinks up a breeze."  "Gardenia? Sandlewood?'  "Naw.  Ambrosia."  Mr.  Hyslop  presses   another  button and  a  thick  cloud  of perfume  settles over  the barge. A. J. is seized with a fit of coughing....  "Make  with the  fans" he  yells. "I'm  suffocatin'!" Mr. Hyslop  is  coughing  into  a  handkerchief. He  presses a button. Fans whir  and thin  out the  ambrosia. A.  J. in- stalls himself at the rudder on a raised  dais. "Contact!" The  barge  begins  to  vibrate.  "Avanti,  God  damn it!" A. J. yells and the barge takes off across  the canal  at a tremendous  speed overturning  gondolas full  of tourists, missing  the motoscafi  by inches,  veering from  one side of  the  canal  to  the  other (the  wake washes  over the sidewalks  drenching  passersby)  shattering  a   fleet  of moored  gondolas,  and  finally piles  up against  a pier, spins out into  the middle  of the  canal.... A  column of water spurts six feet in the air from a hole in the hull.

"Man  the  pumps,  Mr.  Hyslop.  She's  shipping water." The barge gives  a sudden  lurch throwing  A. J.  into the canal.

"Abandon  ship,  God  damn  it!   Every  man   for  him- self!" Fadeout to Mambo music.

The  inauguration  of  Escuela Amigo,  a school  for de- linquent  boys  of  Latin  American  origin,   endowed  by A. J., Faculty Boys  and press  attending. A.  J. staggers out onto a platform draped with American flags.

"In  the  immortal  words  of  Father Flanagan  there is no  such  thing  as  a bad  boy.... Where's  the statuary, God damn it?"

TECHNICIAN: "You want it now?"

A. J.: "What  you think  I'm doing  here Furthucrisakes? I should unveil the son of a bitch in abstentia?"

TECHNICIAN:  "All  right...   All  right.   Coming  right up."  The  statue  is towed  out by  a Graham  Hymie trac- tor and placed in front of the platform.  A. J.  presses a button.  Turbines start  under the  platform, rising  to a deafening  whine.  Wind  blows  the  red velvet  drapes off the  statue.  They  tangle around  the Faculty  members in the  front  row....  Clouds  of   dust  and   debris  whip through  the  spectators. The  sirens slowly  subside. The Faculty  disengages  itself  from  the  drapes....  Every- one is looking at the statue in breathless silence.

FATHER GONZALEZ: "Mother of God!"

THE MAN From Time: "I don't believe it."

Daily News: "It's nothing but fruity."

Chorus of whistles from the boys.

A  monumental creation  in shiny  pink stone  stands re- vealed as the dust settles.  A naked  boy is  bending over a  sleeping  comrade  with  evident  intention   to  waken him  with  a  flute.  One  hand  is  holding the  flute, the other  reaching  for  a  piece  of  cloth draped  over the sleeper's  middle.  The  cloth  bulges  suggestively. Both boys wear a flower behind the ear,  identical expressions, dreamy  and  brutal,  depraved  and  innocent.  This crea- tions tops a limestone  pyramid on  which is  inscribed in letters of porcelain mosaic -- pink and blue and gold -- the school motto: "With it and for it."

A.  J.  lurches  forward and  breaks a  champagne bottle across the boy's taut buttocks.

"And  remember,  boys,  that's  where   champagne  comes from."

Manhattan  Serenade.  A.  J.  and  entourage  start into New  York  night  club.  A. J.  is leading  a purple-assed baboon  on  a  gold  chain.  A. J.  is dressed  in checked linen plus fours with a cashmere jacket.

MANAGER:  "Wait   a  minute.   Wait  a   minute.  What's that?'

A. J.: "It's an  Illyrian poodle.  Choicest beast  a man can latch onto. It'll raise the tone of your trap."

MANAGER:  "I  suspect  it  to  be a  purple-assed baboon and it stands outside."

STOOGE:  "Don't you  know who  this is?  It's A.  J., last of the big time spenders."

MANAGER:   "Leave  him   take  his   purple-assed  bastard and big time spend some place else."

A. J. stops in front of another club and looks  in. "Ele- gant  fags  and  old  cunts, God  damn it!  We come  to the right place. Avanti, ragazzit"

He  drives a  gold stake  into the  floor and  pickets the baboon.  He begins  talking in  elegant tones,  his stooges filling in.

"Fantastic!"

"Monstrous!"

"Utter heaven1"

A.  J. puts  a long  cigarette holder  in his  mouth. The holder  is  made  of  some  obscenely flexible  material. It swings  and   undulates  as   if  endowed   with  loathsome reptilian life.

A.  J.:  "So  there  I was  Hat on  my stomach  at thirty thousand feet."

Several  nearby  fags  raise  their  heads  like  animals scenting danger. A. J. leaps to his feet with  an inarticu- late snarl.

"You  purple-assed cocksucker!"  he screams.  "I'll teach you to shit  on the  floor!" He  pulls a  whip from  his um- brella  and  cuts  the  baboon across  the ass.  The baboon screams and tears  loose the  stake. He  leaps on  the next table  and  climbs  up  an  old  woman  who  dies  of heart failure on the spot.

A. J.: "Sorry, lady. Discipline you know."

In  a  frenzy  he  whips  the  baboon  from  one  end  of the  bar  to the  other. The  baboon, screaming  and snarl- ing  and  shitting  with terror,  climbs over  the clients, runs up  and down  on top  of the  bar, swings  from drapes and chandeliers....

A. J.: "You'll straighten up and shit right or  you won't be inna condition to shit one way or the other."

STOOGE:  "You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of   yourself  up- settin' A. J. after all he's done for you."

A. J.:  "Ingrates! Every  one of  them ingrates!  Take it from an old queen."

Of course no one believes this cover story. A.  J. claims to  be  an  "independent,"  which  is  to  say:  "Mind your own  business."  There  are   no  independents   any  more. ... The  Zone  swarms  with  every  variety  of   dupe  but there are no neutrals there. A neutral at A. J.'s  level is of course unthinkable....

Hassan  is  a  notorious  Liquefactionist and  suspect to be a secret Sender -- "Shucks,  boys," he  says with  a dis- arming pin, "I'm  just a  blooming old  cancer and  I gotta proliferate."  He  picks  up  a  Texas  accent  associating with  Dry  Hole  Dutton,  the  Dallas  wildcatter,  and  he wears  cowboy  boots and  ten-gallon hat  at all  times in- doors  and  out....  His  eyes  are invisible  behind black glasses, his face  smooth and  blank as  wax above  a well- cut  suit  made  entirely  from  immature   high  denomina- tion  bank  notes. (Bank  notes are  in fact  currency, but they  must  mature  before   they  can   be  negotiated.... Bank notes run as high as one million clams a note. )

"They  keep  hatching out  all over  me," he  says shyly. ..."It's like, gee, I don't know how to say it. It's like I was  a  Mummy  scorpion  carrying  those little  baby notes around  on  my   warm  body   and  feeling   them  grow.... Gosh I hope I don't bore you with all this."

Salvador,  known  as Sally  to his  friends --  he always keeps  a  few  "friends"  around  and  pays  them  by  the hour -- got cured in the  slunk business  in World  War II. (To  get  cured  means  to  get  rich. Expression  used by Texas  oil  men.)  The  Pure  Food  and   Drug  Department have his picture in their  files, a  heavy faced  man with an embalmed look as  if paraffin  had been  injected under the  skin  which is  smooth, shiny  and poreless.  One eye is  dead grey  color, round  as a  marble, with  flaws and opaque spots. The  other is  black and  shiny, an  old un- dreaming insect eye.

His eyes  are normally  invisible behind  black glasses. He looks sinister and  enigmatic --  his gestures  and man- nerisms  are  not  yet  comprehensible  -- like  the secret police of a larval state.

In  moments  of  excitement  Salvador  is  apt  to lapse into  broken  English.  His  accent  at such  moments sug- gests an Italian origin. He reads and speaks Etruscan,

A  squad of  accountant investigators  have made  a life work  of  Sal's  international dossier....  His operations extend  through  the  world  in an  inextricable, shifting web  of  subsidiaries,  front  companies, and  aliases. He has  held  23  passports  and  been  deported  49  times -- deportation   proceedings   pending  in   Cuba,  Pakistan, Hongkong and Yokohama.

Salvador  Hassan  O'Leary,  alias  The  Shoe  Store Kid, alias  Wrong  Way  Marv,  alias  After Birth  Leary, alias Slunky  Pete,  alias  Placenta  Juan,  alias K.  Y. Ahmed, alias El Chinche, alias El Culito,  etc., etc.  for fifteen solid pages of dossier, first tangled with the law  in NYC where  he  was  traveling  with a  character known  to the Brooklyn police as  Blubber Wilson,  who hustled  his goof ball money shaking down fetishists  in shoe  stores. Has- san  was  charged  some third  degree extortion  and con- spiracy  to impersonate  a police  officer. He  had learnt the  shakeman's  Number  One  rule:  D.T.--  Ditch  Tin  -- which  corresponds  to  the  pilot's  KFS  --  Keep Flying Speed....  As  The  Vigilante  puts  it:  "If  you  get a rumble, kid, ditch your piece of tin if you have to swal- low  it." So  they didn't  bust him  with a  queer badge. Hassan  testified  against  Wilson,  who drew  Pen Indef. (longest  term  possible under  New York  law for  a mis- demeanor  conviction.  Nominally an  indefinite sentence, it means three  years in  Riker's Island).  Hassan's case was  nolle  prossed.  "I'd have  drawn a  nickel," Hassan said, "if I hadn't met a  decent cop."  Hassan met  a de- cent cop every time he took a fall. His  dossier contains three  pages  of monikers  indicating his  proclivity for cooperating with the  law, "playing  ball" the  cops call it. Others  call it  something else:  Ab the  Fuzz Lover, Finky  Marv,  The  Crooning Hebe,  Ali the  Stool, Wrongo Sal,  The  Wailing  Spic, The  Sheeny Soprano,  The Bronx Opera  House,  The  Copper's  Djinn, The  Answering Serv- ice,  The  Squeaking   Syrian,  The   Cooing  Cocksucker, The  Musical  Fruit,  The  Wrong  Ass  Hole,   The  Fairy Fink,   Leary   the   Nark,  The   Lilting  Leprechaun... Grassy Gert.

He  opened  a  sex  shop  in  Yokohama, pushed  junk in Beirut,  pimped  in  Panama.  During   World  War   II  he shifted into high, took over a dairy  in Holland  and cut the  butter  with  used  axle  grease, cornered  the K.Y. market in North Africa, and finally hit the  jackpot with slunks.  He  prospered  and  proliferated,   Hooding  the world  with  cut  medicines  and cheap  counterfeit goods of every variety. Adulterated  shark repellent,  cut anti- biotics,  condemned  parachutes,  stale   anti-venom,  in- active serums and vaccines, leaking lifeboats.

Clem  and  Jody,  two  oldtime vaudeville  hoofers, cope out as  Russian agents  whose sole  function is  to repre- sent  the  U.S.  in  an  unpopular  light.  When  arrested for  sodomy  in  Indonesia,  Clem  said  to  the examining magistrate:

"'Tain't as if it was being queer. After all they's only Gooks."

They  appeared  in  Liberia  dressed  in  black Stetsons and red galluses:

"So I shoot that old nigger and he flop  on his  side one leg up in the air just akicking."

"Yeah, but you ever burn a nigger?"

They  are  always   pacing  round   Bidonvilles  smoking huge cigars:

"Haveta  get  some  bulldozers in  here Jody.  Clean out all this crap."

Morbid  crowds  follow  them  about  hoping  to  witness some superlative American outrage.

"Thirty  years  in  show  business  and  I  never handle such a routine like this. I gotta dispossess a Bidonville, give myself a bang  of H,  piss on  the Black  Stone, make with  the  Prayer  Call  whilst  dressed  in my  hog suit, cancel  Lend  Lease  and  get  fucked  up  the  ass simul- taneous....  What,   am  I   an  octopus   already?"  Clem complains.

They  are  conspiring  to  kidnap  the Black  Stone with a helicopter and substitute  a hog  pen, the  hogs trained to  give  the  Bronx  cheer when  the pilgrims  show. "We try  to  train  them squealing  bastards to  sing: 'Three cheers  for  the  Red White  and Blue,'  but it  can't be done...."

"We  connect  for  that  wheat  with  Ali  Wong Chapul- tepec in Panama. He tells us it is a  high grade  of shit this Finnish skipper die inna local jump joint  and leave this  cargo  to  the  madame.... 'She  was like  a mother to me,' he says and those were his  last words....  So we buy it in good faith off the old gash. Laid ten pieces of H on her."

"Good H too. Good Aleppo H."

"Just enough milk sugar to keep her strength up."

"We should look a gift horse in the ass already?"

"Isn't it true than when you got to  Hassan you  gave a banquet  for  the  Caid  and  served  couscous  made from the wheat?"

"We  sure  did.  And  you know  those citizens  were so loaded  on  that marijuana  they all  wig inna  middle of the  banquet....  Me,  I  just  had  bread   and  milk... ulcers you know."

"Likewise."

"So they all run around screaming they  is on  fire and the bulk of them die the following morning."

"And the rest the morning after that."

"What  they  expect already  when they  rot theirselves with Eastern vices?"

"Funny thing those  citizens turn  all black  and their legs drop off."

"Horrible result of marijuana addiction."

"The very same thing occurred to me."

"So we deal  directly with  the old  Sultan who  is being a  well-known  Latah.  After   that  everything   is  plain sailing you might say."

"But you  wouldn't believe  it, certain  disgruntled ele- ments chased us right down to our launch."

"Handicapped somewhat by lack of legs."

"And a condition in the head."

(Ergot  is  a  fungus  disease grows  on bad  wheat. Dur- ing  the   Middle  Ages   Europe  was   periodically  deci- mated  by  outbreaks  of  Ergotism,  which  was  called St. Anthony's   fire.   Gangrene  frequently   supervenes,  the legs turn black and drop off. )

They  unload  a  shipment  of  condemned   parachutes  on the   Ecuadorian  Air   Force.  Manoeuvres:   Boys  plummet streaming   'chutes  like   broken  condoms   splash  young blood  over  pot-bellied  generals...  shattering  wake  of sound  as  Clem  and  Jody  disappear  over  the  Andes  in jet getaway....

The  exact objectives  of Islam  Inc. are  obscure. Need- less to say everyone  involved has  a different  angle, and they  all  intend to  cross each  other up  somewhere along the line.

A. J. is agitating for the  destruction of  Israel: "With all this  feeling against  the West  a chap  has a  spot of bother  scoring  for  the  young  Arab   amenities....  The situation is little short of intolerable.... Israel consti- tutes  a  downright  inconvenience."  Typical  A.  J. cover story.

Clem and Jody  give out  they are  interested in  the de- struction  of Near  East oil  Belds to  boost the  value of their Venezuelan holdings.

Clem writes  a number  to the  tune of  "Crawdad" (Big Bill Broonzy).

What you gonna do when the oil goes dry?

Gonna sit right there and watch those Arabs die.

Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefac- tionist activities.... But over a few stiff yages he lets his hair down among friends.

"Islam is jellied consomme already," he  says, dancing the Liquefactionist Jig.... And then, unable  to contain himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:

It's trembling on the brink

One push and down it sink

Hey, Maw, get ready my veil.

"Well,  these  citizens have  engaged the  services of a  Brooklyn  Jew  who  passes  himself  off as  the second coming   of   Mohammed....   In   fact   Doctor   Benway delivered him by Caesarian  section from  a Holy  Man in Mecca....

"If  Ahmed  won't  come  out...  We'll  go in  and get him."

This  shameless  plant  is  accepted  without question by the gullible Arabs.

