The Soft Machine

by William Seward Burroughs

  —From the death trauma weary good-by then—orgasm addicts stacked in the attic like muttering burlap—

  Odor rockets over oily lagoons—silver flakes fall through a maze of dirty pictures—windy city outskirts—Smell of empty condoms, excrement, black dust —ragged pants to the ankle—

  Bone faces—place of nettles along adobe walls open shirts flapping—savanna and grass mud—The sun went —The mountain shadow touched ragged pants—whisper of dark street in faded Panama photo—"Muy got good one, Meester" smiles through the pissoir—Orgasm siphoned back street smells and a Mexican boy—Woke in the filtered green light, thistle shadows cutting stale underwear—

  The three boys lay on the bank rubbing their stomachs against the warm sand—They stood up undressing to swim—Billy gasped as his pants dropped and his cock flipped out he hadn't realized it was that far up from the rubbing—They swam lazily letting the warm water move between their legs and Lloyd walked back to his pants and brought a piece of soap and they passed it back and forth laughing and rubbing each other and Billy ejaculated his thin brown stomach arched out of the water as the spurts shot up in the sunlight like tiny rockets—He sagged down into the water panting and lay there against the muddy bottom—

  Under the old trestle trailing vines in the warm summer afternoon undressing to swim and rubbing their bellies—Lloyd rubbing his hand down further and further openly rubbing his crotch now and grinning as the other two watched and Billy looked at Jammy hesitantly and began to rub too and slowly Jammy did the same—They came into the water watching the white blobs drift away—The Mexican boy dropped his pants and his cock flipped out and he looked at Billy grinning—Billy turned and waded into the water and the Mexican followed him and turned him around feeling his crotch and shoved him down on his back in the shallow water, hitched his brown arms under Billy's knees and shoved them back against his chest—The Mexican held his knees with one arm and with the other hand dipped a piece of soap in the water and began rubbing it up and down Billy's ass—

  Billy shuddered and his body went limp letting it happen—The Mexican was rubbing soap on his own cock now with one hand—shiny black pubic hairs reflected sharp as wire—Slowly shoved his cock in—Billy gasped and moved with it—Spurts fell against his chest in the sunlight and he lay there in the water breathing sewage smells of the canal—

  Billy squirmed up onto a muddy bank and took a handful of the warm mud and packed it around his cock and Lloyd poured a bucket of water on the mud and Billy's cock flipped out jumping in the green filtered light under the old trestle—

  Stale underwear of penny arcades slipping down legs, rectums feeling the warm sun, laughing and washing each other soapy hands in his crotch, pearly spasms stirring the warm water—whiff of dried jissom in the bandanna trailing sweet young breath through remote lands—soft globs on a brass bed in Mexico—naked— wet—carbolic soap—tight nuts—piece of soap in the locker room rubbing each other off to "My Blue Heaven"—grinning as the other two watched—

  The Mexican dropped his pants with a wriggle and stood naked in the filtered green light, vines on his back —Rubbing his crotch now into Billy's ass—Billy moved with it, rectum wriggling cock inside rubbing—

  Ali squirmed teeth bared grinning—His thin brown stomach hit the pallet—"You is coming, Johnny?"— Sunlight on the army blankets—rectum wriggling slow fuck on knees " así como perros"—orgasm crackled with electric afternoon—bodies stuck together in magnetic eddies—

  Squirming cock in his intestines, rectum wriggling felt the hot sperm deep in his body—

  Shoved him over on his stomach kicking—The Mexican held his knees—Hand dipped a piece of soap— Shoved his cock in laughing—Bodies stuck together in the sunlight kicked whiffs of rectal mucus—laughing teeth and pepper smells—"You is feeling the hot quick Mexican kid naked Mambo to your toes Johnny. . . dust in bare leg hairs tight brown nuts breech very hot . . .How long you want us to fuck very nice Meester? Flesh diseased dirty pictures we fucking tired of fuck very nice Mister." Sad image of sickness at the attic window say something to you " adios" worn out film washed back in prep school clothes to distant closing dormitory fragments off the page stained toilet pictures blurred rotting pieces of "Freckle Leg" dormitory dawn dripping water on his face diseased voice so painful telling you "Sparks" is over New York. "Have I done the job here?" With a telescope you can watch our worn out film dim jerky far away shut a bureau drawer faded sepia smile from an old calendar falling leaves sun cold on a thin boy with freckles folded away in an old file now standing last review.

