The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.) (22 page)

“You and the Mexican, Meester. Electrician far away can you light your earth with paper moon and all the fuses?”

“New York,” he said “totally unacceptable terms.”

“His burning metal eyes had your gun, Bradly. It was in the point there you let go. Neither you nor Martin will ever make conditions worth his
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in hideous electric pain. You wanted other identity for blue light blockade? To my sad soldiers loud and clear now: “Pay Day! Pay Day! Pay Day!”

“So those mutinous troops broke into the Beauty Banks
of time and distributed our exquisitries to the peasantry and all sorta awful contests sprang up like a Most Graceful Movement contest so a body could hardly get through to Walgreen’s for the fag ballet dancers leaping about and everyone you come up against is so graceful you can’t endure it and we went around muttering:

’Slip and stumble
Trip and fall’

a practical jungle passed along through, nannies all of us looking for some haven that might have survived the holocause or hollow cast as the case may be some evil old bitch at least in a kiosk spitting drag but by the time we get there she is a Sweet Old Flower Lady — And our erstwhile friends with the police force are boning up for the Most Decent Cop Day. A shambles — a filthy shambles — Gracious Waiter Day up called a pestilent cloud of singing waiters from the Pontine Marshes — Can the Cutest Old Clochard be far behind? Perhaps the most distasteful thing was the Benevolent Presence Contest which ran right into a taffee pull of the sick sweat stuff and the citizens were still belching it out two weeks later. Oh it went on for a while. On Exciting Street Boy Day the pure street boy winner slupped up all the queens in three galaxies and nearly lost his quality in the service — ‘Just give me a piece of that boy’ they screamed cruising and snapping like aroused sharks. Well every whistle stop had its Quality Champ and you always knew who won a quality contest because he included the other contestants in or out at the case may be — SPUT — The winner stands there in the empty ring . . and Final Quality Day when all the winners of localized and specialized contests met in a
vast arena . . scarcely a man is now alive — just one shot that’s all it took — Don’t ask me who won because I wasn’t
there.”

This went on until folks wised up that the quality contest was an image contest like Miss America whereupon cool casual inferential invisible contests set in and you knew who won because when the contest was over he just wasn’t there — You may infer his absence by that or this in exactly the same relation as before the contest he retroactively did not take part in. So the best minds coolly shut off a switch and went away down a tunnel of flash bulbs and last words and duped out in grey subway dawn leaving a wake of turned-out pockets — grey ghosts of drunken sleep — The Not There Kid was not
there
. Empty turnstile marks the spot — So disinterest yourself in my words. Disinterest yourself in anybody’s words . . In the beginning was the word and the word was bullshit. The beginning words came out on the con clawing for traction — Yes sir, boys, its hard to stop that old writing arm — more of a habit than using — Been writing these RXs five hundred thousand years and sure hate to pack you boys in with a burning down word habit — But I am of course guided by my medical ethics and the uh intervention of the Board of Health — no more —
no más
— My writing arm is paralyzed — ash blown from an empty sleeve — do our work and go — Here comes the old knife sharpener in lemon sunlight blue eyes reflected from a knife blade — blood on white steps of the sea wall — afternoon shadow in dying eyes — ay, good bye Meester — It is hard to the old showmen all the old acts going — It is too hard to face the last carnival.. We are willing to pack up at Lexington. Get off
the point. It is precisely time — Exploded sun circles the boy who paid. Its you who have assembled from the broken streets of war and death — down a long lane of flash bulbs twisted face on the burning deck. The burning buckling deck of an exploding star.”

“Stranger forget seventy tons to the square inch and be gone at the flutes. Death takes over in busy lands, ashes — gutted cities of America and Europe. Empty air marks authority over all antagonists, late afternoon on white steps of the set. See the chains are fallen long long radio silence on Portland Place.” — hands work and go— Our street boys picking up show — no word — no flesh — the actors melted — indications enough it wasn’t easy — radio silence to answer your air — Remember i was the ship gives no memory pictures — Johnny Yen, in last good bye fading scars — played the flute of Ali — played the flute in Kiki — some clean shirt and man like good bye — ding-dong bell no good
no bueno
— stranded actors walk through Poo Poo the Dummy — The Orchid Girl fades into memory picture on outhouse skin forgotten — Greeen Tony the last invisible shadow — Call the Old Doctor twice on last errand? — caught in the door of Panic, Mr & Mrs D — last round over — a street boy’s morning sky — flesh tape ebbing from centuries — Remember i was movie played you a long last good night”—

end of the line for vaudeville voices — last round in a shower of ruined September — last film flakes — The globe is self just old secondhand door — indications enough just ahead — boys on roller skates before stranded — our revels at Rings of Saturn — last September on stage — Last parasite just went up, Mr Martin — i fold
thy strong tape — Bitter price on our ticket? — ‘Bye then — broken dream and dreamer of the sick lies — the brain of Gothenberg on stage — Last intervention gives no flesh identity — for i last errand boy —
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in the final ape of history — fading shelter in the dog’s death trauma — intervention — last round over — The pipes are calling, Mr Bradly Mr Martin — The story done when you reach September — So we’ll say good night — showed you your air — the pipes your summons — All are wracked and answer —
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to the sick lies —
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to thy strong tape — caught in the door of Gothenberg — courage to question erogenous secondhand trade — story of absent world just as empty as ding-dong bell — silence to the stage — These our actors erased themselves into air far from such as you, Mr Bradly Mr Martin — September faded leaves not a wrack behind — I foretold you all spirits are going —

Johnny Yen: (His face shows strata of healed and half-healed fight scars — under grey luminous film flakes as the cover of the world rains down) “I’m going to look for a room in a good neighborhood” —

