ould  administer   me  a
high colonic awready."

  SALESMAN (he is something between an aggressive
Latah and a timid Sender): "Recollect when I am
travelling with K. E., hottest idea man in the gadget
industry.
  "'Think of it!' he snaps. 'A cream seperator in your
own kitchen!'
  " 'K. E., my brain reels at the thought.'
  " 'It's five, maybe ten, yes, maybe twenty years away.
...But it's coming.'
  "'I'll wait, K. E. No matter how long it is I'll wait.
When the priority numbers are called up yonder I'll be
there.'
  "It was K. E. put out the Octopus Kit for Massage
Parlors, Barber Shops and Turkish Baths, with which
you can administer a high colonic, an unethical mas-
sage, a shampoo, whilst cutting the client's toenails and
removing his blackheads. And the M.D.'s Can Do Kit
for busy practitioners will take out your appendix, tuck
in a hernia, pull a wisdom tooth, ectomize your piles
and circumcise you. Well, K. E. is  such an  atomic sales-
man  if  he runs  out of  Octopus Kits  he is  subject, by
sheer charge,  to sell  an M.D.  Can Do  to a  barber shop
and some citizen wakes up with his piles cut out....
  "'Jesus,  Homer,  what  kinda  creep  joint  you running
here? I been gang fucked.'
  "'Well, landsake, Si,  I was  just aiming  to administer
our  complimentary  high  colonic   free  and   gratis  on
Thanksgiving  Day.  K.  E.  musta  sold  me the  wrong kit
again....' "

  Marz  Hvsvrxa:  "What  a  boy  hasta  put  up   with  in
this business. Gawd! The propositions  I get  you wouldn't
believe  it....   They  wanta   play  Latah,   they  wanta
merge  with my  protoplasm, they  want a  replica cutting,
they  wanta  suck  my  orgones,  they  wanta take  over my
past  experience  and  leave  old  memories  that  disgust
me....
  "I am fucking this citizen so I think, 'A  straight John
at last'; but he comes to a climax and turns  himself into
some  kinda  awful  crab....  I told  him, 'Jack,  I don't
hafta stand still for such a routine like this.... You can
take  that  business  to Walgreen's.'  Some people  got no
class to them.  Another horrible  old character  just sits
there and  telepathizes and  creams in  his dry  goods. So
nasty."
  The  bum  boys  fall  back  in  utter  confusion  to the
brink  of the  Soviet network  where Cossacks  hang parti-
sans to the wild wail of  bagpipes and  the boys  march up
Fifth  Avenue  to  be  met  by  Jimmy  Walkover  with  the
keys  to  The  Kingdom  and  no  strings   attached  carry
them loose in your pocket....
  Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fair  bugger?  Smell  of dead
leeches in a rusty tin  can latch  onto that  live wound,
suck  out  the  body  and blood  and bones  of Jeeeeesus,
leave him paralyzed from the waist down.
  Yield up thy  forms, boy,  to thy  sugar daddy  got the
exam  three  years early  and know  all the  answer books
fix the World Series.

  Slunk traffickers tail a  pregnant cow  to her  labor. The
farmer declares a couvade,  rolls screaming  in bullshit.
The veterinarian wrestles with a cow skeleton.  The traf-
fickers  machinegun  each   other,  dodging   through  the
machinery and silos, storage  bins, haylofts  and mangers
of a vast red barn. The calf is born. The forces of death
melt in morning. Farm boy kneels reverently --  his throat
pulses in the rising sun.
  Junkies  sitting  on the  courthouse steps,  waiting on
The  Man.  Red Necks  in black  stetsons and  faded Levis
tie a Nigra boy  to an  old iron  lamppost and  cover him
with  burning  gasoline....  The  junkies  rush  over and
draw  the  flesh  smoke deep  into their  aching lungs....
They really got relief....
  The  County  Clerk: "So  there I  was sitting  in front
of Jed's store  over in  Cunt Lick  my peter  standing up
straight as a jack pine under my  Levis just  apulsin' in
the  sun....  Weell, old  Doc Scranton  walks by,  a good
old boy too, there's not a finer man in this  valley than
Doc  Scranton.  He's  got  a  prolapsed asshole  and when
he wants to get screwed he'll pass you  his ass  on three
feet of in-tes-tine.... If he's a mind to it he  can drop
out a piece of gut reaches from his  office clear  over to
Roy's Beer Place, and it go feelin' around lookin'  for a
peter, just afeelin' around like a blind worm.... So old
Doc Scranton sees my peter and he stops like  a pointin'
dog and  he says  to me,  'Luke, I  can take  your pulse
from here.' "
  Browbeck  and  Young  Seward  fight  with  hog  castra-
tors  through  barns  and  cages  and  yiping kennels...
whinnying horses bare great  yellow teeth,  cows bellow,
dogs howl, copulating cats scream like babies, a  pen of
huge hogs, spines bristling, give  a great  Bronx cheer.
Browbeck  the  Unsteady  has  fallen  to  the  sword  of
Young  Seward,  clutches  at  blue  intestines  spurting
from  an  eight-inch  gash. Young  Seward cuts  off Brow-
beck's cock and holds it pulsing in the smoky  rose sun-
rise....
  Browbeck screams... subway brakes spit ozone....
  "Stand back, folks.... Stand back."
  "They say somebody pushed him."
  "He  was  weaving  around  unsteady  like  he couldn't
see good."
  "Too much smoke in the eyes, I guess."
  Mary  the  Lesbian  Governess has  slipped to  the pub
floor  on  a bloody  kotex.... A  three-hundred-pound fag
tramples her to death with pathic whinnies....
  He sings in hideous falsetto:

  He is trampling out the vintage cohere the grapes of
                                    [wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift
                                               [sword.

  He  pulls  a gilded  wooden sword  and chops  the air.
His corset flies off and whistles into the dart board.
  The  old   bullfighter's  sword   buckles  on   bone  and
whistles into  the heart  of the  Espontaneo, pins  his un-
consummate valor to the stands.

  "So  this  elegant  faggot  comes to  New York  from Cunt
Lick, Texas, and he is the  most piss  elegant fag  of them
all. He is  taken up  by old  women of  the type  batten on
young  fags,  toothless  old  predators  too  weak  and too
slow  to  run  down  other  prey.  Old  moth-eaten  tigress
shit sure turn into a fag eater.... So this  citizen, being
an  arty  and  crafty  fag,  begins making  costume jewelry
and  jewelry  sets.  Every  rich  old  gash in  Greater New
York  wants  he  should  do  her  sets,  and  he  is making
money,  21, El  Morocco, Stork,  but no  time for  sex, and
all the  time worrying  about his  rep..., He  begins play-
ing  the  horses,  supposed  to  be  something  manly about
gambling  God  knows  why,  and  he  figures it  will build
him up to  be seen  at the  track. Not  many fags  play the
horses,  and  those that  play lose  more than  the others,
they  are  lousy  gamblers  plunge in  a losing  streak and
hedge  when  they  win...  which   being  the   pattern  of
their  lives....  Now every  child knows  there is  one law
of  gambling: winning  and losing  come in  streaks. Plunge
when  you  win, fold  when you  lose. ( I  once knew  a fag
dip into  the till  -- not  the whole  two thousand  at once
on  the  nose  win  or  Sing  Sing.  Not  our  Gertie... Oh
no a deuce at a time... )
  "So  he  loses  and  loses  and lose  some more.  One day
he is about to put a  rock in  a set  when the  obvious oc-
cur. 'Of course, I'll replace it later.' Famous last words.
So  all  that winter,  one after  the other,  the diamonds,
emeralds,  pearls, rubies  and star  sapphires of  the haut
monde go in hock and replaced by queer replicas....
  "So the opening night of the Met this old hag appear
as she thinks resplendent in her diamond tiara. So this
other old whore approach and say, 'Oh, Miggles, you're
so smart... to leave the real ones at home.... I mean
we're simply mad to go around tempting fate.'
  " 'You're mistaken, my dear. These are real.'
  " 'Oh but Miggles dahling, they're not.... I mean ask
your jeweler.... Well just ask anybody. Haaaaaa.'
  "So a Sabbath is hastily called. (Lucy Bradshinkel,
look to thy emeralds. ) All these old witches examining
their rocks like a citizen find leprosy on himself.
  " 'My chicken blood ruby!'
  " 'My black oopalls!' Old bitch marry so many times
so many gooks and spics she don't know her accent
from her ass....
  " 'My stah sahphire!' shriek a poule de luxe. 'Oh it's
all so awfull'
  " 'I mean they are strictly from Woolworth's....'
  " 'There's only one thing to do. I'm going to call the
police,' says a strong-minded, outspoken old thing; and
she clump across the floor on her low heels and calls the
fuzz."
  "Well, the faggot draws a deuce; and in the box he
meets this cat who is some species of cheap hustler, and
love sets in or at least a facsimile thereof convince the
parties inna first and second parts. As continuity would
have it, they are sprung at the same time more or less
and take up residence in a fiat on the Lower East Side.
...And cook in and both are working legit modest jobs.
...So Brad and Jim know happiness for the first time.
  "Enter the powers of evil.... Lucy Bradshinkel has
come to say all is forgiven She has faith in Brad and
wants to set him up in a studio. Of course, he will have
to move to the East Sixties.... 'This place is impossible,
dahling; and your friend...' And a safe mob wants Jim
back to drive a car. This is a step up, you dig? Offer
from citizens hardly see him before.
  "Will Jim go back to crime? Will Brad succumb to
the blandishments of an aging vampire, a ravening
Maw?... Needless to say, the forces of evil are routed
and exit with ominous snarls and mutterings.
  " 'The Boss isn't going to like this.'
  " 'I don't know why I ever wasted my time with you,
you cheap, vulgar little fairy.'
  "The boys stand at the tenement window, their arms
around each other, looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. A
warm spring wind ruffles Jim's black curls and the fine
hennaed hair of Brad.
  " 'Well, Brad, what's for supper?'
  " 'You just go in the other room and wait.' Playfully
he shoos Jim out of the kitchen, and puts on his apron.
  "Dinner is Lucy Bradshinkel's cunt saignant cooked
in kotex papillon. The boys eat happily looking into
each other's eyes. Blood runs down their chins."

    Let  the  dawn  blue as  a flame  cross the  city.... The
backyards  are  clean  of fruit,  and the  ash pits  give up
their hooded dead....
    "Could you show me the way to Tipperary, lady?"
    Over the  hills and  far away  to Blue  Grass.... Across
the  bone  meal  of  lawn  to  the  frozen  pond  where sus-
pended goldfish wait for the spring Squaw Man.
    The screaming  skull rolls  up the  back stairs  to bite
off  the  cock  of  erring  husband taking  dour advantage
of his wife's earache to do  that which  is inconvenient.
The  young  landlubber  dons  a  southwester,  beats  his
wife to death in the shower....

