Naked Lunch (20 page)

Clem and Jody, two oldtime vaudeville hoofers, cope out as Russian agents whose sole function is to represent
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 simultaneous.… 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 Chapultepec 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 that 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 elements 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. During the Middle Ages Europe was periodically decimated 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. Maneuvers: Boys plummet streaming ’chutes like broken condoms splash young blood over potbellied generals … shattering wake of sound as Clem and Jody disappear over the Andes in jet getaway.…

The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless 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 constitutes a downright inconvenience.’ Typical A. J. cover story.

Clem and Jody give
out they are interested in the destruction of Near East oil fields to boost the value of their Venezuelan holdings.

Clem writes a number to the tune of ‘Crawdad’ (Big Bill Broonzy).

Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefactionist
activities.… But over a few stiff yages he lets his hair down among friends.

‘Islam is jellied consommé already,’ he says, dancing
the Liquefactionist Jig.… And then, unable to contain himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:

‘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 Ahmed 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 sadomasochistic 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 dangerous 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 flat shopgirl voice:

‘In closing I want to sound a word of warning.… The logical extension of encephalographic research is biocontrol; that is control of physical movement, mental processes, emotional reactions and
apparent
sensory impressions 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 connections 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 susceptible 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 who 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 Divisionists 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 monopoly 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 eventually 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 shameless characters venture to manufacture I.R.s – Identical Replicas.

A cretinous albino Caid, product of a long line of recessive 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. Friedrich’s ataxia will clean out that replica nest. I studied neurology 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, leaving an empty shell sitting there on the giraffe skin upholstery.… 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 replica (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 bar-room 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 Blair!’ 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 innumerable formulas
of varying efficacy for destroying the Mother Cell, also known as the Protoplasm Daddy, by torturing or killing a captured replica.… The authorities have finally given up the attempt to control, among the Divisionists, the crimes of murder and unlicensed production of replicas. But they do stage pre-election raids and destroy vast replica cultures in the mountainous regions of the Zone where
replica moonshiners hole up.

Sex with a replica is strictly forbidden and almost universally practised. There are queer bars where shameless citizens openly consort with their replicas. House detectives stick their heads into hotel rooms saying: ‘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 Divisionist lives in a continual crisis of fear and rage, unable to achieve either the self-righteous complacency of the Senders or the relaxed depravity of the Liquefactionists.… However the parties are not in practice separate but blend in all combinations.

The Factualists are Anti-Liquefactionist, Anti-Divisionist, and above all Anti-Sender.

Bulletin of the Coordinate Factualist on
the subject of replicas: ‘We must reject the facile solution of flooding the planet with “desirable replicas.” It is highly doubtful if there are any desirable replicas, such creatures constituting an attempt to circumvent process and change. Even the
most intelligent and genetically perfect replicas would in all probability constitute an unspeakable menace to life on this planet.…’