The Ticket That Exploded

by William S. Burroughs

  Controllers of the Green Troops moved in now — Light-years in eyes that write character of biologic alteration — Vampires fall to dust — crumpled cloth bodies on the glass and metal streets — The Venusians are relegated to terminal sewage deltas — The Uranians back to the heavy cold mist of mineral silence — Dry heat and insect forms close round the people of Mercury — Consequences and alternatives flash on off — Accept Rewrite or return to conditions you intended to impose on this colony — No appeal from eyes that see light-years in advance — Explode substitute giving orders — Green metal antennae crackling static in the transient hotels — cutting virus troops with static noises — Galactic shock troops break through moving in fast on music poured through nerve circuits — stuttering distant events — In a few seconds body halves off from St. Louis — Ghost writing shows board books — Vibrate dead nitrous film streets — Fight, controlled body prisoners — Cut flute through board books — Scraps to go, doctor — cleaving new planet — Get up, please — Television mind destroyed — Love is falling from this paper punching holes in photograph — Shift body halves in the womb — a long way from St. Louis — total resistance — cobblestone language with inflexible violence — Combat troops clicked the fair — a Barnum Bailey world — Word falling — Time falling — The fade-out — Good bye parasite invasion with weakness of dual structure, as the shot of apomorphine exploded the mold of their claws in vomit — Insect People Of Minraud preparing exact copy of scorpions crawling over his face — preparing exact copy of Bradly’s body molded in two halves — Green boy slips the mold on during sex scene — Remember strange bed? mold heated up to 10,000 Fahrenheit— His street boy senses clicked an oven in transient flesh — Call in the Old Doctor — heavy twilight — A cigarette deal? — Kiki stepped forward —

  “True? I can’t feel it” —

  “Yes, smiling” —

  The man was only a face — Sex tingled in the shadow of street cafés — On the bed felt his cock stiffen — open fly — stroked it with gentle hands — Healed scars still pulsing in empty flesh of KY and rectal mucus — flicker ghost only a few years older than Kiki — Outskirts of the city, masturbated under thin pants — orgasms of memory fingers — Blue twilight fell on his Scandinavian skin — shadow beside him, KY on his slow fingers — As you listen fill in with a pull — teeth ground together the image track — Muscles relax and contract — Kicked his feet in the air — steady stream of drum music in his head — forgotten scent of pubic hairs in other flesh with loud snores —

  “Without you i on pavement — Saw a giant crab snapping — Help me — Sinking ship — You trying Ali God of Street Boys on screen? — So we turn over knife wind voices covered — From the radio interstellar sirocco” —

  The room was full of white pillow flakes blowing out from a conical insect nest of plaster — Scorpions crawled from the nest snapping their claws — He felt the conical nests attached to his side — white scorpions crawling over his face — He woke up screaming: “Take them off me — Take them off me” —

  The dream still shuddered in milky dawn light — Kiki lay naked in a strange bed — His street boy senses clicked back: standing in a doorway his collar turned up against the cold Spring wind that whistled down from the mountains— The man stopped under a blue arc light in the heavy twilight — He put a cigarette to his mouth, tapped his pockets, and turned his hands out — Kiki stepped forward with his lighter extended smiling — The man was only a few years older than Kiki — thin face hidden by the shadow of his hat — They had sandwiches and beer at a booth where a kerosene lamp flickered in the mountain wind — The man called a cab that seemed to leave the ground on a long ride through rubbly outskirts of the city — It was a neighborhood of large houses with gardens — In the apartment Kiki sat down on the bed and felt his cock stiffen under thin pants as the man stroked it with gentle abstract fingers — Blue twilight fell through the room — He could only see a shadow beside him — Kiki took the man’s hand and closed the fist and shoved a finger in and out —

