Naked Lunch

by William Burroughs

  They are conspiring to kidnap the Black Stone with a helicopter and substitute a hog pen, the hogs trained to give the Bronx cheer when the pilgrims show. ‘We try to train them squealing bastards to sing: “Three cheers for the Red White and Blue,” but it can’t be done.…’

  ‘We connect for that wheat with Ali Wong Chapultepec in Panama. He tells us it is a high grade of shit this Finnish skipper die inna local jump joint and leave this cargo to the madame.…“She was like a mother to me,” he says and those were his last words.… So we buy it in good faith off the old gash. Laid ten pieces of H on her.’

  ‘Good H too. Good Aleppo H.’

  ‘Just enough milk sugar to keep her strength up.’

  ‘We should look a gift horse in the ass already?’

  ‘Isn’t it true that when you got to Hassan you gave a banquet for the Caid and served couscous made from the wheat?’

  ‘We sure did. And you know those citizens were so loaded on that marijuana they all wig inna middle of the banquet.… Me, I just had bread and milk … ulcers you know.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘So they all run around screaming they is on fire and the bulk of them die the following morning.’

  ‘And the rest the morning after that.’

  ‘What they expect already when they rot theirselves with Eastern vices?’

  ‘Funny thing those citizens turn all black and their legs drop off.’

  ‘Horrible result of marijuana addiction.’

  ‘The very same thing occurred to me.’

  ‘So we deal directly with the old Sultan who is being a well-known Latah. After that everything is plain sailing you might say.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t believe it, certain disgruntled elements chased us right down to our launch.’

  ‘Handicapped somewhat by lack of legs.’

  ‘And a condition in the head.’

  (Ergot is a fungus disease grows on bad wheat. During the Middle Ages Europe was periodically decimated by outbreaks of Ergotism which was called St. Anthony’s Fire. Gangrene frequently supervenes, the legs turn black and drop off.)

  They unload a shipment of condemned parachutes on the Ecuadorian Air Force. Maneuvers: Boys plummet streaming ’chutes like broken condoms splash young blood over potbellied generals … shattering wake of sound as Clem and Jody disappear over the Andes in jet getaway.…

  The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line.

  A. J. is agitating for the destruction of Israel: ‘With all this feeling against the West a chap has a spot of bother scoring for the young Arab amenities.… The situation is little short of intolerable.… Israel constitutes a downright inconvenience.’ Typical A. J. cover story.

  Clem and Jody give out they are interested in the destruction of Near East oil fields to boost the value of their Venezuelan holdings.

  Clem writes a number to the tune of ‘Crawdad’ (Big Bill Broonzy).

  What you gonna do when the oil goes dry?

  Gonna sit right there and watch those Arabs die.

  Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefactionist activities.… But over a few stiff yages he lets his hair down among friends.

  ‘Islam is jellied consommé already,’ he says, dancing the Liquefactionist Jig.… And then, unable to contain himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:

  It’s trembling on the brink

  One push and down it sink

  Hey, Maw, get ready my veil.

  ‘Well, these citizens have engaged the services of a Brooklyn Jew who passes himself off as the second coming of Mohammed.… In fact Doctor Benway delivered him by Caesarian section from a Holy Man in Mecca.…

  ‘If Ahmed won’t come out … We’ll go in and get him.’

  This shameless plant is accepted without question by the gullible Arabs.

  ‘Nice folk, these Arabs.… Nice ignorant folk,’ Clem says.

  So this phony gives out with daily Surahs on the radio: ‘Now friends of the radio audience, this is Ahmed your friendly prophet.… Today I’d like to talk about the importance of being dainty and kissin’ fresh at all times.… Friends, use Jody’s chlorophyll tablets and be sure.’

  Now a word about the parties of Interzone.…

  It will be immediately clear that the Liquefaction Party is, except for one man, entirely composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final absorption who is whose dupe.… The Liquefactionists are much given to every form of perversion, especially sadomasochistic practices.

