Nova Express

by William S. Burroughs

  Cool and casual the anatomy of games closed at hotel room in London—

  The District Supervisor looked up with a narrow smile. “Sit down young man and smoke . . . occupational vice what? . . . only vice left us . . . You have studied Scientology of course?”

  “Oh yes sir . . . It was part of our basic training sir . . . an unforgettable experience if you’ll pardon the expression sir . . .”

  “Repeat what you know about Scientology.”

  “The Scientologists believe sir that words recorded ­during a period of unconsciousness . . . ­(anesthesia, drunkenness, sleep, childhood amnesia for trauma) . . . store pain and that this pain store can be plugged in with key words represented as alternative mathematical formulae indicating number of exposures to the key words and reaction index, the whole battery feeding back from electronic computers . . . They call these words recorded during unconsciousness engrams sir . . . If I may say so sir the childhood amnesia for trauma is of special interest sir . . . The child forgets sir but since the controllers have the engram tapes sir any childhood trauma can be plugged in at any time . . . The pain that overwhelms that person is known as basic basic sir and when basic basic is wiped off the tape . . . Oh sir then that person becomes what they call a clear sir . . . Since Lord Lister sir . . . since the introduction of anesthesia sir . . .” (Amnesia smiled) “Oh let me yes sir tell you about a score of years’ dust on the expression sir . . . If you’ll pardon the expression sir are known as engrams sir.”

  “You have occupational experience?”

  “Oh yes sir . . . It was part of our Basic Scientology Police Course sir”

  “You have studied the risks of ‘dancing’?”

  “Sir the Scientologists believe this pain can be plugged in from Oaxaca photo copies and middle ages jacking off in deprostrated comrades”

  (The living dead give a few cool hints . . . artificial arms and legs . . . soulless winded words)

  “With the advent of General Anesthesia sir words recorded during operations became . . . (The nurse leans over the doctor’s shoulder dropping cigarette ashes along the incision—‘What are you looking for?’ snarls the doctor . . . ‘I know what I’m doing right enough . . . ­appendectomy at least . . . But why stop there?? Enemy anesthetized we advance . . . Fetch me another ­scalpel . . . This one’s filthy . . .’ Chorus of street boys outside: ‘Fingaro?? one cigarette?? please thanks you very much . . . You like beeg one? . . . son bitch ­bastard . . .’ ‘Go away you villainous young toads’ snarls the doctor pelting them with tonsils . . . Wish I had an uterine tumor . . . like a bag of cement . . . get one of them with any luck . . . You nurse . . . Put out that cigarette . . . You wanta cook my patient’s lungs out??”

  Shrill screams from maternity blast through the loudspeaker . . . The Technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and belches into his hand . . . ‘Urp urp urp . . . Fucking set picks up every fart and passes it along’ A hideous squawk of death rattles smudges the instrument panel out of focus . . . White no smell of death from a cell of sick junkies in the prison ward swirls through the operating room . . . The doctor sags ominously severing the patient’s femoral artery . . . ‘I die . . . I faint . . . I fail . . . Fucking sick Coolies knock all the junk right out of a man . . .’ He staggers towards the narco cabinet trailing his patient’s blood . . . ‘GOM for the love of God’) It’s a little skit I wrote for the Post Gazette sir . . . Anesthesia on stage sir words recorded during operations became the most reliable engrams . . . ­Operation Pain they called it sir . . . I can feel it now sir . . . in my tonsils sir . . . ether vertigo sir . . . (The patient is hemorrhaging . . . nurse . . . the clamps . . . quick before I lose my patient) . . . Another instrument of these pain tourists is the signal switch sir . . . what they call the ‘yes no’ sir . . . ‘I love you I hate you’ at supersonic alternating speed . . . Take orgasm noises sir and cut them in with torture and accident groans and screams sir and operating-room jokes sir and flicker sex and torture film right with it sir” . . .

  “And what is your counter?”

