The Soft Machine

by William S. Burroughs

  “You come with me, Meester?”

  Northern lights flicker from his “Yes”—The rope is adjusted—Writhing in wind black hair bursts through his flesh—Great canines tear into his gums with exquisite toothache pleasure—The green cab boys go all the way on any line.

  Green Boys—Idiot Irresponsibles—rolling in warm delta ooze fuck in color flashes through green jelly flesh that quivers together merging and drawing back in a temple dance of colors. “Hot licks us all the way we are all one clear green substance like flexible amber changing color and consistency to accommodate any occasion.”

  “This bad place Meester. You crazy or something walk around alone. Where you go?” The Guide: impersonal screen eyes swept by color winds light up green red white blue. Antennae ears of flexible metal cartilage crackle blue spark messages leaving smell of ozone in the shiny black pubic hairs that grow on The Guide’s pink skull. Blood and nerves hard meat cleaver his whole body would scorn to carry a weapon. And Being inside was him and more. Face cut by image-flak impersonal young pilot eyes riding light rays pulsing through his head.

  “Fluck Johnny? Up ass?” He guided Carl with electric tingles in spine and sex hairs through clicking gates and turnstiles, escalators and cable cars in synchronized motion. Impersonal young pilot eyes riding The Blue Silence permutated Carl into an iron cubicle with painted blue walls pallet on the floor brass tea tray kif pipes and jars of phosphorescent green sex paste. Wall over the pallet two-way mirrors opposite wall of glass opening on the next cubicle and so on, sex acts into the blue distance. The Guide pointed to the mirror: “We fuck good Johnny. On air now.”

  “Johnny pants down”—he was smearing the sex paste on “Johnny’s” ass hot licking the white nerves and pearly genitals—Carl’s lips and tongue swelled with blood and his face went phosphorescent penis purple—Slow penetrating incandescent flesh tubes siphoned his body into a pulsing sphere of blue jelly floated over skeletons locked in limestone—The cubicles shifted—Carl was siphoned back through the guide and landed with a fluid plop as the cubicles permutated fucking shadows through ceilings of legs and sex hairs, black spirals of phantom assholes lifting and twisting like a Panhandle cyclone.

  UNIT I: WHITE: “You wanta screw me?” “I wanta screw you.” Two marble white youths with identical erections stand on a white tile bathroom floor. The young faces sharp flash bulb of urgency fade-out stale empty of hunger. (Crystal flute music. The boys step from Attic frieze on Greek urns.)

  Tarnished pub mirrors of the gentle ghost-people, grey faded clubs under yellowing tusks of the beast killed by improbable hyphenated names. In bath cubicles and locker rooms shut for the Summer white light bent over a chair—

  UNIT II: BLACK: “Bend over.” As the white youth bends over turns brown then black. The Other Half drums on his back. The youths fade in obsidian mirror, smell of opium and copal.

  UNIT III: GREEN: “Loosen you up a bit.” Black finger dips into green jelly. The finger turns green in rusty limestone with a slow circular pull. Green Boy of flexible green amber, bright lizards and beetles incrusted here and there, twists sighs out in jungle sound of frogs and bird-calls and howler monkeys like wind in the trees, slow movement of rivers and forests cross The Drenched Lands. Vines twist through the boys smell of mud flats where sting rays bask in shallow canals brown with excrement sewage delta and coal gas swamps under orange gas flares and grey metal fallout.

  UNIT IV: RED: “Breathe in Johnny. Here goes.” Red youths fuck bent over a brass bed in Mexico. Feel through a maze of penny arcades and dirty pictures to the blue Mexican night. Penis of different size, shape swell in and out flicker faces and bodies burning flesh sparks from camp fires and red fuck lights in blue cubicles.

  UNIT V: BLUE: SILENCE. The two bodies merge in a blue sphere. Vapor trails cross a blue sky. Out on a Blue Wave High Fi cool and blue as liquid air in our slate-blue houses wrapped in orange flesh-robes that grow on us.

  UNIT I: WHITE: The boys slow down to phallic statues. They fade out in old photos and 1920 movies. Hairs rub the exquisite toothache pleasure: “I wanta screw you.” Flash bulb of urgency fade: “Loosen you up a bit.” The finger turns Green out in stale streets of cry.