  Benway: "Don't take  it so  hard, kid....  'Jeder macht
eine   kleine  Dummheit.'"   (Everyone  makes   a  little
dumbness. )
  Schafer: "I  tell you  I can't  escape a  feeling... well,
of evil about this."
  Benway:  "Balderdash,   my  boy...   We're  scientists.
...Pure  scientists.  Disinterested  research  and damned
be him who  cries 'Hold,  too much1'  Such people  are no
better than party poops."
  Schafer:  "Yes, yes,  of course...  and yet...  I can't
get that stench out of my lungs...."
  Benway   (irritably):   "None   of  us   can....  Never
smelled  anything remotely  like it....  Where was  I? Oh
yes, what would  be result  of administering  curare plus
iron lung during acute mania?  Possibly the  subject, un-
able to discharge his tensions  in motor  activity, would
succumb on the spot like a jungle rat.  Interesting cause
of death, what?"
  Schafer is not  listening. "You  know," he  says impul-
sively, "I think I'll go back to plain old-fashioned sur-
gery.   The   human   body  is   scandalously  ineffcient.
Instead of a mouth and an anus  to get  out of  order why
not have one all-purpose  hole to  eat and  eliminate? We
could seal up nose and mouth, fill  in the  stomach, make
an air hole direct into  the lungs  where it  should have
been in the first place...."
  Benway:  "Why  not  one  all-purpose  blob?  Did  I ever
tell you about  the man  who taught  his asshole  to talk?
His  whole  abdomen  would  move  up  and  down   you  dig
farting  out  the  words.  It was  unlike anything  I ever
heard.
  "This ass talk had a sort of gut  frequency. It  hit you
right  down there  like you  gotta go.  You know  when the
old  colon gives  you the  elbow and  it feels  sorta cold
inside, and you know  all you  have to  do is  turn loose?
Well  this  talking hit  you right  down there,  a bubbly,
thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.
  "This  man  worked  for  a  carnival  you  dig,  and  to
start with it was like a  novelty ventriloquist  act. Real
funny,  too,  at  first. He  had a  number he  called 'The
Better 'Ole' that was a scream, I tell you. I  forget most
of it but it was clever. Like,  'Oh I  say, are  you still
down there, old thing?'
  "'Nah! I had to go relieve myself.'
  "After a while the ass  started talking  on its  own. He
would  go  in  without  anything  prepared  and   his  ass
would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time.
  "Then it developed sort of  teeth-like little  raspy in-
curving  hooks  and  started eating.  He thought  this was
cute at first and built an act around it, but  the asshole
would  eat  its way  through his  pants and  start talking
on the  street, shouting  out it  wanted equal  rights. It
would  get  drunk,  too,  and  have  crying   jags  nobody
loved it  and it  wanted to  be kissed  same as  any other
mouth. Finally it talked all the time  day and  night, you
could  hear him  for blocks  screaming at  it to  shut up,
and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles  up it,
but  nothing did  any good  and the  asshole said  to him:
'It's you who will  shut up  in the  end. Not  me. Because
we  don't  need  you  around  here  any  more.  I  can talk
and eat and shit.'
  "After  that  he  began  waking  up  in the  morning with
a  transparent  jelly like  a tadpole's  tail all  over his
mouth.  This jelly  was what  the scientists  call un-D.T.,
Undifferentiated  Tissue,  which  can  grow  into  any kind
of  flesh  on  the  human  body.  He  would  tear it  off his
mouth  and  the  pieces  would  stick  to  his  hands  like
burning  gasoline  jelly  and  grow  there,  grow  anywhere
on him a glob of it fell. So finally his mouth sealed over,
and  the   whole  head   would  have   amputated  spontane-
ous -- (did you know there  is a  condition occurs  in parts
of  Africa  and  only  among Negroes  where the  little toe
amputates  spontaneously?)  --  except  for  the   eyes  you
dig. That's one thing the  asshole couldn't  do was  see. It
needed  the  eyes.  But  nerve  connections   were  blocked
and  infiltrated and  atrophied so  the brain  couldn't give
orders any more. It was trapped in  the skull,  sealed off.
For a while you  could see  the silent,  helpless suffering
of the brain behind the eyes, then  finally the  brain must
have died, because  the eyes  went out,  and there  was no
more feeling in  them than  a crab's  eye on  the end  of a
stalk.
  "That's  the  sex  that   passes  the   censor,  squeezes
through   between   bureaus,   because  there's   always  a
space  between,  in  popular  songs  and  Grade  B movies,
giving  away  the   basic  American   rottenness,  spurting
out like  breaking boils,  throwing out  globs of  that un-
D.T.  to  fall  anywhere  and  pow  into   some  degenerate
cancerous  life-form,  reproducing  a  hideous  random  im-
age.  Some would  be entirely  made of  penis-like erectile
tissue,  others  viscera  barely  covered  over  with skin,
clusters  of  3  and  4 eyes  together, criss-cross  of mouth
and   assholes,   human  parts   shaken  around   and  poured
out any way they fell.
    "The end  result of  complete cellular  representation is
cancer.  Democracy   is  cancerous,   and  bureaus   are  its
cancer.  A  bureau takes  root anywhere  in the  state, turns
malignant   like   the   Narcotic   Bureau,  and   grows  and
grows,  always  reproducing  more  of  its  own  kind,  until
it  chokes  the host  if not  controlled or  excised. Bureaus
cannot  live  without  a  host,  being true  parasitic organ-
isms.  (A  cooperative  on  the other  hand can  live without
the state. That is  the road  to follow.  The building  up of
independent   units  to   meet  needs   of  the   people  who
participate  in  the  functioning  of  the  unit.   A  bureau
operates  on  opposite  principle   of  inventing   needs  to
justify its existence. )  Bureaucracy is  wrong as  a cancer,
a  turning  away  from   the  human   evolutionary  direction
of  infinite  potentials   and  differentiation   and  indepen-
dent  spontaneous  action,  to  the  complete  parasitism  of
a virus.
    "(It is  thought that  the virus  is a  degeneration from
more  complex  life  form.  It  may  at  one  time  have been
capable  of  independent   life.  Now   has  fallen   to  the
borderline  between  living  and  dead  matter.  It  can  ex-
hibit living qualities only in a host, by  using the  life of
another -- the renunciation of life itself, a  falling towards
inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter. )
    "Bureaus die when the structure  of the  state collapses.
They  are  as  helpless  and  unfit  for  independent  exist-
ences as a  displaced tapeworm,  or a  virus that  has killed
the host.
    "In  Timbuctu  I  once   saw  an   Arab  boy   who  could
play a flute with his ass, and the fairies told me he was
really an individual in bed. He could play a tune up and
down the  organ hitting  the most  erogenously sensitive
spots, which are different on everyone, of  course. Every
lover had his special theme song  which was  perfect for
him and rose to his climax. The boy  was a  great artist
when  it  came  to  improving  new combines  and special
climaxes,  some of  them notes  in the  unknown, tie-ups
of seeming  discords that  would suddenly  break through
each  other  and  crash  together  with a  stunning, hot
sweet impact.

  "Fats"  Terminal has  organized a  purple-assed baboon
stick from motorcycles.
  The  Huntsmen  have  gathered  for the  Hunt Breakfast
in The Swarm Bar,  a hang-out  for elegant  pansies. The
Huntsmen strut about with  imbecile narcissism  in black
leather jackets and studded belts, flexing their muscles
for  the  fags to  feel. They  all wear  enormous falsie
baskets. Every now  and then  one of  them throws  a fag
to the floor and pisses on him.
  They  are  drinking   Victory  Punch,   compounded  of
paregoric,  Spanish  Fly,  heavy  black   rum,  Napoleon
brandy  and  canned  heat.  The punch  is served  from a
great, hollow, gold baboon, crouched in snarling terror,
snapping at a spear in his side. You twist  the baboon's
balls and punch  runs out  his cock.  From time  to time
hot hors-d'oeuvres pop out the baboon's ass with  a loud
farting  noise.  When  this  happens  the  Huntsmen roar
with bestial laughter, and the fags shriek and twitch.
  Master  of  the  Hunt  is  Captain  Everhard,  who was
drummed  out  of the  Queen's 69th  for palming  a jock-
strap  in a  game of  strip poker.  Motorcycles careening,
jumping,  overturning.  Spitting, shrieking,  shitting ba-
boons  fighting  hand  to hand  with the  Huntsmen. Rider-
less  cycles scrabbling  about in  the dust  like crippled
insects, attacking baboon and Huntsman....
  The  Party  Leader  rides  in  triumph   through  yiping
crowds.  A dignified  old man  shits at  sight of  him and
tries to sacrifice himself under the wheels of the car.
  Party  Leader:  "Don't  sacrifice   your  old   dried  up
person  under  the  wheels  of  my  brand new  Buick Road-
master  Convertible  with  white-walled  tires,  hydraulic
windows and all the trimmings.  It's a  chip Arab  trick --
look to thy accent, Ivan -- save  it for  fertilizer.... We
refer  you  to  the  conservation  department  to  consum-
mate your swell purpose...."
  The  washing  boards  are  down,  and  the   sheets  are
sent  to  the Laundromat  lose those  guilty stains  -- Em-
manuel prophesies a Second Coming....
  There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach;
alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.
  The  junky  sits with  needle poised  to the  message of
blood,  and  the con  man palpates  the mark  with fingers
of rotten ectoplasm....

  Dr. Berger's Mental Health Hour.... Fadeout.
  TECHNICIAN: "Now listen, I'll say it again, and I'll
say it slow. 'Yes.'" He nods. "And make with the smile.
     . The smile." He shows his false teeth in hideous
parody of a toothpaste ad. "'We like apple pie, and we
like each other. It's just as simple as that,' -- and make
it sound simple, country simple.... Look bovine,
whyncha?   You   want  the   switchboard  again?   Or  the
pail?"
  Subject  --  Cured  Criminal  Psychopath  --  "No!...  No!
...What's this bovine?"
  Technician: "Look like a cow."
  SUBJECT -- with cow's head -- "Moooo Moooo."
  TECHNICIAN  (starting  back):   "Too  much!!   No!  Just
look square, you dig, like a nice popcorn John...."
  Subject: "A mark?"
  Technician:  "Well,  not  exactly  a  mark.  Not  enough
larceny in this citizen. He is after  light concussion....
You  know  the  type. Telepathic  sender and  receiver ex-
cised. The Service Man Look... Action, camera."
  SUBJECT:  "Yes,  we  like apple  pie." His  stomach rum-
bles  loud  and  long.  Streamers of  saliva hang  off his
chin....
  Dr.  Berger  looks  up  from  some  notes. He  look like
Jewish owl with black  glasses, the  light hurt  his eyes:
"I think he is  an unsuitable  subject.... See  he reports
to Disposal."
  TECHNICIAN:  "Well,  we  could  cut  that rumble  out of
the sound track, stick a drain in his mouth and..."
  DR.  BERGER:  "No...  He's  unsuitable."  He   looks  at
the subject with distaste as if  he commit.  some terrible
faux-pas  like look  for crabs  in Mrs.  Worldly's drawing
room.
  TECHNICIAN   (resigned   and  exasperated):   "Bring  in
the cured swish."
  The  cured  homosexual  is   brought  in....   He  walks
through invisible contours of hot metal. He sits  in front
of the camera  and starts  arranging his  body in  a coun-
trified sprawl.  Muscles move  into place  like autonomous
parts  of  a  severed insect.  Blank stupidity  blurs and
softens his  face: "Yes,"  he nods  and smiles,  "we like
apple pie and we like each other. It's just as  simple as
that." He nods and smiles and nods and smiles and --
  "Cut1..."  screams  the  Technician.  The  cured  homo-
sexual is led out nodding and smiling.
  "Play it back."
  The Artistic Adviser shakes his  head: "It  lacks some-
thing. To be specific, it lacks health."
  Berger (leaps to his feet): "Preposterous!  It's health
incarnate!..."
  ARTISTIC  ADVISER  (primly):  "Well  if  you  have any-
thing to enlighten me on this subject  I'll be  very glad
to hear it, Doctor Berger.... If you with  your brilliant
mind can carry the project  alone, I  don't know  why you
need an Art Adviser at all."  He exits  with hand  on hip
singing softly: "I'll be around when you're gone."
  TECHNICIAN:  "Send  in  the  cured writer....  He's got
what? Buddhism?... Oh, he can't talk.  Say so  at first,
whyncha?"  He turns  to Berger:  "The writer  can't talk.
...Overliberated,  you might  say. Of  course we  can dub
him...."
  BERGER  (sharply):  "No,  that  wouldn't do  at all....
Send in someone else."
  TECHNICIAN:  "Those  two   was  my   white-haired  boys.
I  put  in  a hundred  hours overtime  on those  kids for
which I am not yet compensate...."
  BERGER: "Apply triplicate.... Form 6090."
  TECHNICIAN:  "You  telling  me  how  to   apply  already?
Now  look,  Doc,  you  say something  once. 'To  speak of
a healthy homosexual it's like how can  a citizen  be per-
fectly healthy with terminal cirrhosis.' Remember?"
  BERGER: "Oh yes. Very well put,  of course,"  he snarls
viciously. "I don't pretend to be a writer." He  spits the
word out with such  ugly hate  that the  Technician reels
back appalled....
  TECHNICIAN  (aside): "I  can't bear  the smell  of him.
Like old rotten  replica cultures....  Like the  farts of
a  maneating  plant....  Like  Schafer's  hurumph" (paro-
dies  academic  manner)  "Strange  Serpent...   What  I'm
getting  at,  Doc, is  how can  you expect  a body  to be
healthy  with  its brains  washed out?...  Or put  it an-
other  way.  Can  a  subject be  healthy in  abstentia by
proxy already?"
  BERGER  (leaps  up):  "I  got  the  health!...  All the
health!  Enough  health  for the  whole world,  the whole
fuckin world! t I cure everybody!"
  The  Technician  looks  at  him  sourly.  He   mixes  a
bicarbonate of soda and  drinks it  and belches  into his
hand. "Twenty years I've been a martyr to dyspepsia."
  Lovable Lu  your brainwashed  poppa say:  "I'm strictly
for fish, and  I luuuuuve  it.... Confidentially,  girls, I
use  Steely  Dan's  Yokohama,  wouldn't  you?  Danny  Boy
never  lets  you  down. Besides  it's more  hygienic that
way  and  avoids  all  kinda awful  contacts leave  a man
paralyzed  from  the  waist   down.  Women   have  poison
juices....
  "So I told him, I said: 'Doctor Berger, don't think you
can pass  your tired  old brainwashed  belles on  me. I'm
the  oldest  faggot in  the Upper  Baboon's Asshole....'"

