Dworkin Andrea

Mercy

FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS

NEW YORK

Copyright © 1990, 1991 by Andrea Dworkin.

A F o u r Wa l l s E ig h t W in d o w s F i r s t E d it io n .

First Printing August, 1991.

First paperback printing September, 1992.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmit ed in any form, by any means, including

mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without the prior writ en permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from this novel have appeared in The Michigan Quarterly

Review, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, Fall 1990 and The American Voice,

No. 21, Winter 1990.

Mercy was first published

in Great Britain by Seeker & Warburg in 1990.

The author and publisher are grateful to the fol owing for

permission to quote from copyright material: Olwyn Hughes for

“Daddy, ” in Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, published by Harper

& Row, Publishers, © 1965 1981; Pantheon for Anna Cancogni’s

translation of Sartre: A Life by Annie Cohen-Solal, © 1987

Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dworkin, Andrea.

Mercy: a novel / Andrea Dworkin.

p.

cm.

I. Title.

PS3554. W85M4 1991

813'. 54—dc20

91-18157

(Cloth) ISBN: 0-941423-69-7

CIP

(Paper) ISBN: 0-941423-88-3

Four Wal s Eight Windows

P. O. Box 548, Village Station

New York, N. Y 10014

Printed in the U. S. A.

F o r Judith Malina

For Michael M oorcock

In M em ory o f Ellen Frankfort

D addy, daddy, you bastard, I’ m through.

“ D ad d y, ” Sylvia Plath

For a small moment have I forsaken

thee; but with great mercies will I gather

thee.

In a little wrath I hid my face from

thee for a moment; but with everlasting

kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith

the Lord thy Redeemer.

Isaiah 54: 7-8

Contents

Not Andrea: Prologue

i

o n e In August 1956 (Age 9)

5

t w o In 1961 and 1962 (Age 14, 15, 16)

29

t h r e e In January 1965 (Age 18)

35

f o u r In February 1965 (Age 18)

56

f iv e In June 1966 (Age 19)

74

s ix In June 1967 (Age 20)

100

s e v e n In 1969, 1970, 1971 (Age 22, 23, 24, 25)

134

e i g h t In March 1973 (Age 26)

164

n in e In October 1973 (Age 27)

214

TEN April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

273

e le v e n April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

308

Not Andrea: Epilogue

334

Author’s N ote

343

Not Andrea: Prologue

N o w I’ve come into m y ow n as a wom an o f letters. I am a

committed feminist, o f course. I admit to a cool, elegant

intellect with a clear superiority over the ape-like men who

write. I don’t wear silk, o f course. I am icy and formal even

alone by myself, a discipline o f identity and identification. I do

not wear m yself out with mistaken resistance, denunciation,

foolhardy anguish. I feel, o f course. I feel the pain, the sorrow ,

the lack o f freedom. I feel with a certain hard elegance. I am

admired for it— the control, the reserve, the ability to make

the fine point, the subtle point. I avoid the obvious. I have a

certain intellectual elegance, a certain refinement o f the mind.

There is nothing w rong with civilized thought. It is necessary.

I believe in it and I do have the courage o f m y convictions. One

need not raise one’s voice. I am formal and careful, yes, but

with a real power in m y style i f I do say so myself. I am not, as

a writer or a human being, insipid or bland, and I have not sold

out, even though I have manners and limits, and I am not

poor, o f course, w h y should I be? I don’t have the stink on me

that some o f the others have, I am able to say it, I am not effete.

I am their sister and their friend. I do not disavow them. I am

committed. I write checks and sign petitions. I lend m y name.

I write books with a strong narrative line in clear, detailed,

descriptive prose, in the nineteenth-century tradition o f

storytelling, intellectually coherent, nearly realistic, not

sentimental but yes with sex and romance and wom en w ho do

something, achieve something, strong women. I am

committed, I do care, and I am the one to contend with, if the

truth be told, because m y mind is clear and cool and m y prose

is exceedingly skillful if sometimes a trifle too baroque. Every

style has its dangers. I am not reckless or accusatory. I consider

freedom. I look at it from many angles. I value it. I think about

it. I’ve found this absolutely stunning passage from Sartre that

I want to use and I copy it out slow ly to savor it, because it is

cogent and meaningful, with an intellectual richness, a moral

subtlety. Y ou don’t have to shout to tell the truth. Y ou can

think. Y ou have a responsibility to think. M y wild sisters revel

in being wretched and they do not think. Sartre is writing

about the French under the German Occupation, well, French

intellectuals really, and he says— “ We were never as free as

under the German Occupation. We had lost all our rights, and,

first o f all, the right to speak; we were insulted every day, and

had to keep silent.. . . and everywhere, on the walls, the

papers, the movie screen, we were made to confront the ugly

mug that our oppressor presented to us as our own: but this is

precisely why we were free. As the German poison seeped into

our minds, every just thought we had was a real conquest; as

an omnipotent police kept forcing silence upon us, every word

we uttered had the value o f a declaration o f rights; as we were

constantly watched, every gesture we made was a commitm ent. ” This is moral eloquence, in the mouth o f a man. This

applies to the situation o f women. This is a beautiful truth,

beautifully expressed. Every just thought is a real conquest,

for women under the rule o f men. They don’t know how hard

it is to be kind. Our oppressor puts his version o f us

everywhere, on walls, in the papers, on the movie screens.

Like a poison gas, it seeps in. Every word we utter is a

declaration o f our rights. Every gesture is a commitment. I

make gestures. I experience this subtle freedom, this freedom

based on nuance, a freedom grotesquely negated by a vulgar,

reckless shout, however sincere. He didn’t know that the Je w s

were being exterminated, perhaps, not then. O f course, yes,

he did know that they had been deported from France. Yes.

And when he published these words much later, in 1949, he

did know, but one must be true to one’s original insights,

one’s true experiences, the glimpses one has o f freedom. There

is a certain pride one takes in seeing something so fine, so

subtle, and saying it so well— and, o f course, one cannot

endlessly revise backwards. His point about freedom is

elegant. He too suffered during the war. It is not a cheap point.

And it is true that for us too every w ord is a declaration o f

rights, every gesture a commitment. This is beautifully put,

strongly put. As a wom an o f letters, I fight for m y kind, for

women, for freedom. The brazen scream distracts. The wild

harridans are not persuasive. I write out Sartre’s passage with

appreciation and excitement. The analogy to the condition o f

wom en is dramatic and at the same time nuanced. I w ill not

shout. This is not the ovens. We are not the Jew s, or, to be

precise, the Je w s in certain parts o f Europe at a certain time.

We are not being pushed into the ovens, dragged in, cajoled in,

seduced in, threatened in. It is not us in the ovens. Such

hyperbole helps no one. I like the w ay Sartre puts it, though

the irony seems unintended: “ We were never as free as under

the German O ccupation. ” Actually, I do know that his

meaning is straightforward and completely sincere— there is

no irony. This embarrasses me, perhaps because I am a captive

o f m y time. We are cursed with hindsight. We need irony

because we are in fact incapable o f simple sincerity. “ We were

never as free as under the German O ccupation. ” It gives the

right significance to the gesture, something Brecht never

managed incidentally. I like the sophistication, the unexpected

meaning. This is what a writer must do: use w ords in subtle,

unexpected w ays to create intellectual surprise, real delight. I

love the pedagogy o f the analogy. There is a mutability o f

meaning, an intellectual elasticity that avoids the rigidity o f

ideology and still instructs in the meaning o f freedom. It

warns us not to be simple-minded. We were never as free as

under the German Occupation. Glorious. Really superb.

Restrained. Elegant. True in the highest sense. De Beauvoir

was my feminist ideal. An era died with her, an era o f civilized

coupling. She was a civilized woman with a civilized militance

that recognized the rightful constraints o f loyalty and, o f

course, love. I am tired o f the bellicose fools.

O N E

In August 1956

(Age 9)

M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe

only boys are named it but I live in America. Everyone says I

seem sad but I am not sad. I was born down the street from

Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street, in Cam den, in 1946,

broken brick houses, cardboard porches, garbage spread over

cement like fertilizer on stone fields, dark, a dark so thick you

could run your fingers through it like icing and lick it o ff your

fingers. I w asn’t raped until I was almost ten which is pretty

good it seems when I ask around because many have been

touched but are afraid to say. I w asn’t really raped, I guess, just

touched a lot by a strange, dark-haired man w ho I thought was

a space alien because I couldn’t tell how many hands he had

and people from earth only have two, and I didn’t know the

w ord rape, which is ju st some awful word, so it didn’t hurt me

because nothing happened. Y o u get asked if anything happened and you say well yes he put his hand here and he rubbed

me and he put his arm around m y shoulder and he scared me

and he followed me and he whispered something to me and

then someone says but did anything happen. And you say,

well, yes, he sat down next to me, it was in this m ovie theater

and I didn’t mean to do anything w rong and there w asn’t

anyone else around and it was dark and he put his arm around

me and he started talking to me and saying weird things in a

weird voice and then he put his hand in m y legs and he started

rubbing and he kept saying ju st let m e.. . . and someone says

did anything happen and you say well yes he scared me and he

followed me and he put his hand or hands there and you don’t

know how many hands he had, not really, and you don’t want

to tell them you don’t know because then they will think you

are crazy or stupid but maybe there are creatures from Mars

and they have more than two hands but you know this is

stupid to say and so you don’t know how to say what

happened and if you don’t know how many hands he had you

don’t know anything and no one needs to believe you about

anything because you are stupid or crazy and so you don’t

know how to say what happened and you say he kept saying

just let me. . . . and I tried to get away and he followed me

and he. . . . followed me and he. . . . and then they say,

thank God nothing happened. So you try to make them

understand that yes something did happen honest you aren’t

lying and you say it again, strained, thicklipped from biting

your lips, your chest swollen from heartbreak, your eyes

swollen from tears all salt and bitter, holding your legs funny

but you don’t want them to see and you keep pretending to be

normal and you want to act adult and you can barely breathe

from crying and you say yes something did happen and you

try to say things right because adults are so strange and so

stupid and you don’t know the right words but you try so hard

and you say exactly how the man sat down and put his arm

around you and started talking to you and you told him to go

away but he kept holding you and kissing you and talking to

you in a funny whisper and he put his hands in your legs and he

kept rubbing you and he had a really deep voice and he

whispered in your ear in this funny, deep voice and he kept

saying just to let him. . . . but you couldn’t understand what

he said because maybe he was mumbling or maybe he couldn’t

talk English so you can’t tell them what he said and you say

maybe he was a foreigner because you don’t know what he

said and he talked funny and you tried to get away but he

followed you and then you ran and you didn’t scream or cry

until you found your m omma because he might hear you and

find you so you were quiet even though you were shaking and

you ran and then they say thank God nothing happened and

you don’t know w hy they think you are lying because you are

trying to tell them everything that happened ju st the right w ay

and i f you are a stubborn child, a strong-willed child, you say

the almost-ten-year-old version o f fuck you something happened all right the fuck put his hands in m y legs and rubbed me

all over; m y legs; my legs; me; m y; m y legs; m y; m y; m y legs;

and he rubbed me; his arm was around m y shoulder, rubbing,

and his mouth was on m y neck, rubbing, and his hand was

under m y shirt, rubbing, and his hand was in m y pants,

rubbing, and he kept saying ju st let me. . . . and it was a

creepy whisper in some funny language and he was saying

sounds I didn’t understand and then they say the child is

hysterical, something must have happened, the child is

hysterical; and they want to know i f anything came inside or

was outside and you don’t want to tell them that he took your

hand and put it somewhere wet on him in his lap in the dark

and your hand touched something all funny and your hand got

all cold and slim y and they say thank God nothing happened;

and they ask i f something went inside but when you ask inside

where they look aw ay and you are nearly ten but you are a

fully desperate human being because you want to know inside

where so you w ill know what happened because you don’t

know what he did or what it was or how many hands he had

but they don’t ask you that. And your mother says show me and

you don’t know if you should put your arm around her

shoulder, rubbing, or rub your head into her neck, and she says

show me and you try to whisper the w ay he whispered in a deep

voice but you are too far away from her for it to be like him and

you don’t know what he said so you are crying and a little sick

and you point to your legs and say here and she says show me

where he touched you and you say here and you point to your

legs and she says did he put anything in and you say his hands

and she says anything else did he put anything else in and you

don’t know how many hands he had or if he put them in or in

where and you are wearing bermuda shorts because it is hot,

hot summer, August, black ones, too grown up for a girl your

age she told you but you are always fighting to wear black

because you want to be grown up and you are always fighting

with her anyway and this time she let you because she didn’t

want to fight anymore, and she wants to know i f he touched

your knee and she points to your bare knee and you say yes and

she wants to know if he touched higher and you don’t know

how high because you were sitting down and you say my legs

and she asks you if he touched your bermuda shorts and you

say yes and she asks you if he took them o ff and you think she

is trying to trick you because you were at the movies and how

could someone take your bermuda shorts o ff at the movies and

she asks you if he touched under the bermuda shorts and she

wants to know what he touched you with and it was dark and

you couldn't see and you don’t know what he touched you

with or how many hands he had but she doesn’t ask you that

and afterwards sometimes you think he was from outer space

because people from earth have two hands and when you

make a drawing o f him with crayons or pastels you draw a

stick man with a big face and big hands, lots o f hands, and

sometimes you make another hand in the sky coming down

and you never tell that you are drawing him and you say that

he rubbed you with something inside your legs, no, not there,

higher up, and she cries, your beautiful mother cries, with her

long hair, with her black hair down to her shoulders, and her

cotton summer dress with flowers on it from when she was

young, she cries and she sits across from you and she holds

your hands in hers and you feel so sorry because you always do

something wrong and make her angry or sad and this was a

special day when she let you go to the movies by yourself for

the first time because you said you were mature enough and

she let you wear black and you made her cry so you say

momma I’m sorry momma nothing happened m om ma

nothing happened he didn’t hurt me momma I’m fine m omma

honest m omma nothing happened it didn’t m omma honest

nothing; and she says “ pregnant” something; and I am

punished, in m y room, put alone in m y room and not allowed

to come out and she doesn’t like me anymore, and I cry, I am

going to cry until I get old, I am crying for God to see, I am

afraid the man will come again because he came from nowhere

the first time and he disappeared into thin air and if he is from

outer space he can go anywhere or maybe he followed me like

they do on television and I couldn’t see him because he hid

behind trees and cars and God would know if he had followed

me and maybe God could stop him from finding m y room or

it could be like when someone is killed on television and you

think he is dead and then it gets all quiet and he isn’t dead and

he attacks again with a knife or a gun or he is real strong and it

is real quiet but suddenly he appears from nowhere so I cry but

I keep m y eye on the door so I will be alert in case he is just

pretending to be gone but really he sneaked inside the house

and he is ju st waiting or he could come in the w indow ; and

something hurts me like when you fall down and scrape your

knees and the skin is all scraped o ff and it is all bloody and has

cuts in it and dirt in it and your mother cleans it o ff and puts

iodine on it and says it w o n ’t hurt but it burns and she puts a

bandage on it; something hurts somewhere where he rubbed

but I don’t look because I’m afraid and I keep m y hands away

because I don’t want m y hands to touch me and I don’t want to

touch anywhere in m y legs because I’m afraid; and I couldn’t

say something was hurting because I didn’t know if something

was hurting or not or where it was because maybe I was

making it up because it hurt like a scraped knee but it hurt

somewhere that didn’t exist. I wanted God to see me crying so

He would know and it would count. I asked God if there were

men from outer space on earth because He knew if there was

life on other planets but He didn’t answer me; and I knew there

weren’t but I knew He could have made them if He wanted to

and I knew people only had two hands and I didn’t know how

many hands this man had and I couldn’t figure it out no matter

how much I tried because if he was rubbing in some places

how could he be rubbing in so many places and I couldn’t

count how many places and if he was from outer space he

could come into my room now through the air or anytime

from nowhere. I wanted God to tell me the truth because I was

afraid. I was trying to tell God I was hurt because I thought

God should know and let me stay in m y room and keep the

man away and I wanted to stay in my room a long time, until I

got old, and I wanted God to keep my mother away because

she didn’t like me anymore and I didn’t want to take o ff my

bermuda shorts or show her any more and I didn’t want her to

look at me anymore, and I thought God should know I needed

Him and where was He? I thought maybe the man wasn’t a

bad man because they said nothing happened after all and I

looked grown up so how could he know I was just a child and I

wasn’t sure if he thought I was a child or not because I did look

very grown up and act very grown up but I told him I was a

child and he should go away but I said it in a very grown-up

way. I cried because they said nothing happened and because I

didn’t know if the man knew I was a child and I cried because I

wanted God to know something had happened and I was a

child and I wanted God to say w hy it was less bad if I wasn’t a

child because I was still the same me if I was or if I wasn’t. And

for the first time I didn’t want to be grown up because all the

adults said it was less bad. I cried because I didn’t see how it

could be less bad; and if I grew up were men going to be

putting themselves on me in movies only it wouldn’t be bad

because I wouldn’t be a child anymore. I cried because God

was busy somewhere else and didn’t come and if I cried He

w ould know I was hurting so much somewhere that didn't

exist and He could find it because He lived somewhere that

didn’t exist and He would know what I meant even if I

couldn’t say it and I w ouldn’t have to point here and here and

here and so I kept crying in case He didn’t know yet that He

should be coming to me now even though people were sick

and hungry all over and He had to see them too. I used to talk

to God, especially when m y mother was sick and in the

hospital and m y daddy had to be w orking so hard all day and

all night and God would be pretty near me, in the same room,

near me, and I wanted to know things like w hy anyone had to

die or be poor or starve in China, and if China was real or ju st a

story adults made up, and w hy colored people were treated so

bad, and w hy so many Jew s were dead; and I can’t remember

what He said but I always thought someday I would

understand if I kept trying to pin Him down and maybe I

could convince Him not to have things be so bad; and I had

complicated discussions with Him about w hy He made things

the w ay He did, because I didn’t think He did it right, and I

wanted to be a scholar when I grew up and write things about

what God meant and intended and He would listen to m y

questions and arguments but the adults wouldn’t; and I heard

Him inside m y head, and it was like He was in the room, but it

was never scary and it always made me peaceful even though I

thought He hadn’t done things completely right and I would get

calmed down and quiet even when I had been begging Him to let

m y mother get better or at least not die. I talked to Him a lot

when m y mother was in the hospital for an operation that might

kill her and they told me she might die right then and I had a high

fever and appendicitis and a rash and the adults told me I had to

tell her over the phone that I was all right because she must not

w orry and die and I knew it was wrong to lie, especially because

she might die right then or that night or the next day,

and my last words to her would be lies, and I wanted to cry to

her, but the adults said I wasn’t allowed, and it didn’t matter if

God said it was wrong to lie if adults said you had to lie because

you had to do what adults said not what God said. Y ou had to

be careful not to tell anyone you talked with God because they

might think you were crazy and you had to make sure n ob od y.

heard you talking to Him and you had to remember not to tell

the doctor. They told you to believe in Him and you were

supposed to pray and they sent you to Hebrew School and you

had to go to the children’s services where girls weren’t allowed

to do anything anyway but He wasn’t supposed to talk to you.

He talked to Moses and Abraham but you were just Andrea

from Camden even though Abraham had just been a boy

herding sheep when he figured out there was one God. He had

been staring up in the sky trying to think about God and he

thought God was the moon but the moon disappeared when

night was over and then he thought God was the sun but the

sun disappeared when the day was over and then he figured

out God had to be there all the time so He couldn’t be the sun

or the moon or any king because they died or any idol because

you could break it and you weren’t so different from Abraham

before he grew up. Except that you didn’t understand how he

knew God couldn’t be air because air is everywhere all the time

and the teacher didn’t know but they never say they don’t

know, they just make you feel stupid for asking something.

Y ou were supposed to pray but you couldn’t lead the prayers

because you were a girl and you couldn’t read from the Torah

so a whole bunch o f boys who were a lot stupider than you got

to do all the important things and you weren’t supposed to

argue with God although the rabbis did it all the time but you

were a girl and you weren’t allowed to be a rabbi anyw ay and

all the rabbis who argued with Him were dead anyway and

none o f the rabbis you ever saw or heard who were alive ever

argued with God at all. Y ou thought they just didn’t care

enough but they kept telling you rules and what you had to do

and what you couldn’t do and how to grow up and what to

think but you knew that the dead rabbis couldn’t have been

like them and hadn’t just learned rules and so sometimes you

would write arguments in the margins o f books just like the

great rabbis because you wanted to make commentaries like

they did but you weren’t supposed to write in any holy book

even if it was for children so you would have to hide your

writings and you would have to try to argue with God out

loud in person but hiding it but mostly you would talk with

God when you were crying for your mother or had had a big

fight with her or if you were very scared. I had a big fight with

God when I learned in Hebrew School that women couldn’t

go into the Tem ple when they had their periods because I got

mine when I was nine, I was an adult when I went to the

movies alone in the Bible, and it had hurt so terrible, so bad,

and still did every month, and I couldn’t think when anyone

would need God more, and how could He keep me aw ay and

say aw ful things like that I was unclean when He gave you the

thing. We were studying Leviticus and I was in class and I was

angry with the teacher who sat slumped over the book and

told me what God had said which I could see for m yself N o

one else was upset but maybe they hadn’t gotten their periods

yet and the teacher never would and he could go into the

Tem ple all the time, the whole month, all slumped over and

stupid. When I had it out with God I tried to explain over and

over that I really was sincere and w hy would He want to keep

someone sincere like me out o f the Tem ple and there w asn’t

any good answer that I could figure out except that it w asn’t

sincerity God was looking for; He wanted people w ho didn’t

bleed so w hy had He made you bleed; and you thought that

having a baby would be even worse and hurt even more and

He said you were even more unclean and had to stay out even

longer but you could solve that by not having a baby. And if

you had a baby you would have nine months when you could

go into the Temple and make God happy but when it got real

bad and you needed Him you couldn’t go because once it got

really bad and blood came you were unclean. I thought

women should have their babies in the Temple where God

was because it might hurt less. The teacher said you had to

accept things you didn’t understand and God didn’t have to be

fair but if God wasn’t who would be and how would they

know how? The teacher said that when he went to dinner in

people’s houses he would take a book out o f the people’s

bookcases and blow dust o ff it to show the wife the books

weren’t clean and how lazy and dirty she was. He said the

books were always dusty because women were lazy and didn’t

take care o f their husbands’ books. I didn’t understand w hy it

wasn’t rude to blow dust o ff someone’s books and make them

feel bad and I couldn’t understand how she could stand it after

she had made him dinner and been real nice. But he just

laughed and said women were unclean and he had just proved

it. I asked him if his books were dusty and he said his wife

cleaned them and he blew on them. I didn’t go to God with the

problem o f the books and the dust but I didn’t think it was fair

either. I asked my mother and she said he was my teacher and I

should listen to him but I decided not to anymore. N o w I had

another problem on my mind. Why was what the man did less

bad if I wasn’t a child? If I was a grown-up and went to the

movies and wanted to see the movie, w hy would it be less bad

if the man stopped me and if he scared me and if I had to run

away and i f he hurt me and if he made me cry and i f I didn’t

want him sitting next to me and whispering or anything. I

wanted to know if God thought it was less bad; and I hated the

adults for saying it was less bad. I wanted to know where God

was when the man was there and w hy God didn’t make the

man go away. I wanted to know if God was there too. The

Hebrew School teachers said God knows everything and can

do anything and H e’s always there, everywhere. I believed He

could do anything and knew everything but I didn’t think He

was always there because too many bad things happened and if

He was there they couldn’t ju st happen; how could they? I f I

see someone do something bad I’m not supposed to ju st

watch. M om m a says call the police or an adult. H ow could He

be in the movies with me when the man came? He w ouldn’t

even come to m y room after because He knew all about it and

felt ashamed for making such a horrible man. I knew He could

do anything and made us all so w hy did He make that man?

Was God there like the teachers kept saying and the rabbis kept

saying and did He look or was He looking somewhere else

because He could have turned to look somewhere else because

it didn’t take so long and time for God must be different and it

must have been just a small minute for Him to turn away. O r if

He had to go to India or somewhere maybe He w asn’t there. I

sort o f thought He was there but I couldn’t believe that H e’d

ju st sit and watch because that w ouldn’t be right and God has

to do things that are right. M aybe He turned aw ay but maybe

He was there. M aybe He looked. I thought He was there, I

didn’t feel alone, but I couldn’t stand to think He had ju st

looked so I stopped thinking it but the only w ay I could stop

thinking it was to think that probably God didn’t exist anyw ay

and was only a superstition and there was no God the same

w ay there were no space creatures. I lectured m yself that I was

a child and I was going to grow up even though I didn’t want

to anym ore and someday I would understand w hy it was less

bad if I w asn’t a child unless the adults were just lying, because

adults lie a lot to children I had found out. M aybe they were

lying about God too and maybe there wasn’t one. I sort o f

thought God had been there though. The theater was em pty

but it didn’t feel em pty and there’s a special kind o f dark that

feels like G o d ’s in it, it’s got dots o f light in it all dancing and

sparkling or it’s almost thick so it’s just all surrounding you

like a nest or something, it’s something alive and you’re

something alive and it’s all around you, real friendly, real close

and kind as if it will take care o f you. I was so excited to be at

the movies by myself. I thought it was a very great day in my life

because usually I would be fighting with my mother and she

wouldn’t let me do anything I wanted to do. I had to play with

children and she didn’t like for them to be older than me but all

my real friends were older than me but I kept them secret. I

had to go shopping with her and try on clothes and go with her

to see the wom en’s things and the girls’ things and there were

millions o f them, and they were all the same, all matching sets

with the dressy ones all messed up with plastic flowers, all

fussy and stupid, and they were so boring, all skirts and

dresses and stupid things, little hats and little white gloves, and

I could only try on things that she liked and I wanted to read

anyway. I liked to walk around all over and go places I had

never seen before and I would always try to find a w ay to

wander around and not have to shop with her, except I loved

being near her but not shopping. N o w she was going on a big

trip to Lits, the biggest department store in Camden and

almost near Philadelphia, right near the bridge, and I loved to

be near the bridge, and I used to love to have lunch with m y

mother at the lunch counter in the giant store because that

wasn’t like being a child anymore and we would talk like

girlfriends, even holding hands. So this time I asked if I could

go to the movie across the street while she shopped and come

back to Lits all by m yself and meet her when the movie was

over and instead o f fighting with me to make me do what she

wanted she said yes and I couldn’t believe it because it made

me so happy because she didn’t fight with me and she had faith

in me and I knew I could do it and not get lost and handle the

money right and get back to the store on time and be in the

right place because I was mature. I had to act like a child but I

w asn’t one really. She wanted to have a child but I had been on

m y ow n a long time so I had to keep acting like a child but I

hated it. When she was sick I was on m y own and when I was

with relatives I was alone because they didn't know anything

and when she was in the hospital or home from the hospital I

did the ironing and I peeled the potatoes and once when she

couldn’t breathe and fell on the kitchen floor and it was late at

night and m y daddy was w orking I called the doctor and he

told me to get her whiskey right aw ay but I didn’t know what

whiskey was or how to find some so he told me to go to the

neighbors and I did and I got her whiskey and I ran like he told

me to in the dark at night and I took care o f her and made her

drink it even though she was on the floor dead and the doctor

said i f not for how calm I was she would have died but I w asn’t

calm and I wanted to cry but I didn’t. I thought she was dead

and I stopped breathing. I had already lived in lots o f different

houses and you can’t act like some normal child even though

everyone wants you to be just normal and they don’t want you

to feel bad but you have to be grown up and not give them

trouble and they never know what is in your heart or what you

really think about because their children are normal to them

and you aren’t their children and their children don’t know

about dying or being alone so you have to pretend. So I was

grow n up inside and acted grow n up all the time except when

m y mother was around because she wanted to have a child, a

real child, and got angry i f I didn’t act like a child because it

upset her to think I had got grow n up without her when she

w asn’t there because she wanted to be the mother o f a real

child. When I forgot to be a child or didn’t want to be I made

her very mad at me and very unhappy and she thought I was

trying to hurt her on purpose but I w asn’t because I loved ju st

being near her, sitting near to her when she drank her coffee,

and I was so proud once when I had helped m y daddy shovel

snow and she let me drink some coffee ju st like her. I loved her

hair. I loved when she talked to me about things, not telling

me what to do but just said things to me about things not

treating me like a baby. I loved when she let me go somewhere

with her and her girlfriends. I loved even when she was sick

but not real sick and was in bed for many days or sometimes

many weeks and I was allowed to go in and visit her a little and

sit on the bed and watch television with her and we would

watch “ The $64, 000 Question, ” and we were both crazy for

Charles Van Doren because he was so cute and so intellectual

and we rooted for him and bit our lips waiting for him to

answer and held hands and held our breath. Then I had to leave

her alone because I had tired her out but I felt wonderful for

hours after, so warm and happy, because m y mother loved

me. We held hands and we sat. But I couldn’t stand the stuff

she made me do. She made me sew and knit and do stupid

things. I was supposed to count the stitches and sit still and be

quiet and keep my legs closed when I sat down and wear white

gloves and a hat when I went out in a dress. She made me close

my legs all the time and I kept trying to get her to tell me w hy I

couldn’t sit how I wanted but she said girls must not ever sit so

sloppy and bad and she got mad because I said I liked to have

m y legs open when I sat down and I always did what I wanted

even if I got punished. She said I was a relentless child. But if I

had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just

sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t

going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just

trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit

with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted

her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I

was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go

somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or

ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I

got caught because two boys who were bigger and older

threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and

blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a

trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some

poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought

it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was

walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there

alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came

running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole

Christmas tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and

blood started running down and I got home walking with the

blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came

and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he

said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being

hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so

it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was

supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange

places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or

cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I

wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another

life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and

thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop

me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to

listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she

could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was

nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and

I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did

or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it

was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being

alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and

yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always

nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you

because then they left you alone more and sometimes they

would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f

intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you

have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they

w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f

you aren’t nice to them because adults get to punish you if they

want and you can’t stop them. I knew I had to be nice to the

man in the movies because he was an adult and I had to talk to

adults in a certain w ay because I was a child and I got punished

if I didn’t but I also wanted to act like an adult so they would

leave me alone so I had to talk t o him like an adult and not cry

or be stupid or act silly or act like a baby or be rude or raise my

voice or run away or be scared like a baby. Y ou had to say

mister or sir and you had to be polite and if you wanted to be

grown up you had to talk quiet and be reasonable and say

quiet, intelligent things in a certain quiet, reasonable way.

Children cried. Y ou didn’t cry. Little babies screamed like

ninnies. Y ou didn’t scream. Adults didn’t scream when

someone talked to them quietly. The man talked very quiet.

The man was very polite. I was too grown up to scream and

cry and then I would have had to leave the movie if I made

noise because you weren’t even allowed to make any noise in a

movie. You weren’t allowed to whisper. I couldn’t understand how come the man kept talking once the movie started

because I knew you weren’t allowed to talk during it. M y

daddy hated for me to cry. He walked away in disgust. M y

momma yelled at me but my daddy went away. Adults said I

was a good child or I was very mature for my age or I had

poise. Sometimes they said I was a nice girl or a sweet child or

a smart, sweet child with such nice manners. It was a big act on

my part. I waited for them to go away so I could go

somewhere and do what I wanted but I wanted them to like

me. M y momma made me talk with respect to all adults no

matter what they did. Sometimes a teacher was so stupid but

m y momma said I had to talk with respect or be quiet and I

wasn’t allowed to contradict them or even argue with them at

all. One teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind

her when she was sitting at her desk in the front o f the room

and you had to brush o ff her collar, just stand there behind her

for fifteen minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing

her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, palms

down, stroking all the whole w ay from her neck to her arms.

She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing

something or answering her questions and she would say

someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore

one o f those fuzzy collars you put on top o f sweaters and

someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and

with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down,

smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her

shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side o f her collar

and the right hand had to stroke the right side o f her collar, and

it had to be smooth and in rhythm and feel good to her or she

would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class.

Y ou just had to stand there and keep touching her and they’d

stare at you. Y ou were supposed to like it because she only

picked you if she liked you or if you were done your test early

or i f you were very good and everyone else stared at you and

you were the teacher’s pet. But m y arms got tired and I hated

standing there and I felt funny and I thought it was boring and

I didn’t see w hy I couldn’t do something else like read while I

was waiting for the test to be over and I tried to prolong it but I

couldn’t too much and I thought she was mean but the meaner

she was the more you wanted her to like you and be nice to you

because otherwise she would hurt you so much by saying

awful things about you to the class. And m y mother said she

was the teacher and an adult and I had to be respectful and do

what she said. I had to be nice to adults and do what they said

because they were adults and I wanted to grow up so I

w ouldn’t have to listen to them anymore and obey them but

the only w ay to get them to think you were grow n up was to

obey them because then they would say you were mature and

acting like an adult. Y ou had to brush the teacher’s collar and

no one ever had to say w hy to you even i f you kept asking and

they just told you to keep quiet and stop asking. She could

make you stand in the corner or sit alone or keep you after

school or give you a bad mark even if you knew everything. I

wanted to be an adult like my daddy. He was always very

polite and intelligent and he listened to people and treated

them fair and he didn’t yell and he explained things if you

asked why except sometimes when he got tired or fed up. But

he was nicer than anyone. He didn’t treat people bad, even

children. He always wanted to know what you were thinking.

He listened to what everybody said even if they were children

or even if they were stupid adults and he said you could always

listen even if you didn’t agree and even if someone was dumb

or rude or filled with prejudice or mean and then you could

disagree in the right way and not be low like them. He said you

should be polite to everyone no matter who they were or

where they came from or if they were colored or if they were

smart or stupid it didn’t make any difference. M y relatives and

teachers were pretty stupid a lot and they weren’t nice to

Negroes but I was supposed to be quiet even then because they

were adults. I was supposed to know they were wrong

without saying anything because that would be rude. I got

confused because he said you needed to be polite to Negroes

because white people weren’t and white people were wrong

and Jew s like us knew more about it than anyone and it was

meaner for us to do it than anyone but I also had to be polite to

the white people who did the bad things and used the bad

words and said the ugly things that were poisonous and made

the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I

was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who

called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and

when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my

daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen

and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes

were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being

treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good

enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to

explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it

was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not

listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty

sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going

into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried

so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he

would be calling colored people bad names and I would have

to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y

daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and

respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.

I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many

things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time

during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could

every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,

and I prayed to God that m y uncle w ouldn’t talk but nothing

stopped him and I would try not to m ove and not to breathe so

I w ouldn’t run aw ay or call him bad names or scream because

it caused me such outrage in m y heart, I hated him so much for

being so stupid and so cruel. I sometimes had cuts on the inside

o f m y mouth because I would bite down to stop from talking

back and I would press m y fingernails into m y palms so bad

they would bleed and I had sores all over m y hands so I bit m y

nails to keep the sores from coming. Y ou had to do what

adults said no matter what even if you didn’t know them or

they were creeps or very bad people. The man was an adult.

He w asn’t so mean as m y uncle in how he talked, he talked

nicer and quieter. I was sitting there, acting grow n up,

wearing m y black bermuda shorts. Outside it was hot and

inside it was cold from air-conditioning. I liked the cold inside.

O ur house was hot and the city was hot but the movie was nice

and cold and the sweat dried on you and I liked how amazing it

felt. The man sat down next to me. There were a million empty

seats and the theater was like a huge, dark castle, but he

sat down right next to me, on m y left. The whole big theater

was empty. The usher was a teenager but I didn’t think he was

cute. He had a light blue uniform and a flashlight. He showed

me to my seat. He wanted it in the middle but I kept wanting

to go closer to the screen. I sat down in front where I’m not

allowed with my parents because they think it’s too close but I

like it because then the movie is big and it seems like the people

are giants and you forget everything looking at them. The

theater was so big and the ceiling was so high and you could

get lost in it except that the seats were all in rows. The theater

was dark but not completely dark. There was dim light but

not enough light really to see in or to read my book in. I had a

book stuffed in my pocket. I always carried a book. I liked to

read whenever I could. Y ou could read almost anywhere but

there wasn’t enough light even for me so I had to sit and wait

for the lights to go down all the w ay and the movie to start. I

crossed m y legs because I thought it was sophisticated. I

crossed them one way, then the other way. I opened the top

buttons on my blouse because I was alone now and I could do

what I wanted. The man sat down and the usher wasn’t there

because I tried to look but I didn’t want to insult the man by

acting like anything was wrong. I didn’t understand w hy he

had to sit there and I wished he wouldn’t but you had to be nice

to people who sat next to you in a bus or in a synagogue or

anywhere and I wanted to move but he hadn’t done anything

bad and I knew it would be an insult to him and I didn’t think I

was better than other people. He said some things to me and I

tried to look straight ahead and I tried to be polite and not talk

to him at the same time and I tried to ask him to leave me alone

but not to be rude because he was an adult and it wasn’t right to

be mean anyway. I didn’t understand what was w rong

because people sit next to people all the time but I thought he

could move over one seat and not be right next to me but I

didn’t know how to say he should m ove over w ith o u t. it

seeming like I was mean or thought he was dirty or poor or

something bad. He said things and I said yes or no or I don’t

know or I don’t think so and kept looking ahead to show I

w asn’t interested in talking and had other things on m y mind

and he told me I was pretty and grow n up and I said I was ju st a

child really and I had never been to the m ovies before m yself

and m y mother was waiting for me and I wanted to watch the

m ovie but when someone says yo u ’re pretty you have to say

thank you. Then the lights went o ff and it was really dark and

the room was dark and big, an enormous cave o f darkness, and

I felt buried alive in it as if it wasn’t good and then the light

started flickering across things from the screen and the man

put his arm around m y shoulder and I asked him not to touch

me but I was very polite because I thought he was just being a

friendly person because people only touched you if they were

your friends or your relatives and liked you and I wanted to

scream for the usher to come but I was afraid o f making noise

because it w asn’t right to make noise and I didn’t want to do

something w rong and insult the man and he did all those

things, many things but as i f it was one thing with no breaks or

stops in it because he ju st curled and curved and slid all over

with his arms everywhere and his mouth all over and his hands

everywhere and keeping me in the seat without stopping, and

he kept whispering and he hurt me and I didn’t know what to

do except that grow n-ups don’t cry or make noise and he

pushed his hands in me and I didn’t know what to do, except

he was hurting me, and he slumped more over me and in m y

chest and kept pressing me and then he slumped again and

shaked and stopped pressing so hard and I pulled m yself aw ay

from him grabbing on me and I ran and I ran all the w ay up the

aisle in the dark and I found the usher w ho was all the w ay in

the back and I said the man was bothering me but I was afraid

to say what he did and the usher didn’t say anything or do

anything so I asked if I could sit somewhere else please and

could he keep the man from bothering me please because I

knew you weren’t supposed to talk in the movies and the usher

could make you stop and he just stared at me and he took me

somewhere else with his flashlight and I sat there making my

shirt right and my pants right but I couldn’t make them right

and wiping my hand dry and I sat there looking all around in

the dark and there wasn’t enough light from the movie for me

to see where the man was and I couldn’t look at the movie

because I kept looking for the man but I was afraid that if he

saw me looking for him he would think I was wanting him to

come and I kept trying to see where he was in the dark and i f he

was going to try to talk to me more and the movie kept going

on but I was afraid to watch it because maybe the man would

come and I knew I couldn’t find my mother because it wasn’t

time to meet her yet and I had to stay in the movies or I didn’t

have anywhere to go and then the man came and I was going

to scream or hit him or shout but I was afraid to because I was

never allowed to hit adults, no such thing could ever happen,

and he looked at me and he stared and he walked by and down

the aisle and I was afraid he would come back and I got up and I

ran, I ran out, I ran into the street, into the cars, into the hot air,

into the light, it was like running into a wall o f heat and I

couldn’t breathe, and I ran to the department store and once

when I was a little child I had gotten lost in a department store

and I was lost from m y mother a long time and someone took

me to the manager because I was crying and lost and scared

and they announced over the loudspeaker for m y mother to

come find me and she came and this was the first time I was

ever so scared since then but I w ouldn’t cry or make noise

because I didn’t want the man to find me so I kept running and

saying I needed the manager and I needed m y mother and it

was an emergency but I kept as quiet as I could and I couldn’t

breathe so they called her on the loudspeaker and then when

she came I shook and cried and I tried to tell her and she said,

did anything happen, and I kept saying yes and I kept trying to

say each thing that happened and then we were on the bus and I

kept crying but I w asn’t supposed to talk because people could

hear and it was something bad, and then we got home and I

said how I didn’t want the man to sit next to me and I didn’t

know how to tell him to go away because he was an adult and I

didn’t mean to do something w rong but I didn’t know how to

tell the man not to rub because I didn’t even know what it was

or if it was a mistake because maybe he was making a mistake

because it was dark and maybe he thought I was someone else

that he knew or it was some other mistake and when I told him

he didn’t listen to me and he rubbed me and I didn’t want him

to, I wanted him to go away, and I tried to be polite and act like

an adult and not make noise in public and I didn’t cry like a

child and he had a dark jacket on and they asked me if it was

leather but I didn’t know what leather was and they asked me

what it felt like but I didn’t know how to say and he had on a

striped shirt and he had on dark pants and he had dark hair and

he didn’t sit straight even when he first sat down and he had

bad posture because he couldn’t sit straight and he smoked and

he asked me i f I wanted to smoke, and I did but I didn’t say that

to m y mother because I just looked ahead o f me and said no

even though I wanted to and so I was good and I didn’t have to

say I wanted to, and then he slumped all over me and held me

still with his arm around m y shoulder and his head pinned

under m y head so I couldn’t m ove aw ay and I couldn’t

describe him enough for them but I could still see him; and m y

mother cried; and now I can see him, almost, I can’t remember

yesterday as well, even now he’s right next to me, almost, on

me, almost, the pressure o f his body covering m y heart,

almost, I can touch him, nearly, I could search the earth for

him and find him, I think, or if he sat down next to me I w ould

die, except I can’t quite see his face, nearly but not enough, not

quite, and I can feel his fingers going in, almost, if I touch my

face his fingers are more real, and it hurts, the bruised, scraped

labial skin, the pushed, twisted skin; and my daddy came into

my room after I couldn’t cry anymore and said nothing

happened and not to cry anymore and we wouldn’t talk about

it anymore; and I waited to be pregnant and tried to think i f I

would die. I could have the baby standing up and I wouldn’t

make any noise. M y room is small but I can hide behind the

door.

T W O

In 1961 and 1962

(Age 14, 15, 16)

M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe

only boys are named it. I live in the U . S . A. I was bom down

the street from Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street in

Camden in 1946, after the war, after the bomb. I was the first

generation after the bomb. I’ve always known I would die.

Other generations didn’t think so. Everyone says I’m sad but

I’m not sad. It doesn’t make me sad. The houses were brick,

the brick was made o f blood and straw, there was dust and dirt

on the sidewalks, the sidewalks were gray, the cement was

cracked, it was dark, always dark, thick dark you could reach

out and touch and it came down all around you and you could

feel it weighing on you and bumping up against you and

ramming you from behind. Y o u m oved against the dark or

under it or it pushed you from behind. The dark was

everything. Y o u had to learn to read it with your fingers or

you would be lost; might die. The cement was next, a great

gray desert. Y ou were on it, stuck and abandoned, a great gray

plain going on forever. They made you fall on your knees on

the cement and stay there so the dark could come and get you.

The dark pushed you, the cement was the bed, you fell on

your knees, the dark took you, the cement cradled you, a

harsh, angry embrace tearing the skin o ff your knees and

hands. Some places there is a great, unbearable wind, and the

fragile human breaks in it, bends in it, falls. Here there was this

dark; like the great, unbearable wind but perfectly still, quiet,

thick; it pushed without moving. Them in the dark, the

cement was the bed, a cold slat o f death, a grave with no rest,

the best bed you could get, the best bed you would ever have,

you fell forward on your knees pushed by the dark from

behind and the dark banged into you or sometimes there were

boys in cars flying by in the dark and then coming around

from behind, later, the same ones; or sometimes different

ones. The dark was some army o f them, some mass, a creature

from the deep, the blob, a giant parasite, some spreading

monster, pods, wolfmen. They called you names and they

hissed, hot steam o ff their tongues. They followed you in

beat-up cars or they just stood around and they whistled and

made noises, and the dark pushed you down and banged into

you and you were on your hands and knees, the skin torn off,

not praying, waiting, wanting all right, wanting for the dark

to move o ff you, pick itself up and run. The dark was hissing

and hot and hard with a jagged bone, a cold, brutal bone, and

hips packed tight. The dark wasn’t just at night. The dark was

any time, any place; you open your eyes and the dark is there,

right up against you, pressing. You can’t see anything and you

don’t know any names, not who they are or the names for

what they do; the dark is all you know, familiar, old, from

long ago, is it Nino or Joe or Ken or Curt, curly hair or

straight, hard hips, tight, driven, familiar with strange words

whispered in your ear, like wind lashing it. Do they see you,

do they know your name? I’m Andrea you whisper in the dark

and the dark whispers back, okay babe; shut up babe; that’s

cool babe; that’s a pretty name babe; and pulls out all the w ay

and drives back in, harder, more. Nino is rough and bad, him

and his friend, and he says what’s w rong with making love

here, right now, on this lunch counter. We are in Lits. I’m

alone, a grown-up teenage girl; at the lunch counter, myself.

They come up to me. I don’t know the name o f the other one. I

have never heard anyone say “ making love” before. Nino

takes the salt shaker and the pepper shaker from the counter

and he rubs them against each other, slow , and he talks staring

at me so I can’t m ove m y head aw ay from his eyes and he says

w hat’s w rong with it, here, now , in the daytime, on this lunch

counter, you and me, now, and I don’t know w hat’s w rong

with it; is N ino one o f them, in the dark? Stuart is m y age from

school before he stopped coming and went bad and started

running with gangs and he warned me to stay aw ay from him

and Nino who is older and bad and where they go. N ino has a

knife. I write m y first poem for Nino; I want it to be N ino; I’d

touch him back. I ran away lots o f times. I was on the bus to

N ew Y o rk lots o f times. I necked with old men I found on the

bus lots o f times. I necked with Vincent and Charles different

times, adults, Vincent had gray hair and a thick foreign accent,

Italian, and Charles had a hard, bronze face and an accent you

could barely hear from someplace far, far away, and they liked

fifteen-year-old girls; and they whispered deep, horsey,

choked words and had wet mouths; and you crunched down

in the seats and they kissed you all over, then with their hands

they took your head and forced it into their laps. One became a

famous m ovie star and I went to watch him in cow boy films.

He was the baddie but he was real nice to me. I said I wanted to

be a writer, a real writer, a great writer like Rimbaud or

D ostoevsky. He didn’t laugh. He said we were both artists and

it was hard. He said, Andrea, that’s a pretty name. He said

follow your dream, never give up, it takes a long time, years

even, and we slouched down in the seats. I knew the highw ay

to N ew Y o rk and the streets when I got there. I knew the back

alleys in Philadelphia too but I didn’t like Philadelphia. It was

fake, pretend folksingers and pretend guitar players and

pretend drug dealers, all attitude, some pot, nothing hard,

pretend poets, a different attitude, no poems. Y o u couldn’t get

lost in the dark, it w asn’t dense enough, it w asn’t desolate

enough, it was safe really, a playpen, the fake girls went there

to not get hurt, to have regular boyfriends, to pretend they

were different or bad; but I was really lost so I had to be lost,

not pretend, in a dark as hard and unyielding as the cement

under it. In N ew Y ork I got o ff the bus dank from old Charles,

old Vincent, he walked away, wet, rumpled, not •looking

back, and I had some dollars in my hand, and I took the A train

to Greenwich Village, and I went to the Eighth Street

Bookstore, the center o f the universe, the place where real

poets went, the most incredible place on earth, they made

beauty from the dark, the gray, the cement, your head down

in someone’s lap, the torn skin on your bruised knees, your

bloody hands; it wasn’t the raspy, choked, rough whisper, it

was real beautiful words with the perfect shape and sound and

filled with pain and rage and pure, perfect; and I looked

everywhere, at every book, at every poem, at every play, and I

touched every book o f poems, I just touched them, just passed

my hand over them, and I bought any poems I had money for,

sometimes it was just a few pages stapled together with print

on it, and I kept them with me and I could barely breathe, and I

knew names no one else knew, Charles Olsen, Robert

Duncan, Gregory Corso, Anselm Hollo, Leroi Jones,

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Patchen, Robert Creeley,

Kenneth Rexroth; and when Allen Ginsberg had new poems I

almost died, Allen Ginsberg who was the most perfect and the

bravest and the best and the words were perfect beauty and

perfect power and perfect pain and I carried them with me and

read them, stunned and truly trembling inside because they

went past all lies to something hidden inside; and I got back on

the bus and I got back to Camden and I had the poems and

someday it would be me. I wrote words out on paper and hid

them because my mother would say they were dirty words; all

the true words were dirty words. I wrote private, secret words

in funny-shaped lines. Y ou could take the dark— the thick,

mean, hard, sad dark— the gray cement, lonely as death, cold

as death, stone cold, the torn skin, you on your knees your

hands bleeding on the cold cement, and you could use words

to say I am— I am, I want, I know , I feel, I see. N in o ’s knife,

cold, on the edge o f m y skin down m y back, the cement

underneath: I want, I know, I feel; then he tears you apart from

behind, inside. Y ou could use words to say what it was and

how it felt, the dark banging into you, pressing up against you,

pinning you down, a suffocating mask over your face or a

granite mountain pressing you under it, you’re a fossil, delicate,

ancient, buried alive and perfectly preserved, some bones

between the mountain and the level ground, pressed flat on the

cement under the dark, the great, still, thick, heavy dark. Y ou

could sing pain soft or you could holler; you could use the

voices o f the dead i f you had to, the other skeletons pressed in

the cement. Y ou could write the words on the cement blind in

the dark, pushed on your knees, a finger dipped in blood; or

pushed flat, the dark on you, the cement under you, N in o ’s

knife touching the edge o f your skin. The poems said: Andrea,

me too, I’m on m y knees, afraid and alone, and I sing; I’m

pushed flat, rammed, torn up, and I sing; I weep, I rage, I sing; I

hurt, I’m sad, I sing; I want, I’m lost, I sing. Y ou learned the

names o f things, the true names, short, abrupt, unkind, and

you learned to sing them, your heart soared from them, the

song o f them, the great, simple music o f them. The dark

stayed dark and hard but now it had a sound in it, a bittersweet

lyric, music carried on the edge o f a broken line. Then m y

m omma found the words I wrote and called me awful names,

foul names, in a screaming voice, in filthy hate, she screamed I

was dirty, she screamed she wanted me o ff the face o f the

earth, she screamed she’d lock me up. I left on the bus to N ew

Y ork . N o one’s locking me up. When the men said the names

they whispered and touched you; and flat on the cement, still

there were no locks, no walls. When the men said the names

they were all tangled in you and their skin was melting into

you the w ay night covers everything, they curved and curled.

There was the edge o f N in o’s knife on your skin, down your

back, with him in you and the cement under you, your skin

scraped away, burned o ff almost, the sweat on you turning as

cold as the edge o f his knife; try to breathe. She screamed

foul hate and spit obscene words and tore up all your things, all

your poems you had bought and the words you had written;

and she said she’d lock you up; no one locks me up. Men

whispered the same names she said and touched you all over,

they were on you, they covered you, they hid you, they were

the weight o f midnight on you, a hundred years o f midnight,

they held you down and kept you still and it was the only

stillness you had and you could hear a heartbeat; men

whispered names and touched you all over. Men wanted you

all the time and never had enough o f you and the cement was a

great, gray plain stretching out forever and you could wander

on it forever, free, with signs that they had been there and

promises they would come back, abrasions, burns, thin,

exquisite cuts; not locked up. Under them, covered, buried,

pinned still— the dark ramming into you— you could hear a

heartbeat. And somewhere there were ones who could sing.

Whisper; touch everywhere; sing.

T H R E E

In January 1965

(Age 18)

M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage, from the

ancient Greek. I found this in Paul Tillich, although I like

Martin Buber better because I believe in pure love, I-Thou,

love without boundaries or categories or conditions or

making someone less than you are; not treating people like

they are foreign or lower or things, I-It. Prejudice is I-It and

hate is I-It and treating people like dirt is I-It. In Europe only

boys are named Andrea, Andre, Andreus, but m y mother

didn’t know that and so I got named Andrea because she

thought it was pretty. Philosophy comes from Europe but

poetry comes from America too. I was born down the street

from Walt Whitman’s house, on M ickle Street in Cam den,

N ew Jersey, in 1946, after the bomb. I’m not sad but I wish

everyone didn’t have to die. Everyone will burn in a split

second, even less, they w o n ’t even know it but I bet it will hurt

forever; and then there will be nothing, forever. I can’t stand it

because it could be any second at all, just even this second now

or the next one, but I try not to think about it. I fought it for

a while, when I had hope and when I loved everyone, I-Thou,

not I-It, and I suffered to think they would die. When I was

fourteen I refused to face the wall during a bomb drill. T hey

would ring a bell and we all had to file out o f class, in a line, and

stand four or five deep against a wall in the hall and you had to

put your hands behind your head and your elbows over your

ears and it hurt to keep your arms like that until they decided

the bomb wasn’t coming this time. I thought it was stupid so I

wouldn’t do it. I said I wanted to see it coming if it was going

to kill me. I really did want to see it. O f course no one would

see it coming, it was too fast, but I wanted to see something, I

wanted to know something, I wanted to know that this was it

and I was dying. It would just be a tiny flash o f a second, so

small you couldn’t even imagine it, but I wanted it whatever it

was like. I wanted my whole life to go through m y brain or to

feel m yself dying or whatever it was. I didn’t want to be facing

a wall pretending tomorrow was coming. I said it outraged

m y human dignity to have my elbows over m y ears and be

facing a wall and just waiting like an asshole when I was going

to die; but they didn’t think fourteen-year-olds had any

human dignity and you weren’t allowed to say asshole even

the minute before the bomb came. They punished me or

disciplined me or whatever it is they think they’re doing when

they threaten you all the time. The bomb was coming but I

had to stay after school. I was supposed to be frightened o f

staying after school instead o f the bomb or more than the

bomb. Adults are so awful. Their faces get all pulled and tight

and mean and they want to hit you but the law says they can’t

so they make you miserable for as long as they can and they

call your parents to say you are bad and they try to get your

parents to hit you because it’s legal and to punish you some

more. You ask them why you have to cover your ears with

your elbows and they tell you it is so your ear drums w on ’t get

hurt from the noise. They consult each other in whispers and

this is the answer they come up with. I said I thought m y ear

drums would probably burn with the rest o f me so I got

punished more. I kept waiting to see them wink or smile or

laugh or something even just among themselves even though

it w ouldn’t be nice to show they knew it was crap but they

acted serious like they meant it. They kept telling you that you

were supposed to respect them but you would have had to take

stupid pills. I kept thinking about what it meant that this was

m y life and I was going to die and I thought I could say asshole

i f I wanted and face whatever w ay I wanted and I didn’t

understand w hy I couldn’t take a walk in the fucking spring air

if I wanted but I knew i f I tried they would hurt me by making

me into a juvenile delinquent which was a trick they had if you

did things they didn’t like. I kept reading Buber and tried to

say I-Thou but they were I-It material no matter how hard I

tried. I thought maybe he had never encountered anything like

them where he lived. I kept writing papers for English on

Buber’s philosophy so I could keep in touch with I-Thou even

though I was surrounded by I-It. I tried to reason it out but I

couldn’t. I mean, they were going to die too and all they could

think o f was keeping you in line and stopping you from

whispering and making you stare at a wall. I kept thinking

they were ghosts already, just dead already. Sometimes I

thought that was the answer— adults were dead people in

bodies giving stupid orders. They thought I was fresh but it

was nothing like what I felt inside. Outside I was calm. Inside I

kept screaming in m y brain: are you alive, are you zombies,

the bomb is coming, assholes. Why do we have to stand in

line? W hy aren’t we allowed to talk? Can I kiss Paul S. now?

Before I die; fast; one time? In your last fucking minute on

earth can’t you do one fucking human thing like do something

or say something or believe something or show something or

cry or laugh or teach us how to fight the Goddamn Russians or

anything, anything, and not just make us stand here and be

quiet like assholes? I wanted to scream and in m y brain I

screamed, it was a real voice screaming like something so loud

it could make your head explode but I was too smart to scream

in real life so I asked quietly and intelligently w hy we couldn’t

talk and they said we might miss important instructions. I

mean: important instructions; do you grasp it? I didn’t scream

because I knew there might be a tom orrow but one day there

wouldn’t and I would be as big an asshole as the teachers not to

have screamed, a shithead hypocrite because I didn’t believe

tom orrow was coming, one day it wouldn’t come, but I

would die pretending like them, acting nice, not screaming. I

wanted to scream at them and make them tell me the truth—

would there be a tomorrow or not? When I was a child they

made us hide under our desks, crawl under them on our knees

and keep our heads down and cover our ears with our elbows

and keep our hands clasped behind our heads. I use to pray to

God not to have it hurt when the bomb came. They said it was

practice for when the Russians bombed us so we would live

after it and I was as scared as anyone else and I did what they

said, although I wondered why the Russians hated us so much

and I was thinking there must be a Russian child like me,

scared to die. You can’t help being scared when you are so

little and all the adults say the same thing. Y ou have to believe

them. You had to stay there for a long time and be quiet and

your shoulders would hurt because you had to stay under your

desk which was tiny even compared to how little you were

and you didn’t know what the bomb was yet so you thought

they were telling the truth and the Russians wanted to hurt

you but if you stayed absolutely still and quiet on your knees

and covered your ears underneath your desk the Russians

couldn’t. I wondered if your skin just burned o ff but you

stayed on your knees, dead. Everyone had nightmares but the

adults didn’t care because it kept you obedient and that was

what they wanted; they liked keeping you scared and making

you hide all the time from the bomb under your desk. Adults

told terrible lies, not regular lies; ridiculous, stupid lies that

made you have to hate them. They would say anything to

make you do what they wanted and they would make you

afraid o f anything. N o one ever told so many lies before,

probably. When the Bay o f Pigs came, all the girls at school

talked together in the halls and in the lunchrooms and said the

same thing: we didn’t want to die virgins. N o one said anyone

else was lying because we thought we were all probably going

to die that day and there w asn’t any point in saying someone

wasn’t a virgin and you couldn’t know , really, because boys

talked dirty, and no one said they w eren’t because then you

would be low-life, a dirty girl, and no one would talk to you

again and you would have to die alone and if the bomb didn’t

come you might as well be dead. Girls were on the verge o f

saying it but no one dared. O f course now the adults were

saying everything was fine and no bomb was com ing and

there was no danger; we didn’t have to stand in the halls, not

that day, the one day it was clear atomic death was right there,

in N ew Jersey. But we knew and everyone thought the same

thing and said the same thing and it was the only thought we

had to say how sad we were to die and everyone giggled and

was almost afraid to say it but everyone had been thinking the

same thing all night and wanted to say it in the morning before

we died. It was like a record we were making for ourselves, a

history o f us, how we had lived and been cheated because we

had to die virgins. We said to each other that it’s not fair we

have to die now, today; we didn’t get to do anything. We said

it to each other and everyone knew it was true and then when

we lived and the bomb didn’t come we never said anything

about it again but everyone hurried. We hurried like no one

had ever hurried in the history o f the world. O ur mothers

lived in dream time; no bomb; old age; do it the first time after

marriage, one man or yo u ’ll be cheap; time for them droned

on. B ay o f Pigs meant no more time. They don’t care about

w hy girls do things but we know things and we do things;

w e’re not just animals who don’t mind dying. The houses

where I lived were brick; the streets were cement, gray; and I

used to think about the three pigs and the bad w o lf blow ing

down their houses but not the brick one, how the brick one

was strong and didn’t fall down; and I would try to think i f the

brick ones would fall down when the bomb came. They

looked like blood already; blood-stained walls; blood against

the gray cement; and they were already broken; the bricks

were torn and crumbling as if they were soft clay and the

cement was broken and cracked; and I would watch the houses

and think maybe it was like with the three pigs and the big bad

w o lf couldn’t blow them down, the big bad bomb. I thought

maybe we had a chance but if we lived in some other kind o f

house we wouldn’t have a chance. I tried to think o f the bomb

hitting and the brick turned into blood and dust, red dust

covering the cement, wet with real blood, but the cement

would be dust too, gray dust, red dust on gray dust, just dust

and sky, everything gone, the ground just level everywhere

there was. I could see it in my mind, with me sitting in the

dust, playing with it, but I wouldn’t be there, it would be red

dust on gray dust and nothing else and I wouldn’t even be a

speck. I thought it would be beautiful, real pure, not ugly and

poor like it was now, but so sad, a million years o f nothing,

and tidal waves o f wind would come and kill the quiet o f the

dust, kill it. I went away to N ew Y ork C ity for freedom and it

meant I went away from the red dust, a picture bigger than the

edges o f m y mind, it was a red landscape o f nothing that was in

me and that I put on everything I saw like it was burned on my

eyes, and I always saw Camden that way; in m y inner-mind it

was the landscape o f where I lived. It didn’t matter that I went

to Point Zero. It would just be faster and I hadn’t been hiding

there under the desk afraid. I hate being afraid. I hadn’t grown

up there waiting for it to happen and making pictures o f it in

m y mind seeing the terrible dust, the awful nothing, and I

hadn’t died there during the Bay o f Pigs. The red dust was

Camden. Y ou can’t forgive them when you’re a child and they

make you afraid. So you go away from where you were afraid.

Some stay; some go; it’s a big difference, leaving the

humiliations o f childhood, the morbid fear. We didn’t have

much to say to each other, the ones that left and the ones that

stayed. Children get shamed by fear but you can’t tell the

adults that; they don’t care. They make children into dead

things like they are. If there’s something left alive in you, you

run. Y ou run from the poor little child on her knees; fear

burned the skin o ff all right; she’s still on her knees, dead and

raw and tender. N ew Y o rk ’s nothing, a piece o f cake; you

never get afraid like that again; not ever. I live where I can find

a bed. Men roll on top, fuck, roll off, shoot up, sleep, roll on

top again. In between you sleep. It’s how it is and it’s fine. I

never did feel more at home. It’s as i f I was always there. It’s

familiar. The streets are the same gray, home. Fucking is

nothing really. Hiding from the law and dumb adults is

ordinary life; yo u ’re always hiding from them anyw ay unless

yo u ’re one o f their robots. I hate authority and it’s no jo k e and

it’s no game; I want them dead all right, all the order givers.

N ew Y o r k ’s home because there’s other people the same; we

know each other as much as you have to, not much. The only

other w ay is the slow time o f mothers; facing a wall, staring at

a blank wall, for life, one man, forever, marriage, the living

dead. I don’t want to be like them. I never will be. I’m not

afraid o f dying and I’m not standing quiet at some wall; the

bomb comes at me, I’m going to hurl m yself into it; flashfly

into its fucking face. I’m fine on the streets. I’m not afraid; o f

fucking or anyone; and there’s nothing I’m afraid of. I have

ideals about peace and freedom and it doesn’t matter what the

adults think, because they lie and they’re stupid. I’m sincere

and smarter than them. I believe in universal love. I want to

love everybody even if I don’t know them and not to have

small minds like the adults. I don’t mind if people are strangers

or how they look and no matter how raw som ebody is they’re

human; it’s the plastic ones that aren’t human. I don’t need a

lot, a place to sleep, some money, almost none, cigarettes.

Everyone in this place knows something, jazz or poems or

anarchism or dope or books I never heard o f before, and they

don’t like the bomb. T h ey’ve lived and they don’t hide from

knowing things and sex is the main w ay you live— adults say it

isn’t but they never told the truth yet. N ew Y o rk ’s the whole

world, it’s like living inside a heartbeat, you know, like a

puppy you can put your head up against the ticking when

you’re lonely and when you want to move the beat’s behind

you. I don’t need things. I’m not an American consumer. I’m

on the peace side and I have ideals about freedom and I don’t

want anyone telling me what to do, I’ve had enough o f it, I’m

against war, I go to demonstrations, I’m a pacifist, I have been

since I can remember. I read books and I go to places in N ew

Y ork, churches and bare rooms even, and I hear people read

poems and in m y mind I am with Sartre or Camus or Rimbaud

and I want to show love to everyone and not be confined and

sex is honest, it’s not a lie, and I like to feel things, strong

things. In N ew Y ork there’s people like me everywhere,

hiding where regular people don’t look, in every shadow

there’s the secret people. There are pockets o f dark in the dark

and the people like me are in them, poor, with nothing, not

afraid, I’m never afraid. It’s as if every crack in the sidewalk is

an open door to somewhere; you can go between the cracks to

the hidden world but regular people never even see the cracks.

People the same as you go through the cracks because they’re

not afraid and you meet them there, in the magic places, real

old from other generations even, hidden, some great underground city, dirty, hard, dark, free. There’s always sex and dope and you can get pretty hungry but you can get things if

you have to; there’s always someone. I never doubted it was

home from the start; where I was meant to come. I’m known

and invisible at the same time; fitting in but always going m y

own way, a shy girl alone in a dark corner o f the dark, the

dark’s familiar to me and so are the men in it, no rules can ever

stop night from putting its arms around a lonely girl. I like

doing what I want no matter what it is and I like drifting and I

run i f I have to; someone’s always there, kind or otherwise,

you decide quick. I love the dark, it’s got no rough edges for

me. I hear every sound without trying. I feel as if I was born

knowing every signal. I’m an animal on instinct lucky to be in

the right jungle, a magic animal charged with everything

intense and sacred, and I hate cages. I’m the night, the same.

Y ou have to hurt it to hurt me. I am one half o f everything

lawless the night brings, every lawless embrace. I can smell

where to turn in the dark, it’s not something you can know in

your head. It’s a whisper so quiet not even the dead could hear

it. It’s touching fire so fast you don’t burn your hand but the

fire’s real. I don’t know much, not what things are called or

how to do them right or how people act all the regular times.

Everything is ju st what it is to me with nothing to measure it

against and no w ay to check and I don’t have any tom orrow

and I don’t have a yesterday that I can remember because the

days and nights just go on and on and never stop and never

slow down and never turn regular; nothing makes time

normal. I have nineteen cents, I buy a big purple thing, it’s

with the vegetables, a sign says eggplant, it’s the cheapest

thing there is, I never saw one before, I try to cook it in m y one

pan in a little water, I eat it, you bet I do, it’s an awful thing, I

see w hy momma always used vegetables in cans but they cost

more. I buy rice in big unmarked bags, I think it’s good for

you because Asian people eat it and they have lived for

centuries no matter how poor they are and they have an old

civilization so it must be good but then someone says it has

starch and starch is bad so I stop buying it because the man’s very

disapproving as if I should know better because it makes you fat

he says. I just boil what there is. I buy whatever costs what I have

in m y pocket. I don’t know what people are talking about

sometimes but I stay quiet because I don’t want to appear so

ignorant to them, for instance, there are funny words that I

can’t even try to say because I think they will laugh at me but I

heard them once like zucchini, and if someone makes something and hands it to me I eat it. Sometimes someone asks me if

I like this or that but I don’t know what they mean and I stare

blankly but I smile and I don’t know what they think but I try

to be polite. I worked at the Student Peace Union and the War

Resisters League to stop the bomb and I was a receptionist at a

place that taught reading and I was a waitress at a coffee shop

that poured coffee-to-go and I typed and carried packages and

I went with men and they had smoke or food or music or a

place to sleep. I didn’t get much money and I didn’t keep any

jobs because mostly I lived in pretty bad places or on the streets

or in different places night to night and I guess the regular

people didn’t like it or wanted to stay away but I didn’t care or

think about it and I never thought about being regular or

looking regular or acting regular; I did what I wanted from

what there was and I liked working for peace and the rest was

for cigarettes. I slept in living rooms, on cots, on floors, on

soiled mattresses, in beds with other people I didn’t know who

fucked while I slept, in Brooklyn, in Spanish Harlem, near

Tompkins Square Park, in abandoned buildings, in parks, in

hallways, curled up in corners. Y ou can build your own walls.

Even the peace people had apartments and pretty things and

warm food, it seemed regular and abundant but I don’t know,

I never asked them for anything but sometimes someone took

me home and I could see. I didn’t know where it came from; it

was just like some play with scenery. They had plants or

pretty rugs or wool things or pots; posters; furniture; heat;

food; things around. I tried to live in a collective on Avenue B

and I was supposed to have a bed and we were going to cook

and all but that was where the junkies kept rolling on top o f me

because the collective would never tell anyone they couldn’t

sleep there and I never was there early enough so there wasn’t

someone asleep where I thought was mine. I never did really

sleep very well, it’s sort o f a lie to say I could sleep with junkies

rolling over on top o f me, a little bravado on m y part, except I

fell o ff to sleep, or some state o f less awake, and then it’d

happen. Y ou are always awake a little. I lived in a living room

o f a woman for peace who lived with her brother. He slept in

the living room, she slept in the bedroom, but she put me in

the living room with him. He breathed heavy and stayed up

watching me and I had to move out because she said he

couldn’t sleep. I stayed anywhere I could for as long as I could

but it w asn’t too long usually. I slept on benches and in

doorways. D oorw ays can be like palaces in the cold, in the

dark, when it’s wet; doorways are strong; you feel sheltered,

like in the arms o f God, unless the wind changes and comes

right at you and drives through you; then you wake up already

shivering, sleep pulling you down because you want to believe

you are only dreaming the wind is driving through you, but

you started to shake unconscious and the cold permeates your

body before you can bring your mind to facing it. Y ou can’t

find any place in N ew Y ork that doesn’t have me in it. I’m

stuck in the dark, m y remembrance, a shadow, a shade, an

old, dark scar that keeps tearing, dark edges ripping, dark

blood spilling out, there’s a piece left o f me, faded, pasted onto

every night, the girl who wanted peace. Later I found out it

was Needle Park or Bed-Stuy or there were whores there or it

was some kind o f sociological phenomenon and someone had

made a documentary showing the real shit, some intrepid

filmmaker, some hero. It never happened. N o one ever

showed the real shit because it isn’t photogenic, it doesn’t

stand still, people just live it, they don’t know it or conceptualize it or pose for it or pretend it and you don’t get to do it over i f you make a mistake. Y ou just get nailed. Fucked or hit

or hurt or ripped o ff or poisoned with bad shit or yo u ’re just

dead; there’s no art to it. There’s more o f me stuck in that old

night than anywhere. Y o u don’t just remember it; it remem

bers you; Andrea, it says, I know you. Y ou do enough in it and

it takes you with it and I’m there in it, every night on every

street. When the dark comes, I come, every night, on every

street, until N ew Y ork is gone; I’m alive there in the dark

rubbing up against anything flesh-and-blood, not a poor,

homeless girl but a brazen girl-for-peace, hungry, tired,

waiting for you, to rub up against you, take what you have,

get what you got; peace, freedom, love, a fuck, a shy smile,

some quarters or dimes or dollars. The dark’s got a little anger

in it m oving right up against you. You can feel it pushing right

up against you now and then, a burning flash across your

thing; that’s me, I’m there, Andrea, a charred hallucination,

you know the w ay the dark melts in front o f you, I’m the

charred thing in the melting dark, the dark fire, dark ash

burned black; and you walk on, agitated, to find a living one,

not a shade stuck in midnight but some poor, trembling, real

girl, hungry enough even to smile at you. That’s m y home

you’re misbehaving in with your mischievous little indulgences, your secret little purchases o f girls and acts, because I was on every street, in every alley, fucked there, slept there,

got drugs there, found a bed for my weary head; oh, it got

weary; curled up under something, a little awake. C an’t be.

N o one can live that way. C an’t be. Isn’t true. C an’t be. Was.

Was. I wasn’t raped really until I was eighteen, pretty old.

Well, I wasn’t really raped. Rape is just some awful word. It’s a

w ay to say it was real bad; worse than anything. I was a pacifist

and I didn’t believe in hurting anyone and I wouldn’t hurt

anyone. I had been eighteen for a couple o f months; o f legal

age. It was winter. Cold. Y ou don’t forget winter. I was

w orking for peace groups and for nonviolence. It wouldn’t be

fair to call it rape; to him; it wouldn’t be fair to him. I wasn’t a

virgin or anything; he forced me but it was m y own fault. I

was working at the Student Peace Union then and at the War

Resisters League. I typed and I answered phones and I tried to

be in the meetings but they didn’t really ever let me talk and I

helped to organize demonstrations by calling people on the

phones and I helped to write leaflets. They didn’t really believe

in rape, I think. I couldn’t ask anyone or tell anyone because

they would just say how I was bourgeois, which was this

word they used all the time. Women were it more than

anybody. They were hip or cool or hipsters or bohemians or

all those words you could see in newspapers on the Low er East

Side but anytime a woman said something she was bourgeois.

I knew what it meant but I didn’t know how to say it w asn’t

right. They believed in nonviolence and so did I, one hundred

percent. I w ouldn’t hurt anybody even if he did rape me but he

probably didn’t. Men were supposed to go crazy and kill

someone if he was a rapist but they wouldn’t hurt him for raping

me because they didn’t believe in hurting anyone and because I

was bourgeois and anything that brought me down lower to the

people was okay and if it hurt me I deserved it because if you

were bourgeois female you were spoiled and had everything and

needed to be fucked more or to begin with. At the Student Peace

Union there were boys m y age but they were treated like grown

men by everyone around there and they bossed me around and

didn’t listen to anything I said except to make fun o f it and no one

treated me as if I knew anything, which maybe I didn’t, but the

boys were pretty ignorant pieces o f shit, I can tell you that. I was

confused by it but I kept working for peace. These boys all called

momma at home; I heard them. I didn’t. There were adults,

some really old, at the War Resisters League but to me they

weren’t anything like the adults from school. They were heroes

to me. They had gone to jail for things they believed in. They

weren’t afraid and they didn’t follow laws and they didn’t act

dead and they had sex and they didn’t lie about it and they didn’t

act like there was all the time in the world because they knew

there wasn’t. They stood up to the government. They weren’t

afraid. One had been a freedom rider in the South and he got

beaten up so many times he was like a punched-out prizefighter.