  UNIT III: GREEN: The Green Boy of green flute music. Worn amber with lizards incrusted and finger rusty sighs out in the spectral smell of birdcalls and howler monkeys like gentle ghost people. Slow movement of brown rivers. The boys in speed-up and barracks toilet smell of the mud flats and the white youths fuck brown with excrement under a static red sky. Smell of subway dawns and turnstile. Tarnished pub mirrors jungle sound of frogs. Army of Trees killed by the improbable hyphenated name. Tendril movement in white light.

  UNIT V: BLUE: “The Initiate awoke in other flesh the lookout different.” Cool blue casual youth check Board Books of the world finger light and cold as Spring Wind. Little high blue notes drift through slate-blue houses. Street gangs Uranian born in the face of appalling conditions. Fade-out in “Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin” down the flash funnel of copy faces out in Summer dawn we made it in a smell of carbolic soap and rectal mucus. Slow green tendrils through the hair and the purple fungoid gills breathe empty Green House. Plaintive monkey phallus on the grave of dying peoples. Red mesas cut by a blue wind. Copper youths languidly masturbate, coming in puffs of blue smoke cross the translucent red stone buildings and copper domes of The City a white tooth sky cut with vapor trails. Flash bulb of urgency train whistles fade in black finger and basement pot. Cool blue light in stale streets of cry. In the hyacinths green boys of a green flute music sigh out birdcalls and howler monkey like: “You wanta screw me?” Slow movement of rivers. The Boy’s Unit Green with shit smell of the mud flats. Jelly substance like excrement flares under static red sky. Like smell RED: “Breathe in Johnny. Here goes.” Twisting over a brass bed in Mexico. The Boys slow fucking shift old photos and 1910 movie of the two bodies. Merge in blue smoke rings loosen you up out drift away slate-blue Northern sky water. Limestone cave fades in blue drum of gentle ghost people. Draft youths with identical erection in Speed Up Barracks Orgasm. Pub mirrors green fade movie club. Under the faces improbable names. Green Boys formed the fuck drum message lights a blue flame inside phallus (Boy ear, blue sky). The Initiate awoke in the city of red stone different train whistle masturbate with fingers light as Spring smoke. Cross Road of The World the high blue domes of the city and blue children born in the face of white battle. Bulb of Urgency train War Unit White. Mr. Bradly cool blue down the flash funnel out in stale Summer dawn smell. Black Drum talks mucus. The youths twist flowers and sewers of the world. Drum puffs of paint flesh. “flesh diseased dirty pictures how long you want us to fuck very nice Mister? To cheat and betray us been sent?”

  We got to untalking on question studying the porch noise home from work used to be me Mister diseased waiting face return various bits and pieces of the picture: that he coin a “nice-guy-myth” the bastard dirtier than Coin Smell Dorm.

  “What you trying to unload on somebody Mister? radioactive garbage?”

