The Soft Machine

'I got three cents.'

'Nothing less than a nickel. These double papers he claims.' I looked at his face. Good looking.

'Say kid I known an Old Auntie Croaker right for you like a Major . . . Take the phone. I don't want him to rumble my voice.'

About this time I meet this Italian tailor cum pusher I know from Lexington and he gives me a good buy on H. . . At least it was good at first but all the time shorter and shorter. . . 'Short Count Tony'

we call him. . .

Out of junk in East St. Louis sick dawn he threw himself across the washbasin pressing his stomach against the cool porcelain. I draped myself over his body laughing. His shorts dissolved in rectal mucus and carbolic soap, summer dawn smells from a vacant lot.

'I'll wait here. . . Don't want him to rumble me. . .'

Made it five times under the shower that day soapy bubbles of egg flesh seismic tremors split by fissure spurts of jissom. . .

I made the street, everything sharp and clear like after rain. See Sid in a booth reading a paper his face like yellow ivory in the sunlight. I handed him two nickels under the table. Pushing in a small way to keep up The Habit: INVADE. DAMAGE. OCCUPY. Young faces in blue alcohol flame.

'And use that alcohol. You fucking can't wait hungry junkies all the time black up my spoons.

That's all I need for Pen Indef the fuzz rumbles a black spoon in my trap.' The old junky spiel. Junk hooks falling.

'Shoot your way to freedom kid.'

Trace a line of goose pimples up the thin young arm. Slide the needle in and push the bulb watching the junk hit him all over. Move right in with the shit and suck junk through all the hungry young cells.

There is a boy sitting like your body. I see he is a hook. I drape myself over him from the pool hall.

Draped myself over his cafeteria and his shorts dissolved in strata of subways. . .and all house flesh.

. . toward the booth. . .down opposite me. . . The Man I Italian tailor. . . I know bread. 'Me a good buy on H.'

'You're quitting? Well I hope you make it, kid. May I fall down and be paralyzed if I don't mean it.

. . You gotta friend in me. A real friend and if.'

Well the traffic builds up and boosters falling in with jackets shirts and ties, kids with a radio torn from the living car trailing tubes and wires, lush-workers flash rings and wrist watches falling in sick all hours. I had the janitor cooled, an old rummy, but it couldn't last with that crowd.

'Say you're looking great kid. Now do yourself a favor and stay off. I been getting some really great shit lately. Remember that brown shit sorta yellow like snuff cooks up brown and clear. . .'

Junky in east bath room. . . invisible and persistent dream body. . . familiar face maybe. . . scored for some time or body. . .in that grey smell of rectal mucus. . . night cafeterias and junky room dawn smells, three hours from Lexington made it five times. . . soapy egg flesh. . .

'These double papers he claims of withdrawal.'

'Well I thought you was quitting...'

'I can't make it.*'

' Imposible quitar eso.'

Got up and fixed in the sick dawn flutes of Ramadan.

' William tu tomas mas medicina?. . . No me hagas casa, William.'

Casbah house in the smell of dust and we made it. . . empty eukodal boxes stacked four feet along the walls. . .dead on the surplus blankets. . .girl screaming ... vecinos rush in...

'What did she die of?'

'I don't know she just died.'

Bill Gains in Mexico City room with his douche bag and his stash of codeine pills powdered in a bicarbonate can. 'I'll just say I suffer from indigestion.' coffee and blood spilled all over the place, cigarette holes in the pink blanket... The Consul would give me no information other than place of burial in The American Cemetery.

'Broke? Have you no pride? Go to your Consul.' He gave me an alarm clock ran for a year after his death.

Leif repatriated by the Danish, freight boat out of Casa for Copenhagen sank off England with all hands. Remember my medium of distant fingers?—

'What did she die of?'

'End.'

'Some things I find myself.'

The Sailor went wrong in the end. hanged to a cell door by his principals: 'Some things I find myself doing I'll pack in is all.'

Bread knife in the heart. . .rub and die. . .repatriated by a morphine script. . .those out of Casa for Copenhagen on special yellow note...

'All hands broke? Have you no pride?' Alarm clock ran for a year. 'He just sit down on the curb and die.' Esperanza told me on Nino Perdido and we cashed a morphine script, those Mexican Nar.

scripts on special yellow bank-note paper. . .like a thousand dollar bill . . .or a Dishonorable Discharge from the