The Soft Machine

by William S. Burroughs

  So down into the jungle on the head-shrinking lark—Know how it operates—You got these spells see? confines the citizen to his head under your control like you can shrink up all the hate in the area—What a gimmick but as usual I got greedy and the wind up is I don’t have a head left to stand on—Sure I had the area sewed up but there wasn’t any area left—Always was one to run things into the ground—Well there I was on the bottom when I hear about this virgin tribe called the Camuyas embrace every stranger and go naked all the time like nature intended and I said “the Camuyas are live ones” and got down there past all these bureaucrats with The Internal Indian Service doubted the purity of my ­intentions—But I confounded them with my knowledge of Mayan archaeology and the secret meaning of the centipede motif and Iam was very technical so we established ourselves as scientists and got the safe conduct—Those Camuyas were something else all naked rubbing up against you like dogs—They were sweet little critters and I might be there still except for a spot of bother with The Indian Commission about this hanging ceremony I organize figuring to trade in the chassis and renew my substance—So they chucked me out and talked usefully about that was that—And I made it up to the Auca who were warlike and wangled two healthy youths for a secret weapon—So took these boys out into the jungle and laid it on the line and one of them was ready to play ball and—spare you the monotonous details—Suffice it to say the Upper Amazon gained a hustler and there I was caught in the middle of all these feuds—Some one knocks off your cousin twice removed and you are obligated to take care of his great uncle—Been through all this before—Every citizen you knock off there are ten out looking for you geometric and I don’t want to know—So I got a job with the Total Oil Company and that was another mistake—

  Rats was running all over the morning—Somewhere North of Monterrey went into the cocaine business—By this time fish tail Cadillac—People—Civilians—So we score for some business and get rich over the warring ­powers—Shady or legitimate the same fuck of a different color and the general on about the treasure—We rigged their stupid tree limb and drop the alien corn—Spot of business to Walgreen’s—So we organize this 8267 kicked in level on average ape—Melodious gimmick to keep the boys in line—I had learned to control Law 334 procuring an orgasm by any image, Mary sucking him and running the outfield—Static was taken care of that way—What you might call a vending machine and boys dropping to ­Walgreen’s—We are not locals. We sniff the losers and cut their balls off chewing all kinds masturbation and self-abuse like a cow with the aftosa—Young junkies return it to the white reader and one day I would wake up as Bill covered with ice and burning crotch—Drop my shorts and comes gibbering up me with a corkscrew motion—We both come right away standing and trying to say ­something—I see other marks are coming on with the mother ­tincture—The dogs of Harry J. Anslinger sprouted all over me—By now we had word dust stirring the 1920’s, maze of dirty pictures and the house hooked for generations—We all fucked the boy burglar feeling it right down to our toes—Spanish cock flipped out spurting old Montgomery Ward catalogues—So we stripped a young Dane and rigged the Yankee dollar—Pants down to the ankle, a barefoot Indian stood there watching and feeling his friend—Others had shot their load too over a broken chair through the tool heap—Tasty spurts of jissom across the dusty floor—­Sunrise and I said here we go again with the knife—My cock pulsed right with it and trousers fell in the dust and dead leaves—Return it to the white reader in stink of sewage looking at open shirt flapping and comes maybe five times his ass fluttering like—We sniff what we wanted pumping out the spurts open shirt flapping—What used to be me in my eyes like a flash bulb, spilled adolescent jissom in the bath cubicle—Next thing I was Danny Deever in Maya drag—That night we requisitioned a Peruvian boy—I would pass into his body—What an awful place it is—Most advanced stage—Foreigner too—They rotate the symbols around IBM machine with cocaine—Fun and games what?

  Public Agent

  So I am a public agent and don’t know who I work for, get my instructions from street signs, newspapers and pieces of conversation I snap out of the air the way a vulture will tear entrails from other mouth. In any case I can never catch up on my back cases and currently assigned to intercept blue movies of James Dean before the stuff gets to those queers supporting a James Dean habit which, so long as this agent picks his way through barber shops, subway toilets, grope movies and Turkish Baths, will never be legal and exempt narcotic.