  Switch envelopes in clip clap joint where fraudulent
girls put the B on you in favor of the House 666 and
there  is no  health in  them clap  broads rotten  to the
apple  corer  of  my  unconsummate  cock.  Who  shot  Cock
Robin?...  The  sparrow  falls  to  my   trustful  Webley,
and a drop of blood gathers at his beak....
  Lord  Jim  has  turned  bright yellow  in the  woe with-
ered moon  of morning  like white  smoke against  the blue
stuff, and shirts whip in a cold spring wind  on limestone
cliffs across the river, Mary, and the  dawn is  broken in
two pieces like Dillinger on the lamster  way to  the Bio-
graph.  Smell  of  neon and  atrophied gangsters,  and the
criminal  manque  nerves  himself  to  crack a  pay toilet
sniffing  ammonia  in  a  bucket....  "A  caper,"  he says.
"I'll pull this capon I mean caper."

  PARTY   LEADER   (mixing   another  scotch):   "The  next
riot goes off  like a  football play.  We have  imported a
thousand  bone  fed,  blue  ribbon Latahs  from Indochina.
...All we need  is one  riot leader  for the  whole unit."
His eyes sweep the table.
  LIEUTENANT:  "But,  chief,  can't  we  get  them  started
and they imitate each other like a chained reaction?"
  The  Diseuse  undulate   through  the   Market:  "What's
a Latah do when he's alone?'
  P.L.:  "That a  technical point.  We'll have  to consult
Benway.   Personally,  I   think  someone   should  follow
through on the whole operation."
  "I  do  not  know," he  said for  lack of  the requisite
points and ratings to secure the appointment.
  "They  have  no  feelings,"  said Doctor  Benway, slash-
ing his patient to shreds. "Just  reflexes... I  urge dis-
traction. '
  "The age of consent is when they learn to talk."
  "May  all  your troubles  be little  ones as  one child
molester say to the other."
  "It's really ominous, my dear,  when they  start trying
on  your   clothes  and   give  you   those  doppelganger
kicks...."
  Frantic queen trying to claw  sport jacket  off depart-
ing boy.
  "My   two   hundred   dollar   cashmere   jacket,"  she
screeches....
  "So he has an affair with this Latah, he wants to domi-
nate  someone  complete  the  silly  old   thing....  The
Latah  imitates  all his  expressions and  mannerisms and
simply  sucks all  the persona  right out  of him  like a
sinister  ventriloquist's  dummy....  'You've  taught  me
everything  you  are.... I  need a  new amigo.'  And poor
Bubu can't answer for himself, having no self left."
  JUNKY: "So there we are in this no-horse  town strictly
from cough syrup."
  PROFESSOR:   "Coprophilia...   gentlemen...   might  be
termed the hurumph... redundant vice...."
  "Twenty  years  an  artist  in  the  blue movies  and I
never sink so low as fake an orgasm."
  "No  good  junky  cunt  hang  up  her  unborn child....
Women are no good, kid."
  "I  mean  this  dead level  conscious sex,...  Might as
well take your old clothes to the Laundromat...."
  "And  right in  the heat  of passion  he says,  'Do you
have an extra shoetree?' "
  "She tell me  how forty  Arabs drag  her into  a mosque
and   rape   her   presumably   in   sequence....  Though
they're bad to push -- all  right, end  of the  line, Ali.
Really, my pets, most distasteful  routine I  ever listen
to. I was after being raped  myself by  a pride  of rampant
bores."
  A group of sour Nationalists  sits in  front of  the Sar-
gasso  sneering  at  the  queens  and jabbering  in Arabic.
...Clem  and  Jody  sweep  in  dressed like  The Capitalist
in a communist mural.
  CLEM:   "We  have   come  to   feed  on   your  backward-
ness."
  JODY:  "In  the  words  of the  Immortal Bard,  to batten
on these Moors."
  NATIONALIST:  "Swine!  Filth!  Son  of  dogs!  Don't  you
realize my people are hungry?"
  CLEM: "That's the way I like to see them."
  The   Nationalist  drops   dead,  poisoned   by  hate....
Dr.  Benway  rushes  up:  "Stand  back  everybody,  give me
air." He takes a blood sample. "Well, that's all I  can do.
When you gotta go you gotta go."
  The  traveling  queer  Christmas  tree  burns  bright on
the  rubbish  heaps  of  home  where boys  jack off  in the
school  toilet  --  how  many  young  spasms  on   that  old
oaken seat worn smooth as gold....
  Sleep  long  in  the valley  of the  Red River  where cob-
webs hang black windows and boy bones....
  Two Negro fags shriek at each other.
  FAG  1:  "Shut  up,  you  cheap  granuloma  gash....  You
known as Loathsome Lu in the trade."
  DISEUSE: "The girl with the innaresting groin."
  FAG  2:  "Meow.  Meow."  He  slips  on  leopard  skin and
iron claws....
  FAG  1:  "Oh  oh.  A  Society  Woman."  He  flees scream-
ing  through the  Market, pursued  by the  grunting, growl-
ing transvestite....
  Clem trips a spastic cripple and takes his crutches....
He does a hideous parody twitching and drooling....
  Riot  noises in  the distance  -- a  thousand hysterical
Pomeranians.
  Shop shutters slam like  guillotines. Drinks  and trays
hang in the air as the patrons are whisked inside  by the
suction of panic.
  CHORUS  OF  FAGS:  "We'll all  be raped.  I know  it, I
know it." They rush into a  drugstore and  buy a  case of
KY.
  PARTY  LEADER  (holding  up  his   hand  dramatically):
"The voice of the People."
  Pearson  the  Money  Changeling  comes   acropping  the
short  grass  seized  by  the extortionate  commandant of
Karma, hiding in a vacant lot with the garter  snakes, to
be sniffed out by the scrutable dog....
  The  Market  is  empty  except for  an old  drunkard of
indeterminate nationality passed out with  his head  in a
pissoir.  The rioters  erupt into  the Market  yiping and
screaming  "Death to  the French"  and tear  the drunkard
to pieces.
  SALVADOR  HASSAN  (squirming   at  a   keyhole):  "Just
look  at  those expressions,  the whole  beautiful proto-
plasmic being all  exactly alike."  He dances  the Lique-
factionist Jig.
  Whimpering  queen  falls  to  the  floor  in  an orgasm.
"Oh God it's too exciting. Like  a million  hot throbbing
cocks."
  BENWAY: "Like to run a blood test on those boys."
  A  portentously  inconspicuous  man,  grey   beard  and
grey face and shabby brown jellaba,  sings in  slight un-
placeable accent without opening his lips:
       "Oh you dolls, you great big beautiful dolls."
  Squads of police with thin lips, big noses and cold
grey eyes move into the Market from every entrance
street. They club and kick the rioters with cold, meth-
odical brutality.
  The rioters have been carted away in trucks. The
shutters go up and the citizens of Interzone step out
into the square littered with teeth and sandals and
slippery with blood.
  The sea chest of the dead man is in the Embassy, and
the vice consul breaks the news to mother.
  There is no... Morning... Daybreak... n'existe
plus.... If I knew I'd be glad to tell you. Either way
is a bad move to the East Wing.... He is gone through
an invisible door.... Not here... You can look any
place.... No good... No bueno... Hustling myself.
...C'lom Fliday.
  ( Note: Old time, veteran Schmeckers, faces beaten
by grey junk weather, will remember.... In 1920s a lot
of Chinese pushers around found The West so unreli-
able, dishonest and wrong, they all packed in, so when
an Occidental junky came to score, they say:
  "No glot.... C'lom Fliday....")

        ISLAM INCORPORATED AND THE
  PARTIES OF INTERZONE

  I was working for an outfit known as Islam Inc.,
financed by A. J., the notorious Merchant of Sex, who
scandalized  international society  when he  appeared at
the  Duc  de  Ventre's  ball  as a  walking penis  covered by
a  huge  condom  emblazoned  with  the  A.  J.   motto  "They
Shall Not Pass."
  "Rather bad taste, old boy," said the Duke.
  To  which  A.   J.  replied:   "Up  yours   with  Interzone
K.Y."  The  reference  is  to  the  K.Y.  scandal  which  was
still in a larval state at that time. A. J.'s  repartee often
refers  to  future  events.  He  is a  master of  the delayed
squelch.
  Salvador  Hassan  O'Leary,  the  After  Birth   Tycoon,  is
also  involved.  That  is,  one  of his  subsidiary companies
has  made  unspecified  contributions,  and  one of  his sub-
sidiary  personalities  is  attached  to the  organization in
an   advisory   capacity  without   in  any   way  committing
himself  to,  or  associating  himself  with,  the  policies,
aetions  or  objectives  of  Islam  Inc. Mention  should also
be  made  of  Clem   and  Jody,   the  Ergot   Brothers,  who
decimated  the   Republic  of   Hassan  with   poison  wheat,
Autopsy  Ahmed,  and  Hepatitis  Hal,  the  fruit  and  vege-
table broker.
  A  rout  of  Mullahs  and  Muftis  and  Musseins  and Caids
and  Glaouis  and  Sheiks  and  Sultans  and  Holy   Men  and
representatives   of  every   conceivable  Arab   party  make
up  the  rank  and  file  and  attend  the   actual  meetings
from  which   the  higher   ups  prudently   abstain.  Though
the  delegates  are  carefully  searched  at the  door, these
gatherings  invariably  culminate  in  riots.   Speakers  are
often  doused  with  gasoline  and burned  to death,  or some
uncouth  desert  Sheik  opens  up  on  his  opponents  with a
machine  gun  he  had  concealed  in  the  belly  of   a  pet
sheep.  Nationalist   martyrs  with   grenades  up   the  ass
mingle  with  the  assembled  conferents  and   suddenly  ex-
plode,  occasioning  heavy  casualties....  And  there was
the  occasion when  President Ra  threw the  British Prime
Minister  to the  ground and  forcibly sodomized  him, the
spectacle  being  televised  to  the  entire  Arab  World.
Wild  yipes  of  joy  were  heard in  Stockholm. Interzone
has  an  ordinance  forbidding  a  meeting  of  Islam Inc.
within five miles of the city limits.

  A. J.-- he is  actually of  obscure Near  East extraction
--  had  at  one time  come on  like an  English gentleman.
His  English  accent  waned with  the British  Empire, and
after  World  War  II  he  became  an  American by  Act of
Congress. A. J. is an agent like me, but  for whom  or for
what no  one has  ever been  able to  discover. It  is ru-
mored that  he represents  a trust  of giant  insects from
another galaxy.... I believe he is on the  Factualist side
( which I also represent ); of course he could be a Lique-
factign  Agent  (the  Liquefaction  program  involves  the
eventual  merging  of  everyone  into One  Man by  a proc-
ess  of protoplasmic  absorption). You  can never  be sure
of anyone in the industry.
  A.  J.'s  cover  story?  An  international  playboy  and
harmless practical joker. It was  A. J.  who put  the pir-
anha  fish  in  Lady  Sutton-Smith's  swimming  pool,  and
dosed  the  punch  with  a  mixture  of Yage,  Hashish and
Yohimbine during a Fourth  of July  reception at  the U.S.
Embassy,  precipitating  an  orgy. Ten  prominent citizens
-- American, of course  -- subsequently  died of  shame. Dy-
ing  of shame  is an  accomplishment peculiar  to Kwakiutl
Indians and Americans -- others simply  say "Zat  alors" or
"Son  cosas  de  la  vida"  or "Allah  fucked me,  the All
Powerful...."
  And   when  the   Cincinnati  Anti-Fluoride   Society  met
to toast their victory in pure spring water, all their teeth
dropped out on the spot.
  "And I say  unto you,  brothers and  sisters of  the Anti-
Fluoride  movement,  we   have  this   day  struck   such  a
blow  for purity  as will  never call  a retreat....  Out, I
say, with the filthy  foreign fluorides!  We will  sweep this
fair  land sweet  and clean  as a  young boy's  tensed Hank.
...I  will  now  lead  you   in  our   theme  song   The  Old
Oaken Bucket."
  A  well  head is  lighted by  fluorescent lights  that play
over  it  in  hideous  juke-box  colors.  The Anti-Fluorides
file past  the well  singing as  each dips  up a  drink from
the oaken bucket....
  "The old oaken bucket, the gold oaken bucket
  The glublthulunnubbeth..."
  A.  J.  had  tampered  with the  water, inserting  a South
American vine that turns the gums to mush.
  (I  hear  about  this  vine  from  an old  German prospec-
tor  who  is  dying  of  uremia  in  Pasto,  Columbia.  Sup-
posed  to  grow  in  the Putumayo  area. Never  located any.
Didn't  try  very  hard....  The   same  citizen   tells  me
about  a  bug  like a  big grasshopper  known as  the Xiucu-
til: "Such a powerful aphrodisiac  if one  flies on  you and
you  can't  get  a  woman right  away you  will die.  I have
seen  the  Indians  running  around  pulling  themselves off
from  the  contact  with   this  animal."   Unfortunately  I
never score for a Xiucutil.... )
  On   opening   night   of   the  New   York  Metropolitan,
A.  J.,  protected  by  bug repellent,  released a  swarm of
Xiucutils.
  Mrs.   Vanderbligh   swatting   at  a   Xiucutil:  "Oh!...
Oh!...       OOOOOOOOOOOH!1!"       Screams,      breaking
glass,  ripping cloth.  A rising  crescendo of  grunts and
squeals  and  moans  and   whimpers  and   gasps....  Reek
of  semen  and  cunts  and  sweat  and  the musty  odor of
penetrated  rectums,...  Diamonds  and  fur  pieces,  eve-
ning  dresses,  orchids,  suits  and underwear  litter the
floor  covered by  a writhing,  frenzied, heaving  mass of
naked bodies.

