Уильям Берроуз: Nova Express

So they start to run it back and the projector blew up and we lammed out of there on the blast — Holed up in those cool blue mountains the liquid air in our spines listening to a little high-fi junk note fixes you right to metal and you nod out a thousand years. {2} 2 Since junk is image the effects of junk can easily be produced and concentrated in a sound and image track — Like this: Take a sick junky — Throw blue light on his so-called face or dye it blue or dye the junk blue it don't make no difference and now give him a shot and photograph the blue miracle as life pours back into that walking corpse — That will give you the image track of junk — Now project the blue change onto your own face if you want The Big Fix. The sound track is even easier I quote from Newsweek, March 4, 1963 Science section: "Every substance has a characteristic set of resonant frequencies at which it vibrates or oscillates." — So you record the frequency of junk as it hits the junk-sick brain cells – Just sitting there in a slate house wrapped in orange flesh robes, the blue mist drifting around us when we get the call — And as soon as I set foot on Podunk earth I can smell it that burnt metal reek of nova.

"Already set off the charge," I said to I&I (Immovable and Irresistible) — "This is a burning planet — Any minute now the whole fucking shit house goes up."

So Intolerable I&I sniffs and says: "Yea, when it happens it happens fast — This is a rush job." And you could feel it there under your feet the whole structure buckling like a bulkhead about to blow — So the paper has a car there for us and we are driving in from the airport The Kid at the wheel and his foot on the floor — Nearly ran down a covey of pedestrians, and they yell after us: "What you want to do, kill somebody?"

And The Kid sticks his head out and says: "It would be a pleasure Niggers! Gooks! Terrestrial dogs"-His eyes lit up like a like a blow torch and I can see he is really in form-So we start right to work making our headquarters in The Land Of The Free where the call came from and which is really free and wide open for any life form the uglier the better-Well they don't come any uglier than The Intolerable Kid and your reporter- When a planet is all primed to go up they call in I&I to jump around from one faction to the other agitating and insulting all the parties before and after the fact until they all say: "By God before I give an inch the whole fucking shit house goes up in chunks."

Where we came in-You have to move fast on this job-And I&I is fast-Pops in and out of a hundred faces in a split second spitting his intolerable insults- We had the plan, what they call The Board Books to show us what is what on this dead whistle stop: Three life forms uneasily parasitic on a fourth form that is beginning to wise up. And the whole planet absolutely flapping hysterical with panic. The way we like to see them.

"This is a dead easy pitch," The Kid says.

"Yeah," I say. "A little bit too easy. Something here, Kid. Something wrong. I can feel it." But The Kid can't hear me. Now all these life forms came from the most intolerable conditions: hot places, cold places, terminal stasis and the last thing any of them want to do is go back where they came from. And The Intolerable Kid is giving out with such pleasantries like this:

All right take your ovens out and pay Hitler on the way out. Nearly got the place hot enough for you Jews didn't he?"

"Know about Niggers? Why darkies were born? Antennae coolers what else? Always a spot for good Darkies."

"You cunts constitute a disposal problem in the worst form there is and raise the nastiest whine ever heard anywhere: `Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me???' Why don't you go back to Venus and fertilize a forest?

"And as for you White Man Boss, you dead prop in Martin's stale movie, you terminal time junky, haul your heavy metal ass back to Uranus. Last shot at the door. You need one for the road." By this time everybody was even madder than they were shit scared. But I&I figured things were moving too slow.

"We need a peg to hang it on," he said. "Something really ugly like virus. Not for nothing do they come from a land without mirrors." So he takes over this newsmagazine.

"Now," he said, "I’ll by God show them how ugly the Ugly American can be."

And he breaks out all the ugliest pictures in the image bank and puts it out on the subliminal so one crisis piles up after the other right on schedule. And I&I is whizzing around like a buzz saw and that black nova laugh of his you can hear it now down all the streets shaking the buildings and skyline like a stage prop. But me I am looking around and the more I look the less I like what I see. For one thing the nova heat is moving in fast and heavy like I never see it anywhere else. But I&I just says I have the copper jitters and turns back to his view screen: "They are skinning the chief of police alive in some jerkwater place. Want to sit in?"

"Naw," I said. "Only interested in my own skin."

And I walk out thinking who I would like to see skinned alive. So I cut into the Automat and put coins into the fish cake slot and then I really see it: Chinese partisans and well armed with vibrating static and image guns. So I throw down the fish cakes with tomato sauce and make it back to the office where The Kid is still glued to that screen. He looks up smiling dirty and says:

"Wanta molest a child and disembowel it right after?"

"Pry yourself loose and listen." And I tell him. "Those Tiddly Winks don't fuck around you know."

"So what?" he says. "I've still got The Board Books. I can split this whistle stop wide open tomorrow." No use talking to him. I look around some more and…"

And all he can say is: "So what? I've still got… /" Cut.

"Board Books taken. The film reeks of burning switch like a blow torch. Prerecorded heat glare massing Hiroshima. This whistle stop wide open to hot crab people. Mediation? Listen: Your army is getting double zero in floor by floor game of `symbiosis.' Mobilized reasons to love Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Virus to maintain terminal sewers of Venus?"

"All nations sold out by liars and cowards. Liars who want time for the future negatives to develop stall you with more lying offers while hot crab people mass war to extermination with the film in Rome. These reports reek of nova, sold out job, shit birth and death. Your planet has been invaded. You are dogs on all tape. The entire planet is being developed into terminal identity and complete surrender."

"But suppose film death in Rome doesn't work and we can get every male body even madder than they are shit scared? We need a peg to evil full length. By God show them how ugly the ugliest pictures in the dark room can be. Pitch in the oven ambush. Spill all the board gimmicks. This symbiosis con? Can tell you for sure `symbiosis' is ambush straight to the ovens. 'Human dogs' to be eaten alive under white hot skies of Minraud."

And Intolerable I&I's "errand boys" and "strikebreakers" are copping out right left and center:

"Mr. Martin, and you board members, vulgar stupid Americans, you will regret calling in the Mayan Aztec Gods with your synthetic mushrooms. Remember we keep exact junk measure of the pain inflicted and that pain must be paid in full. Is that clear enough Mr. Intolerable Martin, or shall I make it even clearer? Allow me to introduce myself: The Mayan God of Pain And Fear from the white hot plains of Venus which does not mean a God of vulgarity, cowardice, ugliness and stupidity. There is a cool spot on the surface of Venus three hundred degrees cooler than the surrounding area. I have held that spot against all contestants for five hundred thousand years. Now you expect to use me as your `errand boy' and `strikebreaker' summoned up by an IBM machine and a handful of virus crystal? How long could you hold that spot, you 'board members '? About thirty seconds I think with all your guard dogs. And you thought to channel my energies for 'operation total disposal'? Your 'operations' there or here this or that come and go and are no more. Give my name back . That name must be paid for. You have not paid. My name is not yours to use. Henceforth I think about thirty seconds is written."

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