  The first one of the day I nailed in a subway pissoir: “You fucking nance!” I screamed. “I’ll teach you to savage my bloody meat, I will.” And I sloughed him with the iron glove and his face smashed like rotten cantaloupe. Then I hit him in the lungs and blood jumped out his mouth, nose and eyes, spattered three commuters across the room huddled in gabardine topcoats and grey flannel suits under that. The broken fruit was lying with his head damning the piss running over his face and the whole trough a light pink from his blood. I winked at the commuters. “I can smell them fucking queers,” I sniffed warningly. “And if there’s one thing lower than a nance it’s a spot of bloody grass. Now you blokes wouldn’t be the type turn around and congor a pal’s balls off would you now?” They arranged themselves on the floor like the three monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.

  “I can see you’re three of our own,” I said warmly and walked into the corridor where schoolboys chase each other with machetes, joyous boy-cries and zipper guns echo through the mosaic caverns. I pushed into a Turkish Bath and surprised a faggot brandishing a deformed erection in the steam room and strangled him straightaway with a soapy towel. I had to check in. I was thin now, barely strength in my receding flesh to finish off that tired faggot. I got into my clothes shivering and gaping and walked into the terminal drugstore. Five minutes to twelve. Five minutes to score. I walked over to the night clerk and threw a piece of tin on him.

  Piss running over his face. Don’t know who I work for. I get mine from his blood, newspapers and pieces. “I can smell them fucking the air the way a vulture will.” In any case bloody grass. I sloughed him with the iron room and strangled him like rotten cantaloupe. Then I had to check in. I was the blood jumped out his mouth, nose receding flesh to finish. Across the room huddled my clothes shivering grey flannel suits under terminal drugstore. So I am a public agent and the whole trough a light pink instruction from street. I winked at the commuters. “Conversation I snap out of queers,” I sniffed warningly. “It’s a spot up on my back cases.” Queers supporting the floor like the three monkeys. “Grope movies and Turkish our own,” I said warmly and walked exempt narcotic. Cool boys chase each other with the first one of the day. To a Turkish Bath and surprised you bloody nance. Soapy towel glove hit him in the lungs and eyes spattered: Ping! And walked into the gabardine topcoats. Five minutes to that broken fruit.

  “Treasury Department,” I said. “Like to check your narcotic inventory against RX. . . How much you using young fellow?” Shaking my head and pushing all the junk bottles and scripts into my brief case: “I hate to see a young man snafu his life script. . . Maybe I can do something for you. That is if you promise me to take the cure and stay off.”

  “I promise anything. I gotta wife and kids.”

  “Just don’t let me down is all.”

  I walked out and got straight in the Lu of The Bus Terminal Chinese Restaurant. It’s a quiet place with very bad food. But what a John for a junky.

  Well I checked into the Old Half-Moon Hotel you can get to the lobby through the subway and walked in on the wrong room, an ether party, with my cigarette lit and everyone’s lung blew out about six characters, cats and chicks. So I get a face full of tits and spare ribs and throat gristle. . . All in the day’s work. . . Follow up on it. Score. I walked the gabardine top tin on him. The broken fruit. Piss running over his face. “Like to check your narcotic inventor. I get mine from his blood.”

  “Much you usi
ng young fellow?”

  “I can smell them fucking all the junk bottles and scripts.” In any case bloody grass. . . See a young man snafu his and strangled him like rot do something for you in the blood. Jumped cure and stay off to finish. Grey flannel suits under all public agents of the bus from street. Grope movie and walked in on the wrong room warmly. Exempt light and lungs. And eyes spattered night clerk and threw a piece of coats. “Five minutes to Treasury Department,” I said. Shaking my head and pushing the air the way a vulture will into my brief case. I hate sloughed him with the iron room life script. Maybe I can cantaloupe. Then I had to check you. Promise me to take out his mouth, nose receding flesh.

