pathetic iced tea. He smiles. No shoe drops. He leaves.
The next days we spend in a frenzy of aesthetic busywork.
We take pencils in hand and plot out long, interesting conversations about art. We try to document an interesting, convoluted discussion of film. We discuss Godard at some length and write
down for posterity our important criticisms of him. We are
brassy, hip, radical, cool. We haunt the photo machines at
Woolworth’s, taking artistic pictures of ourselves, four poses
for four quarters. We use up all our change. We hustle more.
Excuse me, sir, but someone just stole my money and I don’t
have a subway token to get home with. Excuse me, sir, I am
very hungry and can’t you spare a quarter so I can get some
food. Excuse me, sir, I just lost my wallet and I don’t have bus
fare home.
Then we go back to the machine and pose and look intense
and avant-garde. We mess up our hair and sulk, or we try
grinning, we stare into the hidden camera, looking intense,
looking deep, looking sulky and sultry and on drugs.
We write down some more thoughts on art. We pick the
photos we want. We hustle for money for stamps. Excuse me,
sir, my child is sick and I don’t have any money to buy her
medicine.
The critic prints our interview. He doesn’t print our
photographs. We are famous. Our thoughts on film and
art are in the newspaper. We wait for people to send us
money.
*
We run back and forth from our storefront to Woolworth’s as
we get the money to take more photos. We run back and forth
as we add pages and pages to our interview with each other. I
sit at the typewriter ponderously. This is an important project.
We run back and forth each time we think of something new
to add: a new pose to try, a new sentence to write down, a
new topic to explore, a new intensely artistic sulk or pout. We
make feverish notes in Woolworth’s and run home to type them
up. On one trip a policeman follows us. He walks half a block
behind us, keeping us in sight. We go faster, go slower, he stays
half a block behind us. Girls, he calls finally, girls. We wait.
44
He catches up. There is a silence. Did you know, girls, that
about half an hour ago you crossed the street against a red
light? We are properly stunned, truly stunned, silent and
attentive. I have to write you girls a ticket but listen I don’t
want to be too hard on you, I don’t want to give you a
record or anything so why don’t I write it just for one of
you. The three of us decide he will give the ticket to N since
the apartment is not in her name. He slowly, soberly, prints
her name out in big block letters. Now listen girls you be
careful next time I don’t want to have to do this again you
hear. We stand there, dazed and acquiescent. We walk on
slowly, once we are sure he is really gone. We look over our
shoulders. Is he still there or was he really there? N has a
ticket for jaywalking in her hand. Between us right then we
have a dozen tabs of acid and a bag of marijuana and some
loose joints. We have no money for food so we have been
living on speed and alcohol. We have the speed on us, in a
prescription bottle but you would have to be a fool to believe
it. We are hungry and as soon as we mail off our interview
we know we are going to have to find a fuck. We are stoned
beyond all imagining, and yet of course intensely serious
about art. Still, in the scheme of things, jaywalking is not
a good thing to do. We can see that now, once we think
about it. We think about it now quite a lot, rolling along the
city streets in the burning heat, our sides splitting with
laughter. We are dazzled with the universe and its sense of
humor. We are dazzled too by its generosity: we are left to
pursue art: we are not carted off, dangerous criminals,
drowning in drugs. We are artists, not riffraff. We are scared,
the cop’s breath still hot on our silly necks. Hungry, we find
a fuck, a safe one, N ’s girlfriend, to whom we recount our
uproarious adventure, stressing our triumphant escape. She
feeds us, just barely pretending to be amused. I leave them
alone. N pays for the meal.
*
Poor R ’s apartment is tiny and dark, on the first floor of a
brown brick building in a Mafia neighborhood. Italian rings
out around us: is it apocryphal or are stolen bicycles really
returned? R says it is true. She says she is safe here. Every
window is covered in layers of metal. It is dark, but it is the
45
real Village, not the Lower East Side. It is West. It is not piss-
covered. It is not blood-drenched.
Poor R is refined, ladylike, devoted. She cuts N ’s hair and
sews clothes for her. She makes her meals and feeds her friends.
She is repelled by the company N keeps but she is devoted
anyway, the soul of quiet devotion no matter what the provocation. She wants to be a refuge, a retreat, a nest. She makes sachets of delicate smells. She lights delicate candles to go with
dinner. She cooks delicate souffles and serves many kinds of
cheeses. She goes to auditions and gets jobs off-Broadway in
little theaters. She is small and delicate and refined. She is
quiet and kind. She is genuinely devoted. We come from the
dense torment of our storefront, immersed in the drugs,
smelling of the sex, numb from the violence, nevertheless exhilarated: and she feeds us and lets us sleep: because she is in love and devoted. She is talented, carefully dressed, not pretty,
not handsome, but each feature is distinct so that the face adds
up to an expressive one. She reads books and listens to music,
all in moderation. She loves devotedly, without moderation.
She hangs in for the long haul. She is promising to be there
forever. She wants to be there when N, weary, wants peace.
Given half a chance, she would be the one. But she has no
chance. N is bored. We eat, I leave, N pays for the meal.
*
N is easy to love, devotedly. She is very beautiful, not like a
girl. She is lean and tough. She fucks like a gang of boys. She is
smart and quiet. She doesn’t waste words. She grins from ear
to ear. She is never afraid.
*
Women pursue her. She is aloof, amused. She fucks everyone
eventually, with perfect simplicity and grace. She is a rough
fuck. She grinds her hips in. She pushes her fingers in. She
tears around inside. She is all muscle and jagged bones. She
thrusts her hips so hard you can’t remember who she is or