William S. Burroughs (13 page)

"Two years ago
I was doing portrait photos in Saint Louis and I ran into this old
lady I knew from England who is a very rich Abolitionist on a lecture
tour. And the idea comes to me. I tell her what is needed to put some
teeth into the Abolition movement is an
incident
and she puts
up some front money and most of that goes to pay off the sheriff who
would investigate the hanging and the doctor who would sign the death
certificate, which turned out to be the birth certificate of Pecos
Bridge Juanito, a fabrication out of whole paper. And I had the
whole scoop...picture of the boy
...
interviews
with his mother, who died years before he was born
...
even
pictures of the posses repenting and getting born again in
Jesus...Not that some reporters weren't suspicious...They can
smell
a fake story but they couldn't prove anything. We even had a body
in the coffin just in case; young Mexican died of scarlet fever
...
the
picture was the easiest part...Lots of ways to fake a hanging picture
or any picture, for that matter...Easiest is you don't show the feet
and they are standing on something...I did my shot with an elastic
rope they use in carny hanging acts." He points to the
horse..."There's the only actor didn't get paid...I call him
Centaur. How about a dip and a swill?"

Sex scenes in the
diary were in coded symbols like Japanese forget-me-nots
flowering in the medium of memory: June
3,
1883...
Met
Τ
at Cottonwood Junction
...
(sexual attraction
and reason to believe reciprocated)
...&
(naked)
...
(erection)
...
(sodomy)
...
(ejaculation).

Sunset through black
clouds
...
red glow on naked bodies. Kim
carefully wraps his revolver in a towel and places it under some
weeds at the water's edge. He puts his foot in the water and gasps.
At this moment Tom streaks by him, floating above the ground in a
series of still pictures, the muscles of his thigh and buttock
outlined like an anatomical drawing as he runs straight into the
water, silver drops fanning out from his legs.

Kim follows, holding
his breath, then swimming rapidly up and down. He treads water,
breathing in gasps as the sky darkens and the water stretches
black and sinister as if some monster might rise from its depths...In
knee-deep water, soaping themselves and looking at each other serene
as dogs, their genitals crinkled from the icy water
...
drying
themselves on a sandbank, wiping the sand from his
feet
...
following Tom's lean red buttocks
back to the wagon. He stations Kim at the end of the wagon..."Stand
right there," facing the setting sun. Tom pulls a black cloth
out of the air with a flourish, bowing to an audience. He stands
behind the camera with the black cloth over his head..."Look at
the camera
...
hands at your sides."

Kim could feel the
phantom touch of the lens on his body, light as a breath of wind. Tom
is standing naked behind the camera.

"I want to
bottle you, mate," Tom says. Kim has never heard this expression
but he immediately understands it. And he glimpses a hidden meaning,
a forgotten language, sniggering half-heard words of tenderness and
doom from lips spotted with decay that send the blood racing to his
crotch and singing in his ears as his penis stretches, sways, and
stiffens and naked lust surfaces in his face from the dark depths of
human origins.

Tom is getting hard
too. The shaft is pink and smooth, no veins protruding. Now fully
erect, the tip almost touches the delineated muscles of his lean
red-brown stomach. At the crown of his cock, on top, is an
indentation, as if the creator had left his thumbprint there in damp
clay. Held in a film medium, like soft glass, they are both
motionless except for the throbbing of tumescent flesh...

"Hold
it!"
...
CLICK
...
For
six seconds the sun seems to stand still in the sky.

Up early to make
Clear Creek before dark...

"I'm meeting a
friend in Clear Creek," Kim says..."You been there?"

"Yes. There's
an old whorehouse and hotel...Good sets for special pictures."

"Anybody live
there?"

"Some Chinese
used to work on the railroad. Surveyor decided on another
route
...
a few Indians...
"

At six they come to
Fort Johnson, a few miles from the town. A coyote lopes out the open
gate, showing his teeth in a knowing smile. Kim never shoots wolves
or coyotes. He doesn't give a fuck how many sheep and cattle they
kill.

They get out to look
at the fort and Tom takes a few pictures. Gate needs fixing,
aside from that
...

"This could be
my Alamut
..."
Kim says.

Tom shakes his
head..."This isn't the tenth century, Kim...Money abhors a
vacuum
...
a few more years...
"

They ride into Clear
Creek
...
rusty tracks overgrown with
weeds
...
the water tower has fallen on its
side...By the station an old Chinese is smoking opium...

"They grow it
here," Tom explains..."What's your friend's name? I speak a
little Chinese...
"

"Ask him if
Billy Chung is here."

"Not yet. Clom
soon."

They draw up in
front of the Clear Water Hotel. Tom points to a two-story red brick
building across the street...

"Pantapon
Rose's cathouse...
"

Juanito jumps out
and salutes like a bellhop...

"Carry bags,
Meester? See me fuck my seester?"

"I think we'll
bunk down with Pantapon Rose...The roof doesn't leak...
"
Tom says.

Quite comfortable
actually. They settle in. Fish in the river. Some Mexicans in the
hotel. Thirteen Pima Indians occupy the general store. Juanito is
half Pima and half Mexican and these are relatives. No trouble
trading for supplies. The Chinese live in the station and keep to
themselves.

