Cities of the Red Night

by William S. Burroughs

After two weeks, his family was worried. They waited another week then called the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. A man checked his address, and the landlady said he had packed and left almost three weeks ago. A police check of hotel registration in Progreso turned up nothing. It had now been about six weeks with no word.

  Several possibilities had occurred to me: He may have gone on some alternate dig. Postal service in rural Mexico is practically nonexistent. Probably there was no more involved than two or three lost letters. I was inclined to favor some such simple explanation. I had no special feelings about this case and felt sure I could locate young Everson without much difficulty. I decided to knock off and take in a porn flick.

  It was good, as porn flicks go—beautiful kids on screen—but I couldn’t understand why they had so much trouble coming. And all the shots were stylized. Every time a kid came all over a stomach or an ass, he rubbed the jism around like tapioca.

  I left in the middle of a protracted fuck, and walked down Third Avenue to the Tin Palace for a drink.

  There was a hippie with a ratty black beard at one end of the bar and I could smell Marty on him—that cold gray smell of the time traveler. I’d seen him around before. The name is Howard Benson. Small-time pusher, pot and C and occasional O. Lives somewhere in the neighborhood. He caught my eye, drank up and hurried out.

  I gave him a few seconds’ start and tailed him to a loft building on Greene Street. I waited outside until his light went on, picked the front-door lock and went in. I had an Identikit picture of Marty with me that Jim drew. It looks like a photo. I was going to show it to this Howard and say it was a picture of a murder suspect, and see what I could surprise or bluff out of him.

  His loft was on the third floor. I knocked loud and long. No answer. I could feel somebody inside. “Police!” I shouted. “Open the door or we’ll break it down!” Still no answer. Well, that would keep the neighbors out of the hall.

  It took me about two minutes to get the door open. I walked in. There was somebody there, all right. Howard Benson was lying on his face in a pool of blood. The murder weapon was there too: a bloody pipe threader that had smashed in the back of his head.

  I took a quick look around. There was a filthy pile of bedding in one corner and a phone beside it, some tools, dusty windows, a splintery floor. Benson was lying in front of an old-fashioned safe which was open. A dead gray smell hung in that loft like a fog. Marty was there.

  The whole scene was like something out of the 1890s. I bent down and sniffed at the open safe. Faint but unmistakable, the fever smell. I got a nail. It stuck to the sides of the safe. The walls were magnetized. Jerry’s head had been in that safe.

  Quickly I drew a circle around the safe, seeing the head as clearly as I could inside. I repeated the words and touched the absent head three times with the amulet that Dimitri had given me. A tingle ran up my arm.

  Half an hour later, I was sitting in O’Brien’s office. His boss, Captain Graywood, was also there. Graywood was a tall blond man with thick glasses and a blank expression.

  “You want the whole story, then?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  I told them most of it, what I knew about Marty, and showed them the picture. I told them about Dimitri finding the body and about Adam North’s story. Captain Graywood never changed his expression. Once or twice O’Brien turned into his brother, the priest. When I had finished he took a deep breath.

  “Quite a story, Clem. We’ve had cases like that … and worse things too: torture, castration … cases that don’t get into the papers or into the courts.”

  Captain Graywood said, “So it is your theory that the head was brought here as a potent magical object?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are convinced that the head was in that safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why do you think the body was addressed to South America?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Ecuador is headhunter country, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is logical to assume then that someone planned to reunite the head and the body in South America.”

  “I think so.”

  “You haven’t told us everything.”

  “I’ve told you what I know.”

  “This Marty … Dimitri’s men never saw him?”

  “No.”

  “But you could see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t arrest a ghost,” said O’Brien.

  “Well, if he can make himself solid enough to beat someone’s brains out with a pipe wrench, you might be able to.… Question of being there at the right time.”

  EVEN THE COCKROACHES

  Una cosa me da risa

  Something makes me laugh

  Pancho Villa sin camisa

  Pancho Villa takes his shirt off

  The Cucaracha, where Kiki worked as a waiter, had “La Cucaracha” on the jukebox. It’s a basement restaurant, with a small bar and a few tables. It was 11:00 P.M. and the place was empty. I hadn’t seen Kiki since I interviewed him on the Green case. Looking very handsome in a worn dinner jacket, he was leaning against the bar, talking to the bargirl. She does a striptease act uptown on weekends which is a thing to see.

  Because old Pancho shakes the dirt out

  I shook hands with Kiki, ordered a margarita, and sat down, and right on cue a cockroach crawled across the table. When Kiki brought the margarita I pointed to the cockroach and said, “He’s getting his marijuana and getting it steady.”

  “Sí,” said Kiki absently, and brushed the cockroach away with his towel.

  I looked around and saw there was one other diner by the door. I hadn’t noticed him when I came in. He was sitting alone and reading a book called Thin Air about a top-secret navy project to make a battleship and all the sailors on it disappear. It was supposed to confuse the enemy; however, all the test sailors went crazy. But CIA men were made of sterner stuff and found it modern and convenient to “go zero” as they call it in a tight spot.

