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.. war on. Let you have a little.... Two dollars.") Sluiced fat bed- bugs from rose wall paper in shabby theatrical hotels on North Clark and poisoned the purposeful Rat, occasional eater of human babies. Wouldn't you? My present assignment: Find the live ones and ex- terminate. Not the bodies but the "molds," you under- stand -- but I forget that you cannot understand. We have all but a very few. But even one could upset our food tray. The danger, as always, comes from defecting agents: A.J., the Vigilante, the Black Armadillo (carrier of Chagas vectors, hasn't taken a bath since the Argen- tine epidemic of '35, remember? ), and Lee and the Sailor and Benway. And I know some agent is out there in the darkness looking for me. Because all Agents defect and all Resisters sell out.... THE ALGEBRA OF NEED "Fats" Terminal came from The City Pressure Tanks where open life jets spurt a million forms, immediately eaten, the eaters cancelled by black time fuzz.... Few reach the Plaza, a point where The Tanks empty a tidal river, carrying forms of survival armed with defences of poison slime, black, flesh rotting, fungus, and green odors that sear the lungs and grab the stom- ach in twisted knots.... Because "Fats'" nerves were raw and peeled to feel the death spasms of a million cold kicks.... "Fats" learned The Algebra of Need and survived.... One Friday "Fats" siphoned himself into The Plaza, a translucent-grey, foetal monkey, suckers on his little soft, purple-grey hands, and a lamphrey disk mouth of cold, grey gristle lined with hollow, black, erectile teeth, feeling for the scar patterns of junk.... And a rich man passed and stared at the monster and "Fats" rolled pissing and shitting in terror and ate his shit and the man was moved by this tribute to his potent gaze and clicked a coin out of his Friday cane (Friday is Moslem Sunday when the rich are supposed to distribute alms ). So "Fats" learned to serve The Black Meat and grew a fat aquarium of body.... And his blank, periscope eyes swept the world's sur- face.... In his wake of addicts, translucent-grey mon- keys Hashed like fish spears to the junk Mark, and hung there sucking and it all drained back into "Fats" so his substance grew and grew filling plazas, restaurants and waiting rooms of the world with grey junk ooze. |