  “I fuck you?” —

  “Sí” —

  The man put on a tape of Arab drum music — Kiki had been a week in the cold streets dodging the police who were everywhere checking papers after the manner of their species — He dropped his worn pants and stood naked — His cock slid out of the foreskin pulsing — As he sat down again on the bed a drop of lubricant squeezed out and glistened in the faint bluish light — The man sat down beside him and kissed him feeling his cock — Kiki pushed the man back on the bed — He found a tube of KY on the night table — On his knees above the dark shadowy figure he rubbed the KY on his cock — He put his hands under the man’s knees and shoved them up to the ears and rubbed the KY into the man’s ass with a slow circular pull — Teeth ground together as Kiki slid his cock in feeling the muscle relax and contract in spasmodic milking movements — The man kicked his feet in the air — “Juntos” said Kiki — He began to count and at the count of ten they came together — Kiki fell into a light sleep the drum music in his head — He woke up to find the man lighting a candle — “Cigarette?” — The man brought a package of cigarettes and lay down beside him — Kiki blew the smoke down through his pubic hairs and said “Abracadabra” as his cock rose out of the smoke — He rolled the man over, then pulled him up onto his knees and fucked him to the music — He draped himself over the man’s back with loud snores — He was in fact very tired after the street, yawned as he crawled under the covers and snuggled against the man’s back —

  The man was not in bed beside him but seated at a table crumpled forward his head sunk into the collar of a heavy silk dressing gown — A muffled sound like muttering cloth drifted from the crumpled form — Kiki got out of bed naked and touched the man’s shoulder — There was nothing there but cloth that fell in a heap on the floor leaking grey dust — Kiki found the man’s wallet and slipped out the large bills — The man’s clothes were too large so he put on his own clothes and went out shutting the door softly — He listened for a moment then stepped quickly down the stairs — In the doorway he stumbled over a pile of rags that smelled of urine and pulque — empty streets and from radios in empty houses a twanging sound of sirens that rose and fell vibrating the windows — The air was full of luminous grey flakes falling softly on crumpled cloth bodies — The street led to an open square — He could see people running now suddenly collapse to a heap of clothes — The grey flakes were falling heavier, falling through all the buildings of the city — Cold fear touched his street boy senses — A vista of phosphorescent slag heaps opened before him —

  On the smoldering metal he saw a giant crab claws snapping — A voice in Kiki’s head said “Stand aside” as Ali God of Street Boys from the neon cities of Saturn moved in — Dodging from side to side over the snapping claws his plasma knife tore a great rent in the crab’s body that leaked black rusty oil — Ali doubled back from above and behind hitting the crab at the base of its brain — The claws flew off — The eyes went out — There was nothing but a smear of oil on the pavement —

  “This way — To the Towers” — Ali pointed to an office building that dominated the square — Kiki ran toward the building covered now by tower fire — Hands pulled him into a doorway — On the roof of the building was a battery of radios and movie cameras that vibrated to static — A green creature with metal claw hands was giving orders to a group of partisans who manned the gun tower — From the radio poured a metallic staccato voice —

  “Photo falling — Word Falling — Break through in Grey Room — Towers, open fire” —

  Totally green troops in the area, K9 — You are assigned to organize combat divisions at the Venusian Front — appalling conditions — total weapons — Without inoculation and training your troops will be paralyzed by enemy virus and drugs — then cut to pieces in the pain-pleasure signal switch — The enemy uses a vast mechanical brain to dictate the use and rotation of weapons — Precise information from virus invasion marks
areas of weakness in the host and automatically brings into effect the weapons and methods of attack calculated always of course with alternate moves — They can turn on total pain of the Ovens — This is done by film and brain wave recordings mangled down to a form of concrete music — A twanging sound very much like positive feedback correlated with the Blazing Photo from Hiroshima and Nagasaki — They can switch on electric pleasure leading to death in orgasm — (The noose is a weapon — The weapon of Kali) —They can alternate pain and pleasure at supersonic speed like a speed up tough and con cop routine —

