Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

by William S. Burroughs

  A boy sat down by Lee and reached over between his legs. Lee felt the orgasm blackout in the hot sun. He stretched out and threw his arm over his eyes. Another boy rested his head on his stomach. Lee could feel the warmth of the other’s head, itching a little where the hair touched Lee’s stomach.

  Now he was in a bamboo tenement. An oil lamp lit a woman’s body. Lee could feel desire for the woman through the other’s body. “I’m not queer,” he thought. “I’m disembodied.”

  Lee walked on, thinking, “What can I do? Take them back to my hotel? They are willing enough. For a few Sucres. . . .” He felt a killing hate for the stupid, ordinary, disapproving people who kept him from doing what he wanted to do. “Someday I am going to have things just like I want,” he said to himself. “And if any moralizing son of a bitch gives me any static, they will fish him out of the river.”

  Lee’s plan involved a river. He lived on the river and ran things to please himself. He grew his own weed and poppies and cocaine, and he had a young native boy for an all-purpose servant. Boats were moored in the dirty river. Great masses of water hyacinths floated by. The river was a good half-mile across.

  Lee walked up to a little park. There was a statue of Bolivar, “The Liberating Fool” as Lee called him, shaking hands with someone else. Both of them looked tired and disgusted and rocking queer, so queer it rocked you. Lee stood looking at the statue. Then he sat down on a stone bench facing the river. Everyone looked at Lee when he sat down. Lee looked back. He did not have the American reluctance to meet the gaze of a stranger. The others looked away, and lit cigarettes and resumed their conversations.

  Lee sat there looking at the dirty yellow river. He couldn’t see half an inch under the surface. From time to time, small fish jumped ahead of a boat. There were trim, expensive sailing boats from the yacht club, with hollow masts and beautiful lines. There were dugout canoes with outboard motors and cabins of split bamboo. Two old rusty battleships were moored in the middle of the river—the Ecuadoran Navy. Lee sat there a full hour, then got up and walked back to the hotel. It was three o’clock. Allerton was still in bed. Lee sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “It’s three o’clock, Gene. Time to get up.”

  “What for?”

  “You want to spend your life in bed? Come on out and dig the town with me. I saw some beautiful boys on the waterfront. The real uncut boy stuff. Such teeth, such smiles. Young boys vibrating with life.”

  “All right. Stop drooling.”

  “What have they got that I want, Gene? Do you know?”

  “No.”

  “They have maleness, of course. So have I. I want myself the same way I want others. I’m disembodied. I can’t use my own body for some reason.” He put out his hand. Allerton dodged away.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I thought you were going to run your hand down my ribs.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Think I’m queer or something?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “You do have nice ribs. Show me the broken one. Is that it there?” Lee ran his hand halfway down Allerton’s ribs. “Or is it further down?”

  “Oh, go away.”

  “But, Gene . . . I am due, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are.”

  “Of course, if you’d rather wait until tonight. These tropical nights are so romantic. That way we could take twelve hours or so and do the thing right.” Lee ran his hands down over Allerton’s stomach. He could see that Allerton was a little excited.

  Allerton said, “Maybe it would be better now. You know I like to sleep alone.”

  “Yes, I know. Too bad. If I had my way we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”

  Lee was taking off his clothes. He lay down beside Allerton. “Wouldn’t it be booful if we should juth run together into one gweat big blob,” he said in baby talk. “Am I giving you the horrors?”

  “Indeed you are.”

  Allerton surprised Lee by an unusual intensity of response. At the climax he squeezed Lee hard around the ribs. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

  Lee smoothed his eyebrows with his thumbs. “Do you mind that?” he asked.

  “Not terribly.”

  “But you do enjoy it sometimes? The whole deal, I mean.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Lee lay on his back with one cheek against Allerton’s shoulder, and went to sleep.

  Lee went to Quito to get information on the yagé. Allerton stayed in Salinas. Lee was back five days later.

