The Ticket That Exploded

by William S. Burroughs

  Question: “Inspector Lee, i don’t quite understand what is meant by a ‘coordinate point’ — Could you make that a little clearer? —”

  Answer: “Certainly — You see these criminal controllers occupy human bodies — ghosts? phantoms? Not at all — very definite organisms indeed — True you can’t see them — Can you see a virus? — Well, the criminal controllers operate in very much the same manner as a virus — Now a virus in order to invade, damage and occupy the human organism must have a gimmick to get in — Once in the virus invades damages and occupies a certain area or organ in the body — known as the tissue of predilection — Hepatitis, for example, attacks the liver — Influenza the respiratory tract — Polio and rabies the central nervous system — In the same way a controller invades, damages and occupies some pattern or configuration of the human organism” —

  Question: “How do these controllers gain access to the human organism?”

  Answer: “I will give an example: the controllers who operate through addiction to opiates — that is who occupy and control addicts of the earth — Their point of entry is of course the drug itself — And they maintain this coordinate point through addiction” —

  Question: “What determines the choice of coordinate points? Why does one controller operate through addiction in preference to other channels?” —

  Answer: “He operates through addicts because he himself is an addict — A heavy metal addict from Uranus — What we call opium or junk is a very much diluted form of heavy metal addiction — Venusians usually operate through sexual practices — In short these controllers brought their vices and diseases from their planet of origin and infected the human hosts very much in the same way that the early colonizers infected so-called primitive populations” —

  Question: “Inspector Lee, how can one be sure that someone purporting to be a nova police officer is not an impostor?” —

  Answer: “It is not always easy, especially during this transitional period. There are imposters, ‘shake men,’ who haunt atomic installations and victimize atomic scientists in much the same way as spurious police officers extort money from sexual deviants in public lavatories — In one recent case a well-organized shake mob, purporting to represent the nova police, confiscated cyclotrons and other atomic equipment which they subsequently sold on the Uranian black market to support their heavy metal habits — They were arrested and sent away for the thousand year cure — Since then we have encountered a few sporadic cases — cranks, lunatics for the most part” —

  Question: “Inspector Lee, do you think that the nova mob can be defeated?” —

  Answer: “Yes — Their control machine has been disconnected by partisan activity —

  “Now we can move in for some definitive arrests —

  “‘Sammy the Butcher’ dissolved his dummy cover — His burning metal eyes stabbed at the officer from the molten core of a hot blue planet — The officer moved back dissolving all connections with the Blue Planet, connections formed by the parasite dummy which had entered his body at birth, carefully prepared molds and association locks closed on empty space — Sammy’s eyes burned and sputtered incandescent blue and went out in a smell of metal — His last white-hot blast exploded in empty space — The officer picked up the microphone: ‘Sammy the Butcher’ arrested — ‘Paddy the Sting,’ arrested — ‘Hamburger Mary’ has defected — ‘Green Tony’ has surrendered — move in for the definitive arrest of ‘Mr Bradly Mr Martin’ also known as ‘Mr and Mrs D’ also known as ‘the Ugly Spirit’ —

  “‘Sammy the Butcher’ dissolved his ranks of self-righteous millions and stabbed at the officer dripping Marilyn Monroe Planet — Locks closed on empty space lettering ‘My Fair Lady’— In three-dimensional terms ‘The Ugly Spirit’ and ‘Mrs D’ screamed through female blighted continent — So we turn over the Board Books and all the ugliness i had forgotten — criminal street — punitive legislation screaming for more association locks in electric chair and gas chamber — technical death over the land — white no-smell of death dripping nova — ‘the Ugly Spirit’ was flushed out of one host cover after the other — blanked out by our static and silence waves — Call the Old Doctor twice ‘Mr and Mrs D’ — He quiets you remember? — finished — no shelter — a handful of dust — Screaming, clawing for the nova switch ‘the Ugly Spirit’ was dragged from the planet — from all the pictures and words of ugliness that have been his place of residence since he moved in on the New World — The officer with silent inflexible authority closed one coordinate point after another — Only this to say: Would you rather talk to the partisans ‘Mr and Mrs D’— Well? — No terms — This is definitive arrest — “Sammy the Butcher” has been taken — There are no guards capable protect you — Millions of voices in your dogs won’t do you a bit of good — voices fading — crumpled cloth bodies — Your name fading across newspapers of the earth — Madison Avenue machine is disconnected — Errand boy closing their errand boys — Won’t be much left — definitive arrest of the board as you listen, as the officer closes track — Self-righteous ugliness of their space program a joke — Written in symbols blighted America: $$$ — american scent of memory pictures — the idiot honky-tonks of Panhandle — humiliation outhouse and snarling ugliness of dying peoples — bourbon soaked legislators from ‘marijuana is deadlier than cocaine’ — board book symbol chains lynch mobs — the White Smoke pressure group relying on rectum suburbs and the no-smell of death — Control Avenue and Hollywood, look at the bread line — The Ugly Spirit retreated back to the ‘20s in servants and police and the dogs of H. J. Anslinger — into one battered host after another — Blanked out board instructions —Silence — Silence — Silence — Call the old money equipment information files of memory — Finished — No shelter — A hand falls across newspapers of the earth for the nova switch — Won’t do you a bit of good, collaborators with ugliness and degraded flesh — Traitors to all souls everywhere moved in on the New World — The Old Doctor cleaving a heavy silent authority closed one coordinate point after another — The board is near right now — Fading voice terms? — This is definitive arrest through dying air — There are no guards now capable guide humiliations — Poisonous cloud, millions of dogs won’t do you a bit of good — parasites, crumpled cloth bodies — Your control books fading cross newspaper of the earth couldn’t form nova — Operation completed — planet out of danger — Proceed with the indicated alterations’ —

