“ I don’t know what to say, ” I say.
“ Just say..
I write it down. I cross out the adjectives. I pause. I am
breathy. I can barely choke it out. It sounds desperate and
sexy. I never have to finish a sentence. “ I know, ” he says,
melodious, undulating.
*
The lump in my throat is tears, a fist. It is repulsion, coiled up,
ready to spring. Then the wild wires will cut through the silky
skin lining the throat and blood will flood the lungs and spill
out over the shoulders, and the child will be like a stone statue,
ancient marble, desecrated with red paint: head and shoulders
cold and polished, throat torn open: Brian DePalma and
werewolves: the stone statue on a stand, shoulders and head,
eyes empty, no pupils, stone hair matted down in cold ivory:
blood tearing out of the torn throat: called Loved. I am the
child, silent now: a girl sleeping on a bed, it is dark, she is
wearing a turquoise dress with old-fashioned buttons all up
the front from below the waist to the high neck, and her daddy
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comes in to say goodnight, and slowly, slowly, he undoes each
button— she has not been able to sleep, he says go to your room
and just lie down and rest and I will come in, no don’t worry
about changing your clothes, so she lies down just as she is, in
her old-fashioned dress with all the buttons— and slowly,
slowly, he undoes each button: it is a dream but she is awake,
a fog, in the dark, she waits, he undoes each button, he is
nervous, throaty, he rubs her, he is throaty, he runs out: the
lump in my throat is tears. I am the child, silent now. It takes
me back that far: that close to annihilation.
*
The phone rings late Friday evening. The whisper goes on and
on. He wants me to come to dinner at his apartment the next
night. I say, well no, I don’t think, maybe sometime next week
we could meet, in a restaurant because I know how busy he is.
The whisper deepens, chills. No that really wouldn’t be good
because he really wants me to meet this friend of his, a woman
whom he knows I would like very very much and whom I just
absolutely must meet and the problem is that she has been in
Nicaragua with the Sandinistas for the last three months and
she is just back in New York now for a few days and she is
leaving early Monday morning and she and I have so much in
common and the women’s struggle in Nicaragua is really so interesting and so essentiaclass="underline" he just can’t stand to think of her and me not meeting and he is really just going to be there to cook
dinner: do I like steak? and this is the only chance there is for
me to meet her and find out from someone firsthand, a woman,
you know, more about the situation of women down there. Oh,
yes, well, certainly, I say. I chastise myself for attributing seduction to him. Paranoid, paranoid, I accuse myself. I am nervous and unhappy: does he or doesn’t he: will he or won’t he: it doesn’t
matter, another woman will be there. Tonight I am safe.
*
Late fall, November already, is blustery, cold. I walk there, to
his apartment, a long walk, an hour, over urban cement,
against a strong wind. Some of the streets are entirely desolate,
deserted. A man offers me $50. I walk fast, against the wind. I
smoke cigarettes one after another. I am on edge, nervous. I
hope to tire myself out, walking miles against the cold wind.
*
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The street is dark, deserted. The man lunges out at me and
offers me $50. Oh, shit, mister, you have $50 for me. I am put
in my place by this stranger, lunging out, I am nervous, on
edge: the wind almost knocks me down. The streets are wide.
There is no traffic. The streets are dark, deserted. The wind is
fierce. I am cold. I am sweating.
*
I find the building where the editor lives. It is on a wide, dark,
deserted street, dangerous, deserted. I knock and knock on the
heavy wooden door to the lobby. The doorman is elsewhere
and there is no other way to get in. I knock and knock, the
street is deserted except for the wind, the cold, I almost leave.
The doorman opens the door. I go up in the elevator. I am
cold. His windows will be closed, his apartment will be warm:
it is another world.
*
He is barefoot. The living room is warm. The living room is
filled from corner to corner with furniture, three sofas, the
three sides of a square, a huge wood table filling the square.
The bedroom is just a double bed, the rest of the room empty.
There is a tiny dining room with a big round table, set for
two. The kitchen is a cubicle, dingy, things hanging everywhere. It is all carpeted. The living room is claustrophobic, there is barely any room for moving, walking, pacing, the three
sofas and the wooden table that fills in the space of the square
are like one thing, one huge, heavy thing, bedlike. You can
get laid anywhere in this room but on the floor. There is a
sound system of incredible sophistication: four speakers, two
on the floor, two hanging from the ceiling, he can virtually
mix his own records by adjusting dials. He has an extra pack
of cigarettes there for me, my brand not his. There is a bowl
of grass. We sit. He gets me a drink, vodka with ice. He has my
brand. He drinks Scotch. I am very nervous. I don’t take off my
coat. I sit and drink. The whisper of the telephone will not do
here. He has to speak up. I am sitting on the far edge of a sofa,
as far away as I can get. He is squarely in the middle of the
middle sofa. He has his bare feet up on the large square low
table that the sofas surround. The sofas and table are inexplicable. I have my coat on. I smoke feverishly. Little philosophers of repression: it is not desire. I am wearing my heaviest motorcycle
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boots, my plainest black T-shirt, my basic denim, hanging,
ragged. He wears denim, a leather belt, a white undershirt. His
eyes sort of stare in at his moustache. We smoke. We drink. I
am waiting for the woman from Nicaragua. I am hot. I take
off my coat. I put it beside me, between him and me, a pile, an
obstacle, not subtle. I drink. We chitchat. There is sofa everywhere. One cannot stand or walk around. It is for lying down on. I ask when the woman is coming. Oh, he says, not missing a
beat, she just called a while back, I tried to get you but you had
left already, she couldn’t make it tonight but the next time she is
back in the country we will get together, I want you to meet my