The Soft Machine

by William S. Burroughs

  Soiled mouth above a tuxedo blows smoke rings into the night, “SMOKE TRAK CIGARETTES. THEY LIKE YOU. TRAK LIKE ANY YOU. ANY TRAK LIKE YOU. SMOKE TRAKS. THEY SERVICE. TRAK TRAK TRAK.”

  Los Vagos Jugadores de Pelota storm the stale streets of ­commerce —Civil Guards discreetly turn away and open their flys to look for crabs in a vacant lot—For The Vagrant Ball Players can sound a Hey Rube Switch brings a million adolescents shattering the customs barriers and frontiers of Time, swinging out of the jungle with Tarzan cries, crash landing perilous tin planes and rockets, leaping from trucks and banana rafts, charge through the black dust of mountain wind like death in the throat.

  The Trak sign stirs like a nocturnal beast and bursts into blue flame, “SMOKE TRAK CIGARETTES. THEY LIKE YOU. TRAK LIKE ANY YOU. ANY TRAK LIKE YOU. SMOKE TRAKS. THEY SATISFY. THEY SERVICE. TRAK TRAK TRAK.”

  “Vagos Jugadores de Pelota, sola esperanza del mundo, take it to Cut City—Street gangs Uranian born in the face of nova conditions, cut word lines, cut time lines—Take it to Cut City, muchachos—Minutes to go—”

  Jungle invades the weed grown parks where armadillos infected with The Earth Eating Disease gambol through deserted kiosks and Bolivar in catatonic limestone liberates the area—Candiru infiltrate causeways and swimming pools—Albinos blink in the sun—Rank smell of rotten rivers and mud flats—Swamp delta to the sky that does not change—Islands of garbage where Green Boys with delicate purple gills tend chemical ­gardens—Terminal post card shrinking in heavy time. Muttering addicts of the orgasm drug, boneless in the sun, eaten alive by crab men—Terminal post card shrinking in heavy time.

  “Thing Police keep all Board Room Reports—Do not forget this, Señor—”

  They were searching his room when he returned from The Ministry Of Tourist Travel—Fingers light and cold as Spring wind rustling papers and documents—One flashed a badge like a fish side in dark water—

  “Police, Johnny.”

  “Campers,” obviously—“Campers” move into any government office and start issuing directives and spinning webs of inter-office memos—Some have connections in high sources that will make the operation legal and exempt narcotic—Others are shoestring operators out of broom closets and dark rooms of The Mugging ­Department —They charge out high on ammonia issuing insane orders and requisitioning any object in their path—Tenuous bureaus spring up like sandstorms—The whole rancid oil scandal drifted out in growth areas—

  Bradly was reading the sign nailed to a split-bamboo tenement—The sign was printed on white paper book page size:

  Cut The Sex And Dream Utility Lines//

  Cut The Trak Service Lines//

  The paws do not refresh//

  Clom Fliday Meester Surplus Oil//

  Working for the Yankee dollar?//

  Trak your own utilities//

  Under silent wings of malaria a tap on his shoulder: “Documentes, señor. Passaport.”

  His passport drew them like sugar flashing gold teeth in little snarls of incredulity: “Passaport no bueno. No en ordenes.”

  The fuzz that could not penetrate to the passport began chanting in unison: “Comisaria! Comisaria! Comisaria! Meester a la ­Comisaria! —Passaport muy malo. No good. No bueno. Typical sights leak out.” The Comandante wore a green uniform spattered with oil and gave out iron smoke as he moved—A small automatic moved round his waist on metal tracks trailing blue sparks—Seedy agents click into place with reports and documents.

  “It is permiso, si to read the public signs. This”—his hand covered the white sign on a split-bamboo wall—“is a special case.”

  A man with a green eyeshade slid forward: “Yes. That’s what they call it: ‘making a case’—It’s all there in the files, the whole rancid oil scandal of The Trak Sex And Dream Utilities in Growth Areas.”

  He pointed to a row of filing cabinets and lockers—Smell of moldy jockstraps and chlorine drifted through the police terminal. The Comandante turned the newspaper man back with a thin brown hand: “Much politics that one—It is better to be just technical.”