"Nice folk, these Arabs...  Nice ignorant  folk," Clem says.

So  this  phony  gives  out with  daily Surahs  on the radio: "Now friends of the radio  audience, this  is Ah- med  your friendly  prophet.... Today  I'd like  to talk about the importance  of being  dainty and  kissin' fresh at all times.... Friends, use Jody's  chlorophyll tablets and be sure."

Now a word about the parties of Interzone....

It will  be immediately  clear that  the Liquefaction Party  is,  except  for  one  man,  entirely  composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final  absorption who is  whose  dupe.... The  Liquefactionists are  much given to every form of perversion,  especially sado-masochistic practices....

Liquefactionists in general know what the  score is. The Senders, on the other hand,  are notorious  for their ignorance of the  nature and  terminal state  of sending, for barbarous and self-righteous  manners, and  for rabid fear of any fact --. It was only  the intervention  of the Factualists  that  prevented  the  Senders  from  putting Einstein in an institution and destroying his  theory. It may  be  said  that  only  a very  few Senders  know what they are doing and these  top Senders  are the  most dan- gerous  and  evil  men  in  the  world....  Techniques of Sending  were  crude  at first.  Fadeout to  the National Electronic Conference in Chicago.

The Conferents are putting on their overcoats.... The speaker talks in a fiat shopgirl voice:

"In closing  I want  to sound  a word  of warning.... The  logical  extension  of encephalographic  research is bicontrol; that is control  of physical  movement, mental processes, emotional reactions  and apparent  sensory im- pressions by means of  bioelectric signals  injected into the nervous system of the subject."

"Louder   and  funnier!"   The  Conferents   are  trouping out in clouds of dust.

"Shortly  after  birth  a  surgeon  could  install connec- tions  in  the brain.  A miniature  radio receiver  could be plugged   in   and  the   subject  controlled   from  State- controlled transmitters."

Dust  settles  through the  windless air  of a  vast empty hall -- smell of hot iron and steam; a radiator sings  in the distance....  The  Speaker  shuffles  his  notes   and  blows dust off them....

"The   biocontrol  apparatus   is  prototype   of  one-way telepathic  control.  The  subject  could  be  rendered sus- ceptible  to the  transmitter by  drugs or  other processing without  installing  any  apparatus. Ultimately  the Senders will  use   telepathic  transmitting   exclusively....  Ever dig the Mayan  codices? I  figure it  like this:  the priests --  about  one  per cent  of population  -- made  with one-way telepathic  broadcasts  instructing  the  workers   what  to feel and when.... A telepathic  sender has  to send  all the time.  He  can never  receive, because  if he  receives that means  someone  else  has  feelings of  his own  could louse up his continuity. The sender has to send all the  time, but he can't ever recharge himself by  contact. Sooner  or later he's got no feelings to send. You can't have feelings alone. Not alone like the Sender is alone -- and  you dig  there can only  be  one  Sender  at  one  place-time....  Finally  the screen  goes  dead....   The  Sender   has  turned   into  a huge   centipede....  So   the  workers   come  in   on  the beam  and  burn  the  centipede  and  elect  a   new  Sender by  consensus  of  the  general  will....  The  Mayans  were limited  by  isolation....  Now  one  Sender  could  control the planet.... You see control can never be a means to any practical end.... It can never be a means to anything but more control.... Like junk..."

The  Divisionists  occupy   a  mid-way   position,  could in  fact  be  termed  moderates....  They are  called Divi- sionists because they literally divide.  They cut  off tiny bits of their flesh  and grow  exact replicas  of themselves in  embryo  jelly.  It seems  probable, unless  the process of division is halted, that eventually  there will  be only one replica of one sex on the planet: that is one person in the  world  with  millions   of  separate   bodies....  Are these  bodies  actually  independent,  and  could  they  in time develop varied characteristics?  I doubt  it. Replicas must periodically recharge  with the  Mother Cell.  This is an article of faith with the Divisionists, who live in fear of a  replica revolution....  Some Divisionists  think that the  process  can be  halted short  of the  eventual monop- oly of  one replica.  They say:  "Just let  me plant  a few more  replicas  all  over  so  I  won't  be  lonely  when I travel....  And we  must strictly  control the  division of Undesirables...."  Every  replica  but  your  own  is even- tually  an  "Undesirable."  Of  course  if  someone  starts inundating  an  area  with  Identical   Replicas,  everyone knows  what  is going  on. The  other citizens  are subject to  declare  a  "Schluppit"  (wholesale  massacre   of  all identifiable  replicas).  To  avoid extermination  of their replicas, citizens dye, distort, and  alter them  with face and  body  molds.  Only  the  most  abandoned   and  shame- less characters  venture to  manufacture I.R.s  -- Identical Replicas.

A cretinous albino Caid, product  of a  long line  of re- cessive  genes  (tiny  toothless  mouth  lined  with  black hairs, body of  a huge  crab, claws  instead of  arms, eyes projected on stalks) accumulated 20,000 I.R.s.

"As far as  the eye  can see,  nothing but  replicas," he says,  crawling  around  on  his  terrace  and  speaking in strange insect chirps. "I don't have  to skulk  around like a  nameless  asshole  growing replicas  in my  cesspool and sneaking  them  out  disguised  as  plumbers  and  delivery men....  My  replicas  don't  have  their  dazzling  beauty marred  by  plastic  surgery and  barbarous dye  and bleach processes. They stand  forth naked  in the  sun for  all to see,  in their  incandescent loveliness  of body,  face and soul.  I  have  made  them  in my  image and  enjoined them to increase and multiply geometric  for they  shall inherit the earth."

A  professional  witch  was  called  in  to   make  Sheik Aracknid's  replica  cultures  forever  sterile....  As the witch  was  preparing  to  loose  a blast  of anti-orgones, Benway  told  him: "Don't  knock yourself  out. Frederick's ataxia will clean out that replica nest. I  studied neurol- ogy   under   Professor   Fingerbottom  in   Vienna...  and he  knew  every  nerve  in   your  body.   Magnificent  old thing... Came to a  sticky end....  His falling  piles blew out  the  Duc  de  Ventre's   Hispano  Suiza   and  wrapped around  the  rear  wheel. He  was completely  gutted, leav- ing an empty  shell sitting  there on  the giraffe  skin up- holstery....  Even  the   eyes  and   brain  went   with  a horrible  schlupping  sound.  The  Duc  de  Ventre  says he will carry that ghastly schlup to his mausoleum."

Since  there is  no sure  way to  detect a  disguised re- plica  (though  every  Divisionist   has  some   method  he considers  infallible)  the  Divisionists  are hysterically paranoid.  If some  citizen ventures  to express  a liberal opinion,  another  citizen  invariably  snarls:  "What  are you? Some stinking Nigger's bleached-out replica?"

The  casualties  in  barroom  fights  are  staggering. In fact  the  fear  of  Negro  replicas --  which may  be blond and  blue-eyed  --  has   depopulated  whole   regions.  The Divisionists are all latent or overt homosexuals.  Evil old queens  tell  the  young  boys:  "If  you  go with  a woman your  replicas  won't  grow."  And  citizens   are  forever putting the hex on someone  else's replica  cultures. Cries of:  "Hex  my  culture  will  you,  Biddy  Blair1" followed by  sound  effects  of  mayhem,  continually  ring  through the  quarter....  The  Divisionists are  much given  to the practice  of  black  magic  in general,  and they  have in- numerable  formulas  of  varying  efficacy  for  destroying the  Mother  Cell,  also  known  as  the  Protoplasm Daddy, by  torturing  or  killing a  captured replica....  The au- thorities  have finally  given up  the attempt  to control, among  the  Divisionists,  the  crimes  of  murder  and un- licensed  production of  replicas. But  they do  stage pre- election  raids and  destroy vast  replica cultures  in the mountainous  regions  of  the  Zone  where   replica  moon- shiners hole up.

Sex  with  a  replica  is  strictly forbidden  and almost universally   practiced.   There   are  queer   bars  where shameless  citizens  openly  consort  with  their replicas. House detectives stick  their heads  into hotel  rooms say- ing: "Have you got a replica in here?"

Bars  subject  to  be  inundated  by  low  class  replica lovers put up signs in ditto marks: "  " "  "s Will  Not Be Served  Here....  It  may  be said  that the  average Divi- sionist lives in a continual crisis of fear and  rage, un- able  to  achieve  either  the  self-righteous complacency of  the  Senders or  the relaxed  depravity of  the Lique- factionists.... However  the parties  are not  in practice separate but blend in all combinations.

The  Factualists  are  Anti-Liquefactionist,  Anti-Divi- sionist, and above all Anti-Sender.

Bulletin  of  the Coordinate  Factualist on  the subject of replicas: "We must reject the facile solution of fiood- ing  the planet  with 'desirable  replicas.' It  is highly doubtful if there are any  desirable replicas,  such crea- tures constituting  an attempt  to circumvent  process and change.  Even  the most  intelligent and  genetically per- fect replicas would in all  probability constitute  an un- speakable menace to life on this planet...."

T.B.--  Tentative  Bulletin-Liquefaction:  "We  must  not reject or deny our protoplasmic core, striving at all time to maintain a maximum of  flexibility without  falling into the  morass  of  liquefaction...."  Tentative  and  Incom- plete  Bulletin:  "Emphatically  we  do  not  oppose tele- pathic  research.  In  fact,  telepathy properly  used and understood  could  be  the  ultimate  defense  against any form  of  organized  coercion  or tyranny  on the  part of of pressure groups or individual  control addicts.  We op- pose,  as we  oppose atomic  war, the  use of  such knowl- edge to control, coerce, debase, exploit or annihilate the individuality  of  another  living creature.  Telepathy is not, by its nature, a one-way process.  To attempt  to set up  a  one-way  telepathic  broadcast  must   be  regarded as an unqualified evil...."

D.B.--  Definitive  Bulletin:  "The  Sender  will  be  de- fined  by  negatives.  A  low  pressure  area,  a  sucking emptiness.  He  will  be  portentously   anonymous,  face- less, colorless. He will -- probably -- be born  with smooth disks of skin instead of  eyes. He  always knows  where he is going like a virus knows. He doesn't need eyes."

"Couldn't there be more than one Sender?"

"Oh yes, many of them at first. But  not for  long. Some maudlin  citizens  will  think  they  can  send  something edifying, not realizing that  sending is  evil. Scientists will say: 'Sending  is like  atomic power....  If properly harnessed.' At this point an anal  technician mixes  a bi- carbonate of soda and  pulls the  switch that  reduces the earth to cosmic  dust. ('Belch...  They'll hear  this fart on Jupiter.')... Artists will  confuse sending  with crea- tion.  They  will  camp around  screeching 'A  new medium' until  their  rating drops  off.... Philosophers  will bat around  the  ends  and  means  hassle  not   knowing  that sending  can  never  be  a  means  to  anything  but  more sending, Like Junk.  Try using  junk as  a means  to some- thing  else....   Some  citizens   with  'Coca   Cola  and aspirin'  control habits  will be  talking about  the evil glamor of  sending. But  no one  will talk  about anything very long. The Sender, he don't like talking."

The  Sender  is  not  a human  individual.... It  is The Human  Virus.  (All virus  are deteriorated  cells leading a parasitic existence.... They have specific  affinity for the Mother Cell;  thus deteriorated  liver cells  seek the home  place  of  hepatitis,  etc. So  every species  has a Master Virus: Deteriorated Image of that species. )

The  broken  image  of  Man  moves  in minute  by minute and cell by cell....  Poverty, hatred,  war, police-crimi- nals,  bureaucracy,  insanity,  all  symptoms  of  The Human Virus.

The  Human  Virus  can  now  be  isolated   and  treated.

THE COUNTY CLERK

The  County  Clerk  has  his  office in  a huge  red brick building  known  as the  Old Court  House. Civil  cases are, in  fact,  tried there,  the proceeding  inexorably dragging out until the  contestants die  or abandon  litigation. This is due to  the vast  number of  records pertaining  to abso- lutely  everything,  all filed  in the  wrong place  so that no  one but  the County  Clerk and  his staff  of assistants can  find them,  and he  often spends  years in  the search. In fact, he is still looking for material relative to a dam- age  suit  that  was  settled  out of  court in  1910. Large sections  of  the  Old  Court  House  have fallen  in ruins, and   others   are  highly   dangerous  owing   to  frequent cave-ins.  The  County  Clerk  assigns  the  more  dangerous missions to  his assistants,  many of  whom have  lost their lives  in  the  service.  In  1912  two  hundred  and  seven assistants  were  trapped  in  a  collapse of  the North-by- North-East wing.

When  suit  is  brought  against anyone  in the  Zone, his lawyers  connive  to have  the case  transferred to  the Old Court House. Once this is done, the  plaintiff has  lost the case, so the only  cases that  actually go  to trial  in the Old  Court  House  are  those  instigated by  eccentrics and paranoids   who   want  "a   public  hearing,"   which  they rarely  get  since only  the most  desperate famine  of news will bring a reporter to the Old Court House.

The  Old Court  House is  located in  the town  of Pigeon Hole  outside  the  urban  zone.  The  inhabitants  of this town  and  the  surrounding  area   of  swamps   and  heavy timber are  people of  such great  stupidity and  such bar- barous  practices that  the Administration  has seen  Bt to quarantine  them in  a reservation  surrounded by  a radio- active wall of iron bricks. In retaliation the  citizens of Pigeon  Hole  plaster  their  town  with  signs:  "Urbanite Don't  Let  The  Sun  Set  On  You  Here,"  an  unnecessary injunction,  since  nothing   but  urgent   business  would take any urbanite to Pigeon Hole.

Lee's case is  urgent. He  has to  file an  immediate affi- davit  that  he is  suffering from  bubonic plague  to avoid eviction from  the house  he has  occupied ten  years with- out  paying the  rent. He  exists in  perpetual quarantine. So he  packs his  suitcase of  affidavits and  petitions and injunctions  and  certificates  and  takes  a  bus  to  the Frontier.   The  Urbanite   customs  inspector   waves  him through:  "I hope  you've got  an atom  bomb in  that suit- case."

Lee  swallows  a  handful  of  tranquilizing   pills  and steps  into the  Pigeon Hole  customs shed.  The inspectors spend  three  hours  pawing  through  his  papers, consult- ing  dusty  books  of  regulations  and  duties  from which they  read  incomprehensible  and  ominous   excerpts  end- ing  with:  "And  as such  is subject  to fine  and penalty under act 666." They look at him significantly.

They go through his papers with a magnifying glass.

"Sometimes   they  slip   dirty  limericks   between  the lines."

"Maybe he figures to sell them for toilet paper.  Is this crap for your own personal use?"

"Yes."

"He says yes."

"And how do we know that?"

"I gotta affidavit."

"Wise guy. Take off your clothes."

"Yeah. Maybe he got dirty tattoos."

They  paw  over  his  body probing  his ass  for contra- band  and  examine it  for evidence  of sodomy.  They dunk his hair and  send the  water out  to be  analyzed. "Maybe he's got dope in his hair."

Finally,  they  impound  his  suitcase; and  he staggers out of the shed with a fifty pound bale of documents.