  "Maze of dirty pictures and vending machine flesh whispers use of fraud on faded photo—IBM

  song yodels dime a dozen type overcoats—Not taking any adolescent on shit envelope in the bath cubicle—Come of your stale movies sings Danny Deever in drag—Times lost or strayed long empty cemetery with a moldy pawn ticket —fading whisper down skid row to Market Street shows all kinds masturbation and self-abuse—Young boys need it special." silver paper in the wind distant 1920 wind and dust. He was looking at some thing a long time ago where the second hand book shop used to be just opposite the old cemetery.

  "Who? Quién es?—Hable, señor—Talk loud and clear."

  "We are all from the American women with a delicate lilt—I represent the lithe aloof young men of the breed charmingly—We are all empowered to make arrests and enough with just the right shade of show you."

  " Belt Her—Find a time buyer before ports are now ended—These are rotten if they start job for instance —Blind bargain in return for accepting 'one more chance'—Generous?—Nothing—That far to the bait and it's curtains—Know what they meant if they start job for instance?"

  "Dead young flesh in stale underwear vending sex words to magnetic Law 334—Indicates simple tape is served sir, through iron repetition—Ass and genitals tingling in 1929 jack-off spelt out broken wings of Icarus—Control system ousted from half the body whispers skin instructions to memory of melting ice— area of Spain—channels ahead loud and clear—Line of the body fitted to other underwear and Kiki steps forward on faded photo—sad image dusted by the Panama night."

  "So think before they can do any locks over the Chinese that abolition is war of the past—The end of hanging generous? Just the same position—Changed place of years in the end is just the same—

  Going to do?—Perhaps alone would you? All good things come to about that was that—"

  Call through remote dawn of back yards and ash pits —plaintive ghost in the turnstile—Shadow cars and wind faces came to World's End—street light on soiled clothes dim jerky far away dawn in his eyes. Do you begin to see there is no boy there in the dark room? He was looking at something a long time ago. Changed place?—Same position—Sad image circulates through backward time—

  Clom Fliday."

  Case of the Celluloid Kali

  The name is Clem Snide—I am a Private Ass Hole— I will take on any job any identity any body—

  I will do anything difficult dangerous or downright dirty for a price—

  The man opposite me didn't look like much—A thin grey man in a long coat that flickered like old film—He just happens to be the biggest operator in any time universe—

  "I don't care myself you understand"—He watched the ash spiraling down from the end of his Havana— It hit the floor in a puff of grey dust—

  "Just like that—Just time—Just time—Don't care myself if the whole fucking shithouse goes up in chunks— I've sat out novas before—I was born in a nova."

  "Well Mr. Martin, I guess that's what birth is you might say."

  "I wouldn't say—Have to be moving along any case —The ticket that exploded posed little time—

  Point is they are trying to cross me up—small timers—still on the old evacuation plan—Know what the old evacuation plan is, Mr. Snide?"

  "Not in detail."

  "The hanging gimmick—death in orgasm—gills—No bones and elementary nervous system— />
  evacuation to the Drenched Lands—a bad deal on the level and it's not on the level with Sammy sitting in—small timers trying to cross me up—Me, Bradly-Martin, who invented the double-cross

  —Step right up—Now you see me now you don't—A few scores to settle before I travel —a few things to tidy up and that's where you come in—I want you to contact the Venus Mob, the Vegetable People and spill the whole fucking compost heap through Times Square and Piccadilly—

  I'm not taking any rap for that green bitch—I'm going to rat on everybody and split this dead whistle stop planet wide open —I'm clean for once with the nova heat—like clean fall out—"