  A.  J.  once  reserved a  table a  year in  advance Chez
Robert  where  a  huge,  icy   gourmet  broods   over  the
greatest cuisine in the world.  So baneful  and derogatory
is  his  gaze  that  many a  client, under  that withering
blast, has rolled on the floor and pissed all over himself
in convulsive attempts to ingratiate.
  So  A.  J. arrives  with six  Bolivian Indians  who chew
coca  leaves  between  courses.  And  when Robert,  in all
his  gourmet  majesty,  bears  down  on  the table,  A. J.
looks up and yells: "Hey, Boy! Bring me some ketchup."
  (Alternative: A. J. whips  out a  bottle of  ketchup and
douses the haute cuisine. )
  Thirty  gourmets  stop  chewing   at  once.   You  could
have heard a souffle drop. As  for Robert,  he lets  out a
bellow  of  rage  like  a  wounded  elephant, runs  to the
kitchen  and  arms  himself  with  a meat  cleaver.... The
Sommelier  snarls  hideously, his  face turning  a strange
iridescent purple.... He breaks off a bottle of Brut Cham-
pagne...  '26....  Pierre,  the  Head Waiter,  snatches up
a boning knife.  All three  chase A.  J. through  the res-
taurant   with   mangled   inhuman  screams   of  rage....
Tables   overturn,  vintage   wines  and   matchless  food
crash to the floor.... Cries of  "Lynch him!"  ring through
the  air.  An  elderly gourmet  with the  insane bloodshot
eyes of  a mandril,  is fashioning  a hangman's  knot with
a  red  velvet  curtain  cord.... Seeing  himself cornered
and  in imminent  danger of  dismemberment at  least, A.J.
plays  his  trump  card....  He throws  back his  head and
lets out a hog call; and  a hundred  famished hogs  he had
stationed nearby  rush into  the restaurant,  slopping the
haute cuisine. Like a great tree Robert falls to the fioor
in a  stroke where  he is  eaten by  the hogs:  "Poor bas-
tards don't know enough to appreciate him," says A. J.
  Robert's  brother  Paul  emerges  from  retirement  in a
local  nut  house and  takes over  the restaurant  to dis-
pense  something  he  calls the  "Transcendental Cuisine."
...Imperceptibly the  quality of  the food  declines until
he is serving literal garbage, the  clients being  too in-
timidated  by the  reputation of  Chex Robert  to protest.

  Sample Menu:
The Clear Camel Piss Soup with boiled Earth Worms

            The Filet of Sun-Ripened Sting Ray
  basted with Eau de Cologne and garnished with nettles

            The After-Birth Supreme de Boeuf,
            cooked in drained crank case oil,
     served with a piquant sauce of rotten egg yolks
                   and crushed bed bugs

    The Limburger Cheese sugar cured in diabetic orine
           doused in Canned Heat Flamboyant....

  So the clients are quietly dying of botulism.... Then
A. J. returns with an entourage of Arab refugees from
the Middle East. He takes one mouthful and screams:
  "Garbage  God  damn  it.  Cook this  wise citizen  in his
own swill!"

  And so the legend of A. J. the laughable, lovable ec-
centric grew and grew.... Fadeout to Venice....
Gondoliers singing and pathic cries swell up from San
Marco and Harry's.
  Charming old Venetian anecdote about this bridge,
it seems some Venetian sailors take a trip around the
world and all turn into fruits they fuck the cabin boy
already, so when they get back to Venice it is necessary
women walk over this bridge with their lungs hanging
out to arouse the desires of these dubious citizens. So
get a battalion of shock troops up to San Marco on the
double.
  "Girls, this is O.A.O., Operation All Out. If your tits
won't stop them bring up your cunts and confound
these faggots."
  "Oh Gertie it's true. It's all true. They've got a horrid
gash instead of a thrilling thing."
  "I can't face it."
  "Enough to turn a body to stone."
  Paul spoke wiser than he know being a really evil
old shit when he talk about men lying with men doing
that which is inconvenient. Inconvenient is the word.
So who want to trip over a cock on the way to a cunt,
and when a citizen get the yen to hump a gash, some
evil stranger rush in and do that which is inconvenient
to his ass.
  A. J. rush across San Marco slashing at pigeons with
a cutlass: "Bastards! Sons of bitches!" he screams....
He  staggers  aboard his  barge, a  monstrous construction
in gilt and pink and blue with sails of purple  velvet. He
is  dressed  in  a  preposterous  naval  uniform  covered
with braid  and ribbons  and medals,  dirty and  torn, the
coat  buttoned in  the wrong  holes.... A.  J. walks  to a
huge  reproduction  of  a  Greek  urn  topped  by  a  gold
statue  of a  boy with  an erection.  He twists  the boy's
balls and a  jet of  champagne spurts  into his  mouth. He
wipes his mouth and looks around.
 "Where are my Nubians, God damn it?" he yells.
 His  secretary  looks  up  from  a comic  book: "Juicing.
...Chasing cunt."
 "Goldbricking   cocksuckers.   Where's   a   man  without
his Nubians?"
 "Take a gondola whyncha?'
 "A gondola?" A.  J. screams.  "I put  out for  this cock-
sucker  I  should  ride  in  a  gondola already?  Reef the
mainsail  and  ship  the  oars,  Mr. Hyslop....  I'm gonna
make with  the auxiliary."  Mr. Hyslop  shrugs resignedly.
With  one  finger  he  begins  punching  a switchboard....
The sails drop, the oars draw into the hull.
 "And  turn  on  the  perfume  whyncha?  The  canal stinks
up a breeze."
 "Gardenia? Sandlewood?'
 "Naw.  Ambrosia."  Mr.  Hyslop  presses   another  button
and  a  thick  cloud  of perfume  settles over  the barge.
A. J. is seized with a fit of coughing....
 "Make  with the  fans" he  yells. "I'm  suffocatin'!" Mr.
Hyslop  is  coughing  into  a  handkerchief. He  presses a
button. Fans whir  and thin  out the  ambrosia. A.  J. in-
stalls himself at the rudder on a raised  dais. "Contact!"
The  barge  begins  to  vibrate.  "Avanti,  God  damn it!"
A. J. yells and the barge takes off across  the canal  at a
tremendous  speed overturning  gondolas full  of tourists,
missing  the motoscafi  by inches,  veering from  one side
of  the  canal  to  the  other (the  wake washes  over the
sidewalks  drenching  passersby)  shattering  a   fleet  of
moored  gondolas,  and  finally piles  up against  a pier,
spins out into  the middle  of the  canal.... A  column of
water spurts six feet in the air from a hole in the hull.
  "Man  the  pumps,  Mr.  Hyslop.  She's  shipping water."
The barge gives  a sudden  lurch throwing  A. J.  into the
canal.
  "Abandon  ship,  God  damn  it!   Every  man   for  him-
self!" Fadeout to Mambo music.

  The  inauguration  of  Escuela Amigo,  a school  for de-
linquent  boys  of  Latin  American  origin,   endowed  by
A. J., Faculty Boys  and press  attending. A.  J. staggers
out onto a platform draped with American flags.
  "In  the  immortal  words  of  Father Flanagan  there is
no  such  thing  as  a bad  boy.... Where's  the statuary,
God damn it?"
  TECHNICIAN: "You want it now?"
  A. J.: "What  you think  I'm doing  here Furthucrisakes?
I should unveil the son of a bitch in abstentia?"
  TECHNICIAN:  "All  right...   All  right.   Coming  right
up."  The  statue  is towed  out by  a Graham  Hymie trac-
tor and placed in front of the platform.  A. J.  presses a
button.  Turbines start  under the  platform, rising  to a
deafening  whine.  Wind  blows  the  red velvet  drapes off
the  statue.  They  tangle around  the Faculty  members in
the  front  row....  Clouds  of   dust  and   debris  whip
through  the  spectators. The  sirens slowly  subside. The
Faculty  disengages  itself  from  the  drapes....  Every-
one is looking at the statue in breathless silence.
  FATHER GONZALEZ: "Mother of God!"
  THE MAN From Time: "I don't believe it."
  Daily News: "It's nothing but fruity."
  Chorus of whistles from the boys.
  A  monumental creation  in shiny  pink stone  stands re-
vealed as the dust settles.  A naked  boy is  bending over
a  sleeping  comrade  with  evident  intention   to  waken
him  with  a  flute.  One  hand  is  holding the  flute, the
other  reaching  for  a  piece  of  cloth draped  over the
sleeper's  middle.  The  cloth  bulges  suggestively. Both
boys wear a flower behind the ear,  identical expressions,
dreamy  and  brutal,  depraved  and  innocent.  This crea-
tions tops a limestone  pyramid on  which is  inscribed in
letters of porcelain mosaic -- pink and blue and gold -- the
school motto: "With it and for it."
  A.  J.  lurches  forward and  breaks a  champagne bottle
across the boy's taut buttocks.
  "And  remember,  boys,  that's  where   champagne  comes
from."

  Manhattan  Serenade.  A.  J.  and  entourage  start into
New  York  night  club.  A. J.  is leading  a purple-assed
baboon  on  a  gold  chain.  A. J.  is dressed  in checked
linen plus fours with a cashmere jacket.
  MANAGER:  "Wait   a  minute.   Wait  a   minute.  What's
that?'
  A. J.: "It's an  Illyrian poodle.  Choicest beast  a man
can latch onto. It'll raise the tone of your trap."
  MANAGER:  "I  suspect  it  to  be a  purple-assed baboon
and it stands outside."
  STOOGE:  "Don't you  know who  this is?  It's A.  J., last
of the big time spenders."
  MANAGER:   "Leave  him   take  his   purple-assed  bastard
and big time spend some place else."
  A. J. stops in front of another club and looks  in. "Ele-
gant  fags  and  old  cunts, God  damn it!  We come  to the
right place. Avanti, ragazzit"
  He  drives a  gold stake  into the  floor and  pickets the
baboon.  He begins  talking in  elegant tones,  his stooges
filling in.
  "Fantastic!"
  "Monstrous!"
  "Utter heaven1"
  A.  J. puts  a long  cigarette holder  in his  mouth. The
holder  is  made  of  some  obscenely flexible  material. It
swings  and   undulates  as   if  endowed   with  loathsome
reptilian life.
  A.  J.:  "So  there  I was  Hat on  my stomach  at thirty
thousand feet."
  Several  nearby  fags  raise  their  heads  like  animals
scenting danger. A. J. leaps to his feet with  an inarticu-
late snarl.
  "You  purple-assed cocksucker!"  he screams.  "I'll teach
you to shit  on the  floor!" He  pulls a  whip from  his um-
brella  and  cuts  the  baboon across  the ass.  The baboon
screams and tears  loose the  stake. He  leaps on  the next
table  and  climbs  up  an  old  woman  who  dies  of heart
failure on the spot.
  A. J.: "Sorry, lady. Discipline you know."
  In  a  frenzy  he  whips  the  baboon  from  one  end  of
the  bar  to the  other. The  baboon, screaming  and snarl-
ing  and  shitting  with terror,  climbs over  the clients,
runs up  and down  on top  of the  bar, swings  from drapes
and chandeliers....
  A. J.: "You'll straighten up and shit right or  you won't
be inna condition to shit one way or the other."
  STOOGE:  "You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of   yourself  up-
settin' A. J. after all he's done for you."
  A. J.:  "Ingrates! Every  one of  them ingrates!  Take it
from an old queen."