A  dozen or  so Recordites  sit on  the Old  Court House steps  of  rotten  wood.  They  watch  his  approach  with pale  blue  eyes,  turning  their  heads slow  on wrinkled necks (the wrinkles full of  dust) to  follow his  body up the  steps  and through  the door.  Inside, dust  hangs in the air like fog, sifting down from the ceiling, rising in clouds from the floor as  he walks.  He mounts  a perilous staircase  --  condemned  in  1929.  Once  his   foot  goes through, and the dry splinters tear into the flesh  of his leg. The stairscase ends in a painter's scaffold, attached with frayed rope and  pullies to  a beam  almost invisible in dusty  distance. He  pulls himself  up cautiously  to a ferris wheel cabin.  His weight  sets in  motion hydraulic machinery  (sound  of  running  water).  The  wheel  moves smooth and silent to stop  by a  rusty iron  balcony, worn through here and  there like  an old  shoe sole.  He walks down  a  long  corridor  lined  with  doors, most  of them nailed or boarded shut.  In one  office, Near  East Exqui- sitries on a green  brass plaque,  the Mugwump  is catch- ing termites with his long black tongue. The door  of the County Clerk's office is open. The  County Clerk  sits in- side  gumming  snuff, surrounded  by six  assistants. Lee stands in  the doorway.  The County  Clerk goes  on talk- ing without looking up.

"I  run into  Ted Spigot  the other  day... a  good old boy, too. Not a finer man  in the  Zone than  Ted Spigot. ...Now  it  was  a  Friday I  happen to  remember because the  Old  Lady  was  down  with  the menstrual  cramps and I went to Doc Parker's drugstore  on Dalton  Street, just opposite  Ma  Green's   Ethical  Massage   Parlor,  where Jed's old  livery stable  used to  be.... Now,  Jed, I'll remember  his  second name  directly, had  a cast  in the left  eye and  his wife  came from  some place  out East, Algiers I believe it was, and after Jed died  she married up  again, and  she married  one of  the Hoot  boys, Clem Hoot  if  my  memory  serves,  a  good  old boy  too, now Hoot  was around  fifty-four fifty-five  year old  at the time.... So I says to Doc  Parker: 'My  old lady  is down bad  with  the  menstrual  cramps. Sell  me two  ounces of paregoric.'

"So Doc  says, 'Well,  Arch, you  gotta sign  the book. Name, address and date of purchase. It's the law.'

"So I asked Doc what the  day was,  and he  said, 'Fri- day the 13th.'

"So I said, ' I guess I already had mine.'

"'Well,' Doc  says, 'there  was a  feller in  here this morning. City feller. Dressed kinda  flashy. So  he's got him a RX  for a  mason jar  of morphine....  Kinda funny looking prescription writ out on  toilet paper....  And I told him straight out: "Mister, I suspect you to be a dope Bend." '

"'"I got the ingrowing toe nails, Pop. I'm in agony."' he says.

"'"Well," I says, "I gotta be careful. But so long as you got a legitimate condition and an RX from a certi- Bed bona feedy M.D., I'm honored to serve you." '

"'"That croaker's really certified," he say.... Well, I guess one hand didn't know what the other was doing when I give him a jar of Saniflush by error.... So I reckon he's had his too.'

"'Just the thing to clean a man's blood.'

"'You know, that very thing occurred to me. Should be a sight better than sulphur and molasses.... Now, Arch, don't think I'm nosey; but a man don't have no secrets from God and his druggist I always say.... Is you still humping the Old Gray Mare?'

" 'Why, Doc Parker... I'll have you know I'm a family man and an Elder in the First Denominational Non-sextarian Church and I ain't had a piecea hoss ass since we was kids together.'

"'Them was the days, Arch. Remember the time I got the goose grease mixed up with the mustard? Al- ways was a one to grab the wrong jar, feller say. They could have heard you squealing over in Cunt Lick County, just a squealing like a stoat with his stones cut off.'

"'You're in the wrong hole, Doc. It was you took the mustard and me as had to wait till you cooled off.'

"'Wistful thinking, Arch. I read about it one time inna magazine settin' in that green outhouse behind the station.... Now what I meant awhile back, Arch, you didn't rightly understand me.... I was referring to your wife as the Old Cray Mare.... I mean she ain't what she used to be what with all them carbuncles and cata- racts and chilblains and hemorrhoids and aftosa.'

"'Yas, Doc, Liz is right sickly. Never was the same after her eleventh miscarriaging.... There was some- thing right strange about that. Doc Ferris he told me straight, he said: "Arch, 'tain't fitting you should see that critter." And he gives me a long look made my flesh crawl.... Well, you sure said it right, Doc. She ain't what she used to be. And your medicines don't seem to ease her none. In fact, she ain't been able to tell night from day since using them eye drops you sold her last month.... But, Doc, you oughtta know I wouldn't be humping Liz, the old cow, meaning no disrespect to the mother of my dead monsters. Not when I got that sweet little ol' fifteen year old thing.... You know that yaller girl used to work in Marylou's Hair Straightening and Skin Bleach Parlor over in Nigga town.'

"'Getting that dark chicken meat, Arch? Gettin' that coon pone?'

"'Gettin' it steady, Doc. Gettin' it steady. Well, feller say duty is goosing me. Gotta get back to the old crank case.'

"'I'll bet she needs a grease job worst way.'

"'Doc, she sure is a dry hole.... Well, thanks for the paregoric.

" 'And thanks for the trade, Arch.... He he he... Say, Archy boy, some night when you get caught short with a rusty load drop around and have a drink of Yohimbiny with me.'

"'I'll do that, Doc, I sure will. It'll be just like old times.

"So  I  went  on  back to  my place  and heated  up some water  and  mixed  up  some   paregoric  and   cloves  and cinnamon and sassyfrass and give it to  Liz, and  it eased her some I reckon.  Leastwise she  let up  aggravatin' me. ... Well, later on I went  down to  Doc Parker's  again to get me a rubber... and just as  I was  leaving I  run into Roy Bane, a good ol' boy too. There's not  a finer  man in this Zone  than Roy  Bane.... So  he said  to me  he says, 'Arch, you see that ol' nigger over  there in  that vacant lot? Well, sure as shit  and taxes,  he comes  there every night just as regular you can set your  watch by  him. See him  behind   them  nettles?   Every  night   round  about eight thirty he goes over into that  lot yonder  and pulls himself  off  with steel  wool.... Preachin'  Nigger, they tell me.'

"So that's  how I  come to  know the  hour more  or less on Friday the  13th and  it couldn't  have been  more than twenty  minutes  half an  hour after  that, I'd  took some Spanish Fly in Doc's store  and it  was jest  beginning to work  on  me  down  by  Grennel  Bog on  my way  to Nigger town....  Well the  bog makes  a bend,  used to  be nigger shack  there....  They  burned  that  ol'  nigger  over in Cunt Lick. Nigger  had the  aftosa and  it left  him stone blind....  So   this  white   girl  down   from  Texarkana screeches out:

"'Roy, that ol' nigger is looking at me so nasty. Land's sake I feel just dirty all over.'

"'Now,  Sweet  Thing,  don't you  fret yourself.  Me an' the boys will burn him.'

"'Do  it  slow,  Honey  Face.  Do  it  slow.  He's   give  me a sick headache.'

"So  they  burned  the  nigger  and  that  ol'  boy  took his wife  and  went  back  up  to  Texarkana  without   paying  for the  gasoline  and   old  Whispering   Lou  runs   the  service station  couldn't  talk  about  nothing  else all  Fall: 'These city  fellers  come  down  here  and  burn  a nigger  and don't even settle up for the gasoline.'

"Well,  Chester  Hoot  tore  that   nigger  shack   down  and rebuilt  it  just  back  of  his  house  up  in   Bled  Valley. Covered   up   all   the   windows   with   black   cloth,  and what  goes  on  in  there  ain't  fittin'  to speak  of.... Now Chester   he's   got   some   right   strange   ways....   Well it  was  just  where  the  nigger  shack  used  to   be,  right across   from   the   Old   Brooks   place   Hoods   out  every Spring,   only  it   wasn't  the   Brooks  place   then...  be- longed  to  a  feller  name  of  Scranton.  Now  that  piece of land  was  surveyed  back  in  1919....   I  reckon   you  know the   man   did   the   job   too....   Feller  name   of  Hump Clarence  used  to  witch  out  wells  on  the   side....  Good ol'  boy  too,  not  a  finer  man  in  this  Zone   than  Hump Clarence....  Well  it  was  just  around  about  in   there  I come on Ted Spigot ascrewin a mud puppy."

Lee  cleared  his  throat.  The  Clerk  looked  up  over  his glasses. "Now if you'll take care, young feller, till  I finish what I'm asaying, I'll tend to your business."

And  he  plunged  into   an  anecdote   about  a   nigra  got the hydrophobia from a cow.

"So  my  pappy  says  to  me:  'Finish  up your  chores, son, and  let's   go  see   the  mad   nigger....'  They   had  that nigger  chained  to  the  bed,  and  he  was  bawling   like  a cow....  I  soon  got  enough  of  that  ol'  nigger.  Well, if you all will excuse me I got business in the  Privy Coun- cil. He he he!"

Lee listened in  horror. The  County Clerk  often spent weeks  in the  privy living  on scorpions  and Montgomery Ward catalogues. On several occasions his  assistants had forced  the  door  and  carried  him  out in  an advanced state of malnutrition. Lee decided to play his last card.

"Mr.  Anker,"  he said,  "I'm appealing  to you  as one Razor  Back  to  another,"  and he  pulled out  his Razor Back card, a memo of his lush-rolling youth.

The Clerk looked at the  card suspiciously:  "You don't look  like  a  bone  feed mast-fed  Razor Back  to me.... What you think about the Jeeeeews... P"

"Well, Mr.  Anker, you  know yourself  all a  Jew wants to do is doodle a  Christian girl....  One of  these days well cut the rest of it off."

"Well, you talk  right sensible  for a  city feller.... Find  out what  he wants  and take  care of  him.... He's a good ol' boy."

INTERZONE

The only native in Interzone who  is neither  queer nor available is Andrew  Keif's chauffeur,  which is  not af- fectation or perversity on Keif's part, but a useful pre- text to break off  relations with  anyone he  doesn't want to see: "You made a pass at Aracknid list night.  I can't have you to the  house again."  People are  always black- ing out in the Zone, whether  they drink  or not,  and no one can say for sure he  didn't make  a pass  at Aracknid's unappetizing person.

Aracknid  is  a  worthless   chauffeur,  barely   able  to drive.  On  one  occasion  he  ran  down  a  pregnant woman in  from  the  mountains  with  a load  of charcoal  on her back,  and  she  miscarriaged  a bloody,  dead baby  in the street, and Keif got out and sat on  the curb  stirring the blood  with a  stick while  the police  questioned Aracknid and  finally  arrested  the  woman for  a violation  of the Sanitary Code.

Aracknid  is  a  grimly   unattractive  young   man  with a long face of a strange,  slate-blue color.  He has  a big nose  and  great  yellow  teeth like  a horse.  Anybody can find  an  attractive  chauffeur,   but  only   Andrew  Keif could  have  found Aracknid;  Keif the  brilliant, decadent young  novelist  who lives  in a  remodeled pissoir  in the red light district of the Native Quarter.

The  Zone  is  a  single,  vast  building. The  rooms are made  of  a  plastic  cement  that  bulges  to  accommodate people,  but  when  too  many  crowd  into  one  room there is  a  soft  plop  and  someone  squeezes through  the wall right into the next house, the next bed that is,  since the rooms  are  mostly  bed  where  the  business  of  the Zone is  transacted.  A  hum  of  sex  and  commerce  shakes the Zone like a vast hive:

"Two  thirds  of  one  percent. I  won't budge  from that figure; not even for my bumpkins."

"But where are the bills of lading, lover?"

"Not where you're looking, pet. That's too obvious."

"A bale of levies with built-in  falsie baskets.  Made in Hollywood."

"Hollywood, Siam."

"Well American style."

"What's    the    commission?...    The    commission.... The Commission."

"Yes,  nugget,  a  shipload  of  K.Y.  made   of  genuine whale  dreck  in  the  South  Atlantic  at  present quaran- tined  by  the  Board of  Health in  Tierra del  Fuego, The commission, my dear! If  we can  pull this  off we'll  be in clover."  (Whale  dreck  is  reject  material  that accumu- lates  in the  process of  cutting up  a whale  and cooking it down. A  horrible, fishy  mess you  can smell  for miles. No one has found any use for it. )

Interzone  Imports  Unlimited,  which  consists  of  Mar- vie  and  Leif  The  Unlucky,  had  latched  onto  the K.Y. deal?  In  fact  they  specialize  in   pharmaceuticals  and run  a  24-hour  Pro  station, six  ways coverage  fore and aft, as a side line. ( Six separate venereal  diseases have been identified to date. )

They  plunge  into  the  deal.  They  form  unmentionable services  for  a  spastic  Greek  shipping  agent,  and one entire shift of Customs inspectors.  The two  partners fall out  and  finally  denounce  each   other  in   the  Embassy where  they  are  referred  to  the We  Don't Want  To Hear About  It  Department,  and  eased  out  a  back  door into a  shit-strewn  vacant  lot, where  vultures fight  over fish heads. They Hail at each other hysterically.

'You're trying to fuck me out of my commission!"

"Your  commission!  Who  smelled  out  this   good  thing in the first place?"

"But I have the bill of lading."

"Monster!  But  the  check  will  be   made  out   in  my name."

"Bawstard!  You'll  never  see the  bill of  lading until my cut is deposited in escrow."

"Well,  might  as well  kiss and  make up.  There's noth- ing mean or petty about me."

They  shake  hands  without  enthusiasm  and   peck  each other  on the  cheek. The  deal drags  on for  months. They engage  the  services  of  an  Expeditor.   Finally  Marvie emerges  with  a  check  for  42  Turkestan kurds  drawn on an  anonymous  bank  in  South  America,  to  clear through Amsterdam,  a  procedure  that  will  take   eleven  months more or less.

Now  he  can  relax  in  the  cafes  of  The   Plaza.  He shows  a  photostatic  copy  of the  check. He  would never show  the  original  of course,  lest some  envious citizen spit  ink eradicator  on the  signature or  otherwise muti- late the check.

Everyone  asks  him  to  buy  drinks  and  celebrate, but he laughs jovially and says, "Fact is I can't afford  to buy myself a drink.  I already  spent every  kurd of  it buying Penstrep for Ali's  clap. He's  down with  it fore  and aft again.  I  came  near  kicking  the  little  bastard  right through  the  wall  into  the  next bed.  But you  all know what a sentimental old thing I am."

Marvie does  buy himself  a shot  glass of  beer, squeez- ing a blackened coin out of  his fly  onto the  table. "Keep the change." The waiter sweeps  the coin  into a  dust pan, he spits on the table and walks away.

"Sore head! He's envious of my check."

Marvie  had  been  in  Interzone  since "the  year before one"  as  he  put  it. He  had been  retired from  some un- specified position in the State Dept. "for  the good  of the service."  Obviously  he  had once  been very  good looking in a crew-cut, college boy  way, but  his face  had sagged and  formed  lumps  under the  chin like  melting paraffin. He was getting heavy around the hips.

Leif  The  Unlucky was  a tall,  thin Norwegian,  with a patch over  one eye,  his face  congealed in  a permanent, ingratiating smirk.  Behind him  lay an  epic saga  of un- successful enterprises.  He had  failed at  raising frogs, chinchilla, Siamese fighting fish, rami and  culture pearls. He  had  attempted,  variously  and  without  success,  to promote   a   Love   Bird   Two-in-a-coffin   Cemetery,  to corner  the  condom  market  during  the  rubber shortage, to run a mail order  whore house,  to issue  penicillin as a  patent  medicine.  He  had followed  disastrous betting systems  in  the  casinos  of Europe  and the  race tracks of  the  U.S.  His  reverses in  business were  matched by the incredible mischances of his personal life.  His front teeth  had been  stomped out  by bestial  American sailors in  Brooklyn.  Vultures  had  eaten  out  an  eye  when he drank  a  pint  of paregoric  and passed  out in  a Panama City  park.  He  had  been  trapped  between  floors  in an elevator  for  five  days with  an oil-burning  junk habit and sustained  an attack  of D.T.s  while stowing  away in a foot locker. Then there was the  time he  collapsed with strangulated intestines, perforated ulcers and peritonitis in  Cairo  and  the  hospital was  so crowded  they bedded him  in  the  latrine,  and the  Greek surgeon  goofed and sewed  up  a  live  monkey  in  him,  and  he   was  gang- fucked by the Arab  attendants, and  one of  the orderlies stole the penicillin substituting  Saniflush; and  the time he got clap in his ass and a self-righteous English doctor cured  him  with  an  enema  of  hot, sulphuric  acid, and the  German  practitioner  of  Technological  Medicine who removed  his  appendix  with  a  rusty  can opener  and a pair  of  tin  snips  (he considered  the germ  theory "a nonsense.")  Flushed  with  success  he then  began snip- ping  and  cutting  out everything  in sight:  "The human body is filled up  vit unnecessitated  parts. You  can get by vit one kidney. Vy have two? Yes  dot is  a kidney.... The  inside  parts  should  not be  so close  in together crowded. They need lebensraum like the Vaterland."