  “Yagé is also known to the Indians as ayahuasca. Scientific name is Bannisteria caapi.” Lee spread a map out on the bed. “It grows in high jungle on the Amazon side of the Andes. We will go on to Puyo. That is the end of the road. We should be able to locate someone there who can deal with the Indians, and get the yagé”

  They took a river boat to Babahoya. Swinging in hammocks, sipping brandy, and watching the jungle slide by. Springs, moss, beautiful clear streams and trees up to two hundred feet high. Lee and Allerton were silent as the boat powered upriver, penetrating the jungle stillness with its lawnmower whine.

  From Babahoya they took a bus over the Andes to Ambato, a cold, jolting fourteen-hour ride. They stopped for a snack of chick-peas at a hut at the top of the mountain pass, far above the tree line. A few young native men in gray felt hats ate their chick-peas in sullen resignation. Several guinea pigs were squeaking and scurrying around on the dirt floor of the hut. Their cries reminded Lee of the guinea pig he owned as a child in the Fairmont Hotel in St. Louis, when the family was waiting to move into their new house on Price Road. He remembered the way the pig shrieked, and the stink of its cage.

  They passed the snow-covered peak of Chimborazo, cold in the moonlight and the constant wind of the high Andes. The view from the high mountain pass seemed from another, larger planet than Earth. Lee and Allerton huddled together under a blanket, drinking brandy, the smell of wood smoke in their nostrils. They were both wearing Army-surplus jackets, zipped up over sweatshirts to keep out the cold and wind. Allerton seemed insubstantial as a phantom; Lee could almost see through him, to the empty phantom bus outside.

  From Ambato to Puyo, along the edge of a gorge a thousand feet deep. There were waterfalls and forests and streams running down over the roadway, as they descended into the lush green valley. Several times the bus stopped to remove large stones that had slid down onto the road.

  Lee was talking on the bus to an old prospector named Morgan, who had been thirty years in the jungle. Lee asked him about ayahuasca.

  “Acts on them like opium,” Morgan said. “All my Indians use it. Can’t get any work out of them for three days when they get on ayahuasca”

  Old man Morgan went back to Shell Mara on the afternoon bus to collect some money owed him. Lee talked to a Dutchman named Sawyer who was farming near Puyo. Sawyer told him there was an American botanist living in the jungle, a few hours out of Puyo.

  “He is trying to develop some medicine. I forget the name. If he succeeds in concentrating this medicine, he says he will make a fortune. Now he is having a hard time. He has nothing to eat out there.”

  Lee said, “I am interested in medicinal plants. I may pay him a visit.”

  “He will be glad to see you. But take along some flour or tea or something. They have nothing out there.”

  Later Lee said to Allerton, “A botanist! What a break. He is our man. We will go tomorrow.”

  “We can hardly pretend we just happened by,” said Allerton. “How are you going to explain your visit?”

  “I will think of something. Best tell him right out I want to score for yagé. I figure maybe there is a buck in it for both of us. According to what I hear, he is flat on his ass. We are lucky to hit him in that condition. If he was in the chips and drinking champagne out of galoshes in the whorehouses of Puyo, he would hardly be interested to sell me a few hundred Sucres’ worth of yagé. And, Gene, for the love of Chri
st, when we do overhaul this character, please don’t say, ‘Doctor Cotter, I presume.’”

  It was dark when they reached Cotter’s place, a small thatched hut in a clearing. Cotter was a wiry little man in his middle fifties. Lee observed that the reception was a bit cool. Lee brought out the liquor, and they all had a drink. Cotter’s wife, a large, strong-looking, red-haired woman, made some tea with cinnamon to cut the kerosene taste of the Puro. Lee got drunk on three drinks.

  Cotter was asking Lee a lot of questions. “How did you happen to come here? Where are you from? How long have you been in Ecuador? Who told you about me? Are you a tourist or travelling on business?”

  Lee was drunk. He began talking in junky lingo, explaining that he was looking for yagé, or ayahuasca. He understood the Russians and the Americans were experimenting with this drug. Lee said he figured there might be a buck in the deal for both of them. The more Lee talked, the cooler Cotter’s manner became. The man was clearly suspicious, but why or of what, Lee could not decide.