  He faded in spiraling patterns of cigar smoke—There was a knock at the door—Registered letter from Antwerp—Ten thousand dollar check for film rights to a novel I hadn't written called The Soft Ticket—Letter from somebody I never heard of who is acting as my agent suggests I contact the Copenhagen office to discuss the Danish rights on my novel Expense Account—bar backed by pink shell—new Orleans jazz thin in the Northern night. A boy slid off a white silk bar stool and held out the hand: "Hello, I'm Johnny Yen, a friend of—well, just about everybody. I was more physical before my accident you can see from this interesting picture. Only the head was reduced to this jelly but like I say it the impression on my face was taken by the other man's eyes drive the car head-on it was and the Big Physician (he's very technical) rushed him off to a surgery and took out his eyes and made a quick impression and slapped it on me like a pancake before I started to dry out and curl around the edges. So now I'm back in harness you might say: and I have all of 'you' that what I want from my audience is the last drop then bring me another. The place is hermetic. We think so blockade we thought nobody could get thru our flak thing, they thought. Switch Artist me. Oh, there goes my frequency. I'm on now. . ."

  The lights dimmed and Johnny pranced out in goggles flickering Northern Lights wearing a jockstrap of undifferentiated tissue that must be in constant movement to avoid crystallization. A penis rose out of the jock and dissolved in pink light back to a clitoris, balls retract into cunt with a fluid plop. Three times he did this to wild " Olés! " from the audience. Drifted to the bar and ordered a heavy blue drink. D noted patches of white crystal formed along the scar lines on Johnny's copy face.

  "Just like canals. Maybe I'm a Martian when the Crystals are down."

  You will die there a screwdriver through the head. The thought like looking at me over steak and explain it all like that stay right here. She was also a Reichian analyst. Disappear more or less remain in acceptable form to you the face.

  "We could go on cutting my cleavage act, but genug basta assez dice fall hombre long switch street.

  . . I had this terrible accident in a car a Bentley it was I think they're so nice that's what you pay for when you buy one it's yours and you can be sure nobody will pull it out from under our assets. Of course we don't have assholes here you understand somebody might go and get physical. So we are strictly from urine. And that narrows things to a fine line down the middle fifty feefty and what could be fairer than that my Uncle Eyetooth always says he committed fornication but I don't believe it me old heavy water junky like him. . . So anyhoo to get back to my accident in my Bentley once I get my thing in a Bentley it's mine already.

  So we had this terrible accident or rather he did. Oh dear what am I saying? It wasn't my first accident you understand yearly wounded or was it monthly Oh dear I must stay on that middle line.

  . .

  "Survivor. Survivor. Not the first in my childhood. Three thousand years in show business and always keep my nose clean. Why I was a dancing boy for the Cannibal Trog Women in the Ice Age.

  remember? All that meat stacked up in the caves and the Blue Queen covered with limestone flesh creeps into your bones like cold grey honey. . .that's the way they keep them not dead but paralyzed with this awful stuff they cook down from vampire bats get in your hair Gertie always keep your hair way up inside with a vampire on premises bad to get in other alien premises. The Spanish have this word for it, something about props ajeno or something like that I know so am ya la yo mixa everything allup. They call me Puto the Cement Mixer, now isn't that cute? Some people think I'm just silly but I'm not silly at all. . .and this boyfriend told me I looked just like a shrew ears quivering hot and eager like burning leaves and those were his last words engraved on my back tape

  —along with a lot of other old memories that disgust me, you wouldn't believe the horrible routines I been involved through my profession of Survival Artist . . .and they think that's funny, but I don't laugh except real quick between words no time you understand laughing they could get at me doesn't keep them off like talking does, now watch—"

  A flicker pause and the light shrank and the audience sound a vast muttering in Johnny's voice.