  Where You Belong

  My trouble began when they decide I am executive ­timber—It starts like this:: A big blond driller from Dallas picks me out of the labor pool to be his house-boy inna prefabricated air-conditioned bungalow—He comes on rugged but as soon as we strip down to the ball park over on his stomach kicking white wash and screams out “Fuck the shit out of me!”—I give him a slow pimp screwing and in solid—When this friend comes down from New York the driller says “This is the boy I was telling you about”—And friend looks me over slow chewing his cigar and says: “What are you doing over there with the apes? Why don’t you come over here with The Board where you belong?” And he slips me a long slimy look. Friend works for The Trak News Agency—“We don’t report the news—We write it.” And next thing I know they have trapped a grey flannel suit on me and I am sent to this school in Washington to learn how this writing the news
before it happens is done—I sus it is the Mayan Caper with an IBM machine and I don’t want to be caught short in a grey flannel suit when the lid blows off—So I act in concert with The Subliminal Kid who is a technical sergeant and has a special way of talking. And he stands there a long time chewing tobacco is our middle name “—What are you doing over there?—Beat your mother to over here—Know what they mean if they start job for instance?—Open shirt, apparent sensory impressions calling slimy terms of the old fifty fifty jazz—Kiss their target all over—Assembly points in Danny Deever—By now they are controlling shithouse of the world—Just feed in sad-eyed youths and the machine will process it—After that Minraud sky—Their eggs all over—These officers come gibbering into the queer bar don’t even know what buttons to push—(‘Run with the apes? Why don’t you come across the lawn?’)—And he gives me a long slimy responsible cum grey flannel suit and I am Danny Deever in drag writing ‘the news is served, sir.’ Hooded dead gibber: ‘this is the Mayan Caper’—A fat cigar and a long white nightie—Non-payment answer is simple as Board Room Reports rigged a thousand years—Set up excuse and the machine will process it—Moldy pawn ticket runs a thousand years chewing the same argument—I Sekuin perfected that art along the Tang Dynasty—To put it another way IBM machine controls thought feeling and apparent sensory impressions—Subliminal lark—These officers don’t even know what buttons to push—­Whatever you feed into the machine on subliminal level the machine will process—So we feed in ‘dismantle thyself’ and authority emaciated down to answer Mr Of The Account in Ewyork, Onolulu, Aris, Ome, Oston—Might be just what I am look”—

  We fold writers of all time in together and record radio programs, movie sound tracks, TV and juke box songs all the words of the world stirring around in a cement mixer and pour in the resistance message—“Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift linguals—Free doorways—Vibrate ‘tourists’—Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room.”

  So the District Supervisor calls me in and puts the old white schmaltz down on me:

  “Now kid what are you doing over there with the niggers and the apes? Why don’t you straighten out and act like a white man?—After all they’re only human cattle—You know that yourself—Hate to see a bright young man fuck up and get off on the wrong track—Sure it happens to all of us one time or another—Why the man who went on to invent Shitola was sitting right where you’re sitting now twenty-five years ago and I was saying the same things to him—Well he straightened out the way you’re going to straighten out—Yes sir that Shitola combined with an ape diet—All we have to do is press the button and a hundred million more or less gooks flush down the drain in green cancer piss—That’s big isn’t it?—And any man with white blood in him wants to be part of something big—You can’t deny your blood kid—You’re white white white—And you can’t walk out on Trak—There’s just no place to go.”

  Most distasteful thing I ever stood still for—Enough to make a girl crack her calories—So I walk out and the lid blew off—

  Uranian Willy

  Uranian Willy The Heavy Metal Kid, also known as Willy The Rat—He wised up the marks.

  “This is war to extermination—Fight cell by cell through bodies and mind screens of the earth—Souls rotten from The Orgasm Drug—Flesh shuddering from The Ovens—Prisoners of the earth, come out—Storm the studio.”

  His plan called for total exposure—Wise up all the marks everywhere—Show them the rigged wheel—Storm The Reality Studio and retake the universe—The plan shifted and reformed as reports came in from his electric patrols sniffing quivering down streets of the earth—The Reality Film giving and buckling like a bulkhead under pressure—Burnt metal smell of interplanetary war in the raw noon streets swept by screaming glass blizzards of enemy flak.

  “Photo falling—Word falling—Use partisans of all nation—Target Orgasm Ray Installations—Gothenburg Sweden—Coordinates 8 2 7 6—Take Studio—Take Board Books—Take Death Dwarfs—­Towers, open fire.”

  Pilot K9 caught the syndicate killer image on a penny arcade screen and held it in his sight—Now he was behind it in it was it—The image disintegrated in photo flash of total recognition—Other image on screen—Hold in sight—Smell of burning metal in his head—“Pilot K9, you are cut off—Back—Back—Back before the whole fucking shithouse goes up—Return to base immediately—Ride music beam back to base—Stay out of that time flak—All pilots ride Pan Pipes back to base.”

  It was impossible to estimate the damage—Board Books ­destroyed —Enemy personnel decimated—The message of total resistance on short wave of the world.

  “Calling partisans of all nation—Shift linguals—Cut word lines—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways—Photo falling—Word falling—Break through in Grey Room.”

