The Ticket That Exploded

by William S. Burroughs

  Leafing through the GOD files . . Ref. The Big Survey page 71: “Monday May 9” chills light fever . . my brain feels like all the connections are burnt out . . electric sex prickles . . The Garden of Delights kinda run down now charred wooden beams blue and pink tinsel dirty pictures flapping in the wind smell of coal gas . . heavy darkness of underexposed film has settled in that gloomy valley . . The body of a hanged man the rope around his neck is laying across the trap of a wooden gallows.. Carl standing there..

  “You led me into this ambush?”

  He laughed and threw himself back on a bunk tossing his legs in the air, “What and me so young and genial?” a male with female laughter.

  I walked away from him in disgust. Two guards were there one named “Rose.” “Rose” was the more communicative and friendly and I asked him about the hanged man I had seen. He shrugged . . “Thought he would learn something . . his pants . . the plague.”

  I had walked up a slight incline. The garden was built in a valley quite bare except for scrub and vines. The whole place presented the sordid and run-down appearance of an abandoned carnival.

  “Who planned all this?” I asked

  The other guard answered: “Maybe it was him,” pointing to Carl. “He will show you his country card in the end and the end is you hang on Tuesday.”

  Furniture stacked up for storage or removal and I find an old Webley 455 revolver in a dusty desk drawer. Standing there with the gun in my hand and Carl laughed again. The first bullet smashed into a beam a quarter-inch from his neck. Wood splinters spattered the young cheek with red dots. He rubbed a hand across his face and looked at the blood. He stopped laughing and looked at me his mouth a little open. At the second shot a jet of black liquid from the gun hit him in the mouth. His face turned black and old and he sagged against the beam muttering: “sleeping pills.”

  “genial”? hummm an odd word to use . . Ah here we are . . ref. East Beach File page 156: “This is a novel presented in a series of oblique references . . shave? . . did he? . . an amputation . . three young burglars one wearing a black overcoat stopped on the stairs by two English detectives . . One of the thieves is nicknamed Genial. .”

  I put through a call to Scotland yard . . “Inspector Murdock please.”

  “Who shall I say is calling sir?”

  “Klinker.”

  “Just ‘Klinker’ sir?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Oh hello Lee what can I do for you?”

  “Anybody in your files nicknamed ‘Genial’?”

  “Hold on I’ll check ...” I put in another six pence waiting. “Yes here we are . . name Terrence Weld . . age 20 . . 5 feet 11 inches . . ten stone . . hair sandy . . eyes green . . known M.P. . . arrested three times suspected of breaking and entering.. no convictions ...”

  “How did he get that nickname?”

  “smooth talker . . cool . . laughs a lot . . well genial on the surface at least.”

  “I see . . anything else?”

  “Well yes . . about two years ago a chap named Harrison John Harrison hanged himself in the barn of his country place near Sandhill . . Harrison was living with young Weld at the time . . Weld was picked up in Harrison’s car . . That’s how it came to our attention . . needless to say no charges ..”

  “Needless to say . . Was Weld staying with Harrison in his country place at the time of Harrison’s death?”

  “No he was in London.”

  “Nothing to connect him with Harrison’s death?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  “Anything unusual about Harrison’s suicide?”

  “Well yes . . He’d rigged up a gallows with a drop . . must have taken half an hour to build.”

  “Anything else?”

  pause . . cough . . “The body was completely naked.”

  “You’re sure he was alone at the time?”

  “Quite sure . . It’s a small town . . easy to check.”

  “And his clothes . . all in a heap?”

  “Neatly folded.”

  “And the tools he used?”

  “Each tool returned to its place . . the barn was used as a workshop . . Carpentry was one of Harrison’s hobbies.”

  “Did Harrison own a tape recorder?”

  “How should I know? If you’re all that interested I can give you a number to call in the S.B.”

  “Seems odd they should be interested in a routine suicide.”

  “A lot of the things they do seem odd to the rest of us. I do know they spent some time on the case . . Ask for Extension 12 . . Mr Taylor.”

  I could tell by the way he repeated the name Mr Taylor knew who I was

  “Yes Mr Lee?”

  “I’d like some information about a man named Harrison who killed himself two years ago . . country place near Sandhill..”

  “I remember the case . . rather not talk over the phone . . Can you meet me this evening in the Chandoo Bar? around six?”

  Mr Taylor was dressed in a light-blue suit the shoulders so broad as to give an impression of deformity . . little scar where a harelip had been corrected . . red face . . light-blue eyes. We found a quiet corner. Mr Taylor ordered a Scotch Old Fashioned.

  “John Harrison was 28 at the time of his death . . He was fairly well off . . flat in Paddington . . country place . . interested in the occult . . wrote bad poetry . . . painted bad pictures . . good at carpentry though . . made his own furniture.”