The  Expeditor  had  not  yet  been  paid,  and  Marvie was  faced  by the  prospect of  stalling him  for eleven months until the  check cleared.  The Expeditor  was said to  have  been  born on  the Ferry  between the  Zone and the Island. His profession was  to expedite  the delivery of merchandise. No one  knew for  sure whether  his serv- ices were  of any  use or  not, and  to mention  his name always  precipitated  an  argument.  Cases were  cited to prove his miraculous efficiency and utter worthlessness.

The  Island was  a British  Military and  Naval station directly opposite the Zone. England  holds the  Island on yearly  rent-free  lease,  and every  year the  lease and permit  of  residence  is  formally  renewed.  The entire population  turns  out,  attendance  is  compulsory,  and gathers  at  the  municipal  dump.  The President  of the Island is required by custom to crawl across  the garbage on his stomach and  deliver the  Permit of  Residence and Renewal  of  the Lease,  signed by  every citizen  of the Island,  to  The  Resident  Governor who  stands resplen- dent  in  dress  uniform. The  Governor takes  the permit and shoves it into his coat pocket:

"Well," he says with a tight smile, "so  you've decided to let us stay another year have you?  Very good  of you. And  everyone  is  happy  about  it?...  Is  there  anyone who isn't happy about it?"

Soldiers  in  jeeps  sweep  mounted   machine-guns  back and forth across the  crowd with  a slow,  searching move- ment.

"Everybody  happy.  Well  that's  fine." He  turns jovi- ally to the prostrate President. "I'll keep your papers in case  I  get  caught  short.  Haw  Haw  Haw."   His  loud, metallic laugh rings out  across the  dump, and  the crowd laughs with him under the searching guns.

The  forms  of   democracy  are   scrupulously  enforced on  the  Island.  There  is  a Senate  and a  Congress who carry  on  endless  sessions  discussing  garbage disposal and  outhouse  inspection,  the  only  two  questions over which they have jurisdiction.  For a  brief period  in the mid-nineteenth  century,  they  had  been allowed  to con- trol the dept.  of Baboon  Maintenance but  this privilege had   been   withdrawn   owing   to  absenteeism   in  the Senate.

The  purple-assed  Tripoli  baboons  had   been  brought to the Island by pirates  in the  17th century.  There was a legend that when the  baboons left  the Island  it would fall. To whom or in what way is not  specified, and  it is a capital  offense to  kill a  baboon, though  the noxious behaviour  of  these animals  harries the  citizens almost beyond  endurance.  Occasionally  someone   goes  berserk, kills several baboons and himself.

The  post  of President  is always  forced on  some par- ticularly  noxious  and unpopular  citizen. To  be elected President  is  the greatest  misfortune and  disgrace that can  befall  an  Islander.  The humiliations  and ignominy are such that few Presidents  live out  their full  term of office, usually dying of a  broken spirit  after a  year or two.  The  Expeditor  had  once  been President  and served the full five years  of his  term. Subsequently  he changed his  name  and  underwent  plastic  surgery,  to  blot out, as far as possible, the memory of his disgrace.

"Yes  of  course...  we'll  pay  you," Marvie  was saying to the Expeditor.

"But take it easy. It may be a little while yet...."

"Take it easy? A little while!... Listen."

"Yes  I  know it  all. The  finance company  is repossess- ing  your  wife's artificial  kidney.... They  are evicting your grandmother from her iron lung."

"That's in rather bad taste, old  boy.... Frankly  I wish I  had  never  involved  myself  in  this  uh  matter. That bloody  grease  has  too much  carbolic in  it. I  was down to  customs  one  day  last  week.  Stuck  a  broom  handle into a drum of it, and the grease ate the end  off straight away.  Besides,  the  stink  is  enough to  knock a  man on his  bloody  ass.  You  should  take  a  walk  down  by the port."

"I'll do no such thing," Marvie screeched.  It is  a mark of  caste  in  the  Zone  never  to touch  or even  go near what you are selling. To do so gives  rise to  suspicion of retailing,  that  is  of  being  a  common peddler.  A good part  of  the  merchandise  in  the  Zone  is  sold through street peddlers.

"Why do you tell me all  this? It's  too sordid!  Let the retailers worry about it."

"Oh it's all very well for  you chaps,  you can  scud out from  under.  But  I  have  a  reputation  to  maintain.... There'll be a spot of bother about this."

"Do  you  suggest  there  is  something  illegitimate  in this operation?"

"Not   illegitimate   exactly.  But   shoddy.  Definitely shoddy."

"Oh  go  back  to your  Island before  it falls!  We knew you  when  you  were  peddling  your  purple  ass   in  the Plaza pissoirs for five pesetas."

"And  not  many  takers  either,"  Leif  put in.  He pro- nounced it ither. This reference to  his Island  origin was more  than  the  Expeditor  could  stand....  He  was draw- ing  himself  up,  mobilizing  his  most  frigid impersona- tion of an English aristocrat, preparing to deliver an icy, clipped  "crusher,"  but  instead,  a  whining, whimpering, kicked  dog  snarl  broke  from  his mouth.  His presurgery face  emerged  in  an  arc-light  of  incandescent hate.... He  began  to spit  curses in  the hideous,  strangled gut- turals of the Island dialect.

The  Islanders all  profess ignorance  of the  dialect or fiatly  deny its  existence. "We  are Breetish,"  they say. "We don't got no bloody dealect."

Froth  gathered  at  the   corners  of   the  Expeditor's mouth. He was spitting little balls  of saliva  like pieces of cotton.  The stench  of spiritual  vileness hung  in the airs about him  like a  green cloud.  Marvie and  Leif fell back twittering in alarm.

'He's  gone  mad,"  Marvie  gasped.  "Let's  get  ont  of here."  Hand  in  hand they  skip away  into the  mist that covers  the Zone  in the  winter months  like a  cold Turk- ish Bath.

THE EXAMINATION

Carl Peterson found a postcard  in his  box requesting him to report for a ten o'clock appointment  with Doctor Benway  in the  Ministry of  Mental Hygiene  and Prophy- laxis....

"What  on  earth   could  they   want  with   me?"  he thought irritably....  "A mistake  most likely."  But he knew they  didn't make  mistakes.... Certainly  not mis- takes of identity....

It would not have  occurred to  Carl to  disregard the appointment even  though failure  to appear  entailed no penalty.... Freeland was a welfare  state. If  a citizen wanted anything from  a load  of bone  meal to  a sexual partner  some  department was  ready to  offer effective aid. The threat implicit in this  enveloping benevolence stifled the concept of rebellion....

Carl   walked   through   the  Town   Hall  Square.... Nickel nudes sixty feet high with brass  genitals soaped themselves  under  gleaming  showers....  The  Town Hall cupola, of glass brick and copper crashed into the sky.

Carl  stared  back  at  a homosexual  American tourist who dropped his eyes and fumbled with the  light filters of his Leica....

Carl entered the steel enamel labyrinth of  the Minis- try,  strode  to the  information desk...  and presented his card.

"Fifth floor... Room twenty-six..."

In room  twenty-six a  nurse looked  at him  with cold undersea eyes.

"Doctor Benway  is expecting  you," she  said smiling. "Go right in."

"As if he had nothing to do but wait for  me," thought Carl...

The office was completely silent, and filled with milky light. The doctor  shook Carl's  hand, keeping  his eyes on the young man's chest....

"I've  seen  this man  before," Carl  thought.... "But where?"

He sat down  and crossed  his legs.  He glanced  at an ashtray on the desk  and lit  a cigarette....  He turned to the  doctor a  steady inquiring  gaze in  which there was more than a touch of insolence.

The  doctor  seemed  embarrassed....  He  fidgeted  and coughed... and fumbled with papers....

"Hurumph,"  he  said  finally....  "Your  name  is  Carl Peterson I believe...." His glasses  slid down  into his nose  in   parody  of   the  academic   manner....  Carl nodded silently.... We doctor  did not  look at  him but seemed none  the less  to register  the acknowledgment. ... He  pushed  his  glasses  back  into place  with one finger and opened a file on the white enameled desk.

"Mmmmmmmm.   Carl    Peterson,"   he    repeated   the name  caressingly,  pursed his  lips and  nodded several times.  He  spoke  again abruptly:  "You know  of course that  we  are trying.  We are  all trying.  Sometimes of course we don't succeed." His voice trailed off  thin and tenuous. He put a hand to his  forehead. "To  adjust the state -- simply a tool -- to the needs of  each individual citizen."  His  voice  boomed  out so  unexpectedly deep and loud that Carl started. "That  is the  only function of the state as we see it. Our  knowledge... incomplete, of course," he made a slight gesture of depreciation.... "For  example... for  example... take  the matter  of uh sexual  deviation." The  doctor rocked  back and  forth in his chair. His glasses slid down onto his nose.  Carl felt suddenly uncomfortable.

"We  regard   it  as   a  misfortune...   a  sickness... certainly  nothing  to  be censored  or uh  sanctioned any more  than  say...  tuberculosis....  Yes,"   he  repeated firmly as if  Carl had  raised an  objection.... "Tubercu- losis.  On the  other hand  you can  readily see  that any illness imposes certain, should  we say  obligations, cer- tain necessities of a prophylactic nature on  the authori- ties  concerned  with public  health, such  necessities to be  imposed,  needless to  say, with  a minimum  of incon- venience  and  hardship  to  the   unfortunate  individual who  has,  through  no  fault  of his  own, become  uh in- fected....  That  is  to  say,  of  course,   the  minimum hardship  compatible  with  adequate  protection  of other individuals who  are not  so infected....  We do  not find obligatory  vaccination   for  smallpox   an  unreasonable measure....  Nor  isolation  for  certain  contagious dis- eases....  I  am  sure  you  will  agree  that individuals infected   with   hurumph  what   the  French   call  'Les Maladies  galantes'  heh  heh  heh  should   be  compelled to undergo treatment if they  do not  report voluntarily." The  doctor  went on  chuckling and  rocking in  his chair like  a  mechanical  toy....  Carl  realized  that  he was expected to say something.

"That seems reasonable," he said.

The  doctor  stopped  chuckling.  He  was  suddenly  mo- tionless. "Now to  get back  to this  uh matter  of sexual deviation.  Frankly we  don't pretend  to understand  -- at least  not  completely  --  why some  men and  women prefer the  uh  sexual  company  of  their  own  sex. We  do know that  the  uh  phenomena  is  common  enough,  and,  under certain  circumstances  a  matter  of  uh concern  to this department."

For the first  time the  doctor's eyes  flickered across Carl's face. Eyes  without a  trace of  warmth or  hate or any  emotion  that  Carl  had  ever experienced  in himsef or seen in another,  at once  cold and  intense, predatory and impersonal. Carl suddenly felt trapped in  this silent underwater cave of  a room,  cut off  from all  sources of warmth  and  certainty.  His  picture  of  himself sitting there  calm,  alert  with  a trace  of well  mannered con- tempt went dim, as if  vitality were  draining out  of him to mix with the milky grey medium of the room.

"Treatment of these disorders is,  at the  present time, hurmph  symptomatic."  The  doctor  suddenly   threw  him- self back in his chair  and burst  into peals  of metallic laughter.  Carl  watched  him  appalled....  "The  man  is insane," he  thought. The  doctor's face  went blank  as a gambler's.  Carl  felt  an  odd  sensation in  his stomach like the sudden stopping of an elevator.

The doctor was  studying the  file in  front of  him. He spoke in a tone of slightly condescending amusement:

"Don't  look so  frightened, young  man. Just  a profes- sional  joke.  To  say  treatment  is   symptomatic  means there is none,  except to  make the  patient feel  as com- fortable  as  possible.  And  that  is  precisely  what we attempt to do in these  cases." Once  again Carl  felt the impact of that cold interest on his face. "That is  to say reassurance  when  reassurance  is  necessary...  and,  of course, suitable outlets with other individuals of similar tendencies.  No  isolation  is indicated...  the condition is  no more  directly contagious  than cancer.  Cancer, my Brst  love,"  the  doctor's voice  receded. He  seemed actu- ally  to  have  gone  away through  an invisible  door leav- ing his empty body sitting there at the desk.

Suddenly  he  spoke  again  in  a  crisp voice.  "And so you  may  well   wonder  why   we  concern   ourselves  with the  matter  at  all?" He  flashed a  smile bright  and cold as snow in sunlight.

Carl  shrugged:  "That  is  not  my  business...  what I am  wondering  is  why  you  have  asked  me  to  come  here and why you tell me all this... this..."

"Nonsense?"

Carl was annoyed to find himself blushing.

The  doctor  leaned  back  and  placed  the ends  of his fingers together:

"The  young,"  he  said  indulgently.  "Always  they are in  a  hurry.  One day  perhaps you  will learn  the meaning of patience.  No, Carl...  I may  call you  Carl'? I  am not evading  your  question.  In  cases  of  suspected  tubercu- losis we --  that is  the appropriate  department --  may ask, even   request,   someone  to   appear  for   a  fluoroscopic examination.  This  is  routine,  you  understand.  Most  of such  examinations  turn  up  negative.  So  you  have  been asked  to report  here for,  should I  say a  psychic fluoro- scope?  I  may  add that  after talking  with you  I feel relatively sure that the result will be, for  practical pur- poses, negative....

"But  the  whole  thing  is  ridiculous.  I  have always interested myself only in girls.  I have  a steady  girl now and we plan to marry."

"Yes  Carl,  I know.  And that  is why  you are  here. A blood test prior to marriage, this is reasonable, no?"

"Please doctor, speak directly."

The  doctor  did  not  seem  to hear.  He drifted  out of his  chair  and  began  walking  around  behind  Carl,  his voice  languid  and  intermittent like  music down  a windy street.

"I may  tell you  in strictest  confidence that  there is definite evidence of a hereditary factor.  Social pressure. Many  homosexuals  latent  and  overt   do,  unfortunately, marry.  Such  marriages  often   result  in...   Factor  of infantile  environment."  The  doctor's  voice went  on and on.  He  was  talking  about  schizophrenia,  cancer, here- ditary disfunction of the hypothalamus.

Carl  dozed  off.  He was  opening a  green door.  A hor- rible  smell  grabbed  his  lungs  and  he  woke up  with a shock. The doctor's voice was strangely flat  and lifeless, a whispering junky voice:

"The  Kleiberg-Stanislouski  semen   fioculation  test... a  diagnostic  tool...  indicative at  least in  a negative sense.  In  certain  cases useful  -- taken  as part  of the whole  picture....  Perhaps  under  the  uh circumstances." The  doctor's  voice  shot  up  to  a  pathic  scream. "The nurse will take your uh specimen."

"This  way   please...."  The   nurse  opened   the  door into a bare white walled cubicle. She handed him a jar.

"Use this please. Just yell when you're ready."

