The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead Page 15

  “Five Indian youths accompanied us from the village in the capacity of guides. Actually they seemed quite ignorant of the country we were traversing and spent much of their time hunting with an old muzzle-loading shotgun more hazardous to the hunters than the quarry. Five days out of Candiru in the head waters of the Babboonsasshole, they managed to wound a deer. Chasing the wounded animal in wild excitement they ran through a patch of nettles. They emerged covered from head to foot with pulsing welts whipped across red skins like dusky roses. Fortunately they were wearing loincloths. Pain seemed to lend fleetness and energy to the pursuit and they brought the deer down with another shot. They closed on the dying animal with shrill cries of triumph and severed its head with a machete. Quite suddenly they were silent looking at each other and with one accord were seized by uncontrollable diarrhea. They tore off their loincloths in a frenzy of lust, faces tumescent eyes swollen shut, threw themselves on the ground ejaculating and defecating again and again. We watched powerless to aid them until the Chinese cook with rare presence of mind mixed baking powder into a thick paste with water. He applied this paste to the neck of the nearest youth and then down the chest to the heart. In this way he was able to save two of the youths but the other three perished in erotic convulsions. As to whether the nettles were of a special variety or the symptoms resulted from an excess of formic acid circulated through the blood by exertion I could not say. The prompt relief afforded by applying an alkaline paste would suggest that the symptoms resulted from some form of acid poisoning.” Quote Greenbaum early explorer.

  When we woke up the sun was setting. We were smeared with a dried paste of shit, baking powder and green slime as if anointed for some ceremony or sacrifice. We found soap in the kitchen and washed off the crusted paste feeling rather like molting snakes. We dined on vichyssoise, cold crab meat and brandied peaches. The boy refused to sleep in the house saying simply that it was “very bad place.” So we dragged a mattress to the garage and slept there the carbines ready a snub-nosed thirty-eight by each hand. Never keep a pistol under your pillow where you have to reach up for it. Keep it down by your hand at the crotch. That way you can come up shooting right through the blanket.

  At dawn we set out through the ruined suburbs no signs of life the air windless and dead. From time to time the boy would stop sniffing like a dog. “This way Meester.” We were walking down a long avenue littered with palm branches. Suddenly the air was full of robins thousands of them settling in the ruined gardens perching on the empty houses splashing in bird baths full of rain water. A boy on a red bicycle flashed past. He made a wide U-turn and pulled in to the curb beside us. He was naked except for a red jockstrap, belt and flexible black shoes his flesh red as terra cotta smooth poreless skin tight over the cheekbones deep-set black eyes and a casque of black hair. At his belt was an eighteen-inch bowie knife with knuckle-duster handle. He said no word of greeting. He sat there one foot on the curb looking at the Dib. His ears which stuck out from the head trembled slightly and his eyes glistened. He licked his lips and said one word in a language unknown to me. The Dib nodded matter of factly. He turned to me. “He very hot. Been riding three days. Fuck now talk later.”

  The boy propped his bicycle against the curb. He took off his belt and knife and dropped them on a bench. He sat down on the bench and shoved his jockstrap down over his shoes. His red cock flipped out stiff and lubricating. The boy stood up. Beneath thin red ribs his heart throbbed and pounded. The Dib peeled off his jockstrap scraping erection. He stepped out of the strap and tossed the boy a tin of Vaseline from his shoeshine box. The boy caught it and rubbed Vaseline on his cock throbbing to his heartbeats. The Dib stepped toward him and the boy caught him by the hips turning him around. The Dib parted his cheeks with both hands leaning forward and the red penis quivered into his flesh. Holding the Dib’s hips in both hands the boy’s body contracted pulling together. His ears began to vibrate lips parted from long yellow teeth smooth and hard as old ivory. His deep-set black eyes lit up inside with red fire and the hair stood up straight on his head. The Dib’s body arched spurting pearly gobs in the stagnant sunlight. For a few seconds they shivered together then the boy shoved the Dib’s body away as if he were taking off a garment. They went to a pool across a lawn washed themselves came back and put on their jockstraps.

  “This Jimmy the Shrew. He messenger special delivery C.O.D.” They talked briefly in their language which is transliterated from a picture language known to all wild boys in this area.

  “He say time barrier ahead. Very bad.”