  You are to infiltrate, sabotage and cut communications — Once machine lines are cut the enemy is helpless — They depend on elaborate installations difficult to move or conceal — encéphalographic and calculating machines film and TV studios, batteries of tape recorders — Remember you do not have to organize similar installations but merely to put enemy installations out of action or take them over — A camera and two tape recorders can cut the lines laid down by a fully equipped film studio — The ovens and the orgasm death tune in can be blocked with large doses of apomorphine which breaks the circuit of positive feedback — But do not rely too heavily on this protection agent — They are moving to block apomorphine by correlation with nausea gas that is by increasing the nausea potential — And always remember that you are operating under conditions of guerrilla war — Never attempt to hold a position under massive counterattack — “Enemy advance we retreat” — Where? — The operation of retreat on this level involves shifting three-dimensional coordinate points that is time travel on association lines — Like this:

  sunlight through the dusty window and sat down on the sofa the pearly drops of the basement workshop . . “You’re pearling.” flaking plaster . . you finish me John’s face grey and whispy spurts of semen across off “. . long ago boy a soft blue flame in the dusty floor the static still in image speed of light his eyes as he bent over his ears rose shadows on the ten years the pool hall the crystal radio set young flesh . .” John is it true on Market St. Bill leaned touching dials and “if we were ten light-years away we across the table and wires with gentle precise fingers could see ourselves here John goosed him with “I’m trying to fix it so we can both ten years from now? a cue and he collapsed listen at once.” “Yes it’s true.” “Well couldn’t we across the table laughing . . he was opening a headphone on the bench travel in time?” they had not seen much with a screwdriver . . “It’s more complicated than you think.” of each other in the two heads so close John’s “well time is past ten years . . Bill had been fluffy blond hair brushed Bill’s getting dressed and away at school and later forehead, undressed eating sleeping not the Eastern University. John had “Here hold this phone to your ear” actions but the words became a legendary figure Do you hear anything?” “What we say about what we living by gambling . . he used “yes static.” do. Would there be any time if systems for dice and horses based on “Good” John cupped the other phone we didn’t say a mathematical theories . . to his ear. anything?” “Maybe not. Maybe that St. Louis summer night outside smell the two boys at poised listening coal gas the moon red and out through the dusty window first step” smoky . . they walked through empty across back yards and ash pits .. “Yes if you could learn park frogs croaking” “John the tinkling metal music of space to listen and not lived in a loft over a Bill felt a prickle in his lips talk” . . over the hills and speak-easy reached by that spread to the groin, far away . . sunlight through outside wooden stairs . . sunlight through the dusty window of the basement workshop John’s face grey wispy a soft blue flame in his eyes as he bent over the crystal radio set touching dials and wires with gentle precise fingers.

  “I’m trying to fix it so we can both listen at once.”

  He was opening a headphone on the bench with a screwdriver the two heads so close John’s fluffy blond hair brushed Bill’s forehead.

  “Here hold this phone to your ear. Do you hear anything?”

  “Yes static.”

  “Good.”

  John cupped the other phone to his ear. The two boys sat poised listening out through the dusty window across back yards and ash pits the tinkling metal music of space. Bill felt a prickle in his lips that spread to the groin. He shifted on the wooden stool.

  “John what is static exactly?”

  “I’ve told you ten times. What’s the use in my talking when you don’t listen?”

  “I hear music” . . faint intermittent ‘Smiles.’ Bill moving in time to the music brushed John’s knee . . “Let’s do it shall we?”

  “All right”

  John put the headphones down on the bench. There was a storage room next to the work shop. Bill opened the door with a key. He was the only one who had this key. smell of musty furniture . . smears of phosphorous paste on the walls . . Bill turned on a lamp a parchment shade with painted roses . . chairs upside down on a desk a leather sofa cracked and shiny. The boys stripped to their socks and sat down on the sofa.

  “You’re pearling.”

  spurts of semen across the dusty floor static still in his ears rose shadows on young flesh . .

  “John is it true if we were ten light-years away we could see ourselves here ten years from now?”

  “Yes it’s true.”