  Liquefactionists in general know what the score is. The Senders, on the other hand, are notorious for their ignorance of the nature and terminal state of sending, for barbarous and self-righteous manners, and for rabid fear of any fact – . It was only the intervention of the Factualists that prevented the Senders from putting Einstein in an institution and destroying his theory. It may be said that only a very few Senders know what they are doing and these top Senders are the most dangerous and evil men in the world.… Techniques of Sending were crude at first. Fadeout to the National Electronic Conference in Chicago.

  The Conferents are putting on their overcoats.… The speaker talks in a flat shopgirl voice:

  ‘In closing I want to sound a word of warning.… The logical extension of encephalographic research is biocontrol; that is control of physical movement, mental processes, emotional reactions and apparent sensory impressions by means of bioelectric signals injected into the nervous system of the subject.’

  ‘Louder and funnier!’ The Conferents are trouping out in clouds of dust.

  ‘Shortly after birth a surgeon could install connections in the brain. A miniature radio receiver could be plugged in and the subject controlled from State-controlled transmitters.’

  Dust settles through the windless air of a vast empty hall – smell of hot iron and steam; a radiator sings in the distance.… The Speaker shuffles his notes and blows dust off them.…

  ‘The biocontrol apparatus is prototype of one-way telepathic control. The subject could be rendered susceptible to the transmitter by drugs or other processing without installing any apparatus. Ultimately the Senders will use telepathic transmitting exclusively.… Ever dig the Mayan codices? I figure it like this: the priests – about one per cent of population – made with one-way telepathic broadcasts instructing the workers what to feel and when.… A telepathic sender has to send all the time. He can never receive, because if he receives that means someone else who has feelings of his own could louse up his continuity. The sender has to send all the time, but he can’t ever recharge himself by contact. Sooner or later he’s got no feelings to send. You can’t have feelings alone. Not alone like the Sender is alone – and you dig there can only be one Sender at one place-time.… Finally the screen goes dead.… The Sender has turned into a huge centipede.… So the workers come in on the beam and burn the centipede and elect a new Sender by consensus of the general will.… The Mayans were limited by isolation.… Now one Sender could control the planet…. You see control can never be a means to any practical end.… It can never be a means to anything but more control.… Like junk … ‘

  The Divisionists occupy a mid-way position, could in fact be termed moderates.… They are called Divisionists because they literally divide. They cut off tiny bits of their flesh and grow exact replicas of themselves in embryo jelly. It seems probable, unless the process of division is halted, that eventually there will be only one replica of one sex on the planet: that is one person in the world with millions of separate bodies.… Are these bodies actually independent, and could they in time develop varied characteristics? I doubt it. Replicas must periodically recharge with the Mother Cell. This is an article of faith with the Divisionists, who live in fear of a replica revolution.… Some Divisionists think that the process can be halted short of the eventual monopoly of one replic
a. They say: ‘Just let me plant a few more replicas all over so I won’t be lonely when I travel.… And we must strictly control the division of Undesirables.…’ Every replica but your own is eventually an ‘Undesirable.’ Of course if someone starts inundating an area with Identical Replicas, everyone knows what is going on. The other citizens are subject to declare a ‘Schluppit’ (wholesale massacre of all identifiable replicas). To avoid extermination of their replicas, citizens dye, distort, and alter them with face and body molds. Only the most abandoned and shameless characters venture to manufacture I.R.s – Identical Replicas.

  A cretinous albino Caid, product of a long line of recessive genes (tiny toothless mouth lined with black hairs, body of a huge crab, claws instead of arms, eyes projected on stalks) accumulated 20,000 I.R.s.

  ‘As far as the eye can see, nothing but replicas,’ he says, crawling around on his terrace and speaking in strange insect chirps. ‘I don’t have to skulk around like a nameless asshole growing replicas in my cesspool and sneaking them out disguised as plumbers and delivery men.… My replicas don’t have their dazzling beauty marred by plastic surgery and barbarous dye and bleach processes. They stand forth naked in the sun for all to see, in their incandescent loveliness of body, face and soul. I have made them in my image and enjoined them to increase and multiply geometric for they shall inherit the earth.’