He could barely talk he had been beaten up so much. I didn’t try

to talk to him or around him because I held him in awe. I thought

I would be awfully proud if I was him but he wasn’t proud at all,

just quiet and shy. Sometimes I wondered if he could remember

anything; but maybe he knew everything and was just humble

and brave. I have chosen to think so. He did things like I did,

typed and put out mailings and put postage on envelopes and ran

errands and got coffee; he didn’t order anyone around. They

were all brave and smart. One wrote poems and lots o f them

wrote articles and edited newsletters and magazines. One wrote

a book I had read in high school, not in class o f course, about

freedom and utopia, but when I asked him to read a poem I

wrote— I asked a secretary who knew him to ask him because I

was too shy— he wouldn’t and the secretary said he hated

women. He had a wife and there was a birthday party for him

one day and his wife brought a birthday cake and he wouldn’t

speak to her. Everyone said he had boys. His wife was

embarrassed and just kept talking, just on and on, and everyone

was embarrassed but no one made him talk to her or thank her

and I stayed on the outside o f the circle that was around him to

think if it was possible that he hated women, even his wife, and

w hy he would be mean to her as if she didn’t exist. Y o u ’d thank

anyone for a birthday cake. From his book I thought he was

wise. I thought he loved everyone. And if he hated women and

everyone knew it how come they were so nice to him because

hate wasn’t nonviolence. When he died a few years later I felt

relieved. I wondered if his wife was sad or if she felt relieved. I

suppose she was sad but why? I thought he was this one hateful

man but the others were the great I-Thous, the real I-Thous;

fighting militarism; wanting peace; writing; I wanted to be the

same. The I-Its were the regular people on the streets dressed in

suits all the same like robots busy going to business and women

with lacquered hair in outfits. But when the boys who wanted to

be conscientious objectors came in for help there were always

a lot o f jokes about rape. I didn’t see how you could make

jokes about rape i f you were against violence; maybe rape

barely existed at all but it was pretty awful. The pacifists and

w ar resisters would counsel the conscientious objectors about

what to say to the draft boards. Vietnam was pulling all these

boys to be killers. The draft board always asked what the c. o. ’s

would do i f their mother was raped or their girlfriend or their

sister and it was a big joke. The pacifists and the c. o . ’s would

say things like they would let her have a good time. I don’t

remember all the things they said but they would laugh and

jo k e about it; it always made me sort o f sick but if I tried to say

something they w ouldn’t listen and I didn’t know what to say

anyway. Eventually the pacifists would tell the c. o. ’s the right

w ay to answer the question. It was a lofty answer about never

using violence under any circumstance however tragic or

painful but it was a lie because none o f them ever thought it

was anything to have their girlfriend raped or their mother.

They always thought it was funny and they always laughed; so

it wasn’t violence because they never laughed at violence. So

I’m not sure i f rape even really existed because these pacifists

really cared about violence and they never would turn their

backs on violence. They cared about social justice. They cared

about peace. They cared about racism. They cared about

poverty. They cared about everything bad that happened to

people. It was confusing that they didn’t care about rape, or

thought it was a joke, but then I wasn’t so sure what rape was

exactly. I knew it was horrible. I always had a picture in my

mind o f a woman with her clothes torn, near dead, on the floor,

unable to move because she was beaten up so bad and hurt so

much, especially between her legs. I always thought the Nazis

had done it. The draft board always asked about the Nazis:

would you have fought against the Nazis, suppose the Nazis

tried to rape your sister. They would rehearse how to answer the

draft board and then, when it came to the rape part, they always

laughed and madejokes. I would be typing because I never got

to talk or they would act irritated if I did or they would just

keep talking to each other anyway over me and I felt upset and

I would interrupt and say, well, I mean, rape is. . . . but I

could never finish the sentence, and if I’d managed to get their

attention, sometimes by nearly crying, they’d all just stare and

I’d go blank. It was a terrifying thing and you would be so

hurt; how could they laugh? And you wouldn’t want a Nazi to

come anywhere near you, it would just be foul. The Nazis, I

would say, trying to find a way to say— bad, very bad. Rape is

very bad, I wanted to say, but I could only say Nazis are very

bad. What’s bad about fucking my sister, someone would say;

always; every time. Then they’d all laugh. So I wasn’t even

sure if there was rape. So I don’t think I could have been raped

even though I think I was raped but I know I wasn’t because it

barely existed or it didn’t exist at all and if it did it was only

with Nazis; it had to be as bad as Nazis. I didn’t want the man

to be fucking me but, I mean, that doesn’t really matter; it’s

just that I really tried to stop him, I really tried not to have him

near me, I really didn’t want him to and he really hurt me so

much so I thought maybe it was rape because he hurt me so

bad and I didn’t want to so much but I guess it wasn’t or it

doesn’t matter. I had this boyfriend named Arthur, a sweet

man. He was older; he had dignity. He wasn’t soft, he knew

the streets; but he didn’t need to show anything or prove

anything. He just lived as far as I could see. He was a waiter in a

bar deep in the Lower East Side, so deep down under a dark

sky, wretched to get there but okay inside. I was sleeping on a

floor near there, in the collective. Someone told me you could

get real cheap chicken at the bar. I would go there every night

for m y one meal, fried chicken in a basket with hot thick

french fried potatoes and ketchup for ninety-nine cents and it

was real good, real chicken, not rat meat, cooked good. He

brought me a beer but I had to tell him to take it back because J

didn’t have the money for it but he was buying it for me. Then

I went with him one night. The bar was filled and noisy and

had sawdust on the floors and barrels o f peanuts so you could

eat them without money and there were low life and artists

there. He smiled and seemed happy and also had a sadness, in

his eyes, on the edges o f his mouth. He lived in a small

apartment with two other men, one a painter, Eldridge, the

other I never met. It was tiny, up five flights on Avenue D,

with a couple o f rooms I never saw. Y ou walked in through a

tiny kitchen, all cracked wood with holes in the floor, an

ancient stove and an old refrigerator that looked like a bank

vault, round and heavy and metal, with almost no room

inside. His bed was a single bed in a kind o f living room but

not quite. There were paintings by the artist in the room. The

artist was sinewy and had a limp and was bitter, not sad, with a

mean edge to anything he said. He had to leave the room so we

could be alone. I could hear him there, listening. I stayed the

night there and I remember how it was to watch the light come

up and have someone running his finger under m y chin and

touching m y hands with his lips. I was afraid to go back to the

bar after that because I didn’t know if he’d want me to but it

was the only place I knew to get a meal for small change.

Every time he was glad to see me and he would ask me what I

wanted and he would bring me dinner and some beer and

another one later and he even gave me a dark beer to try

because I didn’t know about it and I liked it; and I would stay;

and I would go with him. I didn’t talk much because you don’t

talk to men even if they seem nice; you can never know if they

will mind or not but usually they will mind. But he asked me

things. He told me some things, hard things, about his life,

and time in jail, and troubles; and he asked me some things,

easy things, about what I did that day, or what I thought, or i f I

liked something, or how I felt, or if something felt good, or i f I

was happy, or i f l liked him. He was my lover I guess, not

really my boyfriend, because I never knew i f l should go to the

bar or not but I would and then w e’d make love and when we

made love he was a sweet man with kisses and soft talk into

sunrise and he’d hold me after and he’d touch me. Sometimes

he took me to visit people, his friends, and I was too shy to say

anything but I thought it might mean he liked me or trusted

me or had some pride in me or felt right about me and they

asked me things too and tried to talk with me. Eldridge would

come into the bar and get drinks and say something but always

something cutting or mean so I didn’t-know what to say or do

because I didn’t know i f l was supposed to be his friend or not;

only that Arthur said he loved him. I would ask him about his

paintings but he would look away. I went to the bar for a long

time, maybe three months, and I went with Arthur to where

he slept in the bed in the living room; and w e’d kiss, face to

face, and the light would come up. I learned to love dawn and

the long, slow coming o f the light. One night I went to the bar

and Arthur wasn’t nice anymore. He brought dinner to me

and he brought beer but he wouldn’t look at me or talk to me

and his face was different, with deep anger or pain or I didn’t

know what because I don’t know how to know what people

feel or think. A lot o f time went by and then I thought I should

go away and not come back but he sat down, it was a Saturday

night, early in the night because he usually worked Saturdays

until four a. m. but now it was only ten at night and it was

busy, very busy, so it wasn’t easy for him to sit down; and he

said his sister, an older sister, Caroline, was in the hospital,

and she had brought him up, and she had cancer, and she had

had cancer for a long time but now it seemed she was dying,

now, tonight, and he was hurting so bad, he was in bad grief,

sad and angry and fucked up, and he had to go to the hospital

right now and it was far away up town and it would take most

o f the night and probably she would die tonight; and would I

go to his place, he would take me there to make sure I got there

safe, and would I wait for him there— he knew I might not

want to and it was a lot to ask, but would I? And I said I was

sorry about his sister and I would go there and I would wait for

him. He took me there and he kissed me and he showed me

with courtesy to the little bed where we slept that was all made

up like a sofa in what was sort o f a living room, with the

paintings all around, and he showed me where some books

were, and he thanked me, and I said I would wait, and I was so

sorry. I waited many hours. Sometimes I walked around.

Sometimes I sat. There wasn’t enough light to read really. I

looked at the paintings. Then Eldridge came in and he touched

me on m y face and I pulled aw ay and said no and said I was

waiting for Arthur and his sister was dying o f cancer and he

was at the hospital and she was dying now, dying now, and he

said yes but I’m his friend what’s w rong with me I’m as good

as he is I’m as good; and he limped but he was tall and strong

and angry and he forced me down on the bed and he hit me flat

out with his fist in m y face and I fought him and he raped me

and pushed me and he hit me and he was in me, sitting on top

o f me, upright, m y skirt was up over m y face and he was

punching me; and after I was bleeding on m y lips and down

m y legs and I couldn’t m ove and I could hear Arthur coming

and Eldridge said, I’m his best friend and I’ll tell him you

wanted it, and he said, I’m his best friend and yo u ’ll kill him if

you tell him, and he said, he’ll kill you if you tell him because

he can’t stand any more. I straightened up the bed fast because

I could have been sleeping on it so it didn’t have to be perfect

and I straightened up m y clothes and I tried to get the blood o ff

m y face by rubbing it on m y sleeve and I sat on the edge o f the

bed with m y hands folded, waiting, and the lights were out,

and I didn’t know if Arthur would see anything on m y face,

pain or bruises or cuts, and I didn’t know what Arthur would

believe; and he said his sister had died; and he sat down next to

me and he cried; and I held him; and he asked me if everything

was all right; and I said yes; and he asked me if anything was

wrong and I said no; and he asked me if Eldridge had bothered

me and I said no; and he wanted to make love so we made love

in the dark and the pain o f him in me was like some hot,

pointed branding iron in me, an agony o f pain on pain, and I

asked God to stop the pain, I had forgotten God but I

remembered Him now and I supplicated Him with Arthur in

me asking Him to stop the pain; and the light started coming

up, so slow, and it fell, so slow, on Arthur’s grief-stricken,

tear-stained black face, a face o f aging grace and relentless

dignity, a handsome face with remorse and sorrow in it for

what he had seen and known and done, the remorse and

sorrow that is part o f any decent life, more sorrow, more

trouble than white men had, trouble because o f color and then

the burden o f regular human pain— an older sister, Caroline,

dies; and I turned my face away because I was afraid he would

see bruises or cuts where I was hit or I was afraid he could see I

was raped and I didn’t know how to explain because I had

already lied so it couldn’t be true now later and tears were

coming down my face and he touched the tears and he asked if

I was crying because I loved him and was sad for his sister and I

said yes. He slept then and I went away. I didn’t come back.

There’s this girl I loved but she disappeared a long time ago.

When we were children we played in the rubble in the street, in

the broken cement, on broken glass and with sticks and bricks

and garbage, city garbage, we made up mysteries for ourselves and enacted stories, we made great adventures in

condemned houses, deserted garages, empty, scary warehouses, we broke into cars and churches, we trembled and

held hands, w e’d wrestle and w e’d fight, we were tender and

we were fierce; and then in alleys we would kiss each other a

hundred million times. Arthur was m y lover in m y heart, a

city lover, near to her. It made me lonely, what wasn’t rape; I

disappeared from him and grief washed over me pulling me

near to her. She’d died when someone did something, no one

would say what; but she was wild and strong, a man did

something and she took pills, a beautiful girl all the adults said;

it makes you lonely, what isn’t rape. He slept, and I left; lonely

twice; for both. Y ou can love som ebody once and som ebody,

a little, once. Then it ends and yo u ’re a sad, lonely girl, though

you don’t think about it much. After, the light would come,

slow; he’d be kissing m y hands.

F O U R

In February 1965

(Age 18)

I live in a funny kind o f silence, I have all my life, a kind o f

invisible bubble. On the streets I am quiet and there is quiet all

around and no one gets through, nothing, except for the wind

sometimes bellowing in my head an awful noise o f cold

weeping. I don’t look quiet but I am quiet. People don’t see

much so they don’t see how still I am. I see the people talking,

all the people o f every kind, throwing words at everything,

throwing words at each other, throwing words at time, sitting

over coffee throwing words, peaceful or shouting, smiling or

in pain, throwing words at anything they see, anything that

walks up to them or anything that gets in their w ay or trying

to be friendly throwing words at someone who doesn’t know

them. I don’t have words to throw back. When I feel

something no right words come or no one would know what

they mean. It would be like throwing a ball that could never be

caught. They act like words are cheap and easy as if they can

just be replaced after they are used up and as if they make

things all right. if I am caught in a situation so I have to, I say

something, I say I am shy and I smile, but it’s not true, I am not

shy, I ju st don’t have these great numbers o f dozens o f words,

it’s so blank inside, so empty, no words, no sound at all, a

terrible nothing. I don’t know things. I don’t know where the

people come from when the light starts coming through the

sky. I don’t know where the cars come from, always starting

about an hour after the first trash can is pushed over by boys

running or cats looking for food. T here’s no one to ask if. I

knew how but I can’t think how. The people come out first; in

drips; then great cascades o f them. I don’t know how they got

there, inside, and how they get to stay there. I don’t know

where the cars come from or where the people get all their

coats or where the bus drivers come from in the em pty buses

that cruise the streets before the people come out. I f it’s raining

suddenly people have different clothes to stay dry in but I

don’t know where they got them or where you could go to get

them or how you would get the m oney or how they knew it

was going to rain if you couldn’t see it in the sky or smell it in

the air. I don’t know how anything w orks or how everyone

knows the things they know or w hy they all agree, for

instance, on when to all come out o f the buildings at once in a

swarm , or how they all know what to say and when. They act

like it’s clear and simple and they’re sure. I don’t have words

except for m y name, Andrea, which is the only w ord I have all

the time, which m y mom ma gave me, which I remember even

if I can’t remember anything else because sometimes I forget

everything that happened until now. Andrea is the name I had

since being a child. In school we had to write our names on our

papers so maybe I remember it from that, doing it over and

over day in, day out. And also m y mother whispered it to me

in m y ear when she was loving me when I was little. I

remember it because it was so beautiful when she said it. I

don’t exactly remember it in m y mind, more in m y heart. It

means manhood or courage and it is from Europe and she said

she was damned for naming me it because you become what

you are named for and I w asn’t the right kind o f girl at all but I

think I could never be named anything else because the sounds

o f the w ord are exactly like me in m y heart, a music in a sense

with m y m other’s voice singing it right to m y heart, it’s her

voice that breaks the silence inside me with a sound, a w ord;

m y name. It doesn’t matter w ho says it or in what w ay, I am

comforted, as if it is the whisper o f my mother when I was a

baby and safe up against her in her arms. I was only safe then in

all my life, for a while but everything ends soon. I was born

into her arms with her loving me in Camden, down the street

from where Walt Whitman lived. I liked having him there

because it meant that once it was somewhere; it meant you

could be great; it meant Camden was something; it meant

there was something past the rubble, this great gray man who

wasn’t afraid o f America and so I wasn’t afraid to go anywhere

and I could love anyone, like he said. Camden was broken

streets, broken cement, crushed gray dust, jagged, broken

cement. The houses were broken bricks, red bricks, red,

blood red, I love brick row houses, I love blood red, wine red,

crumbled into sawdust; w e’re dust too, blood red dust. It was

a cement place with broken streets and broken bricks and I

loved the cement and I loved the broken streets and I loved the

broken bricks and I never felt afraid, just alone, not sad, not

afraid. I had to go away from home early to seek freedom

which is a good thing because you don’t want to be a child for

too long. You get strong if you go away from where you are a

child; home; people say it’s home; you get strong but you

don’t have a lot o f words because people use words to talk

about things and if you don’t have things there’s few words

you need. It’s funny how silence goes with having nothing and

how you have nothing to say if you don’t have things and

words don’t mean much anyway because you can’t really use

them for anything if you have nothing. If you go away from

home you live without things. Things never mattered to me

and I never wanted them but sometimes I wanted words. I

read a lot to find words that were the right ones and I loved the

words I read but they weren’t exactly the ones. They were like

them but not them. I just moved along the streets and I took

what was coming and often I didn’t know what to call it. We

were going to die soon, that was for sure, with the bomb

coming, and there weren’t words for that either, even though

people threw words at it. Y ou could say you didn’t want to die

and you didn’t want them to wipe out the earth but w ho could

you say. it to so it would matter? I didn’t like people throwing

words at it when words couldn’t touch it, when you couldn’t

even wrap your mind around it at all. When I thought about

being safe I could hear the word Andrea coming from m y

m other’s lips when I was a baby, her mouth on me because she

loved me and I was in her arms but it ended soon. I played in

the bricks and on the cement; in rubble; in garbage; in alleys;

and I went from Camden to N ew Y o rk and the quiet was all

around me even more as if I was sinking under it sometimes;

and I thought, if your momma isn’t here to say your name

there is nothing to listen to. I f you try to say some words it is

likely people don’t understand them anyway. I don’t think

people in houses understand anything about the w ord cold. I

don’t think they understand the word wet. I don’t think you

could explain cold to them but if you did other words would

push it out o f their minds in a minute. T hat’s what they use

words for, to bury things. People learn long w ords to show

o ff but if you can’t say what cold is so people understand what

use is more syllables? I could never explain anything and I was

em pty inside where the words go but it was an emptiness that

caused vertigo, I fought against it and tried to keep standing

upright. I never knew what to call most things but things I

knew, cold or wet, didn’t mean much. Y o u could say you

were cold and people nodded or smiled. Cold. I tremble with

fear when I hear it. They know what it means on the surface

and how to use it in a sentence but they don’t know what it is,

don’t care, couldn’t remember if you told them. T h e y ’d forget

it in a minute. Cold. O r rape. Y ou could never find out what it

was from one o f them or say it to mean anything or to be

anything. Y o u could never say it so it was true. Y o u could

never say it to someone so they would help you or make

anything better or even help you a little or try to help you. Y ou

could never say it, not so it was anything. People laughed or

said something dirty. Or if you said someone did it you were

just a liar straight out; or it was you, dirty animal, who pulled

them on you to hurt you. Or if you said you were it, raped,

were it, which you never could say, but if you said it, then they

put shame on you and never looked at you again. I think so.

And it was just an awful word anyway, some awful word. I

didn’t know what it meant either or what it was, not really,

not like cold; but it was worse than cold, I knew that. It was

being trapped in night, frozen stuck in it, not the nights people

who live in houses sleep through but the nights people who

live on the streets stay awake through, those nights, the long

nights with every second ticking like a time bomb and your

heart hears it. It was night, the long night, and despair and

being abandoned by all humankind, alone on an empty planet,

colder than cold, alive and frozen in despair, alone on earth

with no one, no words and no one and nothing; cold to frozen

but cursed by being alive and nowhere near dead; stuck frozen

in nowhere; no one with no words; alone in the vagabond’s

night, not the burgher’s; in night, trapped alive in it, in

despair, abandoned, colder than cold, frozen alive, right there,

freeze flash, forever and never let loose; the sun had died so the

night and the cold would never end. God w on ’t let you loose

from it though. Y ou don’t get to die. Instead you have to stay

alive and raped but it doesn’t exist even though God made it to

begin with or it couldn’t happen and He saw it too but He is

gone now that it’s over and you’re left there no matter where

you go or how much time passes even if you get old or how

much you forget even if you burn holes in your brain. Y ou

stay smashed right there like a fly splattered over a screen,

swatted; but it doesn’t exist so you can’t think about it because

it isn’t there and didn’t happen and couldn’t happen and is only

an awful word and isn’t even a word that anyone can say and it

isn’t ever true; so you are splattered up against a night that will

go on forever except nothing happened, it will go on forever

and it isn’t anything in any w ay at all. It don’t matter anyw ay

and I can’t remember things anyw ay, all sorts o f things get

lost, I can’t remember most o f what happened to me from day

to day and I don’t know names for it anyw ay to say or who to

say it to and I live in a silence I carry that’s bigger than m y

shadow or any dark falling over me, it’s a heavy thing on m y

back and over m y head and it pours out over me down to the

ground. Words aren’t so easy anymore or they never were and

it was a lie that they seemed so. Some time ago they seemed

easier and there were more o f them. I’m Andrea but no one

says m y name so that I can hear it anymore. I go to jail against

the Vietnam War; it’s night there too, the long night, the sun is

dead, the time bomb is ticking, your heart hears it; the

vagabond’s night, not the burgher’s. I’m arrested in February.

It is cold. There is a driving wind. It slices you in pieces. It goes

right through you and comes out the other side. It freezes your

bones and your skin is a paper-thin ice, translucent. I am

against the War. I am against war. I find it easier to do things

than to say things. I am losing the w ords I had about peace.

The peace boys have all the words. The peace boys take all the

words and use them; they say them. I can’t think o f ones for

myself. T hey don’t mean what they say; words are trash to

them; it’s hollow, what they say; but the words belong to

them. In January I sat in court and saw Ja y sent aw ay for five

years to a federal prison. He w ouldn’t go to Vietnam. I sat

there and I watched and there was nothing to say. The peace

boys talked words but the words were trash. When the time

came Jay stood there, a hulking six-foot black man and I know

he wanted to cry, and the Feds took him out and he was gone

for five years. The peace boys were white. He was afraid and

the peace boys were exuberant. He didn’t have words; he

could barely say anything when the ju dge gave him his few

seconds to speak after being sentenced or before, I don’t

know, it was all predecided anyway; I think the judge said five

years then invited Ja y to speak and I swear he almost fell down

from the shock and the reality o f it and he mumbled a couple o f

words but there wasn’t anything to say and federal marshals

took him o ff and his mother and sisters were there and they

had tears, not words, and the peace boys had no tears, only

words about the struggle o f the black man against the racist

war in Vietnam, I couldn’t stop crying through the thing

which is w hy I’m not sure just when the judge said five years

and just when Ja y seemed like he was going to double over and

ju st when he was told he could say something and he tried but

couldn’t really. I’ve been organizing with the peace boys since

the beginning o f January, working to organize a demonstration at the United States Mission to the United Nations. We are going to sit in and protest Adlai Stevenson fronting for the

War. The peace boys wanted Ja y to give a speech that they

helped write and it covered all the bases, imperialism, racism,

stinking U . S. government, but it was too awful and too

tragic, and the peace boys went out disappointed that the

speech hadn’t been declaimed but regarding the trial as a

triumph; one more black man in jail for peace. I thought they

should honor him for being brave but I didn’t think they

should be jum ping for jo y ; it was too sad. They weren’t sad.

You just push people around when you organize, get them to

do what’s best for you; and if it hits you what it’s costing them

you will probably die on the spot from it. We have meetings to

work out every detail o f the demonstration. It is a w ay o f

thinking, precise, demanding, you work out every possible

scenario, anticipate every possible problem, you have the

right people at the right place at the right time, you have

everything happen that you want to have happen and nothing

that you don’t; and if something bad happens, you use it. I try

to say things but they just talk over it. if I try to say words to

them about what we are doing they don’t hear the words. I

think I am saying words but I must be mute, m y mouth makes

shapes but it must be that nothing comes out. So I stop saying

things. I listen and put stamps on envelopes. I listen and run off

addresses for envelopes on the mimeograph machine. I listen

and make phone calls to people to get them to come to the

demonstrations. I have long lists and I make the calls for hours

at a time but if I talk too long or say too much someone makes

a sarcastic remark or if I talk too much about the War as if I am

talking about politics someone tells me I am not w orking hard

enough. I listen and type letters. The peace boys scribble out

letters and I type them. I listen and learn how to make the

plans, how to organize; I take it in in a serious w ay, for later

perhaps; I like strategy. I learn how to get people to come and

exactly what to do when and what is important and how to

take care o f people and keep them safe— or expose them to

danger i f that is our plan, which they never know . I learn how

to make plans for every contingency— i f the police do this or

that, i f people going by get violent, i f the folks demonstrating

get hurt, i f the demonstrators decide to get arrested, what to

do when the police arrest you, the laws the police have to

follow , how to make your body go limp in resisting arrest,

how to get lawyers to be ready, how to get the press there,

how to rouse people and how to quiet them down. I listen so

that I learn how to think a certain w ay and answer certain hard

questions, very specific questions, about what w ill happen in

scenario after scenario; but I am not allowed to say anything

about what to do or how to do it or ask questions or the w ords

I do say ju st disappear in the air or in m y throat. The old men

really are the ones. T hey say how to do it. T hey do all the

thinking. T hey make all the plans. They think everything

through. I listen to them and I remember everything. I am

learning how to listen too, concentrate, think it hard as if

writing it down in your mind. It is not easy to listen. The peace

boys talk and never listen. The old men do it all for them, then

they swagger and take all the credit while the old men are

happy to fade to the background so the movement looks virile

and young. The peace boys talk, smoke, rant, make their

jokes, strum guitars, run their silky white hands through their

stringy long hair. They spread their legs when they talk, they

spread out, their legs open up and they spread them wide and

their sentences spread all over and their words come and come

and their gestures get bigger and they got half erect cocks all

the time when they talk, the denim o f their dirty jeans is pulled

tight across their cocks because o f how they spread their legs

and they always finger themselves just lightly when they talk

so they are always excited by what they have to say. Somehow

they are always half reclining, on chairs, on desks, on tables,

against walls or stacks o f boxes, legs spread out so they can

talk, touching themselves with the tips o f their fingers or the

palms o f their spread hands, giggling, smoking, they think

they are Che. I live in half a dozen different places: in the

collective on Avenue B on the floor, I don’t fight for the bed

anymore; in a living room in Brooklyn with a brother and a

sister, the brother sleeps in the same room and stares and

breathes heavy and I barely dare to breathe, they are pacifists

and leave the door to their ground floor apartment open all the

time out o f love for their fellow man but a mongrel bulldog-

terrier will kill anyone who comes through, this is the

Brooklyn o f elevated subways where you walk down dark,

steep flights o f stairs to streets o f knives and broken bottles, an

open door is a merciless act o f love; in an apartment in Spanish

Harlem, big, old, a beautiful labyrinth, with three men but I

only sleep with two, one’s a sailor and he likes anal intercourse

and when he isn’t there I get the single bed in his room to myself,

some nights I am in one bed half the night, then in the other bed;

some nights between places I stay with different men I don’t

know, or sometimes a woman, not a peace woman but

someone from the streets who has a hole in the wall to-

disappear into, someone hard and tough and she seen it all and

she’s got a mattress covered with old garbage, paper garbage,

nothing filthy, and old newspapers, and I lay under her, a

pretty girl up against her dry skin and bones that feel like

they’re broke, her callouses, her scars, bad teeth but her eyes

are brilliant, savage and brilliant, and her sex is ferocious and

rough, a little mean, I find such a woman, older than me and

I’m the ingenue and I’m the tough girl with the future; some

nights between places I stay in a hallway in a building with an

open door; some nights between places I am up all night in

bars with nowhere to sleep and no one I am ready to go with,

something warns me o ff or I just don’t want to, and at two or

four when the bars close I find a doorw ay and wait or walk and

wait, it’s cold, a lethal cold, so usually I walk, a slow,

purposeful walk with m y shoulders hunched over so no one

will see I’m young and have nowhere to go. T he jail was dirty,

dark, foul. I wasn’t allowed to make the plans or write the

leaflets or draft the letters or decide anything but they let me

picket because they needed numbers and it was just being a

foot soldier and they let me sit in because it was bodies and

they let me get arrested because it was numbers for the press;

but once we were arrested the wom en disappeared inside the

prison, we were swallowed up in it, it w asn’t as if anyone was

missing to them. T hey were all over the men, to get them out,

to keep track o f them, to make sure they were okay, the heroes

o f the revolution incarnate had to be taken care of. The real

men were going to real jail in a real historical struggle; it was

real revolution. The nothing ones walked o ff a cliff and melted

into thin air. I didn’t mind being used but I didn’t expect to

disappear into a darkness resembling hell by any measure; left

there to rot by m y brothers; the heroes o f the revolution. T hey

got the men out; they left us in. Rape, they said. We had to get

them out as a priority; rape, they said. In jail men get raped,

they said N o jokes, no laughs, no Nazis; rape; we can’t have

the heroes o f the revolution raped. And them that’s raped ain’t

heroes o f the revolution; but there were no words for that. The

women had honor. We stood up to the police. We didn’t post

bail. We went on a hunger strike. We didn’t cooperate on any

level, at any time. The pacifists just cut us loose so we could go

under, no air from the surface, no lawyers, no word, no

solace, no counsel, no help; but we didn’t give in. We didn’t

shake and we didn’t scream and we didn’t try to die, banging

our heads against concrete walls until they were smashed. We

were locked in a special hell for girls; girls you could do

anything to; girls who were exiled into a night so long and

lonely it might last forever, a hell they made for those who

don’t exist. “ Ladies, ” they kept calling us; “ ladies. ” “ Ladies, ”

do this; “ ladies, ” do that; “ ladies, ” come here; “ ladies, ” go

there. We had been in the cold all day. We picketed from real

early, maybe eight in the morning, all through the afternoon,

and it was almost five in the evening before Adlai Stevenson

came. About three or four we blocked the doors by sitting

down so then we couldn’t even keep warm by walking

around. We sat there waiting for the police to arrest us but they

wouldn’t; they knew the cold was bad. Finally they said they’d

arrest us i f we blocked a side door, the one final door that

provided access to the building. Then we saw Adlai Stevenson

go in and we got mad because he didn’t give a fuck about us

and then we blocked the final door and then the police arrested

us; some people went limp and their bodies were dragged over

cement to the police vans and some people got up and walked

and you could hear the bones o f the people who were dragged

cracking on the cement and you wondered if their bones had

split down the middle. Then we went to the precinct and the

police made out reports. Then the men were taken to the city

jail for men, the Tom bs, a place o f brutality, pestilence, and

rape they said; rape; and we went to the w om en’s jail; no one

said rape. It was w ay late after midnight when we got there.

We got out o f the van in a closed courtyard and it was cold and

dark and we walked through a door into hell, some nightmare

some monster dreamed up. Hell was a building with a door

and you walked through the door. But the men got out the

next day on their own recognizance because the pacifists

hurried to get them lawyers and hearings, spent the whole day

w orking on it, a Friday, dawn to dusk, and the wom en didn’t

get out because the pacifists didn’t have time; they had to get

the heroes o f the revolution out before someone started

sticking things up them. They just left us. Then it was a

weekend and a national holiday and the jail w asn’t doing any

nasty business like letting people who don’t exist and don’t

matter loose; we were nothing to them and they left us to rot

or be hurt, because it was a torture place and they knew it but

they didn’t tell us; and they left us; the wom en who didn’t exist

got to stay solidly in hell; and no one said rape; in jail they kept

sticking things up us all the time but no one said rape, there is

no such w ord with any meaning that I have ever heard applied

when someone spreads a girl’s legs and sticks something in

anywhere up her; no one minds including pacifists. One

woman had been a call girl, though we didn’t know it then,

and she was dressed real fine so the women in the jail spit on

her. One woman was a student and some inmates held her

down and some climbed on top o f her and some put their

hands up her and later the newspapers said it was rape because

lesbians did it so it was rape if lesbians piled on top o f you and

lesbians was the bad word, not rape, it was bad because

lesbians did it, like Nazis, and it wasn’t anything like I knew,

being around girls and how we were. Later the newspapers

said this w om en’s jail was known as a hellhole torture place

and there’s a long history o f wom en beat up and burned and

assaulted for decades but the pacifists let us stay there; didn’t

bother them. There was a woman killed there by torture.

There were women hurt each and every day and the newspapers couldn’t think o f enough bad names to say how evil the

place was and how full o f cruelty and it was known; but the

pacifists let us stay there; didn’t bother them; because if you

get tortured they don’t hear the screams any more than if you

talk in a meeting; you could be pulled into pieces in front o f

them and they’d go on as if you wasn’t there; and you weren’t

there, not for them, truly you were nothing so they weren’t

w orrying about you when you were well-hidden somewhere

designed to hide you; and they weren’t all overwrought just

because someone might stick something up you or bring you

pain; and if you got a hole to stick it up then there’s no problem

for them if someone’s sticking something up it, or how many

times, or if it’s very bad. I don’t know what to call what they

did to me but I never said it was rape, I never did, and no one

did; ever. T w o doctors, these men, gave me an internal

examination as they called it which I had never heard o f before

or seen and they used a steel speculum which I had never seen

before and I didn’t know what it was or why they were putting

it up me and they tore me apart inside so I couldn’t stop

bleeding; but it wasn’t rape because it wasn’t a penis and it was

doctors and there is no rape and they weren’t Nazis, or lesbians

even, and maybe it was a lie because it’s always a lie or if it did

happen was I a virgin because if I wasn’t a virgin it didn’t

matter what they did to me because if something’s been stuck

up you once it makes you dirty and it doesn’t matter if you tear

someone apart inside. I didn’t think it was rape, I never did, I

didn’t know what they did or w hy they did it except I knew

how much it hurt and how afraid I was when I didn’t stop

bleeding and I wouldn’t have ever said rape, not ever; and I

didn’t, not ever. The peace boys told me I was bourgeois; like I

was too spoiled to take it. The pacifists thought if it was bad

for the prison in the newspapers it was good. But even after

the pacifists didn’t say, see, these girls hate the War. Even

these silly girls hate the War. Even the girl w h o ’s stupid

enough to type our letters and bring us coffee hates the War.

Even these dumb girls who walked through a door into hell

hate the War. Even these silly cunts we left in a torture pit

know ing full well they’d be hurt but so what hate the War.

They are too stupid to hate us but they hate the War. So stop

the War because these dregs, these nothings, these no ones,

these pieces we sent in to be felt up and torn up and have things

stuck in them hate the War. The peace boys laughed at me

when they found out I was hurt. It was funny, how some

bourgeois cunt couldn’t take it. They laughed and they spread

their legs and they fingered themselves. I w asn’t the one who

told them. I never told them. I couldn’t speak anym ore at all; I

was dumb or mute or however you say it, I didn’t have words

and I w ouldn’t say anything for any reason to anyone because I

was too hurt and too alone. I got out o f jail after four days and I

walked on the streets for some days and I said nothing to no

one until this nonviolence woman found me and made me say

what happened. She was a tough cookie in her ow n w ay which

was only half a pose. She cornered me and she w ouldn’t let me

go until I said what happened. Some words came out and then

all the ones I had but I didn’t know how to say things, like

speculum which I had never seen, so I tried to say what

happened thing by thing, describing because I didn’t know

what to call things, sometimes even with m y hands showing

her what I meant, and when it was over she seemed to

understand. The call girl got a jail sentence because the ju dge

said she had a history o f prostitution. The pacifists didn’t say

how she was noble to stand up against the War; or how she

was reformed or any other bullshit; they just all shivered and

shook when they found out she had been a call girl; and they

ju st let her go, quiet, back into hell; thirty days in hell for

trying to stop a nasty war; and the pacifists didn’t want to

claim her after that; and they didn’t help her after that; and they

didn’t want her in demonstrations after that. They let me drift,

a mute, in the streets, just a bourgeois piece o f shit who

couldn’t take it; except for the peace woman. She seemed to

understand everything and she seemed to believe me even

though I had never heard o f any such thing happening before

and it didn’t seem possible to me that it had happened at all.

She said it was very terrible to have such a thing happen. I had

to try to say each thing or show it with m y hands because I

couldn’t sum up anything or say anything in general or refer to

any common knowledge and I didn’t know what things were

or if they were important and I didn’t know if it was all right

that they did it to me or not because they did it to everyone

there, who were mostly whores except for one woman who

murdered her husband, and they were police and doctors and

so I thought maybe they were allowed to even though I

couldn’t stop bleeding but I was afraid to tell anyone, even

myself, and to m yself I kept saying I had m y period, even after

fifteen days. She called a newspaper reporter who said so

what? The newspaper reporter said it happens all the time

there that women are hurt just so bad or worse and remember

the woman who was tortured to death and so what was so

special about this? But the woman said the reporter was wrong

and it mattered so at first I started to suffocate because the

reporter said it didn’t matter but then I could breathe again

because the woman said it mattered and it couldn’t be erased

and you couldn’t say it was nothing. So I went from this

woman after this because I couldn’t just stay there with her and

she assumed everyone had some place to go because that’s

how life is it seems in the main and I went to the peace office

and instead o f typing letters for the peace boys I wrote to

newspapers saying I had been hurt and it was bad and not all

right and because I didn’t know sophisticated words I used the

words I knew and they were very shocked to death; and the

peace boys were in the office and I refused to type a letter for

one o f them because I was doing this and he read m y letter out

loud to everyone in the room over m y shoulder and they all

laughed at me, and I had spelled America with a “ k ” because I

knew I was in K afka’s world, not Jefferson ’s, and I knew

Am erika was the real country I lived in, and they laughed that I

couldn’t spell it right. The peace wom an fed me sometimes

and let me sleep there sometimes and she talked to me so I

learned some words I could use with her but I didn’t tell her

most things because I didn’t know how and she had an

apartment and w asn’t conversant with how things were for

me and I didn’t want to say but also I couldn’t and also there

was no reason to try, because it is as it is. I’m me, not her in her

apartment. Y ou always have your regular life. She’d say she

could see I was tired and did I want to sleep and I’d say no and

she’d insist and I never understood how she could tell but I was

so tired. I had a room I always stayed in. It was small but it was

warm and there were blankets and there was a door that closed

and she’d be there and she didn’t let anyone come in after me.

M aybe she would have let me stay there more if I had known

how to say some true things about day to day but I didn’t ask

anything from anyone and I never would because I couldn’t

even be sure they would understand, even her. And what I

told her when she made me talk to her was how once you went

to jail they started sticking things up you. T hey kept putting

their fingers and big parts o f their whole hand up you, up your

vagina and up your rectum; they searched you inside and

stayed inside you and kept touching you inside and they

searched inside your mouth with their fingers and inside your

ears and nose and they made you squat in front o f the guards to

see i f anything fell out o f you and stand under a cold shower

and make different poses and stances to see if anything fell out

o f you and then they had someone w ho they said was a nurse

put her hands up you again and search your vagina again and

search your rectum again and I asked her w hy do you do this,

why, you don’t have to do this, and she said she was looking

for heroin, and then the next day they took me to the doctors

and there were two o f them and one kept pressing me all over

down on my stomach and under where m y stomach is and all

down near between my legs and he kept hurting me and

asking me if I hurt and I said yes and every time I said yes he did

it harder and I thought he was trying to find out if I was sick

because he was a doctor and I was in so much pain I must be

very sick like having an appendicitis all over down there but

then I stopped saying anything because I saw he liked pressing

harder and making it hurt more and so I didn’t answer him but

I had some tears in m y eyes because he kept pressing anyway

but I wouldn’t let him see them as best as it was possible to turn

m y head from where he could see and they made jokes, the

doctors, about having sex and having girls and then the big

one who had been watching and laughing took the speculum

which I didn’t know what it was because I had never seen one

or had anyone do these awful things to me and it was a big,

cold, metal thing and he put it in me and he kept twisting it and

turning it and he kept tearing me to pieces which is literal

because I was ripped up inside and the inside o f me was bruised

like fists had beaten me all over but from within me or

someone had taken my uterus and turned it inside out and hit it

and cut it and then I was taken back to m y cell and I got on m y

knees and I tried to cry and I tried to pray and I couldn’t cry and

I couldn’t pray. I was in G od ’s world, His world that He made

H im self on purpose, on my knees, blood coming down m y

legs; and I hated Him; and there were no tears in me to come as

if I was one o f G o d ’s children all filled with sorrow and

mourning in a world with His mercy. M y father came to get

me weeks later when the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I had called

and begged and he came at night though I had shamed them

and he wouldn’t look at me or speak to me. I was afraid to tell

the woman about the blood. At first when she made me talk I

said I had m y period but when the bleeding didn’t stop I didn’t

tell her because a peace boy said I had a disease from sex and I

was bleeding because o f that and he didn’t want me around

because I was dirty and sick and I thought she’d throw me

aw ay too so I said I had called m y parents. I f you tell people in

apartments that you called your parents they think you are fine

then. M y mother said I should be locked up like an animal for

being a disgrace because o f jail and she would lock me up like

the animal I was. I ran aw ay for good from all this place—

home, Amerika, I can’t think o f no good name for it. I went far

away to where they don’t talk English and I never had to talk

or listen or understand. N o one talked so I had to answer. N o

one knew m y name. It was a cocoon surrounded by

cacophony. I liked not knowing anything. I was quiet outside,

never trying. There was no talking anyw ay that could say I

was raped more now and was broke for good. If it ain’t broke

don’t fix it and if it is broke just leave it alone and someday it’ll

die. Here, Andreus is a m an’s name. Andrea doesn’t exist at

all, m y m om m a’s name, not at all, not one bit. It is monstrous

to betray your child, bitch.

F IV E

In June 1966

(Age 19)

M y name is Andrea but here in nightclubs they say ma chere.

M y dear but more romantic. Sometimes they say it in a sullen

way, sometimes they are dismissive, sometimes it has a rough

edge or a cool indifference to it, a sexual callousness; sometimes they say it like they are talking to a pet dog, except that the Greeks don’t keep pets. Here on Crete they shoot cats.

They hate them. The men take rifIes and shoot them o ff the

roofs and in the alleys. The cats are skeletal, starving; the

Cretans act as if the cats are cruel predators and slimy crawling

things at the same time. N o one would dare befriend one here.

E very time I see a cat skulking across a roof, its bony, meager

body twisted for camouflage, I think I am seeing the Jew s in

the ghettos o f Eastern Europe sliding out o f hiding to find

food. M y chere. Doesn’t it mean expensive? I don’t know

French except for the few words I have had to pick up in the

bars. The high-class Greek men speak French, the peasants

only Greek, and it is very low -brow to speak English, vulgar.

N o one asks m y name or remembers it if I say it. In Europe

only boys are named it. It means manhood or courage. If they

hear m y name they laugh; you’re not a boy, they say. I don’t

need a name, it’s a burden o f memory, a useless burden for a

woman. It doesn’t seem to mean anything to anyone. There is

an Andreus here, a hero who was the captain o f a ship that was

part o f the resistance when the Nazis occupied the island. He

brought in guns and food and supplies and got people o ff the

island who needed to escape and brought people to Crete who

needed to hide. He killed Nazis when he could; he killed some,

for certain. N o occupier has ever conquered the mountains

here, rock made out o f African desert and dust. Andreus is old

and cunning and rich. He owns olive fields and is the official

consul for the country o f N orw ay; I don’t know what that

means but he has stationery and a seal and an office. He owns

land. He is dirty and sweaty and fat. He drinks and says dirty

things to women but one overlooks them. He says dirty

words in English and makes up dirty limericks in broken

English. He likes me because I am in love; he admires love. I

am in love in a language I don’t know. He likes this love

because it is a rare kind to see. It has the fascination o f fire; you

can’t stop looking. We’re so much joined in the flesh that

strangers feel the pain if we stop touching. Andreus is a failed

old sensualist now but he is excited by passion, the life-and-

death kind, the passion you have to have to wage a guerrilla

war from the sea on an island occupied by Nazis; being near

us, you feel the sea. I’m the sea for him now and he’s waiting to

see if his friend will drown. M venerates him for his role in the

resistance. Andreus is maybe sixty, an old sixty, gritty, oiled,

lined. M is thirty, old to me, an older man if I force m yself to

think o f it but I never think, no category means anything, I

can’t think exactly or the thought gets cut short by the

immense excitement o f his presence or a m emory o f anything

about him, any second o f remembering him and I’m flushed

and fevered; in delirium there’s no thought. At night the bars

are cool after the heat o f the African sun; the men are young

and hungry, lithe, they dance together frenetically, their arms

stretched across each other’s bodies as they make virile chorus

lines or drunken circles. M is the bartender. I sit in a dark

corner, a cool and pampered observer, drinking vermouth on

ice, red vermouth, and watching; watching M , watching the

men dance. Then sometimes he dances and they all leave the

floor to watch because he is the great dancer o f Crete, the

magnificent dancer, a legend o f grace and balance and speed.

Usually the young men sing in Greek along with the records

and dance showing off; before I was in love they sent over

drinks but now no one would dare. A great tension falls over

the room when sometimes one o f them tries. There have been

fist fights but I haven’t understood until after what they were

about. There was a tall blond boy, younger than M. M is short

and dark. I couldn’t keep my eyes o ff him and he took my

breath away. I feel what I feel and I do what I want and

everything shows in the heat coming o ff m y skin. There are no

lies in me; no language to be accountable in and also no lies. I

am always in action being alive even if I am sitting quietly in a

dark corner watching men dance. This room is not where I

live but it is my home at night. We usually leave a few hours

before dawn. The nightclub is a dark, square room. There is a

bar, some tables, records; almost never any women, occasional

tourists only. It is called The Dionysus. It is o ff a

small, square-like park in the center o f the city. The park is

overwhelm ingly green in the parched city and the vegetation

casts shadows even in the night so that if I come here alone it is

very dark and once a boy came up behind me and put his hand

between m y legs so fast that I barely understood what he had

done. Then he ran. M and the owner o f the club, N ikko, and

some other man ran out when they saw me standing there, not

coming in. I was so confused. They ran after him but didn’t

find him. I was relieved for him because they would have hit

him. Women don’t go out here but I do. Ma chere goes out.

I’ve never been afraid o f anything and I do what I want; I’m a

free human being, w hy would I apologize? I argue with m yself

about my rights because who else would listen. The few

foreign women who come here to live are all considered

whores because they go out and because they take men as

lovers, one, some, more. This means nothing to me. I’ve

always lived on m y own, in freedom, not bound by people’s

narrow minds or prejudices. It’s not different now. The Greek

women never go out and the Greek men don’t go home until

they are. very old men and ready to die. I would like to be with

a woman but a foreign woman is a mortal enemy here.

Sometimes in the bar M and I dance together. T hey play

Amerikan music for slow dancing— “ House o f the Rising

Sun , ” “ Heartbreak H otel. ” The songs make me want to cry

and we hold each other the w ay fire holds what it burns; and

everyone looks because you don’t often see people who have

to touch each other or they will die. It’s true with us; a simple

fact. I have no sense o f being a spectacle; only a sense o f being

the absolute center o f the world and what I feel is all the feeling

the world has in it, all o f it concentrated in me. Later we drive

into the country to a restaurant for dinner and to dance more,

heart to heart, earth scorched by wind, the African wind that

touches every rock and hidden place on this island. There are

two main streets in this old city. One goes down a steep old

hill to the sea, a sea that seems painted in light and color,

purple and aqua and a shining silver, mercury all bubbling in

an irridescent sunlight, and there is a bright, bright green in

the sea that cools down as night comes becoming somber,

stony, a hard, gem -like surface, m oving jade. The old Nazi

headquarters are down this old hill close to the sea. They keep

the building empty; it is considered foul, obscene. It is all

chained up, the great wrought iron doors with the great

swastika rusting and rotting and inside it is rubble. Piss on you

it says to the Nazis. The other main street crosses the hill at the

top. It crosses the whole city. The other streets in the city are

dirt paths or alleys made o f stones. N ikko owns the club. He

and M are friends. M is lit up from inside, radiant with light;

he is the sea’s only rival for radiance; is it Raphael who could

paint the sensuality o f his face, or is it Titian? The painter o f

this island is El Greco, born here, but there is no nightmare in

M ’s face, only a miracle o f perfect beauty, too much beauty so

that it can hurt to look at him and hurt more to turn away.

Nikko is taller than anyone else on Crete and they tease him in

the bar by saying he cannot be Cretan because he is so tall. The

jokes are told to me by pointing and extravagant hand gestures

and silly faces and laughing and broken syllables o f English.

Y ou can say a lot without words and make many jokes. N ikko

is dark with black hair and black eyes shaped a little like

almonds, an Oriental cast to his face, and a black mustache that

is big and wide and bushy; and his face is like an old

photograph, a sculpted Russian face staring out o f the

nineteenth century, a young Dostoevsky in Siberia, an exotic

Russian saint, without the suffering but with many secrets. I

often wonder if he is a spy but I don’t know why I think that or

who he would spy for. I am sometimes afraid that M is not safe

with him. M is a radical and these are dangerous times here.

There are riots in Athens and on Crete the government is not

popular. Cretans are famous for resistance and insurrection.

The mountains have sheltered native fighters from Nazis,

from Turks, but also from other Greeks. There was a civil war

here;

Greek communists

and leftists

were purged,

slaughtered; in the mountains o f Crete, fascists have never

won. The mountains mean freedom to the Cretans; as

Kazantzakis said, freedom or death. The government is afraid

o f Crete. These mountains have seen blood and death,

slaughter and fear, but also urgent and stubborn resistance, the

human who will not give in. It is the pride o f people here not to

give in. But N ikko is M ’s friend and he drives us to the

country the nights we go or to my room the nights we go right

there. M y room is a tiny shack with a single bed, low,

decrepit, old, and a table and a chair. I have a typewriter at the

table and I write there. I’m writing a novel against the War and

poems and theater pieces that are very avant-garde, more than

Genet. I also have Greek grammar books and in the afternoons

I sit and copy the letters and try to learn the words. I love

drawing the alphabet. The toilet is outside behind the chicken

coops. The chickens are kept by an old man, Pappous, it

means grandpa. There is m y room, thin w ood walls, unfinished wood, big sticks, and a concrete floor, no w indow ,

then the landlady’s room, an old woman, then the old man’s

room, then the chickens, then the toilet. There is one mean,

scrawny, angry rooster who sits on the toilet all the time. The

old woman is a peasant who came to the city after all the men

and boys in her village were lined up and shot by the Nazis.

T w o sons died. She is big and old and in mourning still,

dressed from head to toe in black. One day she burns her hands

using an iron that you fill with hot coals to use. I have never

seen such an accident or such an iron. The only running water

is outside. There is a pump. M ’s fam ily is rich but he lives a

vagabond life. He was a Com m unist w ho left the party. His

fam ily has a trucking business. He went to university for tw o

years but there are so many books he hasn’t read, so many

books you can’t get here. He was the first one on the island to

wear bell-bottom pants, he showed up in them one day all

puffed up with pride but he has never read Freud. He w orks

behind the bar because he likes it and sometimes he carries

bags for tourists down at the harbor. O r maybe it is political, I

don’t know. Crete is a hotbed o f plots and plans. I never know

i f he will come back but not because I am afraid o f him leaving

me. He will never leave me. M aybe he flirts but he couldn’t

leave me; it’d kill him, I truly think. I’m afraid for him. I know

there is intrigue and danger but I can’t follow it or understand

it or appraise it. I put m y fears aside by saying to m yself that he

is vain, which he is; beautiful, smart, vain; he likes carrying the

bags o f the tourists; his beauty is riveting and he loves to see

the effect, the tremor, the shock. He loves the millions o f

flirtations. In the summer there are wom en from everywhere.

In the winter there are rich men from France w ho come on

yachts. I’ve seen the one he is with. I know he gets presents

from him. His best friend is a handsome Frenchman, a pied

noir, born in Algeria and he thinks it’s his, right-wing;

gunrunning from Crete for the outlawed O . A . S. I don’t

understand how they can be friends. O . A . S. is outright

fascist, imperialist, racist. But M says it is a tie beyond politics

and beyond betrayal. He is handsome and cold and keeps his

eyes away from me. I don’t know w hy I think N ikko looks

Russian because all the Russians in the harbor have been blond

and round-faced, bursting with good cheer. The Russians and

the Israelis seem to send blond sailors, ingenues; they are

blond and young and well-mannered and innocent, not

aggressive, eternal virgins with disarming shyness, an

ingenuity for having it seem always like the first time. I do

what I want, I go where I want, in bed with anyone who

catches my eye, a glimmer o f light or a soupcon o f romance.

I’m not inside time or language or rules or society. It’s minute

to minute with a sense o f being able to last forever like Crete

itself. In my mind I am doing what I want and it is private and I

don’t understand that everyone sees, everyone looks, everyone knows, because I am outside the accountability o f

language and family and convention; what I feel is the only

society I have or know; I don’t see the million eyes and more to

the point I don’t hear the million tongues. I think I am alone

living m y life as I want. I think that when I am with someone I

am with him. I don’t understand that everyone sees and tells M

he loves a whore but I would expect him to be above pettiness

and malice and small minds. I’ve met men from all over, N ew

Zealand, Australia, Israel, Nigeria, France, a Russian; only

one Amerikan, not military, a thin, gentle black man who

loved Nancy Wilson, the greatest jazz singer, he loved her and

loved her and loved her and I felt bad after. I’ve met Greeks in

Athens and in Piraeus and on Crete. It’s not a matter o f being

faithful; I don’t have the words or categories. It’s being too

alive to stop and living in the minute absolutely without' a

second thought because now is true. Everything I feel I feel

absolutely. I have no fear, no ambivalence, no yesterday, no

tom orrow; not even a name really. When I am with M there is

nothing else on earth than us, an embrace past anything

mortal, and when he is not with me I am still as alive, no less

so, a rapture with no reason to wait or deny m yself anything I

feel. There are lots o f Amerikans on Crete, military bases filled

with soldiers, the permanent ones for the bases and then the

ones sent here from Vietnam to rest and then sent back to

Vietnam. Sometimes they come to the cafes in the afternoons

to drink. I don’t go near them except to tell them not to go to

Vietnam. I say it quietly to tables full o f them in the blazing

sun that keeps them always a little blind so they hesitate and I

leave fast. The Cretans hate Amerikans; I guess most Greeks

do because the Am erikan government keeps interfering so

there w o n ’t be a left-wing government. The C . I. A. is a strong

and widely known presence. On Crete there are A ir Force

bases and the Amerikans treat the Cretans bad. The Cretans

know the arrogance o f occupying armies, the bilious arrogance. T hey recognize the condescension without speaking

the literal language o f the occupiers. M ost o f the Am erikans

are from the Deep South, white boys, and they call the Cretans

niggers. They laugh at them and shout at them and call them

cunts, treat them like dirt, even the old mountain men whose

faces surely would terrify anyone not a fool, the ones the Nazis

didn’t kill not because they were collaborators but because

they were resisters. The Amerikans are young, eighteen,

nineteen, twenty, and they have the arrogance o f Napoleon,

each and every one o f them; they are the kings o f the w orld all

flatulent with white wealth and the darkies are meant to serve

them. T hey make me ashamed. They hate anything not

Am erikan and anyone with dark skin. They are pale, anemic

boys with crew cuts; slight and tall and banal; filled with foul

language that they fire at the natives instead o f using guns. The

words were dirty when they said them; mean words. I didn’t

believe any words were dirty until I heard the white boys say

cunt. They live on the Amerikan bases and they keep

everything Amerikan as if they aren’t here but there. They

have Amerikan radio and newspapers and food wrapped in

plastic and frozen food and dishwashers and refrigerators and

ranch-type houses for officers and trailers and supermarkets

with Amerikan brands o f everything. The wives and children

never go o ff the bases; afraid o f the darkies, afraid o f food

without plastic wrap, they don’t see the ancient island, only

Amerikan concrete and fences. The Amerikan military is

always here; the bases are always manned and the culturally

impoverished wives and children are always on them; and it is

just convenient to let the Vietnam boys rest here for now, the

white ones. The wives and the children are in the ranch-type

houses and the trailers. They are in Greece, on the island o f

Crete, a place touched by whatever gods there ever were,

anyone can see that, in fact Zeus rests here, one mountain is his

profile, it is Crete, a place o f sublime beauty and ancient

heritage, unique in the world, older than anything they can

imagine including their own God; but the wives and the

children never see it because it is not Amerikan, not the

suburbs, not pale white. The women never leave the bases.

The men come o ff to drink ouzo and to say dirty words to the

Greeks and to call them dirty names and laugh. Every other

word is nigger or cunt or fucking and they pick fights. I know

about the bases because an Amerikan doctor took me to one

where he lived in a ranch-type house with an Amerikan

kitchen with Formica cabinets and General Electric appliances.

The Greeks barely have kitchens. On Crete the people in the

mountains, mostly peasants, use bunsen burners to cook their

food. A huge family will have one bunsen burner. Everything

goes into one pot and it cooks on the one bunsen burner for ten

hours or twelve hours until late night when everyone eats. -

They have olive oil from the olive trees that grow everywhere

and vegetables and fruit and small animals they kill and milk

from goats. The fam ily will sit at a w ood table in the dark with

one oil lamp or candle giving light but the natural light on

Crete doesn’t go aw ay when it becomes night. There is no

electricity in the mountains but the dark is luminous and you

can see perfectly in it as if God is holding a candle above your

head. In the city people use bunsen burners too. When

Pappous makes a feast he takes some eggs from his chickens

and some olive oil and some potatoes bought from the market

for a few drachma and he makes an omelet over a bunsen

burner. It takes a long time, first for the oil to get really hot,

then to fry the potatoes, and the eggs cook slow ly; he invites

me and it is an afternoon’s feast. If people are rich they have

kitchens but the kitchens have nothing in them except running

cold water in a stone sink. The sink is a basin cut out o f a

counter made o f stone, as i f a piece o f hard rock was hauled in

from the mountains. It’s solid stone from top to bottom.

There are no w ood cabinets or shelves, just solid stone. I f there

is running hot water you are in the house o f a millionaire. I f

you are ju st in a rich house, the people heat the water up in a

kettle or pot. In the same w ay, there m ay be a bathtub

somewhere but the woman has to heat up kettle after kettle to

fill it. She will wash clothes and sheets and towels by hand in

the bathtub with the water she has cooked the same w ay the

peasant woman will wash clothes against rocks. There is no

refrigerator ever anywhere and no General Electric but there

m ay be two bunsen burners instead o f one. Y ou get food every

day at open markets in the streets and that is the only time

women get to go out; only married women. The Am erikans

never go anywhere without refrigerators and frozen food and

packaged food; I don’t know how they can stay in Vietnam.

The Am erikan doctor said he was writing a novel about the

Vietnam War like Norman M ailer’s The Naked and the Dead.

He had a crew cut. He had a Deep South accent. He was blond

and very tanned. He had square shoulders and a square jaw .

Military, not civilian. White socks, slacks, a casual shirt. N ot

young. N ot a boy. O ver thirty. Beefy. He is married and has

three children but his wife and children are away he says. He

sought me out and tried to talk to me about the War and

politics and writing; he began by invoking Mailer. It would

have been different if he had said Hem ingway. He was a

Hem ingway kind o f guy. But Mailer was busy being hip and

against the Vietnam War and taking drugs so it didn’t make

much sense to me; I know Hem ingway had leftist politics in

the Spanish Civil War but, really, Mailer was being very loud

against Vietnam and I couldn’t see someone who was happily

military appreciating it much, no matter how good The Naked

and the Dead was, if it was, which I m yself didn’t see. It was my

least favorite o f his books. I said I missed Amerikan coffee so

he took me to his ranch-type house for some. I meant

percolated coffee but he made Nescafe. The Greeks make

Nescafe too but they just use tap water; he boiled the water.

He made me a martini. I have never had one. It sits on the

Formica. It’s pretty but it looks like oily ethyl alcohol to me. I

never sit down. I ask him about his novel but he doesn’t have

anything to say except that it is against the War. I ask to read it

but it isn’t in the house. He asks me all these questions about

how I feel and what I think. I’m perplexed and I’m trying to

figure it out, standing right there; he’s talking and my brain is

pulling in circles, questions; I’m asking m yself if he wants to

fuck or what and what’s wrong with this picture? Is it being in

a ranch-type house on an island o f peasants? Is it Formica on an

ancient island o f stone and sand? Is it the missing wife and

children and how ill at ease he is in this house where he says he

lives and w hy aren’t there any photographs o f the wife and

children? Why is it so empty, so not lived in, with everything

in place and no mess, no piles, no letters or notes or pens or old-

mail? Is it how old he is— he’s a real adult, straight and narrow,

from the 1950s unchanged until now. Is it that it is hard to

believe he is a doctor? When he started talking to me on the

street he said he was near where I live taking care o f a Cretan

child who was sick— with nothing no less, just a sore throat.

He said it was good public relations for the military to help, for

a doctor to help. Is it that he doesn’t know anything about

writing or about novels or about his own novel or even about

The Naked and the Dead or even about Norm an Mailer? Is it

that he is in the military, must be career military, he certainly

w asn’t drafted, and keeps saying he is against the War but he

doesn’t seem to know what’s wrong with it? Is it that he is an

officer and w hy would such a person want to talk with me? O r

is it that no man, ever, asks a woman what she thinks in detail,

with insistence, systematically, concentrating on her answers,

a checklist o f political questions about the War and writing and

what I am doing here on Crete now. Never. N ot ever. Then I

grasp that he is a cop. I was an Amerikan abroad in troubled

times in a country the C . I. A. wanted to run and I’d been in jail

against the War. I talked to soldiers and told them not to go to

Vietnam. I told them it was wrong. I had written letters to the

government telling them to stop. The F . B . I. had bothered me

when they could find me, followed me, harassed me, interfered with me, and that’s the honest truth; they’d threatened me. N o w a tall man with a square face and a red neck and a

crew cut and square shoulders, a quarterback with a Deep

South accent, wants to know what I think. A girl could live

her whole life and never have a man want to know so much. I

love m y country for giving me this unique experience. I try to

leave it but it follows me. I try to disaffiliate but it affiliates.

But I had learned to be quiet, a discipline o f survival. I never

volunteered anything or had any small talk. It was a w ay o f

life. I was never in danger o f accidentally talking too much.

Living outside o f language is freedom and chattering is stupid

and I never talked to Amerikans except to tell them not to go

to Vietnam; from m y heart, I had nothing else to say to them. I

would have liked to talk with a writer, or listen actually; that

was the hook; I would have asked questions and listened and

tried to understand what he was writing and how he was

doing it and w hy and what it made him feel. I was trying to

write m yself and it would have been different from regular

talk to talk with a writer who was trying to do something and

maybe I could learn. But he wasn’t a writer and I hadn’t

gibbered on about anything; perhaps he was surprised. N o w I

was alone with him in a ranch-type house and I couldn’t get

home without his help and I needed him to let me go; not keep

me; not hurt me; not arrest me; not fuck me; and I felt some

fear about how I would get away because it is always best to

sleep with men before they force you; and I was confused,

because it wasn’t sex, it was answers to questions. And I

thought about it, and I looked around the ranch-type house,

and considered how strong he was and it was best not to make

him angry; but I felt honor bound to tell my government not

just about the War but about how they were fucking up the

country, the U . S . A ., and I couldn’t act like I didn’t know or

didn’t care or retreat. M y name is Andrea I told him. It means

manhood or courage. It is a European name but in Europe

only boys are named it. I was born down the street from Walt

Whitman’s house, on Mickle Street in Camden in 1946. I’m

from his street. I’m from his country, the country he wrote

about in his poems, the country o f freedom, the country o f

ecstasy, the country o f jo y o f the body, the country o f

universal love o f every kind o f folk, no one unworthy or too

low, the country o f working men and w orking women with

dignity; I’m from his country, not the Amerika run by war

criminals, not the country that hates and kills anyone not

white. I’m from his country, not yours. Do you know the

map o f his country? “ I will not have a single person slighted or

left away. ” “ I am the poet o f the B ody and I am the poet o f the

So u l. ” “ I am the poet o f the woman the same as the m an. ” “ I

too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, / 1 sound m y

barbaric yaw p over the roofs o f the w o rld . ” “ Do I contradict

m yself? /V ery well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I

contain multitudes. )” He nursed soldiers in a different war and

wrote poems to them. It was the war that freed the slaves.

Who does this war free? He couldn’t live in Am erika now; he

would be crushed by how small it is, its mind, its heart. He

would come to this island because it has his passion and his

courage and the nobility o f simple people and a shocking,

brilliant, extreme beauty that keeps the blood boiling and the

heart alive. Am erika is dead and filled with cruel people and

ugly. Am erika is a dangerous country; it sends its police

everywhere; w hy are you policing me? I loved his America; I

hate m y Am erika, I hate it. I was the first generation after the

bomb. D idn’t we kill enough yellow people then? M y father

told me the bomb saved him, his life, him, him; he put his life

against the multitudes and thought it was worth more than all

theirs; and I don’t. Walt stood for the multitudes. Am erika

was the country o f the multitudes before it became a killing

machine. In m y mind I know I am leaving out the Indians;

Am erika always was a killing machine; but this is m y

statement to the secret police and I like having a Golden A ge

rooted in Whitman. I put his patriotism against theirs. The

War is wrong. I will tell anyone the War is w rong and suffer

any consequence and if I could I would stop it right now by

magic or by treason and pay any price. I don’t think he know s

who Walt Whitman is precisely, although Walt goes on the

list, but he is genuinely immobilized by what I have said—

because I say I hate Am erika. I’ve blasphemed and he doesn’t

recover easily though he is trained not to be stupid. He stands

very still, the tension in his shoulders and fists m aking his

body rigid, he needs his full musculature to support the

tension. He asks me if I believe in God. I say I’m Jew ish— a

dangerous thing to say to a Deep South man who will think I

killed Christ the same w ay he thinks I am killing Amerika—

and it’s hard to believe in a God who keeps murdering you. I

want to say: you’re like God, He watches like you do, and He

lies; He says He is one thing but He is another. His eyes are

cold like yours and He lies. He investigates like you do, with

the same bad faith; and He lies. He uses up your trust and He

lies. He wants blind loyalty like you do; and He lies. He kills,

and He lies. He takes the very best in you, the part that wants

to be good and pure and holy and simple, and He twists it with

threats and pain; and He lies about it, He says H e’s not doing

it, it’s someone else somewhere else, evil or Satan or someone,

not Him. I am quiet though, such a polite girl, because I don’t

want him to be able to say I am crazy so I must not say things

about God and because I want to get away from this terrible

place o f his, this sterile, terrible Amerika that can show up

anywhere because its cops can show up anywhere. He has a

very Amerikan kind o f charm— the casual but systematic

ignorance that notes deviance and never forgets or forgives it;

the pragmatic policing that cops learn from the movies—-just

figure out who the bad guys are and nail them; he’s John

Wayne posing as Norman Mailer while Norman Mailer is

posing as Ernest Hem ingway who wanted to be John Wayne.

It’s ridiculous to be an Amerikan. It’s a grief too. He doesn’t

bother me again but a Greek cop does. He wants to see my

passport. First a uniformed cop comes to where I live and then

I have to go in for questioning and the higher-up cop who is

wearing a silk suit asks me lewd questions and knows who I

have been with and I don’t want to have to leave here so I ask

him, straight out, to leave me alone and he leaves it as a threat

that maybe he will and maybe he w on ’t. I tell him he shouldn’t

do what the Amerikans tell him and he flashes rage— at me but

also at them; is this ju st another Am erikan colony, I ask him ,

and who does he work for, and I thought the people here had

pride. He is flashfires o f rage, outbursts o f fury, but it is not

just national pride. He is a dangerous man. His method o f

questioning starts out calm; then, he threatens, he seduces, he

is enraged, all like quicksilver, no warning, no logic. He

makes clear he decides here and unlike other officials I have

seen he is no desk-bound functionary. He is a man o f arbitrary

lust and real power. He is corrupt and he enjoys being cruel.

He says as much. I am straightforward because it is m y only

chance. I tell him I love it here and I want to stay and he plays

with me, he lets me know that I can be punished— arrested,

deported, or ju st jailed if he wants, when he wants, and the

Am erikan governm ent will be distinctly uninterested. I can’t

say I w asn’t afraid but it didn’t show and it w asn’t bad. He

made me afraid on purpose and he knew how. He is intensely

sexual and I can feel him fucking and breaking fingers at the

same time; he is a brilliant communicator. I’m rescued by the

appearance o f a beautiful woman in a fur coat o f all things. He

wants her now and I can go for now but he’ll get back to me if

he remembers; and, he reminds me, he always know s where I

am, day or night, he can tell me better than I can keep track. I

want him to want her for a long time. I’m almost wanting to

kiss the ground. I’ve never loved somewhere before. I’m

living on land that breathes. Even the city, cement and stone

bathed in ancient light, breathes. Even the mountains, more

stone than any man-made stone, breathe. The sea breathes and

the sky breathes and there is light and color that breathe and

the Am erikan governm ent is smaller than this, smaller and

meaner, grayer and deader, and I don’t want them to lift me

o ff it and hurt m y life forever. I came from gray Am erika,

broken, crumbling concrete, poor and stained with blood and

some o f it was m y blood from when I was on m y knees and the

men came from behind and some o f it was knife blood from

when the gangs fought and the houses seemed dipped in

blood, bricks bathed in blood; w hy was there so much blood

and what was it for— who was bleeding and w hy— was there

some real reason or was it, as it seemed to me, just for fun, let’s

play cowboy. The cement desert I had lived on was the

carapace o f a new country, young, rich, all surging, tap-

dancing toward death, doing handstands toward death, the

tricks o f vital young men all hastening to death. Crete is old,

the stone is thousands o f years old, with blood and tears and

dying, invaders and resisters, birth and death, the mountains

are old, the ruins are stone ruins and they are old; but it’s not

poor and dirty and dying and crumbling and broken into dirty

dust and it hasn’t got the pale stains o f adolescent blood, sex

blood, gang blood, on it, the fun blood o f bad boys. It’s living

green and it’s living light and living rock and you can’t see the

blood, old blood generation after generation for thousands o f

years, as old as the stone, because the light heats it up and

burns it away and there is nothing dirty or ratty or stinking or

despondent and the people are proud and you don’t find them

on their knees. Even I’m not on my knees, stupid girl who falls

over for a shadow, who holds her breath excited to feel the

steely ice o f a knife on her breasts; Amerikan born and bred;

even I’m not on my knees. N ot even when entered from

behind, not even bent over and waiting; not on m y knees; not

waiting for bad boys to spill blood; mine. And the light burns

me clean too, the light and the heat, from the sun and from the

sex. Could you fuck the sun? That’s how I feel, like I’m

fucking the sun. I’m right up on it, smashed on it, a great,

brilliant body that is part o f its landscape, the heat melts us

together but it doesn’t burn me away, I’m flat on it and it

burns, m y arms are flat up against it and it burns, I’m flung flat

on it like it’s the ground but it’s the sun and it burns with me up

against it, arms up and out to hold it but there is nothing to

hold, the flames are never solid, never still, I’m solid, I’m still,

and I’m on it, smashed up against it. I think it’s the sun but it’s

M and he’s on top o f me and I’m burning but not to death, past

death, immortal, an eternal burning up against him and there

are waves o f heat that are suffocating but I breathe and I drown

but I don’t die no matter how far I go under. Y o u ’ve seen a fire

but have you ever been one— the red and blue and black and

orange and yellow in waves, great tidal waves o f heat, and if it

comes toward you you run because the heat is in waves that

can stop you from breathing, yo u ’ll suffocate, and you can see

the waves because they come after you and they eat up the air

behind you and it gets heavy and hard and tight and mean and

you can feel the waves coming and they reach out and grab

you and they take the air out o f the air and it’s tides o f pain

from heat, you melt, and the heat is a Frankenstein monster

made by the fire, the fire’s own heartbeat and dream, it’s the

monster the fire makes and sends out after you spreading

bigger than the fire to overcom e you and then burn you up.