  writing machine

  The Exhibition extended through many rooms and corridors — Booths spilled out into a composite garden formal sunken and terraced — Pools and canals reflected flower floats — (arrangements inextricably mixed with flower and garden pictures) —

  In a room with metal walls magnetic mobiles under flickering blue light and smell of ozone — jointed metal youths danced in a shower of blue sparks, erections twisted together shivering metal orgasms — Sheets of magnetized calligraphs drew colored iron filings that fell in clouds of color from patterns pulsing to metal music, off on, on off — (The spectators clicked through a maze of turnstiles) — Great sheets of magnetized print held color and disintegrated in cold mineral silence as word dust falls from demagnetized patterns — Photomontage fragments backed with iron stuck to patterns and fell in swirls mixing with color dust to form new patterns, shimmering, falling, magnetized, demagnetized to the flicker of blue cylinders pulsing neon tubes and globes — In metal booths brain waves wrote the flickering message passed back and forth, over and through shifting grills — The magnetic pencil caught in calligraphs of Brion Gysin wrote back into the brain metal patterns of silence and space — orgone accumulators flickering blue over swimming tanks where naked youths bathed in blue — sound and image flakes falling like luminous grey snow — falling softly from demagnetized patterns into blue silence — Metal heads reversed eyes felt tingling blue spark erections — Metal orgasms flickering rainbow colors — came in wet scenic railways of dream — Electrodes from the brain wrote out b
oys on roller skates in a shower of ruined suburbs — Naked youths bathed in blue against the pin-ball machine danced and clicked — Old fashion plates falling like luminous snow falling softly dark-haired light-haired clicked deeper and deeper into the blue silence — The light travel machine is a revolving park turns around the traveler spilling metal music and nitrous fumes — Pin-ball acuteness twisted shivering in metal — Metal birds buzzed off in blue light — Jissom cartwheels in glass and mirrors reflected masturbating afternoons — (Naked youths bathed in blue distance now) —Flicker cylinders spill sandwich booths music and laughter across the water — Roller skates twisted in metal arcades — Pools and canals reflected grey suits carrying umbrellas — flickering over swimming boys as the magnetic silver light popped sound and image flakes — color writing a composite garden — layers peel off red yellow blue pools reflecting translucent tentative beings with flower hula hoops naked in blue twilight — metal youths shivering in stars and pool halls — In rooms flooded with sunlight panels of painting moved past each other on conveyor belts to music all the masters of the world past through each other in juxtapositions of light and color — Painting projected on screens mixed color and image — The Exhibition shaded into a vast amusement park with orchestras and rides and movie screens, stages and outdoor restaurants — All music and talk and sound recorded by a battery of tape recorders recording and playing back moving on conveyor belts and tracks and cable cars spilling the talk and metal music fountains and speech as the recorders moved from one exhibit to another — Vast mobile sculptures of music boxes and recorders wind chimes and movies of the exhibit reflected from ponds and canals and islands where restaurants enclosed in flicker cylinders spilled light and talk and music across the water — Plays on stage with permutating sections moved through each other Shakespeare, ancient Greek, ballet — Movies mix on screen half one half the other — plays in front of movie screen synchronized so that horses charge in and out of old Westerns — Characters walk in and out of the screen flickering different films on and off — Conversations recorded in movies taken during the exhibit appear on the screen until all the spectators are involved situations permutating and moving — (Since the recorders and movies of the exhibition are in constant operation it will be readily seen that any spectator appears on the screen sooner or later if not today then yesterday or tomorrow as the case may be in some connection — and repeat visitors of course —)