  “Just do it sir . . . in front of everybody sir . . . It would have a comic effect sir . . . We flash a sex pic with torture in the background sir then snap that torture pic right in your bloody face sir . . . if you’ll pardon the expression sir . . . we do the same with the sound track sir . . . varying distances sir . . . It has a 3D effect sir . . . right down the old middle line sir . . . if you’ll pardon the expression sir . . . the razor inside sir . . .

  “Jerk the handle . . . It sounds like this sir: ‘Oh my God I can’t stand it . . . That hurts that hurts that hurts so gooood . . . Oooooohhhh fuck me to death . . . Blow his fucking guts out . . . You’re burning up baby . . . whole sky burning . . . I’ll talk . . . Do it again . . . Come in . . . Get out . . . Slip your pants down . . . What’s that?? nurse . . . the clamps . . . Cut it off . . .’ with the pics sir . . . popping like fireworks sir . . . sex and pain words sir . . . vary the tape sir . . . switch the tape sir . . .

  “Now all together laugh laugh laugh . . . Oh sir we laugh it right off the tape sir . . . We forget it right off the tape sir . . . You see sir we can not know it if we have the engram tapes sir . . . simple as a hiccup sir . . . melted a categorical no mercy for this enemy as dust and smoke sir . . . The man who never was reporting for no duty sir . . . A young cop drew the curtains sir . . . Room for one more operating-room joke inside sir”

  You can still see the old operating room kinda run down now . . . Do you begin to see there is no patient there on the table?

  ARE THESE EXPERIMENTS NECESSARY?

  Saturday March 17, 1962, Present Time Of Knowledge—Scio is knowing and open food in The Homicide Act—Logos you got it?—Dia through noose—England spent the weekend with a bargain before release certificate is issued—Dogs must be carried reluctant to the center—It’s a grand feeling—There’s a lot ended—This condition is best expressed queen walks serenely down dollar process known as overwhelming—What we want is Watney’s Woodbines and the Garden Of ­Delights—And what could you have?—What would you? State of news?—Inquire on hospital? what?—Would you permit that person revived peat victory hopes of Fortria? Pre-clear to look around and discover Sheila’s Cottage?—Death reduces the cycle of action—Venus Vigar choked to death in the direction of “havingness”—His diary thoughts they went back other identities—The whole world had valence is false identity—Further talks today with “barriers” and “purposes”—Vital clue that links the murders is: game one special way just want to die—Spreading the New Zealand after film was in the hospital—Yards of entrails hung about the toilet—The observer left his scio and vanished with confessed folk singer logos—Dia through noose found dead on the old evacuation—Release certificate of Vigar’s birth is issued naked—This condition is best expressed uncontrolled flash bulbs popped process known as “overwhelming”—

  “Sir I am quite prepared—other identities—Woman is at the clear out if is fundamentally agreement”—

  “Look around here and tell me are these experiments really necessary?”—All this to “overwhelm”—? Apparency bustle through the red hair—I have said Scio Officers at any given time dictate place of years—Dead absolute need condition expressed process known as “overwhelming”—Silence—Don’t answer—What could that person “overwhelm?”—Air?—The great wind revolving what you could have—What would you?—Sound and image flakes fall—It will be seen that “havingness” no more—

  Paralyzed on this green land the “cycle of action”—The cycle of last door—Shut off “Mr. Bradly Mr. Apparent Because We Believe It”—Into air—You are yourself “Mr. Bradly Mr. Other Identities”—Action is an apparency creating and aggravating conflict—Total war of the past—I have said the “basic pre-clear identities” are now ended—Wind spirits melted “reality need” dictates use of throat bones—“Real is real” do get your heavy summons and are mel
ted—Through all the streets time for him be able to not know his past walls and windows people and sky—Complete intentions falling—Look around here—No more flesh scripts dispense Mr.—Heard your ­summons—Melted “Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin”

  MELTED INTO AIR

  Fade out muttering: “There’s a lover on every corner cross the wounded galaxies”—

  Distant fingers get hung up on one—“Oh, what’ll we do?”