  A Swede Con Man hiding out in Rio Bamba under the cold souvenir of Chimborazi, junk cover removed for the nonpayment, syndicates of the world feeling for him with distant fingers of murder, perfected that art along The Tang Dynasty in the back room of a Chinese laundry. The Swede had one thing left: the grey felt hat concession for “growth areas” hidden under front companies and aliases. With a 1910 magic lantern he posed Indians in grey felt hats and broke the image into a million pieces reflected in dark eyes and blue mountain ice and black water and piss and lamp chimneys, tinted bureaucrat glasses, gun barrels, store fronts and café mirrors—He flickered the broken image into the eyes of a shrunken head that died in agony looking at a grey felt hat. And The Head radiated: HAT. .HAT . .HAT. .HAT. .HAT. .

  “It is a jumping head,” he said.

  When the hat lines formed one thing that could break them was orgasm—So he captured a missionary’s wife and flickered her with pornographic slides—And he took her head to radiate anti-sex—He took other anti-sex heads in coprophiliac vice and electric disgust—He dimed the Sex and Dream Utilities of the land. And he was shipped back to Sweden in a lead cylinder to found The Trak Service and The Trak Board.

  Trak has come a long way from a magic lantern in the Chink laundry. The Heads were donated to The Gothenburg Museum where the comparatively innocuous emanations precipitated a mass sex orgy.

  Vagos Jugadores, sola esperanza del mundo, take it to Cut City, the black obsidian Pyramid of Trak Home Office.

  “The perfect product, gentlemen, has precise molecular affinity for its client of predilection. Someone urges the manufacture and sale of products that wear out? This is not the way of competitive elimination. Our product never leaves the customer. We sell the Servicing and all Trak products have precise need of Trak servicing. . . The servicing of a competitor would act like antibiotic, offering to our noble Trak-strain services inedible counterpart. . . This is not just another habit-forming drug this is the habit-forming drug takes over all functions from the addict including his completely unnecessary under the uh circumstances and cumbersome skeleton. Reducing him ultimately to the helpless condition of a larva. He may be said then to owe his very life such as it is to Trak servicing. . .”

  The Trak Reservation so-called includes almost all areas in and about the United Republics of Freelandt and, since the Trak Police process all matters occurring in Trak Reservation and no one knows what is and is not Reservation cases, civil and criminal are summarily removed from civilian courts with the single word TRAK to unknown sanctions. . . Report meetings of Trak personnel are synchronized with other events as to a low pressure area. . . Benway was reporting so-called actually included almost the report meetings of Trak persons. . . Sometimes the Reservation is other persons and events in Trak guards sub type. . .

  “Outskirts of Mexico City—Can’t quite make it with all the guards around—Are you at all competent to teach me the language? Come in please with the images—”

  Smell death bed pictures—Cooperation inane—Carrion in the bank—Passport bad—Average on level tore canines—Understand fee: Corpses hang pants open in erogenous smells to Monterrey—Clear and loud ahead naked post cards and baby shoes—A man comes back to something he left in underwear peeled the boy warm in 1929—Thighs slapped the bed jumped ass up—“Johnny screw”—Cup is split—Wastings—Thermodynamics crawls home—Game of empty hands—Bed pictures post dead question—Carrion smell sharp.

  “Meester, jelly thing win you—Waiting for this?”

  Early Answer

  Streets of idiot pleasure—Obsidian palaces of the fish city, bubbles twisting slow linen to the floor, traced fossils of orgasm.

  “You win something like jelly fish, Meester.”

  His eyes calm and sad as little cats snapped the advan
tages: “And I told him I said I am giving notice—Hanged in your dirty movies for the last time—Three thousand years in show business and I never stand still for such a routine like this.”

  Street boys of the green with cruel idiot smiles and translucent amber flesh, aromatic jasmine excrement, pubic hairs that cut needles of pleasure—Serving insect pleasures of the spine—Alternate terminal flesh when the egg cracks.

  “This bad place, Meester—This place of last fuck for Johnny.”

  Smile of idiot death spasms—Slow vegetable decay filmed his amber flesh—Always there when the egg cracks and the white juice spurts from ruptured spines—From his mouth floated coal gas and violets—The boy dropped his rusty black pants—Delicate must of soiled linen—Clothes stiff with oil on the red tile floor—Naked and sullen his street boy senses darted around the room for scraps of advantage—

  “You come with me Meester? Last flucky.”

  Stranger color through his eyes the lookout different, face transparent with all the sewers of death—Hard-ons spread nutty smells through the outhouse—Soiled linen under the ceiling fan—Spectral lust of shuttered rooms—He left a shirt on my bed.

  “Jimmy Sheffields is still as good as he used to be.”

  “He was servicing customers shit, Meester—So Doctor Benway snapped the advantages—This special breed spitting notice: Egg cracks the transmitter—Rat spines gathering mushroom flesh—The boy dropped around your room for scraps—Got the rag on body from ­vegetable—Dropped his pants and his cock.”