There  was  a jar  of K.Y.  on a  glass shelf.  Carl felt ashamed  as  if  his  mother  had  laid out  a handkerchief for him. Some coy little  message stitched  on like:  "If I was a cunt we could open a dry goods store."

Ignoring the  K.Y., he  ejaculated into  the jar,  a cold brutal fuck of the nurse  standing her  up against  a glass brick  wall.  "Old  Glass  Cunt,"  he  sneered,  and  saw a cunt  full of  colored glass  splinters under  the Northern Lights.

He washed his penis and buttoned up his pants.

Something  was  watching  his  every  thought  and  move- ment with cold, sneering hate, the shifting of  his testes, the contractions of  his rectum.  He was  in a  room filled with  green  light. There  was a  stained wood  double bed, a black wardrobe with  full length  mirror. Carl  could not see his face. Someone was sitting in  a black  hotel chair. He  was wearing  a stiff  bosomed white  shirt and  a dirty paper tie. The face swollen, skull-less, eyes  like burning pus.

"Something  wrong?"  said  the  nurse  indifferently. She was  holding  a  glass  of  water out  to him.  She watched him  drink  with  aloof  contempt.  She  turned  and picked up the jar with obvious distaste.

The  nurse  turned  to  him: "Are  you waiting  for some- thing   special?"   she  snapped.   Carl  had   never  been spoken to like that in his adult  life. "Why  no...." "You can go then," she  turned back  to the  jar. With  a little exclamation of disgust  she wiped  a gob  of semen  off her hand. Carl crossed the room and stood at the door.

"Do I have another appointment?'

She  looked  at  him  in  disapproving  surprise: "You'll be notified of  course." She  stood in  the doorway  of the cubicle  and  watched  him  walk  through  the  outer office and  open  the  door.  He  turned  and  attempted  a jaunty wave.  The  nurse did  not move  or change  her expression. As  he  walked  down  the  stairs  the  broken,  false grin burned   his   face  with   shame.  A   homosexual  tourist looked  at  him  and  raised  a  knowing   eyebrow.  "Some- thing wrong?"

Carl  ran  into  a  park  and found  an empty  bench be- side a bronze faun with cymbals.

"Let your hair down, chicken.  You'll feel  better." The tourist  was  leaning  over  him,  his camera  swinging in Carl's face like a great dangling tit.

"Fuck off you!"

Carl  saw  something   ignoble  and   hideous  reflected back in the queen's spayed animal brown eyes.

"Oh!  I wouldn't  be calling  any names  if I  were you, chicken.  You're  hooked  too.  I  saw  you coming  out of The Institute."

'What do you mean by that?" Carl demanded.

"Oh nothing. Nothing at all."

'%"Well, Carl," the doctor began smiling and keeping his eyes on a level with Carl's mouth. "I have some good news for you." He picked up a slip of blue paper off the desk and went through an elaborate pantomime of focusing his eyes on it. "Your uh test... the Robinson-Kleiberg floculation test..."

"I thought it was a Blomberg-Stanlouski test."

The doctor tittered. "Oh dear no.... You are getting ahead of me young man. You might have misunder- stood. The Blomberg-Stanlouski, weeell that's a different sort of test altogether. I do hope... not necessary...." He tittered again: "But as I was saying before I was so charmingly interrupted... by my hurumph learned young colleague. Your KS seems to be..." He held the slip at arm's length. "...completely uh negative. So perhaps we won't be troubling you any further. And so..." He folded the slip carefully into a file. He leafed through the file. Finally he stopped and frowned and pursed his lips. He closed the  file and  put his  hand Hat on it and leaned forward.

"Carl,  when  you  were  doing your  military service... There must  have been...  in fact  there were  long peri- ods  when  you  found  yourself  deprived  of the  uh con- solations and uh facilities of the fair sex.  During these no  doubt  trying  and  difficult  periods you  had perhaps a  pin  up  girl?  Or more  likely a  pin up  harem? Heh heh heh..."

Carl  looked at  the doctor  with overt  distaste. "Yes, of course," he said. "We all did."

"And  now,  Carl,  I  would  like to  show you  some pin up girls." He  pulled an  envelope out  of a  drawer. "And ask you to please  pick out  the one  you would  most like to  uh  make  heh  heh  heh...."  He suddenly  leaned for- ward  fanning  the  photographs in  front of  Carl's face. "Pick a girl, any girl!"

Carl  reached  out  with  numb  fingers and  touched one of the  photographs. The  doctor put  the photo  back into the  pack  and  shuffled and  cut and  he placed  the pack on  Carl's  file  and  slapped it  smartly. He  spread the photos face up in front of Carl. "Is she there?"

Carl shook his head.

"Of  course not.  She is  in here  where she  belongs. A woman's  place  what??"  He  opened  the  file  and  held out the girl's photo attached to a Rorshach plate.

"Is that her?"

Carl nodded silently.

"You have good taste, my boy. I may tell you  in strict- est  confidence  that  some of  these girls..."  with gam- bler  fingers  he shifts  the photos  in Three  Card Monte Passes -- "are really  boys. In  uh drag  I believe  is the word?"  His eyebrows  shot up  and down  with incredi- ble speed. Carl could not be sure  he had  seen anything unusual. The doctor's face  opposite him  was absolutely immobile  and  expressionless.  Once again  Carl experi- enced the Hoating sensation in his stomach  and genitals of a sudden elevator stop.

"Yes, Carl, you seem to be running our little obstacle course with flying colors.... I guess  you think  this is all pretty silly don't you now... ???"

"Well, to tell the truth... Yes..."

"You  are  frank,  Carl...  This  is good....  And now ...Carl..."  He  dragged the  name out  caressingly like a sweet con dick about to offer you an Old Gold  -- ( just like  a  cop  to smoke  Old Golds  somehow) and  go into his act....

The con dick does a little dance step.

"Why  don't  you  make  The  Man  a  proposition?"  he jerks  a  head  towards his  glowering super-ego  who is always referred to in the third person  as "The  Man" or "The Lieutenant."

"That's the way the Lieutenant is, you play  fair with him and he'll  play fair  with you....  We'd like  to go light on you.... If you could help us in some  way." His words open out into a desolate  waste of  cafeterias and street corners and lunch rooms.  Junkies look  the other way munching pound cake.

"The Fag is wrong."

The Fag slumps in a  hotel chair  knocked out  on goof balls with his tongue lolling out.

He gets up in a goof ball trance, hangs  himself with- out altering his expression or pulling his tongue in.

The dick is diddling on a pad.

"Know Marty Steel?" Diddle.

"Yes."

"Can you score off him?" Diddle? Diddle?

"He's skeptical."

"But  you  can  score."  Diddle  diddle "You  scored off him last week didn't you?" Diddle???

"Yes."

"Well  you  can  score  off  him this  week." Diddle... Diddle...  Diddle...  "You  can  score  off  him  today." No diddle.

"Not No! Not that!!"

"Now look are you going to  cooperate" --  three vicious diddles -- "or does the... does  the Man  cornhole you?" He raises a fay eyebrow.

"And  so Carl  you will  please oblige  to tell  me how many  times  and  under   what  circumstances   you  have uh  indulged  in  homosexual  acts???"  His  voice drifts away. "If you have never done so I  shall be  inclined to think  of  you  as  a somewhat  atypical young  man." The doctor raises a coy admonishing  finger. "In  any case..." He  tapped  the  file  and  flashed  a  hideous  leer. Carl noticed that the file was  six inches  thick. In  fact it seemed  to  have  thickened  enormously since  he entered the room.

"Well,  when  I  was   doing  my   military  service... These  queers  used  to  proposition me  and sometimes... when I was blank..."

"Yes, of course, Carl," the doctor brayed heartily. "In your position I  would have  done the  same I  don't mind telling  you  heh  heh heh....  Well, E  guess we  can uh dismiss as  irrelevent these  uh understandable  means of replenishing  the  uh  exchequer.  And  now,  Carl,  there were  perhaps"  --  one  finger tapped  the file  which gave out a  faint effluvia  of moldy  jock straps  and chlorine- "occasions.  When   no  uh   economic  factors   were  in- volved."

A  green  Hare exploded  in Carl's  brain. He  saw Hans' lean  brown  body  --  twisting  towards him,  quick breath on  his  shoulder.  The  Hare went  out. Some  huge insect was squirming in his hand.

His  whole  being jerked  away in  an electric  spasm of revulsion.

Carl got to his feet shaking with rage.

"What are you writing there?" he demanded.

"Do  you often  doze off  like that?P  in the  middle of a conversation... P"

"I wasn't asleep that is."

"You weren't?"

"It's just that the whole thing is unreal.... I'm going now. I don't care. You can't force me to stay."

He  was  walking  across  the  room  towards  the  door. He  had  been  walking  a long  time. A  creeping numbness dragged his legs. The door seemed to recede.

"Where  can you  go, Carl?"  The doctor's  voice reached him from a great distance.

"Out... Away... Through the door..."

"The Green Door, Carl?"

The  doctor's  voice  was  barely  audible.   The  whole room was exploding out into space.

HAVE YOU SEEN PANTOPON ROSE

Stay away from Queens Plaza, son.... Evil spot haunted by dicks scream for dope Bend lover.... Too many levels.... Heat flares out from the broom closet high on ammonia... like burning lions... fall on poor old lush worker scare her veins right down to the bone. ...Her skin-pop a week or do that five-twenty-nine kick handed out free and gratis by NYC to jostling junkies....

So Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor beware.... Look down, look down along that line before you travail there....

The subway sweeps by with a black blast of iron....

-- Queens Plaza is a bad spot for lush workers.... Too many levels and lurking places for subway heat, and impossible to cover when you put the hand out....

Five months and twenty-nine days: sentence given for "jostling," that is, touching a Hop with obvious intent.... Innocent people may be convicted of murder but not of jostling.

Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor, old time, junkies and lush- workers of my acquaintance.... The old 103rd street klatch.... Sailor and Irish hanged themselves in the Tombs.... The Beagle is dead of an overdose and the Fag went wrong....

"Have you seen Pantopon Rose?" said the old junky. ..."Time to cosq," put on a black overcoat and made the square.... Down skid road to Market Street Museum shows all kinds masturbation and self-abuse. Young boys need it special....

The gangster in concrete rolls down the river chan- nel....  They  cowboyed  him in  the steam  room.... Is this Cherry  Ass Gio  the Towel  Boy or  Mother Gillig, Old  Auntie  of Westminster  Place?P Only  dead fingers talk in Braille....

The Mississippi rolls  great limestone  boulders down the silent alley....

"Clutter the glind!" screamed  the Captain  of Moving Land....

Distant  rumble  of  stomachs....   Poisoned  pigeons rain from  the Northern  Lights.... The  reservoirs are empty....  Brass  statues  crash  through   the  hungry squares and alleys of the gaping city....

Probing for a vein in the junk-sick morning....

Strictly from cough syrup...

A thousand junkies storm  the crystal  spine clinics, cook down the Grey Ladies....

In the limestone cave  met a  man with  Medusa's head in a hat  box and  said, "Be  Careful," to  the Customs Inspector....  Freezed  forever hand  an inch  from the false bottom....

Window  dressers  scream  through  the  station, beat the cashiers  with the  fairy hype....  (The Hype  is a short change con.... Also known as The Bill....)

"Multiple fracture," said the big  physician.... "I'm very technical...."

Conspicuous  consumption is  rampant in  the porticos slippery with Koch spit....

The centipede nuzzles  the iron  door rusted  to thin black paper by the urine of a million fairies....

This is no rich mother load, but vitiate dust, second run cottons trace the bones of a fix....

COKE BUGS

The  Sailor's  grey  felt  hat  and  black  overcoat  hung twisted   in  atrophied   yen-wait.  Morning   sun  outlined The  Sailor  in  the orange-yellow  flame of  junk. He  had a paper  napkin  under  his  coffee  cup --  mark of  those who do a lot of sitting over coffee in the  plazas, restaurants, terminals  and  waiting rooms  of the  world. A  junky, even at  the  Sailor's  level,  runs  on  junk  Time and  when he makes  his importunate  irruption into  the Time  of others, like  all  petitioners,  he  must  wait.  (How  many  coffees in an hour? )

A  boy  came in  and sat  at the  counter in  broken lines of  long,  sick  junk-wait.  The  Sailor shivered.  His face fuzzed  out  of  focus  in  a  shuddering  brown  mist.  His hands moved  on the  table, reading  the boy's  Braille. His eyes  traced little  dips and  circles, following  whorls of brown  hair on  the boy's  neck in  a slow,  searching move- ment.

The  boy  stirred  and  scratched  the  back of  his neck: "Something  bit  me,  Joe.  What kinda  creep joint  you run here?"

"Coke  bugs,  kid,"  Joe  said,  holding  eggs  up  to the light.  "I was  travelling with  Irene Kelly  and her  was a sporting  woman.  In  Butte,  state  of  Montany,   her  got the  coke  horrors  and  run  through  the  hotel  screaming Chinese  coppers  chase  her  with  meat  cleavers.  I  knew this cop in  Chi sniff  coke used  to come  in form  of cry- stals, blue  crystals. So  her go  nuts and  start screaming the  Federals  is  after  him  and run  down this  alley and stick his head in  the garbage  can. And  I said,  'What you think  you  are doing?  and her  say, 'Get  away or  I shoot you!  I got  myself led  good!' When  the roll  is called up yonder we'll be there, right?"

Joe looked at the Sailor  and spread  his hands  in the junky shrug.

The Sailor spoke in his feeling voice  that reassembles in your head, spelling out the  words with  cold fingers: "Your connection is broken, kid."

The  boy shied.  His street-boy  face, torn  with black scars  of junk,  retained a  wild, broken  innocence; shy animals peering out through grey arabesques of terror.

"I don't dig you, Jack."

The  Sailor leapt  into sharp,  junky focus.  He turned back his coat lapel, showing a brass hypo  needle covered with mold  and verdigris.  "Retired for  the good  of the service....  Sit  down  and  have  a blueberry  crumb pie on  the expense  account. Your  monkey loves  it.... Make his coat glossy."

The boy felt a touch on  his arm  across eight  feet of morning  lunch  room. He was  suddenly siphoned  into the booth, landing with  an inaudible  shlup. He  looked into the Sailor's eyes, a green universe stirred by cold black currents.

"You are agent, mister?"

"I prefer  the word...  vector." His  sounding laughter vibrated through the boy's substance.

"You holding, man? I got the bread...."

"I don't want your money, Honey: I want your Time."

"I don't dig."

"You   want   fix?  You   want  straight?   You  wanta, nooood?"

The  Sailor  cradled  something  pink and  vibrated out of focus.

"Yeah."

"We'll  take  the  Independent.  Got their  own special heat, don't carry guns only  saps. I  recall, me  and the Fag fell once in  Queen's Plaza.  Stay away  from Queen's Plaza,  son...  evil  spot...  fuzz  haunted.   Too  many levels.  Heat  Hares out  from the  broom closet  high on ammonia  like  burning  lions...  fall  on poor  old lush worker,  scare  her  veins  right down  to the  bone. Her skin pop a week or do  that five-twenty-nine  kick handed out free  and gratis  by NYC  to jostling  junkies.... So Fag,  Beagle,  Irish,  Sailor  beware!  Look  down,  look down along that line before you travel there...."

The  subway  sweeps  by  with  a  black blast  of iron.

THE EXTERMINATOR DOES A GOOD JOB

The  Sailor  touched  the  door gently,  following pat- terns of painted oak in a slow twist, leaving faint, iri- descent  whorls  of slime.  His arm  went through  to the elbow.  He  pulled back  an inside  bolt and  stood aside for the boy to enter.

Heavy, colorless smell of death filled the empty room.

"The  trap  hasn't  been  aired since  the Exterminator fumigated for coke bugs," said the Sailor apologetically.