  Of course no one believes this cover story. A.  J. claims
to  be  an  "independent,"  which  is  to  say:  "Mind your
own  business."  There  are   no  independents   any  more.
... The  Zone  swarms  with  every  variety  of   dupe  but
there are no neutrals there. A neutral at A. J.'s  level is
of course unthinkable....
  Hassan  is  a  notorious  Liquefactionist and  suspect to
be a secret Sender -- "Shucks,  boys," he  says with  a dis-
arming pin, "I'm  just a  blooming old  cancer and  I gotta
proliferate."  He  picks  up  a  Texas  accent  associating
with  Dry  Hole  Dutton,  the  Dallas  wildcatter,  and  he
wears  cowboy  boots and  ten-gallon hat  at all  times in-
doors  and  out....  His  eyes  are invisible  behind black
glasses, his face  smooth and  blank as  wax above  a well-
cut  suit  made  entirely  from  immature   high  denomina-
tion  bank  notes. (Bank  notes are  in fact  currency, but
they  must  mature  before   they  can   be  negotiated....
Bank notes run as high as one million clams a note. )
  "They  keep  hatching out  all over  me," he  says shyly.
..."It's like, gee, I don't know how to say it. It's like I
was  a  Mummy  scorpion  carrying  those little  baby notes
around  on  my   warm  body   and  feeling   them  grow....
Gosh I hope I don't bore you with all this."
  Salvador,  known  as Sally  to his  friends --  he always
keeps  a  few  "friends"  around  and  pays  them  by  the
hour -- got cured in the  slunk business  in World  War II.
(To  get  cured  means  to  get  rich. Expression  used by
Texas  oil  men.)  The  Pure  Food  and   Drug  Department
have his picture in their  files, a  heavy faced  man with
an embalmed look as  if paraffin  had been  injected under
the  skin  which is  smooth, shiny  and poreless.  One eye
is  dead grey  color, round  as a  marble, with  flaws and
opaque spots. The  other is  black and  shiny, an  old un-
dreaming insect eye.
  His eyes  are normally  invisible behind  black glasses.
He looks sinister and  enigmatic --  his gestures  and man-
nerisms  are  not  yet  comprehensible  -- like  the secret
police of a larval state.
  In  moments  of  excitement  Salvador  is  apt  to lapse
into  broken  English.  His  accent  at such  moments sug-
gests an Italian origin. He reads and speaks Etruscan,
  A  squad of  accountant investigators  have made  a life
work  of  Sal's  international dossier....  His operations
extend  through  the  world  in an  inextricable, shifting
web  of  subsidiaries,  front  companies, and  aliases. He
has  held  23  passports  and  been  deported  49  times --
deportation   proceedings   pending  in   Cuba,  Pakistan,
Hongkong and Yokohama.
  Salvador  Hassan  O'Leary,  alias  The  Shoe  Store Kid,
alias  Wrong  Way  Marv,  alias  After Birth  Leary, alias
Slunky  Pete,  alias  Placenta  Juan,  alias K.  Y. Ahmed,
alias El Chinche, alias El Culito,  etc., etc.  for fifteen
solid pages of dossier, first tangled with the law  in NYC
where  he  was  traveling  with a  character known  to the
Brooklyn police as  Blubber Wilson,  who hustled  his goof
ball money shaking down fetishists  in shoe  stores. Has-
san  was  charged  some third  degree extortion  and con-
spiracy  to impersonate  a police  officer. He  had learnt
the  shakeman's  Number  One  rule:  D.T.--  Ditch  Tin  --
which  corresponds  to  the  pilot's  KFS  --  Keep Flying
Speed....  As  The  Vigilante  puts  it:  "If  you  get a
rumble, kid, ditch your piece of tin if you have to swal-
low  it." So  they didn't  bust him  with a  queer badge.
Hassan  testified  against  Wilson,  who drew  Pen Indef.
(longest  term  possible under  New York  law for  a mis-
demeanor  conviction.  Nominally an  indefinite sentence,
it means three  years in  Riker's Island).  Hassan's case
was  nolle  prossed.  "I'd have  drawn a  nickel," Hassan
said, "if I hadn't met a  decent cop."  Hassan met  a de-
cent cop every time he took a fall. His  dossier contains
three  pages  of monikers  indicating his  proclivity for
cooperating with the  law, "playing  ball" the  cops call
it. Others  call it  something else:  Ab the  Fuzz Lover,
Finky  Marv,  The  Crooning Hebe,  Ali the  Stool, Wrongo
Sal,  The  Wailing  Spic, The  Sheeny Soprano,  The Bronx
Opera  House,  The  Copper's  Djinn, The  Answering Serv-
ice,  The  Squeaking   Syrian,  The   Cooing  Cocksucker,
The  Musical  Fruit,  The  Wrong  Ass  Hole,   The  Fairy
Fink,   Leary   the   Nark,  The   Lilting  Leprechaun...
Grassy Gert.
  He  opened  a  sex  shop  in  Yokohama, pushed  junk in
Beirut,  pimped  in  Panama.  During   World  War   II  he
shifted into high, took over a dairy  in Holland  and cut
the  butter  with  used  axle  grease, cornered  the K.Y.
market in North Africa, and finally hit the  jackpot with
slunks.  He  prospered  and  proliferated,   Hooding  the
world  with  cut  medicines  and cheap  counterfeit goods
of every variety. Adulterated  shark repellent,  cut anti-
biotics,  condemned  parachutes,  stale   anti-venom,  in-
active serums and vaccines, leaking lifeboats.

  Clem  and  Jody,  two  oldtime vaudeville  hoofers, cope
out as  Russian agents  whose sole  function is  to repre-
sent  the  U.S.  in  an  unpopular  light.  When  arrested
for  sodomy  in  Indonesia,  Clem  said  to  the examining
magistrate:
  "'Tain't as if it was being queer. After all they's only
Gooks."
  They  appeared  in  Liberia  dressed  in  black Stetsons
and red galluses:
  "So I shoot that old nigger and he flop  on his  side one
leg up in the air just akicking."
  "Yeah, but you ever burn a nigger?"
  They  are  always   pacing  round   Bidonvilles  smoking
huge cigars:
  "Haveta  get  some  bulldozers in  here Jody.  Clean out
all this crap."
  Morbid  crowds  follow  them  about  hoping  to  witness
some superlative American outrage.
  "Thirty  years  in  show  business  and  I  never handle
such a routine like this. I gotta dispossess a Bidonville,
give myself a bang  of H,  piss on  the Black  Stone, make
with  the  Prayer  Call  whilst  dressed  in my  hog suit,
cancel  Lend  Lease  and  get  fucked  up  the  ass simul-
taneous....  What,   am  I   an  octopus   already?"  Clem
complains.
  They  are  conspiring  to  kidnap  the Black  Stone with
a helicopter and substitute  a hog  pen, the  hogs trained
to  give  the  Bronx  cheer when  the pilgrims  show. "We
try  to  train  them squealing  bastards to  sing: 'Three
cheers  for  the  Red White  and Blue,'  but it  can't be
done...."
  "We  connect  for  that  wheat  with  Ali  Wong Chapul-
tepec in Panama. He tells us it is a  high grade  of shit
this Finnish skipper die inna local jump joint  and leave
this  cargo  to  the  madame.... 'She  was like  a mother
to me,' he says and those were his  last words....  So we
buy it in good faith off the old gash. Laid ten pieces of
H on her."
  "Good H too. Good Aleppo H."
  "Just enough milk sugar to keep her strength up."
  "We should look a gift horse in the ass already?"
  "Isn't it true than when you got to  Hassan you  gave a
banquet  for  the  Caid  and  served  couscous  made from
the wheat?"
  "We  sure  did.  And  you know  those citizens  were so
loaded  on  that marijuana  they all  wig inna  middle of
the  banquet....  Me,  I  just  had  bread   and  milk...
ulcers you know."
  "Likewise."
  "So they all run around screaming they  is on  fire and
the bulk of them die the following morning."
  "And the rest the morning after that."
  "What  they  expect already  when they  rot theirselves
with Eastern vices?"
  "Funny thing those  citizens turn  all black  and their
legs drop off."
  "Horrible result of marijuana addiction."
  "The very same thing occurred to me."
  "So we deal  directly with  the old  Sultan who  is being
a  well-known  Latah.  After   that  everything   is  plain
sailing you might say."
  "But you  wouldn't believe  it, certain  disgruntled ele-
ments chased us right down to our launch."
  "Handicapped somewhat by lack of legs."
  "And a condition in the head."
  (Ergot  is  a  fungus  disease grows  on bad  wheat. Dur-
ing  the   Middle  Ages   Europe  was   periodically  deci-
mated  by  outbreaks  of  Ergotism,  which  was  called St.
Anthony's   fire.   Gangrene  frequently   supervenes,  the
legs turn black and drop off. )
  They  unload  a  shipment  of  condemned   parachutes  on
the   Ecuadorian  Air   Force.  Manoeuvres:   Boys  plummet
streaming   'chutes  like   broken  condoms   splash  young
blood  over  pot-bellied  generals...  shattering  wake  of
sound  as  Clem  and  Jody  disappear  over  the  Andes  in
jet getaway....

  The  exact objectives  of Islam  Inc. are  obscure. Need-
less to say everyone  involved has  a different  angle, and
they  all  intend to  cross each  other up  somewhere along
the line.
  A. J. is agitating for the  destruction of  Israel: "With
all this  feeling against  the West  a chap  has a  spot of
bother  scoring  for  the  young  Arab   amenities....  The
situation is little short of intolerable.... Israel consti-
tutes  a  downright  inconvenience."  Typical  A.  J. cover
story.
  Clem and Jody  give out  they are  interested in  the de-
struction  of Near  East oil  Belds to  boost the  value of
their Venezuelan holdings.
  Clem writes  a number  to the  tune of  "Crawdad" (Big
Bill Broonzy).

  What you gonna do when the oil goes dry?
  Gonna sit right there and watch those Arabs die.

  Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance
to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefac-
tionist activities.... But over a few stiff yages he lets
his hair down among friends.
  "Islam is jellied consomme already," he  says, dancing
the Liquefactionist Jig.... And then, unable  to contain
himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:

           It's trembling on the brink
           One push and down it sink
           Hey, Maw, get ready my veil.

  "Well,  these  citizens have  engaged the  services of
a  Brooklyn  Jew  who  passes  himself  off as  the second
coming   of   Mohammed....   In   fact   Doctor   Benway
delivered him by Caesarian  section from  a Holy  Man in
Mecca....
  "If  Ahmed  won't  come  out...  We'll  go in  and get
him."
  This  shameless  plant  is  accepted  without question
by the gullible Arabs.
  "Nice folk, these Arabs...  Nice ignorant  folk," Clem
says.
  So  this  phony  gives  out with  daily Surahs  on the
radio: "Now friends of the radio  audience, this  is Ah-
med  your friendly  prophet.... Today  I'd like  to talk
about the importance  of being  dainty and  kissin' fresh
at all times.... Friends, use Jody's  chlorophyll tablets
and be sure."

    Now a word about the parties of Interzone....
    It will  be immediately  clear that  the Liquefaction
Party  is,  except  for  one  man,  entirely  composed of
dupes, it not being clear until the final  absorption who
is  whose  dupe.... The  Liquefactionists are  much given
to every form of perversion,  especially sado-masochistic
practices....
    Liquefactionists in general know what the  score is.
The Senders, on the other hand,  are notorious  for their
ignorance of the  nature and  terminal state  of sending,
for barbarous and self-righteous  manners, and  for rabid
fear of any fact --. It was only  the intervention  of the
Factualists  that  prevented  the  Senders  from  putting
Einstein in an institution and destroying his  theory. It
may  be  said  that  only  a very  few Senders  know what
they are doing and these  top Senders  are the  most dan-
gerous  and  evil  men  in  the  world....  Techniques of
Sending  were  crude  at first.  Fadeout to  the National
Electronic Conference in Chicago.
    The Conferents are putting on their overcoats.... The
speaker talks in a fiat shopgirl voice:
    "In closing  I want  to sound  a word  of warning....
The  logical  extension  of encephalographic  research is
bicontrol; that is control  of physical  movement, mental
processes, emotional reactions  and apparent  sensory im-
pressions by means of  bioelectric signals  injected into
the nervous system of the subject."
  "Louder   and  funnier!"   The  Conferents   are  trouping
out in clouds of dust.
  "Shortly  after  birth  a  surgeon  could  install connec-
tions  in  the brain.  A miniature  radio receiver  could be
plugged   in   and  the   subject  controlled   from  State-
controlled transmitters."
  Dust  settles  through the  windless air  of a  vast empty
hall -- smell of hot iron and steam; a radiator sings  in the
distance....  The  Speaker  shuffles  his  notes   and  blows
dust off them....
  "The   biocontrol  apparatus   is  prototype   of  one-way
telepathic  control.  The  subject  could  be  rendered sus-
ceptible  to the  transmitter by  drugs or  other processing
without  installing  any  apparatus. Ultimately  the Senders
will  use   telepathic  transmitting   exclusively....  Ever
dig the Mayan  codices? I  figure it  like this:  the priests
--  about  one  per cent  of population  -- made  with one-way
telepathic  broadcasts  instructing  the  workers   what  to
feel and when.... A telepathic  sender has  to send  all the
time.  He  can never  receive, because  if he  receives that
means  someone  else  has  feelings of  his own  could louse
up his continuity. The sender has to send all the  time, but
he can't ever recharge himself by  contact. Sooner  or later
he's got no feelings to send. You can't have feelings alone.
Not alone like the Sender is alone -- and  you dig  there can
only  be  one  Sender  at  one  place-time....  Finally  the
screen  goes  dead....   The  Sender   has  turned   into  a
huge   centipede....  So   the  workers   come  in   on  the
beam  and  burn  the  centipede  and  elect  a   new  Sender
by  consensus  of  the  general  will....  The  Mayans  were
limited  by  isolation....  Now  one  Sender  could  control
the planet.... You see control can never be a means
to any practical end.... It can never be a means to
anything but more control.... Like junk..."