  “Who are you—My boat—”

  “Smells through the outhouse—A compost heap, Meester.”

  Sacred Sewers of Death—Boy dropped under the swamp cypress flopping around in soiled linen—(Started off on foot across the deserted fields—A little hut on the outskirts—The writer looked at both of us good as he used to be.) Idiot pictures started coming in—

  “You win something like jelly with his knees up to the chin—Sad little irrigation ditch—Parrot on shoulder prods that heart—Paralyzed, twisting in your movies for the last time—Out of me from the waist down—I never stand still for such lookout on street boys of the green—Happened that boy could keep his gas and violets—This spot advantages brown hands working in concert for a switch to The Drenched Lands—Cyclotron shit these characters—Come level on average smell under any image—Evil odors high around the other—Jimmy Sheffields is again as good—Street boy’s breath receiving notice—Jelly routine like this—When the egg cracks our spines servicing special customers of fossil orgasm.”

  Kerosene lamp spattered light on red and white striped T-shirt and brown flesh—Dropped his pants—Pubic hairs cut stale underwear fan whiffs of young hard-on washing odors—Afternoon wind where the awning flaps—

  “Get physical with a routine like this?—Show you something interesting: diseased flesh servicing frantic last fuck for Johnny—Film over the bed you know, eyes pop out—Naked candy around the room, scraps of adolescent image, hot semen in Panama—Then the boy drops his drag and retires to a locker—Who lookout different? Who are you when their eyes pop out—Mandrake smells through the outhouse—The boy dropped and the boy wakes up paralyzed—Remember there is only one visit: Iron roof—Soiled linen under the clothes—Scar tissue—Shuttered room—Evil odors of food—I wasn’t all that far from being good as I used to be—Obsidian that broker before they get to him—A crab scuttles out heavy—You win something like vacant lot—Sad little patch right?—Boy face, green scarf—Movies three up—You understand until I die work I never stand still for. And such got the job—End getting to know street boys of The Green Passport vending last fuck as his pants drop.”

  Dust of cities and wind faces came to World’s End—Call through remote dawn soaked in clouds, shivering back to mucus of the world.

  Dust jissom in the bandanna trailing afternoon wind—Under black Stetson peeled his stale underwear—­Kerosene lamp spattered light on .22, delicate legs and brown flesh—Clothes stiff in the locker room rubbing each other—Sullen as the other two watched—Stranger dropped his pants—Brown hands spurt it to the chest—

  “Find time buyer—Start job—Image under the same position—Change place of your defense—”

  “A Johannesburg bidonville he was servicing—­Customers shitting Nigger for an eyecup of degenerates—Ejaculated the next day as Johnny—Meal mouthed cunt suckers flow through you—This special breed spitting cotton travel on a radar beam of service proof shortbread—Shivering junk sick told your reporter the sex chucks hit us in heroin slow down—The paranoid ex-Communist was there—Rubbed Moscow up me with a corkscrew motion of his limestones—Split is the wastings of the pool game—Irritably for Mexico—By now we had floppy city in the distance, 1920’s faint and intermittent—The track gave out forever an inch from the false bottom—

  “They had torn down the transmitter—Rats was running the post—Somewhere North of Monterrey we meet in warring powers—Captured the spine clinic and cook down the prisoners for jelly—We are accused of soliciting with prehensile tree limbs—The first one dropped your defense his mouth bleeding—Got the rag on—Waiting to see this exhibit, dropped his pants and I came the spectroscope—You could smell it like a compost heap, pants just pulling in the winds of Panhandle—So we hit the Sacred Cotton Wood Grove—It’s the only way to live—Jissom under the swamp cypress—and the warm Spring wind to feel my cock—(Dead bird in the black swamp water)—He would flop around in the trees, come five times in his dry goods.

  “He told me he could fix back places—A little hut on the outskirts—Pale blue sugary eyes that stuck to you—The Writer looked at both of us and smiled a low pressure area, switch paper in his hands—Weak and intermittent before the pictures started coming in: ‘Lawd Lawd have you seen my boy with his knees up to the chin pumping out spurts by the irrigation ditch?’