  "You see"—Shadows moved back into nightclub seats and drank nightclub drinks and talked nightclub talk— "They'd just best is all. So I was this dancing boy for these dangerous old cunts paralyzed men and boys they dug special stacked right up to the ceiling like the pictures I saw of Belsen or one of those awful contracted places and I said they are at it again. . .1 said the Old Army Game. I said "Pass the buck.' Now you see it, now you don't. . . Paralyzed with this awful gook the Sapphire Goddess let out through this cold sore she always kept open on her lips, that is a hole in the limestone you understand she was like entirely covered with one of those stag rites. . . Real concentrated in there and irradiated to prevent an accident owing to some virus come lately wander in from Podunk Hepatitis. . . But I guess I'm talking too much about private things... But I know this big atomic professor, he's very technical too, says: 'There are no secrets any more, Pet,' when I was smooching around him for a quickie. My Uncle still gives me a sawski for a hot nuclear secret and ten years isn't hay, dahling, in these times when practically anybody is subject to wander in from the desert with a quit claim deed and snatch a girl's snatch right out from under her assets. . .over really I should say but some of we boys are so sick we got this awful cunt instead of a decent human asshole disgust you to see it. . . So I just say anything I hear on the old party line.

  "I used to keep those old Cave Cunts at bay with my Impersonation Number where I play this American Mate Dance in Black Widow drag and I could make my face flap around you wouldn't believe it and the noises I made in uh orgasm when SHE ate me—I played both parts you unnerstand, imitated the Goddess Herself and turn right into stone for security. . . And SHE couldn't give me enough juice running out of this hole was her only orifice and she was transported dais and all, die ass and all, by blind uniques with no balls, had to crawl under HER dais dressed in Centipede Suit of the Bearer which was put on them as a great honor and they was always fighting over matter of crawl protocol or protocrawl. . . So all these boys stacked to the ceiling covered with limestone. . .you understand they weren't dead any more than a fresh oyster is dead, but died in the moment when the shell was cracked and they were eaten all quivering sweet and tasty, vitamins the right way.. .eaten with little jeweled adzes jade and sapphires and chicken blood rubies all really magnificent. Of course I pinched everything I could latch onto with my prehensile piles I learned it boosting in Chi to pay the Luxury Tax on C. three thousand years in show business. . . Later or was it earlier, the Mayan Calendar is all loused up you know. . . I was a star Corn God inna Sacred Hanging Ceremony to fructify the Corn devised by this impresario who specializes in these far out bit parts which fit me like a condom, he says the cutest things. He's a doctor too. A big physician made my face over after 'the accident' collided with my Bentley head on. . .the cops say they never see anything so intense and it is a special pass I must be carrying I wasn't completely obliterated.

  "Oh there's my doctor made the face over after my accident. He calls me Pygmalion now, isn't that cute? You'll love him."

  The doctor was sitting in a surgical chair of gleaming nickel. His soft boneless head was covered with grey gr
een fuzz, the right side of his face an inch lower than the left side swollen smooth as a boil around a dead, cold undersea eye.

  "Doctor, I want you to meet my friend Mister D the Agent, and he's a lovely fellow too.

  ("Some time he don't hardly hear what you saying. He's very technical.") The doctor reached out his abbreviated fibrous fingers in which surgical instruments caught neon and cut Johnny's face into fragments of light.

  "Jelly," the doctor said, liquid gurgles through his hardened purple gums. His tongue was split and the two sections curled over each other as he talked: "Life jelly. It sticks and grows on you like Johnny."

  Little papules of tissue were embedded in the doctor's hands. The doctor pulled a scalpel out of Johnny's ear and trimmed the papules into an ash tray where they stirred slowly exuding a green juice.

  "They say his prick didn't synchronize at all so he cut it off and made some kinda awful cunt between the two sides of him. He got a whole ward full of his 'fans' he call them already.

  "When the wind is right you can hear them scream in Town Hall Square. And everybody says 'But this is interesting.'

  "I was more physical before my accident, you can see from this interesting picture."

  Lee looked from the picture to the face, saw the flickering phosphorescent scars—

  "Yes," he said, "I know you—You're dead nada walking around visible."

  So the boy is rebuilt and gives me the eye and there he is again walking around some day later across the street and "No dice" flickered across his face—The copy there is a different being, something ready to slip in—boys empty and banal as sunlight her way always—So he is exact replica is he not?—empty space of the original—

  So I tailed the double to London on the Hook Von Holland and caught him out strangling a naked faggot in the bed sitter—I slip on the antibiotic hand cuffs and we adjourn to the Mandrake Club for an informative little chat—