  A writing machine that shifts one half one text and half the other through a page frame on conveyor belts — (The proportion of half one text half the other is important corresponding as it does to the two halves of the human organism) Shakespeare, Rimbaud, etc. permutating through page frames in constantly changing juxtaposition the machine spits out books and plays and poems — The spectators are invited to feed into the machine any pages of their own text in fifty-fifty juxtaposition with any author of their choice any pages of their choice and provided with the result in a few minutes.

  You can say could give no information — dominion dwindling — We intersect on empty kingdom read to by a boy — Five times i made this dream — Consumed brandy neat, muttering in the last terrace of the garden — Light and shade departed have left no address — For i have known the body of a God bending his knees — Isn’t time is there left? — The bitter foliage my friend to give you? — an odor of deluge and courage to let go — In the open air a boy waiting — Smiles overtake someone walking — The questions drift down slowly out of an old dream — mountain wind caught in the door — the odor of drowned suns trailing her linen sweat in the final ape of history — Like i’d ask alterations but blue sky on our ticket that exploded — any case a great leisure in the stern circumstances — Remember i was the ship and we drown — window rotting at the far end of creeks — The door couldn’t reach flesh — naked dream beside you and the dreamer gone at dawn whisper — Put on a clean shirt and takes his way toward the sea —

  “Written on the door pure information — Vast thing police speak of a high condition, give you identity fading out — revolving lights is all — bread knife in the heart falling in the dark mutinous body without a shadow — Five times of dust we made it all — Relics give no shelter — dust trade — And those dogs knew nothing — Circumstances in the rawness of evening to give you? — smoke up the path — with such hair a colorless dreamer — brandy neat streaked with violence the door — solitude of morning washed to neon — Departed have left mixture of dawn and dream — leaning say good night under surges of silence, ebbing carbon dioxide” —

  “Truly at this point many a one has failed — Mr Bradly Mr Martin is like pulp beside you — A man walks through dream shirt in another — Stopped suddenly to crown a God bending great sheets of magnetized U turn back to cool mineral silence — grey snow like bites of sunlight falling softly from noon — the naked good bye then silence — hints as we shifted masturbating afternoons through Ali’s body — Magnetic silver flakes closed your account — nitrous screens crackling, genitals spilling scenic railways in sleep — Recorders of the city rotting — vast music in the throat of God — Movie screens went out from darkened restaurants — Dream and dreamer took their way flapping dead sections through each other — Juxtapositions of light made this dream — It has consumed image between the mirrors — and the naked good bye since the recorders’ 1920 movie — (It will readily be seen nitrous flesh) — dust from demagnetized brain waves — The dreamer with dirty cheeks passes over streaked with violence — Pinball machines clicked wind chimes of subway dawns and turnstiles — roller skates, camp fire and red fuck lights reflected over swimming boys — old Westerns rotting at the far end of creeks — Blue notes drift through slate houses and nitrous fumes — jissom cartwheels in a sweetness of aging roots — Light layers peel off red yellow blue to crown tentative beings with flowers — spectral smell of naked ghost people — A maze of penny arcades and mirrors reflect masturbating afternoons — Color and image bloom out of an old dream in the odor of outdoor restaurants — Outside East St. Louis in the dominion of aging roots, ten-year-old keeping watch — Cracked pool hall and vaudeville voices made this dream — distant coffin between the mirrors of time that meanwhile i had forgotten — in a deserted cemetery the body of a God bending his knees — Yes you have his bitter skin” —

  “Put it on — Without you i on pavement — Good bye in the open air — Someone walking trails my Summer dawn flesh” —

  “Panama night pictures explode odor of naked rectums — sweat flipped from his face — milk in his crotch — Young faces melted dead nitrous streets — Naked brain splintered on empty flesh — bleeding dream and the dreamer is lying there — last round — the body without a shadow, without relics — breath of the trade winds on his face healed and half-healed, in the rawness of evening”—

  “Like, man, good bye then — Silver film took it —”

  The dreamer with dirty flesh strung together on scar impressions exploded in the kerosene lamp — open shirt flapping in the cool path — now calm his face — The street blew rain from solitude of morning, mixture of dawn and dream in doorways — surges of silence ebbing from the death trauma — Urine in the gutter weaves window people and sky picture through eyes of wine —