  “When I shot my load I was paralyzed from the ­medicine—Twisting in these spasms solid female siphoned out of me from the waist down—Shattering special type sex hangs from telegraph pole—And then I felt it way down in a carnival of splintered pink—

  “Cold mountain shadows in the attic—And I went back with the boy to his cellar—Wonder whatever happened to that boy could keep a hard-on all night?—A man comes back to something looking at the blue ­mountains—Same thing day after day—World messages on the shit house wall—Cock spurting limestone—­Summer dawn smell of boy balls so that was that—This spot where a lot of citizens will not work in concert—I didn’t—Out for groceries and decided to whimper on the boys—We found Mother Green in your rubble along with some others from his deserted cock—Disgusting metamorphosis and a cyclotron shit these characters—(You wouldn’t have a rope would you?)—Maybe I’m asking too many agriculturals—

  “Come level on average we’ll hold that old cow in line—Put any image in the cold drink would you?—Wet back asleep with a hard-on was taken care of that way—Look, moving in whole armies and he sits me fishing lark—Silent and shaking things considered and we moved out hard—Around the other side piecing out the odds best we could—In the barn attic night and day smelling his thin cotton pants—He wakes buying it sight unseen.

  “Jimmy busy doing something feller say—Boys streaked with coal dust—Maybe I’m asking too many—(You wouldn’t have a rope would you?)—Well now that bedroom sitter boy his cock came up wet sleep—Smiling looks at his crotch—Peeled slow and touch it—Springs out hard—Turns me around the end of his cock ­glistening—That smell through the dingy room clings to him like—Raw and peeled came to the hidden gallows—Open door underneath to cut down ghost ­assassins—Odor of semen drifts in the brain—Jimmy with cruel idiot smile shacks elbows twisting him over on his candy—Found a pajama cord and tied the boy—Jimmy lay there and suck his honey—Must have blacked out in The Mandrake Pub—So called Rock and Rollers crack wise on a lumpy studio bed with old shoes and overcoat som
e one cope—The boy wakes up paralyzed in hock—Sorted out name you never learned to use—Them marketable commodities turn you on direct connection come level on average—Whiff of dried jissom in the price—I was on the roof so sweet young breath came through the time buyer—

  “The gate in white flames—Early answer to the boy wakes naked—Down on his stomach is he?—Ah there and iron cool in the mouth—Come see me tonight in bone wrenching spasms—Silver light pops something interesting—The boy features being younger of course—To your own people you frantic come level on average—Wait a bit—No good at this rate—Try one if you want worthless old shit screaming without a body—Roll two years operation completed—We are? Well the wind up is who?—Quién es?—World’s End as a boy in drag retired to the locker—My page deals so many tasty ways on the bed—You know—Eyes pop out—Candy and cigarettes what? Rectum open, the warm muscle boy rampant and spitting adolescent image—Hot semen amok in Panama—Scenic railways when their eyes pop out—Know the answer?—Two assholes and a mandrake—They’ll do it every time—Rock and Rollers crack wise with overwhelming Minraud girl, wipe their ass on the women’s toilet—And the boy wakes up paralyzed from arsenic and bleeding gums—Remember there is only one visit of a special kind—Flesh juice vampires is rotten smell of ice—No good no bueno outright or partially.

  “Reason for the change of food he is subject to take back the keys—Square fact is that judges like it locked—Acting physician at Dankmoor fed up you understand until I die—End getting to know whose hanged man—One more chance still?—Come back to the Spanish bait, hard faced matron bandages the blotter—The shock when your neck breaks is far away—In this hotel room you are already dead of course—Boy stretches a leg, his cock flipped out—But uh well you see sputter of burning insect wings—”

  In the sun at noon shirt open Kiki steps forward—With a wriggle stood naked spitting over the tide flats bare feet in dog’s excrement—washed back on Spain repeat performance page. Predated checks bounce all around us in green place by the ball park—Come and jack off—­Passport vending machines—Jimmy walked along North End Road—(Slow-motion horses pulling carts—boys streaked with coal dust)—A low-pressure area and the wind rising—Came to the World’s End Pissoir and met a boy with wide shoulders, black eyes glinting under the street lights, a heavy silk scarf tucked into his red and white striped T-shirt—In the bedroom sitter the boy peeled off his clothes and sat down naked on the bed blowing cigarette smoke through his pubic hairs—His cock came up in the smoke—Switchblade eyes squinted, he watched with a smile wasn’t exactly a smile as Jimmy folded his clothes—Raw and peeled, naked now his cock pulsing—Jimmy picked up his key and put it in his mouth sucking the metal taste—The other sat smoking and silent—A slow drop of lubricant squeezed out the end of his cock glistening in light from the street—Shutters clattered in the rising wind—A rotten vegetable smell seeped through the dingy room, shadow cars moved across the rose wall paper—