But I don’t get burned up no matter how I burn. I’m

indestructible, a new kind o f flesh. Every night, hours before

dawn, we make love until dawn or sunrise or late in the

morning when there’s a bright yellow glaze over everything,

and I drift o ff into a coma o f sleep, a perfect blackness, no fear,

no m em ory, no dream, and when I open m y eyes again he is in

me and it is brute daylight, the naked sun, and I am on fire and

there is nothing else, just this, burning, smashed up against

him, outside time or anything anyone know s or thinks or

wants and it’s never enough. With Michalis before he left the

island, before M , overlapping at the beginning, it was

standing near the bed bent over it, waiting for when he would

begin, barely breathing, living clay waiting for the first touch

o f this new Rodin, Rodin the lover o f wom en. The hotel was

behind stone walls, almost like a convent, the walls covered

with vines and red and purple flowers. There was a double bed

and a basin and a pitcher o f water and tw o wom en sitting

outside the stone wall watching when I walked in with

Michalis and when I left with him a few hours later. The stone

walls hid a courtyard thick with bushes and wild flowers and

illuminated by scarlet lamps and across the courtyard was the

room with the bed and I undressed and waited, a little afraid

because I couldn’t see him, waited the w ay he liked, and then

his hands were under my skin, inside it, inside the skin on my

back and under the muscles o f my shoulders, his hands were

buried in my body, not the orifices but the fleshy parts, the

muscled parts, thighs and buttocks, until he came into me and

I felt the pain. With Michel, before M , half Greek, half French,

I screamed because he pressed me flat on my stomach and kept

m y legs together and came in hard and fast from the back and I

thought he was killing me, murdering me, and he put his hand

over my mouth and said not to scream and I bit into his hand

and tore the skin and there was blood in m y mouth and he bit

into my back so blood ran down my back and he pulled my

hair and gagged me with his fist until the pain itself stopped me

from screaming. With G, a teenage boy, Greek, maybe

fifteen, it was in the ruins under an ancient, cave-like arch, a

tunnel you couldn’t stand up in; it was outside at night on the

old stone, on rubble, on garbage, fast, exuberant, defiant,

thrilled, rough, skirt pulled up and torn on the rocks, skin

ripped on the rocks, semen dripping down m y legs. Y ou

could hear the sea against the old stone walls and the rats

running in the rubble and then we kissed like teenagers and I

walked away. With the Israeli sailor it was on a small bed in a

tiny room with the full moon shining, a moon almost as huge

as the whole sky, and I was mad about him. He was inept and

sincere and I was mad about him, insane for his ignorance and

fumbling and he sat on top o f me, inside me, absolutely still,

touching m y face in long, gentle strokes, and there was a steely

light from the moon, and I was mad for him. I wanted the

moon to stay pinned in the sky forever, full, and the silly boy

never to move. Once M and I went to the Venetian walls high

above the sea. There was no moon and the only light was from

the water underneath, the foam skipping on the waves. There

was a ledge a few feet wide and then a sheer drop down to the

sea. There was wind, fierce wind, lashing wind, angry wind, a

cold wind, foreign, with freezing, cutting water in it from

some other continent, wrathful, wanting to purge the ledge

and own the sea. A ll night we fucked with the wind trying to

push us down to death and I tore m y fingers against the stone

trying to hold on, the skin got stripped o ff m y hands, and

sometimes he was against the wall and m y head fell backwards

going down toward the sea and on the Roman walls we fucked

for who was braver and who was stronger and w ho w asn’t

afraid to die. He wanted to find fear in me so he could leave

me, so he could think I was less than him. He wanted to leave

me. He was desperate for freedom from love. On the Roman

wall we fucked so far past fear that I knew there was only me,

it didn’t matter where he went or what he did, it didn’t matter

who with or how many or how hard he tried. There was just

me, the one they kept telling him was a whore, all his great

friends, all the men who sat around scratching themselves, and

no matter how long he lived there would be me and if he was

dead and buried there would still be me, ju st me. I couldn’t

breathe without him but they expect that from a woman. I’d

have so much pain without him I w ouldn’t live for a minute.

But he w asn’t supposed to need me so bad you could see him

ripped up inside from a mile away. The pain w asn’t supposed

to rip through him; from wanting me; every second; now. He

was supposed to come and go, where he wanted, when he

wanted, get laid when he wanted, do this or that to me, what

he wanted, sex acts, nice and neat, ju icy and dirty but nice and

neat picked from a catalogue o f what men like or what men

pay for, one sex act followed by another sex act and then he

goes aw ay to someone else or to somewhere else, a kiss i f he

condescends, I blow him, a fuck, twice if he has the time and

likes it and feels so inclined; and I’m supposed to wait in

between and when he shows up I’m supposed to suck and I’m

supposed to rub, faster now, harder now, or he can rub, taster

now, harder now, inside me if he wants; and there’s some

chat, or some money, or a cigarette, or maybe sometimes a

fast dinner in a place where no one will see. But he’s burning so

bright it’s no secret he’s on fire; and it’s me. Anyone near him

is blinded, the heat hurts them, their skin melts, more than

they ever feel when they fuck rubbing themselves in and out o f

a woman. H e’s burning but he’s not indestructible. H e’s the

sun; I’m smashed up against him; but the sun burns itself up;

one day it will be cold and dead. He’s burning towards death

and a man’s not supposed to. A dry fuck with a dry heart is

being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart.

He’s the great dancer, the most beautiful; he had all the women

and all the men; and now he is self-immolating; he is torrential

explosions o f fire, pillars o f flame, miles high; he is a force field

o f heat miles wide. The ground burns under him and anything

he touches is seared. The heat spreads, a fever o f discontent.

The men are fevered, an epidemic o f fury; they are hot but

they can’t burn. H e’s dying in front o f them, torched, and I’m

smashed up on him, whole, arms up and outstretched, on

him, flat up against the flames, indestructible. The whore’s

killing him; she’s a whore and she’s killing you. He can’t stay

away but he tries. He enumerates for me m y lovers. He misses

some but I am discreet. He breaks down because I am not

pregnant yet. I show him m y birth control pills, which he has

never seen; I explain that I w on’t be getting pregnant. He

disappears for a day, two days, then suddenly he is in front o f

me, on his knees, his smile stopping m y heart, he stoops with a

dancer’s swift grace, there is a gift in his hands but his hands

don’t touch mine, he drops the gift and I catch it and he is

gone, I catch it before it hits the ground and when I look up he

is gone, I could have dreamed it but I have the flowers or the

bread or the book or the red-painted Easter egg or the

drawing. H e’s gone and time takes his place, a knife slicing me

into pieces; each second is a long, slow cut. Tim e can slow

down so you can’t outlast it. It can have a minute longer than

your life. Tim e can stand still and you can feel yourself dying

in it but you can’t make it go faster and you can’t die any faster

and if it doesn’t m ove you will never die at all and it w o n ’t

move; you are caved in underground with time collapsed in on

top o f you. T im e’s the cruelest lover yo u ’ll ever have,

merciless and thorough, wrapping itself right around your

heart and choking it and never stopping because time is never

over. Tim e turns your bed into a grave and you can’t breathe

because time pushes down on your heart to kill it. Tim e crawls

with its legs spread out all over you. It’s everywhere, a

noxious poison, it’s vapor and gas and air, it seeps, it spreads,

you can’t run aw ay somewhere so it w o n ’t hurt you, it’s there

before you are, waiting. H e’s gone and he’s left time behind to

punish you; but why? W hy isn’t he here yet; or now ; or now;

or now; and not one second has passed yet. He doesn’t want to

burn; but why? Why should he want less, to be less, to feel

less, to know less; w hy shouldn’t he push him self as far as he

can go; w hy shouldn’t he burn until he dies? I have a certain

ruthless objectivity not uncommon among those who live

inside the senses; I love him without restraint, without limit,

without respect to consequences, for me or for him; I am not

sentimental; I want him; this is not dopey, stupid, sentimental

love; nostalgia and lingering romance; this is it; all; everything. I don’t care about his small stupid social life among stupid, mediocre men— I know him, self-im molating,

torched, in me. His phony friends embarrass him, the men all

around on the streets playing cards and drinking and gossiping, the stupid men who lust for how much he feels, can’t imagine anything other than manipulating tourists into bed so

they can brag or sex transactions for money or the duties o f the

marital bed, the roll-over fuck; and he’s burning, consumed,

dying; so what? H e’d show up suddenly and then he’d be gone

and he never touched me; how could he not touch me? He’d

come in a burst and then he’d disappear and he’d never touch

me and sometimes he brought someone with him so he

couldn’t touch me or be with me or stay near me or come near

me to touch me; how could he not touch me? I went into a

white hot rage, a delirium o f rage; if I’d had his children I

would have sliced their necks open. I used razor blades to cut

delicate lines into my hands; physical pain was easy, a

distraction. Keeping the blade on m y hand, away from my

wrist, took all my concentration, a game o f nerves, a lover’s

game. I made fine lines that turned burgundy from blood the

w ay artists etch lines in glass but the glass doesn’t turn red for

them and the red doesn’t smear and drip. There was a man, I

wanted it to be M but it wasn’t M. He tied me up and hurt me

and on m y back there were marks where he used a whip he had

for animals and I wanted M to see but he didn’t come and he

didn’t see. I would have stayed there strung-up against the

wall m y back cut open forever for him to see but he didn’t see.

Then one day he came in the afternoon and knocked on the

door and politely asked me to have dinner with him that night.

Usually we talked in broken words in broken languages,

messy, tripping over each other. This was a quiet, formal,

aloof invitation with barely any words at all. He came in a car

with a driver. We sat in the back. He was elaborately

courteous. He didn’t say anything. I thought he would explain

things and say why. I sat quietly and waited. He was

unfailingly polite. We ate pinner. He said nothing except do

you like your dinner and would you like more wine and I

nodded whatever he said and m y eyes were open looking right

at him asking him to tell me something that would rescue me,

bring me back to being someone human with a human life.

Then he said he would take me home, form ally, politely, and

at m y door he asked i f he could come in and I said he could

only i f we could talk and he nodded his assent and the driver

waited for him and we went in and he touched me to fuck me,

his hands pushing me down on the bed, and I wanted him dead

and I tried to kill him with m y bare hands for touching me, for

not saying one word to me, for pushing me to fuck me, and I

hit his face with m y fist and I hit his neck and I pushed his neck

so hard I twisted it half around and he was stunned to feel the

pain and he was enraged and he pushed me down to fuck me

and he pinned me down with his hands and shoulders and

chest and legs and he kept fucking me and he said now he was

fucking me the w ay he fucked all whores, yes he went to

brothels and fucked whores, what did I think, that he only

fucked me, no man only fucked one wom an, and I would find

out how much he had loved me before because this was how

he fucked whores and this was how he would fuck me from

now on and it went on forever and I stopped fighting because

m y heart died and I lay still and I didn’t m ove and it still kept

going on and I stared at him and I hated him, I kept m y eyes

open and I stared, and it w asn’t over for a long time but I had

died during it so it didn’t matter when it ended or when he

stopped or when he pulled out o f me finally or when he was

gone from inside me and then it was over and there was

numbness close to death throughout me and there was some

man between m y legs. I hadn’t moved and I didn’t move, I

couldn’t m ove, I was on m y back and he had been on top o f me

to fuck me and then he slid down to where his head was

between m y legs and he turned over on his back and he rested

the back o f his head between m y legs where he had fucked me

and he rested there like some sweet, tired baby who had ju st

been born only they put him between m y legs instead o f in m y

arms and he said we would get married now because there was

nothing else left for either o f us; pity the poor lover, it hurt him

too. He was immensely sad and immensely bitter and he said

we would get married now because married people did it like

this and hated each other and felt dead, fucking was like being

dead for them; pity the poor husband, he felt dead. He stayed

between my legs, resting. I didn’t move because there is an

anguish that can stop you from moving and I couldn’t kill him

because there is an anguish that can stop you from killing.

Something awful came, a suffering bigger than my life or your

life or any life or G od ’s life, the crucifixion God; the nails are

hammered in but you don’t get to die. It’s the cross for ladies, a

bed, and you don’t get to die; the lucky boy, the favorite child,

gets to die. Y o u ’ve been mowed down inside, slaughtered

inside, a genocide happened in you, but you don’t get to die.

Y o u ’re not G od ’s son, you’re His daughter, and He leaves you

there nailed because you’re some stupid piece o f shit who

loved someone and you will be there forever, in some bed

somewhere for the rest o f your life and He will make it a long

time, He will make you get old, and He will see to it that you

get fucked, and the skin around where you get fucked will be

calloused and blistered and enraged and there will be someone

climbing on you and getting in you and God your Father will

watch; even when you’re old H e’ll watch. M left at sunrise,

sad boy, poor boy, immensely sad, tired boy, and time was

back on top o f me and I couldn’t move and I waited on the bed

to die but I didn’t die because God hates me; it’s hate. I couldn’t

m ove and I endured all the seconds in the day, every single

second. A second stretches out past hell and when one is over

another comes, longer, worse. It got dark and I dressed

m yself—that night, ten thousand years later, ten million years

later; I dressed m yself and I went to the club and M was

serving drinks and his friend the pied noir was there, the

handsome fascist, the gunrunner for the O. A . S., and this time

he looked at me, now he looked at me, and it was hard to

breathe, and I was transfixed by him; and the noisy room got

quiet with danger and you could feel him and me and you

could see him and me and we couldn’t stop and the fuck we

wanted filled the room even though we didn’t go near each

other and he was absolutely still and completely frightened

because M might kill him or me and I didn’t care but he was

afraid, the great big man was afraid, and I wanted him and I

didn’t care what it cost ju st so I had him, and M said take her, I

give her to you, he shouted, he spit, and I walked out in a rage,

a modern rage that anyone would dare to give me to someone;

me; a free woman. Outside there’s an African wind blow ing

on the island, restless, violent, and there’s perfume in the

wind, a heavy poppy smell, intoxicating, sweet and heavy.

The pied noir is deranged by it and he know s what M did and he

is deranged by that, he wants me with M ’s nasty fuck on me,

fresh like fresh-killed meat. God is the master o f pain and He

made it so you could love someone forever even if someone

cut your heart open. I wait in m y bed, I leave the front door

open. I want the fascist; I want him bad. I am fresh-killed

meat.

S IX

In June 1967

(Age 20)

One night I’m just there, where I live, alone, afraid, the men

have been trying to come in. I’m for using men up as fast as

you can; pulling them, grab, twist, put it here, so they dangle

like twisted dough or you bend them all around like pretzels;

you pull down, the asshole crawls. Y ou need a firm, fast hand,

a steady stare, calm nerve; grab, twist. First, fast; before they

get to throw you down. Y ou surprise them with your stance,

warrior queen, quiet, mean, and once your hands are around

their thing they’re stupid, not tough; still mean but slow and

you can get gone, it takes the edge o ff how mean he’s going to

be. Were you ever so alone as me? It doesn’t matter what they

do to you just so you get them first— it’s your game and you

get money; even if they shit on you it’s your game; as long as

it’s your game you have freedom, you say it’s fun but

whatever you say you’re in charge. Some people think being

poor is the freedom or the game. It’s being the one who says

how and do it to me now; instead o f just waiting until he does

it and he’s gone. Y ou got to be mad at them perpetually and

forever and fierce and you got to know that you got a cunt and

that’s it. Y ou want philosophy and you’re dumb and dead;

you want true love and real romance, the same. Y ou put your

hand between them and your twat and you got a chance; you

use it like it’s a muscle, sinew and grease, a gun, a knife; you

grab and twist and turn and stare him in the eye, smile, he’s

already losing because you got there first, between his legs; his

thing’s in your fist and your fist is closing on him fast and he’s

got a failure o f nerve for one second, a pause, a gulp, one

second, disarmed, unsure, long enough so he doesn’t know ,

can’t remember, how mean he is; and then you have to take

him into you, o f course, yo u ’ve given your word; there on the

cement or in a shadow or some room; a shadow ’s warm and

dark and consoling and no one can close the door on you and

lock you in; you don’t go with him somewhere unless you got

a feeling for him because you never know what they’ll do; you

go for the edge, a feeling, it’s worth the risk; you learn what

they want, early, easy, it’s not hard, you can ride the energy

they give out or see it in how they m ove or read it o ff their

hips; or you can guide them, there’s never enough blow jo b s

they had to make them tired o f it i f worse comes to worse and

you need to, it will make him stupid and weak but sometimes

he’s mean after because he’s sure yo u ’re dirt, anyone w h o ’s

had him in her mouth is dirt, how do they get by, these guys,

so low and mean. It’s you, him, midnight, cement; viscous

dark, slate gray bed, light falling down from tarnished bulbs

above you; neon somewhere rattling, shaking, static shocks to

your eye, flash, zing, zip, winding words, a long poem in

flickering light; what is neon and how did it get into the sky at

night? The great gray poet talked it but he didn’t have to do it.

He was a shithead. I’m the real poet o f everyone; the Am erikan

democrat on cement, with everyone; it wears you down,

Walt; I don’t like poetry anymore; it’s semen, you great gray

clod, not some fraternal wave o f democratic j o y . I was born in

1946 down the street from where Walt Whitman lived; the girl

he never wanted, I can face it now; in Cam den, the great gray

city; on great gray cement, broken, bleeding, the girls

squashed down on it, the fuck weighing down on top,

pushing in behind; blood staining the gravel, mine not his;

bullshitter poet, great gray bullshitter; having all the men in

the world, and all the wom en, hard, real, true, it wears you

down, great gray virgin with fantastic dreams, you great gray

fool. I was born in 1946 down the street from where Walt

Whitman lived, in Camden, Andrea, it means manhood or

courage but it was pink pussy anyway wrapped in a pink fuzzy

blanket with big men’s fingers going coochie coochie coo.

Pappa said don’t believe what’s in books but if it was a poem I

believed it; m y first lyric poem was a street, cement, gray,

lined with monuments, broken brick buildings, archaic,

empty vessels, great, bloodstained walls, a winding road to

nowhere, gray, hard, light falling on it from a tarnished moon

so it was silver and brass in the dark and it went out straight

into the gray sky where the moon was, one road o f cement and

silver and night stained red with real blood, you’re down on

your knees and he’s pushing you from inside, G od’s heartbeat

ramming into you and the skin is scraped loose and you bleed

and stain the stone under you. Here’s the poem you got. It’s

your flesh scraped until it’s rubbed o ff and you got a mark, you

got a burn, you got stains o f blood, you got desolation on you.

It’s his mark on you and you’ve got his smell on you and his

bruise inside you; the houses are monuments, brick, broken

brick, red, blood red. There’s a skyline, five floors high, three

floors high, broken brick, chopped o ff brick, empty inside,

with gravel lots and a winding cement road, Dorothy

tap-dances to Oz, up the yellow brick road, the great gray road,

he’s on you, twisted on top o f you, his arms twisted in your

arms, his legs twisted in your legs, he’s twisted in you, there’s

a great animal in the dark, him twisting draped over you, the

sweat silver and slick; the houses are brick, monuments

around you, you’re laid out dead and they’re the headstones,

nothing written on them, they tower over your body put to

rest. The only signs o f existence are on you, you carry them on

you, the marks, the bruises, the scars, your body gets marked

where you exist, it’s a history book with the signs o f civilized

life, communication, the city, the society, belles lettres, a

primitive alphabet o f blood and pain, the flesh poem, poem o f

the girl, when a girl says yes, what a girl says yes to, what

happens to a girl who is poesy on cement, your body the paper

and the poem, the press and the ink, the singer and the song;

it’s real, it’s literal, this song o f myself, yo u ’re what there is,

the medium, the message, the sign, the signifier; an autistic

poem. Tattooed boys are your friends, they write the words

on their skin; but your skin gets used up, scraped aw ay every

time they push you down, you carry what you got and what

you know, all your belongings, him on you through time, in

the scars— your meanings, your lists, your items, your serial

numbers and identification numbers, social security, registration, which one you are, your name in blood spread thin on

your skin, spread out on porous skin, thin and stretched, a

delicate shade o f fear toughened by callouses o f hate; and you

learn to read your name on your body written in your blood,

the book o f signs, manhood or courage but it’s different when

pussy does it. Y ou don’t set up housekeeping, a room with

things; instead you carry it all on you, not on your back tied

down, or on your head piled up; it’s in you, carved in, the cold

on you, you on cement, sexy abrasions, sexy blood, sexy

black and blue, the heat’s on you, your sw eat’s a wet

membrane between you and the weather, all there is, and you

have burns, scars, there’s gray cement, a silver gray under a

tarnished, brassy moon, there’s a cement graveyard, brick

gravestones, the em pty brick buildings; and yo u ’re laid out,

for the fucking. Walt was a fool, a virgin fool; you would have

been ground down, it’s not love, it’s slaughter, you fucking

fool. I’m the field, they fall on me and bruise the ground, you

don’t hear the earth you fall on crying out but a poet should

know. Prophets are fucking fools. What I figured out is that

writers sit in rooms and make it up. M arx made it up. Walt

made it up. Fucking fools like me believe it; do it; foot soldiers

in hell. Sleep is the worst time, God puts you in a fuck-m e

position, you can’t run, you can’t fight, you can’t stay alive

without luck, you’re in the dark and dead, they can get you,

have you, use you; you manage to disappear, become invisible

in the dark, or it’s like being hung out to dry, you’re under

glass, in a museum, all laid out, on display, waiting fpr

whatever gang passes by to piss on you; it’s inside, they’re not

supposed to come inside but there is no inside where they can’t

come, it’s only doors and windows to keep them out, open

sesame and the doors and windows open or they bash them

open and no one stops them and you’re inside laid out for

them, come, hurt me now, I’m lying flat, helpless, some

fucking innocent naked baby, a sweet, helpless thing all curled

up like a fetus as if I were safe, inside her; but there’s nothing

between you and them; she’s not between you and them. Why

did God make you have to sleep? I was born in Camden; I’m

twenty; I can’t remember the last time I heard my name. M y

name is and will the real one please stand up, do you remember

that game show on television, from when it was easy. Women

will whisper it to you, even dirty street women; even leather

women; even mean women. Y ou have to be careful i f you

want it from the street women; they might be harder than you,

know where you’re soft, see through you, you’re all different

with them because maybe they can see through you. M aybe

you’re not the hardest bitch. Maybe she’s going to take from

you. I don’t give; I take. It’s when she’s on me I hear m y name;

doesn’t matter who she is, I love her to death, women are

generous this way, the meanest o f us, I say her name, she says

mine, kisses brushing inside the ear, she’s wet all over me, it’s

all continuous, you’re not in little pieces, I hear m y name like

the sound o f the ocean in a shell; whether she’s saying it or not.

We’re twisted around each other inside slime and sweat and

tear drops, w e’re the wave and the surf, the undercurrent, the

pounding o f the tidal wave halfway around the world banging

the beach on a bright, sunny day, the tide, high tide, low tide,

under the moon or under a black sky, w e’re the sand wet and

hard deserted by the water, the sand under the water, gravel

and shell and m oving claws crawling. I remember this one

woman because I wanted her so bad but something was

wrong, she was lying to me, telling me m y lie but no woman

lies to me. There’s this woman at night I remember, in a

restaurant I go when I’m taking a break, kosher restaurant

with old men waiters, all night it’s open, big room, plain

tables, high ceilings, ballroom high and wide, big, em pty

feeling, old, old building, in N ew Y o rk , wide dow ntow n

street, gray street, fluorescent lights, a greenish light on green

walls, oil paint, green, the old men have thick Jew ish accents,

they’re slow m oving, you can feel their bones aching, I sit

alone over coffee and soup and she’s there at the next table, the

room ’s em pty but she sits at the table next to me, black leather

pants, she’s got black hair, painted black, like I always wanted,

and I want her but I’m her prey because she wants a bow l o f

fucking soup, she’s picked me, she’s coming for me, how did

that happen, how did it get all fucked up, she sees me as the

mark because I’ve got the food which means I’ve got the

money and I can’t go with her now because she has an

underlying bad motive, she wants to eat, and what I feel for

her is complete sex, so I’m the dope; and I don’t do the dopey

part; it’s m y game and she’s playing it on me; she’s got muscles

and I want to see the insides o f her thighs, I want to feel them, I

want her undressed, I want her legs around m y shoulders, she

smiles, asks me how I am; be a fool, tell her how you are. I

look right through her. I stare right through her while I’m

deciding what to do. I ain’t giving; I take. I want to be with

her, I want to be between her legs and all over her and her

thighs a vise around m y neck; I want m y teeth in her; I want

her muscles squeezing me to death and I want to push dow n on

her shoulders and I want m y thighs crushing down on her, all

m y weight on her hips, m y skin, bluish, on the inside o f m y

thighs feeling her bones; but I'm the mark, that’s how she sees

it, and maybe she’s meaner than me, or crazy, or harder, or

feels less, or needs less, so she’s on top and she takes; how

many times have I done what she’s doing now and did they

want me the w ay I want her; well, they’re stupid and I’m not;

it hurts not to take her with me, I could put m y hand on her

and she’d come, I stare right through her, I look right through

her but I’m devouring her at the same time which means she

knows I’m a fool; she’s acting harmless but maybe it’s a lie, my

instincts say it’s a lie, there’s no harmless women left alive this

time o f night, not on these streets. Y ou risk too much if you go

with a woman who needs less than you do; if you don’t have

to, if you have a choice, you don’t take risks— you could lose

your heart or your money or your speed; fucking fool who has

a choice and doesn’t use it; it’s stupid middle-class girls you

have to find or street women past wanting, past ambition,

they live on bits o f this and pieces o f that, they’re not looking

for any heavy score, they live almost on air, it’s pat, habit, they

don’t need you, but sometimes they like a taste; survival’s an

art, there are nuances, she’s a dangerous piece o f shit, stunning

black eyes, and I’m smitten, and I walk out, look behind me,

she came out, watched me, didn’t follow, made me nervous, I

don’t often pass up what I want, I don’t like doing it, it leaves

an ache, don’t like to ache too long without distracting m yself

by activity, anything to pass the time, and it makes me restless

and careless, to want someone like that; I wanted her, she

wanted food, money, most o f what happens happens for food,

all kinds o f food, deep hungers that rock you in their

everloving arms, rocked to eternal sleep by what you need, the

song o f myself, I need; need her; remember her; need women;

need to hear m y name; wanted her; she wanted food. What’s

inside you gets narrow and mean— it’s an edge, it cuts, it’s a

slice o f sharp, a line at the blade’s end, no surface, no waste, no

tease, a thin line where your meanest edge meets the air; an

edge, no blade you can see. If you could stomp on me, this is

what yo u ’d see— a line, touch it, yo u ’re slivers. I’d be cut

glass, yo u ’d be feet. Y o u ’d dance blood. The edge o f the blade,

no surface, just what cuts, a thin line, touch it, draw blood.

Inside, nothing else is alive. Where’s the love I dream of. I hole

up, like a bug in a rug. There’s women who bore me; wasted

time; the taste o f death; junkie time; a junkie woman comes to

me, long, languid afternoons making love but I didn’t like it,

she got beat up by her boyfriend, she’s sincerely in love, black

and blue, loving you, and he’s her source; pure love; true

romance. D on ’t like m ixing women with obligation— in this

case, the obligation to redeem her from pain. I want to want; I

like wanting, ju st so it gets fulfilled and I don’t have to wait too

long; I like the ache just long enough to make what touches it

appreciated a little more, a little drama, a little pain. I don’t like

no beat-up piece o f shit; junkie stooge. Y ou don’t want the

edge o f the blade to get dull; then you got dullness inside and

this you can’t afford. The w om an’s got to be free; a beast o f

freedom; not a predator needing a bow l o f fucking soup, not a

fool needing a fucking fix; she’s got to give freedom off, exude

it, she’s got to be grand with freedom, all swelled up with it, a

Madame Curie o f freedom, or she’s Garbo, or more likely,

she’s Che, she’s got to be a monster o f freedom, a hero o f

loveless love; Napoleon but they didn’t lock her up or she got

loose, now, for me; no beat up junkie fool; no beautiful piece

looking for a hamburger. There’s magnificent women out

here. These lights light you up. Y ou are on Broadw ay and

there are stars o f a high magnitude. There’s the queen o f them

all who taught me— sweet name, Rebecca; ruthless crusher o f

a dyke; honest to God, she’s wearing a gold lame dress when I

meet her in jail when I’m a kid, eighteen, a political prisoner as

it were, as I saw myself, and she loves poetry and she sends me

a pile o f New Yorker magazines because, she says, I’m a poet;

and I don’t want her on me, not in jail, I’m too scared, too

hurt, but she protects me anyway, and I get out fast enough

that I don’t have to do her, and I see her later out here and I

remember her kindness, which it was, real kindness, taking

care o f me in that place, which was w hy I was treated right by

the other inmates as it were; I see her on the street, gold lame

against a window, I see her shimmering, and I go with her for

thanks and because she is grand, and I find out you can be free

in a gold lame dress, in jail, whoring, in black skin, in hunger,

in pain, in strife, the strife o f the streets, perpetual war, gritty,

gray, she’s the wild one with freedom in her soul, it translates

into how you touch, what’s in your fingers, the silk in your

hands, the freedom you take with who you got under you;

you got your freedom and you take theirs for when you are

with them, you are a caretaker o f the fragile freedom in them,

because most women don’t got much, and you don’t be afraid

to take, you turn their skin to flames, you eat them raw, your

name’s all over them, you wrap them up in you, crush them in

you, and what you give is ambition, the ambition to do it

big, do it great, big gestures, free— girls do it big, girls soar,

girls burn, girls take big not puny; stop giving, child, better

to be stole from than to give— stop giving away the little that

you got. I stay with her until she’s finished with me, she’s

doing her art on me, she’s practicing freedom on me; I’m

shaking from it, her great daring, the audacity o f her body on

mine; she’s free on me and I learn from it on me how to do it

and how to be it; flamboyant lovemaking, no apology, dead

serious, we could die right after this and this is the last thing

we know and it’s enough, the last minute, the last time, the

last touch, God comes down through her on me, the good

God, the divine God; master lovemaker, lightning in a girl,

I’ve got a new theology, She’s a rough Girl; and what’s

between m y legs is a running river, She made it then She

rested; a running river; so deep, so long, clear, bright, smart,

racing, white foam over a cliff and then a dead drop and then it

keeps on going, running, racing, then the smooth, silk calm, the

deep calm, the long, silk body, smooth. I heard some man say I

put it in her smooth, smooth was a noun, and I knew right

away he liked children, he’s after children, there are such men;

but it’s not what I mean; I mean that together w e’re smooth, it’s

smooth, w e’re smooth on each other, it’s a smooth ride; and if I

died right after I wouldn’t feel cheated or sorry and every time

I’m happy I had her one more second and I feel proud she wants

me; and she’ll disappear, she’ll take someone else, but I’ll sit here

like a dumb little shit until she does, a student, sitting, waiting at

her feet, let her touch me once, then once more, I’m happy near

her, her freedom ’s holding me tight, her freedom ’s on me,

around me, climbing inside me, her freedom ’s embracing me;

wild woman; a wild w om an’s pussy that will not die for some

junkie prick; nor songwriter; nor businessman; nor

philosopher. The men are outside, they want to come in, I

hear them rattling around, death threats, destruction isn’t

quiet or subtle, imagine those for whom it is, safe, blessedly

safe; so in m y last minutes on this earth, perhaps, I am

remembering Rebecca who taught me freedom; I would sit

down quiet next to her, wait for her, watch her; did you ever

love a girl? I’ve loved several; loved. N ot just wanted but

loved in thought or action. Wasn’t raped by any o f them. I

mean, rape’s just a word, it doesn’t mean anything, someone

fucks you, so what? I can’t see complaining about it. But I

wasn’t hurt by any o f them. I don’t mean I w asn’t hurt by love;

shit, that’s what love does, it drags your heart over a bed o f

nails, I was hurt by love, lazy, desperate drinks through long

nights o f pain without her, hurting bad. Wasn’t pushed

around. Saw others who were. It’s not that wom en don’t. It’s

just that it had m y name on it, men said pussy or dyke or

whatever stupid distortion but I saw freedom, I heard Andrea,

I found freedom under her, wrapped around her, her lips on

me and her hands on me, in me, her thighs holding on to me;

there’s always men around waiting to break in, throw

themselves on top, pull you down; but wom en’s different, it’s

a fast, gorgeous trip out o f hell, a hundred-mile-an-hour ride

on a different road in the opposite direction, it’s when you see

an attitude that sets you free, the way she moves breaks you

out, or you touch her shoulder and exhilaration shoots

through you like a needle would do hanging from your vein if

it’s got something good in it; it’s a gold rush; your life’s telling

you that if you’re between her legs you’re free— free’s not

peaceful and not always kind, it’s fast, a shooting star you ride,

i f you’re stupid it shakes you loose and hurls you somewhere

in the sky, no gravity, no fall, just eternal drift to nowhere out

past up and down. You can live forever on the curve o f her

hip, attached there in sweat and desire taking the full measure

o f your own human sorrow; you can have this tearing sorrow

with your face pushing on the inside o f her thigh; you can have

her lips on you, her hands pushing on you as if you’re marble

she’s turning into clay, an electricity running all over you

carried in saliva and spit, you’re cosseted in electric shock,

peeing, your hair standing up on end, muscles stretched, lit

up; there’s her around you and in you everywhere, the

rhythm o f your dance and at the same time she’s like the

placenta, you breathe in her, surrounded; it’s something men

don’t know or they’d do it, they could do it, but instead they

want this push, shove, whatever it is they’re doing for

whatever reason, it’s an ignorant meanness, but with a woman

you ’re whole and you’re free, it ain’t pieces o f you flying

around like shit, it ain’t being used up, you got scars bigger

than the freedom you get in everyday life; do it the w ay you ’re

supposed to, you got twenty-four hours a day down on your

knees sucking dick; that’s how girls do hard time. There’s not

many women around who have any freedom in them let alone

some to spare, extravagant, on you, and it’s when they’re on

you you see it best and know it’s real, now and all, there w o n ’t

be anything wilder or finer, it’s pure and true, you see it, you

chase them, they’re on you, you get enraptured in it, once you

got it on you, once you feel it m oving through you, it’s a

contagion o f wanting more than you get being pussy for the

boys, you catch it like a fever, it puts you on a slow bum with

your skin aching and you want it more than you can find it

because most women are beggars and slaves in spirit and in life

and you don’t ever give up wanting it. Otherwise you get

worn down to what they say you are, you get worn down to

pussy, bedraggled; not bewitched, bothered, bewildered; ju st

some wet, ratty, bedraggled thing, semen caked on you, his

piss running down your legs, worn out, old from what yo u ’re

sucking, I’m pretty fucking old and I have been loved by

freedom and I have loved freedom back. Did you ever have a

nightmare? Men coming in’s m y nightmare; entering; I’m in,

knock, knock. There’s writers being assholes about outlaws;

outlaw this, outlaw that, I’m bad, I’m sitting here writing m y

book and I’m bad, I’m typing and I’m bad, m y secretary’s

typing and I’m bad, I got laid, the boys say, like their novels

are letters home to mama, well, hell’s bells, the boys got laid:

more than once. It’s something to write home about, all right;

costs fifty bucks, too; they found dirty wom en they did it to,

dirty women too fucking poor to have a typewriter to stu ff up

bad boy w riter’s ass. Shit. Y ou follow his cock around the big,

bad city: N ew Y ork, Paris, Rom e— same city, same cock.

B ig, bad cock. Wiping themselves on dirty women, then

writing home to mama by w ay o f G rove Press, saying what

trash the dirty women are; how brave the bad boys are,

writing about it, doing it, putting their cocks in the big, bad,

dirty hole where all the other big, brave boys were; oh they say

dirty words about dirty women good. I read the books. I had a

typewriter but it was stolen when the men broke in. The men

broke in before when I w asn’t here and they took everything,

my clothes, my typewriter. I wrote stories. Some were about

life on other planets; I wrote once about a wild woman on a

rock on Mars. I described the rock, the red planet, barren, and

a woman with tangled hair, big, with muscles, sort o f Ursula

Andress on a rock. I couldn’t think o f what happened though.

She was just there alone. I loved it. Never wanted it to end. I

wrote about the country a lot, pastoral stuff, peaceful, I made

up stories about the wind blowing through the trees and leaves

falling and turning red. I wrote stories about teenagers feeling

angst, not the ones I knew but regular ones with stereos. I

couldn’t think o f details though. I wrote about men and

women making love. I made it up; or took it from Nino, a boy

I knew, except I made it real nice; as he said it would be; I left

out the knife. The men writers make it as nasty as they can, it’s

like they’re using a machine gun on her; they type with their

fucking cocks— as Mailer admitted, right? Except he said

balls, always a romancer. I can’t think o f getting a new

typewriter, I need money for just staying alive, orange juice

and coffee and cigarettes and milk, vodka and pills, they’ll just

smash it or take it anyway, I have to just learn to write with a

pen and paper in handwriting so no one can steal it and so it

don’t take money. When I read the big men writers I’m them;

careening around like they do; never paying a fucking price;

days are long, their books are short compared to an hour on

the street; but if you think about a book just saying I’m a prick

and I fuck dirty girls, the books are pretty long; m y cock, m y

cock, three volumes. They should just say: I Can Fuck.

Norm an M ailer’s new novel. I Can Be Fucked. Jean Genet’s

new novel. I ' m Waiting To Be Fucked Or To Fuck, I Don't

Know. Samuel Beckett’s new novel. She Shit. Jam es Jo y c e ’s

masterpiece. Fuck Me, Fuck Her, Fuck It. The Living Theatre’s

new play. Paradise Fucked. The sequel. Mama, I Fucked a Jewish

Girl. The new Philip Roth. Mama, I Fucked a Shiksa. The new,

new Philip Roth. It was a bad day they w ouldn’t let little boys

say that word. I got to tell you, they get laid. T h e y’re up and

down these streets, taking what they want; tw o hundred

million little Henry Millers with hard pricks and a mean prose

style; Pulitzer prizewinning assholes using cash. Looking for

experience, which is what they call pussy afterward when

they’re back in their posh apartments trying to ju stify

themselves. Experience is us, the ones they stick it in.

Experience is when they put down the money, then they turn

you around like yo u ’re a chicken they’re roasting; they stick it

in any hole they can find just to try it or because they’re blind

drunk and it ain’t painted red so they can’t find it; you get to be

lab mice for them; they stick the famous Steel Rod into any

Fleshy Hole they can find and they Ram the Rod In when they

can manage it which thank God often enough they can’t. The

prose gets real purple then. Y ou can’t put it down to

impotence though because they get laid and they had wom en

and they fucked a lot; they just never seem to get over the

miracle that it’s them in a big man’s body doing all the

damage; Look, ma, it’s me. Volum e Tw elve. They don’t act

like human beings and they’re pretty proud o f it so there’s no

point in pretending they are; though you want to— pretend.

Y o u ’d like to think they could feel something— sad; or

remorse; or something ju st simple, a minute o f recognition.

It’s interesting that yo u ’re so dangerous to them but you

fucking can’t hurt them; how can you be dangerous if you

can’t do harm; I’d like to be able to level them, but you can’t

touch them except to be fucked by them; they get to do it and

then they get to say what it is they’re doing— yo u ’re what

they’re afraid o f but the fear just keeps them coming, it doesn’t

shake them loose or get them o ff you; it’s more like the glue

that keeps them on you; sticky stuff, how afraid the pricks are.

I mean, m aybe they’re not afraid. It sounds so stupid to say

they are, so banal, like making them human anyw ay, like

giving them the insides you wish they had. So what do you

say; they’re just so fucking filled with hate they can’t do

anything else or feel anything else or write anything else? I

mean, do they ever look at the fucking moon? I think all the

sperm they’re spilling is going to have an effect; something’s

going to grow. It’s like they’re planting a whole next

generation o f themselves by sympathetic magic; not that

they’re fucking to have babies; it’s more like they’re rubbing

and heaving and pushing and banging and shoving and

ejaculating like some kind o f voodoo rite so all the sperm will

grow into more them, more boys with more books about how

they got themselves into dirt and got out alive. It’s a thrilling

story, says the dirt they got themselves into. It’s bitterness,

being their filth; they don’t even remember right, you’re not

distinct enough, an amoeba’s more distinct, more individuated; they go home and make it up after they did it for real and

suddenly they ain’t parasites, they’re heroes— big dicks in the

big night taming some rich but underneath it all street dirty

whore, some glamorous thing but underneath filth; I think

even i f you were with them all the time they wouldn’t

remember you day-to-day, it’s like being null and void and

fucked at the same time, I am fucked, therefore I am not.

M aybe I’ll write books about history— prior times, the War o f

1812; not here and now, which is a heartbreaking time, place,

situation, for someone. Y o u ’re nothing to them. I don’t think

they’re afraid. Maybe I’m afraid. The men want to come in; I

hear them outside, banging; they’re banging against the door

with metal things, probably knives; the men around here have

knives; they use knives; I’m familiar with knives; I grew up

around knives; Nino used a knife; I’m not afraid o f knives.

Fear’s a funny thing; you get fucked enough you lose it; or

most o f it; I don’t know w hy that should be per se. It’s all

callouses, not fear, a hard heart, and inside a lot o f death as if

they put it there, delivered it in. And then out o f nowhere you

ju st drown in it, it’s a million tons o f water on you. if I was

afraid o f individual things, normal things— today, tom orrow ,

w hat’s next, w h o ’s on top, what already has transpired that

you can’t quite reach down into to remember— I’d have to

surrender; but it drowns you fast, then it’s gone. I’d like to

surrender; but to whom , where, or do you just put up a white

flag and they take you to throw your body on a pile

somewhere? I don’t believe in it. I think you have to make

them come get you, you don’t volunteer, it’s a matter o f pride.

Who do you turn yourself into and on what terms— hey,

fellow, I’m done but that don’t mean you get to hurt me

more, you have to keep the"deal, I made a deal, I get not to feel

more pain, I’m finished, I’m not fighting you fucks anymore,

I’ll be dead if it’s the w ay to accomplish this transformation

from what I am into being nothing with no pain. But if you get

dead and there’s an afterlife and it’s more o f the same but

worse— I would just die from that. Y ou got all these same

mean motherfuckers around after yo u ’re dead and you got the

God who made it all still messing with you but now up

close— H e’s around. Y o u ’re listening to angels and yo u ’re

not allowed to tell God H e’s one m aggoty bastard; or yo u ’re

running around in circles in hell, imprisoned by your fatal

flaw, instead o f being here on a leash with all your flaws, none

fatal enough, making you a m aggoty piece o f meat. I want

dead to mean dead; all done; finished; quiet; insensate;

nothing; I want it to be peaceful, no me being pushed around

or pushing, I don’t want to feel the worm s crawling on me or

eating me or the cold o f the wet ground or suffocating from

being buried or smothering from being under the ground; or

being stone cold from being dead; I don’t want to feel cold; I

don’t want to be in eternal dark forever stone cold. N othing

by which I mean a pure void, true nonexistence, is different; it

isn’t filled with horror or dread or fear or punishment or pain;

it’s ju st an absence o f being, especially so you don’t have to

think or know anything or figure out how yo u ’re going to eat

or w ho’s going to be on you next. It’s not suffering. I don’t

have suffering in mind; not jo y , not pain— no highs, no lows.

Just not being; not being a citizen wandering around the

universe in a body or loose, ethereal and invisible; or just not

being a citizen here, now, under street lights, all illuminated,

the light shining down. I hate the light shining down— display

yourself, dear, show them; smile, spread your legs, make

suggestive gestures, legs wide open— there’s lots o f ways to sit

or stand with your legs wide open. Which day did God make

light? You think He had the street lights in some big

storeroom in the sky to send down to earth when women

started crawling over sidewalks like cockroaches to stay alive?

I think He did. I think it was part o f the big plan— light those

girls up, give them sallow light, covers pox marks, covers

tracks, covers bruises, good light for covering them up and

showing them at the same time, makes them look grotesque,

just inhuman enough, same species but not really, you can

stick it in but these aren’t creatures that get to come home, not

into a home, not home, not quite the same species, sallow

light, makes them green and grotesque, creatures you put it in,

not female ones o f you, even a fucking rib o f you; you got ones

in good light for that. They stick it in boys too; anything under

these lights is here to be used. Y o u ’d think they’d know boys

was real, same species, with fists that work or will someday,

but someday isn’t their problem and they like the feel that the

boy might turn mean on them— some o f them like it, the ones

that use the older ones. I read about this boy that was taken o ff

the street and the man gave him hormones to make him grow

breasts and lose his body hair or not get it, I’m not sure; it

made me really sick because the boy was nothing to him, just

some piece o f something he could mess with, remake to what

he wanted to play with, even something monstrous; I wanted

to kill the guy; and I tried to figure out how to help the kid, but

I just read it in Time or Newsweek so I wondered i f I could find

him or not. I guess it depends on how many boys there are

being fed hormones by pedophiles. Once it’s in Newsweek, I

guess there are thousands. The kid’s around here somewhere;

it said Low er East Side; I hate it, what the man did to him.

These Goddamn men would all be each other’s meat if they

weren’t the butchers. They use fucking to slice you open. It’s

like they’re hollow, there’s nothing there, except they make

big noise, this unbearable static, some screeching, high-

pitched pain, and you can’t see they’re hollow because the

noise diverts you to near madness; big lovemaker with fifty

dollars to spend, seed to spill making mimetic magic, grind,

bang, it’s a boy, a big, bad boy who writes books, big, bad

books. I see the future and it’s a bunch o f pricks making a

literature o f fucking, high art about sticking it in; I did it, ma;

she was filth and I did it. O nly yo u ’ll get a Mailer-Genet beast:

I did it, ma, I did it to her, he did it to me. The cement will

grow them; sympathetic magic w orks; the spilled seed, the

grinding, bang bang, pushes the fuck out past the bounds o f

physical reality; it lurks in the biosphere; it will creep into

weeping wom bs; they’ll be born, the next generation, out o f

what the assholes do to me; I’ve got enough semen dripping in

me for a literary renaissance, an encyclopedia o f novellas, a

generation o f genius; maybe some o f them will paint or write

songs. Mother earth, magic vessel, the altar where they

worship, the sacred place; fifty dollars to burn a candle, or

pills, or a meal and money; bang bang ain’t never without

consequences for the future o f the race. N o reason the race

should be different from the people in it. There’s no tom orrow

I know of. I never seen one that ain’t today. It’s fine to be slut-

mama to a literary movement; the corporeal altar o f sym pathetic motherhood to a generation; his loins; m y ass.

Immortal, anonymous means to his end. It’s what the hippie

girls all glittering, flecked, stardust, want: to be procreatrix

with flowering hips and tea made from plants instead o f

Lipton; they recline, posh and simple, all spread out draped in

flowing cotton and color; they don’t take money; well, they

do, but they don’t say so upfront— from my point o f view

they are mannerless in this regard; mostly they just hang on,

like they have claws, it passes for spiritual, they just sit there

until he comes back from wherever he’s gone after coitus has

made him triste, they say it’s meditating but it’s just waiting

for some guy to show w ho’s left; they ain’t under the light,

they are o f it— luminescent fairy things from on high, just

down for a fast, ethereal screw. I been to bed with them;

usually a man and one o f them, because they don’t do women

alone— too real for the nitrous oxide crowd, not Buddhistic

enough— it’s got an I want right between the legs and it’s got

your genitals leading your heart around or vice versa, who the

hell knows, and it don’t make the boy happy unless he gets to

watch and the hippie girls do not irritate the love-boys by

doing things that might not be directly and specifically for

them. The hippie boys like bringing another woman into bed.

Y ou can shake some coke loose from them if you do it; or

money, which they pretend is like nothing but they hold onto

it pretty tight. Coke and orange juice is my favorite breakfast;

they want you to do the coke with them because it makes them

hard and high and ready but I like to take some o ff with me and

do it alone or with someone I pick, not with someone in bed

with some silly girl who ought to be a housewife but is seeing

the big city and he’s so hip he has to be able to roll over from

one to another, dreaming it’s another housewife, all girls are

housewives to him; peace, flowers, love, clean m y house, bake

m y bread. They try to tell you they see the real you, the

sensitive you, inside, and the real you doesn’t want money—

she wants the good fucking he’s got and to make strings o f

beads for him and sell them in flea markets for him; darling,

it’s sad. Y ou convey to the guy that you’re the real thing, what

he never thought would be near him, street grime he w on ’t be

able to wash off, and he’s so trembling and overw rought his

prick starts shaking. There’s some who do things real, don’t

spend their time posturing or preening; they just pull it out

without philosophy. There’s this one I had once, with a

woman. I was on Demerol because I had an operation; m y

appendix came out but it had got all infected and it was a big

slice in me and then they let me loose with a blood clot because

there w asn’t somewhere for me to stay and I didn’t have

money or no one to take care o f me so they just let me out. M y

side didn’t seem like it would stay sewed, it felt open, and

there was a pain from the clot that was some evil drilling in m y

shoulder that they called reflexive pain which meant the pain

was really somewhere else but I could only feel it in m y

shoulder. It hurt to breathe. Y ou don’t think about your

shoulder or how it moves when you breathe unless some Nazi

is putting a drill in it; I saw God the Nazi pushing His full

weight on the drill and if I breathed it made more pressure

from inside on where the drill was and there w asn’t enough

Demerol in the world. So I’m walking around, desperate and

dreamy, in pain but liking the pills, and I see this shirt, fucking

beautiful shirt, purple and turquoise and shades o f blue all in

flowers, silk, astonishing whirl o f color; and the man’s dark

with long hair and a beard, some prototype, no face, ju st hair;

and I take him back but there’s this girl with him too, and she’s

all hippie, endlessly expressing herself and putting little pats

on m y hand, teeny weeny little pats, her hand to mine:

expressing affection for another woman; heavy shit. I can

barely believe this one’s rubbing her hands on me. And the

guy starts fucking, and he’s some kind o f monster o f fuck, he

lasts forever and a day, it’s night, it’s dark, and hours go by,

and I see the light coming up, and she and me are next to each

other, and he’s in me, then he’s in her, then me, then her, and

m y side is splitting open and I’m not supposed to be m oving

around with the clot but you can’t keep your hips still the

whole time although my interest comes and goes, at some

point the boy takes o ff the shirt and I’m wondering who he is

and w hy he’s here, and I don’t have to w orry about her

sentimentality because the boy isn’t seeking variety and he

don’t want to watch, this is a boy who wants to fuck and he

moves good but he’s boring as hell, the same, the same, and

when the pain hits me I am pretty sure I am really going to die,

that the clot is loose in my blood somewhere and it’s going to

go to m y brain, and I’m trying to think this is real glorious,

dying with some Olympian fuck, but the pain is some vicious,

choked up tangle o f blades in my gut, and I try to

choreograph the pain to his fuck, and I try to rest when he’s

not in me, and I am praying he will stop, and I am at the same

time trying to savor every second o f m y last minutes on earth,

or last hours as it turns out, but intellectual honesty forced me

to acknowledge I was bored, I was spending m y last time

bored to death, I could have been a housewife after all; and the

light comes up and I think, well, dawn will surely stop him;

but he fucks well into daylight, it’s bright morning now with a

disagreeably bright sun, profoundly intrusive, and suddenly

there’s a spasm, thank the Lord, and the boy is spent, it’s the

seventh day and this man who fucks must rest. And I thank

God. I do. I say, thank you, Lord. I say, I owe Y ou one. I say, I

appear still to be alive, I know I was doing something

proscribed and maybe I shouldn’t address Y ou before he even

moves o ff me but I am grateful to Y ou for stopping him, for

making him tired, for wearing him out, for creating him in

Y our image so that, eventually, he had to rest. I can’t move

because m y insides are messed up. M y incision is burning as if

there are lighted coals there and I’m afraid to see i f it is open or

i f it will bleed now and m y shoulder has stones crushed into it

as i f some demolition team was crushing granite, reflexive

pain from some dead spot, I don’t know where, and I truly

think I might not ever move again and I truly think I might

have opened up and I truly think I might still die; and I want to

be alone; die alone or bleed alone or endure the pain alone; and

I’m lying there thinking they will go now when the girl starts

pawing me and says stupid, nice things and starts being all

lovey dovey like w e ’re both Gidget and she wants now to have

the experience, if you will, o f making love with a wom an; this

is in the too-little-too-late category at best; and I am fairly

outraged and astonished because I hurt so much and m y little

sister in sensitivity thinks we should start dating. So I tell them

to go; and she says but he doesn’t like me better, m aybe he

needs you to be there— needs you, can you imagine— and I’m

trying to figure out what it has to do with him, w hy it’s what

he wants when I want them to go; it’s what I want; I never

understand w h y it’s always with these girls what he wants— i f

he’s there and even if he ain’t in sight or in the vicinity; he had

his hours doing what he wants; and she tells me she’s

disappointed with me for not being loving and we could all

share and this is some dream come true, the most amazing

thing that’s ever happened, to her or ever on earth, it’s the

pro o f that everything is possible, and the pain I’m in is keeping

me from m oving because I can’t even sit up but I’m saying

very quiet, get out now. And she’s saying it’s her first time

with a woman and she didn’t really get to do anything—

tourist didn’t get to see the Eiffel T ow er— and I say yes, that’s

right, you didn’t get nothing. So she’s sad like some lover who

was real left her and she’s handling me like she read in some

book, being a tender person, saying everything bland and

stupid, all her ideals about life, everything she’s hoped for, and

she’s preachy with the m orality o f sharing and unity and

harm ony and I expect her to shake her finger at me and hit m y

knuckles with a ruler and make me stand in a corner for not

being some loving bitch. T here’s a code o f love you have to

learn by heart, which I never took to, and I’m thinking that if

she don’t take her treacle to another planet I’m going to stand

up, no matter what the pain, and physically carry her out, a

new little bride, over the threshold to outside. She’s some

sobbing ingenue with a delicate smile perpetually on her face

shining through tears which are probably always with her and

she’s talking about universal love when all the boy did was

fuck us to death as best he could, which in m y case was close

but no cigar and I couldn’t bring m yself to think it was all that

friendly; and I had a short fuse because I needed another pill, I

was a few behind and I was looking forward to making them

up now in the immediate present, I could talk real nice to

Demerol and I didn’t want them there for when I got high

again; so I said, you go, because he really likes you and you

should stay with him and be with him and be good to him, so

the dumb bitch leaves with the prince o f peace over there, the

b o y’s already smoking dope so he’s already on another plane

taking care o f him self which is what he’s really good at; and

she’s uncomprehending and she’s mournful that I couldn’t get

the love part right but they went, I saw the b o y’s turquoise and

purple silk shirt float by me and the drippy, sentimental girl in

cotton floated out still soliciting love. I never understood w hy

she thought you could ask for it. N o one can ask it from me. I

never can remember his face; peculiar, since his head was right

above me for so long, his tongue in my mouth, he kissed the

whole time he fucked, a nice touch, he was in her kissing me or

in me kissing her so no one’d get away from him or decide to

do something else; I just can’t remember his face, as if I never

saw it. He was a Taurus. I stayed away from them after that if I

knew a man was one because they stay too long, slow, steady,

forever. I never saw such longevity. She was Ellen, some

flower child girl; doomed for housework. I’m not. I ain’t

cleaning up after them. I keep things as clean as I can; but you

can’t really stay clean; there’s too much heat and dirt. It’s a

sweltering night. The little nymphs, imps, and pimps o f

summer flitter about like it’s tea time at the Ritz. There’s been

uprisings on the streets, riots, lootings, burning; the air is

crackling with violence, a blue white fire eating up the

oxygen, it’s tiny, sharp explosions that go o ff in the air around

your head, firecrackers you can’t see that go o ff in front o f you

when you walk, in front o f your face, and you don’t know

when the air itself will become some white hot tornado, ju st

enough to crack your head open and boil your brains. T hat’s

outside, the world. Summertime and the living is easy. Y ou

just walk through the fires between the flames or crawl on

your belly under them; rough on your knees and elbows. Y o u

can be in the street and have a steaming mass, hot heat, kinetic,

come at you, a crowd, men at the top o f their energy, men

spinning propelled by butane, and they bear down on you on

the sidewalk, they come at you, martial chaos; they will march

over you, yo u ’ll be crushed, bone m arrow ground into a paste

with your own blood, a smear left on a sidewalk. The crow d ’s

a monster animal, a giant w olf, huge and frantic, tall as the

sky, blood pulsing and rushing through it, one predator,

bearing down, a hairy, freaky, hungry thing, bared teeth,

ugly, hungry thing, it springs through the air, light and lethal,

and you will fucking cringe, hide, run, disappear, to be safe—

you will fucking hide in a hole, like some roachy thing you

will crawl into a crack. Y ou can hear the sound o f them

coming, there’s a buzz coming up from the cement, it vibrates

and kicks up dust, and somewhere a fire starts, somewhere

close, and somewhere police in helmets with nightsticks are

bearing down on the carnivorous beast, somewhere close and

you can hear the skulls cracking open, and the blood comes,

somewhere close there’s blood, and you can hear guns, there’s

guns somewhere close because you smell the burning smell,

it’s heat rising o ff someone’s open chest, the singed skin still

sm oking where the bullet went through; the w o lfs being beat

down— shot over and over, wounded, torn open— it’s big

manly cops doing it, steel faces, lead boots— they ain’t

harassing whores tonight. It looks like foreplay, the w ay the

cops bear down on the undulating mass; I stroke your face

with m y nightstick; the lover tames the beloved; death does

quiet you down. But a pig can’t kill a wolf. The w o lfs the

monster prick, then the pigs come and turn the w o lf into a girl,

then it’s payback time and the w o lf rises again. In the day

when the w o lf sleeps there are still fires; anything can suddenly

go up in flames and you can’t tell the difference at first between

a fire and a summer day, the sun on the garbage, the hot air

making the ghetto buildings swell, the brick bulging,

deformed and in places melting, all the solid brick w avy in the

heat. At night the crowd rises, the w o lf rises, the great

predator starts a long, slow walk toward the bullets waiting

for it. The violence is in the air; not symbol; not metaphor; it’s

thick and tasty; the air’s charged with it; it crackles around

your head; then you stay in or go out, depending on— can you

stand being trapped inside or do you like the open street? I

sleep days. It’s safer. I sleep in daylight. I stay awake nights. I

keep an eye out. I don’t like to be unconscious. I don’t like the

w ay you get limp. I don’ t like how you can’t hear what goes

on around you. I don’t like that you can’t see. I don’t like to be

waiting. I don’t like that you get no warning. I don’t like not to

know where I am. I don’t like not to know m y name. I sleep in

the day because it’s safer; at night, I face the streets, the crowd,

the predator, any predator, head on. I’d rather be there. I want

to see it coming at me, the crowd or anything else or anyone. I

want it to look at me and I want a chance. There’s gangs

everywhere. There’s arson or fires or w o lf packs or packs o f

men; men and gangs. The men outside m y door are banging;

they want to come in; big group fuck; they tear me apart; b oys’

night out. It’s about eight or nine at night and I’m going out

soon, it’s a little too early yet, I hear them banging on the door

with knives and fists, I can’t get out past them, there’s only one

w ay out; I can’t get past them. Once night comes it’s easy to

seal you in. Night comes and you have the rules o f the grave,

different rules from daylight, they can do things at night,

everyone can, they can’t do in the day; they will break the door

down, no one here calls the police, I don’t have a gun, I have

one knife, a pathetic thing, I sleep with it under m y pillow. I

figure if someone’s right on top o f me I can split him apart

with it. I figure if he’s already on top o f me because I didn’t

hear him and didn’t see him because I was unconscious and I

wake up and he’s there I can stick it in him or I can cut his

throat. I figure it gives me time to come to, then I try for his

throat, but if I’m too late, if I can’t get it, i f he’s som ehow so I

can’t get his throat, then I can get his back. O r I can finish

m yself o ff i f there’s no other w ay; I think about it each time I

lie down to sleep, if I can do it, draw the knife across m y

throat, fast, I try to prepare m yself to do it, in m y mind I make

a vo w and I practice the stroke before I sleep. I think it’s better

to kill him but I just can’t bear them no longer, really, and it’s

unknown i f I could do it to me; so fast; but I keep practicing in

m y mind so if the time comes I w o n ’t even think. It would be

the right thing. I don’t really believe in hurting him or anyone.

I have the knife; I can’t stand to think about using it, what it

would be like, or going to jail for hurting him, I never wanted

to kill anybody and I’d do almost anything not to. I know the

men outside, they’re neighborhood, this block, they broke in

before, in daylight, smashed everything, took everything,

they ran riot in here, they tell me they’re coming to fuck me,

they say so out on the street, hanging on the stoop; they say so.

T h ey’ve broken in here before, that’s when I started sleeping

with the knife. Inside there’s too many hours to dawn; too

many hours o f dark to hold them off; they’ll get in; I know this

small world as well as they do, I know what they can do and

what they can’t do and once it’s night they can break the door

down and no one will stop them; and the police don’t come

here; you never see a cop here; there’s no w ay to keep them out

and m y blood’s running cold from the banging, from the noise

o f them, fists, knives, I don’t know what, sticks, I guess,

maybe baseball bats, the arsenal o f the streets. The telephone’s

worthless, they cut the wire when they broke in; but no one

would come. This is the loneliest I ever knew existed; now;

them banging. There’s things you learn, tricks; no one can

hurt me. I’m not some stupid piece o f shit. Y ou got a gang

outside, banging, making threats. They want to come in;

fuck. T h ey’ll kill me; fuck me dead or kill me after. It’s like

anything, you have to face what’s true, you don’t get to say if

you want to handle it or not, you handle it to stay alive. So

what’s it to me; if I can just get through it; minimum damage,

minimum pain, the goal o f all women all the time and it’s not

different now. If you’re ever attacked by a gang you have to

get the leader. If you get him, disable him, pull him away from

the others, kill him, render him harmless, the others are

nothing. If you miss him, attack him but miss, wound him,

irritate him, aggravate him, rile him, humiliate him without

taking him out, you are human waste, excreta. So it’s clear;

there’s one way. There’s him. I have to get him. if I can pull

him away from them, to me, I have a chance; a chance. I open

the door. I think if I grab him between the legs I’m in charge; if

I pull his thing. I learn the limits o f m y philosophy. Every

philosophy’s got them. I ain’t in charge. It’s fast. It’s simple. I

open the door. It’s a negotiation. The agreement is he comes

in, they stay out; he doesn’t bring the big knife he has in with

him; it stays outside; if I mess with him, he will hurt me with it

and turn me over to them; if anything bad happens to him or if

I don’t make him happy, he will turn me over to them. This is

consent, right? I opened the door myself. I picked him. I just

got to survive him; and tom orrow find a w ay out; away from

here. He comes in; he’s Pedro or Jo e or Juan; he swaggers,

touches everything, there’s not much left he notes with

humor; he wants me to cook him dinner; he finds m y knife; he

keeps it; he keeps saying what he’ll do to me with it; I cook; he

drinks; he eats; he keeps talking; he brags; he talks about the

gang, keeps threatening me, what he’ll do to me, what they’ll

do to me, aspects o f lovemaking the gang would also enjoy

and maybe he’ll just let them in now or there’s time after,

they’re waiting, right outside, maybe he’ll call them in but

they can come back tom orrow night too, there’s time, no need

to w orry, nice boys in the gang, a little rough but I’ll enjoy

them, w o n ’t I? Then he’s ready; he’s excited himself; he’s even

fingered him self and rubbed himself. Like the peace boys he

talks with his legs spread wide open, his fingers lightly

caressing his cock, the denim pulled tight, exerting its own

pressure. He goes to the bed and starts to undress and he runs

one hand through the hair on his chest and he holds the knife in

the other hand, he fingers the knife, he rubs his thumb over it

and he caresses it and he keeps talking, seductive talk about

how good he is and how good the knife is and I’m going to like

them both and he’s got a cross on a chain around his neck and it

glistens in his hair, it’s silver and his skin is tawny and his hair

on his chest is black and curly and thick and it shines and I’m

staring at it thinking it shouldn’t be there, the shiny cross, I am

having these highly moral thoughts against the blasphemy o f

the cross on his chest, I think it is w rong and concentrate on

the im m orality o f wearing it now, doing this, w hy does he

wear it, what does it mean, his shirt is o ff and his pants are

coming o ff and he is rapturous with the knife in his hand and I

look at the cross and I look at the knife and I think they are both

for me, he will hold the knife, maybe I can touch the cross, I

will try to touch it all through and maybe it will be something

or mean something or I w o n ’t feel so frightened, so alone in

this life now, and I think I will just touch it, and there’s him,

there’s the cross, there’s the knife, and I’m under them and I

don’t know, I will never remember, the hours are gone, blank,

a tunnel o f nothing, and I’m naked, the bell rings, it’s light

outside so it’s been five hours, six, there’s a knock on the door,

insistent knocking, he says don’t answer it, he says don’t

move, he holds the knife against me, just under m y skin, the

tip just under it, and I try to fight for m y life, I say it’s a friend

who expects me to be here and will not go away and I will have

to answer the door and I w on’t say anything and I w on’t tell or

say anything bad, I will just go to the door to tell m y friend to

go away, to convince him everything’s fine, and someone’s

knocking and he has a deep voice and I don’t know what I will

do when I reach the door or who it is on the outside or what

will happen; but I’m hurt; dizzy; reeling; can’t feel anything

but some obscure pain somewhere next to me or across the

room and I don’t know what he’s done, I don’t look at any part

o f me, I cover m yself a little with a sheet, I pull it over me and I

don’t look down, I have trouble keeping m y head steady on

m y shoulders, I don’t know if I can walk from the bed to the

door, and I think I can open the door maybe and just keep

walking but I am barely covered at all and maybe the gang’s

outside and you can’t walk naked in a sheet, they’ll just hurt

you more; anyone will. I can’t remember and I can barely

carry m y head up and I have this one chance; because I can’t

have him do more; you see? I got up, I put something around

me, over me, a sheet or something, just held it together where

I could, and I took some steps and I kept whispering to the

man with the knife in m y bed that I would just get rid o f the

man at the door because he wouldn’t go away if I didn’t come

to the door and really I would just make him go aw ay and I

kept walking to the door to open it, not knowing if I would fall

or if the man in the bed would stick the knife in me before I got

there, or who was on the other side o f the door and what he

would do; would he run or laugh or walk away; or was it a

member o f the gang, wanting some. It was cool and clear and

light outside and it was a man I didn’t know except a little, a

big man, so tall, so big, such a big man, and I whispered to him

to help me, please help me, and I talked out loud that I couldn’t

come out now for breakfast like we had planned and I

whispered to say that I was hurt and that the man inside was a

leader o f a gang and I indicated the big knife on the w indow

ledge, out o f m y reach, a huge dagger, almost a sword, that I

had got the man to leave outside and I whispered that he was in

m y bed now with a knife and out loud I tried to say normal

things very loud but I was dizzy and I wasn’t sure I could keep

standing and the big man caught on quick and said normal

things loud, questions so I could answer them and didn’t have

to think o f new things because I’m shaking and I say the m an’s

in m y bed with a knife and please help me he was with a gang

and I don’t know where they are and maybe they’re around

and they’ll show up and it’s dangerous but please help me and

the big man strides in, he doesn’t take the big knife, I almost

die from fear but he just does it, I used m y chance and there’s

none left, he has long legs and they cover the distance to the

bed in a second and the man in m y bed is fumbling with the

knife and the big man, so big, with long legs, says I’m his; his

girl; his; this is an insult to him; an outrage to him; and the man

in the bed with the knife says nothing, he grovels, he sweats,

he asks forgiveness, he didn’t mean no harm, you know how it

is man; and hey they agree it’s just a misunderstanding and

they talk and the man in m y bed with the knife is sweating and

the man who saved me is known to be dangerous, he is

known, a known very serious man, a quiet man, a major man,

and he says he’s m y man and I’m his woman and he don’t want

me having no trouble with sniveling assholes and any insult he

throws makes the man in m y bed with the knife sweat more

and grovel more and the big man, the man with the long legs,

he speaks very soft, and he says that now the man in the bed

with the knife w ill leave and the man in the bed with the knife

fumbles to put his pants on and fumbles to put his shirt on and

fumbles to get his shoes on and the big man, the man with the

long legs, says quietly, politely, that nobody had ever better

mess with me anymore and the man who was in m y bed with

the knife says yeah and sure and please and thank you and I am

some kind o f prom queen, bedecked, bejeweled, crowned

princess, because the man with the long legs says I am his, and

Pedro or Juan or Jo e is obsequious and he says he is sorry and

he says he didn’t understand and he says he made a mistake and

they chat and I’m shaking bad, I’m there covered a little, I’m

shaking and I’m not really covered and I’m covered in sweat

and I’m trying not to fall down faint and I’m shaking so much

I’m nearly naked, I’m hurt, my head falls down and I see my

skin, all bruised anywhere you can see as if I turned blue or

someone painted me blue, and there’s blood on me but I can’t

look or keep m y eyes open, I’m just this side o f dead but I’m

holding on, I’m shaking but I got something covering me

somewhere and I’m just not quite dead, I’m keeping something covering me somewhere, and Pedro or Juan or Jo e

leaves, he leaves mumbling an apology to the big man and I’m

saying thank you to the big man with serious formality, quiet

and serious and concentrating, and I’m something that ain’t

fresh and new, I’m something that ain’t clean, and I don’t

know anything except he’s got to go now because I have to

curl up by m yself to die now, it’s time, I’m just going to put

m yself down on the bed, very careful, very slow, on m y side

with m y knees raised a little, curled up a little, and I’m going to

God, I am going to ask God to take me in now, I am going to

forgive Him and I am going to put aside all m y grudges against

Him for all what He did wrong and for all the pain I ever had or

saw and I am going to ask Him to take me away now from

here and to somewhere else where I don’t have to move ever

again, where I can be curled up a little and nothing hurts and

whatever hurts don’t have to m ove and that I don’t have to

wake up no more but the big man ain’t through and I say later

or tom orrow or come back and he says I have to pay m y debts

and he talks and he threatens and he has a deep voice and he is.

big and he has long arms and he isn’t leaving, he says, and he is

strong and he pulls me down and gets on top o f me and says I

owe him and he fucks me and I say God Y ou must stop him

now but God don’t stop him, God don’t have no problem

with this, God rides on the back o f the man and I see Him there

doing it and the man uses his teeth on me where men fuck and

G od ’s for him and I’m wondering w hy He likes people being

hurt and I’m past hating Him and past Him and I can’t beg

Him no more for respite or help or death and the big man has

his teeth between m y legs, inside me and on the flesh all

around, he’s biting, not a little, deep bites, he’s using his teeth

and biting into the lips o f m y labia and I’m thinking this is not

happening and it is not possible and it is not true and I am

thinking it will stop soon because it must stop soon but it does

not stop soon because the man has fucked but it means nothing

to him except he had to do it so he did it but this is w hy he is

here, the real reason, this biting in this place, he is wanting to

do this other awful thing that is not like anything anyone ever

did before and I say this is not happening and even Y ou are not

so cruel to let this man do this and keep doing it and not

making him stop but the man has long arms and he’s driven, a

passionate man, and he holds me down and he has long legs

and he uses his arms and legs to keep me pinned down and he is

so big, so tall, he can have his face down there and still he

covers me to hold me down, m y shoulders, m y breasts; but

m y head twists back and forth, side to side, like some loose

head o f a doll screwed on wrong. He is cutting me open with

his teeth, he looks up at me, he bites more, he says lovers’

things, he is the great lover and he is going slow, with his

mouth, with his teeth, and then watching m y head try to

screw itself o ff m y neck; and he gets in a frenzy and there’s no

words for this because pain is littler and sweeter and someday

it ends but this doesn’t end, will not end, it will never end, it’s

dull, dirty, rusty knives cutting my labial lips or the edge o f a

rusty tin can and it’s inside me, his teeth reaching inside me

turning me inside out, the skin, he is pulling me open and he is

biting inside me and I’m thinking that pain is a river going

through me but there’s no words and pain isn’t a river, there’s

just one great scream past sound and my mind moves over, it

moves out o f m y head, I feel it escape, it runs away, it says no,

not this, no and it says you cannot but the man does and my

mind just fucking falls out o f my brains and I am past being

anything God can help anyway and He’s making the man

stronger, H e’s making the man happy, the man likes this, he is

liking this, and he is proud to be doing it so good like a good

lover, slow, one who lasts, one who takes time; and this is real;

this happened and this will last forever, because I am just

someone like anyone and there’s things too bad for me and I

didn’t know you could be lying flat, blue skin with blood from

the man with the knife, to find love again, someone cutting his

w ay into you; and I’m just someone and it’s just flesh down

there, tender flesh, somewhere you barely touch and you

w ouldn’t cut it or wound it; no one would; and I have pain all

over me but pain ain’t the word because there’s no word, I

have pain on me like it’s my skin but pain ain’t the word and it

isn’t m y skin, blue with red. I’m just some bleeding thing cut

up on the floor, a pile o f something someone left like garbage,

some slaughtered animal that got sliced and sucked and a man

put his dick in it and then it didn’t matter if the thing was still

warm or not because the essential killing had been done and it

was just a matter o f time; the thing would die; the longer it

took the worse it would be; which is true. He had a good time.

He did. He got up. He was friendly. He got dressed. I wasn’t

barely alive. I barely moaned or whispered or cried. I didn’t

move. He left. The gang was somewhere outside. He left the

door open, wide open, and it was going to be a hundred years

before I could crawl enough to close it. There was daylight

streaming in. It was tom orrow. T om orrow had finally come,,

a long tom orrow, an eternal tom orrow , I’m always here, the

girl lying here, can’t run, can’t crawl, where’s freedom now,

can’t move, can’t crawl, dear God, help me, someone, help

me, this is real, help me; please, help me. I hate God; for

making the pain; and making the man; and putting me here;

under them all; anyone that wants.