  “Did he own a tape recorder?”

  “Yes he owned three tape recorders arranged with extension leads so he could play or record from one to the other. They were in the Paddington flat.”

  “You heard his tapes?”

  He drank half his drink. “Yes I heard his tapes and read his diary. He seems to have been obsessed with hanging . . the sexual aspects you understand.”

  “That is not so unusual . . when you consider the extensions . .”

  He finished his drink. “No it’s not so unusual and that is precisely what concerns this department.”

  “Did you interview a young man named Terrence Weld in this connection?”

  “Young ‘Genial’? Yes I interviewed that specimen.”

  “He was genial?”

  “Impeccably so. I considered him directly responsible for Harrison’s death. When I told him so he said

  “‘What and me so young?’

  “Exactly. And then he laughed.”

  “Interesting sound.”

  “Very.”

  “You recorded it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Rather stupid on his part wouldn’t you say so?”

  “Not stupid exactly. He simply doesn’t think the way we do. Perhaps he can’t help laughing like that even when it would seem to be very much to his disadvantage to do so.”

  “I would suggest that ‘Genial’ is that laugh . . only existence ‘Genial’ has.”

  “Infectious laughter what? Yes he’s a disease . . a virus. There have been other cases. We try to keep it out of the papers.”

  “And cases that no one hears about? Perhaps the operation has been brought to the point where actual hanging is no longer necessary . . death attributed to natural causes . . or the victim is taken over by the virus . . ‘Genial’ himself may well have been ‘hanged’.”

  “I’d thought of that of course. What we are dealing with here is a biologic weapon used by what powers and for what precise purpose we don’t know yet.”

  “Also an ideal weapon for individual assassinations. Any reason why anyone might have wanted Harrison out of the way?”

  “None whatever. He simply was not important. I concluded that his death was purely experimental.”

  “Was ‘Genial’ paid off?”

  “It would seem so. He went to America shortly after I talked with him.”

  “Still there?”

  “No he’s back in London.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “Yes. He didn’t recognize me . . on junk and
barbiturates . . looks ten years older . . down for the count I’d say . . But any one ‘Genial’ isn’t important plenty more where he came from: out of a tape recorder.”

  “You made copies of Harrison’s tapes?”

  “Yes. Play them for you if you like.”

  Taylor’s flat was compact carpeted . . a desk a typewriter two filing cabinets a long table by the window with four tape recorders connected by extension leads He pointed to the recorders . . “I got the idea from Harrison’s setup.”

  “Did Harrison install the recorders himself?”

  “No he was good at carpentry but had a blind spot so far as machinery goes especially electrical equipment. ‘Genial’ wired the machines for him”

  He put on a tape. “The voices of Harrison and ‘Genial’ alternated. They both recorded a short text then the two tapes were cut into short sections and spliced in together. This produces a strong erotic reaction. Curiously enough the content of the tape doesn’t seem to effect the result. In fact the same sexual effect can be produced by splicing in street recordings recorded by two subjects separately.”

  two voices reading one cruel mocking the other muffled and broken by comparison alternated at short intervals conveyed a sensation of charged electric intimacy easy vulgar and therefore disgusting.

  “Now listen to this.” The words were smudged together. They snarled and whined and barked. It was as if the words themselves were called in question and forced to give up their hidden meanings. “Inched tape . . the same recording you just heard pulled back and forth across the head .. You can get the same effect by switching a recording on and off at very short intervals. Listen carefully and you will hear words that were not in the original text: ‘do it-do it-do it . . yes I will will will do it do it do it . . really really really do it do it do it. . neck neck neck . . oh yes oh yes oh yes . .’

  “You heard?”

  “Oh yes oh yes oh yes” (I reflected it would be interesting to inch a speech in the U.N., Congress, Parliament, or wherever and play back a few seconds later. You can run a government without police if your conditioning program is tight enough but you can’t run a government without bull shit.) “Yes I heard.”

  Here’s another one from the same original tape alternating Harrison and ‘Genial’ 24 times per second. I suspect this was the tape that dropped Harrison.”

  A familiar sound I had heard it for years barely audible . . loud and clear now a muttering hypnotic cadence. He shut the machine off.

  “The sound track illuminates the image . . ‘Genial’s’ image in this case . . almost tactile . . Well there it is . . biologists talk about creating life in a test tube . . all they need is a few tape recorders: ‘Genial 23’ at your service sir . . a virus of course . . The sound track is the only existence it has no one hears him he is not there except as a potential like the spheres and crystals that show up under an electron microscope: Cold Sore . . Rabies . . Yellow Fever . . St. Louis Encephalitis . . just spheres and crystals until they find another host . . just an arrangement of iron molecules on a tape until ‘Genial 23’ takes another queen . . . of course parasitic life is the easiest form to create . . . I wonder if . . .”