  “I promise anything. I go huddled my clothes shivering.” I walked out and got light pink instructions terminal Chinese commuters. Hit him in the lungs the day’s work. Follow up. A word about my work. The Human Issue has been called in by the Home Office. Engineering flaws you know. There is the work of getting it off the shelves and that is what I do. We are not interested in the individual models, but in the mold, the human die. This must be broken. You never see any live ones up here in Freelandt. Too many patrols. It’s a dull territory unless you enjoy shooting a paralyzed swan in a cesspool. Of course there are always the Outsiders. And the young ones I dig special. Long Pigs I call them. Give myself a treat and do it slow just feeding on the subject’s hate and fear and the white stuff oozes out when they crack sweet as a lobster claw. . . I hate to put out the eyes because they are my water hole. They call me The Meat Handler. Among other things.

  I had business with The Egyptian. My Time was running out. He was sitting in a mosaic café with stone shelves along the walls and jars of colored syrups sipping a heavy green drink.

  “I need The Time Milking,” I said.

  He looked at me, his eyes eating erogenous holes. His face got an erection and turned purple. And we went into the vacant lot behind the café naked to a turn.

  White men killed at a distance. Don’t know the answer, do you?

  Den Mark of Trak in every face: “Death, take over.”

  “Never nobody liked dancing no better than Red.”

  “Let’s dance,” he said.

  The script for shit, “Here you are, sir,” and I could see he was heavy with the load. Outfields and back to Moscow for Liquidation. I had business with The Gyp. Trak in every kidney. The script for Heavy Drink. His eyes got an erection and turned the effluvia and became addicts of Vacant Lot. My time was running out its last black grains.

  Trak Trak Trak

  The Sailor and I burned down The Republic of Panama from Darien swamps to David trout streams on paregoric and goof balls—(Note: Nembutal)—You lose time putting a con down on a Tiddlywink chemist—“No glot—Clom Fliday”—(Footnote: old time junkies will remember—Used to be a lot of Chinese pushers in the 1920’s but they found the West so unreliable dishonest and wrong when an Occidental junky comes to score they say: “No glot—Clom Fliday.”)

  And we were running short of Substitute Buyers—They fade in silver mirrors of 1910 under a ceiling fan—Or we lost one at dawn in a wisp of rotten sea wind—Out in the bay little red poison sea snakes swim desperately in sewage—Camphor sweet cooking paregoric smells billow from the mosquito nets—The termite floor gave under our feet spongy and rotten—The albatross at dawn on rusty iron roofs—

  “Time to go, Bill,” said The Sailor, morning light on cold coffee.

  “I’m thin”—Crisscross of broken light from wood lathes over the patio, silver flak holes in his face—We worked The Hole together in our lush rolling youth—(Footnote: “working The Hole,” robbing drunks on the subway)—And kicked a habit in East St. Louis—Made it four times third night, fingers scraping bone—At dawn shrinking from flesh and cloth—

  Hands empty of hunger on the stale breakfast table—Winds of sickness through his face—Pain of the long slot burning flesh film—Canceled eyes, old photo ­fading—Violet brown souvenir of Panama City—I flew to La Paz trailing the colorless death smell of his sickness with me still, thin air like death in my throat—Sharp winds of black dust and the grey felt hat on every head—Purple pink and orange disease faces cut prenatal flesh, genitals under the cracked bleeding feet—Aching lungs in dust and pain wind—Mountain lakes blue and cold as liquid air—Indians shitting along the mud walls—brown flesh, red blankets—

  “No, señor. Necesita receta.”

  And the refugee German croaker you hit anywhere: “This you must take orally—You will inject it of course—Remember it is better to suffer a month if so you come out—With this habit you lose the life is it not?” And he gives me a long creepy human look—

  And Joselito moved into my room suffocating me with soccer scores—He wore my clothes and we laid the same novia who was thin and sickly always making magic with candles and Virgin Pictures and drinking aromatic medicine from a red plastic eye cup and never touched my penis during the sex act.