S E V E N

In 1969, 1970, 1971

(Age 22, 23, 24, 2$)

Yeah, I go somewhere else, a new country, not the fucking

U . S . A ., somewhere I never been, and I’m such a sweet genius

o f a girl that I marry a boy. N ot some trash bourgie; a sweet

boy w ho’d done time; I rescued him from jail once, I took all

my money and I gave it to some uniformed pig for him; a

hostage, they had kidnapped him, taken him out o f his bed and

out o f where he lived in handcuffs in the middle o f the night

and they kept him; I mean, he just fucking disappeared and it

was that he was locked up. They let me in the prison, the great

gray walls that are built so high and so cold you can’t help but

feel anyone in them is a tragic victim buried alive. You

w ouldn’t be right but that’s what you’d feel. Cold stone, a

washed-out gray. I was a child standing there, just a girl,

money in my hand, love in my heart, telling the guard I

wanted m y friend loose and had come to pay for him to go

now, with me; I felt like a child because the prison was so big

and so cold, it was the gray o f the Camden streets, only it was

standing up instead o f all spread out flat to the horizon, it was

the streets I grew up on rising high into the sky, with sharp

right angles, an angry rectangle o f pale gray stone, a washed-

out gray, opaque, hard, solid, cold, except it wasn’t broken or

crumbling— each wall was gray concrete, thick, the thickness

o f your forearm— well, if you see someone’s forearm up

someone’s ass you know how long, how thick it is, and I seen

these things, I traveled a hard road until now; not how a

gentleman’s forearm seems draped in a shirt but what it is i f it’s

in you— a human sense o f size, chilling enough to remember

precisely, a measurement o f space and pain; once the body

testifies, you know. It was cold gray stone, an austere

monument; not a castle or a palace or an old monastery or a

stone w inery in cool hills or archaic remains o f Druids or

Romans or anything like that; it was cold; stone cold; ju st a

stone cold prison outside o f time, high and nasty; and a girl

stands outside it holding all her money that she will ever have

in her cute little clenched fist, she’s giving it to the pigs for a

man; not her man; a man; a hero; a rebel; a resister; a

revolutionary; a boy against authority, against all shit. H e’s all

sweet inside, delicate, a tender one, and on the outside he is a

fighting boy with speed and wit, a street fighting boy, a

subversive; resourceful, ruthless, a paragon, not o f virtue but

o f freedom. Bom bs here and there, which I admire, property

not people; blow ing up sym bols o f oppression, monuments to

greed and exploitation, statues o f imperialists and w armongers; a boy brave enough to strike terror in the heart o f business as usual. I’m Andrea, I say to the guard as if it matters;

I have the money, see, here, I’ve come to get him out, he’s m y

friend, a kind, gentle, and decent boy, I say showing a moral

nature; I am trying to be a human being to the guard, I’m

always a pacifist at war with myself, I want to ignore the

uniform, the gun, inside there’s someone human, I want to act

human, be human, but how? I think about these things and I

find m yself trying; trying at strange times, in strange places,

for reconciliation, for recognition; I decide reciprocity must be

possible now, for instance, now standing at a guard booth at

the outermost concrete wall o f the concrete prison. Later,

when I am waiting for his release, I will be inside the concrete

building and all the guards and police and guns will disappear

as if it’s magic or a hallucination and I will wander the halls,

ju st wander, down in the cell blocks, all painted an oily brazen

white, the bars to the cells painted the same bright white— I

will wander; wander in the halls like a tourist looking around

at the bars, the cells, the men in the cages, the neat bunk beds;

the men will call things out in a language I don’t understand,

grinning and gesticulating, and I will grin back— I’m lost and I

walk around and I walk quite a long w ay in the halls and I

wonder if the police will shoot me if they find me and I hope I

can find my w ay back to the room where they left me and I

think about what strange lapses there are in reality, ellipses

really, or little bumps and grinds, so that there are no police in

the halls anywhere and I can just walk around: loaded down

with anxiety, because in Amerika they would shoot me if I

was wandering through; it’s like a dream but it’s no dream, the

clean white prison without police. N o w , outside, with the

guard, at the first barricade, I act nice with both fear and utopia

in m y heart. Who is the guard? Human, like me. I came for my

friend, I say, and I say his name, many times, in the strange

language as best I can, I spell it, I write it out carefully. I don’t

say: m y friend you Nazis grabbed because he’s political— my

friend who makes bombs, not to hurt anyone but to show

what’s important, people not property— my friend w ho’s

afraid o f nothing and no one and he has a boisterous laugh and

a shy smile— m y friend who disappeared from his home three

nights ago, disappeared, and no one knew where he was,

disappeared, gone, and you had come in the middle o f the

night and handcuffed him and brought him here, you had

hauled him out o f bed and taken him away, you had

kidnapped him from regular life, you had pushed him around,

and you didn’t have a reason, not a lawful one, not one you

knew about, not a real crime with a real indictment, it was

harassment, it was intimidation, but he’s not some timid boy,

he’s not some tepid, tame fool; he’s the real thing. He’s beyond

your law. H e’s past your reach. He’s beyond your understanding. H e’s risk and freedom outside all restraint. I never

quite knew what they arrested him for, a w ay he had o f

disappearing inside a narrative, you never could exactly pin

down a fact but you knew he was innocent. He was the pure

present, a whirling dervish o f innocence, a minute-to-minute

boy incarnating innocence, no burden o f m em ory or law,

untouched by convention. And I came looking for him,

because he was kind. He said Andrea, whispered it; he said

Andrea shy and quiet and just a little giddy and there was a

rush o f whisper across m y ear, a little whirlwind o f whisper,

and a chill up and down m y spine. It was raining; we were

outside, wet, touching just barely, maybe not even that. He

lived with his family, a boarder in a house o f strangers, cold,

acquisitive conformers who wanted money and furniture,

people with rules that passed for manners, robots wanting

things, more things, stupid things. He had to pay them m oney

to live there. I never heard o f such a thing: a son. I couldn’t go

there with him, o f course. I had no place to stay. I was outside

all night. It rained the whole night. I didn’t have anywhere to

go or anywhere to live. I had gone with a few different men,

had places to stay for a few weeks, but now I was alone, didn’t

want no one, didn’t have a bed or a room. He came to find me

and he stayed with me; outside; the long night; in rain; not in a

bed; not for the fuck; not. Rain is so hard. It stops but you stay

wet for so long after and you get cold always no matter what

the weather because you are swathed in wet cloth and time

goes by and you feel like a baby someone left in ice water and

even if it’s warm outside and the air around you heats up you

get colder anyw ay because the w et’s up against you, wrapped

around you and it don’t breathe, it stays heavy, intractable, on

you; and so rain is very hard and when it rains you get sad in a

frightened w ay and you feel a loneliness and a desolation that is

very big. This is always so once you been out there long

enough. I f yo u ’re inside it don’t matter— you still get cold and

lonely; afraid; sad. So when the boy came to stay with me in

the rain I took him to m y heart. I made him m y friend in my

heart. I pledged friendship, a whisper o f intention. I made a

promise. I didn’t say nothing; it was a minute o f honor and

affection. About four in the morning we found a cafe. It’s a

long w ay to dawn when you’re cold and tired. We scraped up

money for coffee, pulled change out o f our pockets, a rush o f

silver and slugs, and we pooled it on the table which is like

running blood together because nothing was held back and so

we were like blood brothers and when m y blood brother

disappeared I went looking for him, I went to the address

where he lived, a cold, awful place, I asked his terrible mother

where he was, I asked, I waited for an answer, I demanded an

answer, I went to the local precinct, I made them tell me,

where he was, how to find him, how much money it took to

spring him, I went to get him, he was far away, hidden away

like Rapunzel or something, a long bus ride followed by

another long bus ride, he was in a real prison, not some funky

little jail, not some county piss hole, a great gray concrete

prison in the middle o f nowhere so they can find you if you

run, nail you, and I took all m y money, m y blood, m y life for

today and tom orrow a n d : he next day and for as long as there

was, as far ahead as I can count, and I gave it like a donor for his

life so he could be free, so the piglets couldn’t put him in a

cage, couldn’t keep him there; so he could be what he was, this

very great thing, a free man, a poor boy who had become a

revolutionary man; he was pure— courage and action, a wild

boy, so wild no one had ever got near him before, I wish I was

so brave as him; he was manic, dizzying, m oving every

second, a frenzy, frenetic and intense with a mask o f joviality,

loud stories, vulgar jokes; and then, with me, quiet, shy, so

shy. I met him when he had just come back from driving an

illegal car two times in the last month into Eastern Europe,

crossing the borders illegally into Stalinist Eastern bloc

countries— I never understood exactly which side he was

on— he said both— he said he took illegal things in and illegal

people out— borders didn’t stop him, armies didn’t stop him, I

crossed borders with him later, he could cross any border; he

wore a red star he said the Soviets had given him, a star o f

honor from the government that only some party insiders ever

got, and then he fucked them over by delivering anarchy in his

forays in and out o f their fortressed imperial possessions. He

had a Russian nickname, his nom de guerre, and since his life was

subversion, an assault on society, war against all shit and all

authority, his nom de guerre was his name, the only name

anyone knew he had; no one could trace him to his fam ily, his

origins, where he slept: a son paying rent. Except me. In fact

the cops arrested him for not paying traffic tickets, thousands

o f dollars, under the conventional birth name; he ended in the

real prison resisting arrest. Even in jail he was still safely

underground, the nom de guerre unconnected to him, the body

in custody. When I married him I got his real name planted on

me by law and I knew his secrets, this one and then others,

slow ly all o f them, the revolutionary ones and the ones that

went with being a boy o f his time, his class, his parents, a boy

raised to conform, a boy given a dull, stupid name so he would

be dull and stupid, a boy named to become a man who would

live to collect a pension. I was M rs. him, the female one o f him

by law, a legal incarnation o f what he fucking hated, an actual

legal entity, because there is no Mrs. nom de guerre and no girl’s

name ever mattered on the streets or underground, not her

own real name anyway, only if she was some fox to him, a

legendary fox. I was one: yeah, a great one. I had m y time. But

it was nasty to become Mrs. his Christian names and his

daddy’s last name, the w ay they say M rs. Edw ard Jam es Fred

Smith, as if she’s not Sally or Jane; the wedding was m y

baptism, m y naming, Mrs. what he hates, the one who needs

furniture and money, the one you come home to which means

you got to be somewhere, a rule, a law, Mrs. the law, the one

who says get the mud o ff your shoes because it’s dirtying the

floor, the one who just cleaned the fucking floor after all. I

never thought about mud in my whole fucking life but when

you clean the floor you want to be showed respect. I lived with

him before we got married; we were great street fighters; we

were great. N o one could follow the chaos we made, the

disruptions, the lightning-fast transgressions o f law; passports, borders, taking people or things here or there; street actions, explosions, provocations, property destruction, sand

in gas tanks, hiding deserters from Vietnam, the occasional

deal. We had a politics o f making well-defined chaos,

strategically brilliant chaos; then we made love. We did the

love because we had run our blood together; it was fraternal

love but between us, a carnal expression o f brotherhood in the

revolutionary sense, a long, fraternal embrace for hours or

days, in hiding, in the hours after when we wanted to

disappear, be gone from the world o f public accountability;

and he whispered Andrea, he whispered it urgently, he was

urgent and frantic, an intense embrace. He taught me to cook;

in rented rooms all over Europe he taught me to cook; a bed, a

hot plate, he taught me to make soup and macaroni and

sausages and cabbage; and I thought it meant he was specially

taking care o f me, he was m y friend, he loved me, w e’d make

love and he’d cook. H e’d learned in the N avy, mass meals

enhanced by his private sense o f humor and freedom, the jokes

he would tell in the private anarchy o f the relatively private

kitchen, more personal freedom than anywhere else, doing

anything else. He got thrown out; they tried to order him

around, especially one vicious officer, he didn’t take shit from

officers, he poured a bowl o f hot soup over the officer’s head,

he was in the brig, you get treated bad and you toughen up

or break and his rebellion took on aspects o f deadly force, he

lost his boyish charm although he always liked to play but

inside it was a life-or-death hate o f authority, he made it look

like fun but it was very dark; a psychiatrist rescued him, got

him discharged. His parents were ashamed. He joined real

young to get aw ay from them; he didn’t have much education

except what he learned there— some about cooking and

explosives; some about how to do hard time. He learned some

about assault and authority; you could assault anyone; rules

said you couldn’t; in real life you could. M om m y and daddy

were ashamed o f him when he came home; they got colder,

more remote. Oh, she was cold. Ignorant and cold. D addy

too, but he hid him self behind a patriarchal lethargy; head o f

the clan’s all tuckered out now from a life o f real work, daily

service, for money, for food, tired for life, too tired to say

anything, too tired to do anything, has to just sit there now on

his special chair only he can sit on, a vinyl chair, and read the

newspaper now, only he gets to read the newspaper, which

seems to take all day and all night because he ponders, he

addresses issues o f state in his head, he’s the daddy. D ay and

night he sits in the chair, all tuckered out. H e’s cold, a cold

man whose wife took the rap for being mean because she did

things— raised the kids, cleaned the floor, said eat now, said

sleep now, said it’s cold so where’s the coal, said we need

money for clothes, terrible bitch o f a woman, a tyrant making

such demands, keeping track o f the details o f shelter; and she

got what she needed i f she had to make it or barter for it or steal

it; she was one o f them evil geniuses o f a mother that kept her

eye open to get what was needed, including when the Nazis

were there, occupying, when some didn’t get fed and

everyone was hungry. Daddy got to sit in the special chair, all

for him. O f course, when he was younger he worked. On

boats. Including for the Nazis. He had no choice, he is quick to

say. Well, not that quick. He says it after a long, rude silence

questioning w hy is it self-evident that there was no choice or

questioning his seeming indifference to anything going on

around him at the time. Well, you see, o f course, I had no

choice. N o, well, they didn’t have to threaten, you see, I

simply did what they asked; yes, they were fine to me; yes, I

had no trouble with them; o f course, I only worked on a boat,

a ship, you know. Oh, no, o f course, I didn’t hurt anyone; no,

we never saw any Jew s; no, o f course not, no. M om m y did, o f

course; saw a Jew ; yes, hid a Je w in a closet for several days,

yes. Out o f the kindness o f her heart. Out o f her goodness.

Yes, they would have killed her but she said what did the Jew s

ever do to me and she hid one, yes. Little Je w girl became his

daughter-in-law— times have changed, he would note and

then he would nod ponderously— but it was the hero,

m om m y-in-law, w ho’d say things like “je w it dow n” because

she did the work o f maintaining the family values: fed the

family materially and spiritually. But m y husband wasn’t one

o f them; the worse they were, the purer, the more miraculous,

he was. He wasn’t o f them; he was o f me; o f what I was and

knew; o f what I thought and hoped; o f the courage I wanted to

have; o f the will I did have; o f the life I was leading, all risk and

no tom orrow; and he was born after the war like me; a child o f

after. So there was this legal thing; the law decrees; it made me

their daughter-in-law more than it made me his wife. There

was it and them on the one hand and then there was us: him in

exile from them— I thought he was as orphaned as I was; and

braver; I thought he was braver. I embraced him, and he

embraced me, and neither o f us knew nothing about

tom orrow and I never had. I didn’t wait for him like some

middle-class girl wanting a date or something in ruffles or

someone wanting a husband; I wasn’t one o f them and I didn’t

want a husband; I wanted a friend through day and night. I

didn’t ask him what he liked so I could bow and scrape and my

idea wasn’t to make him into someone safe, denatured. He

was an anarchist o f spirit and act and I didn’t want no burden

o f law on him. I just wanted to run with him, be his pal in his

game, and hold him; hold him. I indulged an affection for him,

a fraternal affection that was real and warm and robust and sort

o f interesting on its own, always sort o f reaching out towards

him, and I felt tender towards him, tender near him, next to

him, lying next to him; and we were intense, a little on edge,

when we holed up together, carnal; our home was the bed we

were in, a bed, an empty room, the floor, an em pty room,

maybe not a regular home like you see on television but we

wasn’t like them on television, there w asn’t tw o people like us

anywhere, so fragile and so reckless and so strong, we were

with each other and for each other, we didn’t hide where we

had been before, what we had done, we had secrets but not

from each other and there w asn’t anything that made us dirty

to each other and we embraced each other and we were going

to hole up together, kind o f a home, us against them, I guess,

and we didn’t have no money or ideas, you know , pictures in

your head from magazines about how things should be—

plates, detergents, how them crazy wom en smile in advertisements. It’s all around you but you don’t pick it up unless you got some time and money and neither o f us had ever

been a citizen in that sense. We were revolutionaries, not

consumers— not little boy-girl dolls all polished and smiling

with little tea sets playing house. We were us, unto ourselves.

We found a small place without any floor at all, you had to

walk on the beams, and he built the floor so the landlord let us

stay there. We planned the political acts there, the chaos we

delivered to the status quo, the acts o f disruption, rebellion.

We hid out there, kept low , kept out o f sight; you turn where

you are into a friendly darkness that hides you. We embraced

there, a carnal embrace— after an action or during the long

weeks o f planning or in the interstices where we drenched

ourselves in hashish and opium until a paralysis overtook us

and the smoke stopped all the time. I liked that; how

everything slowed down; and I liked fucking after a strike, a

proper climax to the real act— I liked how everything got fast

and urgent; fast, hard, life or death; I liked bed then, after,

when we was drenched in perspiration from what came

before; I liked revolution as foreplay; I liked how it made you

supersensitive so the hairs on your skin were standing up and

hurt before you touched them, could feel a breeze a mile away,

it hurt, there was this reddish pain, a soreness parallel to your

skin before anything touched you; I liked how you was tired

before you began, a fatigue that came because the danger was

over, a strained, taut fatigue, an ache from discipline and

attentiveness and from the imposition o f a superhuman

quietness on the body; I liked it. I liked it when the embrace

was quiet like the strike itself, a subterranean quiet, disciplined, with exposed nerve endings that hurt but you don’t say

nothing. Then you sleep. Then you fuck more; hardy; rowdy;

long; slow; now side by side or with me on top and then side

by side; I liked to be on top and I moved real slow, real

deliberate, using every muscle in me, so I could feel him

hurting— you know that melancholy ache inside that deepens

into a frisson o f pain? — and I could tease every bone in his

body until it was ready to break open, split and the m arrow ’d

spread like semen. I could split him open inside and he never

had enough. I had an appetite for him; anything, I’d do

anything, hours or days. In my mind, I wasn’t there for him so

much as I was the same as him. I could feel every muscle in his

body as if it were mine and I’d taunt each muscle, I’d make it

bend and ache and stretch and tear, I’d pull it slow, I’d make it

m ove toward me so much it w ould’ve come through his skin

except I’d make him come before his skin’d burst open. I didn’t

have no shyness around him and I didn’t have to act ignorant

or stupid because he wasn’t that kind o f man who wanted you

to overlay everything with the words o f a fool like you don’t

know nothing. Some was perverse according to how these

things are seen but that’s a concept, not a fact, it’s a concept

over people’s eyes so much you wish they would go blind to

get rid o f the concept once and for all. It’s how the law makes

you see things but we were different. We were inside each

other; a fact; wasn’t perverse; couldn’t be. We turned each

other inside out and it binds you and there w asn’t nothing he

did to me that I didn’t do to him and w e’d talk and cook and

roam around and drink and smoke and w e’d visit his friends,

which wasn’t always so good because to them I was this

something, I didn’t understand it but I hated it, I was this

something that came into a room and changed everything.

There were these guys, mostly fighters, anarchists, some

intellectuals, and when I came into the room everything was

different. I was his blood and that’s how we acted, not giggly

or amorous, but I think I was just this monstrous thing, this

girlfriend or wife, that is completely different from them and

cannot talk without making them mad or crazy, that cannot

do anything but ju st must sit quiet, that does not have any

reason to be in the room at all, not this room where they are,

only some other room somewhere else to be fucked, sort o f

kept like a pet animal and the man goes there when he’s done

with the real stuff, the real talk, the real politics, the real w ork,

the real getting high, even the real fucking— they go somewhere together and get women together to do the real

fucking, they hunt down women together or buy wom en

together or pick up women together to do the real fucking;

and then in some one room somewhere hidden aw ay is the

w ife or girlfriend and she’s in this sort o f vacuum, sealed

aw ay, vacuum packed, and when she comes out to be

somewhere or to say something there is an embarrassment and

they avert their eyes— the man failed because she’s outside—

she got out— like his pee’s showing on his pants. We’d go to

these meetings late at night. These guys would be there; they

were famous revolutionaries, famous to their time and place,

criminals according to the law; brilliant, shrewd, tough guys,

detached, with formal politeness to me. One was a junkie, a

flamboyant junkie with long, silken, rolling brown curls,

great pools o f sadness in his moist eyes, small and elegant, a

beauty, soft-spoken, always nodding out or so sick and

wretched that he’d be throwing up a few times a night and

they’d expect me to clean it up and I w ouldn’t, I’d just sit there

waiting for the next thing we were all going to discuss, and

someone would eventually look me in the eye, a rare event,

and say meaningfully, “ he just threw u p , ” and time would

pass and I’d wait and eventually someone would start talking

about something; I didn’t get how the junkie was more real

than me or how his vomit was mine, you know. When the

junkie’d come to where we lived he would vom it and sort o f

challenge me to leave it there, as he had fouled m y very own

nest, and he’d ask for a cup o f tea and I’d clean it up but I

w ouldn’t get him the tea and I tried to convey to my husband

that m y hospitality was being abused, our hospitality, o f

course, that I wasn’t being treated fair, not that some rule was

being broke but that the boy was being rude to me; I told my

husband to clean it up finally but he never did it too good. I

told m y husband who I still thought was m y brother that I

didn’t want the junkie to come anymore because he didn’t

treat me in an honorable w ay and I said I wasn’t born for this.

So there were these fissures coming between us because the

fraternal affection was with him and the junkie from the old

days together, not him and me from now, and I was shocked

by this, I couldn’t grasp it. I went into the rooms with him but

it came down on him how bad it was from the men and it came

down on me that I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near

where they were. I kept going to the rooms because we kept

hitting targets all over the city and w e’d need to get o ff the

streets fast and he’d know some place he wanted to be, one

friend or another, and they’d all be there; it would contradict

the plan but he’d say it was necessary. Some were on the run

for recent crimes but most were burned out, living in times

past, not fighting no more, most stopped long ago and far

away and they were just burned out to hell. Yeah, they were

tired, I respected that; I mean, I fucking loved these heroes; I

knew they were tired, tired from living on their nerves, from

hiding, from jail, from smoke, from fucking, which came first

for some but last for others. Some had children they had

deserted; some lived in the past, remembering stray girls in

cities they were passing through. They were older than me but

not by a lot. I wanted their respect. I hadn’t given up and I did

anything anybody else did and I wasn’t afraid o f nothing so

how come it was like I wasn’t there? I mean, I was too

honorable to be anything other than strong and silent, I tell

you; but I thought silence made its own sound, you count on

revolutionaries to hear the silence, otherwise how can the

oppressed count on them? Every lunatic was someone we

knew that we dropped in on or stayed with while we were

running— or m oving just for the sake o f speed, the fun o f

flight. We went to other cities, hitchhiking; we lived in small

rented rooms, slept on floors. We went to other countries—

we begged, we borrowed, yeah, we stole, me more than him,

stealing’s easy, I been stealing all m y life, not a routine or some

fixed act, just here and there as needed, from stores when I was

a kid, when I was hungry or when there was something I

wanted real bad that I couldn’t have because it cost money I

didn’t have— I never minded putting money out if I had it in

m y pocket— I mean, I remember taking a chocolate Easter egg

when I was a kid or m y proudest, most treasured acquisition, a

blues record by Dave Van Ronk, the first man I ever saw with

a full beard like a beatnik or a prophet; I took money when I

needed it and could get it easy enough; pills; clothes. M o n ey’s

w hat’s useful. He began dealing some shit, it w asn’t too hard

or dangerous compared to running borders with other

contraband but it got so he did it without me more and more;

he spent more and more time with these low life gangster

types, not political revolutionaries at all but these vulgar guys

who packed guns and just did business; he said it’s just for

money, what’s it got to do with you or with us, I’ll just do it

fast, get the money, it’s nothing; and it was nothing, I didn’t

have no interest in money per se, but it got so he did the

running, he was free, freedom and flight were his, he’d pick up

and go, I didn’t know where he was or who with or when I’d

meet them they’d be lowlife I had no interest in, just toadies as

much as some corporate businessmen were and I’d feel very

bored with them and they’d treat me like I was a skirt and I’d

feel superior and because I didn’t want no part o f them I didn’t

challenge it, I’d just put up with it and be relieved when he did

his shit for money elsewhere; he hunted money down, he

hunted dope down, he drove the secret highways o f Europe at

a hundred miles an hour, without me, increasingly without

me, and I stayed home and dusted walls, waiting, I waited,

while I waited I cleaned, I dusted, I washed things, I made

things nice, I put something here or there, little touches, but

especially I washed things— I washed floors, dishes, clothes,

anything could be washed I fucking washed it; and I would o f

course keep thinking; I’d be doing laundry but I’d think I was

thinking— housework wasn’t what I was doing, not me, no, I

was thinking. I shared the fruits o f all this labor with him,

clean clothes, clean dishes, clean floors, my thinking, which

has always been first-rate in some senses, and I saw him put the

thinking I had done into action so I felt like some pretty major

player, running dope and making money all over Europe, and

I kept thinking, and I saw the thinking go into political

actions, so I felt pretty major, and I just kept washing and

thinking; washing, ironing, and thinking; washing, shopping,

and thinking; washing, cooking, and thinking; washing,

scrubbing, and thinking; washing, folding, and thinking. I

saw the consequences o f m y thinking; it was us out there, not

just him. I was important; he knew; you don’t need

recognition in a revolutionary life. Increasingly he incarnated,

freedom, I dreamed it; especially he was the one who got to be

free outside the four walls, and I got to be what he rolled over

on when he got home, dead tired and mean as madness. He

did— he got on top, he fucked me, he went to sleep. I was

incredulous. In the aftershock I ironed, I washed, I scrubbed, I

cooked. I’d lie there awake after he rolled o ff me, on m y back,

not m oving, for hours— outraged, a pristine innocence,

stunned in disbelief; this was me; me. We’d entertain too, the

revolutionary couple, the subversives— I learned to do it. It’s

like you see in all those films where the bourgie wife slinks

around and makes the perfect martini amidst the glittering

furniture; well, shit, honey, I made the most magnificent joint

a boy could sit down to on a beanbag chair. I mean, I made a

joint so gorgeous, so classic and yet so full o f savagery and

bite, so smooth and so deadly, so big and so right, yo u ’d leave

your wife and fam ily and kill your fucking mother ju st to sit

on the floor near it. I was the perfect wife, illegally speaking; I

mean, I learned how to be a stoned sweet bitch, the new good

housekeeping. Y ou r man comes to visit m y man and he

don’t walk home; I am dressed fine and mostly I am quiet

except for an occasional ironic remark which establishes me, at

least in m y own mind, as smart, and I roll a fine joint, and in

this w ay I’ve done m y man proud; he’s got the best dope and a

fine wom an— and a clean house, I mean, a fucking clean

house; and I ain’t som ebody’s dumb wife except in the eyes o f

the law because I defy society— I defy society— I roll joints, I

have barely seen a martini, there’s nothing I ain’t done in bed,

including with him, except anal intercourse, I w o n ’t have it,

not from him, I don’t know w hy but I just w o n ’t, I don’t want

him in me that way, I think it’s how I said he’s m y husband;

husband. But I don’t think he even knew about it. I’d be as

perfect as I could according to his demands, gradually

expressed, over time. Everything escalates. D idn’t matter

how brilliant m y joints were once he started using a chellum, a

Turkish pipe for hash, rare in Europe, not used because you,

had to be so fucking aggressive to use it, the hashish and

tobacco went in it, it was like a funnel, and you pulled it fast

and hard into your lungs through a kind o f wind tunnel made

by your hands clasped at the bottom o f the funnel and the

bitter smoke hit your lungs with a burning punch, with the

force o f an explosion, and your bloodstream was oxygenated

with hash and nicotine. I didn’t like the chellum but I had to do

it, keeping up with Mr. Jones as it were. C an’t find yourself

being too delicate, too demure, unable to take the violence o f

the hit; not if you are Mrs. Jones; have to run with the boy or

the boy runs without you, he don’t slow down to wait, he

don’t say, Andrea doesn’t like this, she likes that, so let’s do

that. Same with sex. He pushes you down and does it. Y ou

solicit his personal recognition. Y ou ask his indulgence. Y ou

beg: remember me; me. It changes slow. He tied me up to fuck

me more and more; tied me up to this nice little modern brass

bed we got, we had a little money; he had from the beginning,

in rented rooms, on mattresses, on floors, it doesn’t take

much, but it was only sometimes; now he tied me up to fuck

me invariably and I was bored, tired and bored, irritated and

bored; but he wanted it which had to mean he needed it and I

want him to do what he needs, I think every man should have

what he needs, I think if he has it maybe he w on ’t need it in a

bad w ay; and I love him— not in love but I love him; him; I’m

with him because it’s him; him; I want him to want me; me. I

said no or not now or let’s just make love and don’t tie me up,

we don’t need it, or even I don’t want it now, I don’t like it, or

trying to say that I didn’t want to anymore and it had to matter

to him that I didn’t want to because this is me; me. I said in all

kindness and with all tenderness that I didn’t want to but he

did want to and so we did because it was easier to than not to

and it wasn’t like we hadn’t before so it wasn’t like I had any

grounds for saying no or any right and it was so fucking dull,

and stupid and I’d want it to be over and I’d wait for it to be

over, especially to be untied; I learned how to wait, not just

when he was doing things to me but after when he’d leave me

there while he’d putter around or watch television or do

something, I’d never know what exactly. I’d get bad pains in

my side from the fucking or really from every time he tied me

to fuck me and I was so fucking bored it was like being back on

the streets but still easier frankly, just awful in some tedious

w ay: when will he be done, when’s he going, when’s it going

to be over. I know I’m saying I was bored, not morally

repelled, and you don’t have a right to nothing if you ain’t

morally repelled, and I know I don’t deserve nothing, but I

wanted us back being us, the wild us outside and free or

stretched out together body to body and carnal, mutual; not

this fucking tame stupid boring tie me up then fuck me. I don’t

have some moral view. M y view was that I was on his side;

that’s what being married meant to me; I was on his side the

w ay a friend on the street, that rarest creature, is on your side;

anything, any time, you need it, you got it, I don’t ask w hy, I

don’t ask any Goddamn thing, I do it, I take any pain that

comes with it or any consequences and I don’t blab about it or

complain or be halfhearted, I just take it. That was it

fundamentally for me. I’d think, when’s he going, except he

w asn’t going; the husband gets to stay. I started having this

very bad pain in m y left side and I felt frustrated and upset

because I hated this, it w asn’t anything for me; it was banal. I

hated having to go through these routines and I’d see the rope

coming out, or the movement toward the bed, or the belts, I’d

see the shadow o f something that meant he wanted this now

and I’d try to divert him to something else, anything else,

football, sports, anything, or if I saw it was going to happen

I’d try to seduce him to be with me; with me. M ore and more

it was pretend, I had to pretend— the sooner he’d come, the

sooner it’d be over, but he liked it, he really liked it, and it

went on and on; afternoons, fading to dusk. After he’d be

jubilant, so fucking high and full o f energy, jum ping and

dancing around, and I’d have this pain in m y left side, acute

and dreadful, and I wanted to crawl into a corner like some

sick animal and he’d want to go visit this one and that one,

married couples, his friends, his family; w e’d go somewhere

and he’d be ebullient and shining and fine and dancing on air,

he’d be golden and sparkling, and I’d be trying to stand the

pain in m y side, I’d be quiet, finally quiet, a quiet girl, not

thinking at all, finally not thinking, eyes glazed over, nothing

to say, didn’t think nothing, just sit there, pale, a fine pallor,

they like white girls pale, unwashed, he wouldn’t let me wash,

dressed, oh yes, very well-dressed, long skirts, demure, some

velvet, beautifully made, hippie style but finer, better,

simpler, tailored, the one w ho’d been naked and tied, and he’d

look over and he’d see me fucked and tied and I’d feel sticky

and dirty and crazy and I’d feel the bruises between m y legs

because he left them there and I’d feel the sweat, his sweat, and

I’d be polite and refined and quiet while he strutted. The men

would know; they could see. T h ey’d fuck me with their eyes,

smile, smirk, they’d watch me. He liked ropes, belt, sticks,

wooden sticks, a walking stick or a cane; cloth gags sometimes. I didn’t feel annihilated; I felt sick and bored. H e’d always do it to me but sometimes he’d have me do it to him as

a kind o f prologue, a short prologue, and I hated it but I’d try

to keep him occupied, excited, I’d try to get him to come, he’d

want to get hard but I’d want to make him come, I’d do

anything to make him come so the next part w ouldn’t happen

but it always did, you put your heart into staying alive, acting

like you’re in charge; married, a married woman, with what

we been to each other, this is just a hard stretch, he’s having

some trouble, it will change, I’ll love him enough, give him

what he needs, it will change, I can do anything, absolutely

anything. I’d go through the motions, tying him, doing what

he wanted, m ostly light strokes o f a cotton wrap-around belt

and fellating him and then he was ready and he’d tie m y wrists

to the bed and I’d start waiting and soon the pain in m y side

would come and I’d know it was going to last for hours and

he’d use a leather belt, a heavy belt, with a big buckle, a silver

buckle, or sticks, or he’d begin with his open hand, or he’d use

a brush, and he’d do what he wanted and he’d take his time and

then sometime he’d fuck me and I’d hope it was over and

sometimes it was and sometimes he’d do more and after he

would untie me and he wanted to visit folks and party, didn’t

matter w ho or where, even his terrible fam ily, he’d play cards,

the men would play cards, or i f it was real late at night he’d

want an after midnight m ovie, a cow boy m ovie, an edge o f

night crowd where there were always people he knew and

deals he could make and he’d strut by them, circle around

them, regale them, touch and poke them, tell vulgar jokes, sell

hash or score and always, always he’d smoke; or w e’d go to an

after-hours club and he’d deal and strut; and I’d sit there, the

quiet, used thing; the pale, used thing. I’d moan and do

everything you’re supposed to; I’d egg him on to try to get him

to finish; I ju st hate the fucking feel o f rope around m y wrists; I

hate it. We didn’t use mechanical things; you can use anything;

you can do anything any time with anything. The bed was in a

tiny middle room, a passageway really, no window s, and I’d

lay there, m y wrists tied to the headboard, and the walls

would be nearer each time, the room w ould get smaller each

time; and sometimes, more and more, he’d leave me spread-

eagle on the bed, m y ankles tied to the base o f the bed, and he’d

be done, and he’d get up, he’d fuck me with m y legs tied

spread apart and then he’d be dead weight on top o f me, he’d

be done, and sometime he’d get up, when he wanted, and he’d

stand there, his back to me, and he’d putter around, he’d find

his pants, he’d pick out a new shirt to wear, he’d hum, and I’d

want to reach out like this was still us, not just him, and he’d be

only a few feet away, but I couldn’t and I’d say his name and

he’d keep his back to me and I’d ask him to untie me and he’d

keep his back to me and I’d tell him m y side hurt and he’d

putter around and I’d see his back and then I’d close m y eyes

and wait. Then, sometimes, he’d say we were going out, and

I’d say I’m sick and I don’t want to, and then I’d get scared that

he’d leave me there tied up and I’d say I wanted to go, I really

did, and he’d sit down on the bed and he’d untie one rope

around m y wrist and then he’d make it tighter to hurt me and

then he’d untie it because I was shaking from fear that he’d

leave me there and I’d put on clothes, what he liked, and I’d

follow him, quiet. I never thought there was anything I

couldn’t walk away from; not me. If I didn’t like being

married I’d just leave. I didn’t care about the law. I wasn’t

someone like that. This was a few fucking ropes; so what? I

was getting nervous all the time; anxious; and he’d keep

waking me up to do something to me; to fuck me; to tie me; I’d

be sleeping, he’d be gone, he’d come in out o f nowhere, he’d

be on me in the bed where I was sleeping, I just could never get

enough sleep. It was ordinary life; just how every day went;

I’d think I could do it one more day, I could last one more day,

he’ll leave, he’ll change, he will go somewhere with someone,

a girl, he’ll find a girl, he’ll go away to buy or sell drugs and

he’ll get caught, he’ll go to jail, he’ll go back to running with

his pack o f boys; a man will always leave, you can count on it,

wait long enough, he’s gone, how long will long enough be?

I’d be counting seconds, on the bed, waiting. He painted the

bedroom a dark, shocking blue, all the walls and the ceiling; I

screamed, I cried, I begged, I can’t stand it, the walls will close

in on me, it makes the ceiling feel like it’s on top o f me, I’ll

smother, I can’t bear it, I screamed obscenities and I called him

names and I could barely breathe from the tears and he hit me,

hard, in the face, over and over; and I ran away; and I was

outside in the cold a long time; I didn’t have m y coat; I was

crying uncontrollably; I went to the park; men tried to pick me

up; I was freezing; m y face was swelling; I couldn’t stop

crying; I felt ashamed; I got scared; I went back; he wanted to

make love; I was tied in the room. I knew he was capable o f

frenzies o f rage; but not at me— he broke furniture, he

punched his fist into walls, once he tore up a pile o f money,

tore it into a million pieces— it was rage at things; not me; I

don’t care about things. It was an internal agony, he was

tormented, he was so distraught, and I thought I’d love him

and it would help that I did. When the violence possessed him,

it didn’t have anything to do with me; it didn’t; I was terrified

by the magnitude o f it, like the w ay yo u ’re frightened o f a big

storm with thunder that cracks the earth open and lightning

that looks like the sk y’s exploding, you feel small and helpless

and the drama o f it renders you passive, waiting for it to be

over, hoping it w o n ’t hurt you by accident. The first time his

frenzy landed on me— landed on me, a shower o f his fists

pummeling me— I just didn’t believe it. It w asn’t something

he would really do; not to me; me. It was some awful mistake;

a mistake. I didn’t clean the refrigerator. I had never seen

anyone clean one before— I mean, I never had, however stupid

I am I hadn’t— and I didn’t see w hy I should do it and I didn’t

want to do it and he told me to do it and I said no and he went

mad, it was some seizure, something happened to him,

something got inside him and took him over, and he beat me

nearly to death, it’s a saying but I think it’s true, it means that

some part o f you that is truly you does die, and I crawled into a

corner, I crawled on the floor down low so he w ouldn’t kick

me, I crawled, and I was sick in the corner but I didn’t m ove,

and he was sorry, and he helped me, he washed m y face and he

put me in bed and he covered me up and he let me sleep and it

ju st w asn’t something you could imagine happening again. O r

I didn't do the laundry right. I didn’t separate the clothes right.

I washed his favorite T-shirt in with the colored clothes and

some colors ran in it and he held it up and he berated me for

how stupid I was and how I did this to hurt him on purpose

because it was his favorite T-shirt and I was trying to placate

him so I was trying to smile and be very nice and I said it was

ju st a mistake and I was sorry and he said you always have

some fucking smart answer and he hit me until I was wet stuff

on the floor. Everything just keeps happening. Y ou do the

laundry, you think you are free, you get waked up by

someone on you fucking you or he ties you up and you get a

pain in your side and then you go to the movies and time slows

down so that a day is almost never over, it never exactly ends,

nothing exactly ever stops or starts, I’d sit in the movie

wondering what would happen if I just stood up and started

begging for help, I wanted to, I wanted to just stand up and say

help me; help me; he’s hurting me; he, this one here, he hurt

me so bad just before; help me; take me somewhere; help me;

take me somewhere safe; and I knew they’d laugh, he’d make

them laugh, some jokes about women or how crazy I was and

the stoned assholes would just laugh and he’d keep me there

through the movie and then life would just go on; then or

later, that night or tomorrow, he would hurt me so bad; like

Himmler. There’s normal life going on all around you and

you have your own ordinary days and it is true that they are

ordinary because doing the laundry is ordinary and being

fucked by your husband is ordinary and if you are unhappy

that is ordinary too, as everyone will tell you i f you ask for

help. Old ladies in the neighborhood will pat your hand and

say yes, dear, but someday they get sick and die. Y ou can’t

remember if there was a prior time and you get so nervous and

so worried and you just keep trying to do everything better,

the cleaning, bed, whatever he wants, you concentrate on

doing it good, the w ay he likes it, and you just squeeze your

mind into a certain shape so you can concentrate on not

making mistakes and some days you can’t and you talk back or

are slow or say something sarcastic and you will be hurt. Did

you provoke it, did you want it, or are you just a fucking

human being w h o ’s tired o f the little king? If you tell anyone

or ask for help they blame you for it. Everyon e’s got a reason

it’s your fault. I didn’t clean the refrigerator, I did mess up the

laundry, I wasn’t in the right, I’m supposed to do those things,

I’m the wife after all, whoever heard o f one who didn’t know

how to do those things, he has rights too; I’m supposed to

make him happy. And I let him tie me up so it’s on me what

happened and if I say I didn’t like it people just say it’s a lie, you

can’t face it, you can’t face how you liked it; and I can’t explain

that I’m not like them, I’m not someone virginal in the world

like them, I been facing what I liked since I was bom and being

tied up isn’t what they think, the words they use like

“ sadomasochism” or “ bondage, ” three-dollar words for

getting a trick to come, and they get all excited just to say them

because they read about them in books and they are all

philosophers from the books and I hate them, I hate the

middle-class goons who have so much to say but never spent

one fucking day trying to stay alive. And when you are a

fucking piece o f ground meat, hamburger he left on the floor,

and he fucks you or he fucking leaves you there for dead,

whichever is his pleasure that day, it’s what you wanted, what

you are, what’s inside o f you, like you planned it all along, like

yo u ’re General Westmoreland or something instead o f messed

up, bleeding trash, and i f yo u ’re running aw ay they send you

back for more, and they don’t give you money to help you,

and they tell you that you like it; fucking middle-class

hypocrite farts. I have a list. I remember you ones. Y o u try to

pull the w ool over someone else’s eyes about how smart you

are and what humanitarians you all are on the side o f

w hoever’s hurting. Nelson Mandela provoked it. What do

you think about that, assholes? We all o f us got the consolation

that nobody remembers the worst things. T h ey’re gone; brain

just burns them away. And there’s no words for the worst

things so ain’t no one going to tell you the worst things; they

can’t. Y ou can pick up any book and know for sure the worst

things ain’t in it. It’s almost funny reading Holocaust literature. The person’s trying so hard to be calm and rational, controlled, clear, not to exaggerate, never to exaggerate, to

remember ordinary details so that the story will have a

narrative line that will make sense to you; you— whoever the

fuck you are. The person’s trying so hard to create a twenty-

four-hour day. The person picks words carefully, sculpts

them into paragraphs, selects details, the victim ’s selection,

selects details and tries to make them credible— selects from

what can be remembered, because no one remembers the

worst. They don’t dare scream at you. They are so polite, so

quiet, so civil, to make it a story you can read. I am telling you,

you have never read the worst. It has never been uttered by

anyone ever. Not the Russians, not the Jew s; never, not ever.

Y ou get numb, you forget, you don’t believe it even when it’s

happening to you, your mind caves in, just collapses, for a

minute or a day or a week or a year until the worst is over, the

center caves in, whoever you were leaves, just leaves; if you

try to force your mind to remember it leaves, just fucking

empties out o f you, it might as well be a puddle on the ground.

Anything I can say isn’t the worst; I don’t remember the

worst. It’s the only thing God did right in everything I seen on

earth: made the mind like scorched earth. The mind shows

you mercy. Freud didn’t understand mercy. The mind gets

blank and bare. There’s nothing there. Y ou got what you

remember and what you don’t and the very great thing is that

you can’t remember almost anything compared to what

happened day in and day out. Y ou can count how many days

there were but it is a long stretch o f nothing in your mind;

there is nothing; there are blazing episodes o f horror in a great

stretch o f nothing. Y ou thank God for the nothing. Y ou get

on your fucking knees. We are doing some construction in our

apartment and we had a pile o f wood beams piled up and he

got so mad at me— for what? — something about a locked

door; I didn’t lock the door or he didn’t lock the door and I

asked him w hy not— and he picked up one o f the w ood beams

and he beat me with it across m y legs like he was a trained

torturer and knew how to do it, between the knees and the

ankle, not busting the knees, not smashing the ankles, he ju st

hammered it down on m y legs, and I don’t remember

anything before or after, I don’t know what month it was or

what year; but I know it was worse, the before and the after

were worse; the weeks I can’t remember were worse; I

remember where it happened, every detail, we had the bed in

the hall near the w ood beams and we were sleeping there

temporarily and it was early on because it w asn’t the brass bed

yet, it was ju st a dum py old bed, an old mattress, and

everything was dull and brown, there was a hall closet, and

there was a toilet at one end o f the hall and a foyer leading to

the entrance to the apartment at the other end o f the hall, and

there wasn’t much room, and it was brow n and small and had

a feeling o f being enclosed and I know I was sitting on the bed

when he began to hit me with the beam, when he hit me with it

the first time, it was so fast or I didn’t expect it because I didn’t

believe it was possible, I didn’t understand what happened, or

how it could; but I remember it and the only thing that means

is that it isn’t the worst. I know how to calibrate torture— how

to measure what’s worse, what’s better, w hat’s more, w hat’s

less. Y o u take the great morbid dark blank days and you have

located the worst. Y ou pray it ain’t buried like Freud says; you

pray God burned it out like I say. Some weeks later he wanted

to have dinner with his sister and brother-in-law. I could limp

with a great deal o f pain. I was wearing dark glasses because

m y eyes had cuts all around them and were discolored from

bruises and swollen out o f shape; I don’t know when m y eyes

got that way; the time o f the wood beam or in the weeks I can’t

remember after; but I had to wear the glasses so no one would

see m y eyes. Them kinds o f bruises don’t heal fast like in the

movies. They all played cards and we had cheese fondue

which I never saw before. I walked with a bad limp, I

concealed the pain as best I could, I wore the dark glasses, I had

a smile pasted on my face from ear-to-ear, an indelible smile,

and brother-in-law brought up the limp and I said smiling

with utter charm that I had tripped over the beams and hurt

myself. D on’t w orry, I whispered urgently to m y husband, I

would never tell. I would never tell. What you did (hoping he

doesn’t hear the accusation in saying he did it, but he does o f

course and he bristles). I’m on your side. I wouldn’t tell.

Brother-in-law, a man o f the world, smiles. He knows that a

lot o f stupid women keep falling down mountains. H e’s a

major in the military; we say a fascist. He knew. He seemed to

like it; he flushed, a warm, sexy flush; he liked it that I lied and

smiled. There’s no what happened next. Nightmares don’t

have a linear logic with narrative development, each detail

expanding the expressive dimensions o f the text. Terror ain’t

esthetic. It don’t work itself out in perfect details picked by an

elegant intelligence and organized so a voyeur can follow it. It

smothers and you don’t get no air. It’s oceanic and you drown,

you are trapped underneath and you ain’t going to surface and

you ain’t going to swim and you ain’t dead yet. It destroys and

you cease to exist while your body endures anyway to be hurt

more and your mind, the ineffable, bleeds inside your head

and still your brain don’t blow. It’s an anguish that implodes

leaving pieces o f you on the wall. It’s remorse for living; it’s

pulling-your-heart-apart grief for every second you spent

alive. It is all them cruel things you can’t remember that went

to make up your days, ordinary days. I was in the bedroom. It

was dark blue, the ceiling too. I’d be doing what he wanted, or

trying to. He fucked me a lot. I’d be crying or waiting. I’d be-

staring. I’d stare. I was like some idiot, staring. After he

fucked me I’d just be there, a breathing cadaver. Y ou just wait,

finally, for him to kill you; you hope it w o n ’t take too long,

you w o n ’t have to grow old. Hope, as they say, never dies.

T im e’s disappearing altogether, it doesn’t seem to exist at all,

you wait, he comes, he hurts you this w ay or that, long or

short, an enormous brutality, physical injury or psychological

torture, he doesn’t let you sleep, he keeps you up, he fucking

tortures you, yo u ’re in a prison camp, yo u ’re tied up or not,

it’s like being in a cell, he tortures you, he hurts you, he fucks

you, he doesn’t let you sleep, it doesn’t stop so it can start

again, there’s no such thing as a tw enty-four-hour day. I don’t

know. I can’t say. I didn’t go out anymore. I couldn’t walk,

really, couldn’t m ove, either because physically I couldn’t or

because I couldn’t. There’s one afternoon he dragged me from

the bed and he kept punching me. He pulled me with one hand

and punched me with the other, open hand, closed fist, closed

fist, to m y face, to m y breasts, closed fists, both fists, I am on

the kitchen floor and he is kneeling down so he can hit me,

kneeling near me, over me, and he takes m y head in his hands

and he keeps banging m y head in his hands and he keeps

banging m y head against the floor. He punches m y breasts. He

burns m y breasts with a lit cigarette. He didn’t need to hold me

down no more. He could do what he wanted. He was

punching me and burning me and I was wondering i f he was

going to fuck me, because then it would be over; did I want it?

He was shouting at me, I never knew what. I was crying and

screaming. I think he was crying too. I felt the burning. I saw

the cigarette and I felt the burning and I got quiet, there was

this incredible calm, it was as i f all sound stopped. Everything

continued— he was punching me and burning me; but there

was this perfect quiet, a single second o f absolute calm; and

then I passed out. Y o u see how kind the mind is. I just stopped

existing. Y ou go blank, it’s dark, it’s a deep, wonderful dark,

blank, it’s close to dying, you could be dead or maybe you are

dead for a while and God lets you rest. Y ou don’t know

anything and you don’t have to feel anything; not the burns;

not the punches; you don’t feel none o f it. I am grateful for

every minute I cannot remember. I thank You, God, for every

second o f forgetfulness Y ou have given me. I thank Y ou for

burning m y brain out to ashes and hell, wiping it out so it is

scorched earth that don’t have no life; I am grateful for an

amnesia so deep it resembles peace. I will not mind being dead.

I am waiting for it. I have breasts that burst into flames, only

it’s blood. Suddenly there’s a hole in my breast, in the flesh, a

deep hole that goes down into my breast, I can be anywhere,

or just sitting talking somewhere, and blood starts coming out

o f m y breast, a hole opens up as if the Red Sea were splitting

apart but in a second, half a second, it wasn’t there and then

suddenly it is there, and I know because I feel the blood

running down my breast, there’s a deep hole in my breast, no

infection, it never gets infected, no pus, no blood poisoning

ever, no cyst, completely clean, a hole down into the breast,

you see the layers o f skin and fat inside, and blood pours out,

clean blood, just comes out, it hurts when the hole comes, a

clean hurt, a simple, transparent pain, the skin splitting fast

and clean, opening up, and I’m not in any danger at all though

it takes me some years to realize this, it’s completely normal,

completely normal for me, I am sitting there talking and

suddenly the skin on a breast has opened up and there is a deep,

clean hole in m y breast and blood is pouring down m y chest

and I’m fine, just fine, and the hole will stay some days and the

blood will come and go. T h ey’re m y stigmata. I know it but I

can’t tell anyone. They come from where the burns were, the

skin bursts open and the blood washes me clean, it heals me,

the skin closes up new, bathed in the blood: clean. Because I

suffered enough. Even God knows it so He sent the sign. I’ve

seen all the movies about stigmata and it’s just like in the.

movies when someone explains what real stigmata is so we

can tell it from a trick; it’s real stigmata on me; it’s God saying

He went too far. He loves me. It’s Him saying I’m the best

time He ever had. They asked in the camps, they asked where

is God; but they didn’t answer: omnipotent, omniscient,

omnipresent, H e’s right here, having a good time. When you

get married, it’s you, the man, and God, ju st like is always

said. God was there. The film unrolled. The live sex show

took place. I’m filthy all over. The worst thing was I’d just

crawl into bed and wait for him to fuck me and he’d fuck me. I

couldn’t barely breathe. His long hair’d be all over me in m y

face, in m y eyes, in m y nose, in m y mouth, and it was so hot I

couldn’t breathe so I went to a barber and I got m y hair cut off,

almost shaved like at Dachau so I’d be able to breathe, so m y

hair w ouldn’t m ix with his, so there’d be less hair, I got

dressed, I found some change, I was scared, I didn’t know

what would happen to me, I told the man to take all m y hair

off, keep cutting, keep cutting, shorter, less, keep cutting,

shave it shorter, I just couldn’t stand all the hair in m y face; but

it didn’t get no cooler and I’d lie still, perfectly still, on m y

back, m y eyes open, and he’d fuck me. He didn’t need no

rope. Y ou understand— he didn’t need no rope. Y ou understand the dishonor in that— he didn’t need no rope and God just watched and it was your standard issue porn, just another

stag film with a man fucking a woman too stupid or too near

dead to be somewhere else; a little ripe, a little bruised; eyes

glazed over, open but empty; I would just lie there for him and

he didn’t need no rope. We was married. I don’t think rape

exists. What would it be? D o you count each time separate;

and the blank days, they do count or they don’t?

E IG H T

In March 1973

(Age 26)

I was born in 1946 in Camden, N ew Jersey, down the street

from Walt Whitman’s house, Mickle Street, but m y true point

o f origin, where I came into existence as a sentient being, is

Birkenau, sometimes called Auschwitz II or The W omen’s

Cam p, where we died, m y family and I, I don’t know what

year. I have a sense memory o f the place, I’ve always had it

although o f course when I was young I didn’t know what it

was, where it was, w hy it was in m y mind, the place, the

geography, the real place, the w ay it was, it’s partial in my

mind but solid, the things I see in my mind were there, they’re

pushed back in my mind, hard to get at, behind a wall o f time

and death. Everything that matters about me begins there. I

remember it, not like a dream and it’s not something I made up

out o f books— when I looked at the books I saw what I already

had seen in m y mind, I saw what I already knew was there. It’s

the old neighborhood, familiar, a far-back memory, back

before speech or rationality or self-justification, it’s w ay back

in m y mind but it’s whole, it’s deep down where no one can

touch it or change it, it can’t be altered by information or

events or by wishful thinking on m y part. It’s m y hidden heart

that keeps beating, m y real heart, the invisible one that no

physician can find and death can’t either. N ot everyone was

burned. At first, they didn’t have crematoria. They pushed all

the bodies into huge mass graves and put earth on top o f them

but the bodies exploded from the gases that come when bodies

decompose; the earth actually heaved and pulled apart, it

swelled and rose up and burst open, and the soil turned red. I

read that in a book and I knew right aw ay that it was true, I

recognized it as if I had seen it, I thought, yes, that seems more

familiar to me than the crematoria, it was as i f m y soul had

stayed above and watched and I saw the earth buckle and the

red come up through the soil. I always knew what Birkenau

was like from the parts o f it I have in m y mind. I knew it was

gray and isolated and I knew there were low , gray huts, and I

knew the ground was gray and flat, and it was winter, and I

knew there were pine trees and birch trees, I see them in the

distance, upright, indifferent, a monstrous provocation,

G o d ’s beauty, He spits in your face, and there were huge piles

o f things, so big you thought they were hills o f earth but they

were shoes, you can see from currently published photos that

they were shoes— the piles were higher than the buildings, and

there was a huge, high arch. I have never liked seeing pictures

o f the A rc de Triom phe in Paris, because they always make me

feel sad and scared, because at Birkenau there was a high arch

that looked like a sculpture against that desolate sky. Y o u

think in your mind the yellow star is one thing— you make it

decorous and ornamental, you give it esthetic balance and

refinement, a fineness, a delicacy, maybe in your mind you

model it on silver Stars o f David you have seen— but it was

really a big, ugly thing and you couldn’t make it look nice. I

think I was only waist-high. Y ou don’t know much if yo u ’re a

kid. I remember the women around me, masses o f wom en, I

held someone’s hand but I don’t think it was someone I even

knew, I can’t see any faces really because they are all taller and

they were covered, heavy coats, kerchiefs on their heads,

layers o f clothes fouled by dirt, but if yo u ’re a child yo u ’re like

a little cub, a puppy, and you think yo u ’re safe if yo u ’re

huddled with women. T h ey’re warm . They keep you warm .

Y o u want to be near them and you believe in them without

thinking. I wasn’t there too long. We walked somewhere, we

waited, we walked, it was over. I’ve seen birch trees here in the

United States in the mountains but I have always transposed

them in my mind to a different landscape: that low, flat,

swam py ground past the huts. Birch trees make me feel sad

and lonely and afraid. There’s astrologers who say that if you

were born when Pluto and Saturn were traveling together in

Leo, from 1946 to about the middle o f 1949, you died in one o f

the concentration camps and you came right back because you

had to, you had an urgency stronger than death could ever be,

you had to come back and set it right. Justice pushed you into a

new wom b and outrage, a blind fury, pushed you out o f it

onto this earth, this place, this zoo o f sickies and sadists. Y ou

are an avenging angel; you have a debt to settle; you have a

headstart on suffering. I consider Birkenau my birthplace. I

consider that I am a living remnant. I consider that in 1946 I

emerged, I burst out, I was looking for trouble and ready for

pain, I wanted to kill Nazis, I was born to kill Nazis, I wasn’t

some innocent born to play true love and real romance, the

parlor games that pass for life. I got these fucked-up compassionate parents who believed in law and kindness and blah

blah. I got these fucked-up peaceful Jew s. I got these fucked-

up civilized parents. I was born a girl. I have so many planets in

Libra that I try to be fair to flies and I turn dog shit into an

esthetic experience. Even my mother knew it was wrong. She

named me Andrea for “ manhood” or “ courage. ” It’s a b o y’s

name; the root, andros, means “ man” in Greek. It’s “ man” in

the universal sense, too. Man. She and God joined hands to

tease me almost to death. He put brains, great hearts, great

spirits, into w om en’s bodies, to fuck us up. It’s some kind o f

sick joke. Let’s see them aspire in vain. Let’s see them fucked

into triviality and insignificance. Let’s see them try to lose at

checkers and tic-tac-toe to boys, year in, year out, to boys so

stupid He barely remembered to give them an I. Q. at all, He

forgot their hearts, He forgot their souls, they have no warrior

spirit or sense o f honor, they are bullies and fools; let’s make

each one o f the boys imperial louts, let’s see these girls banged

and bruised and bullied; let’s see them forced to act stupid so

long and so much that they learn to be stupid even when they

sleep and dream. And mother, handmaiden to the Lord, says

wear this, do that, don’t do that, don’t say that, sit, close your

legs, wear white gloves and don’t get them dirty, girls don’t

climb trees, girls don’t run, girls don’t, girls don’t, girls don’t;

w asn’t nothing girls actually did do o f any interest whatsoever. It’s when they get you a doll that pees that you recognize the dimensions o f the conspiracy, its institutional reach, its

metaphysical ambition. Then God caps it all o ff with

Leviticus. I have to say, I was not amused. But the meanest

was m y daddy: be kind, be smart, read, think, care, be

excellent, be serious, be committed, be honest, be someone,

be, be, be; he was the cruelest jo k er alive. There’d be “ Meet

the Press” on television every Sunday and they’d interview the

Secretary o f State or Defense or a labor leader or some foreign

head o f state and w e’d discuss the topic, m y daddy and me:

labor, Suez, integration, law, literacy, racism, poverty; and

I’d try to solve them. We would discuss what the President

should do and what I would do if I were Secretary o f State. He

would listen to me, at eight, at ten, at twelve, attentively, with

respect. The cruelty o f the man knew no bounds. Y ou have a

right to hate liberals; they make promises they cannot keep.

They make you believe certain things are possible: dignity in

the world, and freedom; but especially equality. They make

equality seem as if it’s real. It’s a great sorrow to grow up. The

w orld ain’t liberal. I always wanted excellence. I wanted to

attain it. I didn’t start out with apologies. I thought: I am. I

wanted to m ix with the world, hands on, me and it, and I’d

have courage. I w asn’t born nice necessarily but nurture

triumphed over nature and I wanted to be the good citizen

who could go from my father’s living room out into the

world. I got all fucked up with this peace stuff—how you can

make it better, anything better, if you care, if you try. I didn’t

want to kill Nazis, or anyone. In this sense I knew right from

w rong; it was an immutable sense o f right and wrong; that

killing killed the one doing the killing and that killing killed

something precious and good at the center o f life itself. I knew

it was wrong to take an individual life, mine, and turn it into a

weapon o f destruction; I knew I could and I said no I w on’t; I

could have; I was born with the capacity to kill; but m y father

changed m y heart. I said, it’s Nazism you have to kill, not

Nazis. People die pretty easy but cruelty doesn’t. So you got

to find a w ay to go up against the big thing, the menace; you

have to stop it from being necessary— you have to change the

world so no one needs it. Y ou have to start with the love you

have to give, the love that comes from your own heart; and

you can’t accept any terror o f the body, restrictions or

inhibitions or totalitarian limits set by authoritarian types or

institutions; there’s nothing that can’t be love, there’s nothing

that has to be mean; you take the body, the divine body, that

their hate disfigures and destroys, and you let it triumph over

murder and rage and hate through physical love and it is the

purest democracy, there is no exclusion in it. Anything,

everything, is or can be communion, I-Thou. Anything,

everything, can be transformed, transcended, opened up,

turned from opaque to translucent; everything’s luminous,

lambent, poignant, sweet, filled with nuance and grace,

potentially ecstatic. I thought I had the power and the passion

and the will to transform anything, me, now, with the simple

openness o f m y own heart, a heart pretty free o f fear and

without prejudice against life; a heart loving life. I didn’t have

a fascist heart or a bourgeois heart; I just had this heart that

wanted freedom. I wanted to love. I wanted; to love. I never

grasped the passive part where if you were a girl you were

supposed to be loved; he picks you; you sit, wait, hope, pray,

don’t perspire, pluck your eyebrows, be good meaning you

fucking sit still; then the boy comes along and says give me

that one and you respond to being picked with desire, sort o f

like an apple leaping from the tree into the basket. I was me,

however, not her, whomever; some fragile, impotent,

mentally absent person perpetually on hold, then the boy

presses the button and suddenly the line is alive and you get to

say yes and thank you. In Birkenau it didn’t matter what was

in your gorgeous heart, did it; but I didn’t learn, did I? I

wanted to love past couples and individuals and the phoney

baloney o f neurotic affairs. I didn’t want small personalities

doing fetishized carnal acts. I thought adultery was the

stupidest thing alive. John Updike made me want to puke. I

didn’t think adultery could survive one day o f real freedom. I

didn’t think it was bad— I thought it was moronic. I wanted a

grand sensuality that encompassed everyone, didn’t leave

anyone out. I wanted it dense and real and full-blooded and

part o f the fabric o f every day, every single ordinary day, all

the time; I wanted it in all things great and small. I wanted the

world to tremble with sexual feeling, all stirred up, on the

edge o f a thrill, riding a tremor, and I wanted a tender embrace

to dissolve alienation and end war. I wanted the w orld’s colors

to deepen and shine and shimmer and leap out, I didn’t want

limits or boundaries, not on me, not on anyone else either; I

didn’t want life flat and dull, a line drawing done by some

sophomore student at the Art League. I thought w e’d fuck

power to death, because sexual passion was the enemy o f

power, and I thought that every fuck was an act o f passion and

compassion, beauty and faith, empathy and an impersonal

ecstasy; and the cruel ones, the mean ones, were throwbacks,

the old order intransigent and refusing to die, but still, the

fuck, any fuck, brought someone closer to freedom and power

closer to dying. And yes, the edge is harrowing and poverty is

not kind and power ain’t moved around so easy, especially not

by some adolescent girl in heat, and I fell very low over time,

very low, but I had devotion to freedom and I loved life. I

w asn’t brought low in the inner sanctum o f m y belief; until

after being married, when I was destroyed. I remembered

Birkenau. I wished I could find my w ay back to the line, you

wait, you walk, you wait, you walk some more, it’s over. I

know that’s ignorant; I am ignorant. I wanted peace and I had

love in m y heart and being hurt didn’t mean anything except I

wasn't dead yet, still alive, still having to live today and right

now; being hurt didn’t change anything, you can’t let fear

enter in. According to the w ay I saw life, I incarnated peace.

M aybe not so some understand it but in m y heart I was peace;

and I never thought any kind o f making love was war; make

love, not war; and when it was war on me I didn’t see it as such

per se; war was Vietnam. I never thought peace was bland; or I

should be insipid or just wait. Peace has its own drive and its

own sense o f time; you need backbone; and it wants to win—

not to have the last word but to be the last word; it’s fierce,

peace is; not coy, not pure, not simpering or whimpering, and

maybe it’s not always nice either; and I was a real peace girl

who got a lot o f it wrong maybe because staying alive was

hard and I did some bad things and it made me hard and I got

tough and tired, so tired, and nasty, sometimes, mean:

unworthy. W hy’d Gandhi put those young girls in his bed and

make them sleep there so he could prove he wouldn’t touch

them and he could resist? I never got nasty like that, where I

used somebody else up to brag I was someone good. There’s

no purity on this earth from ego or greed and I never set out to

be a saint. I like everything being all mixed up in me; I don’t

have quarrels with life like that; I accept w e’re tangled. In my

heart, I was peace. Once I saw a cartoon in The New Yorker,

maybe I was eighteen. It showed a bunch o f people carrying

picket signs that said “ Peace. ” And it showed one buxom

woman carrying a sign that said “ Piece. ” I hated that. I hated

it. But you cither had to be cowed, give in to the pig shit

behind that cartoon, or you had to disown it, disown the

dumb shit behind it. I disowned it all. I disowned it without

exception. I kept none o f it. I pushed it o ff me. I purged m y

world o f it. I disavowed anyone who tried to put it on me.

There couldn’t be this garbage between me and life; like some

huge smelly dump you had to trudge through or crawl

through to slide up against someone else who was also real.

And by the time you got to them you smelled like the garbage.

I said no. I said I will not. I said it is not on me. I said I may be

poor but I am not afraid. I said I want. I said I am not afraid to

pay. I said I will not shield myself. I said I will not pretend to

live life; I will live it. I said I will not apologize and I will not

lie. I said, if I die, I die. I was never afraid to die. I got tough in

some ways but I stayed soft inside the core o f m y belief where

there was tenderness for others, sometimes. I kept a caring

eye. I kept a caring heart. O ver the injury I still believed there

was love; not the love o f two but the love o f many. I still

believed in us, all o f us, us, if we could get free from rules and

obedience and being robots. I liked doing sabotage, I’m not

saying I had a pretty heart, I wasn’t a nice girl and I’m not

claiming it. I had some ruthlessness. I wasn’t easy to kill. I

could keep going. I wanted to live. I’m just saying I cared.

Why didn’t I kill him? Why didn’t I? I’m the most ardent

pacifist the world ever saw. And fuck meant all kinds o f

making love— it was a new word. It was fucking if you got

inside each other, or so near you couldn’t be pulled apart. It

was jo y and risk and fun and orgasm; not faking it; I never

have. It didn’t have to do with who put what where. It was all

kinds o f wet and all kinds o f urgent and all kinds o f here and

now, with him or her. It was you tangled up with someone,

raw. It wasn’t this one genital act, in out in out, that someone

could package and sell or that there was an etiquette for. It

wasn’t some imitation o f something you saw somewhere, in

porn or your favorite movie star saying how he did it. It was

something vast, filled with risk and feeling; feeling; personal

love ain’t the only feeling— there’s feelings o f adventure and

newness and excitement and Goddamn pure happiness—

there’s need and sorrow and loneliness and certain kinds o f

grief that turn easy into touching someone, wild, agitated,

everywhere— there’s just liking whoever it is and wanting to

pull them down right on you, they make you giddy, their

mere existence tickles you to death, you giggle and cheer them

on and you touch them— and there’s sensation, just that, no

morality, no higher good, no justification, just how it feels.

There’s uncharted waters, you ain’t acting out a script and

there’s no w ay past the present, you are right there in the

middle o f your own real life riding a wave a mile high with

speed and grace and then you are pulled under to the bottom o f

the world. The whole w orld’s alive, everything moves and

wants and loves, the whole w orld’s alive with promise, with

possibility; and I wanted to live, I said yes I want to live.

There’s not something new about wanting love in spite o f

knowing terror; or feeling love and having it push against

your thighs from inside and then those thighs carry you out

past safety into hell. There’s nothing new about wanting to

love a multitude. I was born on Mickle Street in Camden in

1946, down the street from Walt Whitman’s house. I grew up

an orphan sheltered by the passion o f his great heart. He

wanted everyone. He wanted them, to touch. He was forced,

by his time and place, into metaphor. He put it in poems, this

physicalized love that was universal, he named the kinds and

categories he wanted, men and women, he said they were

worthy, all, without exception, he said he wanted to be on

them and in them and he wanted them in him, he said it was

love, he said lam , he said lam and then he enumerated the ones

he wanted, he made lam synonymous with you are and we are.

Leaves of Grass is his lists o f lovers, us, the people, all o f us; he

used grandiose language but it was also common, vulgar; he

says I ant you and you and you, you exist, I touch you, I know

you, I see you, I recognize you, I want you, I love you, I am. In

the C ivil War he was devoted to wounded soldiers. He faced

the maiming and the mutilation, and he loved those boys:

“ (Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d

and rested, /M any a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded

lips. )” It was before surgeons washed their hands, before

Lister, and legs were sawed off, sutures were moistened with

saliva, gangrene was commonplace. He visited the wounded

soldiers day in and day out. He didn’t eroticize suffering, no; it

was the communion o f being near, o f touching, o f a tender

intimacy inside a vale o f tears. He saw them suffer and he saw

them die and he wrote: “ (Come sweet death! be persuaded O

beautiful death! / In mercy come quickly. )” I got to say, I don’t

think a three-minute fuck was his meaning. I don’t. It’s an

oceanic feeling inside and you push it outward and once you

start loving humanity there is no reason to make distinctions

o f beauty or kind, there’s something basic in everyone that

asks love, forgiveness, an honorable tenderness, a manly

tenderness, you know, strong. He was generous. Call him a

slut. I f a war happens, it marks you for life, it’s your war.

Walt’s was the C ivil War, North against South, feuding

brothers, a terrible slaughter, no one remembers how bloody

and murderous it was. Mine was Vietnam; I didn’t love the

soldiers but I loved the boys who didn’t go. M y daddy’s war

was World War II. Everyone had their own piece o f that war.

There’s Iwo Jim a, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima; Vichy and the

French Resistance; sadists, soldier boys, S . S., in Europe. M y

daddy was in the Army. M y daddy was being sent to the Pacific

when Truman dropped the bomb; the bomb. He says it saved

his life. Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved his life. I never saw

him wish anyone harm, except maybe Strom Thurm an and

Jesse Helms and Bull Connor, but he thought it was okay,

hell, necessary, for all those Japanese to die so he could live. He

thought he was worth it, even if it was just a chance he would

die. I felt otherwise. He had an unreasonable anger against me.

I would have died, he said, I would have died. He was peace-

loving but nothing could shake his faith that Hiroshima was

right, not the mass death, not the radiation, not the pollution,

not the suffering later, not the people burned, their skin

burned right o ff them; not the children, then or later. The

mushroom cloud didn’t make him afraid. To him it always

meant he wasn’t dead. I was ashamed o f him for not caring, or

for caring so much about himself, but I found what I thought

was common ground. I said it was proved Truman didn’t have

to do it. In other words, I could think it was wrong to drop the

bomb and still love m y father but he thought I had insufficient

respect and he had good intuition because I couldn’t see w hy

his life was worth more than all those millions. I couldn’t

reconcile it, how this very patient, very kind, quite meek guy

could think he was more important than all the people. It

wasn’t that he thought the bomb would stop Jew s from being

massacred in Europe; it was that he, from N ew Jersey, would

live. He didn’t understand that I was born in the shadow o f the

crime, a shadow that covered the whole earth every day from

then on. We just were born into knowing w e’d be totally

erased; someday; inevitably. M y daddy used to be beat up by

other boys at school when he was grow ing up. He was a

bookworm , a Je w , and the other boys beat the shit out o f him;

he didn’t want to fight; he got called a sissie and a kike and a

faggot, sheenie, all the names; they beat the shit out o f him,

and yes, one did become the chief o f police in the Amerikan

way; and then, somehow, an adult man, he knows he’s worth

all the Japanese who died; and I wondered how he learned it,

because I have never learned anything like it yet. He was

humble and patient and I learned a kind o f personal pacifism

from him; he went into the A rm y, he was a soldier, but all his.

life he hated fighting and conflict and he would not fight with

arms or support any violence in w ord or deed, he tried

persuasion and listening and he’d avoid conflict even i f it made

him look weak and he was gentle, even with fools; and I

learned from him that you are supposed to take it, as a person,

and not give back what you got; give back something kinder,

better, subtler, more elevated, something deeper and kinder

and more human. So when he didn’t mind the bomb, when he

liked it because it saved his life, his, I was dumb with surprise

and a kind o f fascinated revulsion. Was it just wanting to stay

alive at any cost or was it something inside that said me, la m ; it

got sort o f big and said me. It got angry, beyond his apparent

personality, a humble, patient person, tender and sensitive; it

went me, I am, and it said that whatever stood between him

and existence had to be annihilated. I would have died. I might

have died. As a child I was horrified but later I tried to

understand w hy I didn’t have it— I was blank there, it was as if

the tape was erased or something was just missing. If someone

stood between me and existence, how come I didn’t think I

mattered more; w h y didn’t I kill them; I never would put me

above someone else; I never did; I never thought that because

they were doing something to annihilate me I could annihilate

them; I figured I would just be wounded or killed or whatever,

because life and death were random events; like I tried to tell

m y father, maybe he would have lived. When someone pushes

you down on the ground and puts him self in you, he pushes

him self between you and existence— you do die or you will die

or you can die, it’s the luck o f the draw really, not unlike

maybe yo u ’ll get killed or maybe you w o n ’t in a war; except

you don’t get to be proud o f it i f you don’t die. I never thought

anyone should be killed ju st because he endangered m y

existence or corrupted it altogether or just because I was left a

shadow haunting m y own life; I mean really killed. I never

thought anyone should really die just because one day he was

actually going to kill me, fucking render me dead: inevitably,

absolutely; no doubt. I didn’t think any one o f them should

really die. It was outside what I could think of. Is there

anything in me, any I am, anything that says I will stop you or

anything that says I am too valuable and this bad thing you are

doing to me will cost you too much or anything that says you

cannot destroy me; cannot; me. If someone tortures you and

you will die from it eventually, someday, for sure, one w ay or

another, and you can’t make the day come soon enough

because the suffering is immense, then maybe he should die

because he pushed him self between you and existence; maybe

you should kill him to push him out o f the way. Do you think

Truman would have bought it? M y daddy wouldn’t have

either. At best he’d say w hy did this tragic thing happen to

you— it would never be possible to pin down which tragic

thing he meant— and he’d be bitter and mad, not at the bad one

but at me; I’d be the bad one for him. At worst I’d be plain filth

in his eyes. I don’t know w hy I can’t think all the Japanese

should die so I can stay alive or w hy I can’t think some man

should die. I’ll never be a Christian, that’s for sure. I can’t

stand thinking Christ died for me; it makes me sick. I got some

idea o f how much it hurt. I can’t stand the thought. I am; but so

what? I’ve actually been willing to die so none o f them would

get hurt, even if they’re inside me against what I want. N o w I

started thinking they’re the Nazis, the real Nazis o f our time

and place, the brownshirts, they don’t put you on a train, they

come to where you are, they get you one by one but they do

get you, most o f you, nearly all, and they destroy your heart

and the sovereignty o f your body and they kill your freedom

and they make you ashen and humiliate you and they tear you

apart and it ain’t metaphor and they injure you beyond repair

or redemption, they injure your body past any known

suffering, and you die, not them, you; they kill you some-

times, slow or fast, with mutilation or not; and you are more

likely to murder yourself than them; and that’s wrong, child o f

God, that’s wrong. I can never think someone should die

instead o f me; but they should if they came to do the harm in

the first place; objectively speaking, they should. I think

perhaps they should. M y reason says so; but I can’t face it. I

run instead; run or give in; run or open m y legs; run or get hit;

run, hide, do it, do it for them, do whatever they want, do it

before they can hurt me more, anticipate what they want, do

it, keep them cooled out, keep them okay, keep them quiet or

more quiet than they would be if I made them mad; give in or

run; capitulate or run; hide or run; hide; run; escape; do what

they say; I used to say I wanted to do it, what they wanted,

whatever it was, I used to say it was me, I was deciding, I

wanted, I was ready, it was m y idea, I did the taking, I

decided, I initiated, hey I was as tough as them; but it was fuck

before they get mad— it was low er the risk o f making them

mad; you use your will to make less pain for yourself; you say /

am as if there is an I and then you do what pleases them, girl,

what they like, what you already learned they like, and there

ain’t no I, because i f there was it w ouldn’t have accepted the

destruction or annihilation, it w ouldn’t have accepted all the

little Hitler fiends, all the little Goering fiends, all the little

Him mler fiends, being right on you and turning you inside

out and leaving injury on you and liking it, they liked seeing

you hurt, and then you say it’s me, I chose it, I want it, it’s

fine— you say it for pride so you can stay alive through the

hours after and so it w o n ’t hit you in the face that yo u ’re just

some piece o f trash who ain’t worth nothing on this earth. N o

one can’t kill someone; h o w ’d I become no one; and w h y ’s he

someone; and how come there’s no I inside me; how come I

can’t think he should die i f that’s what it takes to blow him

loose? I’m a pilgrim searching for understanding; because

there’s nothing left, I’m empty and there’s nothing and it takes

a lot o f pride to lie. I wanted; what did I want? I wanted:

freedom. So they are ripping me apart and I smile I say I have

freedom. Freedom is semen all over you and some kinky

bruises, a lot o f men in you and the certainty o f more, there’s

always more; freedom and abundance— m y cup ran over.

