The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead

by William S. Burroughs

  I lay down with my legs up to Xolotl. He slides the fish inside me and everything was blue swimming away into the sky and I did it to him sometimes he is Xolotl grabbed from behind head back whining in his throat could hear myself whimpering face in his out into the night stars glow there with soft blue fire when I squirted my river of running water and vines. Light and biting flies on my leg I couldn’t feel them leg like wood except when I moved he screamed sharp fire it was broken limestone pain in animal’s leg the dead around like birdcalls rain in my face I didn’t want to stay I see the pot and twisted hut. Xolotl, I had a dream my friend Xolotl laughed on the overseer’s throat Xolotl my legs up to Xolotl kicking off into the sky. For a while longer my head against a tree. I held out my hands no more power left in them head against a tree it was cold on my eyes moon that night solid I could touch almost couldn’t get the leg was broken and teeth tore past the bones at me begging for help pictures all cut up knife had fallen I lay there my pieces moved and shifted against a tree I spit up from my stomach green when day came and mist steamed up to the top of the high tree just under the leaves at the top and looking down I could see my body lying there the leg all twisted and the face caved in lips drawn back showing teeth I could see and hear but I couldn’t talk without a throat without a tongue sun moon and stars on the face down there worms in the leg weeds growing through the bones. I stayed in the treetops. When I tried to get above the trees something held me back I couldn’t move from the clearing to go above it or out to the sides. Without words there is no time. I don’t know how long it was. Once some Indians came and built a big hut and planted manioc and fished in the river. I came down to watch them at night when the men did it with the women in the hammocks I would get between their legs feeling a soft net pulling me closer and closer. I knew that if I got in the man’s eggs and spurted into a woman I would be helpless in the net. So I stayed away up in the treetops. Or I tried to get close to the boys and young men when they were away from the women. Once by the river two boys were stiff laughing and pointing to each other they made a line in the sand and stood side by side and started rubbing themselves I got close between their legs and one of them saw me and screamed and the two boys ran back to the hut. An old man took the vine and said an evil spirit lived in the clearing. They went away and the hut fell in. After that I came down and lived in the cool stones and the vines rain sunshine a long time I was there I didn’t go into the treetops any more because I knew I could not get above them and I didn’t try to leave the clearing any more I stayed in stones and vines and tree trunks near the ground couldn’t get any further feeling the net pulling me and teeth tearing through his gums I know that if I fear begging for help the women I will be helpless in the yellow light running into them the dead around like birdcalls helpless in the net rubbing himself and I got hands pumped it for a while my head saw me and screamed the bones at me begging for help under the stones and vines I could see my body lying there empty I couldn’t talk without a throat the face down there worms in the leg twisted back two boys

  laughing off into the sky. I held out my hands. “NO.” Ran back to the hut. Begging for something held me long long how long it was. Dust of the dead gods like cobwebs in the air.

  Then pictures come that leave footprints. They come in boats with motors behind them. A man a woman a thin pale boy and six Indians with them. They have boxes and tools and hammocks and tents and set up their tents on the sand bar. The Indians clear away the trees in the old clearing and the man finds the ruined temple. They begin digging and bring out pots and flints and statues. The boy sleeps in a tent by himself. I was careful not to show myself at first. He fishes in the river and I follow him. Sometimes he turns around quick and looks behind him he can feel me there and I dodge into a tree. He goes and looks at the tree and walks around it and touches it. A full moon that night. I went to the boy’s tent. Inside he was lying naked on his cot it was stiff between his legs he was rubbing himself. I was very close now between his legs he looked down and saw me there. He opened his mouth and I thought he might scream but he smiled and wriggled and went on rubbing himself wanting me to watch him do it. I got into his eggs squeezing through the soft tubes tighter tighter spurting gasping looking down at the hot white juice on my stomach seeing it through his eyes. I am the boy as a child lying naked on his underwear rubbing himself dust of the dead in his eyes. The pale skies fell apart. Suburban streets afternoon light bleakly clear rusting key. I left by the back door with the dust of a thousand years. I buy the dead child a sandwich. An American boy here alone. Listen I made a wrong move finding that golf course to say “sir” and pretend to be the dead child. Way was blocked of course.

  Pilot lands there was his shadow … He was a caddy it seems … his smile across the golf course … sepia hair stirs in September wind … urine in narrow streets … slow finger … magazines … arched in gold letters solid boy out of the page … dim jerky his penis ejaculates … dawn smell of strange boy … naked thighs and buttocks … forgotten ribs rising on the bed … sepia picture boy getting browned on hands and knees in the wet grass knees stained distant lips parted.