  Dinner was pretty good, considering the chief ingredient was a sort of fibrous root and bananas. After dinner, Cotter’s wife said, “These boys must be tired, Jim.”

  Cotter led the way with a flashlight that developed power by pressing a lever. A cot about thirty inches wide made of bamboo slats. “I guess you can both make out here,” he said. Mrs. Cotter was spreading a blanket on the cot as a mattress, with another blanket as cover. Lee lay down on the cot next to the wall. Allerton lay on the outside, and Cotter adjusted a mosquito net.

  “Mosquitos?” Lee asked.

  “No, vampire bats,” Cotter said shortly. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Lee’s muscles ached from the long walk. He was very tired. He put one arm across Allerton’s chest, and snuggled close to the boy’s body. A feeling of deep tenderness flowed from Lee’s body at the warm contact. He snuggled closer and stroked Allerton’s shoulder gently. Allerton moved irritably, pushing Lee’s arm away.

  “Slack off, will you, and go to sleep,” said Allerton. He turned on his side, his back to Lee. Lee drew his arm back. His whole body contracted with shock. Slowly he put his hand under his cheek. He felt a deep hurt, as though he were bleeding inside. Tears ran down his face.

  * * *

  He was standing in front of the Ship Ahoy. The place looked deserted. He could hear someone crying. He saw his little son, and knelt down and took the child in his arms. The sound of crying came closer, a wave of sadness, and now he was crying, his body shaking with sobs.

  He held little Willy close against his chest. A group of people were standing there in convict suits. Lee wondered what they were doing there and why he was crying.

  When Lee woke up, he still felt the deep sadness of his dream. He stretched out a hand towards Allerton, then pulled it back. He turned around to face the wall.

  Cotter was evasive when Lee asked about ayahuasca. He said he was not sure yagé and ayahuasca were the same plant. Ayahuasca was connected with brujería—witchcraft. He himself was a white brujo. He had access to brujo secrets. Lee had no such access.

  “It would take you years to gain their confidence.”

  Lee said he did not have years to spend on the deal. “Can’t you get me some?” he asked.

  Cotter looked at him sourly. “I have been out here three years,” he said.

  Lee tried to come on like a scientist. “I want to investigate the properties of this drug,” he said. “I am willing to take some as an experiment.”

  Cotter said, “Well, I could take you down to Canela and talk to the brujo. He will give you some if I say so.”

  “That would be very kind,” said Lee.

  Cotter did not say any more about going to Canela. He did say a lot about how short they were on supplies, and how he had no time to spare from his experiments with a curare substitute. After three days Lee saw he was wasting time, and told Cotter they were leaving. Cotter made no attempt to conceal his relief.

  from EPILOGUE: MEXICO CITY RETURN

  Every time I hit Panama, the place is exactly one month, two months, six months more nowhere, like the course of a degenerative illness. A shift from arithmetical to geometrical progression seems to have occurred. Something ugly and ignoble and subhuman is cooking in this mongrel town of pimps and whores and recessive genes, this degraded leech on the Canal.

  A smog of bum kicks hangs over Panama in the wet heat. Everyone here is telepathic on the paranoid level. I walked around with my camera and saw a wood and corrugated iron shack on a limestone cliff in Old Panama, like a penthouse. I wanted a picture of this excrescence, with the albatrosses and vultures wheeling over it against the hot grey sky. My hands holding the camera were slippery with sweat, and my shirt stuck to my body like a wet condom.

  An old hag in the shack saw me taking the picture. They always know when you are taking their picture, especially in Panama. She went into an angry consultation with some other ratty-looking people I could not see clearly. Then she walked to the edge of a perilous balcony and made an ambiguous gesture of hostility. Many so-called primitives are afraid of cameras. There is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit. I walked on and shot some boys—young, alive, unconscious—playing baseball. They never glanced in my direction.