  The  Divisionists  occupy   a  mid-way   position,  could
in  fact  be  termed  moderates....  They are  called Divi-
sionists because they literally divide.  They cut  off tiny
bits of their flesh  and grow  exact replicas  of themselves
in  embryo  jelly.  It seems  probable, unless  the process
of division is halted, that eventually  there will  be only
one replica of one sex on the planet: that is one person in
the  world  with  millions   of  separate   bodies....  Are
these  bodies  actually  independent,  and  could  they  in
time develop varied characteristics?  I doubt  it. Replicas
must periodically recharge  with the  Mother Cell.  This is
an article of faith with the Divisionists, who live in fear
of a  replica revolution....  Some Divisionists  think that
the  process  can be  halted short  of the  eventual monop-
oly of  one replica.  They say:  "Just let  me plant  a few
more  replicas  all  over  so  I  won't  be  lonely  when I
travel....  And we  must strictly  control the  division of
Undesirables...."  Every  replica  but  your  own  is even-
tually  an  "Undesirable."  Of  course  if  someone  starts
inundating  an  area  with  Identical   Replicas,  everyone
knows  what  is going  on. The  other citizens  are subject
to  declare  a  "Schluppit"  (wholesale  massacre   of  all
identifiable  replicas).  To  avoid extermination  of their
replicas, citizens dye, distort, and  alter them  with face
and  body  molds.  Only  the  most  abandoned   and  shame-
less characters  venture to  manufacture I.R.s  -- Identical
Replicas.
  A cretinous albino Caid, product  of a  long line  of re-
cessive  genes  (tiny  toothless  mouth  lined  with  black
hairs, body of  a huge  crab, claws  instead of  arms, eyes
projected on stalks) accumulated 20,000 I.R.s.
  "As far as  the eye  can see,  nothing but  replicas," he
says,  crawling  around  on  his  terrace  and  speaking in
strange insect chirps. "I don't have  to skulk  around like
a  nameless  asshole  growing replicas  in my  cesspool and
sneaking  them  out  disguised  as  plumbers  and  delivery
men....  My  replicas  don't  have  their  dazzling  beauty
marred  by  plastic  surgery and  barbarous dye  and bleach
processes. They stand  forth naked  in the  sun for  all to
see,  in their  incandescent loveliness  of body,  face and
soul.  I  have  made  them  in my  image and  enjoined them
to increase and multiply geometric  for they  shall inherit
the earth."
  A  professional  witch  was  called  in  to   make  Sheik
Aracknid's  replica  cultures  forever  sterile....  As the
witch  was  preparing  to  loose  a blast  of anti-orgones,
Benway  told  him: "Don't  knock yourself  out. Frederick's
ataxia will clean out that replica nest. I  studied neurol-
ogy   under   Professor   Fingerbottom  in   Vienna...  and
he  knew  every  nerve  in   your  body.   Magnificent  old
thing... Came to a  sticky end....  His falling  piles blew
out  the  Duc  de  Ventre's   Hispano  Suiza   and  wrapped
around  the  rear  wheel. He  was completely  gutted, leav-
ing an empty  shell sitting  there on  the giraffe  skin up-
holstery....  Even  the   eyes  and   brain  went   with  a
horrible  schlupping  sound.  The  Duc  de  Ventre  says he
will carry that ghastly schlup to his mausoleum."
  Since  there is  no sure  way to  detect a  disguised re-
plica  (though  every  Divisionist   has  some   method  he
considers  infallible)  the  Divisionists  are hysterically
paranoid.  If some  citizen ventures  to express  a liberal
opinion,  another  citizen  invariably  snarls:  "What  are
you? Some stinking Nigger's bleached-out replica?"
  The  casualties  in  barroom  fights  are  staggering. In
fact  the  fear  of  Negro  replicas --  which may  be blond
and  blue-eyed  --  has   depopulated  whole   regions.  The
Divisionists are all latent or overt homosexuals.  Evil old
queens  tell  the  young  boys:  "If  you  go with  a woman
your  replicas  won't  grow."  And  citizens   are  forever
putting the hex on someone  else's replica  cultures. Cries
of:  "Hex  my  culture  will  you,  Biddy  Blair1" followed
by  sound  effects  of  mayhem,  continually  ring  through
the  quarter....  The  Divisionists are  much given  to the
practice  of  black  magic  in general,  and they  have in-
numerable  formulas  of  varying  efficacy  for  destroying
the  Mother  Cell,  also  known  as  the  Protoplasm Daddy,
by  torturing  or  killing a  captured replica....  The au-
thorities  have finally  given up  the attempt  to control,
among  the  Divisionists,  the  crimes  of  murder  and un-
licensed  production of  replicas. But  they do  stage pre-
election  raids and  destroy vast  replica cultures  in the
mountainous  regions  of  the  Zone  where   replica  moon-
shiners hole up.
  Sex  with  a  replica  is  strictly forbidden  and almost
universally   practiced.   There   are  queer   bars  where
shameless  citizens  openly  consort  with  their replicas.
House detectives stick  their heads  into hotel  rooms say-
ing: "Have you got a replica in here?"
  Bars  subject  to  be  inundated  by  low  class  replica
lovers put up signs in ditto marks: "  " "  "s Will  Not Be
Served  Here....  It  may  be said  that the  average Divi-
sionist lives in a continual crisis of fear and  rage, un-
able  to  achieve  either  the  self-righteous complacency
of  the  Senders or  the relaxed  depravity of  the Lique-
factionists.... However  the parties  are not  in practice
separate but blend in all combinations.

  The  Factualists  are  Anti-Liquefactionist,  Anti-Divi-
sionist, and above all Anti-Sender.
  Bulletin  of  the Coordinate  Factualist on  the subject
of replicas: "We must reject the facile solution of fiood-
ing  the planet  with 'desirable  replicas.' It  is highly
doubtful if there are any  desirable replicas,  such crea-
tures constituting  an attempt  to circumvent  process and
change.  Even  the most  intelligent and  genetically per-
fect replicas would in all  probability constitute  an un-
speakable menace to life on this planet...."
  T.B.--  Tentative  Bulletin-Liquefaction:  "We  must  not
reject or deny our protoplasmic core, striving at all time
to maintain a maximum of  flexibility without  falling into
the  morass  of  liquefaction...."  Tentative  and  Incom-
plete  Bulletin:  "Emphatically  we  do  not  oppose tele-
pathic  research.  In  fact,  telepathy properly  used and
understood  could  be  the  ultimate  defense  against any
form  of  organized  coercion  or tyranny  on the  part of
of pressure groups or individual  control addicts.  We op-
pose,  as we  oppose atomic  war, the  use of  such knowl-
edge to control, coerce, debase, exploit or annihilate the
individuality  of  another  living creature.  Telepathy is
not, by its nature, a one-way process.  To attempt  to set
up  a  one-way  telepathic  broadcast  must   be  regarded
as an unqualified evil...."
  D.B.--  Definitive  Bulletin:  "The  Sender  will  be  de-
fined  by  negatives.  A  low  pressure  area,  a  sucking
emptiness.  He  will  be  portentously   anonymous,  face-
less, colorless. He will -- probably -- be born  with smooth
disks of skin instead of  eyes. He  always knows  where he
is going like a virus knows. He doesn't need eyes."
  "Couldn't there be more than one Sender?"
  "Oh yes, many of them at first. But  not for  long. Some
maudlin  citizens  will  think  they  can  send  something
edifying, not realizing that  sending is  evil. Scientists
will say: 'Sending  is like  atomic power....  If properly
harnessed.' At this point an anal  technician mixes  a bi-
carbonate of soda and  pulls the  switch that  reduces the
earth to cosmic  dust. ('Belch...  They'll hear  this fart
on Jupiter.')... Artists will  confuse sending  with crea-
tion.  They  will  camp around  screeching 'A  new medium'
until  their  rating drops  off.... Philosophers  will bat
around  the  ends  and  means  hassle  not   knowing  that
sending  can  never  be  a  means  to  anything  but  more
sending, Like Junk.  Try using  junk as  a means  to some-
thing  else....   Some  citizens   with  'Coca   Cola  and
aspirin'  control habits  will be  talking about  the evil
glamor of  sending. But  no one  will talk  about anything
very long. The Sender, he don't like talking."
  The  Sender  is  not  a human  individual.... It  is The
Human  Virus.  (All virus  are deteriorated  cells leading
a parasitic existence.... They have specific  affinity for
the Mother Cell;  thus deteriorated  liver cells  seek the
home  place  of  hepatitis,  etc. So  every species  has a
Master Virus: Deteriorated Image of that species. )
  The  broken  image  of  Man  moves  in minute  by minute
and cell by cell....  Poverty, hatred,  war, police-crimi-
nals,  bureaucracy,  insanity,  all  symptoms  of  The Human
Virus.
  The  Human  Virus  can  now  be  isolated   and  treated.

        THE COUNTY CLERK

  The  County  Clerk  has  his  office in  a huge  red brick
building  known  as the  Old Court  House. Civil  cases are,
in  fact,  tried there,  the proceeding  inexorably dragging
out until the  contestants die  or abandon  litigation. This
is due to  the vast  number of  records pertaining  to abso-
lutely  everything,  all filed  in the  wrong place  so that
no  one but  the County  Clerk and  his staff  of assistants
can  find them,  and he  often spends  years in  the search.
In fact, he is still looking for material relative to a dam-
age  suit  that  was  settled  out of  court in  1910. Large
sections  of  the  Old  Court  House  have fallen  in ruins,
and   others   are  highly   dangerous  owing   to  frequent
cave-ins.  The  County  Clerk  assigns  the  more  dangerous
missions to  his assistants,  many of  whom have  lost their
lives  in  the  service.  In  1912  two  hundred  and  seven
assistants  were  trapped  in  a  collapse of  the North-by-
North-East wing.
  When  suit  is  brought  against anyone  in the  Zone, his
lawyers  connive  to have  the case  transferred to  the Old
Court House. Once this is done, the  plaintiff has  lost the
case, so the only  cases that  actually go  to trial  in the
Old  Court  House  are  those  instigated by  eccentrics and
paranoids   who   want  "a   public  hearing,"   which  they
rarely  get  since only  the most  desperate famine  of news
will bring a reporter to the Old Court House.
  The  Old Court  House is  located in  the town  of Pigeon
Hole  outside  the  urban  zone.  The  inhabitants  of this
town  and  the  surrounding  area   of  swamps   and  heavy
timber are  people of  such great  stupidity and  such bar-
barous  practices that  the Administration  has seen  Bt to
quarantine  them in  a reservation  surrounded by  a radio-
active wall of iron bricks. In retaliation the  citizens of
Pigeon  Hole  plaster  their  town  with  signs:  "Urbanite
Don't  Let  The  Sun  Set  On  You  Here,"  an  unnecessary
injunction,  since  nothing   but  urgent   business  would
take any urbanite to Pigeon Hole.
  Lee's case is  urgent. He  has to  file an  immediate affi-
davit  that  he is  suffering from  bubonic plague  to avoid
eviction from  the house  he has  occupied ten  years with-
out  paying the  rent. He  exists in  perpetual quarantine.
So he  packs his  suitcase of  affidavits and  petitions and
injunctions  and  certificates  and  takes  a  bus  to  the
Frontier.   The  Urbanite   customs  inspector   waves  him
through:  "I hope  you've got  an atom  bomb in  that suit-
case."

