The Fish Poison Con chords and lyrics - WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

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[Verse 1]
I was traveling [D]with
Merritt
[G]In corporated, [D]checking store attendants for
lar[F]ceny with a crew [Eb]of shoppers.
[E]There was two middle -aged gunts, one owning this [D]chihuahua,
which whimpered [C]an d yacked [B]in a cocoon [C#]of black sweaters,
[E]and
Bob
Schaefer, crew leader, who
was an
American fascist with
Roosevelt jokes.
[D]It happens in
Iowa, this [D]number comes over
the car [E]radio.
[C#]Old
Sal got caught in the fence last [D]spring.
and
Schaefer [E]said, oh my god, are
we ever [D]in
[E]Hicksville?
[B]Stopped that night in
Pleasantville,
[D]Iowa, and our [E]tires gave [D]out.
We had no [C]tire rations during the
[B]war for such a purpose, and
Bob got drunk and [D]showed his badge
[C#]to the locals in a
roadhouse by the river,
[D]an d I ran into the sailor under a [E]potted palm in the
lobby.
We [D]hit the local croakers with a fish [E]poison con.
I got these poisoned
[C#]fish stuck in the tank, transported
back from
South
America, [E]I'm an ichthyologist,
and after
being stung by the dreaded candiru,
[E]like fire thr[C#]ough the blood, doctor, and coming on [E]now.
And the [C#]sailor goes into his white -hot agony act,
chasing the doctor around his office
like a blow[E]torch.
[D]He never missed,
[B]but he burned down the croakers.
[D]So like
[E]Bob and me, [D]when we had a catch, as the old cunts call it,
[E]and arrested [C#]some sulky
clerk with his hand
[B]deep in the company [D]pocket.
We take turns playing the tough
[F#m]cop and the
[D]calm cop.
So I walk in on this
Pleasantville croak[F#m]er and tell him
[D]I have contac[E]ted this
Venus[D]ian virus and subject to dissolve myself in
poison juices and [C#]assimilate the passer's
by unless [C]I get my
[C#]medicine and get it regular.
So I walk [C#]in on this
old party smelling like a
compost [C]heap and steaming demurely,
[Eb]an d[B] he snaps at me.
What's your trouble, young man?
[Eb]The
Venusian goop [C]brought doctor.
[D]Now see here, young man,
my time is valuable.
Doctor?
This is a medical emergency.
Old shit, but good. [B]I worked
[D]out on the nod.
All he had was [Eb]one fixator.
[C]You're loa[C#]ded.
You assimilated the croaker.
left me sick.
[D]Yes, he was old and[C] tough,
[D]but not too tough for the caustic enzymes of woo.
The sale was thin and the drug stores was closing, so
I didn't want him to get physical
and disturb my medications.
The next croaker rode with the
[C#]erogenous acid vats on one side
and
Nagasaki [Eb]ovens on the other.
[D]We knotted out [C#]under the rubber
[C]trees with a long red
carpet under our feet
[B]back to 1910.
[E]We could buy it in the drugstore tomorrow,
[D]or lay[Eb] up
in the chink [B]laundry on the black smoke,
[D]drifting back through [C#]stale, roaming house, flesh,
pool [C]halls, and chilly [B]houses.
[E]Fell back [D]in sad flesh, small and
pretentious in a theatrical
[Eb]boarding house,
the aging ham [C#]cradles his tie [B]-up and stabs a vein like
Cleo[D]patra applying
the asps.
Click back through the [D#]cool gray [D]short -change
artist's lush rolling
ghost of drunk[C#]en sleep,
[D]empty pock[C#]ets in the worn [C]metal subway [D]dome. I woke up in
the hotel [E]lobby, the smell heavy and calm,
hold[D]ing a different body
molded to the leather [D]chair. [C#]I was
[D]sick but not needlesick.
This was black smoke
The sailor, still sleeping,
[D]he looked very young under a wispy moustache.
I woke him up and he looked around with slow hy[D]draulic [B]control,
his [C#]eyes unbluffed, [C]unreadable.
[D]Let's make the street, I'm thin.
I was in fact very thin, as I saw,
when I stopped in front of a mirror panel and adjusted
my tie [C#]knot in a [D]starched collar.
It was a neighborhood of chilly houses and cheap saloons
[C#]with free lunch everywhere and
[C]heavy calm [B]bartenders humming
Sweet
[D]Sixteen. I walked without [B]thinking
like a horse will
and came to the
[D]Chinese laundry [Db]by
Clara's massage par[D]lor.
We siphoned in and the chink
in front [C#]jerked one eye back and went
on [C]ironing a shirt front.
[D]We walked through a door and
curtain and the [C]black smoke [B]set our lungs
dancing a junkie jig.
We lay up on
our junk hip [D]while a
Chinese kid cooked
our pills and handed us the pipe.
After
six pipes we smoke slow and
order [C#]a pot of tea.
The chink kid [C]goes out to fix [B]it
and the words hatch in my throat like
already written there. I was reading them
back.
Lip [A#]reading we call it in the trade.
[B]Only way to [D]orient yourself when in
Rome.
I've checked the harness [D#]pole.
He comes in
Maxolies every night at 2 .20
[C#]a .m. and
forces the local [B]pederast to perform
this unnatural act on his person.
[C#]So
regularly you can set [D]your watch by it. I won't, I won't,
I [D]won't.
Not again.
Glub, glub, glub.
So that gives us 20 minutes at least
to [E]get in and out
[C#]through the side win[D]dow.
In eight hours start we should [C#]be in
St.
Louis before
they missed the time.
Stop off and see the [D]family.
Memory pictures coming in.
[C#]Little
boy [C]blue and all the heavy silver
[C#]set s and banks [D]an d clubs.
Cool, heavy [C#]eyes, moving
[C]steel and [B]oil and shares. [Eb]I had a ri[C]ch
St.
Louis family.
It was set for that night.
As we walked out, I caught the
Japanese girl picking up laundry, and my flesh
[C#]crawled under
[B]of the junk and I made a meat for
her over the afternoon.
[D]Good plan to make
[C#]sex before a caper.
[Eb]Housebreaking can cause
[D]this wet dream sex tension,
espe[B]cially when things go wrong.
Once in
Peoria, me and the [Eb]sailor charged
a drug store.
And we can't find the
Jimmy for the narco cabinet,
and the flash [D]won't work,
and the harness bolts
sniffing around the door.
And there we are with a sex car
[D]and giggling ourselves off
like beached idiots.
Well, the cops got such [C#]nasty kicks from
our condition, they took us to [D]the
R .R. station.
We get on a train, shivering,
burning, junk sick.
And the warm vegetable smells
of thawing
flesh and stale [D]cum slowly
filled the car.
Nobody could look at us,
[D]steaming away there
like manure piles.
I woke out of a light yen sleep
when the
Japanese girl came in.
Three silver digits exploded
in my head. I walked out into streets
of
Madrid and won a football pool.
Felt the
Latin mind
clear in veinless sunlight.
Met
Paco by the soccer scores and he said,
¿Qué tal,
Enrique?