Kim was to make Fort
Johnson and Clear Creek his base of operations for two years, with
side trips as far as Mexico.

Look at this picture
from Tom's collection: the Indians and the one white are all related,
by location: the end of the line. Like the last Tasmanians, the
Patagonians, the hairy Ainu, the passenger pigeon, they cast no
shadow, because there will never be any more. This picture is the
end. The mold is broken.

This final desolate
knowledge impelled them to place phalluses, crudely carved from wood
and painted with ocher, on male graves. The markers are scattered and
broken. Only the picture remains.

Notice the Indian
fourth from the left in the back row: a look of sheer panic. For he
recognizes the photographer: Tom Dark, who takes the last picture and
files it "Secret
—
Classified."
Only he knows exactly where it is in relation to all the other files,
since location is everything.

The picture itself
is a cryptic glyph, an artifact out of context, fashioned for a
forgotten purpose or a purpose blocked from future realization. And
yet spelling out
...

Five passenger
pigeons in a tree
...
CLICK: "The Last
Passenger Pigeons."

KAPOW! The birds
drop and flutter to the ground, feathers drifting in dawn wind.

The Hunter looks
about uneasily as he shoves the birds into his bag. It's been a bad
day. He turns to face the camera.

CLICK: "The
Last Passenger-Pigeon Hunter."

Spelling
out
...
August
6, 1945:
Hiroshima. Oppenheimer on screen: "We have become Death,
Destroyer of Worlds."

"Doctor
Oppenheimer!"

CLICK.

Hall reflected that
he was himself the end of the Hall line, at least by the
old-fashioned method of reproduction.

"Waahhhh!"

CLICK.

"Awwwwwwk!!!

CLICK.

Kim makes up skits
for the sex pictures. He is looking forward to moving film.

Both are interstate
champions in the International Undressing Contest. Tailors cater
to this discipline and clothes are carefully designed for the
celerity and grace with which they can be removed. They roll and
twist on the bed, making high keening noises that set the windowpanes
vibrating.

Afterward the boy
shoves some gum into his mouth and says, "You and I are going to
have to talk about our
relationship
..."
He blows a pink gum bubble and pops it. "Who aren't you?"

Tom wants to
re-create various erotic incidents from Kim's past life...

"Well me and my
Fox Boy made sex magic against old Judge Farris...He said I look like
a sheep-killing dog and his horrible wife said I am a walking
corpse...You can be the Fox Boy...
"

The set for this
scene was a room in the old brothel with a worn green satin sofa and
an erotic Japanese screen with flying pricks and an old man chasing
them with butterfly nets. Kim finds it tasteful.

Tom speaks in a
circus barker voice:

"We attempt the
impossible: to photograph the present moment which contains the
past the future. All art attempts the impossible. Consider the
problem of photographing past time. We will now reenact Kim
masturbating in front of Judge Farris's picture."

It's a stock part,
nasty-tempered old gentleman with purple cheekbones and clipped white
mustache and mean bloodshot blue eyes. This picture will do, so nail
it to the wall. This is Kim's basement workshop where he practices
magic, a magic circle in red chalk on the floor. Action, cameras.
Take over, chi-co. Kim takes off a red bathrobe and tosses it onto
the green satin divan.

He stands naked in
front of the picture...(One camera is taking the scene in profile,
the other is installed in a hole in the wall just above the judge's
picture.) Kim arches his body and rises on his toes, snapping his
fingers above his head to evoke the Fox Boy. Tom as the Fox Boy, his
body covered with red paint, slithers out from behind the Japanese
screen. Kim looks over his shoulder and erases a portion of the
circle with one foot. Tom squeezes in, picks up a piece of chalk
between his toes, and closes the circle. "Get thee behind me,
Satan, and do the great work," Kim quips. Now they both intone:

Slip
and stumble

Trip
and fall

Down
the stairs

And
hit the waaaalllllllllll.

They howl it out and
Kim shoots the Judge right in the crotch.

Tom is planning a
trip to Denver to pick up money transferred to a Denver bank from a
New York client. Kim will recruit personnel.

They are both
dressed in "banker drag" as Kim calls it
—
expensive
dark suits
discreetly
expensive. Tom chats up the manager
about the future of moving film. The manager is impressed. How easy
it is to deceive those who are already deceived. Tell them what they
want to hear and they will believe it.

They make a tour of
dives and opium dens as Kim renews his contacts with the Johnson
underworld, rod-riding yeggs and cat burglars, bank robbers on
holiday...(Denver is a closed city. You don't operate here.) He pays
a social call on Salt Chunk Mary and picks up some good backup:
Marbles, a juggler, knife thrower, and trick shot from a
stranded carnival: he can shoot the pips out of cards, put out
candles, light matches and hit a silver dollar in the air. And Boy,
who used to work with Jones on bank heists. Boy radiates a murderous
vitality. A real Force, Boy, Kim decides. "They will be my
baby-sitters."

guns
gunsmithing

T
he
shop has an unsuccessful look. Somebody isn't trying. Behind the
counter is a boy about sixteen, with flaring ears, yellow hair
and an elfish smile.

"Who owns this
place?"

"My Uncle
Olafson, fucking squarehead Swede."

"Think he might
like to sell it?"