pathetically desperate. N and I are not allowed to be lovers so
we never are, alone. We evade the spirit of the law. N refuses
to make a political film. Politics, she argues, is boring and
temporary. Vietnam will be over and forgotten. A work of art
must outlast politics. She uses words sparingly. Her language
is almost austere, never ornate. We are artists, she says. I am
liberal with her. She always brings out my generosity. I take
no hard line on politics. I too want art. We need money. Most
of ours goes for cigarettes, after which there isn’t any left. We
fuck for drugs. Speed is cheaper than food. We fuck for pills.
We fuck for prescriptions. We fuck for meals when we have
to. We fuck for drinks in bars. We fuck for tabs of acid. We
fuck for capsules of mescaline. We fuck for loose change. We
fuck for fun. We fuck for adventure. We fuck when we are hot
from the weather. We fuck for big bucks to produce our movie.
In between, we discuss art and politics. We listen to music and
read books. She plays sax and clarinet and I write short stories.
We are poor but educated.
*
The day we moved in the men, our neighbors, paid us a visit.
We will get you, they said. We will come when we are ready.
We will fuck you when we are ready. We will come one
night when we decide. Maybe we will sell you. N is worth a
lot of money in Puerto Rico, they say. I am worth not so
much but still a little something. They are relaxed, sober.
Some have knives. They take their time. How will you keep
us out, one man asks logically. What can you do to keep us
out. One night we will come. There are six or seven of them
4i
there. Two speak, alternating promises. One night we will
come.
Our friend M shows up then, cool cool pacifist hippie type,
white, long hair in a ponytail. Hey man, he says, hey man,
hey man, let’s talk peace not war, let’s be friends man, let’s have
some smoke. He invites them into our storefront. The men sit
in a circle in the front room, the front door wide open. Hey,
man, come on, these chicks are cool. Hey, man, come on, these
chicks are cool. Hey, man, come on, I got some good smoke, let’s
just cool this out man smoke some smoke man together man
these are cool chicks man. He passes a pipe, passes joints: it is
a solemn ceremony. We gonna come in and get these chicks
when we want them man. Hey man, come on, man, these
chicks are real cool, man, you don’t wanna mess with these
chicks man they are cool man. The pipe goes round and round.
The neighbors become quiet. The threats cease. M gloats with
his hip, his cool, his ponytail accomplishment as peacemaker.
Hey man any time you want some smoke you just come to me
man just leave these chicks alone man smoke and peace man,
you know, man.
They file out, quiet and stoned. M is elated. He has forged a
treaty, man. M is piss-proud, man. We get stoned. Smoke,
man. The front door stays wide open as we sit in the front
room and smoke. Night comes, the dark. M points to the open
door. Just stay cool with those guys, man. Those guys come
back you just invite them in for a little smoke. It’s cool, man.
*
I have a habit, not nice. I am two years into it this time. I have
had it before. Black beauties. I take a lot of pills. The pills cost
a lot of money. N takes them too. I don’t know if it is addiction
or pleasure for her or how long she has been taking them or if
she can do without them. I never ask. These are privacies I
respect. I have my own dignity too. I pretend it is cheaper than
food.
One night N brings home a fuck, a Leo named Leo. He
steals our speed and all our cash. The speed is gone. I go into
emergency gear. I pretend it is a joke. How the fuck, I ask her
repeatedly, can anyone be stupid enough to fuck someone who
says he is a Leo named Leo? I ask this question, tell this joke,
many times. I am scared. We find a trick. She fucks him because
42-
she lost the pills. It is our code and her own personal sense of
courtesy. We get the pills. A Leo named Leo, I say. How can
anyone be so stupid? We pop the pills. A Leo named Leo. We
sit in our middle room, she is drinking scotch and I am drinking
vodka, we are momentarily flush: and the pills hit. A Leo
named Leo. We laugh until we start to cry. We hold our guts
and shake. A Leo named Leo. She grins from ear to ear. She
has done something incredibly witty: fucked a Leo named Leo.
We are incredibly delighted with her.
*
Walking down St Mark’s Place I run into an old lover, Nikko. He
is Greek. I love Greece. We say hello, how are you in Greek. It is
hot. I take him back with me. N is not there. We have a fight. I am
insulted because he wants to wear a condom. But women are
dirty, he says as a point of fact. I am offended. I won’t allow the
condom. We fight. He hits me hard in the face several times. He
hits me until I fall. He fucks me. He leaves. It is two weeks before
I remember that this is what happened last time. Last winter.
Women carry diseases, he said. No condoms, I said. He hit me
several times, hard in the face, holding me up so he could keep
hitting. He fucked me and left. I had another lover coming, a
woman I had been waiting for weeks to see, married, hard to see.
I picked myself up and forgot about him. She was shameless: she
liked the bruises, the fresh semen. He didn’t use the condom.
Either time.
*
We proceed with our film project. We are intensely committed
to it, for the sake of art. The politics of it is mine, a hidden
smile behind my eyes. We call a famous avant-garde film critic.
He says he will come to see us at midnight. At midnight he
comes. We sit in the front room, huddled on the floor. He is
delicate, soft-spoken, a saintly smile: he likes formal, empty
filmic statements not burdened by content: our film is some
baroque monster in his presence, overgrown with values and
story and plot and drama. It will never have this appearance
again. Despite his differences with us— aesthetic, formal,
ethereal— he will publish an interview with us to help us raise
money. We feel lifted up, overwhelmed with recognition: what
he must see in us to do this for us, a pure fire. We wait for the
other shoe to drop.
43
But he sits there, beatific. We can interview each other and
send it to him along with photographs of us. He drinks our