Philip José Farmer was born in Indiana in 1918 but lived most of his life in Peoria, Illinois, until his death in 2009. He was the author of dozens of books and numerous short stories. His first published science fiction, “The Lovers,” (a short story, later expanded into a novel) is the first known science fiction tale to portray sex between a human and a non-humanoid alien. He is also the author of what may be the most shocking opening scene of a novel, that of
“The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod” (1968), one of the oldest stories in this volume, may shock fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, but it is doubtful that it will surprise those familiar with the more raw fiction of William S. Burroughs, author of
IF WILLIAM BURROUGHS INSTEAD of Edgar Rice Burroughs had written the Tarzan novels…
Tapes cut and respliced at random by Brachiate Bruce, the old mainliner chimp, the Kid’s asshole buddy, cool blue in the orgone box
from the speech in Parliament of Lord Greystoke alias The Jungle Rot Kid, a full house, SRO, the Kid really packing them in.
—Capitalistic pricks! Don’t send me no more foreign aid! You corrupting my simple black folks, they driving around the old plantation way down on the Zambezi River in air-conditioned Cadillacs, shooting horse, flapping ubangi at me… Bwana him not in the cole cole ground but him sure as shit gonna be soon. Them M-16s, tanks, mortars, flamethrowers coming up the jungle trail, ole Mao Charley promised us!
Lords, Ladies, Third Sex! I tole you about apeomorphine but you dont lissen! You got too much invested in the Mafia and General Motors, I say you gotta kick the money habit too. Get them green things offen your back… nothing to lose but your chains that is stocks, bonds, castles, Rollses, whores, soft toilet paper, connection with The Man… it a long long way to the jungle but it worth it, build up your muscle and character cut/
… you call me here at my own expense to degrade humiliate me strip me of loincloth and ancient honored title! You hate me cause you hung up on civilization and I never been hooked. You over a barrel with smog freeways TV oily beaches taxes inflation frozen dinners time clocks carcinogens neckties all that shit. Call me noble savage… me tell you how it is where its at with my personal tarzanic… involves kissing off
Old Lord Bromley-Rimmer who wear a merkin on his bald head and got pecker and balls look like dried-up grapes on top a huge hairy cut-in fold-out thing it disgust you to see it, he grip young Lord Materfutter’s crotch and say—Dearie what kinda gibberish that, Swahili, what?
Young Lord Materfutter say—Bajove, some kinda African cricket doncha know what?
… them fuckin Ayrabs run off with my Jane again… intersolar communist venusian bankers plot… so it back to the jungle again, hit the arboreal trail, through the middle tearass, dig Numa the lion, the lost civilizations kick, tell my troubles to Sam Tantor alias The Long Dong Kid. Old Sam always writing amendments to the protocols of the elders of mars, dipping his trunk in the blood of innocent bystanders, writing amendments in the sand with blood and no one could read what he had written there selah
Me, I’m only fuckin free man in the…world… live in state of anarchy, up trees… every kid and lotsa grown-ups (so-called) dream of the Big Tree Fix, of swinging on vines, freedom, live by the knife and unwritten code of the jungle…
Ole Morphodite Lord Bromley-Rimmer say—Dearie, that Anarchy, that one a them new African nations what?
The Jungle Rot Kid bellowing in the House of Lords like he calling ole Sam Tantor to come running help him outta his mess, he really laying it on them blueblood pricks.
