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entirely from immature high denomina-
tion bank notes. (Bank notes are in fact currency, but
they must mature before they can be negotiated....
Bank notes run as high as one million clams a note. )
"They keep hatching out all over me," he says shyly.
..."It's like, gee, I don't know how to say it. It's like I
was a Mummy scorpion carrying those little baby notes
around on my warm body and feeling them grow....
Gosh I hope I don't bore you with all this."
Salvador, known as Sally to his friends -- he always
keeps a few "friends" around and pays them by the
hour -- got cured in the slunk business in World War II.
(To get cured means to get rich. Expression used by
Texas oil men.) The Pure Food and Drug Department
have his picture in their files, a heavy faced man with
an embalmed look as if paraffin had been injected under
the skin which is smooth, shiny and poreless. One eye
is dead grey color, round as a marble, with flaws and
opaque spots. The other is black and shiny, an old un-
dreaming insect eye.
His eyes are normally invisible behind black glasses.
He looks sinister and enigmatic -- his gestures and man-
nerisms are not yet comprehensible -- like the secret
police of a larval state.
In moments of excitement Salvador is apt to lapse
into broken English. His accent at such moments sug-
gests an Italian origin. He reads and speaks Etruscan,
A squad of accountant investigators have made a life
work of Sal's international dossier.... His operations
extend through the world in an inextricable, shifting
web of subsidiaries, front companies, and aliases. He
has held 23 passports and been deported 49 times --
deportation proceedings pending in Cuba, Pakistan,
Hongkong and Yokohama.
Salvador Hassan O'Leary, alias The Shoe Store Kid,
alias Wrong Way Marv, alias After Birth Leary, alias
Slunky Pete, alias Placenta Juan, alias K. Y. Ahmed,
alias El Chinche, alias El Culito, etc., etc. for fifteen
solid pages of dossier, first tangled with the law in NYC
where he was traveling with a character known to the
Brooklyn police as Blubber Wilson, who hustled his goof
ball money shaking down fetishists in shoe stores. Has-
san was charged some third degree extortion and con-
spiracy to impersonate a police officer. He had learnt
the shakeman's Number One rule: D.T.-- Ditch Tin --
which corresponds to the pilot's KFS -- Keep Flying
Speed.... As The Vigilante puts it: "If you get a
rumble, kid, ditch your piece of tin if you have to swal-
low it." So they didn't bust him with a queer badge.
Hassan testified against Wilson, who drew Pen Indef.
(longest term possible under New York law for a mis-
demeanor conviction. Nominally an indefinite sentence,
it means three years in ъiker's Island). Hassan's case
was nolle prossed. "I'd have drawn a nickel," Hassan
said, "if I hadn't met a decent cop." Hassan met a de-
cent cop every time he took a fall. His dossier contains
three pages of monikers indicating his proclivity for
cooperating with the law, "playing ball" the cops call
it. Others call it something else: Ab the Fuzz Lover,
Finky Marv, The Crooning Hebe, Ali the Stool, Wrongo
Sal, The Wailing Spic, The Sheeny Soprano, The Bronx
Opera House, The Copper's Djinn, The Answering Serv-
ice, The Squeaking Syrian, The Cooing Cocksucker,
The Musical Fruit, The Wrong Ass Hole, The Fairy
Fink, Leary the Nark, The Lilting Leprechaun...
Grassy Gert.
He opened a sex shop in Yokohama, pushed junk in
Beirut, pimped in Panama. During World War II he
shifted into high, took over a dairy in Holland and cut
the butter with used axle grease, cornered the K.Y.
market in North Africa, and finally hit the jackpot with
slunks. He prospered and proliferated, Hooding the
world with cut medicines and cheap counterfeit goods
of every variety. Adulterated shark repellent, cut anti-
biotics, condemned parachutes, stale anti-venom, in-
active serums and vaccines, leaking lifeboats.
Clem and Jody, two oldtime vaudeville hoofers, cope
out as ъussian agents whose sole function is to repre-
sent 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 simul-
taneous.... 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 ъed White and Blue,' but it can't be
done...."
"We connect for that wheat with Ali Wong Chapul-
tepec 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 than 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 ele-
ments 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. Dur-
ing the Middle Ages Europe was periodically deci-
mated 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. Manoeuvres: Boys plummet
streaming 'chutes like broken condoms splash young
blood over pot-bellied generals... shattering wake of
sound as Clem and Jody disappear over the Andes in
jet getaway....
The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Need-
less 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 consti-
tutes a downright inconvenience." Typical A. J. cover
story.
Clem and Jody give out they are interested in the de-
struction of Near East oil Belds to boost the value of
their Venezuelan holdings.
Clem writes a number to the tune of "Crawdad" (Big
Bill Broonzy).
What you gonna do when the oil goes dry?
Gonna sit right there and watch those Arabs die.
Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance
to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefac-
tionist activities.... But over a few stiff yages he lets
his hair down among friends.
"Islam is jellied consomme already," he says, dancing
the Liquefactionist Jig.... And then, unable to contain
himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:
It's trembling on the brink
One push and down it sink
Hey, Maw, get ready my veil.
"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 Ah-
med 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 sado-masochistic
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 dan-
gerous 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 fiat shopgirl voice:
"In closing I want to sound a word of warning....
The logical extension of encephalographic research is
bicontrol; that is control of physical movement, mental
processes, emotional reactions and apparent sensory im-
pressions 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 connec-
tions 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 sus-
ceptible 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 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 Divi-
sionists 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. ъeplicas
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 monop-
oly 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 even-
tually an "Undesirable." Of course if someone starts
inundating an area with Identical ъeplicas, 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 shame-
less characters venture to manufacture I.ъ.s -- Identical
ъeplicas.
A cretinous albino Caid, product of a long line of re-
cessive 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.ъ.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. Frederick's
ataxia will clean out that replica nest. I studied neurol-
ogy 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, leav-
ing an empty shell sitting there on the giraffe skin up-
holstery.... 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 re-
plica (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 barroom 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 Blair1" 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 in-
numerable formulas of varying efficacy for destroying
the Mother Cell, also known as the Protoplasm Daddy,
by torturing or killing a captured replica.... The au-
thorities have finally given up the attempt to control,
among the Divisionists, the crimes of murder and un-
licensed production of replicas. But they do stage pre-
election raids and destroy vast replica cultures in the
mountainous regions of the Zone where replica moon-
shiners hole up.
Sex with a replica is strictly forbidden and almost
universally practiced. There are queer bars where
shameless citizens openly consort with their replicas.
House detectives stick their heads into hotel rooms say-
ing: "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 Divi-
sionist lives in a continual crisis of fear and rage, un-
able to achieve either the self-righteous complacency
of the Senders or the relaxed depravity of the Lique-
factionists.... However the parties are not in practice
separate but blend in all combinations.
The Factualists are Anti-Liquefactionist, Anti-Divi-
sionist, and above all Anti-Sender.
Bulletin of the Coordinate Factualist on the subject
of replicas: "We must reject the facile solution of fiood-
ing the planet with 'desirable replicas.' It is highly
doubtful if there are any desirable replicas, such crea-
tures constituting an attempt to circumvent process and
change. Even the most intelligent and genetically per-
fect replicas would in all probability constitute an un-
speakable menace to life on this planet...."
T.B.-- Tentative Bulletin-Liquefaction: "We must not
reject or deny our protoplasmic core, striving at all time
to maintain a maximum of flexibility without falling into
the morass of liquefaction...." Tentative and Incom-
plete Bulletin: "Emphatically we do not opp