The boy's peeled  senses darted  about in  frenzied ex- ploration.  Tenement  Hat,  railroad  Hat  vibrating with silent  motion.  Along one  wall of  the kitchen  a metal trough -- or was it metal, exactly? -- ran  into a  sort of aquarium or tank half-filled with translucent green fluid. Moldy  objects,  worn  out  in unknown  service, littered the  Boor: a  jock-strap designed  to protect  some delicate organ  of Hat,  fan-shape; multi-levelled  trusses, supports and  bandages;  a  large  U-shaped   yoke  of   porous  pink stone; little lead tubes cut open at one end.

Currents  of   movement  from   the  two   bodies  stirred stagnant  odor  pools; atrophied  boy-smell of  dusty locker rooms,   swimming   pool   chlorine,   dried   semen.  Other smells  curled  through  pink  convolutions,   touching  un- known doors.

The   Sailor   reached  under   the  wash-stand   and  ex- tracted  a  package  in  wrapping  paper  that  shredded and fell from his fingers in  yellow dust.  He laid  out dropper, needle  and  spoon  on  a table  covered with  dirty dishes. But no roach antennae felt for the crumbs of darkness.

"The  Exterminator  does  a  good  job," said  the Sailor. "Almost too good, sometimes."

He  dipped  into   a  square   tin  of   yellow  pyretheum powder  and  pulled  out  a  Hat  package  covered   in  red and gold Chinese paper.

"Like  a  firecracker  package,"   the  boy   thought.  At fourteen  lost  two  fingers....  Fourth  of  July  fireworks accident... later, in the hospital, first silent proprietary touch of junk.

"They go off, here,  kid." The  Sailor put  a hand  to the back  of  his  head.  He  camped  obscenely  as   he  opened the  package,  a  complex  arrangement  of  slots  and over- lays.

"Pure,  one  hundred  per  cent  H.  Scarcely  a   man  is now alive... and it's all yours."

"So what you want off me?"

"Time."

"I don't dig."

"I  have  something  you  want,"  his  hand  touched  the package. He  drifted away  into the  front room,  his voice remote  and   blurred.  "You   have  something   I  want... five  minutes  here...  an   hour  someplace   else...  two ...four...  eight...  Maybe  I'm   getting  ahead   of  my- self....  Every  day  die  a  little....  It  takes  up The Time...."

He  moved  back  into  the  kitchen,  his voice  loud and clear:  "Five  years a  piece. Nobody  gives a  better deal on  the  street."  He  put  a finger  on the  dividing line below the boy's nose. "Right down the middle."

"Mister, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You will, baby... in time."

"OK. So what do I do?"

"You accept?"

"Yeah,  like..."  He  glanced  at  the   package.  "What- ever... I accept."

The boy felt a silent black clunk fall through his flesh. The Sailor  put a  hand to  the boy's  eyes and  pulled out a  pink  scrotal egg  with one  closed, pulsing  eye. Black fur boiled inside translucent flesh of the egg.

The  Sailor  caressed  the   egg  with   nakedly  inhuman hands  --  black-pink, thick,  fibrous, long  white tendrils sprouting  from  abbreviated  finger  tips. Death  fear and Death  weakness  hit  the  boy,  shutting  off  his  breath, stopping  his  blood.  He  leaned   against  a   wall  that seemed to give slightly. He clicked back into junk focus.

The  Sailor  was  cooking  a  shot.  "When  the  roll  is called up yonder we'll be there,  right?" he  said, feeling along  the  boy's  vein,   erasing  goose-pimples   with  a gentle  old  woman  finger. He  slid the  needle in.  A red orchid bloomed at the bottom of  the dropper.  The Sailor pressed  the bulb,  watching the  solution rush  into the boy-vein, sucked by silent thirst of blood.

"Jesus!" said the boy. "I never been hit like  that be- fore!"

He  lit  a  cigarette  and  looked around  the kitchen, twitching  in  sugar  need. "Aren't  you taking  off?" he asked.

"With that milk sugar shit? Junk  is a  one-way street. No U-turn. You can't go back no more."

They call me the  Exterminator. At  one brief  point of intersection I did exercise  that function  and witnessed the belly dance  of roaches  suffocating in  yellow pyre- theum  powder  ("Hard  to  get now,  lady... war  on. Let you  have a  little.... Two  dollars.") Sluiced  fat bed- bugs from rose wall paper in shabby theatrical  hotels on North Clark and poisoned  the purposeful  Rat, occasional eater of human babies. Wouldn't you?

My  present  assignment:  Find  the  live ones  and ex- terminate.  Not the  bodies but  the "molds,"  you under- stand  --  but  I  forget that  you cannot  understand. We have all but a  very few.  But even  one could  upset our food tray. The  danger, as  always, comes  from defecting agents: A.J., the Vigilante, the Black Armadillo (carrier of Chagas vectors, hasn't taken a  bath since  the Argen- tine  epidemic  of  '35,  remember?  ),  and Lee  and the Sailor and Benway.  And I  know some  agent is  out there in  the  darkness  looking  for  me.  Because  all Agents defect and all Resisters sell out....

THE ALGEBRA OF NEED

"Fats"  Terminal  came  from  The  City   Pressure  Tanks where  open  life  jets  spurt  a million  forms, immediately eaten, the eaters cancelled by black time fuzz....

Few  reach  the  Plaza,  a  point  where The  Tanks empty a  tidal  river,  carrying  forms  of  survival   armed  with defences  of  poison  slime,  black,  flesh  rotting,  fungus, and  green  odors  that  sear  the lungs  and grab  the stom- ach in twisted knots....

Because  "Fats'"  nerves  were  raw  and  peeled  to feel the  death  spasms  of  a   million  cold   kicks....  "Fats" learned The Algebra of Need and survived....

One  Friday  "Fats"  siphoned  himself  into  The  Plaza, a  translucent-grey,  foetal  monkey,  suckers on  his little soft,  purple-grey  hands,  and  a  lamphrey  disk  mouth  of cold, grey gristle lined with hollow, black,  erectile teeth, feeling for the scar patterns of junk....

And  a  rich  man passed  and stared  at the  monster and "Fats"  rolled  pissing and  shitting in  terror and  ate his shit  and  the  man  was  moved  by   this  tribute   to  his potent  gaze  and  clicked  a  coin  out  of his  Friday cane (Friday  is  Moslem  Sunday  when   the  rich   are  supposed to distribute alms ).

So  "Fats"  learned  to  serve  The  Black Meat  and grew a fat aquarium of body....

And  his  blank,  periscope eyes  swept the  world's sur- face....  In  his  wake  of  addicts,  translucent-grey  mon- keys  Hashed  like  fish spears  to the  junk Mark,  and hung there  sucking and  it all  drained back  into "Fats"  so his substance  grew  and  grew  filling  plazas,  restaurants and waiting rooms of the world with grey junk ooze.

Bulletins  from  Party  Headquarters  are  spelled   out  in obscene  charades  by  hebephrenics   and  Latahs   and  apes, Sollubis   fart  code,   Negroes  open   and  shut   mouth  to Hash  messages  on  gold  teeth,   Arab  rioters   send  smoke signals  by  throwing  great  buttery  eunuchs  --   they  make the  best  smoke,  hangs  black  and shit-solid  in the  air -- onto  gasoline  fires  in  a  rubbish  heap,  mosaic  of melo- dies,   sad   Panpipes   of   humpbacked  beggar,   cold  wind sweeps  down  from   post  card   of  Chimborazzi,   flutes  of Ramadan,   piano   music  down   a  windy   street,  mutilated police  calls,  advertising  leaflet  synchronize  with street fight spell SOS.

Two  agents   have  identified   themselves  each   to  each by  choice  of  sex   practices  foiling   alien  microphones, fuck  atomic  secrets  back  and  forth  in  code  so  complex only  two  physicists  in  the  world  pretend  to  understand it  and  each  categorically  denies  the  other.   Later  the receiving  agent  will  be  hanged,  convict  of   the  guilty possession  of  a  nervous  system,  and  play  back  the mes- sage   in   orgasmal   spasms   transmitted   from  electrodes attached to the penis.

Breathing  rhythm  of   old  cardiac,   bumps  of   a  belly dancer,  put  put  put  of  a  motorboat  across  oily  water. The  waiter lets  fall a  drop of  martini of  the Man  in the Grey  Flannel  Suit,  who  lams  for  the  6:12  knowing  that he  has  been   spotted.  Junkies   climb  out   the  lavatory window  of  the  chop  suey  joint  as  the  El  rumbles past. The  Gimp,  cowboyed  in  the  Waldorf,   gives  birth   to  a litter  of  rats.  (Cowboy:  New  York  hood  talk  means kill the  mother  fucker  wherever  you  find  him. A  rat is  a rat is a rat is a rat. Is an informer. ) Foolish virgins  heed the English  colonel   who  rides   by  brandishing   a  screaming on his lance. The elegant fag patronizes his bar to receive a bulletin from Dead lives on in synapses and will evoke the exciting Beater. Boys jacking off in the school toilet know other as agents from Galaxy X, adjourn to a night spot where they sit shabby and por- drinking wine vinegar and eating lemons to the tenor sax, a hip Arab in blue glasses sus- to be Enemy Sender. The world network of junkies, on a cord of rancid jissom... tying up in fur- rooms... shivering in the sick morning... Old Pete men suck the Black Smoke in a Chink laun- back room. Melancholy Baby dies from an overdose Time or cold turkey withdrawal of breath -- in Arabia Paris -- Mexico City -- New York -- New Orleans -- ) The and the dead... in sickness or on the nod... or kicked or hooked again... come in on the beam and The Connection is eating Chop Suey Dolores Street... dunking pound cake in Bickfords . . chased up Exchange Place by a baying pack of Malarials of the world bundle in shivering Fear seals the turd message with a cunei- account. Giggling rioters copulate to the screams a burning Nigra. Lonely librarians unite in soul kiss halitosis. That grippy feeling, brother? Sore throat and disquieting as the hot afternoon wind? to the International Syphilis Lodge -- "Meth- Epithcopal God damn ith" (phrase used to test speech impairment typical of paresis ) or the first touch of chancre makes you a member in good The vibrating soundless hum of deep forest orgone accumulators, the sudden silence of cities when  the  junky  cops  and   even  the   Commuter  buzzes clogged lines of cholesterol for contact. Signal flares of orgasm  burst  over  the  world.  A  tea  head   leaps  up screaming "I got the  fear!" and  runs into  Mexican night bringing  down  backbrains  of   the  world.   The  Execu- tioner  shits  in terror  at sight  of the  condemned man. The Torturer screams in the ear of his  implacable victim. Knife  fighters  embrace  in adrenalin.  Cancer is  at the door with a Singing Telegram....

HAUSER AND O'BRIEN

When they walked  in on  me that  morning at  8 o'clock, I knew it was  my last  chance, my  only chance.  But they didn't  know.  How  could  they?  Just a  routine pick-up. But not quite routine.

Hauser  had  been  eating   breakfast  when   the  Lieu- tenant called: "I  want you  and your  partner to  pick up a  man  named  Lee,  William  Lee,   on  your   way  down- town. He's in the Hotel Lamprey. 103 just off B way."

"Yeah I know where it is. I remember him too."

"Good.  Room  606.  Just  pick him  up. Don't  take time to  shake  the  place  down.  Except  bring in  all books, letters, manuscripts. Anything printed, typed  or written. Ketch?"

"Ketch. But what's the angle.... Books... "

"Just do it." The Lieutenant hung up.

Hauser  and  O'Brien.  They  had been  on the  City Nar- cotic Squad for  20 years.  Oldtimers like  me. I  been on the junk for 16  years. They  weren't bad  as laws  go. At least  O'Brien  wasn't.   O'Brien  was   the  con   man,  and Hauser  the  tough  guy.  A   vaudeville  team.   Hauser  had a  way  of  hitting  you  before  he  said  anything  just to break  the  ice.  Then  O'Brien  gives  you  an  Old  Gold  -- just  like  a  cop   to  smoke   Old  Golds   somehow...  and starts  putting  down  a  cop  con  that  was  really bottled in bond.  Not a  bad guy,  and I  didn't want  to do  it. But it was my only chance.

I  was  just  tying  up  for  my  morning  shot  when  they walked in with  a pass  key. It  was a  special kind  you can use  even  when  the  door  is  locked  from the  inside with a  key  in  the  lock.  On  the table  in front  of me  was a packet of junk, spike,  syringe --  I got  the habit  of using a  regular  syringe  in  Mexico  and   never  went   back  to using a dropper -- alcohol, cotton and a glass of water.

"Well well," says O'Brien.... "Long time no see eh?"

"Put  on  your  coat,  Lee,"  says Hauser.  He had  his gun out.  He  always  has  it  out  when  he  makes  a  pinch for the psychological effect and to forestall a rush  for toilet, sink or window.

"Can  I  take  a  bang first,  boys?" I  asked.... "There's plenty here for evidence...."

I  was  wondering  how  I  could  get  to  my  suitcase  if they  said  no.  The  case  wasn't  locked,  but  Hauser  had the gun in his hand.

"He wants a shot," said Hauser.

"Now  you  know  we  can't  do  that,  Bill,"  said O'Brien in  his  sweet  con  voice,  dragging  out  the name  with an oily, insinuating familiarity, brutal and obscene.

He  meant,  of  course,  "What  can you  do for  us, Bill?" He  looked  at  me  and  smiled. The  smile stayed  there too long,  hideous  and  naked,  the  smile  of  an  old  painted pervert,  gathering  all the  negative evil  of O'Brien's ambiguous function.

"I might could set up Marty Steel for you," I said.

I  knew  they  wanted  Marty  bad.  He'd  been  pushing for  five  years,  and  they  couldn't  hang one  on him. Marty  was  an  oldtimer,  and  very  careful  about  who he  served.  He  had  to  know  a man  and know  him well before  he  would  pick  up  his  money.  No one  can say they  ever did  time because  of me.  My rep  is perfect, but  still  Marty  wouldn't  serve  me because  he didn't know me long enough. That's how skeptical Marty was.

"Marty?" said O'Brien. "Can you score from him?"

"Sure I can."

They  were suspicious.  A man  can't be  a cop  all his life without developing a special set of intuitions.

"O.K.," said Hauser finally. "But you'd better deliver, Lee."

"I'll deliver all right. Believe me I appreciate this."

I tied up for a  shot, my  hands trembling  with eager- ness, an archetype dope fiend.

"Just an old junky, boys, a harmless old  shaking wreck of  a junky."  That's the  way I  put it  down. As  I had hoped,  Hauser  looked  away   when  I   started  probing for a vein. It's a wildly unpretty spectacle.

O'Brien was sitting on the  arm of  a chair  smoking an Old  Gold,  looking  out  the  window  with  that  dreamy what I'll do when I get my pension look.

I hit  a vein  right away.  A column  of blood  shot up into the syringe for an instant sharp and solid as  a red cord. I  pressed the  plunger down  with my  thumb, feel- ing the junk  pound through  my veins  to feed  a million junk-hungry  cells,  to  bring  strength and  alertness to every  nerve  and  muscle.  They   were  not   watching  me. I filled the syringe with alcohol.

Hauser  was  juggling  his  snub-nosed  detective special, a  Colt,  and  looking  around  the  room.  He  could  smell danger  like  an  animal  With  his  left  hand   he  pushed the  closet  door  open  and  glanced  inside.   My  stomach contracted.  I  thought, "If  he looks  in the  suitcase now I'm done."

Hauser  turned   to  me   abruptly.  "You   through  yet?" he  snarled. "You'd  better not  try to  shit us  on Marty." The  words  came  out  so  ugly  he  surprised  and  shocked himself.