  Lee  swallows  a  handful  of  tranquilizing   pills  and
steps  into the  Pigeon Hole  customs shed.  The inspectors
spend  three  hours  pawing  through  his  papers, consult-
ing  dusty  books  of  regulations  and  duties  from which
they  read  incomprehensible  and  ominous   excerpts  end-
ing  with:  "And  as such  is subject  to fine  and penalty
under act 666." They look at him significantly.
  They go through his papers with a magnifying glass.
  "Sometimes   they  slip   dirty  limericks   between  the
lines."
  "Maybe he figures to sell them for toilet paper.  Is this
crap for your own personal use?"
  "Yes."
  "He says yes."
  "And how do we know that?"
  "I gotta affidavit."
  "Wise guy. Take off your clothes."
  "Yeah. Maybe he got dirty tattoos."
  They  paw  over  his  body probing  his ass  for contra-
band  and  examine it  for evidence  of sodomy.  They dunk
his hair and  send the  water out  to be  analyzed. "Maybe
he's got dope in his hair."
  Finally,  they  impound  his  suitcase; and  he staggers
out of the shed with a fifty pound bale of documents.
  A  dozen or  so Recordites  sit on  the Old  Court House
steps  of  rotten  wood.  They  watch  his  approach  with
pale  blue  eyes,  turning  their  heads slow  on wrinkled
necks (the wrinkles full of  dust) to  follow his  body up
the  steps  and through  the door.  Inside, dust  hangs in
the air like fog, sifting down from the ceiling, rising in
clouds from the floor as  he walks.  He mounts  a perilous
staircase  --  condemned  in  1929.  Once  his   foot  goes
through, and the dry splinters tear into the flesh  of his
leg. The stairscase ends in a painter's scaffold, attached
with frayed rope and  pullies to  a beam  almost invisible
in dusty  distance. He  pulls himself  up cautiously  to a
ferris wheel cabin.  His weight  sets in  motion hydraulic
machinery  (sound  of  running  water).  The  wheel  moves
smooth and silent to stop  by a  rusty iron  balcony, worn
through here and  there like  an old  shoe sole.  He walks
down  a  long  corridor  lined  with  doors, most  of them
nailed or boarded shut.  In one  office, Near  East Exqui-
sitries on a green  brass plaque,  the Mugwump  is catch-
ing termites with his long black tongue. The door  of the
County Clerk's office is open. The  County Clerk  sits in-
side  gumming  snuff, surrounded  by six  assistants. Lee
stands in  the doorway.  The County  Clerk goes  on talk-
ing without looking up.
  "I  run into  Ted Spigot  the other  day... a  good old
boy, too. Not a finer man  in the  Zone than  Ted Spigot.
...Now  it  was  a  Friday I  happen to  remember because
the  Old  Lady  was  down  with  the menstrual  cramps and
I went to Doc Parker's drugstore  on Dalton  Street, just
opposite  Ma  Green's   Ethical  Massage   Parlor,  where
Jed's old  livery stable  used to  be.... Now,  Jed, I'll
remember  his  second name  directly, had  a cast  in the
left  eye and  his wife  came from  some place  out East,
Algiers I believe it was, and after Jed died  she married
up  again, and  she married  one of  the Hoot  boys, Clem
Hoot  if  my  memory  serves,  a  good  old boy  too, now
Hoot  was around  fifty-four fifty-five  year old  at the
time.... So I says to Doc  Parker: 'My  old lady  is down
bad  with  the  menstrual  cramps. Sell  me two  ounces of
paregoric.'
  "So Doc  says, 'Well,  Arch, you  gotta sign  the book.
Name, address and date of purchase. It's the law.'
  "So I asked Doc what the  day was,  and he  said, 'Fri-
day the 13th.'
  "So I said, ' I guess I already had mine.'
  "'Well,' Doc  says, 'there  was a  feller in  here this
morning. City feller. Dressed kinda  flashy. So  he's got
him a RX  for a  mason jar  of morphine....  Kinda funny
looking prescription writ out on  toilet paper....  And I
told him straight out: "Mister, I suspect you to be a
dope Bend." '
  "'"I got the ingrowing toe nails, Pop. I'm in agony."'
he says.
  "'"Well," I says, "I gotta be careful. But so long as
you got a legitimate condition and an RX from a certi-
Bed bona feedy M.D., I'm honored to serve you." '
  "'"That croaker's really certified," he say.... Well, I
guess one hand didn't know what the other was doing
when I give him a jar of Saniflush by error.... So I
reckon he's had his too.'
  "'Just the thing to clean a man's blood.'
  "'You know, that very thing occurred to me. Should
be a sight better than sulphur and molasses.... Now,
Arch, don't think I'm nosey; but a man don't have no
secrets from God and his druggist I always say.... Is
you still humping the Old Gray Mare?'
  " 'Why, Doc Parker... I'll have you know I'm a
family man and an Elder in the First Denominational
Non-sextarian Church and I ain't had a piecea hoss ass
since we was kids together.'
  "'Them was the days, Arch. Remember the time I
got the goose grease mixed up with the mustard? Al-
ways was a one to grab the wrong jar, feller say. They
could have heard you squealing over in Cunt Lick
County, just a squealing like a stoat with his stones cut
off.'
  "'You're in the wrong hole, Doc. It was you took the
mustard and me as had to wait till you cooled off.'
  "'Wistful thinking, Arch. I read about it one time
inna magazine settin' in that green outhouse behind the
station.... Now what I meant awhile back, Arch, you
didn't rightly understand me.... I was referring to your
wife as the Old Cray Mare.... I mean she ain't what
she used to be what with all them carbuncles and cata-
racts and chilblains and hemorrhoids and aftosa.'
  "'Yas, Doc, Liz is right sickly. Never was the same
after her eleventh miscarriaging.... There was some-
thing right strange about that. Doc Ferris he told me
straight, he said: "Arch, 'tain't fitting you should see
that critter." And he gives me a long look made my flesh
crawl.... Well, you sure said it right, Doc. She ain't
what she used to be. And your medicines don't seem
to ease her none. In fact, she ain't been able to tell
night from day since using them eye drops you sold her
last month.... But, Doc, you oughtta know I wouldn't
be humping Liz, the old cow, meaning no disrespect to
the mother of my dead monsters. Not when I got that
sweet little ol' fifteen year old thing.... You know that
yaller girl used to work in Marylou's Hair Straightening
and Skin Bleach Parlor over in Nigga town.'
  "'Getting that dark chicken meat, Arch? Gettin' that
coon pone?'
  "'Gettin' it steady, Doc. Gettin' it steady. Well, feller
say duty is goosing me. Gotta get back to the old crank
case.'
  "'I'll bet she needs a grease job worst way.'
  "'Doc, she sure is a dry hole.... Well, thanks for the
paregoric.
  " 'And thanks for the trade, Arch.... He he he...
Say, Archy boy, some night when you get caught short
with a rusty load drop around and have a drink of
Yohimbiny with me.'
  "'I'll do that, Doc, I sure will. It'll be just like old
times.
  "So  I  went  on  back to  my place  and heated  up some
water  and  mixed  up  some   paregoric  and   cloves  and
cinnamon and sassyfrass and give it to  Liz, and  it eased
her some I reckon.  Leastwise she  let up  aggravatin' me.
... Well, later on I went  down to  Doc Parker's  again to
get me a rubber... and just as  I was  leaving I  run into
Roy Bane, a good ol' boy too. There's not  a finer  man in
this Zone  than Roy  Bane.... So  he said  to me  he says,
'Arch, you see that ol' nigger over  there in  that vacant
lot? Well, sure as shit  and taxes,  he comes  there every
night just as regular you can set your  watch by  him. See
him  behind   them  nettles?   Every  night   round  about
eight thirty he goes over into that  lot yonder  and pulls
himself  off  with steel  wool.... Preachin'  Nigger, they
tell me.'
  "So that's  how I  come to  know the  hour more  or less
on Friday the  13th and  it couldn't  have been  more than
twenty  minutes  half an  hour after  that, I'd  took some
Spanish Fly in Doc's store  and it  was jest  beginning to
work  on  me  down  by  Grennel  Bog on  my way  to Nigger
town....  Well the  bog makes  a bend,  used to  be nigger
shack  there....  They  burned  that  ol'  nigger  over in
Cunt Lick. Nigger  had the  aftosa and  it left  him stone
blind....  So   this  white   girl  down   from  Texarkana
screeches out:
  "'Roy, that ol' nigger is looking at me so nasty. Land's
sake I feel just dirty all over.'
  "'Now,  Sweet  Thing,  don't you  fret yourself.  Me an'
the boys will burn him.'
  "'Do  it  slow,  Honey  Face.  Do  it  slow.  He's   give  me
a sick headache.'
  "So  they  burned  the  nigger  and  that  ol'  boy  took his
wife  and  went  back  up  to  Texarkana  without   paying  for
the  gasoline  and   old  Whispering   Lou  runs   the  service
station  couldn't  talk  about  nothing  else all  Fall: 'These
city  fellers  come  down  here  and  burn  a nigger  and don't
even settle up for the gasoline.'
  "Well,  Chester  Hoot  tore  that   nigger  shack   down  and
rebuilt  it  just  back  of  his  house  up  in   Bled  Valley.
Covered   up   all   the   windows   with   black   cloth,  and
what  goes  on  in  there  ain't  fittin'  to speak  of.... Now
Chester   he's   got   some   right   strange   ways....   Well
it  was  just  where  the  nigger  shack  used  to   be,  right
across   from   the   Old   Brooks   place   Hoods   out  every
Spring,   only  it   wasn't  the   Brooks  place   then...  be-
longed  to  a  feller  name  of  Scranton.  Now  that  piece of
land  was  surveyed  back  in  1919....   I  reckon   you  know
the   man   did   the   job   too....   Feller  name   of  Hump
Clarence  used  to  witch  out  wells  on  the   side....  Good
ol'  boy  too,  not  a  finer  man  in  this  Zone   than  Hump
Clarence....  Well  it  was  just  around  about  in   there  I
come on Ted Spigot ascrewin a mud puppy."
  Lee  cleared  his  throat.  The  Clerk  looked  up  over  his
glasses. "Now if you'll take care, young feller, till  I finish
what I'm asaying, I'll tend to your business."
  And  he  plunged  into   an  anecdote   about  a   nigra  got
the hydrophobia from a cow.
  "So  my  pappy  says  to  me:  'Finish  up your  chores, son,
and  let's   go  see   the  mad   nigger....'  They   had  that
nigger  chained  to  the  bed,  and  he  was  bawling   like  a
cow....  I  soon  got  enough  of  that  ol'  nigger.  Well, if
you all will excuse me I got business in the  Privy Coun-
cil. He he he!"
  Lee listened in  horror. The  County Clerk  often spent
weeks  in the  privy living  on scorpions  and Montgomery
Ward catalogues. On several occasions his  assistants had
forced  the  door  and  carried  him  out in  an advanced
state of malnutrition. Lee decided to play his last card.
  "Mr.  Anker,"  he said,  "I'm appealing  to you  as one
Razor  Back  to  another,"  and he  pulled out  his Razor
Back card, a memo of his lush-rolling youth.
  The Clerk looked at the  card suspiciously:  "You don't
look  like  a  bone  feed mast-fed  Razor Back  to me....
What you think about the Jeeeeews... P"
  "Well, Mr.  Anker, you  know yourself  all a  Jew wants
to do is doodle a  Christian girl....  One of  these days
well cut the rest of it off."
  "Well, you talk  right sensible  for a  city feller....
Find  out what  he wants  and take  care of  him.... He's
a good ol' boy."