  Gongs Of Violence

  The war between the sexes split the planet into armed camps right down the middle line divides one thing from the other—And I have seen them all: The Lesbian colonels in tight green uniforms, the young aides and directives regarding The Sex Enemy from proliferating departments.

  On the line is The Baby and Semen Market where the sexes meet to exchange the basic commodity which is known as “The Property”—Unborn Properties are shown with a time projector. As a clear young going face flashes on the auction screen frantic queens of all nations scream: “A doll! A doll! A doll!” And tear each other to pieces with leopard claws and broken bottles—Tobacco auction sound effects—Riots erupt like sandstorms spraying the market with severed limbs and bouncing heads.

  Biological parents in most cases are not owners of The Property. They act under orders of absentee proprietors to install the indicated stops that punctuate the written life script—With each Property goes a life script—Shuttling between property farmers and script writers, a legion of runners, fixers, guides, agents, brokers, faces insane with purpose, mistakes and confusion pandemic—Like a buyer has a first-class Property and a lousy grade B life script.

  “Fuck my life script will you you cheap down grade bitch!”

  Everywhere claim-jumpers and time-nappers jerk the time position of a Property.

  “And left me standing there without a ‘spare jacket’ or a ‘greyhound’ to travel in, my Property back in 1910 Panama—I don’t even feel like a human without my property—How can I feel without fingers?”

  The Property can also be jerked forward in time and sold at any age—The life of advanced property is difficult to say the least: poison virus agents trooping in and out at all hours: “We just dropped in to see some friends a population of patrols”—Strangers from Peoria waving quit claim deeds, skip tracers, collectors, claim-jumpers demanding payment for alleged services say: “We own the other half of The Property.”

  “I dunno, me—Only work here—Technical sergeant.”

  “Have you seen Slotless City?”

  Red mesas cut by time winds—A network of bridges, ladders, catwalks, cable cars, escalators and ferris wheels down into the blue depths—The precarious occupants in this place without phantom guards live in iron cubicles—Constant motion on tracks, gates click open shut—Buzzes, blue sparks, and constant ­breakage—(Whole squares and tiers of the city plunge into the bottomless void)—­Swinging beams of construction and blue flares on the calm intent young worker faces—People rain on the city in homemade gliders and rockets—Balloons drift down out of faded violet photos—The city is reached overland by a series of trails cut in stone, suspension bridges and ladders intricately booby-trapped, wrong maps, disappearing guides—(A falling bureaucrat in blue glasses screams by with a flash of tin: “Soy de la policia, señores—Tengo conexiónes”) Hammocks, swings, balconies over the void—Chemical gardens in rusty troughs—Flowers and seeds and mist settle down from high jungle above the city—Fights erupt like sandstorms, through iron streets a wake of shattered bodies, heads bouncing into the void, hands clut
ching bank notes from gambling fights—Priests shriek for human sacrifices, gather partisans to initiate unspeakable rites until they are destroyed by counter pressures—Vigilantes of every purpose hang anyone they can overpower—Workers attack the passer-by with torches and air hammers—They reach up out of manholes and drag the walkers down with iron claws—Rioters of all nations storm the city in a landslide of flame-throwers and Molotov ­cocktails—Sentries posted everywhere in towers open fire on the crowds at arbitrary ­intervals—The police never mesh with present time, their investigation far removed from the city always before or after the fact erupt into any café and machine-gun the patrons—The city pulses with slotless purpose lunatics killing from behind the wall of glass—A moment’s hesitation brings a swarm of con men, guides, whores, mooches, script writers, runners, fixers cruising and snapping like aroused sharks—

  (The subway sweeps by with a black blast of iron.)

  The Market is guarded by Mongolian Archers right in the middle line between sex pressures jetting a hate wave that disintegrates violators in a flash of light—­Everywhere posted on walls and towers in hovering autogyros these awful archers only get relief from the pressure by blasting a violator—Screen eyes vibrate through the city like electric dogs sniffing for violations—

  Remind The Board of the unsavory case of “Black Paul” who bought babies with centipede jissom—When the fraud came to light a whole centipede issue was in the public streets and every citizen went armed with a flame-thrower—So the case of Black Paul shows what happens when all sense of civic responsibility breaks down—