Ali The Incandescent Street Boy: “You come Ali — You no go body” —

Kiki: (Some clean shirt and walked out) “You can look any place — No good —
No bueno
—
Adiós
, Meester Bradly Meester Martin” —

Poo Poo the Dummy: (Flares of good bye over the iridescent lagoon) —

Miranda the Orchid Girl: (Trailing tendrils of stinging sex hairs, fades into birdcalls and frogs from the vacant lot) “good bye then” —

not looking around, talking away —

Green Tony: “On the last saucer, boss — a big bank roll” —

Willy the Fink: “I’m not taking any rap for those board bastards — I’m going to rat on everybody” —

Izzy the Push, Jacky Blue Note, Hamburger Mary, Limestone John: “Call the Old Doctor twice? He quiets you — Hello yes good bye — A few more calls to make tonight” —

Mr & Mrs D: “The ticket that exploded posed little time so we’ll say good night” —

Sammy the Butcher: (definitive arrest) —

Inspector J. Lee: “We do our work and go — Proceed with the indicated alterations” —

The Fluoroscopic Kid: “Now picking up show — no word — no flesh — the lot” —

The Subliminal Kid: “It wasn’t easy get to be radio be tape recorder on — friends are — showed you your air —

Mr Bradly Mr Martin: “Man like good bye — What in St. Louis after September? — faded story of absent world just as silver film took it — Remember i was the movies — Rinse my name for i have known intervention — Pass without doing our ticket — mountain wind of Saturn in the morning sky — From the death trauma weary good bye then — What summer will I will you? . . cold summer will. . exactly . . He lifts his hands sadly turns them out . . Brother can’t you spare a dime? . . dead finger in smoke pointing to Gibraltar .. the adolescent shadow .. he should have the same face . . stale face stale late face in the late summer morning mouth and nose sealed over . . funny I
don’t remember you . . it’s ended over there . . Remember the stale kids? .. toneless voice in San Francisco? . . belong to the wind.. silver morning smoke in the desolate markets .. sure you dream up Billy who bound word for it. . in the beginning there was no lam.. stale smoke of dreams it was lam.. haunted your morning and will you other stale morning smell of other lam.. no lam there.. no one .. silences .. There was no morning.. sure late Billy.. Iam the stale Billy . . I lived your life a long time ago . . sad shadow whistles cross a distant sky . .
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marks this long ago address . . didn’t exist you understand.. ended.. stale dreams Billy.. worn out here.. tried to the end.. there is a film shut up in a bureau drawer . . boy I was who never would be now . . a speck of white that seemed to catch all the light left on a dying star.. and suddenly I lost him.. my film ends .. I lost him long ago . . dying there . . light went out . . . my film ends.”

Hassan i Sabbah: “Last round over — Remember i was the ship gives no flesh identity — lips fading — silence to say good bye —” See the action, B.J.? This Hassan I Sabbah really works for Naval Intelligence and . . Are you listening B.J.?”

what we see is determined to a large extent by what we hear you can verify this proposition by a simple experiment turn off the sound track on your television set and substitute an arbitrary sound track prerecorded on your tape recorder street sounds music conversation recordings of other television programs you will find that the arbitrary sound track seems to be appropriate and is in fact determining your interpretation of the film track on screen people running for a bus in piccadilly with a sound track of machine-gun fire looks like 1917 petrograd you can extend the experiment by using recorded material more or less appropriate to the film track for example take a political speech on television shut off sound track and substitute another speech you have prerecorded hardly tell the difference isn’t much record sound track of one danger man from uncle spy program run it in place of another and see if your friends can’t tell the difference it’s all done with tape recorders consider this machine and what it can do it can record and play back activating a past time set by precise association a recording can be
played back any number of times you can study and analyze every pause and inflection of a recorded conversation why did so and so say just that or this just here play back so and so’s recordings and you will find out what cues so and so in you can edit a recorded conversation retaining material which is incisive witty and pertinent you can edit a recorded conversation retaining remarks which are boring flat and silly a tape recorder can play back fast slow or backwards you can learn to do these things record a sentence and speed it up now try imitating your accelerated voice play a sentence backwards and learn to unsay what you just said... such exercises bring you a liberation from old association locks try inching tape this sound is produced by taking a recorded text for best results a text spoken in a loud clear voice and rubbing the tape back and forth across the head the same sound can be produced on a philips compact cassette recorder by playing a tape back and switching the mike control stop start on and off at short intervals which gives an effect of stuttering take any text speed it up slow it down run it backwards inch it and you will hear words that were not in the original recording new words made by the machine different people will scan out different words of course but some of the words are quite clearly there and anyone can hear them words which were not in the original tape but which are in many cases relevant to the original text as if the words themselves had been interrogated and forced to reveal their hidden meanings it is interesting to record these words words literally made by the machine itself you can carry this experiment further using as your original recording material
that contains no words animal noises for instance record a trough of slopping hogs the barking of dogs go to the zoo and record the bellowings of Guy the gorilla the big cats growling over their meat goats and monkeys now run the animals backwards speed up slow down and inch the animals and see if any clear words emerge see what the animals have to say see how the animals react to playback of processed tape

the simplest variety of cut up on tape can be carried out with one machine like this record any text rewind to the beginning now run forward an arbitrary intervals stop the machine and record a short text wind forward stop record where you have recorded over the original text the words are wiped out and replaced with new words do this several times creating arbitrary juxtapositions you will notice that the arbitrary cuts in are appropriate in many cases and your cut up tape makes surprising sense cut up tapes can be hilariously funny twenty years ago i heard a tape called the drunken newscaster prepared by jerry newman of new york cutting up news broadcasts i can not remember the words at this distance but i do remember laughing until i fell out of a chair paul bowles calls the tape recorder god’s little toy maybe his last toy fading into the cold spring air poses a colorless question