  Late visitor peculiar smile adroit gaze from object to object usually there was no difficulty. Does he know? “Dim in here” said the doctor … morning smell of the golf course … a ruin … pilot lands there was nuts … dim shadow … vacant eyes … he was a caddy it seemed stained with grass … water on the boy’s legs … lean boy by the pool … quivering legs in the blue morning … feeling the sky rock … flickering dawn film stops … transparent hands fading leaned down pointing … “It’s off.” You see this? Couldn’t find the microwaves … golf course … a ruin … Pilot lands there in September wind … slow fingers touched his thighs and buttocks … magazines … stained page … gasping feeling the cock up … transparent hand … laughing comparing movements … “Does he?” … morning smell … sepia nuts … dawn wind between his legs … dim shadow vacant eyes arched in gold letters … distant lips twisted slow smile … the florist shop … knees flickering … leaned down pointing … you know this pain shifting outlines? You see this boy? Forgotten ribs gasping … teeth bared … agony in his eyes … pictures of war …

  “Just Call Me Joe”

  The American Crusade of 1976 … Chorus of youthful laughter and machine-gun noises … A medley of 1920 tunes … Boyish voices sing: “Meet me in St Louie Louie” … Flickering silver titles on screen … General Lewis Greenfield played by himself … Major William Bradshinkle played by Ishmael Cohen … The Mayor played by Green Tony … The CIA man played by Charles Ahearn … His two assistants played by Henry Coyne and Joe Rogers … The young lieutenant played by Jerry Wentworth … Wild boys played by native boys on locations …

  A grimy red-brick building. National Guard Post 23 St Louis Missouri. Through a dusty barred window the gymnasium where businessmen in their middle and late thirties are learning Karate judo and commando tactics. The officers puff and lunge and throw each other awkwardly. Clearly some of them will require the services of a skilled osteopath in the foreseeable future. Vista of sagging bellies and fat buttocks in the locker room as the officers in various states of undress practice the holds … “No it works like this.” Country club party table loaded with food and drinks. A guard officer has had one too many. He approaches a portly guest … “Bovard, I could kill you in twenty seconds … ten as a matter of fact … like this … I put my elbow against your Adam’s apple throw a knee into your left kidney and bring the heel of my hand up sharp under your chin.”

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” The two men reel, lose balance and fall overturning the table of food. They roll around flailing at each other in a welter of lobster Newburgh, chicken salad, punch and baked Alaska.

  “In the inland cities of America, men who are entering on middle age dream of a great task a great mission. They find a leader and a spokesman in General Lewis Greenfield.”

  General Greenfield on a white horse speaks from the
top of Art Hill. He is a pompous red-faced man of fifty with a clipped white mustache.

  Click of cameras.

  “Over there.” He points eastward with a statuesque arm. “Across the Atlantic is a sink of iniquity … A latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah. The reports compiled by our intelligence operators are difficult for decent people to believe” … Camera shows the CIA man, a tape recorder slung around his neck rests on his paunch. Naked youths flash on screen smoking hashish … “You may say that what happens in a foreign land is no concern of ours. But the vile tentacles of that evil are reaching into decent American homes” … Suburban couple in the boy’s room school banners on the wall. They are reading a note

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  I am going to join the wild boys. When you read this I will be far away.

  Johnny

  “All over America kids like Johnny are deserting this country and their great American heritage suborned by the false promises of Moscow into a life of drugs and vice. I say to you all that wherever anarchy, vice and foul corruption rears the swollen hood of a cobra to strike at everything we hold sacred, the very heart of America is threatened. Can we stand idly by while our youth, the very lifeblood of this great nation, drains away into foreign sewers? Can we stand idly by while the stench of corruption draws ever closer to our own borders?” … Members of the audience cough and cover their faces with handkerchiefs … “This plague is spreading in every direction as deadly in its workings as anything in the world. I am personally subscribing ten million dollars for an expedition to crush the obscene thing once and for all.”

  “The press takes it up of course. National guard units of every state in the union send officers and men. Thousands of volunteers have to be turned away. Who are these volunteers? Well I guess you could call them plain ordinary American folk, decent tax-paying citizens fed up with Godless anarchy and vice. You all know the Wallace folks cop on the corner guy next door.”

  Scenes from World War I as the soldiers take leave of their loved ones.

  “Over there over there over there

  The Yanks are coming

  the Yanks are coming And we won’t come back till it’s over over there”

  Crap games on the troopship. The boys are glad to be away from their wives in an atmosphere of rough male camaraderie. Touch down at Casa red carpets, brass band, the Mayor there with keys of the city. Dinner for the officers in the Mayor’s house. The Mayor speaks through an interpreter. “He say very glad Americans here. He say wild boys very bad cause much trouble. Police here not able do anything.” As the interpreter talks plates are heaped with steak, catfish, turkey, mashed potatoes, ham and eggs, hominy grits, fried chicken, hush puppies, hog jowl and turnip greens all stacked on top of each other. The camera picks out a young captain.

  “The young captain is thinking ‘why these are good people like people in America are good. I guess good people are the same the world over, it’s just as simple as that!’”

  “He say after dinner when ladies go he tell you things what wild boy do. He say time for big cleanup. He say Americans like vacuum cleaner.”

