Tornado Alley

_{TORNADO ALLEY}

By

William S. Burroughs

Illustrations by

S. Clay Wilson

Cherry Valley Editions 1989

© 1989 by William S. Burroughs

© 1989 by S. Clay Wilson for illustrations

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. First edition.

Tornadoes by Don Williams

Cover designed by Robert Brannaman

Portrait by Mary Beach

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burroughs, William S., 1914-

Tornado alley / William S. Burroughs

ISBN 0-916156-85-0. ISBN 0-91615684-2

(lim. ed.) ISBM 0-916156-83-4 (pbk.)
       Title.

PS3552.U75T67 1989

813'54—dcl9 88-10100

CIP

For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive

Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome
American
guts—

thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison—

thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger—

thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot—

thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes-thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through—

thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces—

thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers—

thanks for laboratory AIDS—

thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs—

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business—

thanks for a nation of finks—yes, thanks for all the memories
... all right, let's see your arms ... you always were a headache and you always were a bore—

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

Jerry and the stockbroker

Jerry Ellisor, the retarded boy from next door, went on to harrass timid WASPs from Hew Yorker cartoons, the type of person who doesn't want to get mixed up in things, a passerby on the other side ... here's a girl with both arms cut off, trying to flag him down, he just swerves around something like that and keeps going. (I refer to the case of the 15-year-old girl who had both arms cut off by a rapist, rushed onto a highway, and three cars passed her by before one stopped and took her to a hospital.)

He is also a very ineffectual person. On his West Indian vacation, he hopes the Calypso singers will go away if he just ignores them.

"Don't pay any attention to them, darling."

So here is this youngish exec WASP in a health-food store after a diet lunch of watercress salad and carrot juice. And a youth sits down right at his table, though it's three o'clock and the place is nearly empty. The WASP becomes aware of a horrible odor—like ferrets, only more piercing—that makes his eyes water and his stomach turn. The boy smiles, showing yellow buck teeth.

"I always smell like this, just before ... you know." The boy passes him a card on which is typed in red letters:

"Hi. I'm Jerry. These are my
instructions:
When it starts to happen, stay calm. Sit down, wherever you are, and quietly inform the helpful person nearest to you that you are going to have a
fit
—(in my own words).

"When it starts, you will wrap a handkerchief, towel or napkin around your finger and insert it in my mouth to keep me from biting my tongue off. With the other hand you will be loosening my collar, belt and shoes and opening up my fly to relieve pressure on the groin. Erections frequently occur during my spells. It's a fact of nature. (If I have shatted in my breeches, wash me down with soap and warm water and provide a change of clothing.)

"Be careful during my
recovery,
as I sometimes lash out at people or leap for your throat like a wild animal. God will reward you for your
kind act.

"Your humble servant, Jerry Ellison"

Without more ado, the WASP threw some money on the table and ran for his life. But he was too late. With a low, throaty cry the boy threw himself in the WASP's path, tripping him up, then wrapped around his legs like a python. There was a sudden reek of urine and excrement as Jerry voided in his pants. The appalled WASP, seeing a policeman at the door, screamed for help.

"What are you
doing
with that kid, you filthy pervert."

A night-stick crashed against his skull. Five hours later, trembling and near collapse, he was released from jail after his lawyer called a CIA cousin in Washington.

In the course of a fit, Jerry would sometimes shriek out prophecies, which mostly came true. On Red Tuesday, he rushed into the stock market, eyes glowing, the hair standing up on his head, tore off his clothes and stood there naked in front of the petrified financiers, his body brick-red and steaming off the stink of a hundred polecats. He collapsed on the floor, flopping around and showing his awful yellow teeth as he ejaculated:

"Sell! Sell! Sell!"

It was the worst crash since
^'
29, dazed brokers and speculators later reported.

"It was a voice full of money. You had to believe it."

to talk for Joe the Dead

Doctor Fisher read the article carefully, his face formed into an appraising mask.

"Double slaying
... 32 revolver ... since the woman's purse and the man's wallet were missing ... robbery
... a witness reported seeing a Very tall Figure fleeing from the scene.'"

The witness, Uriah Grunt, who is con-Fined to a wheelchair, explained that he amuses himself by surveying the city with his telescope. "I can read a paper over someone's shoulders twenty blocks away," he boasted.

"I'm right snoopy," he added, smugly, "nothing else to do, 'cept observe what other folks is doing. Don't mind saying I've seen some strange things."

When pressed for a description: "Ah yes," he said, "the fleeing felon, alleged felon at least, or do you call them perps? Well this presumed perp was very tall. Had his coat collar turned up. Couldn't see the face but I did catch a flash of his hands: white, slender, agile,
young.
He wasn't wearing an overcoat just a windbreaker. Likes cold weather, I guess."

Uriah Grunt is a real scene-stealer, the doctor surmised. Well of course, ... other tall youths around . . . even in the coldest weather his patient never wore an overcoat. Hmmm. Should he call the police without more ado? The therapist's oath? And suppose there was no proof? Then he would be in the middle.

He opened a drawer and took out his
Η & Κ Ρ-7 9mm squeeze-cock, cycled the action and eased a round into the chamber. He strapped it to his right hip under his coat.

Unprofessionally, he hated his patient, young Guy Worth
—a typical sociopath. The world owed him everything. A natural-born fuck-up, FUs the doctor called them. He hated FUs, and he knew he was wasting him time with them. Once a FU, always a pain in the ass.

In fact, he was disenchanted with the whole profession of psychiatry. He had about decided to quit and get a job as ship's doctor, or maybe a nice practice with the American colony in Tangier, Athens, Beirut, Lima ... general medicine, with a bit of laying on of hands. It could be a nice thing. The doctor was young, slender, handsome, and gay as a carnival.

Fuck working with referral cases, or fuck going to Hew York and building up a Madison Avenue ad exec and publisher practice. One day he would say, "You know something, Mr. Qranfield? There's nothing wrong with you but self-indulgence and an inflated ego. You think your fucking ME is the most important thing in the universe. Well, believe me, who knows: it's boring beyond belief. Besides which you are basically stupid and ill-intentioned. Besides which I hate your stinking guts."

This, Doctor Fisher decided, looking at his watch, would be his last psychiatric interview—with a murderer, there was no real doubt in his mind, and a murderer who had come to kill
him.
It was all there in his notes and on the hidden tape recorder. All right, let it come down.

The bell rang. He looked out. There was the insufferable twerp, his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, a crooked smile on his face. The gun wasn't in the windbreaker pocket—probably in his waistband.

"Hello, Guy. Come in. I've been expecting you."

The youth stepped in. He looked insolently at the doctor, who looked back stone-hard.

"This way."

He opened the door to his consulting room. (His receptionist had quit a week ago: "Well, doctor. Frankly your practice is a joke. And jokes don't last.")

The youth walked in and pivoted. He was chewing gum.

"Sit down, Guy."