  “Well couldn’t we travel in time?”

  “It’s more complicated than you think.”

  “Well time is getting dressed and undressed eating sleeping not the actions but the words. . What we say about what we do. Would there be any time if we didn’t say anything?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe that would be the first step . . yes if we could learn to listen and not talk.”

  Over the hills and far away sunlight through the dusty window a soft blue flame in his eyes as he bent over . . his ears rose shadows on the crystal radio set . . He shifted on the wood the dusty window . . “Come up for a while” he said . . stool semen on the sofa a soft blue flame in “All right” Bill felt a tightening “John what is static exactly?” his eyes as he bent over in his stomach . . it was a room “I’ve told you ten times what his ears rose shadows on with rose wallpaper use of my saying anything, the crystal radio set partitioned off like a stage set when you don’t listen?” .. “I’m trying to fix it so we can both . . Bill saw a work ‘I hear music’ ten years from now listen at once” he was bench tools and radio faint intermittent ‘Smiles’ . . opening travel in time sets from the light John Bill moving in time to the with a screwdriver” hold this turned on . . the music brushed John’s knee, phone to your ear the words do you door he had painted Bill turned to John smiling hear anything? .. we didn’t say to his ear a number like “Let’s do it shall we?” anything maybe not maybe the two hotel door No. “All right” boys poised listening out through 18 . . “Sit down” John took out a John put down the headphones on the dusty window would cigarette from a box on the bench, be the first step across back yards and ash pits the night table there was storage room next to the yes if you could it was rolled in brown workshop. Bill opened learn the tinkling metal music of space paper . . “What is it?” the door with a key . . “That static gave me a hard-on.” “Marijuana . . ever try it” “No” he was the only one who had like something touched me he lit the cigarette and the key. The smell and he brought his finger up . . passed to Bill “Take it all musty furniture smears in three jerks sitting with their the way down and hold phosphorous paste on the walls arms around each other’s that’s right . .” Bill Bill turned on a lamp parchment shoulders looking down at feet a prickling in his shade with painted roses the stiffening flesh flower smell lips . . the wallpaper chairs upside down on a desk of young hard-ons “Let’s see who can seemed to glow leather sofa cracked and shiny shoot the farthest” then he was laughing the boys stripped to their socks they stood up Bill hit the wall until he doubled “I’m trying to fix it so we can both ten years from now listen at once.” opening travel in time with a screwdriver “Hold this phone to your ear. the words Do you hear anything?” We did
n’t say to his ear anything maybe not maybe the two boys poised listening out through the dusty window would be the first step across back yards and ash pits yes if you could learn the tinkling metal music of space “That static gave me a hard-on like something touched me” he brought his finger up in three jerks sitting with arms around each other’s shoulders looking down at the stiffening flesh flower smell of young hard-ons

  “Let’s see who can shoot the farthest.”

  They stood up. Bill hit the wall . . the pearly drops . . flaking plaster . .

  “you finish me off” . . .

  long ago boy image . . speed of light. . ten years . . the pool hall on Market St. . Bill leaned across the table for a shot and John goosed him with a cue he collapsed across the table laughing. They had not seen much of each other in the past ten years. Bill had been away at school and later at an Eastern University. John had become a legendary figure around town who lived by gambling he used a system for dice and horses based on a mathematical theory which accounted for the only constant factor in gambling: winning and losing comes in streaks. So double up when you are winning and fold up when you are losing . . St. Louis summer night outside the pool hall smell of coal gas the moon red they walked through an empty park frogs croaking John lived over a speak-easy by the river.. a loft reached by outside wooden stairs.

  “Come up for a while,” he said

  “All right.” Bill felt a tightening in his stomach. A room with rose wallpaper had been partitioned off from the loft like a stage set. As John turned on the light Bill saw a work bench tools and radio sets in the loft. On the door to the bedroom John had painted a number like a hotel door No 18 . .

  “Sit down” . . John took a cigarette from a box on the night table. It was rolled in brown paper.