Уильям Берроуз: Nova Express

"Nova Heat moved in at the seams-Like three thousand years in hot claws at the window—

"And Meester William in Tétuan and said: `I have gimmick is cool and all very technical-These colorless sheets are the air pump and I can see the flesh when it has color-Writing say some message that is coming on all flesh-'

"And I said: `William tu es loco-Pulled the reverse switch-No me hagas while you wait'-Kitchen knife in the heart-Feel it Gone away-Pulled the reverse switch-Place no good-No bueno-He pack caso-William tu hagas yesterday call-These colorless sheets are empty-You can look any place-No good-No bueno-Adios Meester William—"

The Fish Poison Con

I was traveling with Merit Inc. checking store attendants for larceny with a crew of "shoppers"-There was two middle-aged cunts one owning this chihuahua which whimpered and yapped in a cocoon of black sweaters and Bob Schafer Crew Leader who was an American Fascist with Roosevelt jokes-It happens in Iowa this number comes over the car radio: "Old Sow Got Caught In The Fence Last Spring"-And Schafer said "Oh my God, are we ever in Hicksville." Stopped that night in Pleasantville Iowa and our tires gave out we had no tire rations during the war for such a purpose-And Bob got drunk and showed his badge to the locals in a road house by the river-And I ran into The Sailor under a potted palm in the lobby- We hit the local croakers with "the fish poison con"-"I got these poison fish, Doc, in the tank transported back from South America I'm a Ichthyologist and after being stung by the dreaded Candirú-Like fire through the blood is it not? Doctor, and coming on now"-And The Sailor goes into his White Hot Agony Act chasing the doctor around his office like a blowtorch He never missed-But he burned down the croakers-So like Bob and me when we "had a catch" as the old cunts call it and arrested some sulky clerk with his hand deep in the company pocket, we take turns playing the tough cop and the con cop-So I walk in on this Pleasantville croaker and tell him I have contracted this Venusian virus and subject to dissolve myself in poison juices and assimilate the passers-by unless I get my medicine and get it regular-So I walk in on this old party smelling like a compost heap and steaming demurely and he snaps at me, "What's your trouble?"

"The Venusian Gook Rot, doctor."

"Now see here young man my time is valuable."

"Doctor, this is a medical emergency."

Old shit but good-I walked out on the nod-

"All he had was one fix, Sailor."

"You're loaded-You assimilated the croaker-Left me sick-"

"Yes. He was old and tough but not too tough for The Caustic Enzymes Of Woo."

The Sailor was thin and the drugstore was closing so I didn't want him to get physical and disturb my medications-The next croaker wrote with erogenous acid vats on one side and Nagasaki Ovens on the other — And we nodded out under the rubber trees with the long red carpet under our feet back to 1910-We could buy it in the drugstore tomorrow-Or lay up in the Chink laundry on the black smoke-drifting through stale rooming houses, pool halls and chili-Fell back on sad flesh small and pretentious in a theatrical boarding house the aging ham cradles his tie up and stabs a vein like Cleopatra applying the asp-Click back through the cool grey short-change artists-lush rolling ghosts of drunken sleep-Empty pockets in the worn metal subway dawn —

I woke up in the hotel lobby the smell heavy and calm holding a different body molded to the leather chair-I was sick but not needle sick-This was a black smoke yen-The Sailor still sleeping and he looked very young under a wispy mustache-I woke him up and he looked around with slow hydraulic control his eyes unbluffed unreadable —

"Let's make the street-I'm thin-"

I was in fact very thin I saw when I stopped in front of a mirror panel and adjusted my tie knot in a starched collar-It was a naborhood of chili houses and cheap saloons with free lunch everywhere and heavy calm bartenders humming "Sweet Sixteen"-I walked without thinking like a horse will and came to The Chinese Laundry by Clara's Massage Parlor-We siphoned in and The Chink in front jerked one eye back and went on ironing a shirt front-We walked through a door and a curtain and the black smoke set our lungs dancing The junky jig and we lay up on our junk hip while a Chinese kid cooked our pills and handed us the pipe-After six pipes we smoke slow and order a pot of tea the Chink kid goes out fix it and the words hatch in my throat like already written there I was reading them back-"Lip Reading" we call it in the trade only way to orient yourself when in Rome- "I've checked the harness bull-He comes in McSorley 's every night at 2:20 A.M. and forces the local pederast to perform this unnatural act on his person- So regular you can set your watch by it: `I won't I won't-Not again-Glub-Glub-Glub.' " — "So that gives us twenty minutes at least to get in and out through the side window and eight hours start we should be in St. Louis before they miss the time-Stop off and see The Family"-Memory pictures coming in — Little Boy Blue and all the heavy silver sets and banks and clubs-Cool heavy eyes moving steel and oil shares-I had a rich St. Louis family-It was set for that night — As we walked out I caught the Japanese girl picking up laundry and my flesh crawled under the junk and I made a meet for her with the afternoon-Good plan to make sex before a caper-Housebreaking can cause this wet dream sex tension especially when things go wrong-(Once in Peoria me and The Sailor charged a drugstore and we can't find the jimmy for the narco cabinet and the flash won't work and the harness bull sniffing round the door and there we are with The Sex Current giggling ourselves off like beached idiots-Well the cops got such nasty kicks from our condition they took us to the RR station and we get on a train shivering burning junk sick and the warm vegetable smells of thawing flesh and stale come slowly filled the car-Nobody could look at us steaming away there like manure piles-) I woke out of a light yen sleep when the Japanese girl came in-Three silver digits exploded in my head-I walked out into streets of Madrid and won a football pool-Felt the Latin mind clear and banal as sunlight met Paco by the soccer scores and he said: "Que tal Henrique?"

And I went to see my amigo who was taking medicina again and he had no money to give me and didn't want to do anything but take more medicina and stood there waiting for me to leave so he could take it after saying he was not going to take any more so I said, "William no me hagas caso." And met a Cuban that night in The Mar Chica who told me I could work in his band-The next day I said good-bye to William and there was nobody there to listen and I could hear him reaching for his medicina and needles as I closed the door-When I saw the knife I knew Meester William was death disguised as any other person-Pues I saw El Hombre Invisible in a hotel room somewhere tried to reach him with the knife and he said: "If you kill me this crate will come apart at the seams like a rotten undervest" — And I saw a monster crab with hot claws at the window and Meester William took some white medicina and vomited into the toilet and we escaped to Greece with a boy about my age who kept calling who kept calling Meester William "The Stupid American"-And Meester William looked like a hypnotist I saw once in Tétuan and said: "I have gimmick to beat The Crab but it is very technical"-And we couldn't read what he was writing on transparent sheets-In Paris he showed me The Man who paints on these sheets pictures in the air-And The Invisible Man said:

"These colorless sheets are what flesh is made from- Becomes flesh when it has color and writing-That is Word And Image write the message that is you on colorless sheets determine all flesh."