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