Nova Express by William S. Burroughs Page A

hypo needle—Orgasm Sting Ray—Venusian weapon—A full dose can tear the body to insect pieces in electric orgasms—Smaller doses bring paralysis and withered limbs of blighted fiber flesh—Lee hummed a little tune and cut the image lines with his grey screen—The Orgasm Sting dissolved in smoke—Lee picked the boy up by one elbow rigid as a clothing dummy and weightless now Lee guided him down the street steering the body with slight movements of the arm—The screen was empty—The boy sat on Lee’s bed his face blank as a plate—The Nova Police moved in calm and grey with inflexible authority—
    â€œ ‘Paddy The Sting’ arrested—Host empty—Heavy scar tissue—Surgery indicated—Transfer impractical—”
    TOO FAR DOWN THE ROAD
    â€”The Boy, driven too far down the road by some hideous electric hand—I don’t know—Perhaps the boy never existed—All thought and word from the past—It was in the war—I am not sure—You can not know the appalling Venusian Front—Obscure hand taping all messages in and out—Last human contacts—suddenly ­withdrawn—The Boy had never existed at all—A mouth against the pane—­muttering—Dim jerky far away voice: “Know who I am? You come to ‘indicated accident’ long ago . . . old junky selling Christmas seals on North Clark St. . . . ‘The Priest’ they called him . . . used to be me, Mister” shabby quarters of a forgotten city . . . tin can flash flare . . . smell of ashes . . . wind stirs a lock of hair . . . “Know who I am? hock shop kid like mother used to make . . . Wind and Dust is my name . . . Never Happened is my name . . . Good Bye Mister is my name . . . quiet now . . . I go . . .” (flickering silver smile).
    NO GOOD AT THIS RATE
    Smell of other cigarette smoke on child track—­Proceed to the outer—All marble streets and copper domes inside air—Signature in scar tissue stale and rotten as the green water—Moldy pawn ticket by purple fungoid gills—The invisible Siamese twin moving in through flesh grafts and virus patterns—Exchanging weight on slow purple gills—Addicts of the purpose—Flesh juice vampires is no good—All sewage—Idiot smiles eating erogenous deal—Sweet rotten smell of ice—Insect smell of the green car wreck—The young agent to borrow your body for a special half made no face to conceal the ice—He dies many years ago—He said: “Yes you want to—Right back to a size like that—Said on child track—Screaming on the deal?”
    She didn’t get it—All possessed by overwhelming inside air—Shoeshine boy, collapse it—Could make or break any place by his male image back in—The shoeshine boy didn’t get jump—Wait till the signs are right—And shit sure know to very—Wait a bit—No good—Fast their mind waves and long counts—No use—Don’t know the answer—Arsenic two years—Go on treating it—In the blood arsenic and bleeding gums—Now I had my light weight .38 like for protection—
    He dies many years ago—“Sunshine of your smile,” he said and stomped your ambassador to the mud flats where all died addicted in convulsions of insect—They were addicted to this round of whatever visits of a special kind—
    â€œGrow to a size like that,” said Nimum—“So where is my ten percent on the deal?”
    The shoeshine boy collapsed and they revived him with secret techniques—The money pinned to an old man’s underwear is like that is the best—
    So I said: “We can do it here—They won’t see us—When I walk with the Dib they can’t see me—”
    Careful—Watch the exits—Don’t go to Paris—Wait till the signs are right—Write to everyone—Wait