  Porque no tiene

  Because he doesn’t have

  Porque le falta

  Because he lacks

  Marijuana por fumar

  Marijuana to smoke

  On the wall were bullfight posters and The Death of Manolete. The poisonous colors made me think of arsenic green and the flaking green paint in the WC. It’s a big picture and must be worth a lot of money, like a wooden Indian or Custer’s Last Stand, which the Anheuser-Busch Company used to give out to their customers. I remember as an adolescent being excited by the green naked bodies sprawled about ass-up, getting scalped by the Indians, and especially a story about one man who played dead while he was being scalped and so escaped.

  I drank the margaritas and ordered a combination plate and went to the green room. When I came back, “Thin Air” was gone. Kiki came and sat with me and had a Carta Blanca. I told him Jerry was dead.

  La cucaracha la cucaracha

  “Cómo?”

  “How?”

  “Ahorcado.”

  “Hanged.”

  Ya no quiere caminar

  Doesn’t want to run round anymore

  “Nudo?”

  “Naked?”

  “Sí.”

  “Yes.”

  Kiki nodded philosophically and a face leered out, the face of a middle-aged man with a cast in the right eye. This must be Kiki’s macambo magic master, I decided.

  “It was his destiny,” Kiki said. “Look at these.” He spread some postcards circa 1913 out on the table. The photos showed soldiers hanged from trees and telephone poles with their pants down around their ankles. The pictures were taken from behind. “Pictures get him very hot. He want me pull scarf tight around his neck when he come.” Kiki made a motion of pulling something around his neck.

  “Jerry’s spirit has got into my assistant. Only you can call him out.”

  “Why me?”

  “Jerry’s spir
it has to obey you because you fuck him the best.”

  Kiki’s eyes narrowed with calculation and he drummed on the table with his fingertips. I was thinking I could use an interpreter on this trip … after all, expense account. My Spanish is half-assed and in any case he could find out more than two nosy gringos.

  “Like to come along with us to Mexico and South America?”

  I named a figure. He smiled and nodded. I wrote the address of my loft on a card and handed it to him. “Be there at eleven in the morning. We make magic.”

  * * *

  When I got back to the loft Jim was there, and I explained that we were going to perform this ritual to get Jerry’s spirit out.

  He nodded. “Yeah, he’s half in and half out and it hurts.”

  * * *

  Next day Kiki showed up with a bundle of herbs and a head of Elleggua in a hatbox. As he was setting up his altar, lighting candles and anointing the head, I explained that he would fuck Jim and evoke Jerry to bring Jerry all the way in—and then I had good strong magic to exorcise the spirit. Kiki watched with approval, one magic man to another, as I set up the altar for the noon ritual and lit the incense. It was ten minutes before noon.

  “Todos nudos ahora.”

  Kiki was wearing red shiny boxer shorts, and when he slipped them off he was half-hard. Jim was stiff and lubricating. I drew a circle around our bodies. We were facing south for the noon ritual and I had set up a red candle for fire, which was Jerry’s element. The amulet was on the altar and there was a tube of KY by the unguent jar.

  “When I say ahora, fuck him.”

  Kiki picked up the KY and moved behind Jim, who leaned forward over the altar, hands braced on knees. Kiki rubbed KY up Jim’s ass and hitched his hands around Jim’s hips, contracting his body as his cock slid in. Jim gasped and bared his teeth. His head and neck turned bright red and the cartilage behind his right ear swelled into a pulsing knot.

  Holding the amulet, I took a position on the other side of the altar. Jerry’s face was in front of me now, as the red color spread down Jim’s chest and his nipples pulsed erect. His stomach, crotch and thighs were bright red now, and the rash spread down his calves to his toes and the fever smell reeked out of him. His head twisted to the right as I touched the amulet to the crown of his head, to the forehead between the eyes, and to the cartilage behind both ears.

  “Back to earth. Back to air. Back to fire. Back to water.”

  For a split second Jerry’s face hung there, eyes blazing green light. A reek of decay filled the room. Someone said “Shit” in a loud voice. We carried Jim to a couch. Kiki got a wet towel and rubbed his chest, face, and neck. He opened his eyes, sat up, and smiled. The decay smell was gone. So was the fever smell.

  * * *

  At two o’clock O’Brien called: “Well, I think we’ve found your head for you—or what’s left of it. Can’t be sure until we check the dental work.…”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “At the airport. Crate labeled MACHINE PARTS sent by air freight and addressed to a broker in Lima, Peru, to be picked up by Juan Mateos. The crate was being loaded onto the plane when the workmen accidentally dropped it and it split open. It was airtight and strongly built … it just happened to fall right on a seam. They tell me the stink was enough to knock a man down. One of them puked all over the crate.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “At noon. We sent along a duplicate crate and contacted the Lima police to tail anyone who calls for it.”

  “Was the crate lined with magnetized iron?”

  “Yes. We duplicated that too. The Lima police have two men planted in the customs broker’s to watch anyone who calls for other crates in case he tries to check out the head crate in any way. A compass would tell him it is magnetized. We’ve got a wax head inside, so even with X-ray equipment…”

  “Very good. You seem to have thought of everything. But just one more point: an object like that gives out very strong psychic vibrations that a sensitive could pick up on.… You might tell them to watch especially for an adolescent who comes for another crate and touches or brushes up against the head crate.”