  Slowly fading—I told him you on tracks—All over for sure—I’m absolutely prophesized in a dream grabbing Yuri by the shirt and throwing last words answer his Yugoslavian knife—I pick up Shannon Yves Martin may not refuse vision—Everybody’s watching—But I continue the diary—“Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin?”—You are his eyes—I see suddenly Mr. Beiles Mr. Corso Mr. Burroughs presence on earth is all a joke—And I think: “Funny—melted into air”—Lost flakes fall that were his shadow: This book—No good junky identity fading out—

  “Smoke is all, boy—Dont intersect—I think now I go home and it’s five times—Had enough slow metal fires—Form has been ­inconstant—Last electrician to tap on the bloody dream”—

  “I see dark information from him on the floor—He pull out—Keep all Board Room Reports—Waiting chair to bash everybody—Couldn’t reach tumescent daydream in Madrid—Flash a jester angel who stood there in 1910 straw words—Realize that this too is bad move—No good—No bueno—Young angel elevated among the subterraneans—Yas, he heard your ­summons—Nodded absently—”

  “And I go home having lost—Yes, blind may not refuse vision to this book—”

  CLOM FLIDAY

  I have said the basic techniques of nova are very simple consist in creating and aggravating conflicts—“No riots like injustice directed between enemies”—At any given time recorders fix nature of absolute need and dictate the use of total weapons—Like this:: Collect and record violent Anti-Semitic statements—Now play back to Jews who are after Belsen—Record what they say and play it back to the Anti-Semites—Clip clap—You got it?—Want more?—Record white supremacy ­statements—Play to Negroes—Play back answer—Now The Women and The Men—No riots like injustice directed between “enemies”—At any given time position of recorders fixes nature of absolute need—And dictates the use of total weapons—So leave the recorders running and get your heavy metal ass in a space ship—Did it—Nothing here now but the recordings—Shut the whole thing right off—Silence—When you answer the machine you provide it with more recordings to be played back to your “enemies” keep the whole nova machine running—The Chinese character for “enemy” means to be similar to or to answer—Don’t answer the machine—Shut it off—

  “The Subliminal Kid” took over streets of the world—Cruise cars with revolving turrets telescope movie lenses and recorders sweeping up sound and image of the city around and around faster and faster cars racing through all the streets of image record, take, play back, project on walls and windows people and sky—And slow moving turrets on slow cars and wagons slower and slower record take, play back, project slow motion street scene—Now fast—Now slow—slower—Stop—Shut off—No More—My writing arm is paralyzed—No more junk scripts, no more word scripts, no more flesh scripts—He all went away—No good—No bueno—Couldn’t reach flesh—No glot—Clom Fliday—Through invisible door—Adios Meester William, Mr. Bradly, Mr. Martin—

  I have said the basic techniques creating and aggravating conflict officers—At any given time dictate total war of the past—Changed place of years in the end is just the same—I have said the basic techniques of Nova reports are now ended—Wind spirits melted between “enemies”—Dead absolute need dictates use of throat bones—On this green land recorders get your heavy summons and are melted—Nothing here now but the recordings may not refuse vision in setting forth—Silence—Don’t answer—That hospital melted into air—The great wind revolving turrets towers palaces—Insubstantial sound and image flakes fall—Through all the streets time for him to forbear—Blest be he on walls and windows people and sky—On every part of your dust falling softly—falling in the dark mutinous “No more”—My writing arm is paralyzed on this green land—Dead Hand, no more flesh scripts—Last door—Shut off Mr. Bradly Mr.—He heard your summons—Melted into air—You are yourself “Mr. Bradly Mr. ­Martin—” all the living and the dead—You are yourself—There be—

  Well that’s about the closest way I know to tell you and papers rustling across city desks . . . fresh southerly winds a long time ago.

