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