  Down by the waterfront I saw a dark young Indian on a fishing boat. He knew I wanted to take his picture, and every time I swung the camera into position he would look up with young male sulkiness. I finally caught him leaning against the bow of the boat with languid animal grace, idly scratching one shoulder. A long white scar across right shoulder and collarbone. I put away my camera and leaned over the hot concrete wall, looking at him. In my mind I was running a finger along the scar, down across his naked copper chest and stomach, every cell aching with deprivation. I pushed away from the wall muttering “Oh Jesus” and walked away, looking around for something to photograph.

  A Negro with a felt hat was leaning on the porch rail of a wooden house built on a dirty limestone foundation. I was across the street under a movie marquee. Every time I prepared my camera he would lift his hat and look at me, muttering insane imprecations. I finally snapped him from behind a pillar. On a balcony over this character a shirtless young man was washing. I could see the Negro and Near Eastern blood in him, the rounded face and café-au-lait mulatto skin, the smooth body of undifferentiated flesh with not a muscle showing. He looked up from his washing like an animal scenting danger. I caught him when the five o’clock whistle blew. An old photographer’s trick: wait for a distraction.

  That night I had a recurrent dream: I was back in Mexico City, talking to Art Gonzalez, a former roommate of Allerton’s. I asked him where Allerton was, and he said, “In Agua Diente.” This was somewhere south of Mexico City, and I was inquiring about a bus connection. I have dreamed many times I was back in Mexico City, talking to Art or Allerton’s best friend, Johnny White, and asking where he was.

  I flew up to Mexico City.

  I checked into an eight-peso hotel near Sears, and walked over to Lola’s, my stomach cold with excitement. The bar was in a different place, redecorated, with new furniture. But there was the same old bartender behind the bar, with his gold tooth and his moustache.

  “¿Cómo está?” he said. We shook hands. He asked where I had been, and I told him South America. I sat down with a Delaware Punch. The place was empty, but someone I knew was bound to come in sooner or later.

  The Major walked in. A retired Army man, grey-haired, vigorous, stocky. I ran through the list crisply with the Major:

  “Johnny White, Russ Morton, Pete Crowly, Ike Scranton?”

  “Los Angeles, Alaska, Idaho, don’t know, still around. He’s always around.”

  “And oh, uh, whatever happened to Allerton?”

  “Allerton? Don’t believe I know him.”

  “See you.”

  “’Night, Lee. Take it easy.�
�

  I walked over to Sears and looked through the magazines. In one called Balls: For Real Men, I was looking at a photo of a Negro hanging from a tree: “I Saw Them Swing Sonny Goons.” A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned, and there was Gale, another retired Army man. He had the subdued air of the reformed drunk. I ran through the list.

  “Most everybody is gone,” Gale said. “I never see those guys anyway, never hang around Lola’s anymore.”

  I asked about Allerton.

  “Allerton?”

  “Tall skinny kid. Friend of Johnny White and Art Gonzalez.”

  “He’s gone too.”

  “How long ago?” No need to play it cool and casual with Gale. He wouldn’t notice anything.

  “I saw him about a month ago on the other side of the street.”

  “See you.”

  “See you.”

  I put the magazine away slowly and walked outside and leaned against a post. Then I walked back to Lola’s. Burns was sitting at a table, drinking a beer with his maimed hand.

  “Hardly anybody around. Johnny White and Tex and Crosswheel are in Los Angeles.”

  I was looking at his hand.

  “Did you hear about Allerton?” he asked.

  I said, “No.”

  “He went down to South America or some place. With an Army colonel. Allerton went along as guide.”

  “So? How long has he been gone?”

  “About six months.”

  “Must have been right after I left.”

  “Yeah. Just about then.”

  I got Art Gonzalez’s address from Burns and went over to see him. He was drinking a beer in a shop across from his hotel, and called me over. Yes, Allerton left about five months ago and went along as guide to a colonel and his wife.

  “They were going to sell the car in Guatemala. A ’48 Cadillac. I felt there was something not quite right about the deal. But Allerton never told me anything definite. You know how he is.” Art seemed surprised I had not heard from Allerton. “Nobody has heard anything from him since he left. It worries me.”