There’s a special freedom for girls; it doesn’t get written down

in constitutions; there’s this freedom where they use you how

they want and you say I am, I choose, I decide, I want— after or

before, when you ’re young or when you’re a hundred— it’s

the liturgy o f the free woman— I choose, I decide, I want, I

am— and you have to be a devout follower o f the faith, a

fanatic o f freedom, to be able to say the words and remember

the acts at the same time; devout. Y ou really have to love

freedom, darling; be a little Buddha girl, no I, free from the

chain o f being because you are empty inside, no ego, Freud

couldn’t even find you under a microscope. It’s a cold night,

one o f them unusual ones in N ew Y ork, under zero with a

piercing wind about fifteen miles an hour. There’s no coat

warm enough. I lived in someone’s room, slept on the floor. It

was Christmas and she said to meet her at M acy’s. I followed

the directions she gave me and went to the right floor. I never

saw anything so big or so much. There’s hundreds o f kinds o f

sausages all wrapped up and millions o f different boxes o f

cookies all wrapped up and bottles o f vinegar and kinds o f oil

and millions o f things; I couldn’t get used to it and I got dizzy

and upset and I ran out. I lived with the woman who helped

me when I was just a kid out o f jail— she still had the same

apartment and she fed me but I couldn’t sleep in m y old room,

her husband slept in it now, a new husband, so I slept on a sofa

in the room right outside the kitchen and there were no doors.

There was the old sofa, foam rubber covered with plaid cloth,

and books, and the door to the apartment was a few feet away.

When you came in you could turn right or left. I f you turned

left you went to the bathroom or the living room. The living

room had a big double bed in it where she slept, m y friend. If

you turned right you came to the small room that was the

husband’s and past that you came to the open space where I

slept and you came to the kitchen. The husband didn’t like me

being there but he didn’t come home enough for it to matter.

He was hard and nasty and arrogant but politically he was a

pacifist. He looked like a bum but he was rich. He ordered

everyone around and wrote poems. He was an anarchist. M y

old room had to stay empty for him, even though he had his

own apartment, or studio as he called it, and never told her

when he was showing up. A friend o f hers gave me a room for

a few months in a brownstone on West 14th Street— pretty

place, civilized, Italian neighborhood, old, with Greenwich

Village charm. The room belonged to some man in a mental

institution in Massachusetts. It was a nutty room all right.

T w o rooms really. The first w asn’t wider than both your arms

outstretched. There was a cot, a hot plate, a tiny toilet, a teeny

tiny table that tipped over i f you put too much on it. The

second was bigger and had windows but he filled it up so there

wasn’t any room left at all: a baby grand piano and

humongous plants taller than me, as tall as some trees, with

great wide thick leaves stretched out in the air. It was pure

menace, especially how the plants seemed to stretch out over

everything at night. They got bigger and they seemed to

move. Y ou could believe they were coming toward you and

sometimes you had to check. The difference between people

who have something and me is in how long a night is. I have

listened to every beat o f m y heart waiting for a night to end; I

have heard every second tick on by; I’ve heard the long pauses

between the seconds, enough time to die in, and I’ve waited,

barely able to breathe, for them to end. D aylight’s safer. The

big brown bugs disappear; they only come out at night and at

night yo u ’re always afraid they’ll be there so you can’t help but

see them, you don’t really always know whether they’re real

or not, you see them in your mind or out o f the corner o f your

eye, yo u ’re always afraid they’ll be there so if you see one slip

past the corner o f your eye in the dark you will start waiting in

fear for morning, for the light, because it chases them away

and you can’t; nothing you can do will. Same for burglars;

same for the ones who come in to get you; daylight; you wait

for daylight; you sit in the night, you light up the room with

phony light, it’s fake and dim and there’s never enough, the

glare only underlines the menace, you can see you’re beseiged

but there’s not enough light to vaporize the danger, make it

dissolve, the way sunlight does when finally it comes. Y ou can

sleep for a minute or two, or maybe twenty. Y ou don’t want

to be out any longer than that. You don’t get undressed. Y ou

stay dressed always, all the time, your boots on and a knife

right near you or in your hand. Y ou get boots with metal

reinforced tips, no matter what. Y ou don’t get under the

covers. Y ou don’t do all those silly things— milk and cookies,

Johnny Carson, now I lay me down to sleep. Y ou sit

absolutely still or lie down rigid and ready for attack and you

listen to the night m oving over the earth and you understand

that you are buried alive in it and by the grace o f random luck

you will be alive in the morning— or w on’t be— you will die or

you w on ’t and you wait to find out, you wait for the light and

when it comes you know you made it. Y ou hear things break

outside— windows, you can hear sheets o f glass collapsing, or

windows being broke on a smaller scale, or bottles dashed on

cement, thrown hard, or trash cans emptied out and hurled

against a cement wall, or you hear yelling, a man’s voice,

threat, a wom an’s voice, pain, or you hear screams, and you

hear sirens, there are explosions, maybe they are gun shots,

maybe not— and you hope it’s not coming after you or too

near you but you don’t know and so you wait, you just wait,

through every second o f the night, you wait for the night to

end. I spend the change I can find on cigarettes and orange

juice. I think as long as I am drinking orange juice I am

healthy. I think orange juice is the key to life. I drink a quart at

a time. It has all these millions o f vitamins. I like vodka in my

orange juice but I can’t get it; only a drink at a time from a man

here and there, but then I leave out the orange juice because I

can do that myself, I just get the vodka straight up, nothing

else in the glass taking up room but it’s greed because I like

rocks. I never had enough money at one time to buy a bottle. I

love looking at vodka bottles, especially the foreign ones— I

feel excited and distinguished and sophisticated and part o f a

real big world when I have the bottle near me. I think the

bottles are really beautiful, and the liquid is so clear, so

transparent, to me it’s like liquid diamonds, I think it’s

beautiful. I feel it connects me with Russia and all the Russians

and there is a dark melancholy as well as absolute jo y when I

drink it. It brings me near Chekhov and D ostoevsky. I like

how it burns the first drink and after that it’s just this splendid

warmth, as i f hot coals were silk sliding down inside me and I

get warm, m y throat, m y chest, m y lungs, the skin inside my

skin, whatever the inside o f m y skin is; it clings inside me. M y

grandparents came from Russia, m y daddy’s parents, and I try

to think they drank it but I’m pretty sure they w ouldn’t have,

they were just ghetto Jew s, it was probably the drink o f the

ones who persecuted them and drove them into running

away, but I don’t mind that anyw ay, because now I’m in

Am erika and I can drink the drink o f Cossacks and peasants if I

want; it soothes me, I feel triumphant and warm , happy too. I

have this idea about vodka, that it is perfect. I think it is

perfect. I think it is beautiful and pure and filled with absolute

power— the power o f something absolutely pure. It’s com pletely rare, this perfection. It’s more than that the pain dies or

it makes you magic; yeah, you soar on it and you get wise and

strong by drinking it and it’s a magnificent lover, taking you

whole. But I love ju st being near it in any w ay, shape, or form.

I would like to be pure like it is and I’d like to have only pure

things around me; I wish everything I’m near or I, touch could

be as perfect. I feel it’s very beautiful and if I ever die I wouldn’t

mind having a bottle o f it buried with me, if someone would

spring for it: one bottle o f Stoli hundred proof in honor o f me

and m y times, forever. I’d drink it slow, over time. It’d make

the maggots easier to take, that’s for sure. It does that now.

They ain’t all maggots, o f course. I been with people who

matter. I been with people who achieved something in life. I

want excellence myself. I want to attain it. There’s this woman

married to a movie star, they are damned nice and damned

rich, they take me places, to parties and dinners, and I eat

dinner with them at their house sometimes and she calls me

and gets me in a cab and I go with her. I met her because I was

w orking against the Vietnam War some more. I got back to

N ew Y ork in Novem ber 1972. It was a cold winter. I had

nothing; was nothing; I had some stories I was writing; I slept

on the floor near someone’s bed in a rented room. Nixon

bombed a hospital in North Vietnam. All these civilians died. I

couldn’t really stand it. I went to my old peace friends and I

started helping out: demonstrations, phone calls, leaflets,

newspaper ads, the tricks o f the trade don’t change. I had this

idea that important Amerikans— artists, writers, movie stars,

all the glitz against the War— should go to North Vietnam sort

o f as voluntary hostages so either N ixon would have to stop

the bombing or risk killing all them. It would show how venal

the bombings were; and that they killed Vietnamese because

Vietnamese were nothing to them, just nothing; and it was

morally right to put yourself with the people being hurt.

Inside yourself you felt you had to stop the War. Inside

yourself you felt the War turned you into a murderer. Inside

yourself you couldn’t stand the Vietnamese dying because this

government was so fucking arrogant and out o f control.

There was a lot o f us who never stopped thinking about the

War, despite our personal troubles; sometimes it was hard not

to have it drive you completely out o f your mind— if you let it

sink in, how horrible it was, you really could go mad and do

terrible things. So I got hooked up with some famous people

who wanted to stop the War; some had been in the peace

movement before, some just came because o f the bombings.

We wanted to stop the bombing; we wanted to pay for the

hospital; we wanted to be innocent o f the murders. The U . S.

government was an outlaw to us. The famous people gave

press conferences, signed ads, signed petitions, and some even

did civil disobedience; I typed, made phone calls, the usual;

shit work; but I also tried to push m y ideas in. The idea was to

use their fame to get out anti-War messages and to get more

mainstream opposition to the War. Hey, I was home; only in

Amerika. One day this woman came in to where we were

w orking— to help, she said; was there anything she could do

to help, she asked— and she was as disreputable looking as me

or more so— she looked sort o f like a gypsy boy or some street

w a if—and they treated her like dirt, so condescending, which

was how they treated me, exactly, and it turned out she was

the wife o f this mega-star, so they got all humble and started

sucking. I had just talked to her like a person from the

beginning so she invited me to their house that night for

dinner— it turned out it was her birthday party but she didn’t

tell me that. I got there on time and no one else came for an

hour so her and me and her husband talked a lot and they were

nice even though it was clear I didn’t understand I w asn’t

supposed to show up yet. She took me places, all over, and we

caroused and talked and drank and once when he w asn’t home

she let me take this elaborate bath and she brought me a

beautiful glass o f champagne in the tub, then he came in, and I

don’t know if he was mad or not, but he was always real nice

to me, and nothing was going on, and there wasn’t no bath or

shower where I lived, though I was ashamed to say so, I had to

make an appointment with someone in the building to use

theirs. They kept me alive for a while, though they couldn’t

have known it. I ate when I was with them; otherwise I didn’t.

M y world got so big: parties, clubs, people; it was like a tour

o f a hidden world. Once she even took me to the opera. I never

was there before. She bought me a glass o f champagne and we

stood among ladies in gowns on red velvet carpets. But then

they left. And I knew some painters, real rich and famous.

One o f them was the lover o f a girl I knew. He befriended me,

like a chum, like a sort o f brother in some ways. He just acted

nice and invited me places where he was where there were a lot

o f people. He didn’t mind that I was shy. He talked to me a lot.

He seemed to see that I was overwhelmed and he didn’t take it

wrong. He tried to make me feel at ease. He tried to draw me

out. I sort o f wanted to stay away from places but he just tried

to get me to come forward a little. In some ways he seemed

like a camp counselor organizing events: now we hike, now

we make purses. I’d go drinking with all these painters in their

downtown bars and they had plenty o f money and it wasn’t a

matter o f tit for tat, they just kept the drinks coming, never

seemed to occur to them to stop drinking. I knew his girlfriend

who was a painter. At first when I met him I had just got back.

I was sleeping on floors. I slept on her floor some nights when

he wasn’t there. She was all tortured about him, she was just

all twisted up inside, but I never understood why, she was

pretty incoherent. We drank, we talked about him, or she did;

she didn’t have any other subject. There wasn’t no sexual

feeling between him and me and he acted cordial and

agreeable. We went on a bus with some other people they

knew to N ew Hampshire for Thanksgiving. I think he paid

but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t have any money to go but they

wanted me to go; they had friends there. We went on the

Greyhound bus and it let us o ff somewhere in Verm ont and

someone, another painter from up there, was supposed to pick

us up, but he didn’t come all night, so we were in the parking

lot o f the bus station, locked out o f the depot, deserted and

freezing through the whole night; and in the morning we got a

bus the rest o f the w ay. It was like being on a camping trip in

the Arctic without any provisions— w e’d pass around the ugly

coffee from the machine outside. We got cold and hungry and

angry and people’s tempers flared, but he sort o f held it all

together. His name was Paul, she was Jill. They fought a lot

that night but hell it was cold and awful. He was gregarious

but sort o f opaque, at least to me; I couldn’t figure out

anything about him really. He w asn’t interesting, he w asn’t

real intelligent, and then suddenly, mentally, he’d be right on

top o f you, staring past your eyes into you, then he’d see

whatever he saw and he’d m ove on. He had a cold streak right

down the middle o f him. He w asn’t someone you wanted to

get close with and at the same time he held you on his margin,

he kept you in sight, he had this sort o f peripheral vision so he

always knew where you were and what you needed. He kept

you as near as he wanted you. He had a strong w ill and a lot o f

insistence that you were going to be in his scout troop sitting

around the fire toasting m arshmallows. He had opinions on

everything, including who took too many drugs and who was

really gay. We got to N ew Hampshire and there was this big

house a wom an built with a tree right up the center o f it going

out the ro o f and all the walls were w indow s and it was in the

middle o f the woods and I never saw anything so imposing, so

grand. It w asn’t rich so much as handsome from hard w ork

and talent. The two wom en w ho lived there had built it

themselves. One was a painter, one a filmmaker; and it was

real beautiful. There was a lot o f people around. Then the food

came, a real Thanksgiving, with everything, including things

I never saw before and I didn’t know what they were, it was

ju st beyond anything I had ever seen, and it was warm and fine

and it was just people saying this and that. I’d been aw ay a long

time. I didn’t know what mostly they were talking about.

Someone tried to explain who Archie Bunker was to me but I

couldn’t understand what was funny about it or how such a

thing could be on television and I don’t like jokes against

faggots. I sat quiet and drank Stoli all I wanted, day and night.

We all bunked down in different parts o f the huge room. I

made love with a real young guy who reminded me o f a girl I

used to know; and some woman too who I liked. Then

somehow this guy Paul got us all back to N ew York. He had

been in the loft bed with Jill. It was the only real bed and it was

private because it was up so high and behind a structural beam.

They just kept fighting all night so he was aggravated and he

was angry anybody else made love, he said the noise kept him

up. So he wanted to leave and it was follow the leader. It was a

nice Thanksgiving, a real one in a way, as if I lived here, on

this earth, in ways that were congenial to me. The people had

furniture and books and music and food and a big fire and they

talked about all sorts o f things, books, music, everyday

things, and the filmmaker showed her film. I got back to N ew

Y ork, slept where I could, mostly on floors, it could get

harrowing, I would get pretty tired, I wasn’t really understanding how to put an end to it, I felt just perpetually exhausted and stupid, I didn’t see how you get to be one o f

these people who seemed plugged in— food, money, apartment, that stuff. I’d get warm in the bars with the painters. I’d

go downtown and they’d be there and w e’d drink. Sometimes

one o f the guys would hit on me but mostly I said no. I don’t

like painters. They seem very cold to me, the men; and the

women were all tormented like Jill, talked about men all the

time, suffered, drank. I don’t know. I made love with some o f

the women but they were just sort o f servants to the men;

drunk, servile. I fucked some o f the men but they were so

self-involved, so completely cold, in love with themselves, so

used to being mean to whoever was with them. They put this

shit on a canvas and they make it thick or thin and it’s blobs or

something and then they’re known for doing that and they just

do it over and over and then they’re very crass in bed, they’re

just fucking-machines, I never knew men w ho just wanted to

fuck and that’s it, I mean, you couldn’t even say it was a power

trip because it was too cold and narrow for that, greedy and

cold; they really should have just masturbated but they wanted

to do it in a girl. Paul kept making social events and he and Jill

invited me. Then N ew Y ear’s came and Paul had me to this

big dinner; Jill too but it was at his loft, his building I guess, I

couldn’t really grasp that part o f it. I was afraid to go but he

said it would be fine and I didn’t have to do anything or say

anything; I didn’t believe it because usually you had to cook or

clean or something but it was true because this was some

elegant sit-down dinner and there was people serving dinner

and he hadn’t cooked it but someone, some real cook, had. It

was N ew Y ear’s Eve. It made me feel special to be there, even

though I was scared. I felt like someone, not someone famous

or someone rich, ju st someone who could be somewhere

inside with people and nice things, I felt warm and in the midst

o f grace and abundance. It made me feel that there were people

in the world who were vibrant, who talked, who laughed. It

was not ju st some place to be— it was fine, a fine place. I was

almost shaking to see it, the table, the candles, the china, the

silverware, vigorous, jubilant people, warm and ruddy and

with this physical vitality that almost bounced o ff the walls. I

was so lonely that winter. I came back in N ovem ber 1972, all

broke down. It was a bitter cold winter. I went to Paul’s loft on

N ew Y e ar’s Eve for dinner; a formal dinner; except no one

was dressed formal or acted formal. It was shimmering. It was

dazzling. There was plates and beautiful glasses and there was

food after food, all cooked, all served, first one thing, then

another, then another, it went on and on, it was like a hundred

meals all at once, and no one seemed to find it surprising like I

did; I was like a little child, I guess; I couldn’t believe it was

real. There were candles and music but not just candles, the

candleholders were so beautiful, silver, crafted, antique, old,

so old, I thought they must have come right from Jerusalem.

There were about twenty people altogether. The men were

mostly painters, mostly famous, pretty old. They talked and

told jokes. The girls were painters too but they didn’t say

much except for one or two who talked sometimes and they

were real young, mostly. There was a man and a girl and a

man and a girl all around the table. There was all these wines

and all these famous men asking you if you wanted more. Y ou

had the feeling you could ask for anything and these great

men, one o f them or all o f them, would turn heaven and earth

to get it for you. I was shy, I didn’t know what to say; I

certainly wasn’t no great artist yet and I wanted to keep my

dreams private in my heart. I said I was writing stories. I said I

was against the War. The men said, one by one, that you

couldn’t be political and an artist at the same time but they

didn’t argue or get mad at me; it was more like how you would

correct a child who had made an embarrassing mistake. One

o f them took me aside and asked me if I remembered him. He

looked so familiar, as if I should reach out and touch his face. I

said hadn’t we seen a movie together once. He said we had

made love and I was on mescaline and hadn’t I liked it and

didn’t I remember him. He was real nice about it and I said oh

yes, o f course, and it was nice, and there were a lot o f colors.

He didn’t seem to get mad. I smiled all night, because I was

nearly awed. The men had this vitality, they were sort o f

glowing. I never knew such a thing could happen. Y ou

listened to them, because they might say something about art.

One talked to me about death. He was a real famous painter.

He said that both him and me were artists. He said artists were

the only people who faced death without lying. He said that

was the reason to make love— because you had looked death in

the face and then you defied it. He said the others didn’t

understand that but he did and I did and so would I come with

him. And I laughed. I didn’t go with him but I laughed, he

made me happy, I laughed, I felt it was such beautiful bullshit

and I laughed. I thought it was a real nice thing for him to say.

It was a new year. I was drinking champagne. I w asn’t alone. I

wasn’t outside. I was safe. It was so much— beauty and life and

gracious ease; it was so surprising, so completely wonderful

and new; it was glittering and sparkling, it was small and

warm, it was new and scary and exciting and real fine. I started

having this dream over and over. It was N ew Y ork, streets I

knew, usually down in the Village, around Washington

Square, sometimes on Fifth Avenue above the Square. It was

very dark. The dark was almost a person, a character in the

dream. The dark had a kind o f depth, almost a smell, and it

was scary and dense and it was over everything, you almost

couldn’t see anything through it. The dream was somewhere

in the Village, sometimes near those big impersonal buildings

on Fifth Avenue, but even i f it’s deeper in the Village the

buildings are stone, big, impersonal, not the town houses or

brownstones o f the Village, but the impersonal Fifth Avenue

buildings, a cold rich city made o f cold stone. Som ehow I go

into one and it opens into this huge feast, this giant party in this

giant ballroom, physically it’s almost underground as if you

are going down inside the ground but there is this grand

ballroom and the women have gow ns and jew els and the men

are shiny and pretty in black suits and ruffled silk shirts but no

one makes me leave, at first I’m afraid but no one makes me

leave, there’s lots o f noise and there’s music and there’s food,

all sorts o f weird kinds o f food, cocktail food and real food and

drinks and it’s warm and friendly and in the dream I say yes,

I’ve been here before, it’s waiting, it’s always here, it’s just part

o f N ew Y ork , you don’t have to ever be afraid, hidden aw ay

there’s always something like this, you ju st have to find it, and

it fades, the dream fades, and I wake up feeling flushed and

tired and happy and I think it’s out there if only I can

remember where it is and it’s not until I’m out on the streets

that I understand I just dreamed it, I wasn’t really there, not

just last night but ever, but still I think N ew Y ork is full o f

such places, only I don’t know where they are. But after N ew

Year it just was colder and harder; there’s not a lot o f magic in

the world, no beautiful fairy godmother to wave her wand so

you can stop sifting through ashes and go to the ball. I slept

outside the kitchen in m y old friend’s apartment; I wrote

stories, slow, real slow, over and over, a sentence again and

again, I did peace stuff against the War, I got food from bars

mostly. Y ou go during happy hour and you only need one

drink. Y ou can get a man to get it for you or if you have the

change you can do it and then there’s warm food and you can

eat; they make it real fatty usually but it’s good, heavy and

warm and they bring out more and more until happy hour’s

over. I met the actor and his wife and she took me everywhere,

all around. Sometime I moved into the loony’s room with the

carnivorous plants and I wrote stories, slow, real slow, word

by word, then starting over. I had nothing and I was nothing

and I couldn’t tell no one how I was hurt from being married.

And I kept drinking with the painters. I liked the noisy bars

and the people all excited with drinking and art and all the love

affairs going on all around, with all the torment, because it

wasn’t m y torment, it didn’t come near m y torment. It was

distracting, a kind o f static that interrupted the pain I was

carrying. I got the peace group to give me seventy-five dollars

a week and I worked every morning for them, making phone

calls, writing leaflets, mimeographing, typing, doing shit. I

said I was a writer i f someone asked. I worked on m y stories,

slow; I stayed alive as best I could; I waited through long

nights, I waited. N o w it’s bitter cold; a bitter cold night;

unusual in N ew Y ork; with the temperature under zero; with

the wind blowing about fifteen miles an hour, trying to kill

you, cutting you in half and then in half again, you can’t

withstand it, there’s nothing can keep it from running through

you like a knife. I’m in m y little room, the loon y’s room; I’m

staying calm; I don’t like being alone, it’s hard, but I’ m

thinking I’m okay, I’m inside, I’m okay; I’m thinking I will

take out m y notebook and w ork, sit with the words, make

sentences, cross words out, you hear a kind o f music in your

head and you transpose it into words but the words sit there,

block letters, just words, they don’t sing back, so you have to

keep making them better until they do, until they sing back to

you, you look at it and it moves like a song. Y ou hear it

m oving, there’s a buzz on it and the buzz is music, not noise; it

can be percussive but it’s still lyrical, it sings. It’s a delicate

thing, knowing when it’s right. At the same time it’s like

being in first grade where you had to write the words down

careful in block letters and you had to make them perfect;

because you keep trying like some six-year-old to make the

words perfect so they look back at you and they are right, as if

there’s this one right w ay and it sits there, pure and clear, when

yo u ’re smart enough, finally, to put it on the page in front o f

you. I always want to run away from it: putting the words

down, because they’re always w rong at first and for a long

time they stay wrong, but now the cold night keeps me in, the

wind, the killer wind, I sit on the cot, I m ove m y papers to the

tiny table, I get out a pencil and I find some em pty paper, and I

start again, I begin again, I have started again over and over

and tonight I start again, and I hear the words in m y heart. I

came back with two laundry bags, like canvas shopping bags.

I carried them on the plane. T hey were m y laundry bags from

when I was a housewife. One has manuscripts and a couple o f

books. The other has a sweater and some underwear and a pair

o f pants. I don’t have anything else, except a fairly ragged skirt

that I’m wearing, I made it m yself with some cheap cloth, it

has clumps and bulges and I’ve got a couple o f T-shirts. I think

the manuscripts are precious. I think you can do anything if

you must. I think I can write some stories and I think it doesn’t

matter how hard it is. I’m usually pretty tired by night but the

nights are long and if you can write the time isn’t the same kind

o f burden; the words, like oxen, pull the dark faster through

time. I think it is good to write; I think perhaps someday I

might write something beautiful like Death in Venice, something just that lovely and perfect, and I think it would be worth a person’s whole life to write one such thing. I have an

invitation to go to Jill’s art opening, her first show ever. It is a

big event for her. Girls don’t get to have shows very easy, and

some people say it is because o f Paul; she’s resentful o f him; I

tell her it doesn’t matter one w ay or the other, the point is to do

it, just do it. I feel I should go but I don’t have clothes warm

enough for this particular night. I walk everywhere because I

don’t have money for subways, I walk long distances, I took

m y husband’s warm coat when I left— it’s the least you can

give me, I said, he was surprised enough when I grabbed it that

he didn’t take it away— it’s a sheepskin coat from Afghanistan

but it doesn’t have any buttons so you can’t stay warm in bad

wind— it’s heavy and stiff and it doesn’t close right and if

there’s bad wind it rips through the opening; I was running

away and I wanted the warm coat, I knew it would last longer

than money, I was thinking about the streets, I was remembering. And he gave me some money too, took some change

out o f his pocket, some bills he was carrying, handed it to me,

said yeah, take this too. It was maybe what you’d spend on a

cheap dinner. I wanted his coat. I was leaving and there was

m y coat and I thought about having to get through one

fucking night in m y coat, a ladies’ coat, m y wife coat, tailored,

pretty, gray, with style and a little phony fur collar, a waist, it

had a waist, it showed o ff that you had breasts, and I thought,

shit, I w on ’t live through one night in that piece o f shit, I

thought, I’d better have a real coat, I thought, the bastard has a

real coat and yes I will risk m y life to get it so I grabbed it and at

first he didn’t want me to have it but I said shit boy it’s a real

cheap w ay to end a marriage and he could’ve smashed me but

he didn’t because he wanted me out and he looked at me and

said yeah take it and you don’t wait a second, you grab it and

you get out. I never was sorry I took it. I slept on it, I slept

under it, I wrapped it around me like it was m y real skin, m y

shelter, m y house, m y home, I didn’t need to buy other stuff

for staying warm , I wore a cheap T-shirt under it, nothing

else, I didn’t have to w o rry about clothes or nothing like that;

but tonight’s too cold for it, there’s nights like that, wind too

bad, too strong, no respite; tonight’s too cold. I think I’m

going to sit still, sit quiet and calm, inside, in a room, in this

quiet room, w ork on m y story, cross out, put new words

down, try to make it sing for me, for me now, here and now,

in m y head now. T hey say Mann was a bourgeois writer. I

never saw it myself. I think he was outside them and I

wondered how he knew when it was beautiful enough and

when it was right. It seemed you had to have this calm. Y ou

had to be still. I think it’s this funny thing inside that I’m just

getting close to, this w ay o f listening, you can sort o f vaguely

hear something, you have to concentrate and get real still but

then you hear this thin thread o f something inside, and the

words ride on it right or they don’t but if you get the words

perfect they are ju st right on that thread, balanced just right. I

can’t really do it though because I’m always tired and I’m

always afraid. I shake. I can’t quiet down enough. The fear’s

new. I w asn’t some frightened girl. I’m afraid to sit still. I’m

afraid to be alone. I’m afraid when it’s quiet. A n y time I

remember I’m afraid. A ny time I dream I’m afraid. A ny time I

have to sit still alone I’m afraid. I just got this shake in me, this

terror; it’s like the room ain’t empty except it’s hollow , worse

than em pty, like some kind o f tunnel in hell, all dark with

nothing, a perfect void, I’m part o f the void and the air I’m

breathing is part o f it and the walls o f the room are the tunnel

and I’m trapped in a nothing so damned real it’s fixed forever. I

shake bad when I’m alone. I work on the stories barely able to

hold the pencil in m y hand. I don’t have no dope to calm me

down. The shake gets less if I smoke some dope, even a small

joint. Mentally I concentrate on calming m yself down so the

shake’s inside but I ain’t trembling so bad in m y body, I’m

more normal. So I sit for as long as I can, writing words down

and saying the sentences out loud to m yself and then I start

speeding up inside with fear and there’s no reason and so I have

to start calming m yself all over again, I concentrate on it until

I’m sitting still, not shaking. Then he just came right inside.

The door opened and he was in. I heard the locks unlocking—

N ew Y ork locks, real locks, I heard the cylinders turning, but

I didn’t grasp it, it was just a noise I couldn’t associate with

anything, and the door opened before I could register the

sound and he’s there, the g u y’s there, short, dark, w iry, sort o f

bent but from rage, a kind o f twisted anger in his muscles, he’s

tied in knots and it twists him all up and he’s raging all over the

apartment touching things and screaming and it’s him, they

told me he was locked up, it’s the guy, paranoid schizophrenic

they said, a very smart guy they said, but out o f control,

locked up, smart they said, a very smart guy but really fucked

up in the head, hears things, sees things, paranoid, has

delusions, and the landlady’s not here and no one’s here to

calm him down who knows him or to say who I am and he’s

screaming and I am saying who I am and saying the names o f

the landlady and his neighbors and saying, oh, they didn’t

know he’d be back, and I was just here for this second, a few

hours, a day, and I was just leaving, just now, and he’s

screaming and he’s hitting the table and he’s suddenly silent

and staring and he’s between me and m y stuff and I say I’ll be

back for it and he shouldn’t w orry and it’s all okay and o f

course it’s his place and I haven’t touched a thing, and I’m

trying to get m y coat but he’s in the w ay and he’s between me

and m y laundry bags, and me and m y papers, and I grab the

coat in a fast ju m p and swoop and I say the landlady will come

back for m y stuff or he can put it outside and he’s standing

there rigid and I run, I have the coat, I keep talking, I get out,

out o f the apartment, out o f the building, down the steps in the

hall, down the stoop, out, and I’ve got the keys to m y old

friend’s apartment, m y old peace friend, for the sofa outside

the kitchen and she got me the loony’s room and she said to

come back anytime so I turn to her, I’m pretty scared and I’m

shaking and I’m running and I don’t know if he’s calling the

police because there’s no one in the building to say who I am or

that they said I could stay there and I’m running to m y old

friend’s place and it’s a bitter cold night with the wind at about

fifteen miles an hour, under zero, the streets are deserted, they

are bare, and I think well okay, I’m safe, I got out, anybody’d

be shaking, I took everyone’s word that he wouldn’t be back

without enough warning, I relaxed, I took things out o f my

laundry bags, I was there a couple o f months nearly, I mean, I

never completely relax and I never completely unpack; and I

w asn’t asleep, thank God, but now I have to figure out where

to go, and I run to m y old friend’s apartment and I have the

keys in m y hand but I knock first because maybe she is there

and she is inside and she asks who it is and I say I am me and I

say what happened, that the guy came back, showed up,

opened the door, was in, and I ran and I need a place to sleep

tonight and it’s, ah, freezing out there, and she says there’s

someone with her and she doesn’t want me to come in because

he’s with her and I say okay, fine, yeah, it’s fine, yeah, it’s

okay, yeah, okay, because you don’t press yourself on

someone even if they told you always to come to them and

they gave you keys, they have freedom and if they say no then

you ain’t wanted there, and I think about saying to her you

have to do this because I have nowhere to go and nothing and I

will die out there, this ain’t no joke, tonight’s a dying night,

but you can’t push yourself on someone and I figure she

knows that anyway and you can’t count on no one, they will

let you die and that’s just the truth, and she don’t even open the

door to see my face or pass me money, she keeps it locked and I

hear her fasten the chain, and I’m in the hall o f her building and

I think I can go to Jill’s art opening, it’s all I can think of, a bar’s

more uncertain, more dangerous, and I can spend at least a few

hours there inside and there’s people there I know and I can

find a place to sleep maybe on someone’s floor, I don’t want to

fuck anyone, I just know I don’t, but maybe I can find

somewhere, I only got a couple o f dollars and it don’t last long

and you can’t stay warm through a whole night on it and I

don’t know anything past I have to find a place to sleep tonight

and get out o f the cold and I will w orry about the rest

tom orrow, where to go and what to do, I will think about it

tom orrow, and I say to m yself that I ain’t scared and so what

and this is nothing, absolutely nothing, piece o f cake, no

problem, I’ll just go and have a drink or something at the

opening and I’ll ask around and the art opening will last maybe

until two a. m., and then there’s only four hours or maybe five

until dawn, five really, and I can do that; I can do it; if I think

four hours I can do it and then after it’s only a little more time

and there’ll be light; I can do it; it ain’t new and I can do it; and

probably I can find somewhere to sleep and if I have to fuck I

will but I don’t want to but so what if I do but I w on ’t; I can last

through tonight. I’m walking in the wind, it’s like swim m ing

in the ocean against a deep and deadly tide, I’m walking down

to Soho, the streets are bare and the wind is cruel, just fucking

brutal cruel, I get about half a block at a time and I try to find a

doorw ay, warm up, walk as much more as I can stand, the

wind just freezes you, your chest, your blood, your bones; it

fucking hurts; it ain’t some moderate pain, it’s desperate like

some anguish possessing you. Soho’s industrial lofts and.

galleries and a couple o f bars, there’s long streets with

nowhere to go, it’s as if the doorw ays disappeared because the

buildings are industrial buildings and there’s elevators you

have to use to get inside, not normal doors, the painters living

there are illegal and there’s no shops or stores to step into and

Jill’s gallery is w ay downtown, near Canal Street, a long walk,

and the cold’s hurting me and I’m afraid. M y mind is rocking

back and forth from I can find someone and if I have to I’ll fuck

them even no matter what and I can make it from two to six if I

have to, I can. There’s no bums out, there’s no whores,

everyone’s folded inside some crease somewhere and anyone

who ain’t might not live until morning; there’s nights like that;

and I get there and I take the warehouse elevator up and it’s

white, it’s a huge warehouse room painted a glossy white and

there’s all these people dressed in real clothes, you know,

outfits, for style, and the w om en’s all acting nice and flirty

with the men and it’s warm and the men’s all acting smart and

polite and civilized and there’s wine, white wine, and there's

Stoli and bourbon and ice, and there’s cheese and some little

pieces o f food, some little sandwiches, tender little things you

can eat in one bite, yo u ’d be hard pressed to take two, you

know those funny little sandwiches that are always wet and

sort o f wilted, and the room ’s so shiny and white and big the

people almost disappear in it, the ceiling’s so high you feel like

a little ant, and it seems the people are sparse though there’s a

lot o f them, they don’t look like the wind got to them but

rather they’re all polished up, all shined, and there’s paintings

on the walls, Jill’s paintings, and in the middle o f the room

there’s Jill but she’s not looking all polished up, she’s sort o f

gray and miserable, and I say hi and I congratulate her and

she’s mad and sad and I say well it’s a big deal, really, and your

nerves are bound to get frayed, aren’t they, and she gets darker

and stranger, and Paul comes over, and she glowers, and he

says some pleasant things, and she and he seem to agree that

the paintings are on the wall and the people are in the room,

and there’s a certain amount o f tension over this, and Paul’s

saying normal things like hey have something to drink and

there’s food, take some, or have some, and I’m saying the sort

o f foolish things people say about paintings, aren’t they

strong, aren’t they interesting, haven’t they grown, don’t they

dominate the room, and it works kind o f like Valium because

Jill evens out and there’s a small smile out o f one side o f her

mouth at least and I think I should just walk around and see

about finding someone I can ask for a place to sleep, and I walk

around, and I have one drink to warm up because I can’t drink

because I don’t know what the rest o f the night will be and

relaxing isn’t in the picture until there’s shelter and I have a wet

sandwich and I chat with this woman and this man and they’re

mostly painters and they really all want to say something

about the relationship, Paul and Jill, not the paintings, so

there’s this catty, gossipy quality to everything and also it’s all

secretive because no one wants to be accidentally overheard by

Jill or Paul and while Jill is staying one place, dead center in the

room, just standing there by a particularly big painting, Paul is

all over, behind people, in conversations, introducing people,

the real host, the scout leader; and he chats with me awhile too.

But I’m scared, because I know this will end and real life will

come back. I know the trick’s not to look desperate. I know

the trick’s to seem as if there’s nothing wrong; w hy the hell do

you need to sleep on someone’s floor if nothing’s wrong? I

can’t think o f any plausible reason but I figure it’s not rational

as such, you know, reasons, it’s attitude, you have to have a

kind o f calm as if it’s just normal so no one thinks they’ll have to

give you anything; or care for you. So I make m yself steady

and I think this is normal and I ain’t so scared as actually I am

and I think well Jill knows everyone here and she’s m y friend

so I’ll ask her and I take her aside, meaning just a little o ff her

mark, and I say I need a place to sleep and is there anyone here

who might put me up ju st for one night, and she says she’ll

think about it, and I smile and act as if it’s okay one w ay or

another and I drift o ff and more time passes, and I’m drinking

soda and thinking, every second thinking, m y heart beating

too fast in fear, but outside I’m calm and simple, and Jill comes

up and says, listen, I’m going home with Paul so w hy don’t

you stay at m y loft, and I say that’s great, because it is, and I am

fucking happy, I think even it will be nice, it’s a big place, it’s

sort o f dark but it’s fine, you know, with a bed on a kind o f

platform, a mattress really, and it’s really nice, you know, so

I’m at ease, I mean I am really happy, and I pour m yself a stiff

drink, a real fine drink, and I’m chatting aw ay like a real

person, you know, I can’t emphasize enough how m y heart

slows down and how m y blood stops racing and how inside

m y head calms down and I’m just a person, not so shiny as the

others but not scared no more, more like a happy girl o f the

regular kind, and then, once the adrenaline has subsided

altogether, I feel how tired I am, I feel how it’s worn me out, I

feel how cold I got and how I’m just dragged out and

enervated, weary, and it’s midnight by now , I been at the

opening a long time, and I think it’s decent to leave, so I go to

Jill, and she and Paul are holding hands and they are looking

happy and I am glad there’s a truce and I ask if I could go to her

loft now , and she’s upset or confused or something, and m y

heart sinks, but he says, look, I’m going to stay at Jill’s loft

with her, it’s ju st easier, so w hy don’t you go to m y place, it’s

empty, there’s no problem, I’ll give you the keys, okay? I say

things like I don’t want to put you out and arc you sure it’s

okay and he says what is obvious, I ain’t putting him out

because it’s a big night for Jill and he’s staying with her at her

place because it’s ju st better for her that w ay; and I say fine; and

everyone says fine; and he’s going to give me the keys and

directions because I’m not sure where it is from here and I’m

waiting for him to come tell me these things, he said he’d write

them down, and fatigue is dragging me down, and I get my

coat and he comes and says hell I’ll just walk you there, it’s no

big deal, Jill’s going to be here for a couple o f hours yet, I’ll

walk you and come back, it’s just a few blocks away; and I was

glad because I didn’t want to get lost and I don’t know it

around here so good and it’s late and the streets are a little scary

down here, it’s not a regular neighborhood, and the wind has

made the streets bare and menacing as if it’s blowing dark

shadows in your face to smother you, and we go out, and it’s

colder than before, you are turned half to ice and the streets are

empty, just this naked cement with tides o f wind sweeping

over it like a sandstorm in the desert, and he says shit let’s get a

drink, and we step into a bar, we fucking dive into it, grateful

it’s there, and w e’re at the bar and I’m drinking my Stoli

straight up and I don’t have no money and I say so because I’m

planning to pay half because that’s fair and also I don’t want

wrong ideas communicated or to take advantage because he’s

a famous painter and he’s saying shit it doesn’t matter, it’s so

fucking cold we w on’t make it if we don’t take care o f

ourselves, and we talk about Hem ingway or something, and

we take o ff again, and we get a little further and there’s another

bar and we dive in, grateful, and we sit at the bar and there’s

another Stoli in front o f me and w e’re talking about some actor

he knows w h o ’s shooting cocaine and he’s saying it’s a tragedy

and I’m thinking yeah it is; and I’m saying Jill will w orry and

he’s saying there’s plenty o f time and I’m saying we should

just brave it and walk to his place and he’s saying it’s Jill’s

opening and she’s the center o f attention and that’s how it

should be and it’s good for her, she needs to stand more on her

own, and he’s proud o f her, and it’ll be fine, and there’s

another Stoli and another and another bar and another and he’s

putting down ten dollar bills for the bartender and I see the

vodka in front o f me and I drink it, and we talk about

H em ingway, and Ginsberg, and Whitman, and we duck into

another bar, and it’s almost empty, they all are, the weather

makes everything deserted and quiet and we seem like the only

people on earth, really, and the streets get darker, and the wind

gets colder, and the Stoli goes down smoother, easier, faster,

and he unrolls the bills faster, easier, more, and I’m saying shit

I’m tired and I’m telling him m y sad story o f this night and

how I didn’t have anywhere to go and how I don’t have no

money and how things are and he’s concerned, he’s listening,

I’m saying how frightened I was and he’s taking it all in; and

shit I can drink like any man, you know, I mean, I can drink, I

don’t fold, and I say I can outdrink him and he don’t think so

but I fucking do because he stops but he keeps ordering them

for me and I know I’m going to be crashing soon so I’m not

concerned, there’s nothing I have to do but sleep, alone,

warm , inside, and we get to his place and I ask for his keys and

he says he’ll open it because it’s hard and he opens it, it’s a lot o f

locks, it’s locks that slip and slide and look like they have jaw s,

they m ove and slide and spring and jum p, and the door finally

gets open and he says he’ll take me up and inside the door

there’s steps but first he locks the locks from inside, he locks

them with his keys and he says see this is how you do it when

you come in, don’t forget now, and he pockets the keys and I

think I have to remember to get them so when he leaves I’ll be

able to lock the door behind him, it’s unfamiliar to me and I

don’t want to forget, and then there’s the steps, these huge,

wood steps, these towering flights, these creaky, knotted

steps, these splintery steps, there’s maybe a hundred o f them,

it’s so high up you can’t see the top, so you go up the first

twenty or something and there’s a big, em pty room, more like

a baseball field, it’s not like an apartment building where

there’s other people on the first landing, there’s no one there

and it’s em pty, and there’s another twenty or thirty steps and

it’s knottier and there’s holes in the middle o f the steps and

you’re trying to get up them without looking like a fool or

falling and there’s another floor that’s some cavernous room

with canvases and boxes and it’s brown, all brown, stretched

canvases and paintings wrapped in brown paper for shipping

and huge standing spirals o f brown twine like statues and

brown masking tape and these vast rolls o f heavy brown tape,

the kind o f tape you have to wet and you use it to reinforce

heavy boxes, and there’s brown boxes, cartons, unfolded and

folded and there’s brown crates, it’s a kind o f dead brown

room, the air’s brown, not just dark but brown as if it’s

colored brown, as if the air itself is brown, and the walls and

the floor and everything in it is dull brown and it’s not a room

in the normal sense, in the human sense, it’s more like an

airstrip, and you keep climbing and then there’s this next

floor, it’s big like a fucking commercial garage or something

and it’s completely covered in paint, oil paint, you could park

a hundred cars in it but the whole floor is thick with dried red

paint, oil paint or acrylics you know, like the blob’s all dead

and it died in here, the paint’s fucking deep on the floor, it’s

shocking pinks and royal blues and yellows so bright they hurt

your eyes, I don’t mean the floor is painted like someone put

paint on a brush and used the brush to paint the floor or a wall

or something, it’s more like the paint is spilled on gallon after

gallon, heaps and heaps o f it, it’s inches thick or feet thick, it

dries hard and sticky, you walk on it with trepidation thinking

you will sink but it’s firm, it gives a little but it’s firm, it’s dry,

it’s like an artist’s palette like you see in the movies but it’s a

whole real floor o f a room as big as a city block and you walk

on it like yo u ’re outside in the hills walking on real ground

that’s uneven and it’s been wet and you sink in some places or

at least you expect to, the earth’s higher and lower by inches

and you got boots to help you find your footing, your feet sink

in but not really, the ground just gives a little and it ain’t even,

you don’t fall but your footing ain’t sure, but it’s paint, not

earth, paint, it must be a million paint stores all emptied out on.

the floor and then rising from the paint, from the thick, dried,

uneven, shocking paint, there’s canvases and there’s paint on

them, beautiful paint, measured, delicate by contrast, esthetic,

organized into colors and shapes that have to do with each

other, they touch, you see right aw ay that there is meaning in

their touch, there’s something in it, it’s not random, it’s too

fine, almost emotionally austere, your heart sort o f skips a beat

to see how intelligent the paint is, you look up from the chaos

o f the paint on the floor to the delicacy o f the paint on the

canvas and I at least almost want to cry, I just feel such sorrow

for how frail we are. I just had never seen it so clear how art is

about mortality, finding the one thin strain o f significance, a

line o f sorrow, the thread o f a meaning, an idea against death,

an assertion with color or shape as if you could draw a perfect

line to stand against it, you know , so it would break death’s

heart or something. I can see w hy he wanted to walk me

through this because it’s his paintings, precious to his soul.

Y ou w ouldn’t want some stranger rooting around in it; or

even touching it. Y ou have to go through the whole room, the

whole distance o f it, its full length, to get to the stairs that take

you to the top floor where he lives. I keep being afraid I’ll sink

in the paint but I get to the stairs and they’re normal, ju st wood

stairs, even, sanded, finished, with a bannister, and I climb up

after him; it was different N ew Y ear’s Eve, soft and glow ing,

with grand tables and linen and crystal. N o w it’s pretty

empty, big, vast really; there’s a big blow heater hanging from

the ceiling and he turns it on and it blows hot air out at you, it’s

like being in a hot wind, it dries the air out, it’s a m usky,

lukewarm , smelly draft, and he puts it on higher and it’s like

being in a hot wind, warm but unpleasant, an awful August

day with a wind so steady and stale that the air pushes past

you, old air, used already. At one end o f the huge room is a

single wood chair. At the other end is a sort o f kitchen, a sink,

running water, a refrigerator, and in front there’s a kitchen

counter and in front o f that there’s a single bed to sleep on, a

sort o f sofa maybe, flat, no headboard, no cushions, no back,

nondescript, covered with cloth, it’s a couch or an old mattress

on springs or something. Way in the back, to the left o f the

kitchen, hard to see, extending behind the kitchen but you

can’t really see how far, there’s a kind o f cage, it’s chicken

wire, it goes from the floor to the ceiling, and there’s a double

bed behind the chicken wire, and I ask what it is, and he says he

sleeps there with girls, some girls like it, it’s his bedroom, he’s

got cuffs for it that fasten on the chicken wire but it’s got

nothing to do with me, I can sleep on the sofa, and I’m feeling a

chill, m y blood goes cold and I feel a certain fear I can’t define

and do not want to think about, and I’ve tried to shake him all

night but there’s the fact he’s sort o f stuck on, I can’t shake him

loose, and I’m feeling like I’ve been traveling a long time in a

foreign place, the land’s strange, the natives are strange, it’s

been a long w ay up the mountain and you don’t know if the

w ay dow n’s booby-trapped and you know the sidewalks are

roads o f windswept death, they’re not harboring no lost souls

tonight, you ain’t going to make it some hours out there. I am

fucking blind drunk, asshole drunk, dumb bitch drunk, and

I’m figuring he’s Jill’s lover w ho’s got to be back because it’s

her opening night and he’ll go back soon, it’s just a matter o f

time, and I don’t look at the cage, like he said it’s got nothing

to do with me and I try not to think about the cuffs and I stay

w ay on the other side o f the place, near the single wood chair,

m y solace, m y home, the place I pick out where I’m staying as

long as he’s here and I can sit here the whole night, just sit, and

he says hey it’s no problem you sleep on the sofa here see and

he makes some tea and we take the tea downstairs to where the

paintings are and I think this is the right direction, at least he’s

on his w ay out, and he shows me the paintings, one by one, he

shows them to me, it’s sort o f amazing, it’s like being scraped

up o ff the street and suddenly the Museum o f Modern A rt’s,

open to you, a special honored guest, he shows them to me

one by one and I’m pretty awed and pretty quiet except he asks

me questions, what do I think o f this and what do I think o f

this and I try to say something, I say things about poems they

remind me o f because I don’t know how to say things about

paintings and there’s one a little different, it’s an emotional

upheaval, not intellectual like most o f the others, and I like it a

lot, it’s brazen and aggressive and real romantic and I say so

and he says well, it’s named after me then, and I think it’s

probably because he’s drunk and he’ll change it back

tom orrow but tonight it is named for me; Andy he calls it, a

nickname I hate. I say I’ll lock him out and he says he’s going

to call Jill to say he’s on his w ay and we walk upstairs and I sit

on the single wood chair but he doesn’t go near any phone

which I don’t even know where it is, I sit on the wood chair

and I dig m y nails into it and he pours me another drink and

I’m saying I’ve had enough but once it’s in m y hands I’m

nervous so I drink it and it’s pretty much like I’m submerged

in a tank o f alcohol, the fumes are drowning out any air, I’m

close to asphyxiation. I sit real still on the chair, I down the

drink like it’s water, I hold onto the chair for dear life, I see the

chicken wire and it scares me, I think about outside and it

scares me, and he’s just standing there, real benign, there’s not

a hint o f sex, there’s not a spark I can see, it’s Jill’s art opening,

he’s her lover and these facts have only one outcome which is

he’s going to her now or soon and I just have to sit here still

until he does and I ask where Jill sleeps and he says behind the

chicken wire and I feel out o f m y fucking mind, I feel insane,

and he’s totally level; and his eyes change, I never looked at his

eyes before but now they’re cold, they are real cold, they have

a steel quality, you might say they are mean and you might say

they are cruel and you might say they have m y blood smeared

on them and he’s saying he’ll just tuck me in, I should just lie

down and he’ll cover me with a blanket and then he’ll leave

and I’m saying he should leave now and I’m Jill’s friend and he

says he just wants me to sit next to him on the single bed just

for a minute, just sit there next to him, and I am some falling

down drunk stupid bitch but I am not going near him, I am

sitting on the chair, I have got m y fingernails dug in, and he’s

spying, totally level, totally calm, you can leave if you want,

quiet voice he has, you can just leave, quiet voice, soft voice,

cold eyes, not brown, yellow eyes, ochre eyes, dirty yellow

eyes, quiet voice, you can leave or you can just come here and

sit with me, sit next to me, just for a minute, or you can leave,

or you can leave, or you can sit here, next to me or you can

leave; and I thought, can I? — the door’s locked from inside,

you can’t stay on the streets, the bars are closed, there’s no

strangers outside you can find, even if you was going to risk it,

and you can barely put one foot in front o f another, everything

in front o f your eyes is streaked and moving, everything’s got

a tail like a comet racing through the sky, everything’s a shiny

streak whirling past you and you are standing still unless you

are falling, you fall and stop, fall and stop; and he’s saying you

can leave and you’re wondering if he’d let you anyway,

because finally it occurs to you he is more than a liar, or w hy

would he be so calm? He’s so quiet; quiet voice; you can leave;

or come right here, sit near me, just near me; and then there’s

w hatever’s past the fucking sunset, you know, the ocean

pounds the shore or something, there’s a hurricane, many die,

it breaks apart the beach, shacks, houses, stone walls, they’re

wrecked, Atlanta burns, you know, metaphor, I’d rather talk

in metaphor than say the things he did, God made metaphor

for girls like me, you know, life is nasty, short, brutish, short,

you can be snuffed out, it’s so fast, so mean, so easy,

someone’s eyes go cold, they go mean, they say sit near me

and you say no and they say sit near me and you say no and

they say sit near me and you say no and it’s like a boy and a girl

and some courtly dance except he is saying you can leave, -a

death threat, you can leave, with his cold eyes gleaming a

devil’s yellow from the meanness o f it, a dirty yellow , as i f his

eyeballs changed from brown to some supernatural ochre and

he puts his hands on m y shoulders and his hands are strong and

he lifts me up from the single wood chair and there’s this kind

o f long waltz the length o f the great ballroom where his arms

are around me and I am going one, two, three, four, against

him, in the opposite direction from him trying to get past him

and he is using m y own motion to push me back to where he

wants and he sits me down on the single bed and w e just sit there

like chaste kids, teenagers, side by side, we each look straight

ahead except he’s got his hand on m y neck, w e’re Norm an

Rockw ell except his fingers are spread the width o f m y neck,

his fingers are around m y neck, circling m y neck and I turn my

head to face him, m y b ody’s staring outwards but I turn m y

face toward him and I say to him I don’t want to do this, I get

him to face me and I look him in the eye and I say I don’t want

to do this and his hand tightens on m y neck and I feel his

fingers down under m y skin and into the muscle o f m y neck

and he says quiet, totally level, totally calm: it doesn’t matter,

darling, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m thinking he means it

doesn’t matter to him to fuck and I smile in a kind o f gratitude

but it’s not what he means and he takes his other hand and he

puts it up at the neck o f m y T-shirt and he pulls, one hand’s

holding m y neck from behind and the other’s pulling o ff my

T-shirt, pulling it half off, ripping it, it burns against m y skin

like whiplash, and he pushes me down on the bed and I see m y

breast, it’s beautiful and perfect and kind o f cascading, there’s

no drawing can show how it’s a living part o f me, human, and

when he puts his mouth on it I cry, not so he can tell, inside I’m

turned to tears, I see his face now up against m y breast, he’s

suckling and I hate him, I feel the inside o f his mouth, clam my

and toothy and gum m y, the cavity o f his mouth and the sharp

porcelain o f his teeth, there’s the edge o f his teeth on my

nipple, and he’s got my underpants torn o ff me and m y legs

pushed up and spread and he’s in me and I think I will count to

a hundred and it will be over but it isn’t, he’s different, I try to

push him o ff and he raises him self above me and he smiles at

me and he pushes me back, he holds me down, and I give up, I

do, I stay still, m y body dies as much as it can, hate distilled, a

perfect hate expressed in a perfect physical passivity, a perfect

attentiveness to dying, he’s going to say I’m a bad lay because I

w on ’t move but I hate him and I w on’t move. I just wait now

for him to come but he’s different, he w on’t come, he pushes

m y neck to hurt it and he kisses me, I feel his mouth on me,

he’s in me, sudden, brutal, unpleasant; vomitous; then he’s out

o f me, he’s kissing me, he kisses me everywhere, he rams into

me then he’s out, he’s kissing, he’s kissing my stomach, he’s

kissing m y legs, then he’s in me and m y thighs are pushed back

past m y shoulders, then he’s kissing me, he’s kissing m y anus

and licking it and he’s kissing my legs and he’s talking to me,

your skin reminds me o f Bridget’s, he says, Bridget has

beautiful skin, some whispering bullshit like I’m his lover or

his friend or something, conspiring with him, and then he’s

ramming him self in me and then he’s kissing me and I am

confused and afraid and I am paralyzed, I don’t move, I don’t

want to move, I w on’t move but also I can’t move, hate pins

me there flat, still, a perfect passivity, I think I am physically

real but my body’s incoherent to my own mind because I can’t

follow what he’s doing to me or what he wants, he’s doing it

to me but I don’t know what it is, there’s no organizing

principle, there’s no momentum or logic, I’m desperate for an

end but there’s no end, he’s brutal and cold and chaotic and I

say this will end but it doesn’t end, he rams, he kisses, I say this

is real, I am real, surely I am real, the physical reality is

overw helm ingly brutal and nasty, he tempers it, he thinks,

with these kisses, each one must be washed off, gotten off,

later, the skin must be gotten o ff later, gotten rid of, the cells

must be scraped off, I will need new skin, clean skin, because

he is expectorating all over me, I will need to rub and scrape, I

can use a knife or a stone, I’ll scrape it off, he’s in me, then he

withdraws, then he kisses, he kisses m y stomach, he kisses m y

feet— m y feet; he kisses m y legs, I feel a searing pain in m y leg,

I feel a terrible bad pain, I feel sharp shots o f pain, then he

rams, he kisses, he pushes, he pushes m y legs apart, he pushes

them back, he rams, he kisses, he must o f read a book, girls

like this, girls like that, you kiss girls, you kiss them; you kiss

them; he’s kissing me and saying things as if we are friends or I

know him or something and then he rams in, brutal bastard,

and then he’s a lover, kissing; and this is m y body but it ain’t, I

say it ain’t, I say it ain’t, I say I ain’t here and it ain’t me; but

time’s real — time is real— time’s real; there’s a long time until

dawn, there’s a couple o f hours until six and then there’s

m aybe an hour after that until there’s real light, you know,

sun, sun coming down from the sky, sun filtering down

through the cold, sun traveling down; heating up, even a little,

the streets, stone cold, steel-like daggers, the slab they lay you

out on; m y slab, a stone cold street; and a girl who wants to

live, such a girl, a girl who fucking wants to live doesn’t go out

until dawn, can’t go out until dawn; girls don’t go out at night;

girls who want to live don’t go out at night; you need light to

go out; you need sun; you need daylight; you need it to be a

little warmer, you need the edge o ff the cold, you need the

wind warmed up a little, you need it pale out, not dark, you

need it yellow or yellowish or even a flat silver or gray, a dull

gray, you need it gray or grayish or a dirty white at least, you

need it ash or a pale, pale blue as if it’s got a wash over it, a

watercolor wash, a greenish hue, or you need it to be pink, a

pinkish color, you need it pink, a little pink and a little warm ,

pinkish and warmish, you need light, you need light that’s

fresh and new, wholesome, washed in a subtle pastel color, a

pale hue, you need real light, honest light, well-established

light, not half dark, not stained by dark, not transitory or

illusory, you need it yellow from sun or even silver or gray,

you need it heated up, cozy, as if someone lit a match and

burned it to heat up the air, you need the sun m ixing with the

wind, a touch o f heat, you need it to be daytime if you’re a girl

so you can be safe and warm and at night you have to stay

inside so you w on’t get hurt; you don’t go out after dark; you

stay inside at night, you don’t be stupid and fuck up or some

stranger could hurt you, some bad man, a Nazi or some ghoul.

Y ou got to stay inside and if there’s a boy who likes you he’ll

sit next to you and he’ll kiss you and you can just stay with

him. Paul’s asleep. H e’s pinning me down, half on top o f me, a

lover but slightly displaced, half on me, half on the bed, it’s a

single bed, it’s been light a long time, two hours, three hours, I

watched the light come, it’s slow at first, then it’s sudden, it’s

pale today, a delicate yellow, a pale cold tone, I’m a student o f

light and time; my eyes are swollen open as if I saw something

that fixed them in place but I didn’t see nothing special, I

always wait with m y eyes open, I had them open, I didn’t close

them, it doesn’t help to close them, I waited for light but he

didn’t stop just because there was light, sometimes something’s important to you but it doesn’t matter to someone else

but you don’t know that, you don’t understand it, he lasted

well past the light and then he fell asleep without m oving

much, I wouldn’t have minded turning into a pumpkin but the

lovely lady had to stay at the ball, the beautiful princess loved

by the boy, he liked her so much; then he fell asleep without

m oving much, his body the full length o f mine, half on me,

half off, his arms holding onto me, one spread over me, dead

weight, one leg was spread over me, dead weight; and I was

completely still, I stayed completely still, except m y eyes

wander, and I decide I’m never going to lie down again, I’m

never going to lie down on m y back, I’m going to sit or I’m

going to stand up always from now on, in alleys or in

apartments or anywhere, and I try to move but I hurt, I am

filled with aches under m y skin, in m y bones, in m y joints, in

m y muscles, I’m stiff and I’m sore and then m y head’s

separate, it’s very big and there’s a thud in it, a bang, a buzz,

and there’s polka dots in the air, painted on, in the whole vast

room, dancing dots, black and navy blue, and he’s watching

me, I m ove slow ly and finally I am sitting, sitting on the edge

o f the bed, the single bed, sitting, chaste, just sitting, and m y

right leg is split open, the skin on it is split open in two places,

above m y knee and under m y knee, the skin’s torn, there’s big

jagged pieces o f skin, there’s gashes, it’s deep tears, deep cuts,

blood, dried blood and wet blood, m y leg’s torn open in tw o

places, his kisses, his lover’s kisses opened the skin, inside it’s

all angry looking as if it’s turning to a yellow or greenish pus,

it’s running with dirty, angry blood, I think it needs stitches

but I can’t get stitches and I’m scared o f gangrene, old ladies

get it on the street, winos get it when there’s sores, and I go to

wash it at the sink but it hurts too much and I think his water’s

dirty, I’m sure he has dirty water, it looks dirty, and the skin’s

splitting apart more, as if it’s a river running over land, and I

concentrate on getting out, finding m y clothes, putting on m y

clothes, they’re torn and fucked up, and I ask for the keys to

get out and he says something chatty and he smiles, it’s

English but I can’t exactly understand it so I nod or smile in a

neutral w ay and I think I’d better get out and he says see you or

see you again or see you soon, it’s English but it’s hard to

understand, I can’t make out the separate words, and I say

yeah, yeah, o f course, sure, and it doesn’t seem to be enough

so I say I’ll call, it seems better, it’s affirmative, he relaxes, he

smiles, he’s relaxed back into the bed, and I move, slow ly, not

to alarm him, not to stir him, not to call attention to myself, I

try to m ove the w ay they tell you with a book on your head,

smooth and calm and quiet, firm and fast and sure, ladylike,

self-abnegating, to disappear, and I take the keys and I go

down the steps, very slow, it’s hard, the blood from the gashes

is dripping down and the leg’s opening more and it hurts, it

hurts very much— if you spread your arms out full, that much,

or even more maybe. If it was a knife you could put the skin

back together and there wouldn’t be so many diseases, knives

are cleaner, this w on’t go back together, it’s ripped, it’s too

torn, it’s dirty, some special dirt, it’s named after him, this

dirt, it’s called Paulie, I named it after him; and I leave the keys

like he told me inside the door in the hall on the floor, it’s

unlocked now, the door’s open, I walk out and it’s deserted,

cold, bare, bare city streets, calm, no wind, a perfect, pure,

clean cold, cold enough to kill the germs on m y leg, it’ll freeze

them and they’ll die, I think it must be the case, if you can kill

them through heat, sterilization, you must be able to kill them

through cold, I think the damaged tissue’s already freezing and

the germs are dying or they will and it’s good there’s no wind

because if anything moves my leg screams, the skin screams,

it’s like a flashfire ignited up my leg, a napalm exploding on

me; and he’s sleeping upstairs, he’s in bed, he didn’t get out o f

bed, he’s asleep, he was back asleep almost before I left, he

seemed to be waiting for me to kiss him goodbye or good

morning or hello, I said I’ll call and he relaxed back into bed, I

stared, I made m yself move, I moved fast, quiet, which is w hy

they teach you to walk with a book on your head, you walk

quiet, with poise, you have a straight back, you take firm,

quiet steps, and I wish someone would go up now while he’s

asleep and kill him or rob him, I wish I could put a sign on the

door— it’s open, kill him, rob him, I think there’s some

chance, it’s a bad neighborhood, maybe som ebody’ll find

him. I’m dirty; all m y clothes are torn and fucked up as if they

were urinated on or wrapped in a ball and used to wipe

someone’s ass. I call Jill from a pay phone. He raped me, I say.

H e’s not the milk o f human kindness she says and hangs up; is

raped me worse than cheated on you? I got some change, some

quarters, some dimes, m y favorite, half dollars, they’re pretty

like silver, I like them. She knew it was bad; raped me. The

earth’s round but the streets are flat. There’s rain forests but

the streets are cold. I can’t really say I understand. It’s ten a. m.

I’m tw enty-six years old. I got a wound on m y leg, a nasty

sore, dirty fucking sore from a rabid dog, slobbering m angy

cur, an old bag lady’s sore, ugly fucking sore; maybe the

A . S . P . C . A . ’d come and get him. I could use a drink. I got to

sleep before there’s night, it comes fast in winter, you lose

track. It’s ten a. m .; and soon it will be ten-o-five; soon. Y ou

have to count fast, keep counting, to keep track. U g ly,

fucking, stupid bitch, got to sleep, can’t lie down. There’s

fleas.

N I N E

In October 1973

(Age 27)

There’s a basketball court next to where I live, not a court

exactly, a hoop high up, and broken cement, rocks, broken

glass; there’s boys that play, the game ain’t ballet like on

television, it’s malice, they smash the ball like they’re smashing heads and you don’t want to distract them, you want their

eyes on the ball, always on the ball, you want them playing

ball; so you get small and quiet walking by, you don’t let

nothing rattle or shake, you just blend, into the sidewalk, into

the air, get gray like the fence, it’s wire, shaky, partly walling

the place in, you walk quiet and soft and hope your heart don’t

beat too loud; and there’s a parking lot for cops right next to

the basketball, not the official vehicles but the cars they come

to work in, the banged up C hevys and Fords they drive in

from the suburbs because most o f them don’t live here no

more but still, even though they got more money than they

make you don’t see nothing smart and sleek, there’s just this

old metal, bulky, heavy, discolored. The young cops are tight

and you don’t want to see them spring loose, their muscles are

all screwed together real tight and their lips are tight, sewed

tight, and they stand straight and tight and they look ahead,

not around, their pupils are tight in the dead center o f their

eyes staring straight ahead; and the older ones wear cheap

sports jackets too big for them, gray, brown, sort o f plaid,

nearly tweed, wrinkled, and their shoulders sag, and they are

morose men, and their cars can barely hold them, their legs fall

out loose and disorganized and then they move their bodies

around to be in the same direction as the legs that fell down,

they m ove the trunks o f their bodies from behind the steering

wheels against gravity and disregarding common sense and

the air moves out o f the way, sluggish and slow, displaced by

their hanging bellies, and they are tired men, and they see

everything, they have eyes that circle the globe, insect eyes

and third eyes, they see in front and behind and on each side,

their eyes spin without m oving, and they see you no matter

how blank and quiet you are, they see you sneaking by, and

they wonder w hy you are sneaking and what you have to hide,

they note that you are trash, they have the view that anything

female on this street is a piece o f gash, an open wound inviting

you in for a few pennies, and that you especially who are

walking by them now have committed innumerable evils for

which you must pay and you want to argue except for the fact

that they are not far from wrong, it is not an argument you can

win, and that makes you angrier against them and fearful, and

you try to disappear but they see you, they always see you; and

you learn not to think they are fools; they will get around to

you; today, tom orrow, someday soon; and they see the boys

playing basketball and they want to smash them, smash their

fucking heads in, but they’re too old to smash them and they

can’t use their guns, not yet, not now; even the young cops

couldn’t smash them fair, they’re too rigid, too slow up

against the driving rage o f the boys with the ball; so you see

them noting it, noting that they got a grudge, and the cars are

parked on gravel and broken glass and rocks and they should

have better and they know it but they don’t and they w o n ’t

and later they get to use the guns, somewhere, the city’s full o f

fast black boys who get separated from the pack; and you hear

the fuck, shit, asshole, o f the basketball players as a counterpoint to the solitary fuck, shit, asshole, o f the lone cops as they emerge from their cars, they put down their heavy legs and

their heavy feet in their bad old shoes, all worn, chewed

leather, and they pull themselves out o f their old cars, and

they’re tired men, overweight, there ain’t many young ones at

all, and there’s a peculiar sadness to them, the fascists are

melancholy in Gotham, they say fuck, shit, asshole, like it’s

soliloquies, like it’s prayers, like it’s amen, like it’s exegesis on

existence, like it’s unanswered questions, urgent, eloquent,

articulated to God; lonely, tired old Nazis, more like Hamlet,

though, than like Lear, introspective from exhaustion, not

grand or arrogant or merciless in delusion; and the boys hurl

the ball like it’s bombs, like it’s rocks and stones, like it’s

bullets and they’re the machines o f delivery, the weapons o f

death, machine guns o f flesh, bang bang bang, each round so

fast, so hard, as the ball hits the ground and the boy moves

with it, a weapon with speed up its ass; and they’re a choir o f

fuck, shit, asshole, voices still on the far edge o f an adolescent

high, not the raspy, cigarette-ruined voices o f the lonely, sad

men; the boys run, the boys sing the three words they know, a

percussive lyric, they breathe deep, skin and viscera breathe,

everything inside and outside breathes, there’s a convulsion,

then another one, they exhale as if it’s some sublime soprano

aria at the Met, supreme art, simple, new each time, the air

comes out urgent and organized and with enough volume to

fill a concert hall, it’s exhilarating, a human voice, all the words

they don’t know; and the cops, old, young, it don’t matter,

barely breathe at all, they breathe so high up in the throat that

the air barely gets out, it’s thin and depressed and somber, it’s

old and it’s stale and it’s pale and it’s flat, there’s no words to it

and no music, it’s a thin, empty sound, a flat despair, Hamlet

so old and dead and tired he can’t even get up a stage whisper.

The cops look at the boys, each cop does, and there’s this

second when the cop wants to explode, he’d unleash a grenade

in his own hand if he had one, he’d take him self with it if it

meant offing them, fuck them black boys’ heads off, there’s

this tangible second, and then they turn away, each one,

young, old, tight, sagging, each one, every day, and they pull

themselves up, and they kick the rocks, the broken glass, the

gravel, and they got a hand folded into a fist, and they leave the

parking lot, they walk big, they walk heavy, they walk like

John Wayne, young John, old John, big John, they walk slow

and heavy and wide, deliberate, like they got six-shooters

riding on each hip; while the boys m ove fast, mad, mean,

speeding, cold fury in hot motion. Y ou want them on each

other; not on you. It ain’t honorable but it’s real. Y o u want

them caught up in the urban hate o f generations, in wild west

battles on city streets, you want them so manly against each

other they don’t have time for girlish trash like you, you want

them fighting each other cock to cock so it all gets used up on

each other. Y o u take the view that wom en are for recreation,

fun, when the battle’s over; and this battle has about another

hundred years to go. Y o u figure they can dig you up out o f the

ground when they’re ready. Y o u figure they probably will.