        INTERZONE

  The only native in Interzone who  is neither  queer nor
available is Andrew  Keif's chauffeur,  which is  not af-
fectation or perversity on Keif's part, but a useful pre-
text to break off  relations with  anyone he  doesn't want
to see: "You made a pass at Aracknid list night.  I can't
have you to the  house again."  People are  always black-
ing out in the Zone, whether  they drink  or not,  and no
one can say for sure he  didn't make  a pass  at Aracknid's
unappetizing person.
  Aracknid  is  a  worthless   chauffeur,  barely   able  to
drive.  On  one  occasion  he  ran  down  a  pregnant woman
in  from  the  mountains  with  a load  of charcoal  on her
back,  and  she  miscarriaged  a bloody,  dead baby  in the
street, and Keif got out and sat on  the curb  stirring the
blood  with a  stick while  the police  questioned Aracknid
and  finally  arrested  the  woman for  a violation  of the
Sanitary Code.
  Aracknid  is  a  grimly   unattractive  young   man  with
a long face of a strange,  slate-blue color.  He has  a big
nose  and  great  yellow  teeth like  a horse.  Anybody can
find  an  attractive  chauffeur,   but  only   Andrew  Keif
could  have  found Aracknid;  Keif the  brilliant, decadent
young  novelist  who lives  in a  remodeled pissoir  in the
red light district of the Native Quarter.
  The  Zone  is  a  single,  vast  building. The  rooms are
made  of  a  plastic  cement  that  bulges  to  accommodate
people,  but  when  too  many  crowd  into  one  room there
is  a  soft  plop  and  someone  squeezes through  the wall
right into the next house, the next bed that is,  since the
rooms  are  mostly  bed  where  the  business  of  the Zone
is  transacted.  A  hum  of  sex  and  commerce  shakes the
Zone like a vast hive:
  "Two  thirds  of  one  percent. I  won't budge  from that
figure; not even for my bumpkins."
  "But where are the bills of lading, lover?"
  "Not where you're looking, pet. That's too obvious."
  "A bale of levies with built-in  falsie baskets.  Made in
Hollywood."
  "Hollywood, Siam."
  "Well American style."
  "What's    the    commission?...    The    commission....
The Commission."
  "Yes,  nugget,  a  shipload  of  K.Y.  made   of  genuine
whale  dreck  in  the  South  Atlantic  at  present quaran-
tined  by  the  Board of  Health in  Tierra del  Fuego, The
commission, my dear! If  we can  pull this  off we'll  be in
clover."  (Whale  dreck  is  reject  material  that accumu-
lates  in the  process of  cutting up  a whale  and cooking
it down. A  horrible, fishy  mess you  can smell  for miles.
No one has found any use for it. )
  Interzone  Imports  Unlimited,  which  consists  of  Mar-
vie  and  Leif  The  Unlucky,  had  latched  onto  the K.Y.
deal?  In  fact  they  specialize  in   pharmaceuticals  and
run  a  24-hour  Pro  station, six  ways coverage  fore and
aft, as a side line. ( Six separate venereal  diseases have
been identified to date. )
  They  plunge  into  the  deal.  They  form  unmentionable
services  for  a  spastic  Greek  shipping  agent,  and one
entire shift of Customs inspectors.  The two  partners fall
out  and  finally  denounce  each   other  in   the  Embassy
where  they  are  referred  to  the We  Don't Want  To Hear
About  It  Department,  and  eased  out  a  back  door into
a  shit-strewn  vacant  lot, where  vultures fight  over fish
heads. They Hail at each other hysterically.
  'You're trying to fuck me out of my commission!"
  "Your  commission!  Who  smelled  out  this   good  thing
in the first place?"
  "But I have the bill of lading."
  "Monster!  But  the  check  will  be   made  out   in  my
name."
  "Bawstard!  You'll  never  see the  bill of  lading until
my cut is deposited in escrow."
  "Well,  might  as well  kiss and  make up.  There's noth-
ing mean or petty about me."
  They  shake  hands  without  enthusiasm  and   peck  each
other  on the  cheek. The  deal drags  on for  months. They
engage  the  services  of  an  Expeditor.   Finally  Marvie
emerges  with  a  check  for  42  Turkestan kurds  drawn on
an  anonymous  bank  in  South  America,  to  clear through
Amsterdam,  a  procedure  that  will  take   eleven  months
more or less.
  Now  he  can  relax  in  the  cafes  of  The   Plaza.  He
shows  a  photostatic  copy  of the  check. He  would never
show  the  original  of course,  lest some  envious citizen
spit  ink eradicator  on the  signature or  otherwise muti-
late the check.
  Everyone  asks  him  to  buy  drinks  and  celebrate, but
he laughs jovially and says, "Fact is I can't afford  to buy
myself a drink.  I already  spent every  kurd of  it buying
Penstrep for Ali's  clap. He's  down with  it fore  and aft
again.  I  came  near  kicking  the  little  bastard  right
through  the  wall  into  the  next bed.  But you  all know
what a sentimental old thing I am."
  Marvie does  buy himself  a shot  glass of  beer, squeez-
ing a blackened coin out of  his fly  onto the  table. "Keep
the change." The waiter sweeps  the coin  into a  dust pan,
he spits on the table and walks away.
  "Sore head! He's envious of my check."
  Marvie  had  been  in  Interzone  since "the  year before
one"  as  he  put  it. He  had been  retired from  some un-
specified position in the State Dept. "for  the good  of the
service."  Obviously  he  had once  been very  good looking
in a crew-cut, college boy  way, but  his face  had sagged
and  formed  lumps  under the  chin like  melting paraffin.
He was getting heavy around the hips.
  Leif  The  Unlucky was  a tall,  thin Norwegian,  with a
patch over  one eye,  his face  congealed in  a permanent,
ingratiating smirk.  Behind him  lay an  epic saga  of un-
successful enterprises.  He had  failed at  raising frogs,
chinchilla, Siamese fighting fish, rami and  culture pearls.
He  had  attempted,  variously  and  without  success,  to
promote   a   Love   Bird   Two-in-a-coffin   Cemetery,  to
corner  the  condom  market  during  the  rubber shortage,
to run a mail order  whore house,  to issue  penicillin as
a  patent  medicine.  He  had followed  disastrous betting
systems  in  the  casinos  of Europe  and the  race tracks
of  the  U.S.  His  reverses in  business were  matched by
the incredible mischances of his personal life.  His front
teeth  had been  stomped out  by bestial  American sailors
in  Brooklyn.  Vultures  had  eaten  out  an  eye  when he
drank  a  pint  of paregoric  and passed  out in  a Panama
City  park.  He  had  been  trapped  between  floors  in an
elevator  for  five  days with  an oil-burning  junk habit
and sustained  an attack  of D.T.s  while stowing  away in
a foot locker. Then there was the  time he  collapsed with
strangulated intestines, perforated ulcers and peritonitis
in  Cairo  and  the  hospital was  so crowded  they bedded
him  in  the  latrine,  and the  Greek surgeon  goofed and
sewed  up  a  live  monkey  in  him,  and  he   was  gang-
fucked by the Arab  attendants, and  one of  the orderlies
stole the penicillin substituting  Saniflush; and  the time
he got clap in his ass and a self-righteous English doctor
cured  him  with  an  enema  of  hot, sulphuric  acid, and
the  German  practitioner  of  Technological  Medicine who
removed  his  appendix  with  a  rusty  can opener  and a
pair  of  tin  snips  (he considered  the germ  theory "a
nonsense.")  Flushed  with  success  he then  began snip-
ping  and  cutting  out everything  in sight:  "The human
body is filled up  vit unnecessitated  parts. You  can get
by vit one kidney. Vy have two? Yes  dot is  a kidney....
The  inside  parts  should  not be  so close  in together
crowded. They need lebensraum like the Vaterland."
  The  Expeditor  had  not  yet  been  paid,  and  Marvie
was  faced  by the  prospect of  stalling him  for eleven
months until the  check cleared.  The Expeditor  was said
to  have  been  born on  the Ferry  between the  Zone and
the Island. His profession was  to expedite  the delivery
of merchandise. No one  knew for  sure whether  his serv-
ices were  of any  use or  not, and  to mention  his name
always  precipitated  an  argument.  Cases were  cited to
prove his miraculous efficiency and utter worthlessness.
  The  Island was  a British  Military and  Naval station
directly opposite the Zone. England  holds the  Island on
yearly  rent-free  lease,  and every  year the  lease and
permit  of  residence  is  formally  renewed.  The entire
population  turns  out,  attendance  is  compulsory,  and
gathers  at  the  municipal  dump.  The President  of the
Island is required by custom to crawl across  the garbage
on his stomach and  deliver the  Permit of  Residence and
Renewal  of  the Lease,  signed by  every citizen  of the
Island,  to  The  Resident  Governor who  stands resplen-
dent  in  dress  uniform. The  Governor takes  the permit
and shoves it into his coat pocket:
  "Well," he says with a tight smile, "so  you've decided
to let us stay another year have you?  Very good  of you.
And  everyone  is  happy  about  it?...  Is  there  anyone
who isn't happy about it?"
  Soldiers  in  jeeps  sweep  mounted   machine-guns  back
and forth across the  crowd with  a slow,  searching move-
ment.
  "Everybody  happy.  Well  that's  fine." He  turns jovi-
ally to the prostrate President. "I'll keep your papers in
case  I  get  caught  short.  Haw  Haw  Haw."   His  loud,
metallic laugh rings out  across the  dump, and  the crowd
laughs with him under the searching guns.
  The  forms  of   democracy  are   scrupulously  enforced
on  the  Island.  There  is  a Senate  and a  Congress who
carry  on  endless  sessions  discussing  garbage disposal
and  outhouse  inspection,  the  only  two  questions over
which they have jurisdiction.  For a  brief period  in the
mid-nineteenth  century,  they  had  been allowed  to con-
trol the dept.  of Baboon  Maintenance but  this privilege
had   been   withdrawn   owing   to  absenteeism   in  the
Senate.
  The  purple-assed  Tripoli  baboons  had   been  brought
to the Island by pirates  in the  17th century.  There was
a legend that when the  baboons left  the Island  it would
fall. To whom or in what way is not  specified, and  it is
a capital  offense to  kill a  baboon, though  the noxious
behaviour  of  these animals  harries the  citizens almost
beyond  endurance.  Occasionally  someone   goes  berserk,
kills several baboons and himself.
  The  post  of President  is always  forced on  some par-
ticularly  noxious  and unpopular  citizen. To  be elected
President  is  the greatest  misfortune and  disgrace that
can  befall  an  Islander.  The humiliations  and ignominy
are such that few Presidents  live out  their full  term of
office, usually dying of a  broken spirit  after a  year or
two.  The  Expeditor  had  once  been President  and served
the full five years  of his  term. Subsequently  he changed
his  name  and  underwent  plastic  surgery,  to  blot out,
as far as possible, the memory of his disgrace.
  "Yes  of  course...  we'll  pay  you," Marvie  was saying
to the Expeditor.
  "But take it easy. It may be a little while yet...."
  "Take it easy? A little while!... Listen."
  "Yes  I  know it  all. The  finance company  is repossess-
ing  your  wife's artificial  kidney.... They  are evicting
your grandmother from her iron lung."
  "That's in rather bad taste, old  boy.... Frankly  I wish
I  had  never  involved  myself  in  this  uh  matter. That
bloody  grease  has  too much  carbolic in  it. I  was down
to  customs  one  day  last  week.  Stuck  a  broom  handle
into a drum of it, and the grease ate the end  off straight
away.  Besides,  the  stink  is  enough to  knock a  man on
his  bloody  ass.  You  should  take  a  walk  down  by the
port."
  "I'll do no such thing," Marvie screeched.  It is  a mark
of  caste  in  the  Zone  never  to touch  or even  go near
what you are selling. To do so gives  rise to  suspicion of
retailing,  that  is  of  being  a  common peddler.  A good
part  of  the  merchandise  in  the  Zone  is  sold through
street peddlers.
  "Why do you tell me all  this? It's  too sordid!  Let the
retailers worry about it."
  "Oh it's all very well for  you chaps,  you can  scud out
from  under.  But  I  have  a  reputation  to  maintain....
There'll be a spot of bother about this."
  "Do  you  suggest  there  is  something  illegitimate  in
this operation?"
  "Not   illegitimate   exactly.  But   shoddy.  Definitely
shoddy."
  "Oh  go  back  to your  Island before  it falls!  We knew
you  when  you  were  peddling  your  purple  ass   in  the
Plaza pissoirs for five pesetas."
  "And  not  many  takers  either,"  Leif  put in.  He pro-
nounced it ither. This reference to  his Island  origin was
more  than  the  Expeditor  could  stand....  He  was draw-
ing  himself  up,  mobilizing  his  most  frigid impersona-
tion of an English aristocrat, preparing to deliver an icy,
clipped  "crusher,"  but  instead,  a  whining, whimpering,
kicked  dog  snarl  broke  from  his mouth.  His presurgery
face  emerged  in  an  arc-light  of  incandescent hate....
He  began  to spit  curses in  the hideous,  strangled gut-
turals of the Island dialect.
  The  Islanders all  profess ignorance  of the  dialect or
fiatly  deny its  existence. "We  are Breetish,"  they say.
"We don't got no bloody dealect."
  Froth  gathered  at  the   corners  of   the  Expeditor's
mouth. He was spitting little balls  of saliva  like pieces
of cotton.  The stench  of spiritual  vileness hung  in the
airs about him  like a  green cloud.  Marvie and  Leif fell
back twittering in alarm.
  'He's  gone  mad,"  Marvie  gasped.  "Let's  get  ont  of
here."  Hand  in  hand they  skip away  into the  mist that
covers  the Zone  in the  winter months  like a  cold Turk-
ish Bath.
  THE EXAMINATION

  Carl Peterson found a postcard  in his  box requesting
him to report for a ten o'clock appointment  with Doctor
Benway  in the  Ministry of  Mental Hygiene  and Prophy-
laxis....
  "What  on  earth   could  they   want  with   me?"  he
thought irritably....  "A mistake  most likely."  But he
knew they  didn't make  mistakes.... Certainly  not mis-
takes of identity....
  It would not have  occurred to  Carl to  disregard the
appointment even  though failure  to appear  entailed no
penalty.... Freeland was a welfare  state. If  a citizen
wanted anything from  a load  of bone  meal to  a sexual
partner  some  department was  ready to  offer effective
aid. The threat implicit in this  enveloping benevolence
stifled the concept of rebellion....
  Carl   walked   through   the  Town   Hall  Square....
Nickel nudes sixty feet high with brass  genitals soaped
themselves  under  gleaming  showers....  The  Town Hall
cupola, of glass brick and copper crashed into the sky.
  Carl  stared  back  at  a homosexual  American tourist
who dropped his eyes and fumbled with the  light filters
of his Leica....
  Carl entered the steel enamel labyrinth of  the Minis-
try,  strode  to the  information desk...  and presented
his card.
  "Fifth floor... Room twenty-six..."
  In room  twenty-six a  nurse looked  at him  with cold
undersea eyes.
  "Doctor Benway  is expecting  you," she  said smiling.
"Go right in."
  "As if he had nothing to do but wait for  me," thought
Carl...
  The office was completely silent, and filled with milky
light. The doctor  shook Carl's  hand, keeping  his eyes
on the young man's chest....
  "I've  seen  this man  before," Carl  thought.... "But
where?"
  He sat down  and crossed  his legs.  He glanced  at an
ashtray on the desk  and lit  a cigarette....  He turned
to the  doctor a  steady inquiring  gaze in  which there
was more than a touch of insolence.
  The  doctor  seemed  embarrassed....  He  fidgeted  and
coughed... and fumbled with papers....
  "Hurumph,"