  A professional witch was called in to make Sheik Aracknid’s replica cultures forever sterile.… As the witch was preparing to loose a blast of anti-orgones, Benway told him: ‘Don’t knock yourself out. Friedrich’s ataxia will clean out that replica nest. I studied neurology under Professor Fingerbottom in Vienna … and he knew every nerve in your body. Magnificent old thing … Came to a sticky end.… His falling piles blew out the Duc de Ventre’s Hispano Suiza and wrapped around the rear wheel. He was completely gutted, leaving an empty shell sitting there on the giraffe skin upholstery.… Even the eyes and brain went with a horrible schlupping sound. The Duc de Ventre says he will carry that ghastly schlup to his mausoleum.’

  Since there is no sure way to detect a disguised replica (though every Divisionist has some method he considers infallible) the Divisionists are hysterically paranoid. If some citizen ventures to express a liberal opinion another citizen invariably snarls: ‘What are you? Some stinking Nigger’s bleached-out replica?’

  The casualties in bar-room fights are staggering. In fact the fear of Negro replicas – which may be blond and blue-eyed – has depopulated whole regions. The Divisionists are all latent or overt homosexuals. Evil old queens tell the young boys: ‘If you go with a woman your replicas won’t grow.’ And citizens are forever putting the hex on someone else’s replica cultures. Cries of: ‘Hex my culture will you, Biddy Blair!’ followed by sound effects of mayhem, continually ring through the quarter.… The Divisionists are much given to the practice of black magic in general, and they have innumerable formulas of varying efficacy for destroying the Mother Cell, also known as the Protoplasm Daddy, by torturing or killing a captured replica.… The authorities have finally given up the attempt to control, among the Divisionists, the crimes of murder and unlicensed production of replicas. But they do stage pre-election raids and destroy vast replica cultures in the mountainous regions of the Zone where replica moonshiners hole up.

  Sex with a replica is strictly forbidden and almost universally practised. There are queer bars where shameless citizens openly consort with their replicas. House detectives stick their heads into hotel rooms saying: ‘Have you got a replica in here?’

  Bars subject to be inundated by low class replica lovers put up signs in ditto marks: " " " "s Will Not Be Served Here.… It may be said that the average Divisionist lives in a continual crisis of fear and rage, unable to achieve either the self-righteous complacency of the Senders or the relaxed depravity of the Liquefactionists.… However the parties are not in practice separate but blend in all combinations.

  The Factualists are Anti-Liquefactionist, Anti-Divisionist, and above all Anti-Sender.

  Bulletin of the Coordinate Factualist on the subject of replicas: ‘We must reject the facile solution of flooding the planet with “desirable replicas.” It is highly doubtful if there are any desirable replicas, such creatures constituting an attempt to circumvent process and change. Even the most intelligent and genetically perfect replicas would in all probability constitute an unspeakable menace to life on this planet.…’

  T.B. – Tentative Bulletin – Liquefaction: ‘We must not reject or deny our protoplasmic core, striving at all times to maintain a maximum of flexibility without falling into the morass of liquefaction.…’ Tentative and Incomplete Bulletin: ‘Emphatically we do not oppose telepathic research. In fact, telepathy properly used and understood could be the ultimate defense against any form of organized coercion or tyranny on the part of pressure groups or individual control addicts. We oppose, as we oppose atomic war, the use of such knowledge to control, coerce, debase, exploit or annihilate the individuality of another living creature. Telepathy is not, by its nature, a one-way process. To attempt to set up a one-way telepathic broadcast must be regarded as an unqualified evil.…’

  D.B. – Definitive Bulletin: ‘The Sender will be defined by negatives. A low pressure area, a sucking emptiness. He will be portentously anonymous, faceless, colorless. He will – probably – be born with smooth disks of skin instead of eyes. He always knows where he is going like a virus knows. He doesn’t need eyes.’