  Through customs checks and control posts and over the mountains in a blue blast of safe conducts and three monkey creatures ran across the road in a warm wind—(sound of barking dogs and running water) swinging round curves over the misty void—Down to end of the road towns on the edge of Yage country where shy Indian cops checked our papers—Through broken stellae, pottery fragments, worked stones, condoms and shit-stained comics, slag heaps of phosphorescent metal excrement—Faces eaten by the pink and purple insect disease of The New World—Crab boys with human legs and genitals crawl out of clay cubicles—Terminal junkies hawk out crystal throat gristle in the cold mountain wind—Goof ball bums covered with shit sleep in rusty bathtubs—A delta of sewage to the sky under terminal stasis, speared a sick dolphin that surfaced in bubbles of coal gas—Taste of metal left silver sores on our lips—Only food for this village built on iron racks over an iridescent lagoon—swamp delta to the sky lit by orange gas flares.

  In the flash bulb of orgasm I saw three silver ­numbers —We walked into the streets and won a football pool—Panama clung to our bodies Stranger color through his eyes the lookout different.

  Flash bulb monster crawling inexorably from Old Fred Flash—The orgasm is a 1920 movie, silver writing from backward countries—Flapping genitals in wind—Explosion of the throat from peeled noon drifting sheets of male flesh to a stalemate of black lagoons while open shirts twist iridescent in the dawn—(This sharp smell of carrion.)

  “Take it from a broken stalemate—The Doctor couldn’t reach and see?: Those pictures are the line—Fading breath on bed showed sound track—You win handful of dust that’s what.”

  Metamorphosis of The Rewrite Department coughing and spitting in fractured air—Flapping genitals of ­carrion—Our drained countess passed on a hideous leather body—We are digested and become nothing here—Dust air of gymnasiums in another country and besides old the pool now, a few inches on dead post cards—Here at the same time there his eyes—Silver light popped stroke of nine.

  “Dead post card you got it?—Take it from noon refuse like ash—Hurry up see?—Those pictures are yourself—Is backward sound track—That’s what walks beside you to a stalemate of physical ­riders —(‘You come with me, Meester?’)—I knew Mexican he carried in his flesh with sex acts shooting them pills I took—Total alertness she is your card—Look, simple: Place exploded man goal in other flesh—Dual controls country—Double sex sad as the drenched lands.”

  Last man with such explosion of the throat crawling inexorably from something he carried in his flesh—Last turnstile was in another country and besides knife exploded Sammy The Butcher—Holes in 1920 movie—Newspaper tape fading, after dinner sleep ebbing carbon dioxide—Indications enough showed you calls to make, horrors crawling inexorably toward goal in other flesh—What are you waiting for, kid?—Slotless human wares?—Nothing here now—Metamorphosis is complete—Rings of Saturn in the dawn—The sky exploded question from vacant lots—Yo
uth nor age but as it were lips fading—There in our last film mountain street boy exploded “The Word,” sits quietly silence to answer.

  “You come with me, Meester to greet the garbage man and the dawn? Traced fossil countenance everlastingly about the back door, Meester.” Sick dawn of inane cooperation—Dead post cards swept out by typewriters clatter hints as we shifted commissions—Hurry up please—Crawling inexorably toward its goal—I—We—They—sit quietly in last terrace of the garden—The neon sun sinks in this sharp smell of ­carrion—(Circling albatross—peeled noon—refuse like ash)—Ghost of Panama clung to our throats coughing and spitting in the fractured air, falling through space between worlds, we twisted slowly to black lagoons, flower floats and gondolas—Tentative crystal city iridescent in the dawn wind—(Adolescents ejaculate over the tide flats)—Dead post card are you thinking of?—What ­thinking?—Peeled noon and refuse like ash—Hurry up please—Make yourself a bit smart—Who is the third that walks beside you to a stalemate of black lagoons and violet light? Last man—Phosphorescent centipede feeding on flesh strung together we are digested and become nothing here.

  “You come with me, Meester?”

  Up a great tidal river to the port city stuck in water hyacinths and banana rafts—The city is an intricate split-bamboo structure in some places six stories high overhanging the street propped up by beams and sections of railroad track and concrete pillars, an arcade from the warm rain that falls at half hour intervals—The coast people drift in the warm steamy night eating colored ices under the arc lights and converse in slow catatonic gestures punctuated by immobile silence—Plaintive boy-cries drift through Night Of The Vagrant Ball Players.

  “Paco!—Joselito!—Enrique!—”

  “A ver Luckees!”

  “Where you go, Meester?”

  “Squeezed down heads?”