I  picked  up the  syringe full  of alcohol,  twisting the needle to make sure it was tight.

"Just two seconds," I said.

I  squirted  a  thin  jet of  alcohol, whipping  it across his  eyes  with  a  sideways  shake of  the syringe.  He let out a bellow of pain.  I could  see him  pawing at  his eyes with  the left  hand like  he was  tearing off  an invisible bandage  as I  dropped to  the floor  on one  knee, reaching for my suitcase.  I pushed  the suitcase  open, and  my left hand  closed  over  the  gun  butt  --  I am  righthanded but I  shoot  with  my  left  hand.  I  felt  the  concussion of Hauser's  shot  before  I  heard it.  His slug  slammed into the  wall  behind  me.  Shooting from  the floor,  I snapped two  quick  shots  into  Hauser's belly  where his  vest had pulled  up  showing  an  inch  of  white  shirt.  He grunted in  a  way  I  could  feel and  doubled forward.  Stiff with panic,  O'Brien's  hand  was  tearing  at  the  gun  in  his shoulder  holster.  I  clamped  my  other  hand   around  my gun wrist to steady it for the long pull -- this gun  has the hammer  Bled  off  round  so  you  can  only  use  it double action -- and shot him in the middle  of his  red forehead about two inches below the silver hairline. His  hair had been grey  the last  time I  saw him.  That was  about 15 years ago. My first arrest. His eyes went out. He fell off the chair onto his face. My  hands were  already reaching for what I needed,  sweeping my  notebooks into  a brief- case with my works, junk, and  a box  of shells.  I stuck the gun into my belt, and stepped  out into  the corridor putting on my coat.

I could hear  the desk  clerk and  the bell  boy pound- ing up the stairs. I took the self-service elevator down, walked through the empty lobby into the street.

It  was  a  beautiful  Indian  Summer  day.  I  knew  I didn't have much chance,  but any  chance is  better than none, better than  being a  subject for  experiments with ST (6) or whatever the initials are.

I had to stock up  on junk  fast. Along  with airports, R.R.  stations and  bus terminals,  they would  cover all junk areas and connections. I took  a taxi  to Washington Square,  got  out  and  walked  along  4th Street  till I spotted  Nick  on  a  corner.  You  can  always  find the pusher. Your need conjures him up like a  ghost. "Listen, Nick," I said, "I'm  leaving town.  I want  to pick  up a piece of H. Can you make it right now?"

We  were  walking  along   4th  Street.   Nick's  voice seemed to drift  into my  consciousness from  no particu- lar place. An eerie, disembodied voice.  "Yes, I  think I can make it. I'll have to make a run uptown."

"We can take a cab."

"O.K., but I can't take you in to  the guy,  you under- stand."

"I understand. Let's go."

We were in the cab heading North. Nick was talking in his Bat, dead voice.

"Some funny stuff we're getting lately. It's not weak exactly.... I don't know.... It's different. Maybe they're putting some synthetic shit in it.... Dollies or something...."

"What!!!? Already?"

"Huh?... But this I'm taking you to now is O.K. In fact it's about the best deal around that I know of.

. Stop here."

"Please make it fast," I said.

"It should be a matter of ten minutes unless he's out of stuff8 and has to make a run.... Better sit down over there and have a cup of coffee.... This is a hot neighborhood."

I sat down at a counter and ordered coffee, and pointed to a piece of Danish pastry under a plastic cover. I washed down the stale rubbery cake with coffee, praying that just this once, please God, let him make it now, and not come back to say the man is all out and has to make a run to East Orange or Green- point.

Well here he was back, standing behind me. I looked at him, afraid to ask. Funny, I thought, here I sit with perhaps one chance in a hundred to live out the next 24 hours -- I had made up my mind not to surrender and spend the next three or four months in death's waiting room. And here I was worrying about a junk score. But I only had about five shots left, and without junk I would be immobilized.... Nick nodded his head.

"Don't give it to me here," I said. "Let's take a cab."

We took a cab and started downtown. I held out my hand  and  copped the  package, then  I slipped  a fifty- dollar bill into Nick's palm. He glanced at it and showed his gums  in a  toothless smile:  "Thanks a  lot.... This will put me in the clear...

I sat  back letting  my mind  work without  pushing it. Push your  mind too  hard, and  it will  fuck up  like an overloaded switch-board, or turn on you with sabotage.

And  I  had  no  margin  for  error.  Americans  have a special horror of giving up control, of  letting things happen  in  their  own  way  without  interference.  They would like to jump  down into  their stomachs  and digest the food and shovel the shit out.

Your  mind  will  answer  most  questions if  you learn to  relax  and  wait for  the answer.  Like one  of those thinking machines, you feed in  your question,  sit back, and wait....

I  was  looking  for  a  name.  My  mind   was  sorting through  names,  discarding  at  once  F.L.--  Fuzz Lover, B.W.--  Born  Wrong,  N.C.B.C.--  Nice  Cat   But  Chicken; putting aside to reconsider, narrowing,  sifting, feeling for the name, the answer.

"Sometimes,  you  know,  he'll  keep  me  waiting three hours. Sometimes I make  it right  away like  this." Nick had a  deprecating little  laugh that  he used  for punc- tuation. Sort of  an apology  for talking  at all  in the telepathizing world of  the addict  where only  the quan- tity  factor  --  How much  $P How  much junk?  -- requires verbal expression.  He knew  and I  knew all  about wait- ing. At all levels the drug trade operates without sched- ule.  Nobody  delivers  on time  except by  accident. The addict  runs on  junk time.  His body  is his  clock, and junk runs through it like an  hour-glass. Time  has mean- ing  for  him  only with  reference to  his need.  Then he makes his abrupt intrusion into the  time of  others, and, like all Outsiders, all Petitioners, he must  wait, unless he happens to mesh with non-junk time.

"What  can  I  say  to  him?  He  knows I'll  wait," Nick laughed.

I  spent  the  night  in  the Ever  Hard Baths  -- (homo- sexuality is the best all-around cover story an  agent can use)  -- where  a snarling  Italian attendant  creates such an  unnerving  atmosphere  sweeping  the   dormitory  with infra red see in the dark fieldglasses.

("All  right  in  the  North  East  corner! I  see you!" switching on floodlights, sticking his head  through trap- doors in the  floor and  wall of  the private  rooms, that many a queen has been carried out in a straitjacket.... )

I  lay  there  in my  open top  cubicle room  looking at the  ceiling...  listened  to the  grunts and  squeals and snarls  in  the  nightmare  halflight  of  random,  broken lust....

"Fuck off you!"

"Put  on  two  pairs of  glasses and  maybe you  can see something!"

Walked  out  in  the  precise   morning  and   bought  a paper....   Nothing....   I   called   from   a  drugstore phone booth... and asked for Narcotics:

"Lieutenant Gonzales... who's calling?"

"I  want  to  speak  to  O'Brien."  A moment  of static, dangling wires, broken connections...

"Nobody of that name in this department..          . Who are you?"

"Well let me speak to Hauser."

"Look, Mister, no O'Brien no  Hauser in  this bureau. Now what do you want?"

"Look, this is important.... I've got  info on  a big shipment of H coming in....  I want  to talk  to Hauser or  O'Brien....  I  don't  do  business   with  anybody else...."

"Hold on.... I'll connect you with Alcibiades."

I began to wonder  if there  was an  Anglo-Saxon name left in the Department....

"I want to speak to Hauser or O'Brien."

"How  many  times  I have  to tell  you no  Hauser no O'Brien in this  department.... Now  who is  this call- ing?"

I hung up and took a taxi out of the area....  In the cab  I  realized  what  had  happened....  I  had  been occluded  from  space-time like  an eel's  ass occludes when  he  stops  eating  on  the  way  to  Sargasso.... Locked  out....  Never  again  would  I  have a  Key, a Point  of  Intersection....  The Heat  was off  me from here  on out...  relegated with  Hauser and  O'Brien to a landlocked junk past where  heroin is  always twenty- eight dollars an ounce and you can score for yen pox in the  Chink  Laundry  of  Sioux  Falls....  Far  side of the world's mirror,  moving into  the past  with Hauser and  O'Brien...  clawing  at  a  not-yet  of Telepathic Bureaucracies,  Time  Monopolies, Control  Drugs, Heavy Fluid Addicts:

"I thought of that three hundred years ago."

"Your  plan  was  unworkable  then  and  useless now. ...Like Da Vinci's Hying machine plans...."

ATROPHIED PREFACE

WOULDN'T YOU?

Why all this waste paper getting The People from one place to another? Perhaps to spare The Reader stress of sudden space shifts and keep him Gentle? And so a ticket is bought, a taxi called, a plane boarded. We are allowed a glimpse into the warm peach-lined cave as She (the airline hostess, of course) leans over us to murmur of chewing gum, dramamine, even nembutal.

"Talk paregoric, Sweet Thing, and I will hear."

I am not American Express.... If one of my people is seen in New York walking around in citizen clothes and next sentence Timbuktu putting down lad talk on a gazelle-eyed youth, we may assume that he ( the party non-resident of Timbuktu) transported himself there by the usual methods of communication..

Lee The Agent (a double-four-eight-sixteen) is taking the junk cure... space time trip portentously familiar as junk meet corners to the addict... cures past and future shuttle pictures through 'his spectral substance vibrating in silent winds of accelerated Time.... Pick a shot.... Any Shot....

Formal knuckle biting, floor rolling shots in a precinct cell.... "Feel like a shot of Heroin, Bill? Haw Haw Haw."

Tentative half impressions that dissolve in light . pockets of rotten ectoplasm swept out by an old junky coughing and spitting in the sick morning..

Old violet brown photos that curl and crack like mud in the sun: Panama City... Bill Gains putting down the paregoric con on a Chinese druggist.

"I've got these racing dogs... pedigree greyhounds.

. All sick with the dysentery... tropical climate

. the shits... you sabe shit?... My Whippets Are Dying...." He screamed.... His eyes lit up with blue fire.... The flame went out... smell of burning metal.... "Administer with an eye dropper.

Wouldn't you?... Menstrual cramps... my wife... Kotex... Aged mother... Piles .. raw... bleeding..." He nodded out against the counter.... The druggist took a tooth-pick out of his mouth and looked at the end of it and shook his head....

Gains and Lee burned down the Republic of Panama from David to Darien on paregoric.... They Hew apart with a shlupping sound.... Junkies tend to run together into one body.... You have to be careful especially in hot places.... Gains back to Mexico City.... Desperate skeleton grin of chronic junk lack glazed over with codeine and goof balls... cigarette holes in his bathrobe... coffee stains on the floor... smoky kerosene stove... rusty orange flame...

The Embassy would give no details other than place of burial in the American Cemetery....

And Lee back to sex and pain and time and Yage, bitter Soul Vine of the Amazon....

I recall once after an overdose of Majoun (this is Cannabis dried and finely powdered to consistency of green powdered sugar and mixed with some confection or other usually tasting like gritty plum pudding, but the choice of confection is arbitrary...  ). I  am return- ing  from  The  Lulu  or  Johny   or  Little   Boy's  Room (stink  of  atrophied  infancy  and toilet  training) look across the living room  of that  villa outside  Tanger and suddenly  don't  know where  I am.  Perhaps I  have opened the  wrong  door  and  at  any  moment  The  Man  In  Pos- session,  The  Owner  Who  Got  There  First will  rush in and scream:

"What Are Yon Doing Here? Who Are You?"

And  I  don't  know  what  I  am doing  there nor  who I am. I decide  to play  it cool  and maybe  I will  get the orientation   before  the   Owner  shows....   So  instead of  yelling  "Where  Am I?"  cool it  and look  around and you  will   find  out   approximately....  You   were  not there for The  Beginning. You  will not  be there  for The End....  Your  knowledge  of  what  is  going on  can only be superficial  and relative....  What do  I know  of this yellow  blighted  young  junky  face  subsisting   on  raw opium?  I  tried  to  tell  him:  "Some  morning  you will wake up with your liver in  your lap"  and how  to process raw opium so it is not  plain poison.  But his  eyes glaze over  and he  don't want  to know.  Junkies are  like that most  of  them  they  don't  want   to  know...   and  you can't  tell  them  anything....  A  smoker   doesn't  want to  know  anything  but  smoke....   And  a   heroin  junky same  way....  Strictly  the  spike  and  any  other route is Farina....

So I guess he is still sitting there in his 1920 Spanish villa outside Tanger eating  that raw  opium full  of shit and stones and straw... the  whole lot  for fear  he might lose something....

There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing. . . .  I am a recording instrument.... I do not pre- sume to impose "story" "plot" "continuity."...In sofaras I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function.... I am not an entertainer....

"Possession" they call it.... Sometimes an entity jumps in the body -- outlines waver in yellow orange jelly -- and hands move to disembowel the passing whore or strangle the nabor child in hope of alleviating a chronic housing shortage. As if I was usually there but subject to goof now and again.... Wrong! I am never here.... Never that is fully in possession, but some- how in a position to forestall ill-advised moves.... Patrolling is, in fact, my principle occupation.... No matter how tight Security, I am always somewhere Outside giving orders and Inside this straight jacket of jelly that gives and stretches but always reforms ahead of every movement, thought, impulse, stamped with the seal of alien inspection....

Writers talk about the sweet-sick smell of death whereas any junky can tell you that death has no smell

. at the same time a smell that shuts off breath and stops blood... colorless no-smell of death... no one can breathe and smell it through pink convolutions and black blood filters of flesh... the death smell is unmistakably a smell and complete absence of smell

smell absence hits the nose first because all or- ganic life has smell... stopping of smell is felt like darkness to the eyes, silence to the ears, stress and weightlessness to the balance and location sense....

You always smell it and give it out for others to smell during junk withdrawal.... A kicking junky can make a whole apartment unlivable with his death smell... but a good airing will stink the place up again so a body can breathe.... You also smell it during one of those oil burner habits that suddenly starts jumping geometric like a topping forest fire....

Cure is always: Let go! Jump1

A friend of mine found himself naked in a Marrakech hotel room second floor.... (He is after processing by a Texas mother who dressed him in girl's clothes as a child.... Crude but effective against infant proto- plasm.... ) The other occupants are Arabs, three Arabs... knives in hand... watching him . glint of metal and points of light in dark eyes . pieces of murder falling slow as opal chips through gly- cerine... Slower animal reactions allow him a full second to decide: Straight through the window and down into the crowded street like a falling star his wake of glass glittering in the sun... sustained a broken ankle and a chipped shoulder... clad in a diaphanous pink curtain, with a curtain-rod staff, hobbled away to the Commissariat de Police....

Sooner or later The Vigilante, The Rube, Lee The Agent, A. J., Clem and Jody The Ergot Twins, Hassan O'Leary the After Birth Tycoon, The Sailor, The Exter- minator, Andrew Keif, "Fats" Terminal, Doc Benway, "Fingers" Schafer are subject to say the same thing in the same words to occupy, at that intersection point, the same position in space-time. Using a common vocal apparatus complete with all metabolic appliances that is to be the same person -- a most inaccurate way of expressing Recognition: The junky naked in sunlight...

The writer sees himself reading to the mirror as always... He must check now and again to reassure himself that The Crime Of Separate Action has not, is not, cannot occur....

Anyone who has ever looked into a mirror knows what this crime is and what it means in terms of lost control when the reflection no longer obeys.... Too late to dial P o l i c e....

I personally wish to terminate my services as of now in that I cannot continue to sell the raw materials of death.... Yours, sir, is a hopeless case and a noisome one....

"Defense is meaningless in the present state of our knowledge, said The Defense looking up from an elec- tron microscope....

Take your business to Walgreen's

We are not responsible

Steal anything in sight

I don't know how to return it to the white reader

You can write or yell or croon about it... paint about it... act about it... shit it out in mobiles.