Y o u figure it don’t matter to them one w ay or the other. Y ou

figure it don’t matter to you either; ju st so it ain’t today, now,

tonight, tom orrow ; ju st so you ain’t conscious; just so you

ain’t alive the next time; just so you are good and dead; just so

you don’t know what it is and w h o ’s doing it. If yo u ’re buying

milk or bread or things you have to go past them, walk down

them streets, go in front o f them, the boys, the cops, and you

practice disappearing; you practice pulling the air over you

like a blanket; you practice being nothing and no one; you

practice not making a sound and barely breathing; you

practice making your eyes go blank and never looking at

anyone but seeing where they are, hearing a shadow move;

you practice being a ghost on cement; and you don’t let

nothing rattle or make noise, not the groceries, not your shoes

hitting the ground, not your arms, you don’t let them m ove or

rub, you don’t make no spontaneous gestures, you don’t even

raise your arm to scratch your nose, you keep your arms still

and you put the milk in the bag so it stays still and you go so far

as to make sure the bag ain’t a stupid bag, one o f them plastic

ones that makes sounds every time something touches it; you

have to get a quiet bag; if it’s a brown paper bag you have to

perfect the skill o f carrying it so nothing moves inside it and so

you don’t have to change arms or hands, acts which can catch

the eye o f someone, acts which can call attention to you, you

don’t shift the bag because your hand gets tired or your arm,

you just let it hurt because it hurts quiet, and if it’s a plastic bag

it’s got to be laminated good so it don’t make any rustling

noise or scratching sound, and you have to walk faster, silent,

fast, because plastic bags stand out more, sometimes they have

bright colors and the flash o f color going by can catch

someone’s attention, the bag’s real money, it costs a dime, it’s

a luxury item, you got change to spare, you’re a classy shopper

so who knows what else you got; and if it’s not colorful it’s

likely to be a shiny white, a bright white, the kind light flashes

o ff o f like it’s a mirror sending signals and there’s only one

signal widely comprehended on cement: get me. The light can

catch someone’s eye so you have to walk like Zen himself,

walk and not walk, you are a master in the urban Olym pics for

girls, an athlete o f girlish survival, it’s a survival game for the

w orld’s best. You get past them and you celebrate, you

celebrate in your heart, you thank the Lord, in your heart you

say a prayer o f gratitude and forgiveness, you forgive Him,

it’s sincere, and you hope He don’t take it as a challenge,

razor-sharp temper He’s got, no do unto others for Him; and if

you hear someone behind you you beg, in half a second you

are on your knees in your heart begging Him to let you off,

you promise a humility this time that will last, it will begin

right now and last a long, long time, you promise no more

liturgical sacrilege, and your prayer stops and your heart stops

and you wait and the most jo you s sound on G o d ’s earth is that

the man’s feet just stomp by. Either he will hurt you or he will

not; either He will hurt you or He will not. Truth’s so simple

and so severe, you don’t be stupid enough to embellish it. I

m yself live inside now. I don’t take m y chances resting only in

the arms o f God. I put m yself inside four walls and then I let

Him rock me, rock me, baby, rock me. I lived outside a lot;

and this last summer I was tired, disoriented. I was too tired,

really, to find a bed, too nervous, maybe too old, maybe I got

old, it happens pretty fast past eighteen like they always

warned; get yourself one boy when yo u ’re eighteen and get

yourself one bed. It got on m y nerves to think about it every

night, I don’t really like to be in a bed per se. I stayed in the lot

behind where the police park their cars, there’s a big, big dirt

lot, there’s a fence behind the police cars and then there’s

empty dirt, trash, some rats, we made fires, there’s broken

glass, there’s liquor to stay warm , I never once saw what it

was, it’s bottles in bags with hands on the bags that tilt in your

direction, new love, anti-genital love, polymorphous perverse, a bottle in a bag. Y o u got to lift your skirt sometimes but it doesn’t matter and I have sores on me, m y legs is so dirty

I just really don’t look. Y ou don’t have to look. There’s many

mirrors to be used but you need not use them. I got too worn

out to find some bed each new night, it got on m y nerves so I

was edgy and anxious in anticipation, a dread that it would be

hard to find or hard to stay or hard to pay, if I just stayed on the

dirt lot I didn’t have to w orry so much, there’s nothing

trapping you in. Life’s a long, quiet rumble, and you ju st shake

as even as you can so you don’t get too worn out. When I lifted

up m y skirt there was blood and dirt in drips, all dried, down

m y legs, and I had sores. I felt quiet inside. I felt okay. I didn’t

w orry too much. I didn’t go see movies or go on dates. I just

curled up to sleep and I’d drink whatever there was that

someone give me because there’s generous men too; I see

saliva; I see it close up; i f I was an artist I would paint it except I

don’t know how you make it glisten, the brown and the gold

in it; I saw many a face close up and I saw many a man close up

and I’d lift my skirt and it was dirty, my legs, and there was

dried blood. I was pretty dirty. I didn’t w orry too much. Then

I got money because my friend thought I should go inside. I

had this friend. I knew her when I was young. She was a

pacifist. She hated war and she held signs against the Vietnam

War and I did too. She let me sleep in her apartment but

enough’s enough; there’s places you don’t go back to. So now

I was too dirty and she gave me money to go inside

definitively; which I had wanted, except it was hard to

express. I thought about walls all the time. I thought about

how easy they should be, really, to have; how you could fit

them almost anywhere, on a street corner, in an alley, on a

patch o f dirt, you must make walls and a person can go inside

with a bed, a small cot, just to lie down and it’s a house, as

much o f a house as any other house. I thought about walls

pretty much all the time. Y ou should be able to just put up

walls, it should be possible. There’s literally no end to the

places walls could go without inconveniencing anyone, except

they would have to walk around. They say a ro of over your

head but it’s walls really that are the issue; you can just think

about them, all their corners touching or all lined up thin like

pancakes, painted a pretty color, a light color because you

don’t want it to look too small, or you can make it more than

one color but you run the risk o f looking busy, somewhat

vulgar, and you don’t want it to look gray or brown like

outside or you could get sad. There’s got to be some place in

heaven where God stores walls, there’s just walls, stacked or

standing up straight like the pages o f a book, miles high and

miles wide running in pale colors above the clouds, a storage

place, and God sees someone lost and He just sends them

down four at a time. Guess He don’t. There’s people take them

for granted and people who dream about them— literally,

dream how nice they would be, pretty and painted, serene. I

w ouldn’t mind living outside all the time if it didn’t get cold or

wet and there wasn’t men. A ro o f over your head is more

conceptual in a sense; it’s sort o f an advanced idea. In life you

can cover your head with a piece o f w ood or with cardboard or

newspapers or a side o f a crate you pull apart, but walls aren’t

really spontaneous in any sense; they need to be built, with

purpose, with intention. Someone has to plan it if you want

them to come together the right w ay, the whole four o f them

with edges so delicate, it has to be balanced and solid and

upright and it’s very delicate because if it’s not right it falls,

you can’t take it for granted; and there’s wind that can knock it

down; and you will feel sad, remorseful, you will feel full o f

grief. Y ou can’t sustain the loss. A ro o f over your head is a sort

o f suburban idea, I think; like that i f you have some long, flat,

big house with furniture in it that’s all matching you surely

also will have a ro o f so they make it a synonym for all the rest

but it’s walls that make the difference between outside and

not. It’s a well-kept secret, arcane knowledge, a m ystery not

often explained. Y o u don’t see it written down but initiates

know. I type and sometimes I steal but I’m stopping as much

as I can. I live inside now. I have an apartment in a building.

It’s a genuine building, a tenement, which is a famous kind o f

building in which many have lived in history. M aybe not

T rotsky but Em m a Goldm an for certain. I don’t go near men

really. Sometimes I do. I get a certain forgetfulness that comes

on me, a dark shadow over m y brain, I get took up in a certain

feeling, a wandering feeling to run from existence, all restless,

perpetual motion. It drives me with an ache and I go find one. I

get a smile on m y face and m y hips m ove a little back and forth

and I turn into a greedy little fool; I want the glass all em pty. I

grab some change and I hit the cement and I get one. I am

writing a certain very serious book about life itself. I go to bars

for food during happy hours when m y nerves aren’t too bad,

too loaded down with pain, but I keep to m yself so I can’t get

enough to eat because bartenders and managers keep watch

and you are supposed to be there for the men which is w hy

they let you in, there ain’t no such thing as a solitary woman

brooding poetically to be left alone, it don’t happen or she

don’t eat, and mostly I don’t want men so I’m hungry most o f

the time, I’m almost always hungry, I eat potatoes, you can

buy a bag o f potatoes that is almost too heavy to carry and you

can just boil them one at a time and you can eat them and they

fill you up for a while. M y book is a very big book about

existence but I can’t find any plot for it. It’s going to be a very

big book once I get past the initial slow beginning. I want to

get it published but you get afraid you will die before it’s

finished, not after when it can be found and it’s testimony and

then they say you were a great one; you don’t want to die

before you wrote it so you have to learn to sustain your

writing, you take it serious, you do it every day and you don’t

fail to write words down and to think sentences. It's hard to

find words. It’s about some woman but I can’t think o f what

happens. I can say where she is. It’s pretty barren. I always see

a woman on a rock, calling out. But that’s not a story per se.

Y ou could have someone dying o f tuberculosis like Mann or

someone who is suffering— for instance, someone who is

lovesick like Mann. O r there’s best-sellers, all these stories

where women do all these things and say all these things but I

don’t think I can write about that because I only seen it in the

movies. There’s marriage stories but it’s so boring, a couple in

the suburbs and the man on the train becoming unfaithful and

how bored she is because she’s too intelligent or something

about how angry she is but I can’t remember why. A love

story’s so stupid in these modern times. I can’t have it be about

m y life because number one I don’t remember very much and

number two it’s against the rules, you’re supposed to make

things up. The best thing that ever happened to me is these

walls and I don’t think you could turn that into a story per se or

even a novel o f ideas that people would grasp as philosophical:

for instance, that you can just sit and they provide a

fram ework o f dignity because no one’s watching and I have

had too many see too much, they see you when they do things

to you that you don’t want, they look, and the problem is

there’s no walls keeping you sacred; nor that if you stand up

they are solid which makes you seem real too, a real figure in a

room with real walls, a touchstone o f authenticity, a standard

for real existence, you are real or you feel real, you don’t have

to touch them to feel real, you just have to be able to touch

them. M y pacifist friend gave me money to live here. She saw

me on the street one day, I guess, after I didn’t go back to her

apartment no more. She said come with me and she got a

newspaper and she found an apartment and she called the

landlord and she put the money in m y hand and she sent me to

the landlord which scared me because I never met one before, a

real one, but also she wasn’t going to let the cash go elsewhere

which there was a fair chance it would, because I would have

liked some coke or something or some dinner or some drinks

and a m ovie and a book or something more real than being

inside which seemed impossible— it seemed not really available and it seemed impossible to sustain so it made more sense

to me to use the cash for something real that I knew I could get,

something I knew how to use. I started sending her money

back as soon as I got some, I’d put some in an envelope and

mail it back even if it was just five dollars but she said I was

stupid because she only said it was a loan but it w asn’t and I

didn’t need to pay it back and everyone knew that which is my

weakness, how everyone got to know things but I don’t know

them. I can’t think o f any stories about pacifists that aren’t

true. There’s nothing imaginary about walls, or eating,

nothing fictive as it were, but more especially there’s nothing

imaginary about them when they’re missing. M y walls are

thin; yeah I wish they were mine. N othing’s yours. God hurts

you if you think they’re yours. In one second o f a bad thought

you can bring evil down on you. The walls are thin. I dream

there’s holes in them and I get scared as if it’s not really inside.

There’s not much food and I know it ain’t mine in any

meaningful sense. Y o u ’re supposed to make things up, not

just write down true things, or sincere things, or some things

that happened. M y mother who you can’t make up either

because there’s nothing so real as one named me Andrea as if I

was someone: distinct, in particular. She made a fiction. I’m

her book, a made-up story written down on a birth certificate.

Y ou could also say she’s a liar on such a deep level she should

be shot by all that’s fair; deep justice. if I was famous and my

name was published all over the world, in Italy and in Israel

and in Africa and in India, on continents and subcontinents, in

deserts, in ancient cities, it would still be cunt to every fucking

asshole drunk on every street in the world; and to them that’s

not drunk too, the sober ones who say it to you like they’re

calling a dog: fetch, cunt. if I won the Nobel Prize and walked

to the corner for milk it would still be cunt. And when you got

someone inside you who is loving you it’s still cunt and the

ones w ho’d die i f they wasn’t in you, you, you in particular, at

least that night, at least then, that time, that place, to them it’s

still cunt and they whisper it up close and chill the blood that’s

burning in you; and if you love them it’s still cunt and you can

love them so strong you’d die for them and it’s still cunt; and

your heartbeat and his heartbeat can be the same heartbeat and

it’s still cunt. It’s behind your back and it’s to your face; the

ones you know, the ones you don’t. It’s like as i f nigger was a

term o f intimate endearment, not just used in lynching and

insult but whispered in lovemaking, the truth under the truth,

the name under the name, love’s name for you and it’s the

same as what hate calls you; he’s in you whispering nigger. It’s

thugs, it’s citizens, it’s cops, it’s strangers, it’s the ones you

want and the ones you deplore, you ain’t allowed indifference,

you have to decide on a relationship then and there on the spot

because each one that passes pisses on you to let you know he’s

there. There’s some few you made love with and yo u ’re still

breathing tight with them, you can still feel their muscles

swelling through their skin and bearing down on you and you

can still feel their weight on you, an urgent concentration o f

blood and bone, hot muscle, spread over you, the burden o f it

sinking into you, a stone cliff into a wet shore, and yo u ’re still

tangled up in them, good judgm ent aside, and it’s physical, it’s

a physical m em ory, in the body, not just in the brain, barely in

the brain at all, you got their sweat on you as part o f your

sweat and their smell’s part o f your smell and you have an ache

for them that’s deep and gnawing and hurtful in more than

your heart and you still feel as if it’s real and current, now: how

his body moves against you in convulsions that are awesome

like mountains m oving, slow, burdensome, big, and how you

m ove against him as i f you could m ove through him, he’s the

ocean, yo u ’re the tide, and it’s still cunt, he says cunt. H e’s

indelibly in you and you don’t want redemption so much as

you want him and still it’s cunt. It’s w hat’s true; Andrea’s the

lie. It’s a lie we got to tell, Jane and Judith and Ellen and

whom ever. It’s our most desperate lie. M y mother named me

Andrea. It means manhood or courage. It means not-cunt. She

specifically said: not-cunt. This one ain’t cunt, she declared,

after blood spilled and there was the pain o f labor so intense

that God couldn’t live through it and w ouldn’t which is w hy

all the pain’s with us and still she brought herself to a point o f

concentration and she said: not-cunt. This one’s someone, she

probably had in mind; a wish; a hope; let her, let her,

something. Something. Let her something. D on ’t, not with

this one. Just let this one through. Just don’t do it to this one.

She wrote: not-cunt, a fiction, and it failed, and the failure

defeated her and turned her cold to me, because before I was

even ten some man had wrote “ this one’s cunt, ” he took his

fingers and he wrote it down on me and inside me, his fingers

carved it in me with a pain that stayed half buried and there

wasn’t words I had for what he did, he wrote I was cunt, this

sweet little one who was what’s called a child but a female one

which changes it all. M y mama showed that fiction was

delusion, hallucination, it was a long, deranged lie designed to

last past your own lifetime. The man, on the other hand, was a

pragmatist, a maker o f reality, a shaper o f history, an

orchestrator o f events. He used life, not paper, bodies, not ink.

The Nazis, o f course, synthesized the two: bodies and ink.

Y ou can’t even say it would solve the problem to have

numbers on us, inked on. Numbers is as singular as names

unless we are all zero, 0, we could all be 0; Pauline Reage

already suggested it, o f course, but she’s a demagogue and a

utopian, a kind o f Stalinist o f female equality, she wants us all

equal on the bottom o f anything that’s mean enough to be on

top; it has a certain documentary quality. Unlike Reage, my

mother just made it up, and her fiction was a lie, almost

without precedent, not recognized as original or great, a

voyage o f imagination; it was just a fucking lie. I don’t want to

tell lies, not for moral reasons but it’s m y idea o f pride, you

name it, I can take it. I was born in a city where the walls were

falling down; I didn’t see many solid walls. The streets were

right next to you it seemed because you could always hear the

buzz, the hum, the call, as if drums were beckoning you to the

tribal dance; you could see the freedom. Inside was small and

constrained with rules designed to make you some kind o f

trained cockroach and outside was forever, a path straight to

the heart o f the world; there were no limits, it spread out in

front o f you to anywhere, with anyone. Limits were another

lie, a social fiction all the zombies got together to tell. The

destination was always the street because the destination was

always freedom; out from under; no rule on top o f you. Y ou

could almost look through the brick, which was crumbling,

and you had this sense that every building had holes in it, a

transparency, and that no walls were ever finished or ever

lasted; and the cement outside was gray, cracked, streaked

with blood from where they threw you down to have fun with

you on hot nights and cold nights, the boys with their cars and

knives; I knew some o f those boys; I loved Nino who said

“ make love” as if it was something real special and real nice

and so fine, so precious and kind and urgent, his eyes burned

and his voice was low and soft and silk, it wrapped itself

around you, he didn’t reach out, he didn’t m ove towards you,

you had to let him know, you had to; I could still fucking die

for what he promised with his brilliant seduction, a poor,

uneducated boy, but when he did it I got used to being hurt

from behind, he used his knife, he made fine lines o f blood,

delicate, and you didn’t dare m ove except for your ass as he

wanted and you didn’t know if yo u ’d die and you got to love

danger i f you loved the boy and danger never forsakes you; the

boy leaves but danger is faithful. Y ou knew the cement under

you and the brick around you and the sound o f the boys

speeding by in their cars and the sudden silence, which meant

they were stalking you. I was born in Camden down the street

from where Walt Whitman lived, M ickle Street, he was the

great gray poet, the prophetic hero o f oceanic verse; also not-

cunt. Great poet; not-cunt. It’s like a mathematical equation

but no one learns it in school by heart; it ain’t written down

plain on the blackboard. It’s algebra for girls but no one’s

going to teach you. Y ou get brought down or throwed down

and you learn for yourself. There’s no mother on earth can

bear to explain it. I can’t write down what happened and I can’t

tell lies. T here’s no words for what happened and there’s

barely words for the lies. if I was a man I would say something

about fishing and it would be a story, a perfectly fine one too;

the bait, the hook, the lake, the wind, the shore, and then

everything else is the manly stuff. If I was a man at least I’d

know what to say, or I’d say it so grand it wouldn’t matter if it

was true or not; anyone’d recognize it and say it was art. I

could think o f something important, probably; recognizably

so. If I was a man and something happened I could write it

down and probably it would pass as a story even if it was true.

O f course, that’s just speculation. I’d swagger, too, if I was a

man; I’m not proud to say it but I’m sure it’s true. I would take

big steps, loud ones, down the street; I could be the Zen master

o f fuck you. I would spread m yself out and take up all the

space and spread my legs wide open in the subway to take up

three seats with just m y knees like they do. I would be very

bold and very cool. I’d be smarter than I am now, I’m sure,

because what I knew might matter and I’d remember more,

I’m sure. I don’t think I’d go near women though because I

wouldn’t want to hurt them. I know how everything feels. I

think if I was a man m y heart would not hurt so much and I

wouldn’t have this terror I am driven by but cannot name. I

think I could write a poem about it, perhaps. I think it could

probably make a very long poem and I could keep rewriting it

to get every nuance right and chart it as it changed over time;

song o f himself, perhaps, a sequel. Ginsberg says he chased

Whitman through supermarkets; I fucking was him; I

embraced all the generations without distinctions and it failed

because o f this awfulness that there is no name for, this great

meanness at the heart o f what they mean when they stick it in; I

just don’t know a remedy, because it is a sick and hostile thing.

Even if there were no wars I think I could say some

perceptions I had about life, I wouldn’t need the C ivil War or

the Vietnam War to hang m y literary hat on as it were, and I

could be loud, which I would try, I’m sure, I could call

attention to m yself as i f I mattered or what happened did or as

i f I knew something, even about suffering or even about life;

and, frankly, then it might count. I could stop thinking every

minute about where each sound is coming from and where the

shadows are each minute. I can’t even close m y eyes now

frankly but I think it’s because I’m this whatever it is, you can

have sophisticated words for it but the fact is you can be

sleeping inside with everything locked and they get in and do

it to you no matter how bad it hurts. In magazines they say

w om en’s got allure, or so they call it, but it’s more like being

some dumb w riggling thing that God holds out before them

on a stick with a string, a fisher o f men. The allure’s there even

i f you got open sores on you; I know. The formal writing

problem, frankly, is that the bait can’t write the story. The bait

ain’t even barely alive. There’s a weird German tradition that

the fish turned the tables and rewrote the story to punish the

fisherman but you know it’s a lie and it’s some writer o f fiction

being what became known as a modernist but before that was

called outright a smartass; and the fish still ain’t bait unless it’s

eviscerated and bleeding. I just can’t risk it now but if I was a

man I could close m y eyes, I’m sure; at night, I’d close them,

I’m sure. I don’t think m y hands would shake. I don’t think so;

or not so much; or not all the time; or not without reason;

there’s no reason now anyone can see. M y breasts w ouldn’t

bleed as i f God put a sign on me; blessing or curse, it draws

flies. Tears o f blood fall from them; they weep blood for me,

because I’m whatever it is: the girl, as they say politely; the

girl. Y o u ’re supposed to make things up for books but I am

afraid to make things up because in life everything evaporates,

it’s gone in mist, just disappears, there’s no sign left, except on

you, and you are a fucking invisible ghost, they look right

through you, you can have bruises so bad the skin’s pulled o ff

you and they don’t see nothing; you bet women had the

vapors, still fucking do, it means it all goes aw ay in the air,

whatever happened, whatever he did and how ever he did it,

and yo u ’re left feeling sick and weak and no one’s going to say

w hy; it’s ju st wom en, they faint all the time, they’re sick all the

time, fragile things, delicate things, delicate like the best

punching bags you ever seen. They say it’s lies even if they just

did it, or maybe especially then. I don’t know really. There’s

nothing to it, no one ever heard o f it before or ever saw it or

not here or not now; in all history it never happened, or if it

happened it was the Nazis, the exact, particular Nazis in

Germany in the thirties and forties, the literal Nazis in

uniform; when they were out o f uniform they were just guys,

you know, they loved their families, they paid o ff their

whores, just regular guys. N o one else ever did anything,

certainly no one now in this fine world we have here; certainly

not the things I think happened, although I don’t know what

to call them in any serious way. Y ou just crawl into a cave o f

silence and die; w hy are there no great women artists? Some

people got nerve. Blood on cement, which is all we got in my

experience, ain’t esthetic, although I think boys some day will

do very well with it; they’ll put it in museums and get a fine

price. W on’t be their blood. It would be some cunt’s they

whispered to the night before; a girl; and then it’d be art, you

see; or you could put it on walls, make murals, be political, a

democratic art outside the museums for the people, Diego

Rivera without any conscience whatsoever instead o f the very

tenuous one he had with respect to women, and then it’d be

extremely major for all the radicals who would discover the

expressive value o f someone else’s blood and I want to tell you

they’d stop making paint but such things do not happen and

such things cannot occur, any more than the rape so-called can

happen or occur or the being beaten so bad can happen or

occur and there are no words for what cannot happen or occur

and i f you think something happened or occurred and there are

no words for it you are at a dead end. There’s nothing where

they force you; there’s nothing where you hurt so much;

there’s nothing where it matters, there’s nothing like it

anywhere. So it doesn’t feel right to make things up, as you

must do to write fiction, to lie, to elaborate, to elongate, to

exaggerate, to distort, to get tangled up in moderations or

modifications or deviations or compromises o f m ixing this

with that or combining this one with that one because the

problem is finding words for the truth, especially if no one will

believe it, and they will not. I can’t make things up because I

w ouldn’t know after a while w hat’s blood, w hat’s ink. I barely

know any words for what happened to me yesterday, which

doesn’t make tom orrow something I can conceive o f in m y

mind; I mean words I say to m yself in m y ow n head; not social

words you use to explain to someone else. I barely know

anything and if I deviate I am lost; I have to be literal, if I can

remember, which m ostly I cannot. N o one will acknowledge

that some things happen and probably at this point in time

there is no w ay to say they do in a broad sweep; you describe

the man forcing you but you can’t say he forced you. If I was a

man I could probably say it; I could say I did it and everyone

would think I made it up even though I’d just be remembering

what I did last night or twenty minutes ago or once, long ago,

but it probably w ouldn’t matter. The rapist has words, even

though there’s no rapist, he ju st keeps inventing rape; in his

mind; sure. He remembers, even though it never happened;

it’s fine fiction when he writes it down. Whereas m y mind is

getting worn away; it’s being eroded, experience keeps

washing over it and there’s no sea wall o f words to keep it

intact, to keep it from being washed away, carried out to sea,

layer by layer, fine grains washed away, a thin surface washed

away, then some more, washed away. I am fairly worn away

in m y mind, washed out to sea. It probably doesn’t matter

anyway. People lead their little lives. T here’s not much

dignity to go around. T here’s lies in abundance, and silence for

girls who don’t tell them. I don’t want to tell them. A lie’s for

when he’s on top o f you and you got to survive him being

there until he goes; M alcolm X tried to stop saying a certain

lie, and maybe I should change from Andrea because it’s a lie.

It’s just that it’s a precious thing from my mother that she tried

to give me; she didn’t want it to be such an awful lie, I don’t

think. So I have to be the writer she tried to be— Andrea; not-

cunt— only I have to do it so it ain’t a lie. I ain’t fabricating

stories. I’m making a different kind o f story. I’m writing as

truthful as the man with his fingers, if only I can remember

and say; but I ain’t on his side. I’m on some different side. I’m

telling the truth but from a different angle. I’m the one he done

it to. The bait’s talking, honey, if she can find the words and

stay even barely alive, or even just keep the blood running; it

can’t dry up, it can’t rot. The bait’s spilling the beans. The

bait’s going to transcend the material conditions o f her

situation, fuck you very much, Mr. M arx. The bait’s going

w ay past Marx. The bait’s taking her eviscerated, bleeding self

and she ain’t putting it back together, darling, because,

frankly, she don’t know how; the bait’s a realist, babe, the

bait’s no fool, she’s just going to bleed all over you and you are

going to have to find the words to describe the stain, a stain as

big as her real life, boy; a big, nasty stain; a stain all over you,

all the blood you ever spilled; that’s the esthetic dimension,

through art she replicates the others you done it to, gets the

stain to incorporate them too. It’s coming right back on you,

sink or swim; fucking drown your head in it; give in, darling;

go down. That’s the plan, in formal terms. The bait’s got a

theory; the bait’s finding a practice, working it out; the bait’s

going to write it down and she don’t have to use words, she’ll

make signs, in blood, she’s good at bleeding, boys, the vein’s

open, boys, the bait’s got plenty, each month more and more

without dying for a certain long period o f her life, she can lose

it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures,

big signs; oh and honey there’s so much bait around that

there’s going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when

the new art gets its start. Y ou are going to be sitting in it; the

new novel; participation, it’s called; I’m smearing it all over

you. It ain’t going to be made up; it ain’t going to be a lie; and

you are going to pay attention, directly, even though it’s by a

girl, because this time it’s on you. if I find a word, I’ll use it;

but I ain’t waiting, darling, I already waited too long. If you

was raised a boy you don’t know how to get blood off, yo u ’re

shocked, surprised, in Vietnam when you see it for the first

time and I been bleeding since I was nine, I’m used to putting

m y hands in it and I live. Y ou don’t give us no words for

w hat’s true so now there’s signs, a new civilization just

starting now: her name’s not-cunt and she’s just got to express

herself, say some this and that, use w hat’s there, take w hat’s

hers: her blood’s hers; your blood’s hers. Here’s the difference

between us, sweet ass: I’m using blood you already spilled;

mine; hers; cunt’s. I ain’t so dirty as to take yours. I don’t

confuse this new manifesto with being Artaud; he was on the

other side. There are sides. If he spills m y blood, it’s art. if I put

mine on him, it’s deeply not nice or good or, as they say,

interesting; it’s not interesting. There’s a certain— shall we

understate? — distaste. It’s bad manners but not rude in an

artistically valid sense. It’s just not being the right kind o f girl.

It’s deranged but not in the Rimbaud sense. It’s just not being

M arjorie Morningstar, which is the height to which you may

aspire, failed artist but eventually fine homemaker. It’s loony,

yes, it’s got some hate in it somewhere, but it ain’t revolutionary like Sade who spilled blood with style; perhaps they think a girl can’t have style but since a girl can’t really have

anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;

there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y

friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black

Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing

the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me

poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f

encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I

wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the

problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the

press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to

see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the

revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place

in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and

old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and

women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.

H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for

the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it

helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can

see that, it makes his simple language look strong and

purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that

whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have

words. I can’t tell if raped is a word he knows or not; if he

thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;

because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each

other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is

taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great

thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy

and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f

revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for

m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance

and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past

sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this

apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write

without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so

and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it

happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough

confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or

maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to

us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it

happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We

w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the

blood that was spilled and smear it in public w ays so it’s art and

politics and science; the fisherman w o n ’t like the book so

w hat’s new; he’ll say it ain’t art or he’ll say it’s bullshit; but

here’s the startling part; the bait’s got a secret system o f

communication, not because it’s hidden but because the

fisherman’s fucking stupid; so arrogant; so sure o f forever and

a day; so sure he don’t listen and he don’t look and he says it

ain’t anything and he thinks that means it ain’t anything

whereas what it means is that we finally can invent: a new

alphabet first, big letters, proud, new letters from which will

come new words for old things, real things, and the bait says

what they are and what they mean, and then we get new

novels in which the goal is to tell the truth: deep truth. So

make it all up, the whole new thing, to be able to say w hat’s

there; because they are keeping it hidden now. Y o u ’re not

supposed to write something down that happened; yo u ’re

supposed to invent. W e’ll write down what happened and

invent the personhood o f who it happened to; w e’ll make a

language for her so we can tell a story for her in which she will

see what happened and know for sure it happened and it

mattered; and the boys will have to confront a new esthetic

that tells them to go suck eggs. I am for this idea; energized by

it. It’s clear that if you need the fisherman to read the book—

his critical appreciation as it were— this new art ain’t for you. If

he’s got what he did to you written on him or close enough to

him, rude enough near him, is he different, will he know? I say

he’ll have to know; it’s the brilliance o f the medium— he’s it,

the vehicle o f political and cultural transcendence as it were.

It’s a new, forthright communication— they took the words

but they left your arm, your hand, so far at least; it could

change, but for now; he’s the living canvas; he can refuse to

understand but he cannot avoid know ing; it’s your blood, he

spilled it, yo u ’ve used it: on him. It’s a simplicity Artaud

failed, frankly, to achieve. W e’ll make it new; epater the

fuckers. Then he can be human or not; he’s got a choice, which

is more than he ever gave; he can put on the uniform, honest,

literal Nazi, or not. The clue is to see what you don’t have as

the starting place and you look at it straight and you say what

does it give me, not what does it take; you say what do I have

and what don’t I have and am I making certain presumptions

about what I need that are in fact their presumptions, so much

garbage in my way, and if I got rid o f the garbage what then

would I see and could I use it and how; and when. I got hope. I

got faith. I see it falling. I see it ending. I see it bent over and

hitting the ground. And, what’s even better is that because the

fisherman ain’t going to listen as if his life depended on it we

got a system o f secret communication so foolproof no

scoundrel could imagine it, so perfect, so pure; the less we are,

the more we have; the less we matter, the more chance we get;

the less they care, the more freedom is ours; the less, the more,

you see, is the basic principle, it’s like psychological jujitsu

except applied to politics through a shocking esthetic; you use

their fucking ignorance against them; ignorance is a synonym

in such a situation for arrogance and arrogance is tonnage and

in jujitsu you use your opponent’s weight against him and you

do it if yo u ’re weak or poor too, because it’s all you have; and if

someone doesn’t know you’re human they’re a Goddamn fool

and they got a load o f ignorance to tip them over with. Y ou

ain’t got literature but you got a chance; a chance; you

understand— a chance; you got a chance because the bait’s

going to get it, and there’s going to be a lot o f w riggling things

jum ping o ff G o d ’s stick. I live in this real fine, sturdy tenement

building made out o f old stone. They used to have immigrants

sleeping in the hallways for a few pennies a night so all the

toilets are out there in the halls. They had them stacked at

night; men sleeping on top o f each other and women selling it

or not having a choice; tenement prostitution they call it in

books, how the men piled in the halls to sleep but the women

had to keep putting out for money for food. They did it

standing up. N o w you walk through the hall hoping there’s

no motherfucker with a knife waiting for you, especially in the

toilets, and if you have to pee, you are scared, and i f you have

to shit, it is fully frightening. I go with a knife in m y hand

always and I sleep with a knife under m y pillow, always. I

have not had a shit not carrying a knife since I came here. I got

a bank account. I am doing typing for stupid people. I don’t

like to make margins but they want margins. I think it’s better

i f each line’s different, if it flows like a poem, if it’s uneven and

surprising and esthetically nice. But they want it like it’s for

soldiers or zombies, everything lined up, left and right, with

hyphens breaking words open in just the right places, which I

don’t know where they are. I type, I steal but less now, really

as little as possible though I will go to waitress hell for stealing

tips, I know that, I will be a prisoner in a circle o f hell and they

will put the faces o f all the waitresses around me and all their

shabby, hard lives that I made worse, but stealing tips is easy

and I am good at it as I have been since childhood and when I

have any m oney in m y pocket I do truly leave great chunks o f

it and when I am older and rich I will be profligate and if I ever

go broke in m y old days it will be from making it up to every

waitress alive in the world then, but this generation’s getting

fucked unavoidably. Someday I will write a great book with

the lines m oving like waves in the sea, flowing as much as I

want them. I’m Andrea is what I will find a deep w ay to

express in honor o f m y mama who thought it up; a visionary,

though the vision couldn’t withstand what the man did to me

early; or later, the man, in the political sense. I make little

amounts o f m oney and I put them in the bank and each day I

go to the bank for five dollars, except sometimes I go for two

days on seven dollars. I wait in line and the tellers are very

disturbed that I have come for m y money. It’s a long walk to

the bank, it’s far aw ay because there aren’t any banks in the

neighborhood where I live, and it’s a good check on me

because it keeps me from getting money for frivolous things; I

have to make a decision and execute it. When an emergency

occurs, I am in some trouble; but if I have five dollars in my

pocket I feel I can master most situations. M y astrology said

that M ercury was doing some shit and Saturn and things

would break and fall apart and I went to unlock the two locks

on m y door to my apartment and the first lock just crumbled,

little metal pieces fell as if it was spiders giving birth, all the

little ones falling out o f it, it just seemed pulverized into grains

and it just was crushed to sand, the whole cylinder o f the lock

just collapsed almost into molecules; and the second lock just

kept turning around and around but absolutely nothing locked

or unlocked and then there was this sound o f something falling

and it had fallen through the door to the other side, it just fell

out o f the door. It was night, and even putting the chain on

didn’t help. I sat with m y knife and stared at it all night to keep

anyone from breaking in. The crisis o f getting new locks made

me destitute and desperate and on such occasions I had to steal.

I always considered it more honorable to m yself than fucking;

less honorable to who I did it to; it was new to pick me over

them. I just knew I’d live longer stealing than fucking. O f

course I stole from the weak; who doesn’t? I had thought

fucking for money was stealing from the strong but it only

robbed me, although I can’t say o f what, because there’s more

wordlessness there, more what’s never been said; I’m not

formulated enough to get at it. I had a dog someone dumped

on me saying they were going to have it killed. It was so fine;

you can weave affirmation back, there can be a sudden miracle

o f happiness; m y dog was a smiling, happy creature; I thought

o f her as the quintessential all-Amerikan, someone w holly

extroverted with no haunted insides, just this cheerful, big,

brilliant creature filled with licks and bounces; and I loved

what made her happy, a stick, a stone, I mean, things I could

actually provide. I think making her happy was m y happiest

time on earth. She was big, she bounced, she was brown and

black, she was a German shepherd, and she didn’t have any

meanness in her, just play, just jum p, just this jo y . She didn’t

have a streak o f savagery. If there was a cockroach in the

apartment, a small one because we didn’t have the monsters,

she’d stand up over it and she’d study it awhile and then she’d

pick it up in her mouth and she’d carry it to her corner o f the

room and she’d put it down and sit on top o f it. She’d be proud

and she’d sit with her head held high while the awful little

thing would crawl out from under her and get lost in some

crack in the wall. Y ou ever seen a proud dog? They have this

look o f pride that could break your heart like they done

something for you the equivalent o f getting you out from

under an avalanche and they are asking nothing in return, just

that you look at the aquiline dignity o f their snouts. I got to say

I loved her more than m y heart could bear and w e’d go on

walks and to the park but the park near me was full o f broken

glass and winos and junkies and I was afraid for her, that she’d

hurt her feet. Y o u couldn’t really let her run or anything. She

ate a lot, and I didn’t, but I felt she had certain rights, because

she depended on me or someone, she had to; so I felt I had to

feed her and I felt I had to have enough m oney and I felt her life

was in m y hands and I felt her life was important and I felt she

was the nicest, most kind creature I ever knew. She’d sit with

me and watch the door when the locks fell apart but she didn’t

grasp it and I couldn’t count on her sense o f danger, because it

w asn’t attuned to the realities o f a w om an’s life. Someone

might be afraid o f her or not. Someone might hurt her. I’d die

i f they hurted her. I’d probably have throwed m yself on her to

protect her. I ju st couldn’t bear the thought o f someone

hurting her. Her name was Gringo, because the man who had

her and who named her w asn’t a fine, upstanding citizen, he

was degenerate, and I was afraid he would hurt her, and I was

afraid she would die, and I think there is nothing worse than

knowing an animal is being hurt, except for a child, for which

I thank God I don’t have one, even though my husband would

have taken it away from me, I know. If something’s in your

charge and it must love you then for something cruel to

happen to it must shatter your heart into pieces, by which I

mean the pain is real and it is not made better by time because

the creature was innocent and you are not; or I am not. I kept her

fine. I kept her safe. I kept her sleek and beautiful and without

any sores or any illnesses or any bad things on her skin or any

marks; I kept her gleaming and proud and fine and fed; I kept

her healthy and I kept her strong and I kept her happy; and she

loved me, she did. It was a little beyond an ignorant love, I

truly believe. She knew me by my reverence for her; I was the

one that lit up inside every time my eyes beheld her. I never

could train her to do anything but sit; usually I said sit a second

after she had done it, for my own self-respect; and she pulled

me about one hundred miles an hour down the street; I loved

her exuberance and could not condemn it as bad behavior; I

loved that she was sweet and extrovert and unhaunted and I

didn’t want any shadows forming on her mind from me

shouting or pulling or being an asshole in general; I couldn’t

romp but my heart jum ped when she bounced and wagged

and waved and flew like some giant sparrow heading toward

spring; and I counted on the respect pricks have for big dogs to

keep me safe but it didn’t always, there was always ones that

wanted to fight because she was big, because they thought she

was more male than them, bigger than them, stronger than

them, especially drunks or mean men, and there was men in

the park with bigger dogs who wanted their dogs to hurt her

or fight with her or mount her or bite her or scare her or who

made me m ove by threatening to set their dog on her to show

their dog was bigger or meaner or to make me move because I

was gash according to them and they was men. It’s simple and

always the same. I moved with a deep sense o f being wronged.

I shouldn’t have had to m ove but I couldn’t risk them hurting

her— more real life with a girl and her dog who are hurting no

one. The toilet was too small to take her into and I couldn’t

leave her loose in the hall because some man upstairs, a

completely sour person, hated her and kept threatening to call

all these different city agencies with cops for animals that

would take her away; but probably I w ouldn’t have left her

there anyw ay because I’d be afraid something unexpected

would happen and she’d be helpless; so she had to stay in the

apartment when I went to the toilet and I locked the door to

protect her. It’s unimaginable, how much I loved her. She was

so deep in m y heart I w ould’ve died for her, to keep her safe.

E very single piece o f love I had left in me was love for her;

except for revolutionary love. Y o u become the guardian o f a

creature and it becomes your soul and it brings jo y back to

you, as i f you was pure and young and there was nothing

rough or mean and you had tom orrow, really. She made me

happy by being happy and she loved me, a perfect love, and I

was necessary, beyond the impersonal demands o f the revolution per se. I had always admired the Black Panthers, with a

certain amount o f skepticism, because I been on the streets

they walked and there’s no saints there, M ao’s long march

didn’t go through Camden or Oakland or Detroit or Chicago.

I didn’t get close with Huey until I saw a certain picture. I think

it will be in m y brain until I die. I had admired him; how he

created a certain political reality; how he stood up to police

violence, how he faced them down, then the Survival

Program , free food for children, free shoes, some health care,

teaching reading and writing; it was real brilliant; and he ju st

didn’t die, I mean, you fucking could not kill him, and I

admire them that will not die. I knew he had run wom en but I

also been low ; I couldn’t hold it against him; I couldn’t hold

anything against him, really, because it’s rough to stay alive

and reach for dignity at the same time; you can fucking feed

children on top o f that and you got my respect. I stayed aloof,

also because I wasn’t some liberal white girl, middle-class by

skin, I had to take his measure and I couldn’t do it through

public perceptions or media or propaganda or the persona that

floated through the air waves. I saw him do fucking brilliant

things; I mean, you got to know how hard it is to do fucking

anything; and I saw him survive shootings, the police were

trying to assassinate him, no doubt; and I saw him transcend it;

and I saw him build, not just carry a fucking gun. Then there’s

this picture. H e’s been shot by the police and he’s cuffed to a

gum ey in an emergency room at Kaiser Hospital, October

1967. His chest is bare and raised; it’s raised because his arms

are cuffed to the legs o f the gurney, pulled back towards his

head; he’s wounded but they pulled his arms back so his chest

couldn’t rest on the gurney, so he’s stretched by the manacles,

his chest is sticking up because o f the strain caused by how his

arms are pulled back and restrained, it would hurt anyone, I

have been tied that way, it hurts, you don’t need a bullet in you

for it to give you pain, there’s a white cop in front o f him, fully

dressed, fully armed, looking with surprise at the camera, and

there’s this look on H uey’s face, half smile, half pain, defiant,

his eyes are open, he ain’t going to close them and he ain’t

going to die and he ain’t going to beg and he ain’t going to give

in and he ain’t thinking o f cutting his losses and he ain’t no

slobbering, frightened fool, and behind him there’s a white

nurse doing something and a sign that says “ D irty Needles

And Syringes O n ly, ” and she ain’t looking at him at all, even

though he’s right next to her, right against her side almost. I

have been cuffed that way, physically restrained. I have been

lying there. I have memories when I see this picture, I see m y

life in some o f its aspects, I see a hundred thousand porn

magazines too in which the woman, some woman, is cuffed

the same way, and the cop is or isn’t in the photograph, and the

cuffed woman is white or black, and I see on H uey’s face a

defiance I have never seen on her face or on m y own, not that I

have seen mine but I know what the photo would show, a

vapid pain, a blank, hooded stare, eyes that been dead a long,

long time, eyes that never stared back let alone said fuck you. I

see that he is defiant and that the cop is scared and that the cop

has not won. I see that even though H uey’s chest is raised

because his arms are stretched back and he is cuffed there is

pride in that raised chest. I see that his eyes are open and I see

that there is a clearness in his eyes, a willfulness, they are not

fogged or doped or droopy. I see that he is looking directly at

the camera, he’s saying I am here, this is me, I am, and the

camera can’t take his picture without making his statement. I

see that there is no look o f shame or coyness on his face, he

ain’t saying fuck me. I see that his nakedness is different from

mine, that his pride is unknown to me. I see that the cop and

the nurse are barely existing and that Huey is vivid and real and

alive, he’s jum ping o ff the page and they are robots, ciphers,

automatons, functionaries, he’s bursting with defiance, the

raised chest, however painful, is bursting with pride. I wonder

if anyone would ever jerk o ff to the picture; you know, black

boy in chains; but I don’t believe they would, I don’t, he’s

nobody’s piece o f meat, his eyes w ouldn’t let you and yo u ’d

w orry what he’d do when he’s uncuffed later, his eyes would

see you and he’d come to get you and yo u ’d know it in your

heart and in your hand. H e’s oppressed. He didn’t learn to read

really until he was eighteen. H e’s been low ; he knows. H e’s

put together a grassroots organization that’s defying the cops;

he’s made it international in scope, in reach, in importance.

H e’s poor. He was born socially invisible but darling look at

him now; manacled on that gurney he is fully vivid and alive

and the white nurse and the white cop are sim ply factotums o f

power with nothing that is their ow n; the life’s with him.

They got nothing that does express lam\ whereas Huey, shot,

manacled, naked down to his waist, says lam with his strange,

proud smile that shows the pain and his clear, wide-open eyes

that don’t look away but look right through you, they see you

front to back; and I’ve been on that bed, it’s the bed o f the

oppressed, the same cuffs, the same physical pain, as bad, I

think as bad, the same jeopardy, I have been on that bed; and

they want him to give in and fade away and yet he has endured

and in the picture he is declaring that he will endure, it is in

every aspect o f his demeanor and the camera shows it, he’s

wounded but he’s not afraid, he’s manacled but he’s not

surrendering; he ain’t fucked; he just ain’t fucked; there’s no

other w ay to say it. Even if he’s been fucked in his life, by

which I mean literally, because I don’t know what he’s done or

not done and there’s not too many strangers to being fucked

on the street, he ain’t been fucked; it ain’t what he is. I love him

for it. I fucking love him for it. He’s spectacular and there is a

deep humanism in him that expresses itself precisely in

surviving, not going under, standing up; even tied down, he’s

standing up; and he’s gone beyond the first steps, the original

Black Panther idea that had to do with arming against police

violence, now he’s an apostle o f social equality and he is

fucking feeding the children; he’s been physically hurt and he’s

been laid out on the bed o f pain and his idea o f what’s human

has gotten broader and kinder and more inclusive, and that’s

revolutionary love, and I know it, and I got it, and while

there’s many reasons he can’t trust me, nor me him, we have

been on the same bed o f pain, cuffed, and I didn’t have his

pride, and I need him to teach me; I need to learn it— defiance,

the kind a bullet can’t stop. I don’t know i f he’s kind to women

or not and it worries me but I put it aside because there’s what I

know about that bed o f pain he’s cuffed to; I think I’m

annihilated inside by it; I think I’m shot to hell inside, with

nothing but gangrene everywhere there was a wound; I see, I

feel, an inner collapse that comes from the humiliation o f how

they do you on the bed o f pain; bang bang. I tell him I know

the man; but I don’t know if he knows what I mean. I know

the man. He acts to me with respect as if he grasps m y

meaning. I am trying to say, without saying, that the man

fucked me too; but I don’t know how to say I became it and he

didn’t and now I’m refusing to be it or I’m in the process and

that there’s profound injustice in making someone it, in

crushing them down so their insides are fucked in perpetuity. I

die for men to admire, from a stance o f parity; I admire Huey; I

am struggling for parity, what I see as his revolutionary

dignity and self-definition, his bravery— not in defying

authority, I been through that, but in upending the reality that

said what he was and what was on top o f him. He sends me

poems and m axims, and I am thinking whether to send him

some. I love him. I think maybe he could be for women. In

some speeches he says so. He says men have been arrogant

over women and there’s new freedoms women need to have.

During the days I type for four dollars an hour, which means

that if I am prepared to go ape-shit or stir crazy I could

certainly make up to thirty-two dollars a day, on some days;

but I can only stand to do it four hours or maybe three, and I

really couldn’t stand to do it every day, although I have tried to

for the money, I have tried; if I could do three hours every day

I would be fine, unless something happened. It’s just that I do

it and I do it and I do it and not much time has elapsed it turns

out and I get bored and restless as if m y mind is physically

lifting itself out o f m y head and hitting the walls like some

trapped fly. I feel a profound distaste for it, sitting there and

doing this stupid shit. I feel a bitterness, almost guilt or

remorse, it’s unbearable in the minute or at that time as if I’m

betraying being alive, there’s too much m oving in me and I

cannot fucking waste it in this chickenshit way. It’s not a

matter o f having an idea o f a picture o f life, or taking exception

to the idea o f typing or being a secretary or doing something o f

the sort, I don’t have some prior idea o f how I should be or

how life should be, a magazine picture in my head, you know,

or from television, or from the romances other people say they

want. It ain’t a thought in any sense at all. It’s that I am not her

and I cannot be her, I fucking am not her, I can’t do it, I can’t sit

still and type the shit. It’s just that I want what I want, which is

throughout me, not just my brain, and it’s to feel and move

and fuck. I don’t try to resolve it. I figure you have to be

humble before life. Life tells you, you don’t tell it, and you

can’t argue with what w on’t sit still long enough to be argued

with. I have to break loose one w ay or another, drink or fuck,

find some real noise, you know, a fucking stream o f real noise

and messing around to jum p right in; that’s my way. If it’s

tepid I don’t want it and I don’t do it from habit or just because

it’s there to be done, it’s a big change I made in myself, I have

to feel it bad, I don’t do nothing on automatic; people think if

it’s on the bad side it ain’t bourgeois but I don’t; I think if it’s

tepid it don’t matter what it is class-wise or style-wise. I don’t

solve things in m y mind to impose it on reality, because it ain’t

worth much to do so; for instance, to say you don’t want to be

some fucked thing so don’t fuck. Fucking never feels like you

will end up some fucked thing anyway; it pushes you out so

fast and so far it ain’t a matter o f what you think and it’s stupid

to misidentify it, the problem. Y o u ’re some poor, fragile

person in the middle o f an ocean you never seen the whole of;

you don’t know where it starts or where it stops or how deep

down it goes and what you got to do is swim and hope, hope

and swim; you learn everything you know from it, it don’t

learn a fucking thing from you. Y ou can make promises to

yourself in your mind but your mind is so small up against the

world; you got to have some respect for the world; or so I see it

and that’s m y way; but, then, I ain’t holding out for a pension.

I type m y hours, however many I can make it through,

putting as much pressure on m yself as I can stand, which isn’t

making a lot o f progress, and I keep a time sheet, which I make

as honest as possible but it is hard not because I want to lie but

because I ju st fucking cannot keep track, I can’t pay enough

attention to it to keep track, so I just approximate sort o f

combining what I need with what seems plausible and I come

up with something. I cannot write every fucking thing down

to keep track o f m y time as i f I’m some asshole and I find it

profoundly unbearable to do robot stuff. Sometimes I w ork

for a writer, a poet, and I deliver packages, which at least

means I go on subways and taxis and see places, and I file

papers aw ay alphabetically and I type, except she says you

have to put a space before the colon and a space after it, one

space after it instead o f just no space before it and two spaces

after it as every typist does. In theory I am for defying

convention but typing is something you do automatic like

yo u ’re the machine, not it, and you learn to put two spaces

after the colon and none before it and your hands do that and

your brain ain’t fast enough to stop them and I spend half my

time correcting the stupid thing with white Liquid Paper and

eraser stuff and trying to align it right when I’m typing the

colon back in and I just really want her to drop dead because o f

it. Passions can be monumental. I can barely keep my ass on

the typing chair at her desk; I mean, she owns the desk; she has

her desk, a big desk, and then the desk where I sit, a little desk

and her desk is in her big room and m y desk is in a little

anteroom right o ff her big room so she can always see me but

I’m o ff to the side, relegated to being help in a clear w ay; it has

its own eloquence and I feel it acutely and it gets me mad. I try

to take the typing home with me so I don’t have to sit at the

little desk in the little room with her watching but she wants

me to do it there and there’s this tug o f war. She’s real

seductive and I am too fucking bored to care because if I give in

to it then I will have to be there more and if I am there more I

will have to type more and if I have to type more I will die.

There’s apparently some edge she sees; she thinks I’m

turbulent, she says; I think I’m calm and patient in a world o f

endless and chaotic bullshit, which I say but it falls on deaf

ears; I smile and I’m nice and completely calm except for when

I have to bolt but she sees some street tough or something wild

and gets all excited and I don’t have a lot o f respect for it; she

says I’m pure. I just smile because I don’t know what bullshit it

is exactly. Even if I don’t type she keeps me around. I can

barely keep m yself under wraps sometimes, frankly; I want to

bolt. I smile, I’m nice, I’m calm, but she treats me careful, as if

I’m volatile or dangerous somehow, which I am not, because

in m y soul I am a real sweetheart which is the truth, a deep

truth, an honest truth, I don’t yell or shout or think how to

hurt people and I feel dedicated to peace as she is too. I just get

bored so deep it hurts the pits o f me, stomach and groin

precisely, I feel a long pain and I can’t sit still through it; it’s

hit-the-road pain. She tells me how to be a writer and I listen

because as long as I am listening I don’t have to type; I listen,

though often I’m bored, and I haven’t mastered the art o f inner

stillness, though I will, I am sure. Then there’s the lovemaking

part, a moment comes, and I slide out from under, with a

certain newfound grace, I must say, and if I can’t slide, I bolt,

and it’s abrupt. She keeps me on, even though I never exactly

get the typing done or the filing done and she never nails me;

never. It’s a long walk to her place to type and I walk it often,

because I fucking love to walk, even though it’s stupid and not

safe and you have to be a prophet who can look down a street

and know what it’s got in store for you, and I do it happy and

proud and I fucking love the long walks. I go there and back

early and late and sometimes I get there and I just can’t bear to

stay so I leave right away, I take some cup o f coffee or food,

fast, with her, she’ll always make me something as if it’s

natural, and the typing doesn’t get done but I don’t have some

money either. Other times she gives me a cash advance and I

have it burning in m y hand and if I’m feeling slow and

stringent with m yself I get it to the bank and i f I'm feeling

restless, all speeded up, wanting to spit in the eye o f God, out

drink Him, out fuck Him, I keep it on me. I type, I walk long

walks across town, ballets on cement, jum ping and hopping

and then a slow, melancholy step, solemn or arms sw inging,

in the face o f the wind or in drizzle or rain or in sun, in calm,

cool sun. I walk m y sweet and jubilant dog in the neighborhood protecting the pads o f her feet from the stupid glass the winos leave all broken all over and the fucking junkie shit

that’s all over, and then there’s the time each day I sit down in

purposeful concentration to write in a notebook, some

sentences on a buried truth, an unnamed reality, things that

happened but are denied. It is hard to describe the stillness it

takes, the difficulty o f this act. It requires an almost perfect

concentration which I am trying to learn and there is no w ay to

learn it that is spelled out anywhere or so I can understand it

but I have a sense that it’s completely simple, on the order o f

being able to sit still and keep your mind dead center in you

without apology or fear. I squirm after some time but it ain’t

boredom, it’s fear o f w hat’s possible, how much you can

know if you can be quiet enough and simple enough. I m ove

around, m y mind wanders, I lose the ability to take words and

roll them through m y brain, m ove with them into their

interiors, feel their colors, touch w hat’s under them, where

they come from long ago and w ay back. I get frightened

seeing what’s in m y own mind if words get put to it. T here’s a

light there, it’s bright, it’s wide, it could make you blind if you

look direct into it and so I turn away, afraid; I get frightened

and I run and the only w ay to run is to abandon the process

altogether or com prom ise it beyond recognition. I think about

Celine sitting with his shit, for instance; I don’t know w hy he

didn’t run, he should’ve. It’s a quality you have to have o f

being near mad and at the same time so quiet in your heart that

you could pass for a spiritual warrior; you could probably

break things with the power in your mind. You got to be able

to stand it, because it’s a powerful and disturbing light, not

something easy and kind, it comes through your head to make

its w ay onto the page and you get fucking scared so your mind

runs away, it wanders, it gets distracted, it buckles, it deserts,

it takes a Goddamn freight train if it can find one, it wants

calming agents and soporifics, and you mask that you are

betraying the brightest and best light you will ever see, you are

betraying the mind that can be host to it; Blake’s light, which

he was not afraid o f and did not betray; Whitman’s light which

he degraded into some fucking singsong song like he was

Dinah Shore or Patti Page, how much is that doggie in the

w indow; the words didn’t rise up from the light, only from a

sentimental wish, he had a shadow life and in words he piled

shadow on shadow so there’s this tumult, a chaos o f dreams

running amok; dreams are only shadows; whereas Blake’s

light is perfect and pure, inside the words, so lucid, so simple,

so plain; never a cartoonish lie. O f course it’s different for me

because I turned tricks and been fucked nearly to death and I

have been made weary with dirt and m y mind’s been buried

alive, really, smashed down right into the ground, pushed

under deep; but something ain’t different if I could conquer the

fear o f seeing and knowing, if I wasn’t so afraid o f the light

burning right through m y stupid brain. Y ou want to smoke a

joint or something to make it calmer and duller; not brighter;

it ain’t brighter; it calms you right down or it frenzies you up

but so you are distracted, mentally m oving here and there,

you want something between you and the light, a shield, a

permeable barrier, you want to defuse it or deflect it, to

m ellow it out, to make it softer, not so deadly to your own

soul, not so likely to blow all your own circuits, you can’t

really stand too much light in a world where you got to get

used to crawling around like an insect in the dark, because it’s

like mining coal in that if you don’t get out o f the mine what

goes through you will collapse you. Y o u r mind does stupid

tricks to mask that you are betraying something o f grave

importance. It wanders so you w o n ’t notice that you are

deserting your own life, abandoning it to triviality and

garbage, how you are too fucking afraid to use your own brain

for what it’s for, which is to be a host to the light, to use it, to

focus it; let it shine and carry the burden o f what is illuminated,

everything buried there; the light’s scarier than anything it

shows, the pure, direct experience o f it in you as if your mind

ain’t the vegetable thing it’s generally conceived to be or the

nightmare thing you know it to be but a capacity you barely

imagined, real; overwhelm ing and real, pushing you out to

the edge o f ecstasy and knowing and then do you fall or do you

jum p or do you fly? Life can concentrate itself right in your head

and you get scared; it is cowardice. I notice that my eyes start to

wander across the wall, back and forth, keep wandering across

nothing, or looking at the fucking paint, I notice that my feet are

moving and I’m shifting on the chair, a straight-back wood chair

you have to sit still on, there’s no license to move but I’m

moving, rattling m y feet, rocking, rocking on m y heels, and

then there’s an urgent sensation in m y thighs and in my hips and

wherever sex is down there, whatever you want to call it, there’s

only bad names for it but it isn’t bad and it is real and it sends you

out, it sends you away, it makes you impatient and distracted,

and I feel like busting out, and some nights I do, I bust out. I take

all the money I got on me, and if it’s ten dollars I’m flush, and I

ju st bolt, I get out and drink, I find a man, sometimes a

woman, sometimes both, I like both at once, I like being

drunk, or I start out just for a drink and I end up with

someone, drunk; fucking happy drunk; no light but everything glistens; no illumination but everything shines. Som etimes I ju st walk, I can walk it off, aimlessly. It’s as dangerous as fucking, takes nearly the same adrenaline, just to take a walk

at night, even if you walk towards the neon and not towards

the dark park; ain’t a woman in Amerika walks towards the

park. If I can calm m yself I go home. But there’s times if I was

a man I’d kill someone. I feel wild and mean and I’m tired o f

being messed with, I got invisible bars all around me and I

have blame in my heart to them that put them there and I want

to fucking tear them apart, I want my insides turned out in

bruising them, I don’t want no skin left on me that ain’t

roughed them up, I want them bloodied, I want to dance in

men’s blood, the cha-cha, the polka, the tango, the rhumba,

hard, fast, angular dances or stomping dances or slow killing

dances, the murder waltz, I want to mix it up with killing right

next to me, on m y side; it’s hot in my heart and cold in my

brain and I ain’t ever going to feel sorry; or I’d take one o f them

boys and I’d turn him inside out and put something up his ass

and I’d hear him howl and I’d expect a thank-you and a yes

m a’am; and I would get it. D on’t matter how dangerous you

feel, all the danger’s to you, so it’s best to settle down and end

up back inside your stupid fucking walls that you wanted so

much; alone, inside the walls, a Valium maybe or a ’lude so

you don’t do no damage to yourself; love your walls, citizen. I

want them bruised and bloodied but I don’t get what I want as

m y mama used to tell me but I didn’t believe her; besides I

wanted something different then; her point was that I had to

learn the principle that I wasn’t supposed to get what I wanted;

and m y point was that I wasn’t going to learn it. Y ou don’t

name someone not-cunt and then betray the meaning and

make them fit in cages; I didn’t learn it, fucking bitch o f a

mother. It’s a rainy night. The rain is slick over the cement and

on the buildings like diamonds dripping; a liquid dazzle all soft

and rolling and swelled up, like a teardrop. It’s one o f them

magic nights where the rain glow s and the neon is dull next to

it; like God lit a silver flame in the water, it’s a warm , silver,

glassy shine, it sparkles, it’s a night but it ain’t dark

because it’s a slick light you could skate on and everything

looks translucent and as if it’s m oving, it slides, it shines. It’s

beckoning to me as i f God took a paint brush and covered the

w orld in crystal and champagne. It’s wet diamonds out there,

lush and liquid, I never could pass up the sparkle, it’s a wet,

shimmering night, a wet, dazzling night; but warm, as if it’s

breathing all over you, as if it’s wrapped around you, a

cocoon, that w ispy stuff. If there’s acid in your brain

everything’s fluid and monstrous bright; this is as if the acid’s

out there, spread over the city, the sidewalks are drenched in it

and the buildings are bathed in it and the air is saturated with it,

nothing’s standing still and it is monstrous bright and I love

the fucking city when it’s stoned. Inside it’s dull and dry and

I’m not in a constructive mood and there is a pain that runs

down me like a river, a nasty, surging river, a hard river, a

river that starts up high and races down to below falling more

than flowing, falling and breaking, shattering; it’s a river that

goes through me top to bottom; the pain’s intractable and I can

barely stand it; it’s not all jo ie de vivre when a girl goes

dancing; the pain’s a force o f nature beyond my ability to bear

and I can’t take the edge o ff it very easy and I can’t stand

needles and I can’t sit still with it and I can’t rip it out, although

if it was located right precisely in m y heart I would try, I

would take m y fucking hands and I would take m y fucking

fingers and I would rip m y chest open and I would try. It’s

raining and the rain makes me all steamy and damp inside and

out and it ain’t a man I want, it’s a drink, a dozen fucking

drinks to blot out the hard pain and the hard time, each and

every dick I ever sucked, and the bottle ain’t enough because I

can’t stand the quiet, a quiet bottle in a quiet room; I can’t

stand the quiet, lonely bottle in the quiet, lonely room. Lonely

ain’t a state o f mind, it’s a place o f being; a room with no one

else in it, a street with no one else on it; a city abandoned in the

rain; em pty, wet streets; cement that stretches uptown,

downtown, empty, warm, wet, until the sky starts, a

perspiring sky; empty cars parked on empty streets, damp,

deserted streets lined with dark, quiet buildings, civilized,

quiet stone, decorous, a sterile urban formalism; the windows

are closed, they’re sleeping or dead inside, you w on’t know

until morning really, a gas could have seeped in and killed

them in the night; or invaders from outer space; or some lethal

virus. I need noise; real noise; honest, bad noise; not random

sounds or a few loud voices or the electronic drone o f

someone’s television seeping out o f a cracked w indow; not

some dignified singer or some meaningful lyric; not something small or fine or good or right; I need music so loud you

can’t hear it, as when all the trees in the forest fall; and I need

noise so real it eats up the air because it can’t live on nothing; I

need noise that’s like steak, just so thick and just so tough and

ju st so immoral, thick and tough and dead but bloody, on a

plate, for the users, for the fucking killers, to still their hearts,

to numb anything still left churning; a percussive ambience for

the users. It’s got to be brute so it blocks out anything subtle or

nuanced or kind, even, and it’s got to be unceasing so you can’t

hear a human breath and it’s got to stomp on you so your heart

almost stops beating and it’s got to be lunatic, unorganized,

perpetual, and it has to be in a crowded room where there’s

gristle and muscle and cold, mean men and you can’t hear the

timbre o f their voices and you don’t need to see them or touch

them because the noise has you, it’s air, it’s water, you

breathe, you swim; I need noise, and it’s too late to buy a bottle

anyway, even if I had enough money, because it is very dear, it

would be like buying a diamond tiara for a princess or some

fine clothes, a fine jew el, it is out o f m y reach, I have not had

one o f m y own ever and I don’t count the bottles you can’t see

in the paper bags because that is a different thing altogether,

more like gasoline or like someone took matches and lit up

your throat or yo u ’re pouring kerosene down it or some

sharp-edged thing scrapes it raw. I need enough bills to keep,

drinking so no one’s going to chase me aw ay or say I can’t pay

rent on the stool or so I don’t have to smile at no one or so no

bartender don’t have me throwed out; I am fearful about that;

they always treat you so illegitimate but if you can show

enough money they will tolerate you sitting there. There’s not

enough money for me to eat even if they’d let me so I put that

out o f m y mind, I would like lobster o f course with the biggest

amount o f drawn butter, just drenched in it, ju st so much it

drips down and you can feel it spreading out inside your

mouth all rich and glorious, it’s like some divine silky stu ff but

there’s never enough o f it and I have to ask for more and they

act parsimonious and shocked. If you sit at a table you have to

buy dinner, they don’t have some idea that you could just sit

there and be cool and watch or have a little o f this and a little o f

that; they only have the idea that everyone’s lying, you know,

everyone’s pretending, everyone’s trying to rip them off,

everyone’s pretending to be rich so they have to see the money

or everyone’s pretending they’re going to eat so they have to

see the m oney or everyone’s pretending they can pay for the

drinks so they have to see the money and if yo u ’re a woman

you don’t get a table even i f you got money; m y idea is if I have

enough m oney and I put it out in front o f me on the bar and I

keep drinking and drinking I can stay there and then I don’t

have to look to m y right or to m y left at a man for a fucking

thing; I can i f I want but I am not obliged. I’m usually too shy

to push m y w ay in and I’ve never tried it, I ju st know yo u ’re

not supposed to be there alone, but tonight I want to drink, it’s

what I want like some people want to win the Indy 500 or

there’s some that want to walk on the moon; I want to drink;

pure. I want to sit there and have m y ow n stool and I don’t

want to have to be worried about being asked to leave or made

to leave because I’m ju st some impoverished girl or gash that’s

loose. I will stare at the clear liquid, crystal, in the glass, and I

will contemplate it as a beautiful thing and I will feel the pain

that is monumentally a part o f me and I will keep drinking and

I will feel it lessen and I will feel the warmth spread out all over

me inside and I will feel the surging, hard, nasty river go

warmer and smoother and silkier as the Stoli runs with it, as it

falls from top to bottom inside me, first it’s on the surface o f

the river, then it’s deeper down in it, then it’s a silk, burning

stream, a great, warm stream, and it will gentle the terrible

river o f pain. I will think deeply; about art; about life; I will

keep thoughts pouring through me as inside I get warmer and

calmer and it hurts less, the hurt dims and fades or hides under

a fucking rock, I don’t care; and m y brow will curl, you know,

sullen, troubled, melancholy, as if I’m some artist in m y own

right myself; and the noise will be beautiful to me, part o f a

new esthetic I am cultivating, and I will hear in it the tumult o f

bare existence and the fierce resonance o f personal pain as if it’s

a riff from Charlie Parker to God and I will hear in it the

anarchic triumph o f m y own individual soul over the deep evil

that has maimed me. I take the bills and crush them into m y

pocket and I walk, I run, I light down the stairs and out the

building, I leave my quiet room, and I hit the streets and I

walk, fast, dedicated, determined, stubborn, filled with fury,

spraying piss and vinegar, to M ax’s, about twelve blocks from

where I live, an artists’ restaurant and bar, because I know it

will be filled with ramrod hard noise and heat, a crush o f hard,

noisy men, artists and poseurs and I don’t know the difference,

poseurs and the famous and I don’t know the difference, it’s a

modern crime but I can’t concentrate on it enough to

remember the ones you’re supposed to know, except Warhol

because he’s so strange and he’d stand out anywhere and I

don’t want to go near him; but the difference mostly is that I

think I am the artist, not them, but you can’t say that and it’s

hard even to keep thinking it though I don’t know w hy it’s so

hard, maybe because girls aren’t ever it; but all the poseurs and

all the famous will be at the tables where I can’t go, even if I

had money to eat they w ouldn’t let me eat there, not alone,

and I w o n ’t be one o f the pleading girls who is begging to be

allowed to go to the tables, I will just get a stool at the bar if the

guy at the door lets me in, he might not and usually I am too

shy to defy him and I hang tight with a man but tonight I want

in myself, I want the noise and the hard edge and the crush and

I want to drink, I want to find a place at the bar for m yself and

it’s got m y name on it even though I don’t got no name for the

purposes o f the man at the door but the stool’s mine and I will

drink and I will stay as long as I have bills in front o f me and it’s

an unwritten law about girls, that they don’t let you sit

anywhere, so you never quite understand w hy you can be

somewhere sometimes and not the same place the next time

and you figure out you got to hang on to a man and you are his

shadow, like Wendy sewing Peter Pan’s shadow back on. It

sure insures a steady flow o f affection wom an to man if you

can’t even sit down without one. Tonight I have a singular

distaste for a man. I’m not starting out with any interest

whatsoever. H e’d have to catch m y eye like starlight or it’d

have to be like fairy dust where you want some and you need a

taste, it’s something that tickles you deep down but you can’t

reach it to scratch, like the cut o f a record you listen to a

thousand times or you got a taste you can’t get rid o f so yo u ’re

like some fucking hamster on one o f them wheels just running

and running or yo u ’re skim ming coke o ff the top o f something or smack o ff the top o f something, you just get smitten,

lightly but completely, stuck in the moment but also riveted

so you can’t shake it loose, infatuated now , freedom now ,

there’s some special charge com ing from him and yo u ’re

plugged in and it’s sparking, it’s not like you want to get laid

and yo u ’re looking for someone w h o ’s going to be good, it’s

more like some trait you can’t identify strikes you wham , it’s

got an obsession lurking under it, it’s a light feeling but under

it is a burning habit, a habit you ain’t got yet but you just want

to play with it once, like skinpopping heroin or something,

you know, it ain’t serious but you want it. I take an energetic

walk with the city all glowing wet, all sparkling, for me, as if

it’s for me, the light’s for me and the rain’s for me and it’s

stoned out o f its fucking mind for me; and the buildings are

just pure glitter and the light’s coming down from heaven

luscious and wet; for me. The boy at the door can’t keep me

out because I stride in and I am aglow; he’s a mandarin

standing there with his little list and his leather jacket and his

pretensions and his snobbish good looks and I mumble words

I know he can’t hear and I never yet met a man who wasn’t

stupider than me and he’s trying to decide am I someone or not

and I am not fucking anyone but I am striding in my

motorcycle boots and I am wet and I am bound for glory at the

bar and I push m y w ay through the crowd and fuck him and

he’s watching me, he sees that I ain’t headed for a table which

would transgress the laws o f the universe, and it ain’t a girl’s

trick to sit somewhere she ain’t entitled because a man didn’t

pick her out already; he sees I want the bar and I suppose it’s

faintly plausible that a girl might want a drink on her own or it

confuses him enough that he hesitates and he who hesitates is

lost. I take out all the bills I have and he’s watching me do it

and I put it down in front o f me, a nice pile, substantial, and I

am firm ly sitting on a stool and I have spread m y elbows out

on the bar to take up enough space to declare I am alone and

here to drink and he don’t know I don’t have more money and

I order m y Stoli on the rocks and I ain’t making no move to

take m y change or m ove m y money so he relaxes as if letting

me there will not do monumental harm to the system that is in

place and that it is his jo b to protect and the bodies close in

around me to protect me from his scrutiny and the noise closes

in around me and I am swallowed up and I disappear and I am

completely cosseted and private and safe and I feel like some

new thing, just new ly alive, and there’s the placenta hugging

me and I’m wet with fucking life and I stare into m y fucking

drink, m y triumphal drink, I stare into it as if it’s tea leaves and

I’m the w orld ’s oldest, wisest gypsy, I got gold earrings down

to m y knees and I got foresight and hindsight and I am a reader

o f history, there’s layers o f history, vulgar and occult, in the

stu ff and if you lit a fire to it yo u ’d burn history up. And shit I

love it; a solitary human being covered all over by noise, a

dense noise that bubbles and burns and cracks all over you like

fire, small fire, a million tiny, exploding fires; or a superhuman embrace by some green, slim y, scaly monster, it’s big and all over you and messy, it’s turbulent and dramatic and

ever so much bigger than a man and its embrace is overwhelming, a descent, an invasion that covers the terrain, a

crush o f locusts but you aren’t repelled, only exhilarated at

how awesome it is, how biblical, how spectacular; like as i f it

took you back to ancient E gypt and you saw something

sublime in the desert and you had to walk across it but you

could; it wraps itself around you like some spectacular excess

o f nature not man, yo u ’re crawling with it but it ain’t bad and

it ain’t loathsome and there’s no fear, it’s just exactly extreme

enough and wild enough and it says it’s nighttime in human

history now in Am erika and Moses has his story and you have

yours and each o f you gets the whole universe to roll around in

because everything was made to converge at the point where

you are amidst all the rest o f life o f whatever kind, com position, or characteristics, it’s a great mass all around you, the blob, a loud blob, Jell-O , loud Jell-O , and yo u ’re some frail,

simple thing at the center and what you are to them doesn’t

matter because the noise protects you from knowing what you

are to them; noise has a beauty and noise has a function and a

quiet girl sometimes needs it because the night is long and life

is hard and pain is real and you stare into the glass and you

drink, darling, you drink, and you contemplate and you

drink; you go slow and you speed up and you drink; and you

are a deep thinker and you drink; and you have some hazy,

romantic thoughts and some vague philosophical leanings and

you drink; and you remember some pictures that flash by in

your mind and you drink; and there’s sad feelings for a fleeting

minute and you drink; and you choreograph an uprising, the

lumpen rise up, and you drink; and there’s Camden reaching

right out for you, it’s taking you back, and you drink; a man

nudges you from the right and you drink; he puts his face right

up close to yours and you drink; he’s talking about something

or other and you drink; you don’t look left or right, you just

drink, it’s worship, it’s celebration, you’d kneel down except

for that you might not be able to synchronize your movements, in your heart you kneel; and you drink; you taste it and

you roll it around your tongue and down on into your throat

and down on into your chest and you get fiery and warm and

you drink it down hard and fast and you sit stone still in

solemn concentration and you drink; the noise holds you

there, it’s almost physical, the noise, it’s a superhuman

embrace, bigger than a man’s, it’s swamp but not swam py, it’s

dry and dark and hot and popping, it’s dense and down and

dirty and you drink; the noise keeps you propped up, your

back upright and your legs bent and your feet firm ly balanced

on the stool, except the stool’s higher now, and you drink; and

yo u ’re like Alice, you’re getting smaller and it’s getting

bigger, and then you remember Humpty Dum pty was a

fucking eggshell and you could fall and break and D orothy got

lost in Oz and Cinderella was made into a pumpkin or nearly

such and there’s a terrible decline and fall awaiting you, fear

and travail, because the m oney’s gone, you been handing it

over to the big man behind the bar and you been drinking and

you been contemplating and the pile’s gone and there’s terrible

challenges ahead, like physically getting o ff the stool and

physically getting out o f the room and physically getting

home; it hardly seems possible that you could actually have so

many legs and none o f them have any bones that stand up

straight and you break it down into smaller parts; pay up so the

bartender don’t break your fingers; get o ff the stool; stand up;

walk, try not to lean on anyone, you can’t use the men as

leaning posts, you can’t volley yourself to the front sort o f

springing o ff one after the other, because one or another will

consider it affection; get to the door; don’t fall on the mandarin

with the list, don’t trip in front o f him, don’t throw up; open

the door on your own steam; get out the door fully clothed,

jacket, T-shirt, keys; once outside, you make another plan.