  The interpreter bellows in imitation of a Hoover. The officers chuckle politely all except the CIA man and his two assistants who look sour and suspicious.

  The ladies have left. “He say” … sound track cuts to silent film.

  Music from “The Afternoon of a Faun.” Nude youths smoking hashish. A runaway American boy is led in. He looks around and blushes bright red. A bare arm passes him a hashish pipe. He smokes, coughs, then begins to laugh. Crazed by hashish he peels off his shirt. He unbuckles his belt. “That’s enough” says General Greenfield gruffly pulling at his mustache. The officers look at each other then look away in embarrassment clearing their throats. They gulp brandy with one accord. Servants rush forward to fill the glasses which are emptied again and again.

  “Well I guess we know now what we’re up against” says the General huskily. “Jesus think of decent American kids … Why it could happen to your kid or mine …”

  Deeply moved the young captain excuses himself and steps into the garden.

  “He is proud of being an American. Proud of the decent American thing he is doing. Why when he thinks of those queers and dope freaks …”

  A naked youth from the film appears in front of him. He swings wildly at a privet hedge and cuts his hand to the bone. He looks at his bloody hand.

  “As we advance toward Marrakech cheering crowds strew flowers in our path.”

  Cheering faces turn cold and blank behind American backs. Cheering boys in this scene later appear in wildboy roles. Two English officers watch the parade. One states flatly “They are the poorest excuse for soldiers I have ever seen.”

  “Arriving in Marrakech we are met by the Mayor, a fat smiling Italian.”

  “JUST CALL ME JOE” he says.

  “He has put the officers’ corps up in his villa. It makes me uneasy the guards everywhere with tommy guns looking us over.”

  The guards appear in shots from 1920 gangster films, black Cadillacs careening down city streets.

  “And I can’t tell him enough about my Eyetie buddies in the service, the one who got it in Vietnam I act it all out and die on the floor in my own arms taking both parts even the Eyeties were embarrassed but respectful too I’d outgroveled them one. Then we sit down to a good spaghetti dinner and I am telling the Mayor about Joe Garavelli’s in St Louis spaghetti and roast-beef sandwiches after the skating rink.”

  The old broken point of origin St Louis Missouri. Mark and John, the Dib, Jimmy the Shrew, wild boys skating to old tunes and waltzes. The Blue Danube, Over the Waves, My Blue Heaven, Those Little White Lies, Stardust, What’ll I Do with Just A Photograph To Remind Me of You, Tonight You Belong To Me, Meet Me In St Louie, Louie spinning lawn sprinklers, country clubs, summer golf courses, frogs in 1920 roads, cool basement toilets, a boy’s twitching foot, the Varsity Drag, iced tea and fried chicken at The Green Inn, classrooms, silver stars, the old family soap opera … “When evening is nigh” … the dark city dying sun naked boy hugging his knees … “I hurry to my” … music across the golf course a crescent moon cuts the film sky … “blue heaven” … “The night that you told me” … decent people know they are right … “those little white lies” … White white white as far as the eye can see ahead a blinding flash of white fed up with Godless anarchy and corruption the cabin reeks of exploded stars. Made machine-gun noises as he came “Look the Milky Way” … “But that was long ago and now my inspiration is in the stardust of the sky” … dim jerky faraway stars the drawer stuck his distant hand there it is just to my shoulder … “What’ll I do when you are far away” … far pale sun colored photo unbuttoned his shirt … “and I am blue” … colored photo has something written on it … “What’ll I do with just a photograph” … “Vuelvete y aganchete” … “to remind me of you” … trying to focus to remember face on the grimy pillow … “If I had a talking picture of you” … “Abrupt question brought me Mister” … “I would play it every time I felt blue” … street shadows in his eyes … “I would give ten shows a day” … Mark squirms his shorts off … “and a midnight matinee” … standing in the dark room the boy said “I’ve come a long way” … “Oh! with the dawn I know you’ll be gone” … dust of young hand fading flickering thighs and buttocks … “But tonight you belong to me” … dawn shirt on the bed smell of young nights urine in the gutter click of distant heels … “Meet me in St Louie Louie” … The broken point of origin St Louis Missouri muscle magazines over the florist shop pants down sad old soap opera. Johnny steps into the shower. Two boys turn with knowing smiles. What he sees turns Johnny’s face bright red feeling the red pull in his groin sunsets freckles autumn leaves sun cold on a thin boy with freckles silver paper in the wind frayed sounds of a distant city. The boys are taking off their skates. They go across the Street to Joe Garavelli’s. Faraway spaghetti roast-beef sandwiches the camera stops Joe’s silver smile.
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  “You would have liked Joe” I am telling the Mayor.

  Joe Garavelli and the Mayor sit at a kitchen table. Joe’s fat smiling wife brings up a bottle of red wine from the cellar.

  “Those tommy guns in the corridor aren’t the only thing makes me uneasy. It’s Joe himself. I’ve seen him before.”