  Evening blue over swimming tanks reflected ten-year-old keeping watch — in the kerosene lamp open shirt, erections — shivering knees twisted together — surges of silence ebbing from ruined suburbs — Naked youths came in wet sleep — windows people and sky like luminous flakes falling —

  “Remember i was a battery of tape recorders at the door — Departed have left spectators involved — Good night under surges of silence since the recorders and movies in this point have failed — It will readily be seen beside you a man walks through screen — The exhibition reflected dominion dwindling — Photo flakes fell in swirls on our ticket — sound identity fading out — light travel — In this point many a one has failed — courage to go deeper and deeper into the blue — ebbing carbon dioxide
— last terrace of the garden — Isn’t time is there left? halves of the human organism to give you? —

  substitute flesh

  The sex area of the amusement park can only be reached through channels — Anybody applying for entry must submit to naked photographic processing for ten days during which the applicant is photographed in all stages of erection, orgasm, defecation, urinating, eating — The pictures are cut down the divide line of the body and fitted to other pictures of prospective partners — The photos vibrated and welded together in orgone accumulators* — sex lines crossed and chartered so that memory tracks merge and the area is already seen when the applicant comes in — All sex acts that take place in the cubicles, Turkish baths, scenic railways, ferris wheels and pools where the subjects circulate in aqualungs are photographed and screens permutate partners divided down the middle line until there is no way to distinguish film from flesh and the flesh melts — For example two boys fucking in front of a cubicle screen can see their pictures developed after a few seconds and permutated with other sex acts in other cubicles half one half the other shifting back and forth speed-up slow-down line cutting the two halves apart to neon — through the open window trailing other pictures — Prospective ectoplasmic flakes welded together with a blue torch chartered the mattress twisted and molded by absent memory tracks merged the masturbating afternoons — Reflected applicant enters and he is already boy who owned that room stood naked with erection permutations in his eyes — The sound and image baths dusted his skin in sense withdrawal swirls where the subject circulates through sensitized photos pulsing telepathic communication — permutating the neck taped on a silver line until the two being flesh melts body in electric waves — rectums merging a few seconds after blue movies and other sex acts with flicker ghosts shifting back and forth orgasms of the world — tentative copulations of light down the dividing line — sound tracks merged in a smell of KY and rectal mucus —A maze of mirrors and screens reflected sex acts in slow motion to a thousand sound tracks shifted and permutated — slow waves of orgasm in a muttering sea of nitrous film flesh — slow knees up to the chin now — prostates quivering in pearly spasms — limestone flesh over silver pools — encrusted music releasing picture flares in moonlight — slow smooth bodies to sound track of phallic statues — pulsing human skin stuck to faces and pictures in scalpel flashes — Adolescent ejaculated in a thousand cots — First spurts he could feel the tip process together — Tentative being struck drums of memory on his back vibrating focus flesh — shifting erect penis and half-remembered skin instructions to accent of the attendant — thoughts and memories of melting ice — the prostate quivering pearly spasms to his penis in London hotel room — Adolescent lust ejaculated in stale underwear of penny arcades — The canals reflected excitement slipping through legs — Cock flipped out and up — Pearly spasms received and transmitted, nitrous flesh molded amber afternoons — Laughing suburb odors spatter out sound track — ejaculated in stale underwear filtered through encrusted odors of the world — Returning Mexican adolescent took my hand in room with a thousand cots — left muttering skin instructions to answer other thoughts and memories — Cock flipped out quivering in kerosene light — Old dead sound track shifting over you conceived in worn memory of first sex experience — Tingling implications try once more magnetic drums — Red nitrous odors spatter out sound track dummy to circumstance brown ankles — Ejaculated in stale underwear during execution, shirt flapping, pants slide — substitute excrement slipping through legs Almighty God with two coordinates immediately appropriate — We beg thy greased amber memory for the process — Pubic District Court vibrating focus flesh — half-remembered rectum on voluntary fertilizer tanks — youth grouped along the borders of melting ice — pearly spasms stirring skin instruction applicant — Dream flesh unexpectedly received and transmitted on smell of sewage denominationally molded to million dollar sale — at the earliest possible moment ejaculate in stale underwear almighty encrusted odor of three penises — Rapid calculations in room with a thousand cots warning combat troops — ejaculated with adequate military protection — First spurts touch intestine drums of memory — toothache punch cards muttering skin instructions written before explosion — Other thoughts and memories referred from quivering press statement — Adolescent lust broadcast over a thousand cots — What awaits you on substitute flesh? —