  “If one could make a good ‘Genial’? I don’t know. Experiments along this line are indicated ...”

  (‘You see the angle, B.J.? a nice virus . . beautiful symptoms . . a long trip combining the best features of junk hash LSD yage . . those who return have gained a radiant superhuman beauty . . !)

  “Was ‘Genial’ staying in the Paddington flat at the time of Harrison’s suicide?”

  “No. He left Harrison a month before Harrison’s death. Apparently Harrison offered him all the money he could raise to come back and live with him but ‘Genial’ refused. He was living with a young man. name was Cunningham . . Robert Cunningham . . splicing themselves in together . . so long as the spliced tape finds an outlet in actual sex contact it acts as an aphrodisiac . . nothing more . . But when a susceptible subject is spliced in with someone who is not there then it acts as a destructive virus . . the perfect murder weapon with a built-in alibi. ‘Genial’ was not there at the time. He never is.”

  “‘Genial’ didn’t work this out for himself.”

  “Hardly . . This is obviously one aspect of a big picture . . what looks like a carefully worked out blueprint for invasion of the planet . . Anyone who keeps his bloody eyes open doesn’t need a Harly St psychiatrist to tell him that destructive elements enter into so-called normal sex relations: the desire to dominate, to kill, to take over and eat the partner . . these impulses are normally held in check by counter impulses . . what the virus puts out of action is the regulatory centers in the nervous system. . We know now how it is done at least this particular operation . . We don’t know who is doing it or how to stop them. Everytime we catch up with someone like ‘Genial’ we capture a tape recorder . . usually with the tapes already wiped off...”

  “You must have some idea.”

  “We do . . You know about the Logos group?? . . claim to have reduced human behavior to a predictable science controlled by the appropriate word combos. They have a system of therapy they call ‘clearing.’ You ‘run’ traumatic material which they call ‘engrams’ until it loses emotional connotation through repetition and is then refiled as neutral memory. When all the ‘engrams’ have been run and deactivated the subject becomes a ‘clear’ . . It would seem that a technique a tool is good or bad according to who uses it and for what purposes. This tool is especially liable to abuse. In many cases they become ‘clear’ by unloading their ‘engram’ tapes on somebody else. These ‘engram’ tapes are living organisms viruses in fact . . This does give a certain position of advantage . . any opposition crippled by ‘engram’ tapes . . the ‘clears’ burning with a pure cold flame of self-interest a glittering image that lights up clearer and clearer as it fragments other image and ingests the dismembered fragments . . Yes we know the front men and women in this organization but they are no more than that. . a façade . . tape recorders . . the operators are not there..”

  “Program empty body what?” I got up to leave. “Where can I find ‘Genial’?”

  “Boot’s any midnight. You won’t get anything out of him. He doesn’t remember.”

  The guard was wearing a white life jacket — He led Bradly to a conical room with bare plaster walls — On the green mattress cover lay a human skin half inflated like a rubber toy with erect penis — There was a metal valve at base of the spine —

  “First we must write the ticket,” said the guard (Sound of liquid typewriters plopping into gelatine) —

  The guard was helping him into skin pants that burned like erogenous acid — His skin hairs slipped into the skin hairs of the sheath with little tingling shocks — The guard molded the skin in place shaping thighs and back, tucking the skin along the divide line below his nose — He clicked the metal valve into Bradly’s spine — Exquisite toothache pain shot through nerves and bones — His body burned as if lashed with stinging sex nettles — The guard moved around him with little chirps and giggles — He goosed the rectum trailing like an empty condom deep into Bradly’s ass — The penis spurted again and again as the guard tucked the burning sex skin into the divide line and smoothed it down along the perineum, hairs crackling through erogenous purple flesh — His body glowed a translucent pink steaming off a musty smell —

  “Skin like that very hot for three weeks and then —” the guard snickered — ‘wearing the Happy Cloak . . Happy Cloak addicts lasted about two years on the average. The thing was a biological adaptation of an organism found in the Venusian seas. It had been illegally developed after its potentialities were first realized. In its native state it got its prey by touching it. After that neurocontact had been established the prey was quite satisfied to be ingested you remember they make happy cloaks from a submarine thing that subdues its prey through a neuro-contact and eats it alive—only the victim doesn’t want to get away once it has sampled the pleasu
res of the cloak. It was a beautiful garment a living white like the white of a pearl, shivering softly with rippling lights, stirring with a terrible ecstatic movement of its own as the lethal symbiosis was established’ . . quoted from Fury by Henry Kuttner Mayflower Dell paperbacks, Kingsbourne House, 229231 High Holborn, London W.C.I. .