  ‘Couldn’t there be more than one Sender?’

  ‘Oh yes, many of them at first. But not for long. Some maudlin citizens will think they can send something edifying, not realizing that sending is evil. Scientists will say: “Sending is like atomic power…. If properly harnessed.” At this point an anal technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and pulls the switch that reduces the earth to cosmic dust. (“Belch … They’ll hear this fart on Jupiter.”) … Artists will confuse sending with creation. They will camp around screeching “A new medium” until their rating drops off.… Philosophers will bat around the ends and means hassle not knowing that sending can never be a means to anything but more sending, like Junk. Try using junk as a means to something else.… Some dozens with “Coca Cola and aspirin” control habits will be talking about the evil glamor of sending. But no one will talk about anything very long. The Sender, he don’t like talking.’

  The Sender is not a human individual.… It is The Human Virus. (All viruses are deteriorated cells leading a parasitic existence.… They have specific affinity for the Mother Cell; thus deteriorated liver cells seek the home place of hepatitis, etc. So every species has a Master Virus: Deteriorated Image of that species.)

  The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell.… Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus.

  The Human Virus can now be isolated and treated.

  The County Clerk

  The County Clerk has his office in a huge red brick building known as the Old Court House. Civil cases are, in fact, tried there, the proceeding inexorably dragging out until the contestants die or abandon litigation. This is due to the vast number of records pertaining to absolutely everything, all filed in the wrong place so that no one but the County Clerk and his staff of assistants can find them, and he often spends years in the search. In fact, he is still looking for material relative to a damage suit that was settled out of court in 1910. Large sections of the Old Court House have fallen in ruins, and others are highly dangerous owing to frequent cave-ins. The County Clerk assigns the more dangerous missions to his assistants, many of whom have lost their lives in the service. In 1912 two hundred and seven assistants were trapped in a collapse of the North-by-North-East wing.

  When suit is brought against anyone in the Zone, his lawyers connive to have the case transferred to the Old Court House. Once this is done, the plaintiff has lost the case, so the only cases that actually go to trial in the Old Court House are those ins
tigated by eccentrics and paranoias who want ‘a public hearing,’ which they rarely get since only the most desperate famine of news will bring a reporter to the Old Court House.

  The Old Court House is located in the town of Pigeon Hole outside the urban zone. The inhabitants of this town and the surrounding area of swamps and heavy timber are people of such great stupidity and such barbarous practices that the Administration has seen fit to quarantine them in a reservation surrounded by a radioactive wall of iron bricks. In retaliation the citizens of Pigeon Hole plaster their town with signs: ‘Urbanite Don’t Let The Sun Set On You Here,’ an unnecessary injunction, since nothing but urgent business would take any urbanite to Pigeon Hole.

  Lee’s case is urgent. He has to file an immediate affidavit that he is suffering from bubonic plague to avoid eviction from the house he has occupied ten years without paying the rent. He exists in perpetual quarantine. So he packs his suitcase of affidavits and petitions and injunctions and certificates and takes a bus to the Frontier. The Urbanite customs inspector waves him through: ‘I hope you’ve got an atom bomb in that suitcase.’

  Lee swallows a handful of tranquilizing pills and steps into the Pigeon Hole customs shed. The inspectors spend three hours pawing through his papers, consulting dusty books of regulations and duties from which they read incomprehensible and ominous excerpts ending with: ‘And as such is subject to fine and penalty under act 666.’ They look at him significantly.

  They go through his papers with a magnifying glass.

  ‘Sometimes they slip dirty limericks between the lines.’

  ‘Maybe he figure to sell them for toilet paper. Is this crap for your own personal use?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He says yes.’

  ‘And how do we know that?’

  ‘I gotta affidavit.’