  The Shrew took a small flat box from his handle-bar basket and handed it to the Dib. “He giving us film grenades.” The Dib opened the box and showed me six small black cylinders. The Shrew got on his bicycle and rode away down the avenue and disappeared in a blaze of hibiscus. We walked on through the suburbs heading north. The houses were smaller and shabbier. A menace and evil hung in the empty streets like a haze and the air was getting cold around the edges. We rounded a corner and a sharp wind spattered the Dib’s body with goose pimples. He sniffed uneasily.

  “We coming to bad place, Johnny. Need clothes.”

  “Let’s see what we can find in here.”

  There was a rambling ranch-style house obviously built before the naborhood had deteriorated. We stepped through a hedge and passed a ruined barbecue pit. The side door was open. We were in a room that had served as an office. In a drawer of the desk the Dib found a thirty-eight snub-nosed revolver and box of shells.

  “Whee look” he cried and popped his find into the shoeshine box. We went through the house like a whirlwind the Dib pulling out suits and sports coats from closets and holding them against his body in front of mirrors, opening drawers snatching what he wanted and dumping the rest on the floor. His eyes shone and his excitement mounted as we rushed from room to room throwing any clothes we might use onto beds and chairs and sofas. I felt a wet-dream tension in my crotch the dream of packing to leave with a few minutes to catch a boat and more and more drawers full of clothes to pack the boat whistling in the harbor. As we stepped into a little guest room the Dib in front of me I stroked his smooth white buttocks and he turned to me rubbing his jock.

  “This make me very hot Meester.” He sat down on the bed and pulled off his jockstrap and his cock flipped out lubricating. “Whee” he said and lay back on his elbows kicking his feet. “Jacking me off.” I slipped off my strap and sat down beside him rubbing the lubricant around the tip of his cock and he went off in a few seconds. We took a shower and made a selection of clothes or rather I made the selection since the Dib’s taste ran to loud sports coats wide ties and straw hats. I found a blue suit for him and he looked like a 1920 prep school boy on vacation. For myself I selected a grey Glen Plaid and a green fedora. We packed the spare gun and extra shells into a brief case with the film grenades the Shrew had given us.

  Fish smells and dead eyes in doorways shabby quarters of a forgotten city streets half-buried in sand. I was beginning to remember the pawn shops, guns and brass knucks in a dusty window, cheap rooming houses, chili parlors, a cold wind from the sea. Police line ahead frisking seven boys against a wall. Too late to turn back they’d seen us. And then I saw the photographers, more photographers than a routine frisk would draw. I eased a film grenade into my hand. A cop stopped toward us. I pushed the plunger down and brought my hands up tossing the grenade into the air. A black explosion blotted out the set and we were running down a dark street toward the barrier. We ran on and burst out of a black silver mist into late afternoon sunlight on a suburban street, cracked pavements, sharp smell of weeds.

  THE PENNY ARCADE PEEP SHOW

  Naked boys standing by a water hole savanna backdrop a head of giraffe in the distance. The boys talk in growls and snarls, purrs and yipes and show their teeth at each other like wild dogs. Two boys fuck standing up squeezing back teeth bare, hair stands up on the ankles, ripples up the legs in goose pimples they whine and whimper off.

  I
n the rotten flesh gardens languid Bubu boys with black smiles scratch erogenous sores diseased putrid sweet their naked bodies steam of a sepia haze of nitrous choking vapors.

  Green lizard boy by a stagnant stream smiles and rubs his worn leather jockstrap with one slow finger.

  Dim street light on soiled clothes boy stands there naked with his shirt in one hand the other hand scratching his ass.

  Two naked youths with curly black hair and pointed Pan ears casting dice by a marble fountain. The loser bends over looking at his reflection in the pool. The winner poises behind him like a phallic god. He pries the smooth white buttocks apart with his thumbs. Lips curl back from sharp white teeth. Laughter shakes the sky.

  Glider boys drift down from the sunset on red wings and rain arrows from the sky.

  Slingshot boys glide in across a valley riding their black plastic wings like sheets of mica in the sunlight torn clothes flapping hard red flesh. Each boy carries a heavy slingshot attached to his wrist by a leather thong. At their belts are leather pouches of round black stones.

  The roller-skate boys sweep down a hill in a shower of autumn leaves. They slice through a police patrol. Blood spatters dead leaves in air.

  The screen is exploding in moon craters and boiling silver spots.

  “Wild boys very close now.”

  Darkness falls on the ruined suburbs. A dog barks in the distance.

  Dim jerky stars are blowing away across a gleaming empty sky, the wild boys smile.

  William S. Burroughs

  August 17, 1969

  London