These are hard things; some o f them may actually be

impossible. It may be impossible to pay the bartender because

you may have drunk too much and it may be impossible to get

o ff the stool and it may be impossible to walk and it may be

impossible to stand up and it may be impossible to find the

door. It’s sad, yo u ’re an orphan and it’s hard to concentrate,

what with poor nutrition and a bad education; but sociology

w ill not save your ass if you drank more money than you got

because a citizen has to pay their bar bills. There’s tw o dollars

sitting on the bar in front o f you, the remains o f your pile like

old bones, fragments o f an archaic skeleton, little remnants o f

a big civilization dug up and yo u ’re eyeing it like it’s the grail

but with dishonorable intent and profane desire. It’s rightly

the bartender’s. H e’s been taking the money as it’s been due

with righteous discipline, which is w hy you ain’t overdrawn

on the account; you asked him in a tiny mouse voice afraid o f

the answer, you squeaked in the male din, a frightened

whisper, you asked him if you owed, you got up the nerve,

and yo u ’re straight with him as far as it goes but these extra

bills are rightly his; or you could have another drink; but you

had wanted to end it well, with some honor; and also he ain’t a

waitress, dear, and the m oney’s got his mark on it; and he ain’t

cracked a smile or said a tender word all night, which a girl

ain’t used to, he don’t like girl drinkers as a matter o f principle

you assume, he’s fast, he’s quiet, he’s got a hard, cold face with

a square ja w and long, oily hair and a shirt half open and a long

earring and bad teeth and he’s aloof and cold to you; and then

suddenly, so fast it didn’t happen, there’s a big, warm hand on

your hand, a big, hairy hand, and he’s squeezing your fingers

around the two dollars and he’s half smiling, one half o f his

face is smiling, and he says darling take a fucking cab. Y ou

stare at him but you can’t exactly see him; his face ain’t all in

one piece; it’s sort o f split and moving; and before you exactly

see his mouth move and hook it up with his words he’s gone,

w ay to a foreign country, the other end o f the bar where

they’re having bourbon, some cowboys with beards and hats.

Life’s always kind in a pinch. The universe opens up with a

gift. There’s generosity, someone gives you something special

you need; two dollars and you don’t have to suck nothing, you

are saved and the man in his generosity stirs you deeply.

Y o u ’re inspired to succeed with the rest o f the plan— move,

stand, walk, execute each detail o f the plan with a military

precision, although you wish you could take o ff your T-shirt

because it’s very hot but you follow the plan you made in your

mind and although your legs buckle and the ground isn’t solid,

it’s swelling and heaving, you make it past the strange, w avy

creatures with the deep baritone voices and the erections and

you get out, you get out the door even though it’s hard and

yo u ’re afraid because you can see outside that it’s raining, it’s

raining very hard, it’s pouring down, it’s so wet, you really

have an aversion to it because all your clothes will be drenched

and soaking and your lungs will be wet and your bones will

get all damp and wet and you can’t really see very well and the

rain’s too heavy and everything looks different from before

and you can’t really see through the rain and it’s getting in

your eyes as if your eyes are under water and burning, all

drowned in water, they hurt, and everything’s blurred and

your hair’s all wet as if it w o n ’t ever be dry again and there’s

water in your ears deep down and it hurts and everything's

chilly and wet. The w o rld ’s wet and watery and without

definition and without any fixed places o f reference or fixed

signs and it’s as if the city’s floating by you, like some flood

uprooted everything and it’s loose on the rapids and everywhere you step you are in a flood o f racing cold water. Y ou r feet are all wet and your legs are all wet and you squoosh in

your boots and all your clothes are soaked through and you are

dripping so much that it is as if you yourself are raining,

w ater’s flooding o ff you and it’s useless to be a person with

legs who counts on solid ground because here you have to

walk through water, which isn’t easy, yo u ’re supposed to

sw im through it but there’s not enough to swim through and

there’s too much to walk through, it’s as if yo u ’re glued and

gum m y and loose and the ground’s loose and the water’s loose

and yo u ’re breathing in water as much as air and you feel like

some fucking turkey that’s going to drow n in the rain; which

probably you will. Y o u ’re trying to walk home and it’s been a

long time, the old trick o f putting one foot in front o f the other

doesn’t seem to be working and you don’t seem to have got

very far but it’s hard to tell since nothing looks right or

familiar and everything’s under water and blurry and yo u ’re

cold and sort o f fixed in place because the w ater’s weighing

you down, kind o f making you so heavy you can’t really m ove

as i f yo u ’re an earthbound person m oving effortlessly through

air as is the case with normal people on normal days because it

ain’t air, it’s water. Y o u ’re all wet as if you was naked and your

clothes are wet and heavy as if they was lead and your breasts

are sore from the wet and the cold and your pubic hair’s all

wet and rubbing up against the wet stu ff all bunched up in

your crotch and there’s rain rolling down your legs and

com ing out the bottom o f your pants and yo u ’d be happier

naked, wet and naked, because the clothes feel very bad on

you, wet and bad. T h ey’re heavy and nasty and cold. The

m oney’s in your hand and it’s all wet, all rained out, soaking

wet, and your hand’s clutched, and you try proceeding

through the wet blur, you need to stay on the sidewalks and

you need to avoid oncoming cars and turning cars and crazy

cars that can’t see any better than you and you need to see the

traffic lights and you need to see what’s in front o f you and

w hat’s on the side o f you and what’s behind you, just as on any

regular day, and at night even more; but you can’t see and the

rain keeps you from hearing as well and you proceed slow ly

and you don’t get too far; it’s been a long time you been out

here and you haven’t gone but half a block and you are

drenched in water and breathing too fast and breathing too

hard and your legs aren’t carrying you right and the ground’s

not staying still and the water’s pushing you from behind and

it’d like to flatten you out and roll over you, and it ain’t nice

lapping against the calves o f your legs; and a cab stops; which

you have barely ever ridden in before, not on your own; it

stops; you’ve been in them when someone’s given you money

to deliver packages and said where to go and exactly what to

do and how much it would cost and still you were scared it

would cost too much and you wouldn’t have it and something

terrible would happen; a cab stops and you don’t know if two

dollars is enough or if he thinks you’re turning tricks, a dumb

wet whore, or if he just wants to fuck or if you could get inside

and he’d just take you home, a passenger; a cab stops and

yo u ’re afraid to get in because you’re not a person who rides in

cabs even in extremis even though you have two dollars and

it’s for taking a cab as the bartender said if you didn’t dream it

and probably he knows how much everything costs; a cab

stops; and yo u ’re wet; and you want to go home; and if you

got in the cab you could be home almost right away, very

close to right away, you could be home in just some few

minutes instead o f a very long time, because if you walk you

don’t know how long it will take or how tired yo u ’ll be and

you could get so tired you just stop somewhere to give up, a

doorw ay, an abandoned car, or even if you keep going it will

take a long time; and i f you got in the cab you could sit still for

a few minutes in perfect dignity and it would be dry and quiet

and you would be in the back, a passenger, and you could

ju m p if he pulled shit, if he started driving wild or going

somewhere strange, and yo u ’d give him the tw o dollars and

he’d take you home, and you get in the cab, it’s dark and

leather and yo u ’re scared about the m oney so you say upfront

that you only got two dollars and he asks where yo u ’re going

and you say and he says fine, it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s no

problem, and he says it’s raining and you say yeah, it is; and he

says some quiet, simple things, like sometimes it rains too

hard, and you say yes; he’s quiet and softspoken and there’s

long, curly hair cascading down his back and he says that I’m

wet with some sym pathy and I say yes I am; and he asks me

what I do in a quiet and sympathetic w ay and I say I’m a writer;

and he says he’s a musician, very quiet, nice; and I say I drank

too much, I was writing and I got restless and I got drunk and

he says yes he knows what that’s like, very quiet, very nice,

he’s done it too, everyone does it sometimes, but he doesn’t

keep talking, he’s very quiet, he talks soft, not a lot, and there’s

quiet moments and I think he’s pretty nice and I’m trying to

watch the streets to see where we are and w e’re going towards

where I live but up and down blocks, it doesn’t seem direct but

I don’t know because I don’t drive and I don’t know if there’s

one-w ay streets and the meter’s o ff anyw ay and he’s English

like in films with a distinguished accent, sort o f tough like

Albert Finney but he talks quiet and nice, a little dissonant; he’s

sort o f slim and delicate, you know how pretty a man can be

when he’s got fine features, chiseled, and curls, and he’s sort o f

waif-like, kind o f like a child in Dickens, appealing with a pull

to the heart, street pretty but softspoken, not quite hard, not

apparently cynical, not a regular N ew Y ork taxi driver as I’ve

seen them, all squat and old, but graceful, lithe, slight, young,

younger than me probably, new, not quite used but not

untouched, virginal but available, you can have him but it isn’t

quite right to touch him, he’s withdrawn and aloof and it

appears as a form o f refinement, he’s delicate and finely made,

you wonder what it would be like to touch him or if he’d be

charmed enough to touch you back, it’s a beauty without

prettiness except this one’s pretty too, too pretty for me, I

think, I never had such a pretty, delicate boy put together so

fine, pale, the face o f an old, inbred race, now decadent,

fragile, bloodless, with the heartrending beauty o f fine old

bones put together delicately, reconstructed under glass, it

w ouldn’t really be right to touch it but still you want to, just

touch it; and you couldn’t really stop looking at him in the

m irror o f the taxi, all the parts o f his face barely hang together,

all the parts are fragile and thin, it’s delicate features and an

attitude, charm and insouciance but with reserve, he puts out

and he holds back, he decides, he’s used to being wanted, he’s

aloof, or is it polite, or is it gentle? He turns around and smiles

and it’s like angel dust; I’m dusted. I get all girlish and

embarrassed and I think, really, he’s too pretty, he doesn’t

mean it, and there’s a real tense quiet and we drive and then he

stops and w e’re there and I hand him the two dollars because

we agreed and he says real quiet, maybe I could come in, and I

say yes, and I’m thinking he’s so pretty, it’s like being in a

m ovie with some movie star you have a crush on only he’s

coming with you and it’s not in a movie but you know how a

crush on someone in a film makes you crazy, so weird, as if

you could really touch him even though he’s flat and on film

and the strange need you think you have for him and the things

you think you would do with him, those are the feelings,

because I have a stupid crush, an insane crush, a boy-crazy

crush, and I am thinking this is a gorgeous night with the

visitation o f this fine boy but I am so fucking drunk I can

barely get up the steps and I think he’ll turn around and go

because it can’t be nice for him and now he can see how drunk;

smashed; as if I got Stoli pumping through m y heart and it’s

fumes I’m inhaling, fumes rising out o f m y ow n veins or rising

from m y chest, like a fog rising out o f m y chest, and I am

falling down drunk and such a fool, in m y heart I am romantic

for him, all desire and affection verging on an impolite

hunger, raw, greedy, now, now, but there’s m y beautiful

dog, m y very gorgeous and fine dog, m y heart, m y beast o f

jo y and love, m y heart and soul, m y friend on romps and good

times around the block, and she’s jum ping up and down and

she’s licking me and she’s jum ping all over me and it makes me

fall and I say I have to walk her because I do, I must, she’s got

rights, I explain, I have this idea she’s got rights, and I think he

will leave now but he says, very quiet and nice, oh I’ll walk

her, you ju st lie here, and I am flat out drunk, laid out drunk,

flat and drunk on m y bed, a mattress on the floor, barely a

mattress, a cut piece o f foam rubber, hard and flat, it’s an

austere bed for serious solitude or serious sex and I am fucking

stretched out and the walls move, a fast circle dance, and he

takes her leash and they leave and I’m smiling but time goes by

and I get scared, I start waiting, I start feeling time brushing by

me, I start thinking I will never see m y dog again and I think

what have I done and I think I will die from losing her if he

doesn’t bring her back and I think I have to call the police or I

have to follow him and find him or I have to get up and get out

and call to her and I think about life without her if she were

gone and I’d die and I try to m ove an arm but I can’t m ove it

and there’s a pain coming into m y heart which says I am a pale

shadow o f what you will feel the rest o f your life if she’s gone,

it says yo u ’ll mourn the rest o f your life and there’s a grief that

will burn up your insides and leave them just bare and burned

and em pty, burned ugly and barren, obliterated; and I know

that if she’s gone I’m going to pull m yself to pieces, pull my

mind apart, tear m yself open, rend my breast, turn m y heart to

sackcloth, make ashes out o f m y heart; if she’s gone I’m lost; a

wanderer in madness and pain; despondent; a vagabond

turned loose one last time, sad enough to turn the world to

hell; I’ll touch it, anything before me, and make it hell. I will

rage on these streets a lifetime and I will build fires from

garbage in buildings and I will hurt men; for the rest o f my

time here on earth, I will hurt them. I will wander and I will

wail and I will break bottles to have shards o f glass I can hold in

m y hand so they cut both ways, instead o f knives, I’ll bleed

they will bleed both at the same time, the famous two-edged

sword, I will use them on curly-haired boys and I will keep on

after death and I will never stop because the pain will never

stop and you w on’t be able to erase me from these streets, I

will sweep down like lightning except it will be a streak o f

blood from the shard o f glass that cuts both ways, and I will

find one and he will bleed. I’ve got this living brain but my

body’s dead, w on’t move, it’s inert, paralyzed, couldn’t move

to save me or her but once I can move I will begin the search, I

will find her, my dog; without her, there’s no love. It’s as if I

drank some poison that’s killed my muscles so they can’t

m ove and time’s going by and I’m counting it, the minutes,

and I’m waiting, and m y heart is filling up with pain, suffering

is coming upon me; and remorse; because I did it, this awful

thing that made this awful loss. Then they’re there, him and

her, and she’s laughing and playing with her leash and he’s

smiling and happy and I’m thinking he’s beautiful, inside too,

in spirit, and I am near dying to touch him, I want to make real

love, arduous, infatuated love touched by his grace, and I’m

wondering what he will be like, naked and fine, intense, first

slow, now; and I reach for him and he pulls me up so I’m on

m y knees in front o f him and he’s standing on the mattress and

he takes his cock out and I’m thinking I’ll hold it and he wants

it in m y mouth and I’m thinking I will kiss it and lick it and

hold it in m y mouth and undress him as I do it and I’m

thinking how happy and fine this will be, slow, how stopped

in time and tender, he holds m y head still by m y hair and he

pushes his cock to the bottom o f m y throat, rams it in, past m y

throat, under it, deeper than the bottom, I feel this fracturing

pain as if m y neck shattered from inside and m y muscles were

torn apart ragged and fast, an explosion that ripped them like a

bomb went o ff or someone pushed a fist down m y throat but

fast, just rammed it down, and I feel surprise, this one second

o f complete surprise in which, without words, I want to know

the meaning o f this, his intention; there’s one second o f

awesome, shocking surprise and then I go under, it’s black,

there’s nothing, coma, death, complete black under the

ground or past life altogether in a region o f nothing without

shadows o f life or m em ory or dreams or fear or time, there’s

nothing, it’s perfect, cold, absolute nothing. When I wake up I

think I am dead. I begin to see the walls, barely, I barely see

them, and I see I’m in a room like the room I was in when I was

alive and I think this is what death is like, the same but yo u ’re

dead, the same but you stay here forever alone, the same walls

but you barely see them and the same place where you died,

the same body, but it’s not real, it’s not alive, it doesn’t feel

real, it’s cold and shadowy and yo u ’re there alone for all the

rest o f time cut o ff from the living and it’s empty, your d o g’s

not here in the room in death, in the cold, shaky, shadowy

room, it’s an imitation in shadows o f where you were but it’s

em pty o f her and you will be here alone forever, lonely for her,

there’s no puppies with the dead, no solace; you wake up and

you know yo u ’re dead; and alone. O nly m y eyes m ove but

they barely see, the walls look the same but I barely see them;

tim e’s nothing here; it stands still; it’s not changing, never;

yo u ’re like a m um m y but with m oving eyes scanning the

shadowy walls, but barely seeing them; and then the pain

comes; the astonishing pain, like someone skinned the inside

o f your throat, took a knife and lifted the skin o ff inside so it’s

raw, all blood, all torn, the muscles are ripped open, ragged,

stretched and pulled, you’re all ripped up inside as if you had

been torn apart inside and under your throat there’s a deep pain

as if it’s been deep cut, deep sliced, as if there’s some deadly

sickness down there, a contagion o f long-suffering death, an

awful illness, a soreness that verges on having all the nerves in

your body up under your throat and someone’s crushed

broken glass into them and there’s a physical anguish as if

someone poured gasoline down your throat and lit it; an

eternal fire; deep fire; deep pain. I felt the pain, and as the pain

got sharper and deeper and stronger and meaner, the walls got

clearer, I saw them clearer and they stayed still, and as the pain

got worse, crueler, I could feel the bed under me and m y old

drunk body and I figured out that I was probably alive and

time had passed and I must o f been out, in a coma,

unconscious, suspended in nothing except whatever’s cold

and black past actual life, and I couldn’t move and I wanted my

dog but I couldn’t call out for her or make any sound, even a

rasping sound, and I couldn’t raise m yself up to see where she

was although in m y mind I could see her all curled up in her

corner o f the room at the foot o f the mattress, being good,

being quiet, how she curled her head around to her tail and the

sweet, sad look on her face, how she’d just sit thinking with

her sweet, melancholy look and I hoped she’d come and lick

me and I wondered if she needed to be walked again yet but if

she did she’d be around me and I’d manage it, I swear I would,

and I wondered if she was hungry yet and I made a promise in

m y heart never to put her in danger with a stranger again, with

an unknown person, never to take a chance with her again, I

couldn’t understand what kind o f a man it was because it

wasn’t on m y map o f the world and I ain’t got a child’s map, did

he like it, to ram it down to kill me, a half second brutality o f

something o ff the map that didn’t even exist anywhere even

between men and wom en or with Nazis; and I don’t know if

he did other things, I can’t feel nothing or smell nothing, he

could have done anything, I don’t feel nothing near m y

vagina, I try to feel with m y fingers, if it’s wet, if it’s dirty, i f it

hurts, but everything’s numb except m y throat, the hurt o f it,

I’m thinking he could have done anything, fucked me or

masturbated on me or peed on me, I w ouldn’t know , I’m

feeling for semen or wet places with m y fingers but I can’t

m ove because m y throat can’t m ove or the pain implodes,

there can’t be a single tremor even, I can’t lift m yself up and I

know I’ll never know and I push it out o f m y mind, that I will

never know; I push it out and I am pulled under by the pain

because m y throat’s crushed into broken bits and it’s lit with

kerosene and the fire’s spreading up m y neck to m y brain, a

spreading field o f fire going up into m y cranial cavity and it’s

real fire, and probably the pain’s seeping out onto the floor and

spreading, it’s red and bloody or it’s orange and hot; penis

smashed me up; I fall back into the cold, black nothing,

grateful; and later I wake up, it’s night but I don’t know o f

what day except m y dog would’ve come by me, I’d remember

her by me, but I wake up and it’s hollow, m y life’s hollow, I

got an em pty life, I’m alive and it’s empty, she’s gone, I raise

m yself up on m y elbow and I look, I keep looking, there’s a

desolation beyond the burdens o f history, a sadness deeper

than any shame. I’ll take the physical pain, Lord, I deserve it,

double it, triple it, make it more, but bring her back, don’t let

him hurt her, don’t make her gone. I look, I keep looking, I

keep expecting her, that she will be there if I look hard enough

or God will hear me and the boy will walk through the door

saying he ju st walked her and I pray to just let him bring her

back, ju st let him walk in the door; ju st this; days could go by

and I w ouldn’t know ; he’ll be innocent in m y eyes, I swear. I

hallucinate her and I think she’s with me and I reach out and

she’s not real and then I fall back into the deep blackness and

when I wake up I look for her, I wait for her; I’m waiting for

her now. M y throat’s like some small animal nearly killed,

maimed for religious slaughter, a small, nearly killed beast, a

poor warm-blooded thing hurt by some ritual but I never

heard o f the religion, there’s deep sacrifice, deep pain. I can’t

move because the poor thing’d shake near to torture; it’s got to

stay still, the maimed thing. I couldn’t shout and I couldn’t cry

and I couldn’t whisper or moan or call her name, in sighs, I

couldn’t whisper to m yself in sighs. I couldn’t swallow or

breathe. I sat still in m y own shit for some long time, many,

many days, some months o f days, and I rocked, I rocked back

and forth on m y heels, I rocked and I held m yself in m y arms, I

didn’t move more than to rock and I didn’t wash and I didn’t

say nothing. I swallowed down some water as I could stand it,

I breathed when I could, not too much, not too soon, not too

hard. If he put semen on me it’s still there, I wear it, whatever

he did, if he did it I carry it whatever it is, I don’t know, I w on’t

ever know, whatever he did stays done, anything he tore stays

torn, anything he took stays gone. I look for her; I scan the

walls; I stare; I see; I know; I will make m yself into a weapon; I

will turn m yself into a new kind o f death, for them; I got a new

revolutionary love filling my heart; the real passion; the real

thing. Che didn’t know nothing, he was ruling class. Huey killed

a girl, a young prostitute, seventeen; he was pimping but she

wasn’t one o f his. He was cruising, slow, in a car. Baby, she

called out, baby, oh babe. He shot her; no one calls me baby. She

said baby; he said cunt. Some o f them whisper, a term o f

endearment; some o f them shout. There’s gestures more

eloquent than words. She said something, he said something,

she died. Sister child, lost heart, poor girl, I’ll avenge you, sister

o f m y heart. Did it hurt or was death the easy part? I don’t know

what m y one did, except for taking her; but it don’t matter,

really, does it? N ot what; nor why; nor who; nor how.

T E N

April 30, 1974

(Age 27)

Ma. Ssa. Da. Ma. Ssa. Da. Ma. Ssa. Da. Hear m y heart beat.

Massada. I was born there and I died there. There was time;

seventy years. The Je w s were there, the last ones, the last free

ones, seventy years. The zealots, they were called; m y folks,

m y tribe; how I love them in m y heart. N ever give in. N ever

surrender. Slavery is obscene. Die first. B y your ow n hand; if

that’s what it takes; rather than be conquered; die free. N o

shame for the women, they used to say; conquered women;

shame. Massada. I used to see this picture in m y mind, a

wom an on a rock. I wrote about her all the time. Every time I

tried to write a story I wrote there is a woman on a rock, even

in the eighth grade, there’s a woman, a strong woman, a fierce

wom an, on a rock. I didn’t know what happened in the story. I

couldn’t think o f a plot. I just saw her. She was proud. She was

strong. She was wild by our standards or so it seemed, as if

there was no other word; but she didn’t seem wild; because she

was calm; upright; with square shoulders, muscled; her eyes

were big and fearless and looked straight ahead; not like

wom en today, looking down. She was ancient, from an old

time, simple and stark, dirty and dark, austere, a proud,

unconquerable wom an on a rock. The rock towers. The rock

is barren; nothing grow s, nothing erodes, nothing changes; it

is hard and old and massive. The rock is vast. The rock is

majestic, high and bare and alone; so alone the sun nearly

weeps for it; isolated from man and God; unbreachable; a

towering wall o f bare rock, alone in a desert where the sun

makes the sand bleed. The sun is hot, pure, unmediated by

clouds or sky, a white sun; blinding white; no yellow; there’s a

naked rock under a steaming, naked sun, surrounded by

molten, naked sand. It’s a rock made to outlast the desert, a

bare and brazen rock; and the Dead Sea spreads out near it,

below it, touching the edge o f the desert that touches the edge

o f the rock. Dead rock; dead water; a hard land; for a hard

people; God kept killing us, o f course, to make us hard

enough; genocide and slavery and rape were paternal kindnesses designed to build character, to rip pity out o f you, to destroy sentimentality, your heart will be as barren as this rock

when I’m done with you, He said; stern Father, a nasty

Daddy, He made history an incest on His children, slow,

continuous, generation after generation, a sadistic pedagogy,

love and pain, what recourse does a child have? He loves you

with pain, by inflicting it on you, a slow, ardent lover, and you

love back with suffering because you are helpless and human,

an imprisoned child o f Him caged in the world o f His making;

it’s a worshipful response, filled with awe and fear and dread,

bewildered, w hy me, w hy now, w hy this, w hy aren’t Y ou

merciful, w hy aren’t Y ou kind; and because it’s all there is, this

love o f His, it’s the only love He made, the only love He lets us

know, ignorant children shut up in D addy’s house, we yearn

for Him and adore Him and wait for Him, awake, afraid,

shivering; we submit to Him, part fear, part infatuation,

helpless against Him, and we thank Him for the punishment

and the pain and say how it shows He loves us, we say Daddy,

Daddy, please, begging Him to stop but He takes it as

seduction, it eggs Him on, He sticks it in; please, Daddy. He

didn’t rest on the seventh day but He didn’t write it down

either, He made love, annihilation is how I will love them.

Y ou might say He had this thought. It was outside the plan.

The six days were the plan. On the seventh He stretched

H im self out to take a big snooze and a picture flashed through

His mind, a dirty picture, annihilation is how I will love them,

and it made everything w ork, it made everything hang

together: everything moved. It was like putting the tide in the

ocean. Instead o f a stagnant mass, a big puddle, there was this

monstrous, ruthless thing gliding backwards and forwards at

the same time and underneath the planet broke, there were

fissures and hurricanes and tornadoes and storms o f wind,

great, carnivorous storms; everything moved; moved and

died; moved, killed, and died. On the seventh day He made

love; annihilation is how I will love them; it was perfect and

Creation came alive animated by the nightmare o f His perfect

love; and He loved us best; o f all His children, we were the

chosen; D addy liked fucking us best. That Christ boy found

out; where are Y ou , w hy have Y o u forsaken me; common

questions asked by all the fucked children loved to death by

Daddy. At Massada we already knew what He wanted and

how He wanted it, He gloried in blood. We were His perfect

children; we made our hearts as bare and hard and empty as the

rock itself; good students, emblematic Jew s; pride was

prophecy. N early two thousand years later w e’d take Palestine

back, our hearts burned bare, a collective heart chastened by

the fire o f the crematoria; empty, hard. Pride, the euphemism

for the emotions that drove us to kill ourselves in a mass

suicide at Massada, the nationalist euphemism, was simple

obedience. We knew the meaning o f the H oly Books, the

stories o f His love, the narrative details o f His omnipresent

embrace; His wrath, orgasmic, a graphic, calculating

treachery. Freedom meant escape from Him; bolting into

death; a desperate, determined run from His tormenting love;

the Romans were His surrogates, the agents o f slavery and

rape, puppets on the divine string. It was the play within the

play; they too suffered; He loved them too; they too were

children o f God; He toyed with them too; but we were

D addy’s favorite girl. We had the holy scrolls; and a

synagogue that faced towards Jerusalem, His city, cruel as is

befitting; perpetual murder, as is befitting. The suicide at

Massada was us, His best children, formed by His perfect

love, surrendering: to Him. Annihilation is how I will love

them; He loved loving; the freedom for us was the end o f the

affair, finally dead. Yeah, we defied the Romans, a righteous

suicide it seemed; but that was barely the point; we weren’t

prepared to have them on top, we belonged to Him.

Everything was hidden under the floor o f a cell that we had

sealed off; to protect the holy scrolls from Roman desecration;

to protect the synagogue from Roman desecration; we kept

His artifacts pure and hidden, the signs and symbols o f His

love; we died, staying faithful; only Daddy gets to hurt us bad;

only Daddy gets to put His thing there. First we burned

everything we had, food, clothes, everything; we gathered it

all and we burned it. Then ten men were picked by lot and they

slit the throats o f everyone else. Then one man was chosen by

lot and he slit the throats o f the other nine, then his own. I have

no doubt that he did. There were nearly a thousand o f us; nine

hundred and sixty; men, women, children; proud; obedient to

God. There was discipline and calm, a sadness, a quiet

patience, a tense but quiet waiting for slaughter, like at night,

how a child stays awake, waiting, there is a stunning courage,

she does not run, she does not die o f fear. Some were afraid

and they were held down and forced, o f course; it had to be. It

was by family, mostly. A husband lay with his wife and

children, restrained them, their throats were slit first, then his,

he held them down, tenderly or not, and then he bared his

throat, deluded, thinking it was manly, and there was blood,

the w ay God likes it. There were some w idow s, some

orphans, some lone folks you didn’t especially notice on a

regular day; but that night they stood out; the men with the

swords did them first. It took a long time, it’s hard to kill nearly

a thousand people one by one, by hand, and they had to hurry

because it had to be done before dawn, you can do anything in

the dark but dawn comes and it’s hard to look at love in the

light. We loved God and we loved freedom, we were all G o d ’s

girls you might say and freedom, then as now, was in getting

sliced; a perfect penetration, then death; a voluptuous compliance, blood, death. I f yo u ’re G o d ’s girl you do it the w ay He likes it and H e’s got special tastes; the naked throat and the

thing that tears it open, He likes one clean cut, a sharp, clean

blade; you lay yourself down and the blade cuts into you and

there’s blood and pain; and the eyes, there’s a naked terror in

the eyes and death freezes it there, yo u ’ve seen the eyes. The

blood is warm and it spreads down over you and you feel its

heat, you feel the heat spreading. Freedom isn’t abstract, an

idea, it’s concrete, in life, a sliced throat, a clean blade,

freedom now. G o d ’s girl surrenders and finds freedom where

the men always bragged it was; in blood and death; only they

didn’t expect it to be this w ay, them on their backs too, supine,

girlish; G o d ’s the man here. There’s an esthetic to it too, o f

course: the bodies in voluntary repose, waiting; the big knife,

slicing; the rich, textured beauty o f the anguish against the

amorphous simplicity o f the blood; the emotions disciplined

to submission as murder comes nearer, the blood o f someone

covers your arm or your shoulder or your hand and the glint o f

the blade passes in front o f your eyes and you push your head

back to bare your throat, slow ly so that you will live longer

but it looks sensual and lewd and filled with longing, and he

cuts and you feel the heat spreading, your body cools fast,

before you die, and you feel the heat o f your own blood

spreading. Was Sade God? M aybe I was just seventy; I was

born on the rock but the adults who raised me were new to it

and awkward, not native to the rock, still with roots down

below, on softer ground; I died there, a tough one, old, tough

skin from the awful sun, thick and leathery, with deep furrow s

like dried up streams going up my legs and up my arms and

creasing m y face, scarified you might say from the sun eating

up m y skin, cutting into it with white hot light, ritual scars or a

surgeon’s knife, terrible, deep rivers in my skin, dried out

rivers; and maybe I’d had all the men, religion notwithstanding, men are always the same, filled with God and Law but still

sticking it in so long as it’s dark and fast; no place on earth

darker than Massada at night; no boys on earth faster than the

Jew s; nice boys they were, too, scholars with the hearts o f

assassins. Beware o f religious scholars who learn to fight.

T h ey’ve been studying the morals o f a genocidal God. Shrewd

and ruthless, smart and cruel, they will win; tell me, did

Massada ever die and where are the Romans now; profiles on

coins in museums. A scholar who kills considers the long

view; will the dead survive in every tear the living shed? A

scholar knows how it will look in writing; beyond the death

count o f the moment. Regular soldiers who fight to kill don’t

stand a chance. The corpses o f all sides get maggots and turn to

dust; but some stories live forever, pristine, in the hidden

heart. They prayed, the Jew ish boys, they made forays down

the rock to fight the Romans until the military strength o f the

Romans around the rock was unassailable, they took a little

extra on the side when they could get it, like all men. I

probably had m y eye on the younger ones, twenty, virile,

new, they had no m emory o f being Jew s down on the low

ground, they had only this austere existence, they were born

here o f parents who were born here o f parents who either were

born here or came here young and lived their adult years on

this rock. Sometimes Jew s escaped the Romans and got here,

made it to the top; but they didn’t bring profane ideas; they

stripped themselves o f the foreign culture, the habits o f the

invaders; they told us stories o f Roman barbarism, which

convinced us even more; down below the Romans were pigs

rolling in shit, above we were the people o f God. N o one here

doubted it, especially not the young men; they were pure,

glow ing, vibrant animals lit up by a nationalism that enhanced

their physical beauty, it was a single-minded strength. There

were no distracting, tantalizing memories o f before, below.

We lived without the tumult o f social heterodoxy, there was

no cultural relativism as it were. The young men were hard,

cold animals, full o f self-referential pride; they had no

ambivalence, no doubt; they had true grit and were incapable

o f remorse; they lived in a small, contained world, geographically limited, flat, all the same, barren, culturally

dogmatic, they had a few facts, they learned dogma by rote, it

was a closed system, they had no need for introspection, there

were no moral dilemmas that confronted them, troubled

them, pulled them apart inside; they were strong, they fought,

they prayed but it was a form o f nationalism, they learned

racial pride, they had the thighs o f warriors, not scholars, and

they used them on women, not Romans, it was the common

kind o f killing, man on girl, as i f by being Jew s alone on this

desolate rock, isolated here, they were, finally, like everyone

else, all the other men, ordinary, like Romans, for instance;

making war on us, brutal and quick if not violent, but they

beat women too, the truth, finally, they did. The sacred was

remote from them except as a source o f national pride; pure

Je w s on a purely Jew ish rock they had a pure God o f the Jew s,

His laws, H oly Books, the artifacts o f a pure and superior

nation. The rock was barren and empty and soon it would be a

cemetery and the bloodletting would become a story; nearly

fiction, nearly a lie; abridged, condensed, cleaned up; as if

killing nine hundred and sixty people, men, women, and

children, by slicing their throats was an easy thing, neat and

clean, simple and quiet; as if there was no sex in it and no

meanness; as if no one was forced, held down, shut up; well,

frankly, murdered; as i f no one was murdered; as if it was

noble and perfect, a bloodless death, a murderless murder, a

mass suicide with universal consent, except for the women

and the children; except for them. Y ou get sad, if you

understand. The men were purely male, noble and perfect, in

behalf o f all the Jew s; the young ones especially, strong

animals, real men, prideful men, physically perfect specimens

dark and icy with glistening thighs, ideologically pure,

racially proud, idealists with racial pride; pure, perfect,

uncorrupted nationalists; beautiful fascists; cold killing boys;

until God, ever wise, ever vicious, turned them into girls. I

was probably an old woman making a fool o f herself with

memories and desires, all the natural grace and learned artifice

o f young women burned away by wear and tear and the awful,

hot sun. Still, sometimes you’d like to feel one o f the young

ones against you, a last time, one last time; nasty, brutish,

short. It’s a dumb nostalgia. They never were very good, not

the fathers, not the sons. O r maybe I was some sentimental old

fool w h o ’d always been a faithful wife, except once, I was

lonely and he was urgent, and I had a dozen grandchildren so

this rock knew m y blood already, I had labored here, and now

I sat, old, under the sun, and m y brain got heated with

foresight and grief and I saw them as they soon would be,

corpses with their throats slit, and maybe I howled in pain, an

animal sound, or I denounced them in real words, and the

young men said she’s an old fool, she’s an old idiot, she’s

loony, ignore her, it’s nonsense, and I tried to tell the girls and

the children how they’d be killed soon, with the awful slice

across the throat; these are fanatic boys, I said, driven by an

idea, I said, it is murder, not suicide, what they will do to you;

and they asked if it was the will o f God and o f course now I see

w hy you must lie but I said yes, it’s His will, always, that we

should suffer and die, the will o f God is wrong, I said, we have

to defy the will o f God, we have to defy the Romans and the

Je w s and the will o f God, we have to find a w ay to live, us, you

see, us; she’s loony, they said; you’ll be stretched out, I said,

beautiful and young, too soon, dressed and ornamented, and

your throats will be naked as if your husbands are going to use

your mouths but it will be a sword this time, a real one, not his

obscene bragging, one clean cut, and there will be blood, the

w ay God likes. I didn’t want to see the children die and I was

tired o f God. Enough, I said to Him; enough. I didn’t want to

see the wom en die either, the girls who came after me, you get

old and you see them different, you see how sad their

obedience is, how pitiful; you see them whole and human,

how they could be; you see them chipped aw ay at, broken bit

by bit, slowed down, constrained; tamed; docile; bearing the

weight o f invisible chains; you see it is terrible that they obey

these men, love these men, serve these men, who, like their

God, ruin whatever they touch; don’t believe, I say, don’t

obey, don’t love, let him put the sword in your hand, little

sister, let Him put the sword in your hand; then see. Let him

bare his throat to you; then see. The day before it happened I

quieted down, I didn’t howl, I didn’t rant or rave, I didn’t

want them to lock me up, I wanted to stay out on the rock,

under the hot sun, the hot, white sun; m y companion, the

burning sun. I was an old woman, wild, tough, proud, strong,

illiterate, ah, yes, the people o f the Book, except for the

women and girls, God says it’s forbidden for us, the Book,

illiterate but I wanted to write it down today, quiet, in silence,

not to have to howl but to curl up and make the signs on the

page, to say this is what I know, this is what has happened

here, but I couldn’t write, or read; I was an old woman, tough,

proud, strong, fierce, quiet now as if dumb, a thick quiet, an

intense, disciplined quiet; I was an old woman, wild, tough,

proud, with square shoulders muscled from carrying, from

hard labor, sitting on a rock, a hard, barren rock, a terrible

rock; there was a wom an sitting on a rock, she was strong, she

was fierce, she was wild, she wasn’t afraid, she looked straight

ahead, not down like wom en now , she was dark and dirty,

maybe mad, maybe just old, near naked with rags covering

her, her hair was long and shining and dirty, a gleaming silver

under the hot, white sun; but wild is perhaps not the right

word because she was calm, upright, quiet, in intentional

solitude, her eyes were big and fearless and she faced the world

head-on not averting her eyes the w ay women do now; she

could see; she didn’t turn her eyes away. She was sitting on a

hard, barren rock under a hot, white sun, and then the sun

went down, got lower in the sky, lower and lower yet, a little

lower; the sun got lower and the light got paler, then duller;

the sun got low and she took a piece o f rock, a sharp piece o f

rock, and she cut her throat; I cut my throat. N o Romans; no

fascist Jew ish boys however splendid their thighs or pristine

their ideals; no. Mine was a righteous suicide; a political refusal

to sanction the current order; to say black was white. Theirs

was mass murder. A child can’t commit suicide. You have to

murder a child. I couldn’t watch the children killed; I couldn’t

watch the women taken one last time; throats bared; heads

thrown back, or pushed back, or pulled back; a man gets on

top, who knows what happens next, any time can be the last

time, slow murder or fast, slow rape or fast, eventual death, a

surprise or you are waiting with a welcome, an open

invitation; rape leading, inexorably, to death; on a bare rock,

invasion, blood, and death. Massada; hear my heart beat; hear

me; the women and children were murdered, except me, I was

not, when you say Massada you say m y name, I discovered

pride there, I outlined freedom, out from under, Him and him

and him; let him put the sword in your hand, little sister, then

see; don’t love them; don’t obey. It wasn’t delirium; or fear; I

saw freedom. Does Massada thrill you, do you weep with

pride and sorrow for the honor o f the heroes, the so-called

suicides? Then you weep for me, I make you proud, the

woman on the rock; a pioneer o f freedom; a beginning; for

those who had no say but their throats were ripped open; for

the illiterate in invisible chains; a righteous suicide; a resistance

suicide; mad woman; mad-dog suicide; this girl here’s got a

ripped throat, Andrea, the zealot, freedom is the theory,

suicide the practice; m y story begins at Massada, I begin there,

I see a woman on a rock and I was born in blood, the blood

from her throat carried by time; I was born in blood, the slit

between the legs, the one God did H im self so it bleeds forever,

one clean cut, a perfect penetration, the m emory o f Massada

marked on me, my covenant with her; God sliced me, a

perfect penetration, then left me like carrion for the others, the

ones He made like Him, in His own image as they always say,

as they claim with pride, or vanity I would say, or greed; pride

is me, deciding at Massada, not Him or him or him. Y o u ’re

born in blood, washed in it, you swim out in it, immersed in

it, it’s your first skin, warm , hot on fragile, wrinkled,

discolored flesh; w e’re born to bleed, the ones He sliced

Himself; when the boys come out, the toy boys, tiny figurines

made like Him, He has it done to them, sym bolically, the

penis is sliced so they’re girls to Him; and the toy b o y’ll grow

up pushing the cut thing in girls who are born cut open big,

he’ll need to stick it in and stick it in and stick it in, he doesn’t

like being one o f G o d ’s girls even a little; and it’s a m em ory,

isn’t it, you were girls to M e at Massada; a humiliation; think

o f the last ten, nine o f them on their big knees, throats bared,

one slice, the tenth sticks it up himself, there’s a woman I saw

in a porn magazine, she did that to herself, she smiled; did

number ten, the big hero, smile, a coy look at God, heavy

mascara around the eyes, a wide smile, the sword going in and

som ehow he fingers his crotch at the same time? The

Christians w ouldn’t stand for it; they said C hrist’s the last one,

he died for us so we don’t need to be cut but God wants them

sliced and they know it so they do it for health or sanitation as

if it’s secular garbage removal but in their hearts they know ,

God wants them cut, you don’t get aw ay with not being a girl

for Him except you w on’t be His favorite girl. They take it out

on us, all o f them, sliced or threatened, sliced or evading it,

enlisted or the equivalent o f draft dodgers; manly men;

fucking the hole God already made; He was there first; there

are no virgin girls; the toy boys always get used goods. Their

thing, little next to His, aspires to omnipresence; and Daddy

watches; a perpetual pornography; blood-and-guts scenes o f

pushing and hitting and humiliation, the girl on the bed, the

girl on the floor, the girl in the kitchen, the girl in the car, the

girl down by the river, the girl in the woods, the girls in cities

and towns, prairies and deserts, mountains and plains, all

colors, a rainbow o f suffering, rich and poor, sick and well,

young and old, infants even, a man sticks it in the mouths o f

infants, I know such a man; oh, he’s real; an uncle o f mine; an

adult; look up to him, listen to him, obey him, love him, he’s

your uncle; he was born in Camden but he left, smart, a big

man, he got rich and prominent, an outstanding citizen; five

infants, in the throat, men like the throat, his own children, it

was a daddy’s love, he did that, a loving daddy in the dark, and

God watched, they like the throat, the smooth cavity o f an

infant’s mouth and the tiny throat, a tight passage, men like it

tight, so tiny; and the suction, because an infant sucks, it pulls

and it sucks, it wants food but this food’s too big, too

monstrous, it sucks, it pulls it in, and daddy says to him self it

wouldn’t suck if it didn’t like it; and Daddy watches; and the

infant gags, and the infant retches, and the infant chokes; and

daddy comes; and Daddy comes; the child vomits, chokes,

panics, can’t breathe, forever, a lifetime on the verge o f

suffocation. I don’t have much o f a family, I prefer the streets

frankly to various pieties but sometimes there are these shrieks

in the night, a child quaking from a crime against humanity,

and she calls out, sister she says, he sliced m y throat with a

sword, I remember it but I don’t, it happened but it didn’t, he’s

there in the dark all the time, watching, waiting, he’s a ghost

but he isn’t, it’s a secret but w hy doesn’t everyone know? H ow

does an infant get out from under, Him and him; him; oh, he

does it for a long time, it begins in the crib, then she crawls, a

baby girl and all the relatives go ooh and ah and the proud papa

beams, every night, for years, until the next one is born, two

years, three years, four years, he abandons the child for the

next infant, he likes infants, tiny throat, tight suction,

helpless, tiny, cute thing that seems to spasm whole, you

know how infants crinkle all up, their tiny arms and their tiny

legs, they just all bunch up, one m oving sex part in spasm with

a tight, smooth, warm cavity for his penis, it’s a tiny throat,

and the infant sucks hard, pulls the thing in. Years later there

are small suicides, a long, desperate series o f small suicides,

she’s empty inside except for shadows and dread, sick with

debilitating illnesses, no one knows the cause or the cure, she

chokes, she gags, she vom its, she can’t sw allow; there’s

asthma, anxiety, the nights are saturated with a menace that

feels real, specific, concrete, but you can’t find it when you

turn on the light; and eventually, one day or some day, none o f

us can sw allow ; we choke; we gag; we can’t stop them; they

get in the throat, deep enough in, artists o f torment; a manly

invasion; taking a part God didn’t use first. If yo u ’re adult

before they rape you there yo u ’ve got all the luck; all the luck

there is. The infants; are haunted; by familiar rapists; someone

close; someone known; but who; and there’s the disquieting

certainty that one loves him; loves him. There are these

wom en— such fine women— such beautiful women— smart

women, fine women, quiet, compassionate wom en— and

they want to die; all their lives they have wanted to die; death

would solve it; numb the pain that comes from nowhere but

somewhere; they live in rooms; haunted; by a familiar rapist;

they whisper daddy; daddy, daddy, please; asleep or awake

they want to die, there’s a rapist in the room, the figure o f a

man invading, spectral, supernatural, real but not real, present

but not there; he’s invading; he’s a crushing, smothering

adversary; it’s some fucking middle-class bedroom in some

fucking suburb, there aren’t invading armies here but there’s

invasion, a man advancing on sleeping children, his own;

annihilation is how I will love them; they die in pieces inside;

usually their bodies survive; not always, o f course; you want

God to help them but God w on’t help them, He’s on the other

side; there are sides; the suicides are long and slow, not

righteous, not mass but so lonely, so alone; could we gather up

all the women who were the little girls who were the infants

and say do it now, end it now, one time, here; say it was you;

say it happened to you; name names; say his name; we will

have a Massada for girls, a righteous mass suicide, we could

have it on any street corner, cement, bare, hard, empty; but

they’re alone, prisoners in the room with the rapist even after

he’s gone; five infants, uncle; it makes Auschwitz look small,

uncle; deep throat, my uncle invented deep throat, a fine,

upstanding man. I can do the arithmetic; five equals six

million; uncle pig; uncle good Jew ; uncle upstanding citizen;

uncle killer fucking pig; but we have a heroic tradition o f

slaughtering children in the throat; feel the pride. I’ll gather

them up and show you a righteous suicide; in Camden; home;

bare, hard, empty cement, hard, gray cement, cement spread

out like desert rock, cement under a darker sun, a brooding

sun, a bloody sun, covered over, burgundy melting, a wash o f

blood over it; even the sun can’t watch anymore. There were

brick houses the color o f blood; on hard, gray rock; we come

from there, uncle, you and I, you before me, the adult; you

raped your babies in pretty houses, rich rooms; escaped the

cement; they threw me down on the cement and took me from

behind; but I’ll bet you never touched a girl when you were a

homeboy, slob; too big for you, even then, near your own

size; w e’ll have Massada in Camden, a desolate city, empty

and bare and hard as a rock; and I will have the sword in m y

hand and I will kill you myself; you will get down on your big

knees and you will bare your throat and I will slice it; a suicide;

he killed himself, the w ay they did at Massada; only this time a

girl had the sword; and it was against God, not to placate Him.

Every bare, empty, hard place spawns a you, uncle, and a me;

homeboy, there’s me and you. The shit escaped; into death;

the shit ran away; died; escaped to the safe place for bandits,

the final hideaway where God the Father protects His gang;

they watch together now, Father and His boy, a prodigal son,

known in the world o f business for being inventive, a genius

o f sorts, known among infants as a genius; o f torment;

destruction; and I’m the avenging angel, they picked me, the

infants grew up and they picked me; they knew it would take a

Camden girl to beat a homeboy; you had to know the cement,

the bare, em pty rock; he was a skeleton when he died, illness

devoured him but it w asn’t enough, how could it be enough,

w hat’s enough for the Him mler o f the throat? I know how to

kill them; I think them dead for a long time; I make them waste

away; for a long time; I don’t have to touch them; I ju st have to

know who they are; uncle, the infants told me; I knew. I was

born in Camden in 1946 down the street from Walt Whitman,

an innocent boy, a dreamer, one o f G o d ’s sillier creatures, put

on earth as a diversion, a kind o f decoy, kind o f a lyrical phony

front in a covert war, a clever trick by rape’s best strategist, he

had G od-given talent for G od-given propaganda; the poet

says love; as command; the w ay others say sit to a dog; love,

children, love; or love children; the poet advocates universal

passion; as command; no limits; no rightful disdain; humanity

itself surges, there is a sweep o f humanity, we are waves o f

ecstasy, the common man, and woman, when he remembers

to add her; embrace the common man; we are a human fam ily

consecrated to love, each individual an imperial presence in the

climactic collective, a sovereign unto himself; touch each

other, without fear, and he, Walt, w ill touch everyone; every

one o f us; we all get loved by him, rolled up in him, rolled over

by him; his thighs embrace us; he births us and he fucks us, a

patriarch’s vision, we take him in our mouths, grateful; he

used words to paint great dreams, visionary wet dreams,

dem ocracy’s wet dreams; for the worker and the whore; each

and all loved by him; and in his stead, as he’s busy writing

poems, all these others, the common men, push it in and

come; I loved him, the words, the dreams; don’t believe them,

don’t love them, don’t obey the program written into the

poem, a series o f orders from the high commander o f pain;

bare the throat, spread the legs, suck the thing; only he was

shy, a nineteenth-century man, they didn’t say it outright

then; he said he wanted everyone, to have them, in the poems;

he wanted to stick it in everywhere; and be held too, the lover

who needs you, your compassion, a hint o f recognition from

you, a tenderness from your heart, personal and singular; the

pitiful readers celebrate the lyric and practice the program, the

underlying communication, the orders couched in language as

orgasmic as the acts he didn’t specifically say; he was lover,

demanding lover, and father; he spread his seed everywhere,

over continents; as i f his ejaculation were the essence o f love; as

i f he reproduced him self each time; with his hand he made

giants; as if we all were his creatures; as i f his sperm had

washed over the whole world and he begat us, and now he’d

take us; another maniac patriarch, a chip o ff the old block; the

epic drama o f a vast possession as i f it were an orgy o f

brotherly love, kind, tender, fraternite; as if taking everyone

were gentle, virile but magnanimous, a charity from body to

body, soul to soul; none were exempt, he was the poet o f

inclusion; you could learn there were no limits, though you

might not know the meaning until after they had touched you,

all o f them, his magnificent masses, each one; you could stay

as innocent, or nearly, as the great, gray poet himself, until

yo u ’d done the program; then you’d be garbage somewhere,

your body literal trash, without the dignity o f a body bag,

something thrown out, dumped somewhere, sticky from

sperm, ripped inside, a torn anus, vaginal bruises and tears, a

ripped throat; the tissue is torn; there’s trauma to the tissue,

says the doctor, detached, not particularly interested; but the

tissue is flesh, o f a human, and the trauma is injury, o f a

human, the delicate lining o f the vagina is flesh, the interior

lining o f the throat is flesh, not meant for invasion, assault;

flesh lines the anus; it’s already limned with cracks and

bleeding sores; mortal fools bleed there, we are dying all the

time; lo ve’s intense and there will be great, jagged rips, a

searing pain, it burns, it bleeds, there are fistfuls o f blood,

valleys o f injury too wide and too deep to heal, and the shit

comes out, like a child, bathed in blood, and there’s fire, the

penis pushed in hard all at once for the sake o f the pain, because

the lover, he likes it; annihilation is how I will love them.

Y o u ’ll just be loved to death, tears, like cuts, and tears, the

w atery things; it wasn’t called the C ivil War, or Vietnam; it

w asn’t a w ar poets decried in lyrics apocalyptic or austere,

they couldn’t ever see the death, or the wounded soldier, or

the evil o f invasion, a genocidal policy if I remember right, it’s

hard to remember; love’s celebrated; it’s party time; hang

them from the rafters, the loved ones, pieces o f meat, nice and

raw, after the dogs have had them, clawed them to pieces,

chewed on their bones; bloody, dirty pieces strung out on

street corners or locked up in the rapist’s house. One whole

human being was never lost in all o f history or all o f time; or

not so a poet could see it or use fine words to say it. Walt sings;

to cover up the crimes; say it’s love enough; enough. And art’s

an alibi; I didn’t do it, I’m an artist; or I did do it but it’s art,

because I’m an artist, we do art, not rape, I did it beautiful, I

arranged the pieces so esthetic, so divine; and them that love

art also did not do it; I support art. Walt could sing, all right;

obscuring a formal truth; as if a wom an had an analogous

throat; for song; then they stuff it down; sing then darling.

The poems were formal lies; lies o f form; bedrock lies; as if the

throat, pure but incarnate, was for singing in this universal

humanity we have here, this democracy o f love, for one and

all; but they stuff it down; then try singing; sing, Amerika,

sing. I saw this Lovelace girl. I’m walking in Times Square,

going through the trash cans for food; I roam now, every day,

all the time, days, nights, I don’t need sleep, I don’t ever sleep;

I’m there, digging through the slop for some edible things but

not vegetables because I never liked vegetables and there’s

standards you have to keep, as to your own particular tastes. I

am searching for my dog, my precious friend, on every city

street, in every alley, in every hole they got here where usually

there’s people, in every shooting gallery, in every pim p’s

hallway, in every abandoned building in this city, I am

searching, because she is my precious friend; but so far I have

not found her; it’s a quest I am on, like in fables and stories,

seeking her; and if m y heart is pure I will find her; I remember

Gawain and Galahad and I try to survive the many trials

necessary before finding her and I am hoping she wasn’t taken

to wicked, evil ones; that she’s protected by some good magic

so she w on ’t be hurt or malnourished or used bad, treated

mean, locked up or starved or kicked; I’m hoping there’s a

person, half magic, who will have regard for her; and after I’ve

done all the trials and tribulations she will come to me in a dark

wood. I’ve got pain, in m y throat, some boy tore it up, I rasp, I

barely talk, it’s an ugly sound, some boy killed it, as if it were

some small animal he had to maim to death, an enemy he had

to kill by a special method, you rip it up and it bleeds and the

small thing dies slow. It’s a small, tight passage, good for fun,

they like it because it’s tight, it hugs the penis, there’s no give,

the muscles don’t stretch, at some point the muscles tear, and

it must be spectacular, when they rip; then he’d come; then

he’d run. Y ou couldn’t push a baby through, like with the

vagina; though they’d probably think it’d be good for a laugh;

have some slasher do a cesarean; like with this Lovelace girl,

where they made a jo k e with her, as if the clit is in her throat

and they keep pushing penises in to find it so she can have an

orgasm; it’s for her, o f course; always for her; a joke; but a

friendly one; for her; so she can have a good time; I went in,

and I saw them ram it down; big men; banging; you know,

mean shoving; I don’t know w hy she ain’t dead. They kept her

smiling; i f it’s a film you have to smile; I wanted to see if it

hurt, like with me; she smiled; but with film they edit, you

know, like in H ollyw ood. She had black and blue marks all

over her legs and her thighs, big ones, and she smiled; I don’t

know w hy we always smile; I m yself smile; I can remember

smiling, like the smile on a skeleton; you don’t ever want them

to think they did nothing wrong so you smile or you don’t

want them to think there’s something w rong with you so you

smile, because there’s likely to be some kind o f pain coming

after you if there’s something w rong with you, they hit you to

make it right, or you want them to be pleased so you smile or

you want them to leave so you smile or you just are crapping

in your pants afraid so you smile and even after you shit from

fear you keep smiling; they film it, you smile. Sometimes a

man still offers me money, I laugh, a hoarse, ugly laugh, quite

mad, m y throat’s in ribbons, just hanging streaks o f meat, you

can feel it all loose, all cut loose or ripped loose in pieces as if

it’s kind o f like pieces o f steak cut to be sauteed but someone

forgot and left it out so there’s maggots on it and it’s green,

rotted out, all crawling. Some one o f them offers me money

and I make him sorry, I prefer the garbage in the trash cans,

frankly, it’s cleaner, this walking human stuff I don’t have no

room in m y heart for, they’re not hygenic. I’m old, pretty old,

I can’t take the chance o f getting cancer or something from

them; I think they give it to you with how they look at you; so

I hide the best I can, under newspapers or under coats or under

trash I pick up; m y hair’s silver, dirty; I remember when I was

different and these legs were silk; and m y breasts were silk; but

now there’s sores; and blood; and scars; and I’m green inside

sometimes, if I cut m yself something green comes out, as if

I’m getting green blood which I never heard o f before but they

keep things from you; it could be that if you get so many bad

cuts body and soul your blood changes; from scarlet to a dank

green, an awful green; some chartreuse, some Irish, but

mostly it is morbid, a rotting green; it’s a sad story as I am an

old-fashioned human being who had a few dreams; I liked

books and I would have enjoyed a cup o f coffee with Camus in

m y younger days, at a cafe in Paris, outside, w e’d watch the

people walk by, and I would have explained that his ideas

about suicide were in some sense naive, ahistorical, that no

philosopher could afford to ignore incest, or, as I would have

it, the story o f man, and remain credible; I wanted a pretty

whisper, by which I mean a lover’s whisper, by which I mean

that I could say sweet things in a man’s ear and he’d be thrilled

and kind, I’d whisper and it’d be like making love, an embrace

that would chill his blood and boil it, his skin’d be wild, all

nerves, all smitten, it’d be my mark on him, a gentle mark but

no one’d match it, just one whisper, the kind that makes you

shiver body and soul, and it’d just brush over his ear. I wanted

hips you could balance the weight o f the world on, and I’d

shake and it’d move; in Tanzania it’d rumble. I wanted some

words; o f beauty; o f power; o f truth; simple words; ones you

could write down; to say some things that happened, in a

simple way; but the words didn’t exist, and I couldn’t make

them up, or I wasn’t smart enough to find them, or the parts o f

them I had or I found got tangled up, because I couldn’t

remember, a lot disappeared, you’d figure it would be

impressed on you if it was bad enough or hard enough but if

there’s nothing but fire it’s hard to remember some particular

flame on some particular day; and I lived in fire, the element; a

Dresden, metaphysically speaking; a condition; a circum-

stance; in time, tangential to space; I stepped out, into fire. Fire

burns m em ory clean; or the heart; it burns the heart clean; or

there’s scorched earth, a dead geography, burned bare; I

stepped out, into fire, or its aftermath; burnt earth; a dry, hard

place. I was born in blood and I stepped out, into fire; and I

burned; a girl, burning; the flesh becomes translucent and the

bones show through the fire. The cement was hot, as if flames

grew in it, trees o f fire; it was hot where they threw you down;

hot and orange; how am I supposed to remember which flame,

on which day, or what his name was, or how he did it, or what

he said, or w hy, if I ever knew; I don’t remember knowing.

O r even if, at some point; really, even if. I lived in urban flame.

There was the flat earth, for us gray, hard, cement; and it

burned. I saw pictures o f woods in books; we had great flames

stretching up into the sky and swaying; m oving; dancing; the

heat melting the air; we had burning hearts and arid hearts;

girls’ bodies, burning; boys, hot, chasing us through the forest

o f flame, pushing us down; and we burned. Then there were

surreal flames, the ones we superimposed on reality, the

atomic flames on the way, coming soon, at a theater near you,

the dread fire that could never be put out once it was ignited; I

saw it, simple, in front o f m y eyes, there never was a chance, I

lived in the flames and the flames were a ghostly wash o f

orange and red, as i f an eternal fire mixed with blood were the

paint, and a great storm the brush. I lived in the ordinary fire,

whatever made them follow you and push you down, yo u ’d

feel the heat, searing, you didn’t need to see the flame, it was

more as if he had orange and burning hands a mile high; I

burned; the skin peeled off; it deformed you. The fire boils

you; you melt and blister; then I’d try to write it down, the

flames leaping o ff the cement, the embodiment o f the lover;

but I didn’t know what to call it; and it hurt; but past what they

will let you say; any o f them. I didn’t know what to call it, I

couldn’t find the words; and there were always adults saying

no, there is no fire, and no, there are no flames; and asking the

life-or-death question, you’re still a virgin, aren’t you; which

you would be forever, poor fool, in your pitiful pure heart.

Y ou couldn’t tell them about the flames that were lit on your

back by vandal lover boys, arsonists, while they held you

down; and there were other flames; the adults said not to

watch; but I watched; and the flames stayed with me, burning

in m y brain, a fire there, forever, I lived with the flames my

whole life; the Buddhist monks in Vietnam who burned

themselves alive; they set themselves on fire; to protest; they

were calm; they sat themselves down, calm; they were simple,

plain; they never showed any fear or hesitation; they were

solemn; they said a prayer; they had kerosene; then they were

lit; then they exploded; into flame; and they burned forever; in

my heart; forever; past what television could show; in its gray;

in its black and white and gray; the gray cement o f gray

Saigon; the gray robes o f a gray man, a Buddhist; the gray fire,

consuming him; I don’t need to close my eyes to see them; I

could reach out to touch them, without even closing my eyes;

the television went off, or the adults turned it off, but you

knew they were still burning, now, later, hours, days, the

ashes would smolder, the fire’d never go out, because if it has

happened it has happened; it has happened always and forever.

The gray fire would die down and the gray monk would be

charred and skeletal, dead, they’d remove him like so much

garbage, but the fire’d stay, low along the ground, the gray

fire would spread, low along the ground, in gray Saigon; in

gray Camden. The flames would stay low and gray and they

would burn; an eternal fire; its meaning entrusted to a child for

keeping. I think they stayed calm inside the fire; burning; I

think they stayed quiet; I mourned them; I grieved for them; I

felt some shadow o f the pain; maybe there was no calm;

maybe they shrieked; maybe it was an agony obscene even to

God; imagine. I’d go to school on just some regular day and

it’d happen; at night, on the news, they’d show it; the gray

picture; a Buddhist in flames; because he didn’t like the

government in Vietnam; because the United States was

hurting Vietnam; we tormented them. Y o u ’d see a plain street

in Saigon and suddenly a figure would ignite; a quiet, calm

figure, simple, in simple robes, rags almost; a plain, simple

man. It was a protest, a chosen immolation, a decision,

planned for; he burned him self to say there were no words; to

tell me there were no words; he wanted me to know that in

Vietnam there was an agony against which this agony, self-

immolation, was nothing, meaningless, minor; he wanted me

to know; and I know; he wanted me to remember; and I

remember. He wanted the flames to reach me; he wanted the

heat to graze me; he wanted this self-immolation, a pain past

words, to communicate: you devastate us here, a pain past

words. The Buddhists didn’t want to fight or to hurt someone

else; so they killed themselves; in w ays unbearable to watch; to

say that this was some small part o f the pain we caused, some

small measure o f the pain we made; an anguish to communicate anguish. Years later I was grow n, or nearly so, and there was Norm an M orrison, some man, a regular man, ordinary,

and he walked to the front o f the White House, as close as he

could get, a normal looking citizen, and he poured gasoline all

over him self and he lit it and the police couldn’t stop him or get

near him, he was a pillar o f fire, and he died, slow, in fire,

because the war was w rong and words weren’t helping, and he

said we have to show them so he showed them; he said this is

the anguish I will undergo to show you the anguish there,

there are no words, I can show you but I can’t tell you because

no words get through to you, yo u ’ve got a barricade against

feeling and I have to burn it down. I grew up, a stepdaughter

o f brazen protest, immense protest; each time I measured m y

ow n resistance against the burning man; I felt the anguish o f

Vietnam; sometimes the War couldn’t get out o f m y mind and

there was nothing between me and it; I felt it pure, the pain o f

them over there, how wronged they were; you see, we were

tormenting them. In the end it’s always simple; we were

tormenting them. Others cared too; as much as I did; we were

mad to stop it; the crime, as we called it; it was a crime.

Sometimes ordinary life was a buffer; you thought about

orangejuice or something; and then there’d be no buffer; there

was ju st the crime. The big protests were easy and lazy up

against Norm an Morrison and the Buddhist monks; I remember them, as a standard; suppose you really care; suppose the

truth o f it sits on your mind plain and bare; suppose you don’t

got no more lies between you and it; if a crime was big enough

and mean enough to hurt your heart you had to burn your

heart clean; I don’t remember being afraid to die; it just wasn’t

m y turn yet; it’s got your name on it, your turn, when it’s

right; you can see it writ in fire, private flames; and it calls, you

can hear it when you get up close; you see it and it’s yours.

There’s this Lovelace creature, they’re pissing on her or she’s

doing the pissing, you know how they have girls spread out in

the pictures outside the movies, one’s on her back and the

urine’s coming on her and the other’s standing, legs spread,

and she’s fingering her crotch and the urine’s coming from

her, as i f she’s ejaculating it, and the urine’s colored a bright

yellow as if someone poured yellow dye in it; and they’re

smiling; they’re both smiling; it’s girls touching each other, as

i f girls would do so, laughing, and she’s being peed on, one o f

them; and there’s her throat, thrown back, bared, he’s down

to the bottom, as far as he can go; i f he were bigger he’d be in

deeper; and she’s timid, shy, eager, laughing, grateful;

laughing and grateful; and moaning; you know, the porn

moan; nothing resembling human life; these stupid fake

noises, clown stuff, a sex circus o f sex clowns; he’s a freak, a

sinister freak; a monstrous asshole if not for how he subjugates

her, the smiling ninny down on her knees and after saying

thank you, as girls were born for, so they say. There’s this

Lovelace girl on the marquee; and even the junkies are

laughing, they think it’s so swell; and I think who is she,

w here’s she from, who hurt her, who hurt her to put her here;

because there’s a camera; because in all my life there never was

a camera and if there’s a camera there’s a plan; and if it’s here

it’s for money, like she’s some animal trained to do tricks;

when I see black men picking cotton on plantations I get that

somewhere there’s pain for them, I don’t have to see it, no one

has to show it to me for me to know it’s there; and when I see a

wom an under glass, I know the same, a sex animal trained for

sex tricks; and the camera’s ready; maybe M asta’s not in the

frame. Picking cotton’s good; you get strong; black and

strong; getting fucked in the throat’s good; you get fucked and

female; a double-female girl, with two vaginas, one on top.

M aybe her name’s Linda; hey, Linda. Cheri Tart ain’t Cheri

but maybe Linda’s Linda; how come all these assholes buy it,

as i f they ain’t looking at Lassie or Rin Tin Tin; it’s just, pardon

me, they’re dogs and she’s someone real; they’re H ollyw ood

stars too— she’s Tim es Square trash; there’s one o f them and

there’s so many thousands o f her you couldn’t tell them apart

even when they’re in separate coffins. There’s these girls here,

all behind glass; as if they’re insects you put under glass; you

put morphine to them to knock them out and you mount

them; these weird crawling things, under glass, on display;

Tim es Square’s a zoo, they got women like specimens under

glass; block by city block; cages assembled on cement; under a

darkening sky, the blood’s on it; wind sweeping the garbage

and it’s swirling like dust in a storm; and on display, lit by

neon, they have these creatures, so obscene they barely look

human at all, you never saw a person that looked like them,

including anyone beaten down, including street trash, including anyone raped however many times; because they’re all

painted up and polished as if you had an apple with m aggots

and worm s and someone dipped it in lacquer and said here it is,

beautiful, for you, to eat; it’s as i f their mouths were all swelled

up and as if they was purple between their legs and as if their

breasts were hot-air balloons, not flesh and blood, with skin,

with feeling to the touch, instead it’s a joke, some swollen

joke, a pasted-on gag, what’s so dirty to men about breasts so

they put tassles on them and have them swirl around in circles

and call them the ugliest names; as if they ain’t attached to

human beings; as if they’re party tricks or practical jokes or the

equivalent o f farts, big, vulgar farts; they make them always

deformed; as if there’s real people; citizens; men; with flat

chests, they look down, they see their shoes, a standard for

what a human being is; and there’s these blow-up dolls you

can do things to, they have funny humps on their chests, did

you ever see them swirl, the woman stands there like a dead

puppet, painted, and the balloon things spin. In m y heart I

think these awful painted things are women; like I am still in

m y heart; o f human kind; but the men make them like they’re

two-legged jackasses, astonishing freaks with iron poles up

the middle o f them and someone smeared them with paint,

some psychotic in the loony bin doing art class, and they got

glass eyes with someone’s fingerprints smeared on them; and

they’re all swollen up and hurt, as if they been pushed and

fucked, hit, or stood somewhere in a ring, a circus ring or a

boxing ring, and men just threw things at them, balls and bats

and stones, anything hard that would cause pain and leave

marks, or break bones; they’re swollen up in some places, the

bellies o f starving children but moved up to the breasts and

down to the buttocks, all hunger, water, air, distended; and

then there’s the thin parts, all starved, the bones show, the ribs

sometimes, iridescent skeletons, or the face is caved in under

the paint, the skin collapses because there is no food, only pills,

syringes, Demerol, cocaine, Percodan, heroin, morphine,

there’s hollow cheeks sunk in hollow faces and the w aist’s

hollow, shrinking down, tiny bones, chicken bones, dried up

wish bones; and they’re behind glass, displayed, exhibits,

sex-w om en you do it to, they’re all twisted and turned,

deformed, pulled and pushed in all the w rong directions, with

the front facing the back and the back facing the front so you

can see all her sex parts at once, her breasts and her ass and her

vagina, the lips o f her vagina, purple somehow; purple. The

neck’s elongated so you know they can take it there too.

T h ey’re like mules; they carry a pile o f men on top o f them.

T h ey’re like these used-up race horses, you give them lots o f

shots to make them run and if you look at the hide there’s

bound to be whip marks. There’s not one human gesture; not

one. There’s not one woman in the world likes to be hung or

shit on or have her breasts tied up so the rope cuts in and the

flesh bulges out, the rope’s tearing into her, it sinks, burning,

into the fleshy parts, under the rope it’s all cut up and burned

deep, and the tissue’s dying, being broke apart, thinned out

and ripped by pressure and pain. If I saw pictures like that o f a

black man I would cry out for his freedom; I can’t see how it’s

confusing i f you ain’t K . K . K. in which case it still ain’t

confusing; I’d know it was a lie on him; I’d stand on that street

corner forever screaming until m y fucking throat bled to death

from it; he’s not chattel, nor a slave, nor some crawling thing

you put under glass, nor subhuman, nor alien; I would spit on

them that put him there; and them that masturbated to it I

would pillory with stones until I was dragged away and locked

up or they was dead. I f they was lynching him I would feel the

pain; a human; they are destroying someone. And if they put a

knife in him, which I can see them doing, it ain’t beyond them

by no means, they w ouldn’t show him coming from it; and if

they urinated on him he w ouldn’t be smiling. I seen black men

debased in this city, I seen them covered in blood and filth, in

urine and shit, and I never saw one say cheese for a camera or

smiling like it was fun; I didn’t see no one taking sex pictures

either; I m yself do not go through garbage or live on cement to

have an orgasm; be your pet; or live on a leash; I ain’t painted

red or purple; I seen myself; how I was after; on the bed; hurt; I

seen it in m y brain; and I wasn’t no prize in human rights or no

exemplar o f human dignity I would say; as much as I tried in

m y life, I did not succeed. But wasn’t nobody put me under

glass and polished me all up as if I was a specimen o f some

fucked thing, some swollen, painted sex mule. This Linda

girl, with the throat, who tormented her? In the end, it’s

always simple. I paid the dollars to go; to the film; to see it; if it

was true; what they did to her throat; I figured the boy who

did it to me must o f got it from there; because, frankly, I know

the world A to Z ; and no one banged a w om an’s throat before

these current dark days. I smelled bad and I was past being a

whore and they didn’t want me to go in but I had the money

and I’m hard to move, because I’m more intransigent now; on

cement; hungry almost all the time; hates men; an old woman

nearly, hates men; and if you don’t have a soft spot for them,

you don’t have no soft spot. I wanted to see Linda; if she was a

creature or a person; I think they are all persons but you can’t

prove it, it’s a matter o f faith; I have this faith, but there’s no

proof. In the film she’s this nice girl who can’t have an orgasm

so they line up hundreds o f men to fuck her, all around the

block, and they just keep fucking her every which w ay to

Sunday to try to get her to have one and she’s bored which, on

the intellectual plane, would be true; but I fucked that many

men, it’s a w eek’s worth, not one afternoon as they show, and

no one gets an orgasm from such a line o f slime acting as men,

because it will tear you and bruise you inside as well as out and

you will hurt very bad, but she just smiles and acts disappointed; and there’s all this blah blah, talk with a supposed girlfriend, a hard-edged whore, by which I mean she been

used so much already there’s not too much left o f her and it

shows, how they’ve drained her away; and they talk about

how Linda can’t come; and the girlfriend puts a cigarette in her

own vagina and I wanted to reach into the film and take it out;

a burning cigarette in her vagina; but it was another joke; it

was all jokes; the men around the block; the vagina huffing and

puffing on the cigarette so smoke comes out; and the girl

Linda’s got big bruises all over her legs, real big bruises, high

and wide, master bruises, have to be from feet and fists, it ain’t

in the story, no one hit her in the legs in the story but someone

sure beat the hell out o f her all over her fucking legs; I see the

bruises; I feel the pain; I’ve taken such a beating; perhaps,

Linda, we could be friends, you and me, although I’m

unsavory now, perhaps you ain’t no creature at all, just a girl,

another girl, but they caught you and they put you under

glass, in the zoo, yo u ’re a girl they turned the camera on but

they had to beat you to pieces to do it; maybe yo u ’re just some

girl; and then there’s this doctor with a big cock w h o ’s pleased

with him self generally speaking and he finds out she’s got a

clitoris in her throat, the big joke, and that’s w hy she can’t

come from all these other sex acts so he fucks her in the throat

to cure her, he fucks her hard in the throat but slow so you can

see it, the whole distance in and out, the whole big thing, to

the bottom o f her throat; and she don’t seem ripped apart,

she’s smiling, she’s happy, shit, she’s conscious, she’s alive;

think o f it like an iron bar, a place in your throat where there’s

an iron bar, and if someone goes past it it don’t give, you

choke, you vom it, you can’t breathe, and if he goes past it with

a big penis he stretches muscles that can’t be stretched and he

pushes your throat out to where it can’t be pushed out, as if the

outsides tore open so there was holes so it could expand so the

penis could go through, yo u ’d rather have a surgeon drill holes

in the sides o f your throat than have him push it down, the

pain will push you down to hell, near death, to coma, to the

screamless scream, an agony, no voice, a ripped muscle,

shreds swim m ing in blood in your throat, thin ribbons o f

muscle soaking up blood. But Linda smiles, and the camera

doesn’t let up, and the penis is big, it comes out so we can see

how big it is in case we forgot and it goes down, her throat

stretches like a snake eating an alligator or some boa constrictor with a small animal in it and the penis pushes hard to the bottom, it’s in her neck by now bumping around her

shoulders; again and again; and I’m crying m yself near to

death; the men are rubbing and moaning and ejaculating and

someone’s offering me money and I’m sitting there crying

near to death for the girl; because I don’t know where the

blood is; but I know there’s blood; somewhere Linda’s shed

blood and there’s pieces o f her floating around in it; Linda.