  September 17, 1899 over New York

  July 21, 1964

  Tangier, Morocco

  William Burroughs

  ****The most successful method of sense withdrawal is the immersion tank where the subject floats in water at blood temperature sound and light withdrawn—loss of body outline, awareness and location of the limbs occurs quickly, giving rise to panic in many American subjects—Subjects frequently report feeling that another body is floating half in and half out of the body in the first part—Experiments in sense withdrawal using the immersion tanks have been performed by Doctor Lilly in Florida—There is another experimental station in Oklahoma—So after fifteen minutes in the tank these marines scream they are losing outlines and have to be removed—I say put two marines in the tank and see who comes out—­Science—Pure science—So put a marine and his girl friend in the tank and see who or what emerges—

  *****Reference to the orgone accumulators of Doctor Wilhelm Reich—Doctor Reich claims that the basic charge of life is this blue orgone-like electrical charge—Orgones form a sphere around the earth and charge the human machine—He discovered that orgones pass readily through iron but are stopped and absorbed by organic matter—So he constructed metal-lined cubicles with layers of organic material behind the metal—Subjects sit in the cubicles lined with iron and accumulate orgones according to the law of increased returns on which life functions—The orgones produce a prickling sensation frequently associated with erotic stimulation and spontaneous orgasm—Reich insists that orgasm is an electrical discharge—He has attached electrodes to the appropriate connections and charted the orgasm—In consequence of these experiments he was of course expelled from various countries before he took refuge in America and died in a federal penitentiary for suggesting the orgone accumulator in treating cancer—It has occurred to this investigator that orgone energy can be concentrated to disperse the miasma of idiotic prurience and anxiety that blocks any scientific investigation of sexual phenomenon—Preliminary experiments indicate that certain painting—like Brion Gysin’s—when projected on a subject produced some of the effects observed in orgone accumulators—

  Notes

  All page numbers refer to the print edition of Nova Express. Please use the search feature on your reader to locate the text that corresponds to the notes below.

  Abbreviations

  NEXNova Express, Grove Press, 1964.

  March 1962 MSFirst Draft of Nova Express, sent to Barney Rosset, March 30, 1962 (typescripts in several archival collections, mainly OSU 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.5).

  October 1962 MSSecond Draft of Nova Express, 170-page typescript dated October 24, 1962 and sent to Barney Rosset that day (a single typescript used as the typesetting manuscript, OSU 4.9).

  ASUWilliam Seward Burroughs Papers 1938–1997, Special Collections, Arizona State University.

  BergWilliam S. Burroughs Papers, 1951–1972, The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library.

  CUColumbia University (William Burroughs or Jack Kerouac Collections).

  OSUWilliam S. Burroughs Papers, Ohio State University, SPEC.CMS.85.

  SUGrove Press Records, Special Collections, Syracuse University.

  Foreword Note

  “The section called ‘This Horrible Case’”: the October 1962 MS refers to “Section VII” an
d “Section III.” The change from numbering was made on the long galleys, where “section” is written in and the word “chapter” canceled, so that the book opens with a history of revision relating to its structure and the identification of its separate parts. Unlike the first editions of The Soft Machine (1961) and The Ticket That Exploded (1962), Nova Express was published with a contents list of chapters. This was probably based on a two-page typescript entitled “Section Heading And Layout of Nova Express” (Berg 36.7), which Burroughs mailed Barney Rosset in October 1962. The list included an anomaly in using “Chinese Laundry” as both a chapter and a section heading. (The same anomaly also applied to the single-section Chapter 9, which was cut in the galley stage.) This duplication has been generalized for each chapter in this edition.

  Last Words

  LAST WORDS

  The stunning opening of Nova Express has the richest manuscript history of any section and contains some of its earliest material. However, it was not originally intended for the book and had a curiously tentative relationship to the first draft manuscript that Burroughs mailed Barney Rosset on March 30, 1962. Writing from London on that date, Burroughs suggested that “Last Words” be “used as a foreword or preface” (ROW, 102), which was how it had been recently published along with two other prefatory texts in Evergreen Review 6.22 (January 1962). Appearing under the title “LAST WORDS OF HASSAN I SABBAH,” the Evergreen version is textually almost identical and differs mainly in punctuation (using fewer em dashes, more periods, block capitals instead of italics, and lower-case first-person “i”—all characteristic of early drafts).