. So long as you don't go and do it, .

Senators leap up and bray for the Death Penalty with inflexible authority of virus yen.... Death for dope fiends, death for sex queens (I mean fiends) death for the psychopath who offends the cowed and graceless flesh with broken animal innocence of lithe move- ment....

The black wind sock of death undulates over the land, feeling, smelling for the crime of  separate life, movers of the  fear-frozen flesh  shivering under  a vast probability curve....

Population  blocks  disappear  in  a  checker  game of genocide.... Any number can play....

The Liberal  Press and  The Press  Not So  Liberal and The Press  Reactionary Scream  approval: "Above  all the myth of other-level  experience must  be eradicated...." And  speak  darkly  of  certain harsh  realities... cows with the aftosa... prophylaxis....

Power  groups of  the world  frantically cut  lines of connection....

The Planet drifts to random insect doom....

Thermodynamics has won at a crawl..             Orgone balked at the post.... Christ bled..            Time ran out....

You can cut into Naked Lunch at any intersection point.... I have written many prefaces. They atrophy and amputate spontaneous like the little toe amputates in a West African disease confined to the Negro race and the passing blonde shows her brass ankle as a mani- cured toe bounces across the club terrace, retrieved and laid at her feet by her Afghan Hound....

Naked Lunch is a blueprint, a How-To Book.. Black insect lusts open into vast, other planet land- scapes.... Abstract concepts, bare as algebra, narrow down to a black turd or a pair of aging cajones..

How-To extend levels of experience by opening the door at the end of a long hall.... Doors that only open in Silence.... Naked Lunch demands Silence from The Reader. Otherwise he is taking his own pulse....

Robert Christie knew The Answering Service.. Kill the old cunts... keep pubic hairs in his locket ...wouldn't you?

Robert Christie, mass strangler of women -- sounds like a daisy chain -- hanged in 1953.

Jack The Ripper, Literal Swordsman of the 1890s and never caught with his pants down... wrote a letter to The Press.

"Next time I'll send along an ear just for jolly.. Wouldn't you?"

"Oh be careful! There they go again!" said the old queen as his string broke spilling his balls over the floor.... 'Stop them will you, James, you worthless old shit! Don't just stand there and let the master's balls roll into the coal-bin!"

Window   dressers  scream   through  the   station,  beat the cashiers with the Fairy Hyp.

Delaudid  deliver  poor  me   (Delaudid  is   souped  up, dehydrate morphine).

The  sheriff  in black  vest types  out a  death warrant: "Gotta make it legal and exempt narcotic...."

Violation   Public   Health   Law  334...   Procuring  an orgasm by the use of fraud....

Johnny  on  all  fours  and  Mary  sucking  him  and run- ning  her  fingers  down  the  thigh  backs  and  light over the outfields of the ball park....

Over  the  broken  chair and  out through  the tool-house window  whitewash  whipping  in  a  cold  Spring   wind  on a  limestone  cliff over  the river...  piece of  moon smoke hangs in China blue  sky... out  on a  long line  of jissom across the dusty floor....

Motel... Motel .            Motel .     broken neon arabesque...  loneliness   moans  across   the  continent like fog horns over still oily water of tidal rivers....

Ball squeezed  dry lemon  rind pest  rims the  ass with a  knife  cut  off  a piece  of hash  for the  water pipe- bubble bubble -- indicate what used to be me..

"The river is served, sir."

Dead leaves fill  the fountain  and geraniums  run wild with  mint,  spill  a  vending  machine route  across the lawn....

The  aging  playboy  dons  his 1920  autograph slicker, feeds  his  screaming  wife  down   the  garbage-disposal unit....  Hair,  shit  and  blood spurt  out 1963  on the wall.... "Yes sir, boys, the shit really  hit the  fan in '63," said 'the tiresome  old prophet  can bore  the piss out of you in any space-time direction....

"Now  I  happen  to  remember because  it was  just two year  before  that  a  strain  of human  aftosa developed in a Bolivian lavatory  got loose  through the  medium of a  Chinchilla  coat fixed  an income  tax case  in Kansas City....   And  a   Liz  claimed   Immaculate  Conception and  give  birth  to  a  six-ounce spider  monkey through the  navel....  They say  the croaker  was party  to that caper had the monkey on his back all the time..

I,  William  Seward,  captain of  this lushed  up hash- head  subway,  will  quell  the  Lock  Ness  monster with rotenone  and  cowboy  the  white  whale.  I  will reduce Satan  to  Automatic  Obedience,  and  sublimate subsidi- ary fiends. I will banish the candiru from  your swimming pools.--  I  will issue  a bull  on Immaculate  Birth Con- trol....

"The  oftener  a  thing   happens  the   more  uniquely wonderful it is," said the  pretentious young  Nordic on the trapeze studying his Masonic home work.

"The Jews don't believe in  Christ, Clem....  All they want to do is doodle a Christian girl...."

Adolescent  angels  sing  on  shithouse  walls  of the world.

"Come and jack off..." 1929.

"Gimpy push milk sugar shit...         " Johnny Hung Lately 1952

(Decayed   corseted  tenor   sings  Danny   Deever  in drag.... )

Mules don't foal in this decent  county and  on hooded dead gibber in the ash pits.... Violation  Public Health Law 334.

So  where  is  the  statuary  and the  percentage? Who can  say?  I  don't  have  The   Word....  Home   in  my douche  bag...  The King  is loose  with a  flame thrower and the  king killer,  tortured in  effigy of  a thousand bums, slides down skid row to shit in the limestone ball court.

Young Dillinger walked straight out  of the  house and never looked back....

"Don't  ever  look  back, kid....  You turn  into some old cow's salt lick."

Police bullet in the alley... Broken wings  of Icarus, screams of  a burning  boy inhaled  by the  old junky... eyes empty as a  vast plain...  ( vulture wings  husk in the dry air).

The  Crab,  aged  Dean  Of Lush  Workers, puts  on his crustacean  suit  to prowl  the graveyard  shift... with steel claws pulls the gold teeth and  crowns of  any Hop sleep  with  his  mouth  open....  If  the Hop  comes up on  him  The  Crab  rears  back  claws snapping  to offer dubious battle on the plains of Queens.

The Boy Burglar, fucked in the long jail term, ousted from  the  cemetery  for  the non-payment,  comes gibber- ing into the queer bar with a moldy  pawn ticket  to pick up the back balls  of Tent  City where  castrate salesmen sing the IBM song.

Crabs frolicked through his forest...  wrestling with the angel hard-on all night, thrown in  the homo  fall of valor, take a back road to the rusty limestone cave.

Black  Yen  ejaculates  over  the salt  marshes where nothing grows not even a mandrake....

Law  of  averages...  A  few  chickens...   Only  way to live....

"Hello, Cash."

"You sure it's here?"

"Of course I'm sure.... Go in with you."

Night train to Chi... Meet a girl in  the hall  and I see she is on and ask where is a score?

"Come in sonny."

I mean not a young chick but built...       "How about a fix first?"

"Ixnay, You wouldn't be inna condition."

Three  times  around...  wake  up  shivering  sick in warm  Spring  wind  through   the  window,   water  burns the eyes like acid....

She  gets  out of  bed naked....  Stach in  the Cobra lamp.... Cooks up....

"Turn over.... I'll give it to you in the ass."

She slides the needle in deep, pulls it out  and mas- sages the cheek....

She licks a drop of blood off her finger.

He  rolls  over with  a hard-on  dissolving in  the grey ooze of junk.

In  a  vale  of  cocaine  and innocence  sad-eyed youths yodel for a lost Danny Boy....

We  sniffed  all  night  and made  it four  times... fin- gers  down  the  black  board...  scrape  the  white bone. Home  is the  heroin home  from the  sea. and  the hustler home from The Bill....

The  Pitchman  stirs  uneasily:  "Take  over  here  will you, kid? Gotta see a man about a monkey."

The  Word  is  divided into  units which  be all  in one piece and should be so taken,  but the  pieces can  be had in any  order being  tied up  back and  forth, in  and out fore  and aft  like an  innaresting sex  arrangement. This book spill off the page in all directions, kaleidescope of vistas, medley of tunes and street noises, farts  and riot yipes  and  the  slamming  steel  shutters   of  commerce, screams  of  pain  and  pathos  and screams  plain pathic, copulating  cats  and  outraged  squawk  of  the displaced bull  head,  prophetic  mutterings  of  brujo   in  nutmeg trances,  snapping  necks  and  screaming  mandrakes, sigh of orgasm,  heroin silent  as dawn  in the  thirsty cells, Radio  Cairo  screaming  like  a berserk  tobacco auction, and  flutes  of  Ramadan  fanning  the  sick  junky  like a gentle  lush  worker  in  the  grey  subway  dawn  feeling with delicate fingers for the green folding crackle..

This  is  Revelation  and  Prophecy of  what I  can pick up  without  FM  on  my  1920  crystal  set  with antennae of  jissom....  Gentle  reader,  we  see  God  through our assholes   in   the  Hash   bulb  of   orgasm....  Through these  orifices  transmute  your  body....  The   way  OUT is the way IN....

Now I, William Seward, will unlock my word horde.

. My Viking heart fares over the great brown river where motors put put put in jungle twilight and whole trees float with huge snakes in the branches and sad- eyed lemurs watch the shore, across the Missouri field (The Boy finds a pink arrowhead) out along distant train whistles, comes back to me hungry as a street boy don't know to peddle the ass God gave him.... Gentle Reader, The Word will leap on you with leopard man iron claws, it will cut off fingers and toes like an opportunist land crab, it will hang you and catch your jissom like a scrutable dog, it will coil round your thighs like a bushmaster and inject a shot glass of rancid ecto- plasm.... And why a scrutable dog?

The other day I am returning from the long lunch thread from mouth to ass all the days of our years, when I see an Arab boy have this little black and white dog know how to walk on his hind legs.... And a big yaller dog come on the boy for affection and the boy shove it away, and the yaller dog growl and snap at the little toddler, snarling if he had but human gift of tongues: "A crime against nature right there."

So I dub the yaller dog Scrutable.... And let me say in passing, and I am always passing like a sincere Spade, that the Inscrutable East need a heap of salt to get it down... Your Reporter bang thirty grains of M a day and sit eight hours inscrutable as a turd.

"What are you thinking?" says the squirming Ameri- can Tourist....

To which I reply: "Morphine have depressed my hypothalamus, seat of libido and emotion, and since the front brain acts only at second hand with back-brain titillation, being a vicarious type citizen can only get his kicks from behind, I must report virtual absence of cerebral event. I am aware of your presence, but since it has for me no affective connotation, my affect having been disconnect by the junk man for the non-payment, I am not innarested in your doings.... Go or come, shit or fuck yourself with a rasp or an asp -- tis well done and fitting for a queen -- but The Dead and The Junky don't care.... " They are Inscrutable.

"Which is the way down the aisle to the water closet?" I asked the blonde usherette.

"Right through here, sir.... Room for one more in- side."

"Have you seen Pantopon Rose?" said the old junky in the black overcoat.

The Texas sheriff has killed his complicit Vet., Brow- beck The Unsteady, involved in horse heroin racket.

. A horse down with the aftosa need a sight of heroin to ease his pain and maybe some of that heroin take off across the lonesome prairie and whinny in Washington Square.... Junkies rush up yelling: "Heigh oOO Silver."

"But where is the statuary?" This arch type bit of pathos screeched out in tea-room cocktail lounge with bamboo decorations, Calle Juarez, Mexico, DF.... Lost back there with a meatball rape rap... a cunt claw your pants down and you up for rape that's statutory, brother....

Chicago calling... come in please... Chicago calling... come in please.... What you think I got the rubber on for goulashes in Puyo? A mighty wet place, reader....

"Take it off! Take it off1"

The  old  queen  meets himself  coming round  the other way  in  burlesque  of  adolescence,  gets the  knee from his  phantom  of   the  Old   Old  Howard...   down  skid row  to  Market  Street  Museum  shows all  kinds mastur- bation and self-abuse... young boys need it special....

They was  ripe for  the plucking  forgot way  back yon- der in the corn hole... lost in little scraps  of delight and burning scrolls....

Read the metastasis with blind fingers.

Fossil message of arthritis...

"Selling  is more  of a  habit than  using." --  Lola La Chata, Mexico, DF.

Sucking  terror  from  needle scars,  underwater scream mouthing  numb  nerve  warnings  of  the  yen   to  come, throbbing bite site of rabies...

"If God made anything better he  kept it  for himself," the  Sailor  used  to say,  his transmission  slowed down with twenty goof balls.

(Pieces  of  murder  fall  slow  as opal  chips through glycerine. )

Watching  you  and  humming  over  and  over  "Johnny's So Long At The Fair."

Pushing in a small way to keep up our habit..

"And use that alcohol,"  I say  slamming a  spirit lamp down on the table.

"You fucking can't -- wait -- hungry junkies all the time black  up  my  spoons  with  matches....  That's   all  I need for pen  Indef. the  heat rumbles  a black  spoon in the trap....

"I thought you was quitting....   Wouldn't feel right fucking up your cure.

"Takes a lot of guts to kick a habit, kid."

Looking for veins in the thawing flesh. Hour-Glass of junk spills its last black grains into the kidneys....

"Heavily infected area," he muttered, shifting the tie up.

"Death was their Culture Hero," said my Old Lady looking up from the Mayan Codices.... "They got fire and speech and the corn seed from death.... Death turns into a maize seed."

The Ouab Days are upon us

raw pealed winds of hate and mischance

blew the shot.

"Get those fucking dirty pictures out of here," I told her. The Old Time Schmecker supported himself on a chair back, juiced and goof-balled... a disgrace to his blood.

"What are you one of these goof-ball artists?"

Yellow smells of skid row sherry and occluding liver drifted out of his clothes when he made the junky ges- ture throwing the hand out palm up to cope...

smell of chili houses and dank overcoats and atro-

phied testicles....

He looked at me through the tentative, ectoplasmic flesh of cure... thirty pounds materialized in a month when you kick... soft pink putty that fades at the first silent touch of junk.... I saw it happen... ten pounds lost in ten minutes... standing there with the syringe in one hand... holding his pants up with the other

sharp reek of diseased metal.

Walking in a rubbish heap to the sky... scattered gasoline fires... smoke hangs black and solid as excre- ment in the motionless air... smudging the white film of noon heat... D.L. walks beside me... a reflection of my toothless gums and hairless skull . flesh smeared over the rotting phosphorescent bones consumed by slow cold fires... He carries an open can of gasoline and the smell of gasoline envelopes him.

.Coming over a hill of rusty iron we meet a group of Natives... Hat two-dimension faces of scavenger fish....

"Throw the gasoline on them and light it....

QUICK...

white Hash... mangled insect screams .

I woke up with the taste of metal in my mouth back from the dead

trailing the colorless death smell

afterbirth of a withered grey monkey

phantom twinges of amputation...

"Taxi boys waiting for a pickup," Eduardo said and died of an overdose in Madrid....

Powder trains burn back through pink convolu-

tions of tumescent flesh... set off flash bulbs of

orgasm... pin-point photos of arrested motion

smooth brown side twisted to light a ciga-

rette....

He stood there in a 1920 straw hat somebody gave him... soft mendicant words fallings like dead birds in the dark street....

"No... No more... No mas..."

A heaving sea of  air hammers  in the  purple brown dusk tainted with rotten metal smell of  sewer gas... young worker faces vibrating out  of focus  in yellow halos of carbide lanterns... broken pipes exposed....

"They are rebuilding the City."

Lee nodded absently.... "Yes... Always..."

Either way is a bad move to The East Wing..

If I knew I'd be glad to tell you....

"No  good...   no  bueno...   hustling  myself...."

"No glot... C'lom Fliday"

Tangier, 1959.