Naked Lunch

'And I knew him when, dearie.... I recall we was doing an Impersonation Act --very high class too --in Sodom, and that is one cheap town.... Strictly from hunger... Well, this citizen, this fucking Philistine wandered in from Podunk Baal or some place, called me a fuckin fruit right on the floor. And I said to him: 'Three thousand years in show business and I always keep my nose clean. Besides I don't hafta take any shit off any uncircumcised cocksucker.'...Later he come to my dressing room and made an apology.... Turns out he is a big physician. And he was a lovely fellah, too....

' Buddha? A notorious metabolic junky... Makes his own you dig. In India, where they got no sense of time, The Man is often a month late.... 'Now let me see, is that the second or the third monsoon? I got like a meet in Ketchupore about more or less.'

'And all them junkies sitting around in the lotus posture spitting on the ground and waiting on The Man. 'So Buddha says: 'I don't hafta take this sound. I'll by God metabolize my own junk.'

''Man, you can't do that. The Revenooers will swarm all over you.'

''Over me they won't swarm. I gotta gimmick, see? I'm a fuckin Holy Man as of right now.'

''Jeez, boss, what an angle.'

''Now some citizens really wig when they make with the New Religion. These frantic individuals do not know how to come on. No class to them... Besides, they is subject to be lynched like who wants somebody hanging around being better'n other folks? 'What you trying to do, Jack, give people a bad time?...' So we gotta play it cool, you dig, cool.... We got a take it or leave it proposition here, folks. We don't shove anything up your soul, unlike certain cheap characters who shall be nameless and are nowhere. Clear the cave for action. I'm gonna metabolize a speed ball and make with the Fire Sermon.'

' Mohammed? Are you kidding? He was dreamed up by the Mecca Chamber of Commerce. An Egyptian ad man on the skids from the sauce write the continuity. ' 'I'll have one more, Gus. Then, by Allah, I will go home and receive a Surah.... Wait'll the morning edition hits the souks. I am blasting Amalgamated Images wide open.'

'The bartender looks up from his racing form. 'Yeah. And theirs will be a painful doom.'

' 'Oh... uh... quite. Now, Gus, I'll write you a check.'

''You are only being the most notorious paper hanger in Greater Mecca. I am not a wall, Mr. Mohammed.'

' 'Well, Gus, I got like two types publicity, favorable and otherwise. You want some otherwise already? I am subject to receive a Surah concerning bartenders who extendeth not credit to those in a needy way.'

' 'And theirs will be a painful doom. Sold Arabia.' He vaults over the bar. 'I'm not taking any more, Ahmed. Pick up thy Surahs and walk. In fact, I'll help you. And stay out.'

''I'll fix your wagon good, you unbelieving cock-sucker. I'll close you up tight and dry as a junky's ass-hole. I'll by Allah dry up the Peninsula.'

' 'It's a continent already....'

'Leave what Confucius say stand with Little Audrey and the shaggy dogs. Lao-Tze? They scratch him already...'. And enough of these gooey saints with a look of pathic dismay as if they getting fucked up the ass and try not to pay it any mind. And why should we let some old 59

brokendown ham tell us what wisdom is? 'Three thousand years in show business and I always keep my nose clean....'

'First, every Fact is incarcerate along with the male hustlers and those who desecrate the gods of commerce by playing ball in the streets, and some old white-haired fuck staggers out to give us the benefits of his ripe idiocy. Are we never to be free of this grey-beard loon lurking on every mountain top in Tibet, subject to drag himself out of a hut in the Amazon, waylay one in the Bowery? 'I've been expecting you, my son,' and he make with a silo full of corn. 'Life is a school where every pupil must learn a different lesson. And now I will unlock my Word Hoard....'

' 'I do fear it much.'

' 'Nay, nothing shall stem the rising tide.'

' 'I can't stem him, boys. Sauve qui peut.'

' 'I tell you when I leave the Wise Man I don't even feel like a human. He converting my live orgones into dead bullshit.'

'So I got an exclusive why don't I make with the live word? The word cannot be expressed direct.... It can perhaps be indicated by mosaic of juxtaposition like articles abandoned in a hotel drawer, defined by negatives and absence....