They do all the things to her; glass in her vagina; from the

front; from behind; all the things; and it’s all big jokes and big

moaning, the phony moans, ooh and aah and more and

harder, stupid, false moans; and you think these men are crazy

to think this is a woman moaning in sex; and then there’s this

guy with the w orld’s biggest penis and he fucks her throat and

she’s in love with him because he’s got this giant penis so he

satisfies her, at last, completely, a romance, he fucks her

throat, he is a cold creep, a sheet o f ice descends over the

screen, he fucks her throat; he’s evil, even for these men who

do these things to women in films; who will do anything; to

anyone; present her to him; put her there; lights, camera,

action; roll her over; stick it there or there or there; yeah, she’s

tied up like a trussed pig; he says darling and sticks it in.

There’s one decision, just one; and I have to make it; are we

humans or not; the girls under glass and I or not. If we are not

then there’s these creatures kept properly under glass because

w ho’d want them loose and the bruises on them or what you

stick in them doesn’t matter and they smile because they are

sincere, this under-glass creature smiles when you hurt it, and

you get to use them; and, logically, you get to use the five

infants too, w hy not, and this girl from Camden too, w hy not;

because w e’re apples with maggots too, w hy not. M aybe this

girl Linda really likes it; except there’s this iron bar in your

throat and nothing pushes past it without a destruction o f

some sort, this or that; or w hy don’t they use machine guns or

trees or they will, they just haven’t yet, h o w ’d they get that

Linda girl to do it? O r if w e’re humans; if we are; the fire’s got

m y name on it; at last, m y name’s spelled out in the fire and it is

beckoning to me; because they are tormenting us, pure and

simple, these men are tormenting us, they just do it, as if we

are so much trash for where they want to stick it and it is

simple in the end and they all get to live no matter what harm

they do or if we hurt or how much, all these guys live, they do;

face it; you can take some actual person and mess her body up

so bad it’s all deformed out o f its real form and you can put

things up her and in her and you can hurt her, shred her, burn

her, tortures that are done like roping her breasts, and it’s

okay, even funny, even if they do it to babies or even if they

beat you or even i f they put things in you or no matter what

they do, it’s over and tom orrow comes and they go on and on

and on and they don’t get stopped, no one stops them; and

people ju st walk by the girls under glass; or just ignore the

infants who grow ed up, the suicidal infants who can’t breathe

but are trying to talk; or the women who got beat; no one

stops them; it’s true, they don’t get stopped; and it’s true,

though not recognized, that you do got to stop them, like stop

the War, or stop slavery; you have to stop them; whatever’s

necessary; because it’s a crisis because they are tormenting us; I

gave m y uncle cancer but it’s too late, too slow, and you don’t

know who they are, the particular ones; and even if there’s

laws by the time they have hurt you you are too dirty for the

law; the law needs clean ones but they dirty you up so the law

w o n ’t take you; there’s no crimes they committed that are

crimes in the general perception because we don’t count as to

crimes, as I have discovered time and time again as I try to

think i f what he did that hurt me so bad was a crime to anyone

or was anything you could tell someone about so they would

care; for you; about you; so you was human. But if he did it to

you, you know him; I know; this Linda knows; the infants

know; the day comes; we know; each one o f them has one o f

us who knows; at least one; maybe dozens; but at least one.

When the Buddhists were burning themselves you couldn’t

convince anyone anything was wrong in Vietnam; they

couldn’t see it; they saw the fire; and you couldn’t forget the

fire; and I’m convinced that the fire made the light to see by; so

later, we saw. N o w there’s nothing w rong either; nothing

nobody can see; each day all these thousands o f people, men

and women, walk past the women under glass, the specimens,

and they don’t see nothing wrong, they don’t see no human o f

any sort or that it’s wrong that our kind are under glass,

painted, bloated cadavers for sex with spread legs, eyes open,

glassy, staring like the dead; smiling; painted lips; purple;

lynched or pissed on; or on our knees; I will die to get her o ff

her knees; sperm covering us like puke; and w e’re embalmed,

a psychotic’s canvas; eventually fucked, in any orifice; someday they’ll do the sockets o f the eyes. It’s the church to our pain; a religion o f hate with many places to pray; a liturgy o f

invasion; they worship here, the men, Hot Girls is Michael-

angelo’s David\ Lesbian Gang Bang is Tintoretto; it’s Venice

and Rom e and Jerusalem and Mecca, too; all the art; everything sacred; with pilgrims; the service, how I injured her and

came; the ancient masses, how I made a perfect penetration;

the ordinary prayers, I felt her up, I stuck it in, she screamed, I

ran; this is the church here, they worship here, a secular sadism

where w e’re made flat and dead and displayed under glass,

fifty cents a feel for a live one in a real cage, behind the movies

are the places where they keep the live ones they caught, you

pay money, you touch it; you pay more money; it touches

you; you pay more money; you can hurt it bad i f you pay

enough; you pay money, you can stick it in, you want to cut it

up, it costs more money; you want it young, you want to stick

it in, you want to cut it up, it costs more money; but see, m y

uncle, a true believer, worshipped at home; so you have to

grasp the true nature o f the system; here is the center; here is

like the transmission center; here is where they broadcast

from; here is where they put the waves in the air; here is where

they make the product, the assembly line with mass

production techniques and quality control, the big time, and

they sell it to make it socially true and socially necessary and

socially real, beyond dispute, it’s for sale, in Amerika, it’s true,

a practical faith for the working man and the entrepreneur,

rich man, poor man. It’s the nerve center, the Pentagon, the

w ar room, where they make the plans; map every move in the

war; put the infantry here and m ove it here; put the boats here

and m ove them here; put the bombs here and move them here;

dildos, whips, knives, chains, punishments, sweat and

strangulation, evisceration; they teach how to teach the

soldiers; they teach how to teach the special units; they teach

how to teach; they develop propaganda and training films,

patriotic films, here’s the target, take her out. Here’s where

they make the plans to make the weapons; and here’s where

they commission the weapons; and here’s where they deploy

the weapons; it’s the church, holy, and the military, profane,

backbone and bedrock, there’s dogma and rules, prayers and

marching chants, sacred rites and bayonets, there’s everything

you stick up them, from iron crosses to grenades; you pull the

pin; stay inside them as long as you have the nerve; pull out;

run; it makes a man out o f a boy. There’s a human being;

under glass. I f you see what’s in front o f you you see w hat’s

down the road: someday they’ll just take the children, the pied

piper o f rape, they’ll ju st use the children, it’s so much easier,

how it is now is so difficult, so com plex, fun taming the big

ones and seducing them and raping them but the children are

tighter, you know; and hurt more, you know; and are so

confused, you know; and love you anyway, you know. All

the worshippers will be tolerant o f each other; and they’ll pass

the little ones on, down the line, so everyone can pray; and the

courts will let them; because the courts have always let them;

it’s just big daddy in a dress, the appearance o f neutrality. I

been living in Times Square, on the sidewalks, I seen all the

marquees, I studied them, I have two questions all the time,

w hy ain’t she dead is one and w hy would anyone, even a man,

think it’s true— her all strung out, all painted, all glossy,

proclaiming being peed on is what she wants; I do not get how

the lie flies; or ain’t they ever made love; or ever seen no one

real; and maybe she’s dead by now; they must think it’s like

you are born a porn thing; in the hospital they take the baby

and they say take it to the warehouse, it’s a porn thing. They

must think it’s a special species; with purple genitals and skin

made from a pale steel that don’t even feel no pain; or they

think every girl is one, underneath, and they wait, until we

turn purple, from cold, or a thin patina o f blood, dried so it’s

an encasement, like an insect’s carapace. And they get hard

from it, the porn thing, flat and glossy, dead and slick, and

after they find something resembling the specimen from

under the glass and they stick it in; a girl in the rain; five

infants; some girl. It’s like how Plato tried to explain; the thing

pure, ideal, as if you went through some magical fog and came

to a whole world o f perfect ideas and there’s Linda taking it

whole; and they wander through the pure world putting fifty

cents down there to cop a feel and five dollars down there, and

for a hundred you see a little girl buggered, and for fifty you do

something perfect and ideal to a perfect whore or some perfect

blow -up doll with a deep silk throat and a deep silk vagina and

a rough, tight rectum, and you come back through the fog and

there’s the girl, not quite so purple, and you do it to her; yeah,

she cries if you hang her or brand her or maim her or even

probably if you fuck her in the ass, she don’t smile, but you can

hurt her enough to make her smile because she has to smile

because if she don’t she gets hurt more, or she’ll try, and you

can paint her more purple, or do anything really; put things in

her; even glass or broken glass and make her bleed, you can get

the color you want; you strive for the ideal. I fuck it up, I say

the girl’s real, but it don’t stop them; and we got to stop them;

so I take the necessary supplies, some porn magazines where

they laminate the women, and I take the stones for breaking

the glass, I will not have women under glass, and I take signs

that say “ Free the Women, Free O urselves” and “ Porn Hates

W omen” and I take a sign that says “ Free Linda” and I have a

sign that says “ Porn Is Rape” and I take a letter I wrote m yself

that says to m y mama how sorry I am to have failed at dignity

and at freedom both, and I say I am Andrea but I am not

manhood for which, mama, I am glad, because they have gone

to filth, they are maggots on this earth; and I take gasoline, and

I’m nearly old for a girl, I’m hungry and I have sores, and I

smell bad so no one looks at all very much, and I go to outside

Deep Throat where m y friend Linda is in the screen and I put

the gasoline on me, I soak m yself in it in broad daylight and

many go by and no one looks and I am calm, patient, gray on

gray cement like the Buddhist monks, and I light the fire; free

us, I start to scream, and then there’s a giant whoosh, it

explodes more like wind than fire, it’s orange, around me,

near me, I’m whole, then I’m flames. I burn; I die. From this

light, later you will see. Mama, I made some light.

E L E V E N

April 30, 1974

(Age 27)

Sensei is cute but she’s fascist. She makes us bow to the Korean

flag; I bow but I don’t look. We are supposed to be reverent in

our hearts but in m y heart is where I rebel. It is more than a

bow. We bow. We get down on our knees and we bow our

heads. It’s the opening ceremony o f every class. In karate you

get down on your knees in a lightning flash o f perfect

movement so there’s no scramble, no noise; it’s a perfect

silence and everyone moves as one; the movement itself

expresses reverence and your mind is supposed to obey, it

moves with the body, not against it, except for mine, which is

anarchist from a long time ago and I never thought I’d bow

down in front o f any fucking flag but I do, in perfect silence

and sym m etry insofar as my awkward self can manage it; my

mind’s like a muscle that pulls every time; I feel it jerk and I feel

the dislocation and the pain and I keep m oving, until I am on

m y knees in front o f the fucking thing. It’s interesting to think

o f the difference between a flag and a dick, because this is not a

new position; with a dick how you get there doesn’t count

whereas in the dojo all that matters is the elegance, the grace,

o f the movement, the strength o f the muscles that carry you

down; an act o f reverence will eventually, says Sensei, teach

you self-respect, which wasn’t the issue with the dick, as I

remember. There’s an actual altar. It has on it the Korean flag,

a picture o f Sensei, and some dried flowers. When I was a child

I had a huge picture o f Rock Hudson up on the door in m y tiny

bedroom, on the back o f the door so I would see it when I was

alone, as if he was there, physically present with me, because

the picture was so big and real and detailed, o f a real face; I put

it up with Scotch tape and kissed it good-night, a mixture o f

heat and loneliness; not quite as I would kiss m y mother if I

could but with the same intensity I wanted from her, as if she

could hold me enough, or love me enough, or rock me

forever; I never understood w hy you couldn’t just bury

yourself in someone’s arms and kiss until you died; just live

there, embraced, warm and wet and touched all over. Instead

there was this photo I cut out o f a magazine, and a lonely bed in

a lonely house, with mother gone, sick, and father gone, to

pay doctors. I built up all the love there was in the world out o f

those lonely nights and when I left home I wasn’t afraid ever to

touch or be touched and I never abandoned faith that it was

everything and enough, a thousand percent whole, perfect and

sensual and true. I thought we were the same, everyone. I

thought Rock could hold me; hold me; as if he were my

mother, against his breast. O f course, I also liked Tab

Hunter’s “ Red Sails in the Sunset” ; and Tab Hunter. I was

indiscriminate even then but it was an optimism and I never

understood that there was a difference with men, they didn’t

take the oceanic view; they didn’t want whole, just pieces. I

thought it would be a small bed like mine, simple, poor, and

w e’d be on our sides facing each other, the same, and w e’d ride

the long waves o f feeling as if we all were one, the waves and

us, w e’d be drenched in heat and sweat, no boundaries, no

time, and w e’d hold on, hold on, through the great convulsions that made you cry out, and time would be obliterated by

feeling, as it is. Facing each other and touching we could get

old and die; then or later; because there’s only now; it didn’t

matter who, only how it felt, and that it was whole and real

past any other high or any other truth; I wanted feeling to

obliterate me and love to annihilate me; don’t ever make a

wish. There weren’t religious icons in a Jew ish house; only

movie stars. Sensei says it’s paying respect to her karate

tradition to kneel down in front o f the Korean flag and her

picture on the altar but I always wonder what the Koreans

would think about it; if they’d like a woman elevating herself

so high. She’s not really a woman, though; and maybe they

saw the difference and gave her permission, because she’s got a

male teacher, a karate master, a blackbelt killer as it were, and

he w ouldn’t brook no vanity. If she were a girl per se she

couldn’t be so square and fixed, so physically dense, as if

there’s more o f her per square inch than any other female on

the planet, because anatomically she’s female, I’m sure,

although it seems impossible. She’s like a thousand pounds o f

iron instead o f a hundred pounds o f some petite, cute girl. You

expect lethal weapons to be big, six feet or more, towering,

overpoweringly high, casting long, terrifying shadows, with

muscles as big as bowling balls; so you notice she’s small and

you can’t figure out how she got the w ay she is except that

once she must have been a real girl, even in dresses, and so

maybe you could stop being so curved and soft and flimsy.

Each inch o f her uses up the space she’s in, introducing weight

where once there was air; she dislocates space, displaces it, it

moves and she takes over, she occupies the ground, as if she

was infantry with a bayonet and the right to kill. She’s nothing

like a girl. For instance, her shoulders are square, they take up

space, they are substantial and she don’t make them round or

underplay them or slump them, they don’t look soft as if you

could just walk up to her or in a conversation put your arm

around her, everything’s an edge or a hammer, not a curve.

She reigns, imperial; butch, m y dear, but transcending the

domain o f a bar stool, it ain’t role playing, or a pretense, or a

masquerade; if she were a girl she’d be a little doll; petite; and

there’d be a bigger male one whose shadow would fall on her

and bury her alive. She’d live small in perpetual darkness next

to him. Instead, she’s a certifiable Korean nationalist with an

altar and a flag who considers a hundred sit-ups an insubstantial beginning, foreplay but, in the male mode, barely

counting, and she don’t care about the pain. I m yself pretend

it’s coming from a man, because I know if he was on top o f me

I w ouldn’t stop; so I try to keep going by turning it into him on

me; you fuck w ay past pain when a man’s fucking you blind. I

can do maybe fifteen; I put him on top o f me and I get near

thirty, maybe twenty-eight; I put him in the corner o f the

room laughing and I get to thirty-five; after that, Sensei just

keeps you m oving and you don’t get to stop even if actually

you think your heart is contracting along with your abdomen

and it will convulse and cease, still you move, and she sees

everything, including if you hesitate for half a second or stay

still for half a second, or try to rest halfw ay between up and

down because you think she can’t see the difference but she

sees the molecules in the air and if they ain’t m oving you ain’t

m oving and her eyes nail you and she’s firm and hard; finally,

she will say your name to humiliate you; or assign you thirty

more; and so you keep m oving, the muscles are cramped, all

twisted up inside, swollen and twisted and convulsing, and

your heart’s collapsed into your stomach or your stomach into

your heart and there’s only a bed o f pain in the middle o f you

that moves, it moves, a half inch o f space over a period o f

minutes while the others have done five whole sit-ups, six,

seven, and you feel stupid and weak and cowardly but you

m ove the teeny, tiny smidgen, you keep m oving, you bounce

yourself, you use your breath, anything you can get to make

you m ove so it looks like yo u ’re m oving, and the muscles are

stuck stiff with pain, swelling in hardened cement, but you

m ove; barely, but you move; and o f course with m y intellect I

try to see i f she’s getting o ff on it because if she is that lets me

o ff the hook, I can walk out self-righteous because she ain’t no

better than I am, she’s just the other side o f m y coin, m y

decrepitude, and it’s dominion she’s after, tormenting the

likes o f me. But she don’t get o ff on it so I keep m oving even

though I’m barely m oving and you reach a point where if you

shudder you feel the muscles move and a tremor is distance

covered; if you shake, the muscles move; and helplessly you

do shake. Sensei learned to count to a hundred in a school

pioneered by Stalin; she don’t allow for human flaws, which is

mental, as he would have agreed; she fixes defects in the mind

that are expressed as incapacities in the body; it’s right

thinking that makes the abdomen strong enough to shatter a

normal man’s fist should he deliver a punch at the top o f his

form; you can punch Sensei in the gut with everything you got

and she stands still, straight, tall, she don’t feel nothing in her

gut but the hitter is hurt. Push-ups is different because women

can’t do them, because all we get to do in life is carry our

breasts and shopping, and from childhood they make us stay

weak in the shoulders but we don’t even know it; and so

push-ups take forever to learn; and even the best students take

forever to learn them; to do one is an achievement, and you

burn with fury that they incapacitated you so much. Sensei can

do butterfly push-ups, a hundred or a hundred and fifty; it’s

push-ups but you do them on your fingertips instead o f using

your whole hand; your hands don’t hit the ground, only the

tops o f your fingers. I never seen anything like it in m y life. It’s

an unreal as flapping your wings and actually flying. Y et I seen

Sensei do it; a hundred times; she says she can do fifty more. I

can barely breathe thinking about what it would feel like to do

it or to be so strong or so agile or so fucking brave, because I’d

be afraid o f falling; o f breaking m y fingers; o f slipping; o f pain.

I love it; I live for her to do it; up and down, with the tips o f her

fingers taking all the weight o f her body going down, then

lifting her up. I can raise just the top half o f m y body, about

five times, which is pretty usual and she says that’s how to

build the muscles and we have to have patience to undo the

damage o f being made weak; and I see it ain’t just the penis

they nail you with, they pin you down at both ends, and all the

strength you could have in the upper part o f your body is

atrophied as if you was paralyzed your whole life; except you

w asn’t. I tell m yself that whatever I can take from him,

w hom ever, I can take for me; me; now; and when I get weak

and fall back to m y bad old w ays because I never had a me and

still don’t except by forcing m yself to think so I say I’m doing

it for her; this me is pretty tenuous but I can take anything for

him and a fair amount for her and I play with it in m y mind,

that it’s for her, and I watch m yself with interest, how physical

pain changes when it is in the guise o f sex or love or infatuation

or even just seduction, I will get her attention by m oving,

m oving, ju st a little more, just a little bit more; I pretend this is

sex but I still never get past sixty and it is because I have wrong

thinking and a girl’s stupid life. B y sixty I mean sixty o f barely

m oving; I never got past seventeen actual whole sit-ups and I

never got to one whole push-up; and I still don’t know w hy

her fingers don’t break from the butterfly push-ups; and she

teaches us to make a fist and we practice and m y fingers are too

stupid and weak even to do that right, I try to fold them under

so every joint is folded under every other joint so it’s solid and

hard and not filled with air the w ay girls make fists but my

fingers w o n ’t m ove right and I can’t make the sections tight

enough. The part I like is breathing. Y ou take all the air in you,

inert stuff, and you exhale like you is threatening God

face-to-face; you push like the air itself could kill. All the air

you took in during fucking, all that Goddamn spastic inhaling,

all that panting like some desperate dog, you shoot out, like

it’s bullets; I got a lot o f air to push out. Then there’s the horse

position, where you take a stance, your legs spread far apart so

your thigh muscles are tearing from the weight o f your whole

body resting on them; your feet are pointed out and your legs

are spread far apart and your knees are bent and pointing out

and the rest o f you is on your thighs, absolutely still, at perfect

silence; and after about five minutes your calf muscles begin to

bear the weight o f your thighs which time makes heavier and

somehow you feel the weight o f your soul and your life in the

muscles in the insides o f your thighs, because if you ’re a girl

you lived there and m em ory’s stored there and the world

banged up against you there, so you undertake to bear the

burden o f it with conscious knowledge, a physical self-

consciousness, a remorseless, aching cognition; and the

history in your body comes alive as the muscles in your thighs

strain under the weight o f your life; the life o f the cell; a

brilliant physical solitude with all o f the self spread out along

the fault line o f the thighs, a bridge o f muscle; and you are

absolutely still, contemplative, in pain, yes, a located pain, a

fierce ache o f recognition and identity; you are still; until

Sensei orders you to relax, which is only slightly less

burdensome but feels like deliverance; and I think to m yself

that everything these thighs took they will get strong enough

to give back; it is a promise I make m yself in horse position to

be able to bear it; it is a promise I make every time over and

over; it is a promise my thighs will remember even if I forget.

Sensei says women got an advantage with the thighs, more

strength than we might expect, because o f the high heels they

make us wear; I got strong thighs because o f the reason under

the reason; I been in horse position on m y back most o f my

life; I like it alone and standing up. Sensei says eat steak but I

can only afford potatoes, or sometimes frozen squash, or

sometimes cheese, or the free bar food, but the men are

unbearable so I don’t do that unless I am ravenous; sometimes

I’m hungry too much. I take double classes twice a week

because I want to be strong; I am dying to be strong; all my

money goes to Sensei and I fail at sit-ups twice in a night and I

fail to do one whole push-up twice in a night, two times a

week; and I have to come up with a stupendous amount o f

money, because it is fifteen dollars a class, so that is fifteen

times four, and Sensei berates me when I say I will have to take

a single class twice a week for a month or two or even three

because I cannot find the money to pay for double classes; I feel

m y serious w ord that this is so is enough but she takes it as if I

am lying or I don’t value her or I don’t have devotion, as if it’s

an excuse; and I feel enraged; because it’s as if she’d turn me out

for her fucking money, if you want it you can get it she says

like any pimp on the street; I am a writer, I am going to hurt

men, I am a serious person; she knows it. Sensei says she’s

never seen anyone with a will like mine but it’s a trick to flatter

me so I’ll be persuaded to get the money for double classes

after I’ve said I can’t and I’m feeling the indignity because I am

pure will and I have not insulted her by uttering one frivolous

word. I am engaged in the serious jo b o f survival and the

creation o f a plan to stop men; hurt them, stop them, kill them;

and I am not some fool who says insubstantial things and I

don’t have money to m ove around, as if I can take it from

something I don’t need, which I feel is an indignity to have to

explain, and I feel rage because she is middle-class in this w ay

that demeans me and the dojo’s in a Victorian brownstone she

owns with her lover, a woman with round shoulders and

sagging breasts who does not do sit-ups or horse position

standing up; there is a sudden horror in my heart, a queasy

feeling o f sickness and dread, because I ask her to be sober and

treat me with honor and she degrades me because o f money

and I cannot forgive it. I am learning that inside something

goes w rong when something w rong happens; I am learning to

follow it, the feeling. I say I write and it is first and I have thirty

dollars I can find, not sixty, and I do not say how much I give

up to give her the thirty because to do so would be demeaning

in m y heart, the sick feeling would come on, and she belittles

me and I leave and I never turn back. D o not mess with me. I

am making a plan in writing to make the men shed tears o f

remorse and I cannot waste m y time with someone insufficient; she has to deserve me too; I want respect; there’s a piece missing in her— what’s hunger, what’s poor; it’s the pieces I

got; I can’t explain how what’s a blind spot in her blindsides

me; I can’t have her talk money to me which she measures one

w ay and I measure in sucking dicks, the economy as I see it,

how long on your knees, how many times, equals a meal,

makes the rent. I ain’t saying it to her, it’s an inchoate rage, but

I turn over inside; Sensei eats shit. I say nothing, because she’s

an innocent, she counts money dry, not drenched in sperm. I

cut her o ff without another word. She is out o f my life. I don’t

look back. I paid, sister, I am paid up in dues well into the next

century, I have clear priorities, she was number two, pretty

high on the fucking list; number one is that I am writing a plan

for revenge, a justice plan, a justice poem, a justice map, a

geography o f justice; I am martial in my heart and military in

my mind; I think in strategy and in poems, a daughter o f

Guevara and Whitman, ready to take to the hills with a cosmic

vision o f what’s crawling around down on the ground; a

daughter with an overview; the big view; a daughter with a

new practice o f righteous rage, against what ain’t named and

ain’t spoken so it can’t be prosecuted except by the one it was

done to who knows it, knows him; I’m inventing a new

practice o f random self-defense; I take their habits and

characteristics seriously, as enemy, and I plan to outsmart

them and win; they want to stay anonymous, monster

shadows, brutes, king pricks, they want to strike like lightning, any time, any place, they want to be sadistic ghosts in the dark with penises that slice us open, they want us dumb and

mute and vacant, robbed o f words, nothing has a name, not

anything they do to us, there’s nothing because w e’re nothing;

then they must mean they want us to strike them down,

indiscriminate, in the night; we require a sign language o f

rebellion; it’s the only chance they left us. Y ou may find me

one who ain’t guilty but you can’t find me two. I have a vision,

far into the future, a plan for an arm y for justice, a girls’ army,

subversive, on the ground, down and dirty, no uniforms, no

rank, no orders from on high, a martial spirit, a cadre o f

honor, an arm y o f girls spreading out over the terrain, I see

them m oving through the streets, thick formations o f them in

anarchy and freedom on cement. I keep practicing horse

position and sit-ups and I kick good; I can kick to the knee and

I can kick to the cock but I can’t kick to the solar plexus and I

can’t kick his fucking head o ff but I can compensate with my

intelligence and with m y right thinking if I can isolate it, in

other words, rescue it from the nightmares; liberate it; deep

liberation. I practice on m y wall to get m y kick higher, never

touching the wall, Zen karate, a new dimension in control and

a new level o f aggression, a new arena o f attack as if I am

walking up the wall without touching it; and I will do the same

to them; Zen killing. M y fist ain’t good enough but m y thighs

needless to say are superb, possibly even sublime, it’s been

noted many times. M any a man’s died his little death there and

I made the mistake o f not burying him when he was exactly

ripe for it, not putting him, whole, under the ground, but I

soaked up his soul, I took it like they always fear, I stole his

essence to in me, it’s protein, I got his molecules; and I never

died. It is more than relevant; it is the point. I never died. I am

not dead. If you use us up and use us up and use us up but don’t

kill us we ain’t dead, boys; a word to the wise; peace now, or

there’s a mean lot o f killing coming. I am torn up in many

places and I am a m oving mountain o f pain, I have tears body

and soul, I am marked and scarred and black-and-blue inside

and out, I got torn muscles in m y throat and blood that dried

there that w o n ’t ever dislodge and rips in m y vagina the size o f

fists and fissures in m y anus like rivers and holes in m y heart, a

sad heart; but I ain’t dead, I never died, which means, boys, I

can march, I want to walk to God on you, stretch you out

under me, a pathway to heaven. And I am real; Andrea one,

two, three, there’s more than one, I am reliably informed; the

raped; Andrea, named for courage, a new incarnation o f

virility, in the old days called manhood and I’m what happens

when it’s fucked; we go by other names, Sally, Jane, whatever;

but I had a prophet for a mama and she named not just a

daughter but a breed, who the girl is when the worm turns;

put Thomas Jefferson in my place, horse position on his back

with a mob o f erect rapists coming and going at will, at their

pleasure; and ask what a more perfect union is; or would be;

from his point o f view; then. Put anyone human where I been

and make a plan; for freedom. I will fill you with remorse

because you fucked me to ground meat and because you buy it

and you sell it and the hole in my heart is commerce to you;

lover, husband, boychick, brother, friend, political radical,

boy comrade; I can’t fucking tell you all apart. Y o u ’re

pouncing things that push it in,. lush with insult or austere with

pain; I don’t got no radio in my stomach like the crazy ones

who get messages to kill and can’t turn it o ff or dislodge it

although you stuck enough in me, they say they hear voices

and they kill, they say they are getting orders and they kill, and

the psychiatrists come in the newspapers and call them long

bad names and go to court and say they didn’t know what they

were doing; but they knew; because everyone knows. The

psychiatrists miss it all but especially that there’s information

everywhere; the radio, the voices, are metaphors used by

poets who dance rather than write it down, poet-killers; action

poems; there’s energy that buzzes, a coherent language o f

noise and static you can learn to read, you don’t need to be

subliterate on this plane, just receive, receive; there’s waves

you can see, you can take a fucking light beam and parse it for

information or you can decode the information in the aura o f

light around a person or a thing; everything’s coded; everything’s whole; it’s all right there, including the future, you can

ju st pull it out, it’s just more information, a buzz, a vibration, a

radiance, even a smell in the air; and we are all one, sweetheart,

which means that i f I’m you I got your secrets including your

dirty little rape secrets and your dirty little what you stick it in

secrets, you can ju st pull the information out o f the air as to

who is evil and what is going on, how it works and what must

be done; you can learn to see it and you can learn to hear it

because you are flowing in an occan o f information and the

information gets amplified by pedestrian events, for instance,

you learn at karate school that they pin you down at both ends,

they got different shoulders from you, which you didn’t

know, and they made yours useless like bound feet, which you

didn’t know; and they nail you, they plug you, the penis goes

right through you on one end and screws you down, fixes you

fast to some hard surface, and the shoulders are like a ton o f

metal dumped on you to keep you flat, it’s information on the

literal level, the pedestrian plane, a reminder o f mechanical

reality or a new lesson in it because girls don’t learn mechanics

or anything else that will help on the physical plane to rebel or

get free so you got to read the cosmic information in the air,

the molecular information, which could even come from

other planets i f you think about it, it could be m oving towards

you on light from far away, and you also got to be a student o f

reality as it is com m only understood. They fill your head with

political theory because it’s useless; it’s dreams you can’t have;

o f dignity that ain’t yours; o f freedom that ain’t intended on

any level for you; you take it to heart; they take you to bed;

heartbreak hotel, the place where the dialectic abandons

reality, leaving her barefoot and pregnant, raped and barefoot;

these are the dreams that break your heart, the difference

between what you wanted from Cam us and what he would

have given you; I always wanted to have a cup o f coffee with

him, on the boulevard; and how these men love whores; the

thinkers, the truck drivers, the students, the cops; how they

love you turned out, shivering in the cold, already undressed

enough; no, they don’t all rape; they all buy. I am an

apprentice: sorcerer or assassin or vandal or vigilante; or

avenger; I am in formation as the new one who will emerge; I

am in a cocoon; but at night, being a girl, I just stroll; I am a girl

who walks the streets at night, back to first principles, how I

grew up, where I lived, my home, cement, gray, stretching

out a thousand miles flat, a plain o f loneliness and despair; my

world; m y bed; my place on earth; I will populate the dark

forever, o f course, night is my country, I belong here, I can’t

get free, I was condemned, exiled from daylight because

survival required facing the dark; I am a citizen o f the night,

with a passport, a mouth used enough, it’s vulgar to say but

inside it changes, the skin gets raw and red and it blisters, it

gets small, tight, white blisters, liquidy blisters, it gets tough

and brown, it gets leathery, it sags in loose red places and there

are black-and-blue marks, and your tongue never touches the

ro o f o f your mouth, instead there’s a layer o f slime, sticky

slime, a white, viscous slime, a m oving cement that never

hardens and never disappears, a near mortar o f awful white

stuff, mucous and slime; you got a mouth crawling on top

with slime; as if it’s worms in you, spermy little worm things

all laid out side by side all in a line lining the ro o f o f your

mouth; a protein shield, if you want to put the best construction on it, because you don’t want his shit shooting to the top

o f your brain anyway, going through the ro of o f your mouth

to your head, you don’t want his molecules absorbed in your

brain, planted there so his molecular reality grow s in some

hemisphere o f your brain, you don’t want him as weeds in

your head, with his D . N . A. rolling all over behind your eyes;

and o f course you try to keep him as high in your mouth as you

can, as close to the front, as little in; always give as little as you

can; not just on principle, as in, give as little o f anything as you

can; but you give as little o f yourself as you can in a literal

sense, not as an abstract concept o f self but as little o f your

mouth as you can; except for the one who rammed it down to

the bottom, into your chest or your lungs or however far he

got, he shattered muscles as if they was glass, splintered them

as i f they was bone, you could feel a smashed larynx

swim m ing in blood, like a dead animal, all bleeding and cut

open, I got a sexy voice now, something hoarse and missing,

an absence, a bare vibration; but he w asn’t a trick, he was a

cute boy, true love and real romance, remember him I instruct

m yself because it’s hard, rape’s hard, remem bering’s hard,

they have to break so much there’s no deep deep enough to

bury it in, they leave you with crushed bones, diced nerves,

live nerves, sliced nerves as if someone took a knife to the

nerve endings themselves, not so they are cut dead but so they

are being sliced each minute o f forever, and they don’t go

dead, there’s not half a second o f numbness or paralysis, the

nerves are open and alive and being hit by the air, exposed, and

the knife is cutting into them thread by thread, they’re stringy

and the knife’s pulling them apart, and you got an acute pain

and a loud scream, high decibels, ringing in your ears, a

torture ringing in your ears, and it don’t let you sleep and you

don’t get forgetfulness, your eyes cry blood and you got open

sores, the lips o f your labia get boils, big boils; you got a

vagina with long, deep tears, an ass that rips open with blood

every time you shit, because it’s the penis again, oversized,

pulling out after haying torn its w ay in; and then you will

remember rape; these are the elements o f m em ory, constant,

true, and perpetual pain\ and otherwise you will forget— we are

a legion o f zombies— because it burns out a piece o f your

brain, it’s the scorched earth policy for the sweetmeat in your

head, the rape recipe, braise, sear, burn bare, there’s a sudden

conflagration on the surface o f your brain, a piece o f one

hemisphere or the other is burned bare, blank, and you lose

w hatever’s there; ju st gone; whatever; so rape’s a tw o-

pronged attack, on your body, in you, on your brain, in you;

on freedom, on memory; you might as well bury yourself in

the backyard, or throw yourself in a trash can, you’re like

some dumb cat or dog that got hit by a car, run over and died;

only they let the shells o f dead girls walk around because hell it

makes no difference to them if what they stick it in is living or

dead; w hat’s left, darling, is fine, according to the formula, a

girl frail and female, a skeleton with a fleshy pudendum, ready

to serve, these girls are ghosts, did you see, did you notice,

where are they, w hy ain’t they here, present, on earth, why

can’t you find them even if you look for them in the light, how

come they don’t know anything or do anything, how come

they ain’t anything, how come they are shaking and flitting

around and apologizing and begging and afraid and drugged

and stupid even if they are smart; how come they are comatose

even when they’re awake? He pushes it in, she pushes it out, a

dead spot in the brain marks the spot, there’s a teeny little

cemetery in her brain, lots o f torched spots, suttee; we bleed

both ends, literal, little strokes every time there’s a rape, time

gone, hours or days or weeks, words gone, self gone, memory

wiped out, severely impaired; I cannot remember— how do

you exist? The skills, the tricks; tie your shoes; wrap ropes

around your heart, or was it your wrists; or was it ankles;

neck; I’d make a list if I could remember; I’d memorize the list

i f someone else would write it down; or I try, I scribble big

letters, confused, misspelled, on the page; or I look at the

words, meaningless, and draw a blank; I make a list,

misspelled words signifying I don’t remember what; or I draw

a picture, I use crayons, o f what? I try to say what I try to

remember; the skills, the tricks, language, yesterday. There

are little rape strokes, erased places in the brain, eruptions o f

blood, explosions, like geysers, it’s flooded, places on the

brain, blood’s acidic, did you ever sit in a pool o f your own

blood, it wears the skin o ff you, chafes, irritates, the skin peels

off; so too in the brain, the skin peels off; I’ve been there, a

poor, dear, quiet thing, naked like a baby, in a river o f blood,

mine, curled up; fetal, as if m y mama took me back. There’s

wounds and you sit in the blood. Why can’t I remember? I am

a stroke victim, a shadow in the night, invisible in the night, a

ghostly thing, in the night, amnesiac, wandering, in the night,

not out to whore, just what’s left, the remains, on the stroll;

taking a walk, pastoral, romantic, an innocent walk, lost in

memories, lost in fog, lost in dark; having forgotten; but I got

muscles packed with memory; hard, thick, solid, from the

positions reenacted, down on m y knees, down on m y back; I

got memories packed in m y bones, because m y brain don’t

make distinctions no more; can’t tell him from him from him;

I have an intuitive dread; o f him and him and him; there’s a

heightened anxiety; I’m a nervous girl, Victorian nerves,

strain, a delicate constitution in the sense that m y brain is frail,

pale; but m y muscles is packed, it’s adrenaline, from fear;

there’s a counterproductive side to creating too much fear, it’s

a meta-amphetamine, it’s meta-speed, it’s meta-coke, it’s

more testosterone than thou, I got a body packed with rage,

you ever seen rage all stored up like a treasure in the body o f a

woman? I don’t need no full capacity brain, as you so

eloquently have insisted; I got sunstrokes in my head, enough

daylight to carry me through any darkness, I am lit up from

inside, a bursting sun; brain light. I am a citizen o f the night,

on a stroll, no dark places keep secrets from me, I am drawn to

them by a secret radiance, the light that emanates from the

human heart, some poor bum, a poor man, poor fucking

drunk somewhere in the shadows hiding his poor drunk heart

in the dark, but I find him, I see the pure light o f his pure heart,

I find him, some asshole, a vagrant, clutching his bottle, and I

like them big, I like them hairy, their skin’s red and bulbous,

all swelled from drinking, they’re mean, they’d kill you for the

fucking bottle they’re clutching to them, sometimes they got

it buried under them, and they’re curled up on cardboard or

newspapers on the street, all secure in the shadows, manly

men, behind garbage cans, hidden in the dark; but the light in

them reaches out to the light in me, my brothers, myself, I

pick on men at least twice my size, I like them with fine

shoulders, wide, real men, I like them six feet or more, I like

them vicious, I pick them big and mean, the danger psyches

me up but what I appreciate is their surprise, which is absolute,

their astonishment, which invigorates me; how easy it is to

make them eat shit; they will always underestimate me,

always, from which I enunciate the political principle, Alw ays

pick on men at least twice your size. This is the value o f

practice as opposed to theory; they’re so easy; so arrogant; so

used to the world always being the w ay they thought it was.

The small ones are harder. The small ones have to learn to

fight early and take nothing for granted, the small, w iry ones

you cannot surprise; when I am a master I will take on the

small, w iry ones; or assign them to someone else, maybe

someone who can step on them, a real tall girl who would get

something out o f it by just treating them like bugs; but now I

take the big ones, and I fucking smash their faces in; I kick

them; I hit them; I kick them blind; I like smashing their faces

in with one kick, I like dancing on their chests, their rheumy

old chests, with my toes, big, swinging kicks, and I like one

big one between the legs, for the sake o f form and symbolism,

to pay my respects to content as such, action informed by the

imperatives o f literature. Sometimes they got knives or

bottles, they’re fast, they’re good, but they are fucking drunk

and all sprawled out, and I like smashing the bottles into their

fucking faces and I like taking the knives, for my collection; I

like knives. I find them drunk and lying down and I hurt them

and I run; and I fucking don’t care about fair; discuss fair at the

U . N .; vote on it; from which I enunciate another political

principle, It is obscene for a girl to think about fair. Every girl

needs a man, gets an itch, the nights are long, I’m restless, it’s

not natural for a girl to be alone, without a man; instead o f

locking the windows and locking the doors and waiting for

one to crawl in I go out to find him; not ladylike but selfdetermining, another girl for choice; a girl needs someone big and strong, a macho man, a streetwise, street tough, street

crazy man, a hero o f freedom, a loose man, unattached, a

solitary poet o f drink and darkness, a city prince; I have always

found that a girl needs a boy. These ones are old and mean;

none o f them’s innocent and who cares? I fucking don’t care.

It’s been justified up m y ass. Besides it’s just sport, recreational

training, some ways to get through the night, means and

methods, because I can’t sleep, because if you go to sleep they

will hurt you, one o f them or some o f them or some other o f

them; whoever these ones hurt, I’m taking her place, whoever

she was, they don’t know us apart, cunt is cunt is cunt, I’m

taking her place now, when I choose, I’m standing in for her

now, when it’s good for me; is it good for you? And there’s

one will stand in for me. There’s anonymous women m oving

through the night; I have m y husband here, right in front o f

me, I have a gun to his head, I pull the trigger, it is an

execution, m y right, any time, any place; his life is mine,

because he hurt me; dreadful; a dreadful hurt. I want him

executed so I can be free o f fear; and if there was justice I could

do it any time, any place; I’d have the gun; I’d have the choice;

I’d have the right. I think I have a twin in the night, some girl

standing in for me; who will just smash his fucking head in. I

think one day they will gather, the women, outside where he

lives, I think there will be thousands o f them, I think it will be a

crowd, a mob, a riot, a revolution, and I think they will chant

his name, and I think they will surround his house, and I think

they will block the city streets for blocks, and I think they will

stop traffic, and I think no one will be able to pass in or out and

they w ill stop the police from getting to him to protect him

because they will stretch for miles and someone, an unknown

someone, will kill him, it will be one and it will be all and no

one will ever know who except for her herself, they will smash

him or shoot him or knife him, or fifty will knife him, or a

hundred, but so it’s final, not making a mistake, they will kill

him good and real and quick, and no one will know who,

because it will be all o f them; for me; do this; for me; and when

an indictment is read they will all stand up; for me; including

the ones who heard me scream and including the ones who

weren’t born yet. M y eyes work. I see. It is not a mystery. If

it’s in front o f you you can see how it works itself out. It’s not

prophecy; it’s simple seeing; what is there; now; naked from

the lies. I see the future, a pretty place. The men make a sex

circus, we are the performing animals. There are hoops o f fire,

we are chained in cages, they whip us to make us jum p: high

enough for them to look under. We jum p, we hop, we spread

our legs; they’ll paint us purple underneath; or shave us so we

look like babies; or put brands on us, or chains through us,

underneath; they’ll hurt us, more; more than now; more;

killing w on ’t be enough; rape will be the good old days, when

it was simple, how they just forced us, in private, or how they

just beat us, with fists, in private, or how they put fingers

inside us, when we were too small, underneath; w e’ll be the

dog-and-pony show; they’ll leash us and they’ll manacle us

and they’ll paint us pink and w e’ll have nostalgia for the good

old days when the living was easy before they grabbed us o ff

the streets in vans and gang-raped us and bashed us with

baseball bats, smashing us not looking where, arms, head,

chest, stomach, legs, and filmed it, and dumped us, some o f us

lived, some o f us died, or before they set dogs on us to fuck us,

and filmed it, or before they cut us open, to ejaculate on us,

and filmed it, or before they started urinating on us, using us

like common toilets, to film it; but I don’t expect to be listened

to or believed, certainly even the simplest things o f an already

distinguished life cannot be believed, I couldn’t say anything

simple in the whole course o f m y actual life and have there be

belief; as if justice for me, from him to me, could count; but I

been through that; m y grievances on that score are between

the lines, at least there, always read the white space; I’m tired

from it and I’m sad; Walt could say blah blah blah this will

come and this will come and this will be and he was venerated

for dreaming, as i f his dreams was true dreams o f a true future;

m y nightmares are true dreams o f a true future. I’m not alone;

though I can’t find them; in the dark raped girls wander;

smashing drunks; sometimes someone sets one on fire; I see

the flames; I smell the carcass; the raped have stopped being

kind, generally speaking, though it’s still a secret. I personally

have done the following. I have blown up several rape

emporiums. I don’t have bombs or explosives but I cannot be

stopped. I steal a car; I back it into the rape emporium when it’s

deserted; I make a fuse to the gas tank; I light the fuse; the

whole thing blows; it’s simple, if a bit extravagant. Any man

will follow any feminine looking thing down any dark alley;

I’ve always wanted to see a man beaten to a shit bloody pulp

with a high-heeled shoe stuffed up his mouth, sort o f the pig

with the apple; it would be good to put him on a serving plate

but yo u ’d need good silver. Y o u ’re the piece o f ass; he’s

invulnerable, o f course; it’s his right, to come after you; so if

he follow s you and you have the urge to smash him to death

he’s asked for it, hasn’t he? I mean, he actually did ask for it.

The arm y o f raped ghosts got together and we marched, we

marched, we marched in Tim es Square and the Tenderloin

and Soho; we marched; everyw here there’s neon w e’ve

marched; we visit the slave auctions; we have the names o f the

pimps, addresses, photos, telephone numbers, social security

numbers; I plaster their neighborhoods with pictures o f them;

I say they are pimps who slaughter wom en for fun and money;

I say he’s at your P . T . A ., he’s with your children; I pursue

him; the army o f raped ghosts stays on his tail; we drive him

out. They hide; they run. One day the women will burn down

Tim es Square; I’ve seen it in m y mind; I know; it’s in flames.

The women will come out o f their houses from all over and

they will riot and they will burn it down, raze it to the ground,

it will be bare cement; and we will execute the pimps. N o

woman will ever be hurt there again; ever; again; it is a simple

fact. I threw blood all over their weaponry; their whips; their

chains; their spiked dildos; their leashes; I have buckets o f

blood, nurses give it to me, raped nurses; and I cover

everything, the slave clothes, the bikinis, the nighties, the

garter belts, and the things they tie you down with and the

things they stick up you and the things they hurt you with,

nipple clips and piercing things; I drench them in blood; I

make them blood-soaked, as is a w om an’s life; I think over

time I will engage in a new art, painting their world blood red

as they have painted mine; simple self-expression, with a

political leaning but neither right nor left per se, the anti-rape

series it will be called, with real life as the canvas; and I will try

to make the implicit explicit; a poet said, make the implicit

explicit; a political theorist said, make the implicit explicit; the

blood o f women is implicit in the weaponry; I will take the

blood o f women implicit in the weaponry and I will make it

explicit; and from this I enunciate another political principle,

which is, The blood o f women is implicit, make it explicit. A

woman I didn’t know with the face o f an angel approached

me. She leaned over. She touched me softly on the shoulder.

She whispered. She had serious and kind eyes. She had a soft

and kind voice. Andrea, she said, it is very important for

women to kill men. I contemplated this, shuddering; I

meditated on it; I breathed in deeply; I drew pictures, stories o f

life with men, with pencils, with crayons; I dreamed; I

understood yes; yes, it is. I enunciated a political principle,

which went as follows: It is very important for women to kill

men. His death, o f course, is unbearable. His death is

intolerable, unspeakable, unfair, insufferable; I agree; I learned

it since the day I was born; terrible; his death is terrible; are you

crazy; are you stupid; are you cruel? He can’t be killed; for

what he did to you? It’s absurd; it’s silly; unjustified; uncivilized; crazed; another madwoman, where’s the attic? He didn’t mean it; or he didn’t do it, not really, or not fully, or not

knowing, or not intending; he didn’t understand; or he

couldn’t help it; or he w on ’t again; certainly he will try not to;

unless; well; he just can’t help it; be patient; he needs help;

sym pathy; over time. Yes, her ass is grass but you can’t expect

miracles, it takes time, she wasn’t perfect either you know; he

needs time, education, help, support; yeah, she’s dead meat;

but you can’t expect someone to change right away, overnight, besides she wasn’t perfect, was she, he needs time, help,

support, education; well, yeah, he was out o f control; listen,

she’s lucky it wasn’t worse, I’m not covering it up or saying

what he did was right, but she’s not perfect, believe me, and he

had a terrible mother; yeah, I know, you had to scrape her o ff

the ground; but you know, she w asn’t perfect either, he’s got a

problem; he’s human, he’s got a problem. Oh, darling, no; he

didn’t have a problem before; now he’s got a problem. I am on

this earth to see that now he has a problem. It is very important

for wom en to kill men; he’s got a problem now. I was in the

courtroom. The walls were brown. The judge wore a long

black dress. G o d ’s name was written on the wall over his head.

There were police everywhere. The rapist smiled; at the

woman. He had kidnapped her. He had held her for nearly

tw o days, or was it four, or were there five o f them, each being

tried separately? He had fucked her over and over, brutally.

He had sliced her with a knife. He had sodomized her. He had

burned her. She shaked; she shivered; she screamed; she cried.

He walked; the ju ry found her guilty. I was in the court. The

walls were gray. He beat the wom an near to death; they were

married; the judge didn’t see the problem; she’s the wife, after

all; the guy walked. T hejudge wore a long black dress. G o d ’s

name was written on the wall above his head. I was in the

courtroom. The walls were green. The judge wore a long

black dress. G od ’s name was written on the wall above his

head. The daddy had raped the kid, over and over, so many

times, she was four, he wanted custody, he got it, it was a

second marriage, the first kid was raped too but the judge

w ouldn’t admit it into evidence, said it was prejudicial, you

know, just because he did it to that one doesn’t prove that he

did it to this one; they keep saying that; with them all; the

beaters and the rapers; just stack the women they did it to

before, the past women, in piles, for garbage collection; don’t

want them to prejudice how we look at him this time, when he

did it to this one w ho’s a slut anyway which isn’t prejudicial

because it is axiomatic; how many times does he get to do it in

his lifetime, to how many, whatever it is he likes doing, a

beater, a raper, o f women, o f children; that’s w hy they don’t

teach girls to count. I want each one followed. I want each one

killed. It is very important for women to kill men. I know girls

whose fathers fucked them; near to death; it’s a deferred death

sentence on her, she does it to herself, later. I know girls who

been banged by thousands o f men; I am one such girl myself. I

know girls who been cut open and fucked in the hole. I know a

girl who was kidnapped by a bunch o f college boys, a

fraternity, and kept for days; used over and over; beat her to

blood and pus; sliced her throat and dumped her; I know her

and I know another woman raped the same w ay, wasn’t

sliced, she escaped; I know so many girls who been kidnapped

and gang-raped you couldn’t fit them into a ballroom; I know

so many girls who been tortured as children you couldn’t fit

them into a ballroom; I know so many girls who was fucked

by their daddies you couldn’t fit them into a ballroom. N o one

cares; how many times can you say raped; it don’t matter and

no one stops them. I throw rocks through the w indows o f rape

emporiums; I destroy business properties o f men who rape; or

men who beat women; if I find out; sometimes I hear her

screaming; there’s screaming all over the cities; it travels up the

air shafts o f apartment buildings; I spray-paint their w indows;

I spray-paint their cars; I go to the courts; I follow them home;

I follow them to w ork; I have an air rifIe; I break their w indows

with it; I am seeking to blind them; the raped women come out

at night, we convene, there’s rallies, marches, sometimes a

mob, we stomp on the rape magazines or we invade where

they prostitute us, where we are herded and sold, we ruin their

theaters where they have sex on us, we face them, we scream

in their fucking faces, we are the women they have made

scream when they choose, when they like it; do you like it

now? We’re all the same, cunt is cunt is cunt, w e’re facsimiles

o f the ones they done it to, or we are the ones they done it to,

and I can’t tell him from him from him; we set fires, to their

stores, to them when they come outside from the Roman

circuses, inside they are set on fire metaphorically, the pimp

uses the woman to make them burn, she’s torn to pieces and

they get hot, outside we introduce the literal; burn, darling,

using girls is hot; we smash bums and we are ready for Mr.

Wall Street who will follow any piece o f ass down any dark

street; now he’s got a problem; it is very important for women

to kill men. We surge through the sex dungeons where our

kind are kept, the butcher shops where our kind are sold; we

break them loose; Am nesty International will not help us, the

United Nations will not help us, the World Court will not

help us; so at night, ghosts, we convene; to spread justice,

which stands in for law, which has always been merciless,

which is, by its nature, cruel. T hey don’t stop themselves, do

they? T hey get scared, even the bouncers at the rape em poriums, it’s inspiring, they ain’t used to mobs o f girls who surge and kick and smash; let alone that we are almost ethereal, so

ghostly, so frail and fucked out, near to death. Y ou see one o f

the big ones afraid and it will inspire you for a thousand years.

A girl alone or any mass o f girls; kicking, pushing, shoving;

you can tear their prisons down where they keep women

caged in; you must, mustn’t you? I have spent some years

searching for words, writing, wanting to write, and I have

spent some years now, writing a plan, a map with words, a

drawing with songs, a geography o f us here, them there, with

lyrics for how to move, us through them, us over them, us

past them; I published the military plan in haiku— Listen/

Huey killed/M e too— and it was widely understood; among

the raped; who do not exist; except in my mind; because they

are not proven to exist; and it is not proven to happen; but still;

we convene. I map out a plan, which I communicate through

gesture, graphs and charts and poems and a dance I do alone

after dark; a stark and violent dance; on his face; the raped will

hear me. They don’t stop themselves, do they? I enunciate a

fundamental political principle; I write it down, in secret; I

enunciate a plan; Stop them. I have looked for words. I have

read books. I have tried to say some simple things that

happened, with borrowed words, or old words, with sad

words, words tacked together shamefully without art. I have

sobbed for wanting words; because o f wanting to say the

simplest things; what he did and what it was, or what it was

like, as if it would matter if it could be said, or said right; I have

sobbed to him saying stop; I have begged person-to-person;

stop. Walt was a poet o f abundance; he had a surfeit o f words;

the ones I struggled for mean nothing, I looked for raped, was

it real, was it Nazis, could it be; how much did it hurt; what

did it signify; I wanted to say, it destroys freedom, it destroys

love, I want freedom, I want love, freedom first, freedom

now; rape rape rape; fucking 0; I found the word, it’s the right

word; fucking 0; no one cares; enough to stop them; stop

them. I will never have easy words; at my fingertips as they

say; but I will stake m y life on these words: Stop them. They

don’t stop themselves, do they? I’m Andrea, which means

manhood, but I do not rape; it is possible to be manly in your

heart, which I have always been, and not rape, I’ve always

liked girls, I’ve made love with many, I’ve never forced

anyone, don’t tell me you can’t, save it for them that don’t

know what it’s like, being with a girl. I was born in 1946, after

Auschwitz, after the bomb, I never wanted to kill, I had an

abhorrence for killing but it was raped from me, raped from

m y brain; obliterated, like freedom. I’m a veteran o f Birkenau

and Massada and deep throat, uncounted rapes, thousands o f

men, I’m twenty-seven, I don’t sleep. They leave the shell for

reasons o f their own. I have no fear o f any kind, they fucked it

out o f me some time ago, it’s neither here nor there, not good

or bad, except girls without fear scare them. I was born in

Camden, on M ickle Street, down from where Walt Whitman

lived, the great gray poet, a visionary, a prophet o f love; and I

loved, according to his poems. I was poor, I never shied away

from life, and I loved. I had a vision too, like his, but I will

never write a poem like his, a song o f myself, I count the

multitudes and so on, the multitudes passed on top o f me,

sticking it in, I lost count. For the record, Walt was wrong;

only a girl had a chance in hell o f being right. A lot o f men on

the B o w ery resemble Walt; huge, hairy types; I visit him

often. It was the end o f April, still cold, a brilliant, lucid cold.

Y ou could feel summer edging its w ay north. Y ou could smell

spring coming. Y ou would sing; if your throat wasn’t ripped.

Y ou r heart would rise, happy; if you wasn’t raped; in

perpetuity. I went out; at night; to smash a man’s face in; I

declared war. M y nom de guerre is Andrea One; I am reliably

told there are many more; girls named courage who are ready

to kill.

Not Andrea: Epilogue

It is, o f course, tiresome to dwell on sexual abuse. It is also

simple-minded. The keys to a woman’s life are buried in a

context that does not yield its meanings easily to an observer not

sensitive to the hidden shadings, the subtle dynamics, o f a self

that is partly obscured, partly lost, yet still self-determining, still

agentic— willful, responsible, indeed, even wanton. We are

seeking for the analytical tools— rules o f discourse that are

enhanced rather than diminished by ambiguity. We value

nuance. Dogma is anathema to the spirit o f inquiry that animates

women’s biography. The notion that bad things happen is both

propagandistic and inadequate. We want to affirm the spiritual

dignity and the sexual bonding we seek to find in women’s lives.

We want a discourse o f triumph, if you will pardon me for being

rhetorically elegant. I have heard the Grand Inquisitor Dworkin

say that, as we are women, such discourse will have to be

ambiguous. She is a prime example, o f course, o f the simple-

minded demogogue who promotes the proposition that bad

things are bad. This axiom is too reductive to be seriously

entertained, except, o f course, by the poor, the uneducated, the

lunatic fringe that she both exploits and appeals to. It is, for

instance, anti-mythological to perceive rape in moralistic terms

as a bad experience without transformative dimensions to it. We

would then have to ignore or impugn the myth o f Persephone,

in which her abduction and rape led, in the view o f the wise

ancient Greeks, to the establishment o f the seasons, a mythologi-

cal tribute, in fact, to the seasonal character o f the menarche. It

is disparaging and profoundly anti-intellectual to concentrate

on the virtual slave status o f women per se in ancient Greece as

if that in and o f itself rendered their mythological insights into

rape suspect. In fact, intercourse, forced or not, is the

precondition for a fertile, fruitful, multiplied as it were,

abundance o f living things, symbolized by the planting and

harvesting seasons. I am, o f course, not allying m yself either

with the right-wing endorsement o f motherhood or fam ily in

making these essentially keen, neutral, and inescapable observations. We cannot say the Greek philosophers and artists, the

storytellers and poets, were wrong, or dismiss them, simply

because some among us want to say that rape is bad or feels

bad or has some destructive effects. In fact, it has not been

scientifically proven that the effects o f rape are worse than the

effects o f gender-neutral assault and we are not willing to stew

in our stigma. As one distinguished feminist o f our own

school wrote some years ago in a left-wing journal o f

socialism, and I am paraphrasing: we should not dwell on rape

at all because to do so negatively valorizes sex; instead we

should actively concentrate on enjoying sex so that, in a sense,

the good can push out the bad; it is sex-negative to continue to

stigmatize an act, a process, an experience, that sometimes has

negative consequences; if we expand sexual pleasure we will,

in fact, be repudiating rape— in consciousness and in practice.

Further, in w om en’s academic circles we reify this perspective

by refusing, for instance, to have cross-cultural or cross-disci-

plinary discussions with those who continue to see themselves

as victims. While we deplore racism and endorse the goals o f

wom en o f color, we do not enter into discussions on the

Holocaust with Je w s or on slavery with Afro-Am ericans

because our theory, applied to their experience, might well be

misunderstood and cause offense. In fact, they will not affirm

the agentic dimensions o f their ow n historical experience,

which, we agree, is essentially an oppressive one. They

denounce and declaim, and we support them in those efforts.

But, as we find transcending affirmative values in wom en’s

experience under patriarchy, so too we can find concrete

examples o f the same dynamic in both Afro-American and

Jew ish experience. Ghetto Jew s from Eastern Europe did,

after all, learn to do physical labor in the concentration

camps— these are skills that have value, especially for those

essentially alien to working-class experience—intellectuals,

scholars, and so on. Jew ish elitism was transformed into a new

physicality, however base and tortured; one can see a foreshadowing o f the new Jew ish state— the shovels and picks o f the stone quarries transposed to the desert. O f course, one

must have some analytical objectivity. Afro-Americans sang

as a creative response to the suffering o f slavery such that

suffering may not be the defining characteristic o f the A fro-

American experience. The creation o f a major and original

musical genre, the blues, came directly out o f the slave

experience. It is absurd to suggest that slavery had no

mitigating or redemptive or agentic dimension to it, that the

oppression per se was merely oppressive. These tautologies

demonstrate how the dogma o f victimization has supplanted

the academic endeavor to valorize theory, which, in a sense,

does not descend to the rather low level o f direct human

experience, especially o f suffering or pain, which are too

subjective and also, frankly, too depressing to consider as

simple subjects in themselves or, frankly, as objects o f

inquiry. We apply our principles on agency, ambiguity, and

nuance exclusively to the experience o f women as women.

There is no outrage in the academy when we develop an

intellectually nuanced approach to rape as there would be, o f

course, if we applied these principles to Jew ish or A fro-

American experience. It is inappropriate for white women to

approach those issues anyway and thus we are insulated from

what I can only presume would be an intellectual backlash

while we support the so-called victims in a political atmosphere that Ronald Reagan created and that is anathema to

us— the cutbacks in civil rights and so on, funding for A fro-

American groups and so on. Then, when we mount our fight

for abortion, which rests firm ly in the affirmative context o f a

w om an’s right to choose, we have the support o f other groups

and so on. Outside w om en’s studies departments our theoretical principles are not used, not understood, and not paid attention to, for which we are, in fact, grateful. T o be held

accountable outside the sphere o f w om en’s studies for the

consequences o f our theoretical propositions would, o f

course, be a stark abridgment o f the academic license we have

w orked so hard to create for ourselves. Simple-minded

feminists, o f course, object to a nuanced approach to rape but

we can only presume that their response to the abduction o f

Persephone would have been to picket Hell. T o understand a

w om an’s life requires that we affirm the hidden or obscure

dimensions o f pleasure, often in pain, and choice, often under

duress. One must develop an eye for secret signs— the clothes

that are more than clothes or decoration in the contemporary

dialogue, for instance, or the rebellion hidden behind apparent

conform ity. There is no victim. There is perhaps an insufficiency o f signs, an obdurate appearance o f conformity that sim ply masks the deeper level on which choice occurs. A real

woman cannot be understood in terms either o f suffering or

constriction (lack o f freedom). Her artifice, for instance, may

appear to signal fear, as if the hidden dynamic is her

recognition that she will be punished if she does not conform.

But ask her. She uses the words o f agency: I want to. Artifice,

in fact, is the flag that signals pride in her nation, the nation o f

wom en, a chosen nationalism, a chosen role, a chosen

femaleness, a chosen relationship to sexuality, or sexualities,

per se; and the final configuration— the w ay she appears— is

rooted neither in biological givens nor in a social reality o f

oppression; she freely picks her signs creating a sexual-

political discourse in which she is an active agent o f her own

meaning. I do not feel— and I speak personally here— that we

need dignify, or, more to the point, treat respectfully on any

level those self-proclaimed rebels who in fact wallow in male

domination, pointing it out at every turn, as if we should turn

our attention to the very men they despise— and what? Do

something. Good God, do what? I do not feel that the marginal

types that use this overblown rhetoric are entitled to valorization. They are certainly not women in the same sense we

are— free-willed women making free choices. If they present

themselves as animals in cages, I am prepared to treat them as

such. We are not, as they say, middle-class, protecting the

status quo. It is not, as they maintain, middle-class to

appreciate the middle way, the normal, the ordinary, while

espousing a theoretically radical politics, left-wing and solidly

socialist. It is not middle-class to engage in intellectual

discourse that is not premised on the urgency o f destroying

western civilization, though certainly we critique it, nor is it

middle-class to have a job. It is not repugnance that tur^s me

away from these marginal types, these loud, chanting,

marching creatures who do not— and here I jest— footnote

their picket signs, these really rather inarticulate creatures who

fall o ff the edge o f the civilized world into a chaotic politics o f

man-hating and recrimination. Indeed, the sick-unto-death

are hard to placate, and I would not condescend to try.

W omen’s biography seeks to rescue from obscurity women

who did not belong there in the first place, women o f

achievement made invisible by an unjust, androcentric

double standard. These are noble women, not in the class

sense, because we do valorize the working class, though o f

course often these women are upper-class, and not in the

moralistic sense, although o f course they often are pure in the

sense o f emblematic. But certainly one need not labor to describe

the muck or the person indistinguishable from it. We affirm

sexually active women, yes. We will not explicate either the

condition or the lives o f sexually annihilated women— they

achieved nothing that requires our attention. The crime o f rape is

not an issue o f sex. It is an issue o f power. To recast it once again,

in a revisionist frenzy, as an issue o f freedom is painfully and

needlessly diversionary. O f course, there is a tradition in

existentialist philosophy o f seeing rape as an expression o f

freedom, a phenomenon o f freedom incarnate as it were, for the

rapist o f course, presumed male, presumed the normative

human. But certainly by now the psychological resonances o f

rape for the raped can best be dealt with in a therapeutic forum so

that the individual’s appreciation o f sex will not be distorted or

diminished— a frequent consequence o f rape that is a real

tragedy. The mechanics o f the two, rape and intercourse, have

an apparent likeness, which is unfortunate and no doubt

confusing for those insufficiently sex-positive. One is the other,

exaggerated, although, o f course, we do not know —pace St.

Augustine— which came first. St. Augustine contends that there

was sexual intercourse in the Garden but without lust, which he

saw as debilitating once he stopped indulging in it. O f course, we

all get older. The philosophical problem is one o f will. Is will

gendered? Clearly Nietzsche’s comprehension o f will never took

into account that he could be raped. Sade postulated that a

woman had a strong will— to be raped and otherwise hurt. It is

the governing pornographic conceit, indistinguishable from a

will to have sex. The problem o f female freedom is the problem

o f female will. Can a woman have freedom o f will if her will

exists outside the whole rape system: if she will not be raped or

potentially raped or, to cover Sade’s odd women, if she will not

rape. Assuming that the rapist qua rapist imposes his will, can

any woman be free abjuring rape, her will repudiating it, or is

any such will vestigial, utterly useless on the plane o f human

reality. Rape is, in that sense, more like housework than it is

like intercourse. He wants the house clean. She does not want

to clean it. Heterosexual imperatives demand that she bend her

will to his. There is, o f course, a sociology to housework

while there is only a pathology to rape. I am dignifying the

opposition here considerably by discussing the question o f

rape at all. Housework, as I showed above, has more to do

with wom en’s daily, ordinary bending o f will to suit a man. I

object to tying rape to wom en’s equality, in either theory or

practice, as if rape defined wom en’s experience or determined

w om en’s status. Rape is a momentary abrogation o f choice.

At its worst, it is like being hit by a car. The politicizing o f it

creates a false consciousness, one o f victimization, and a false

complaint, as if rape is a socially sanctioned male behavior on a

continuum o f socially expressed masculinity. We need to

educate men while enhancing desire. For most men, rape is a

game played with the consent o f a knowledgeable, sophisticated partner. As a game it is singularly effective in amplifying

desire. A m plifying desire is a liberatory goal. We are stuck, in

this epoch, with literalists: the female wallowers and the

feminist Jacobins. It is, o f course, no surprise to see a schizoid

discourse synthesized into a synthetic rhetoric: “ I” the raped

becomes “ I” the Jacobin. As the Jacobins wanted to destroy all

aristocrats, the feminist Jacobins want to destroy all rapists,

which, if one considers the varieties o f heterosexual play,

might well mean all men. They leave out o f their analysis

precisely the sexual stimulation produced by rape as an idea in

the same w ay they will not acknowledge the arousing and

transformative dimensions o f prostitution. To their reductive

minds prostitution is exploitation without more while those

o f us who thrive on adventure and com plexity understand that

prostitution is only an apparent oppression that permits some

women to be sexually active without bourgeois restraints.

Freedom is implicit in prostitution because sex is. Stalinists on

this issue, they see the women as degraded, because they believe

that sex degrades. They will not consider that prostitution is

freedom for women in exactly the same way existentialists

postulated that rape was a phenomenon o f freedom for men—

striking out against the authoritarian state by breaking laws and,

in opposition to all the imperatives o f a repressive society, doing

what one wants. They w on’t admit that a prostitute lives in

every woman. They w on’t admit to the arousal. Instead, they

strategically destroy desire by calling up scenarios o f childhood

sexual abuse, dispossession, poverty, and homelessness. Even

the phallic woman o f pornography has lost her erection by the

end o f the list. Rape as idea and prostitution as idea are o f

inestimable value in sexual communication. We don’t need the

Jacobins censoring our sexual souls. Meanwhile, in the academy

our influence grows while the Jacobins are on the streets,

presumably where they belong if they are sincere. I will keep

writing, applying the values o f agency, nuance, and ambiguity

to the experiences o f women, with a special emphasis on rape

and prostitution. I have no plans to write about the Holocaust

soon, although, I admit, I am increasingly irritated by the

simple-minded formulations o f Elie Wiesel and his ilk. Kvetch,

kvetch. After I get tenure, I will perhaps write an article on the

refusal o f Holocaust survivors to affirm the value o f the

Holocaust itself in their own creative lives. Currently I want

those who are dogmatic about rape and other bad things to keep

their moralisms posing as politics o ff my back and out o f my

bed. I don’t want them in my environment, my little pond. I

w on’t have m y students reading them, respectfully no less, or

m y colleagues inviting them here to speak, to read, to reproduce

simplicities, though not many want to. I like tying up my lover

and she likes it too. I will not be made to feel guilty as if I am

doing something violative. I was that good girl, that obedient

child. Feminism said let go. Y ou can do what a man does. I like

tying her wrists to the bed, I like gagging her, I like dripping hot

w ax on her breasts. It is not the same as when a man does it. She

and I are equals, the same. There is no moral atrocity or political

big deal. I like fantasizing. I like being a top and I like bringing

her to orgasm although I rarely have one myself. I like the sex

magazines, the very ones, o f course, that the Jacobins want to

censor, except for the fact that these magazines keep printing

pictures o f the Jacobins as if they are, in fact, Hieronymous

Bosch pin-ups. One does get angrier with them. One does want

to hurt them , if only to obliterate them from consciousness,

submerge them finally in the deeper recesses o f a more muted

discourse in which they are neither subjects nor objects. One

would exile them to the margins, beyond seeing or sound, but

strangely they are sexualized in the common culture as if they are

the potent women. Everyone pays attention to them and I and

others like me are ignored, except o f course when the publishers

o f the sex magazines ask one or the other o f us to write essays

denouncing them. But then, o f course, one must think about

them. When I’m having sex I find that more and more I have one

o f them under me in my fantasy, I hear her voice, accusing, I

muffle the sound o f her voice with my fist, I push it into my

lover’s mouth, slowly, purposefully, easy now. M y lover thinks

m y intensity is for her. I can’t stand the voice saying I’m wrong. I

really would wipe it out if I could. It makes for angry, passionate

sex, a kind o f playful fury. The Jacobin despises me. I have more

in common with the so-called rapist, the man who makes love

by orchestrating pain, the subtle so-called rapist, the knowing

so-called rapist, the educated so-called rapist, the one who

seduces, at least a little, and uses force because it’s sexy; it is sexy;

I like doing it and the men I know know I like doing it, to a

woman; they are pro-gay. I’m an ally and I will get tenure. I’m

their frontline defense. If I can do it, they can do it. The so-called

rapists in my university are educated men. We like sex and to

each his own. In my mind I have the Jacobin under me, and in

m y nuanced world she likes it. I am not simple-minded. Rape

so-called is her problem, not mine. I have been hurt but it was

a long time ago. I’m not the same girl.

Author’s Note

In a study o f 930 randomly selected adult women in San

Francisco in 1978 funded by the National Institute for Mental

Health, Diana Russell found that forty-four percent o f the

wom en had experienced rape or attempted rape as defined by

California state law at least once. The legal definition o f rape in

California and most other states was: forced intercourse (i. e.

penile-vaginal penetration), intercourse obtained by threat o f

force, or intercourse completed when the woman was

drugged, unconscious, asleep, or otherwise totally helpless

and hence unable to consent. N o other form o f sexual assault

was included in the definition; therefore, no other form o f

sexual assault was included in the statistic. O f the forty-four

percent, fully half had experienced more than one such attack,

the number o f attacks ranging from two to nine. Pair and

group rapes, regardless o f the number o f assailants, were

counted as one attack. Multiple attacks by the same person

were counted as one attack. See Diana E. H. Russell, Sexual

Exploitation: Rape, Child Sexual Abuse, and Workplace

Harassment, Sage Publications, 1984; see also Russell, Rape In

Marriage, Macmillan Publishing C o ., Inc., 1982 and The Secret

Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women, Basic Books,

Inc., Publishers, 1986.

Linda Marchiano, slave name Linda Lovelace, “ star” o f the

pornographic film Deep Throat, was first hypnotized, then

taught self-hypnosis by the man who pimped her, to suppress

the gag response in her throat. She taught herself to relax all

her throat muscles in order to minimize the pain o f deep

thrusting to the bottom o f her throat. She was brought into

prostitution and pornography through seduction and gang

rape, a not uncommon combination. Her lover turned her

over without warning to five men in a motel room to whom

he had sold her without her knowledge. Neither her screams

nor her begging stopped them. She was beaten on an almost

daily basis, humiliated, threatened, including with guns, kept

captive and sleep-deprived, and forced to do sex acts ranging

from “ deep throat” oral sex to intercourse and sodom y to

being penetrated by objects both vaginally and anally to

bestiality. Her escape from sexual slavery and her subsequent

life as a mother, school teacher, and antipornography activist

is a triumph o f the human spirit— part o f an unambiguous

discourse o f triumph. See Linda Lovelace with Mike

M cGrady, Ordeal, Citadel Press, 1980; see also Lovelace with

M cGrady, Out of Bondage, Lyle Stuart Inc., 1986.

Content

Dworkin Andrea Mercy