  “That’s already been done. Captain Graywood told them to watch for an errand boy who might brush against the crate, especially with his ass or his crotch.”

  O’Brien said this in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it were routine procedure. Dimitri, Graywood, and now O’Brien. Who the hell were these so-called cops?

  FIRECRACKERS

  There are about thirty boys staying in Skipper Nordenholz’s “Palace,” as we call it. The number fluctuates from day to day as people come in from other settlements or set out on various missions. Mr. Thomas has taken The Great White and sailed with a small crew. His assignment is, as always, to recruit people with special skills.

  The boys cook in the communal kitchen or on the patio. Here the Arab boys roast meat over charcoal fires and bake bread in clay ovens. Food is plentiful. We set traps for fish in the river and in the bay. A short walk into the jungle and I can shoot wild turkey and grouse and occasionally a deer. River fish can also be kept in the fishpond until needed.

  We are all up at dawn for a breakfast of eggs, fruit, and bread. Then after a short rest there is instruction in bare-hand fighting given by Japanese and Chinese youths: the use of stick, chain, and staff, different styles of swordsmanship, and knife fighting. An Indian Thuggee gives lessons in the strangling cord. He belongs to a dissident magical brotherhood known as the Secret Stranglers who have separated themselves from the worship of Kali.

  I take particular interest in archery since the bow can deliver more projectiles in less time than the guns we are making. I have made a number of crossbows to sell in the store so that the Indians will be able to duplicate the design. These bows are not as heavy as the usual crossbows and it is quite easy to pull and cock the bow by hand. I am more interested in speed of fire than in armor-piercing strength.

  Dink Rivers excels at the martial arts. After a few lessons he is able to equal his instructors in proficiency. He explains that once general body control is mastered, any physical skill can be learned almost at once. He has promised to show me the secrets of body control but he says that the time has not yet come. “I get my orders in dreams and whatever happens in my dreams then has to happen when I wake up.” Often he does not sleep in the Palace and Hans tells me he has a hut about half a mile down the coast.

  One night I dream I am sitting with Dink when he looks at me and says, “I think you should see this,” pulling down his shorts to reveal his half-erect phallus. I wake up in a state of great excitement and Dink says that the time is approaching. In preparation I must abstain from sex for three days.

  At the end of this period, during which I had not seen him, he appeared in my room during the siesta hour and led the way out through the gate and along a path by the sea. We are quite close to the hut before I can see it, built in a clump of trees and shrubs, painted green and blending with the surroundings. The house is built of parts salvaged from grounded ships.

  Inside it is cool and dark, smelling of pitch. The house consists of a single room furnished like a ship’s cabin, containing a chest, a rolled-up pallet, and two low stools of driftwood. We take off our clothes, hanging them on wooden pegs and he indicates that I am to sit opposite him on one of the stools, our knees touching. He looks silently into my eyes and I feel a tightness and weakness in the chest.

  He is getting stiff and so am I, the feeling of weakness now like death in the throat as we both are fully erect. Silver spots boil in front of my eyes and I have a feeling of squeezing into his nuts and cock as I lie on the pallet and Dink fucks me.

  Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star.

  “Middletown isn’t like the town where you came from. There are no Mrs. Nortons sniffing a
round for the scent of whiskey and sin. We do not allow people like her in Middletown. To an outsider, Middletown is just a pretty little place, stone houses along a clear river. Nice friendly folk. But strangers don’t stay unless we can adjust them to our ways. For those who must remain outside there is no land for sale and no work.

  “Middletown is run by a magical brotherhood. You will hear about white and black lodges, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Believe me, there is no such sharp line. However, the Middletown Brothers would not allow themselves to be placed in a position where they would need to use the usual methods of black magic. Once you achieve body control you don’t need that.

  “There is no formal initiation into the Brotherhood. Initiation comes through dream guides. At the age of fourteen, when I began to have dreams that culminated in ejaculation, I decided to learn control of the sexual energy. If I could achieve orgasm at will in the waking state, I could do the same in dreams and control my dreams instead of being controlled by them.

  “To accomplish sexual control, I abstained from masturbation. In order to achieve orgasm, it is simply necessary to relive a previous orgasm. So while awake, I would endeavor to project myself into sexual dreams, which I was now having several times a week. It was some months before I acquired sufficient concentration to get results.

  “One day I was lying naked on my bed, feeling a warm spring wind on my body and watching leaf shadows dance on the wall. I ran through a sex dream like reciting my ABCs when suddenly silver spots boiled in front of my eyes and I experienced a feeling of weakness in the chest—the dying feeling—and I am slipping into my self in the dream and go off.

  “Having brought sexual energy under control I now had the key to body control. Errors, fumbles, and ineptitudes are caused by uncontrolled sexual energy which then lays one open to any sort of psychic or physical attack. I went on to bring speech under control, to be used when I want it, not yammering in my ear at all times or twisting tunes and jingles in my brain.