forays in and out o f their fortressed imperial possessions. He
had a Russian nickname, his nom de guerre, and since his life was
subversion, an assault on society, war against all shit and all
authority, his nom de guerre was his name, the only name
anyone knew he had; no one could trace him to his fam ily, his
origins, where he slept: a son paying rent. Except me. In fact
the cops arrested him for not paying traffic tickets, thousands
o f dollars, under the conventional birth name; he ended in the
real prison resisting arrest. Even in jail he was still safely
underground, the nom de guerre unconnected to him, the body
in custody. When I married him I got his real name planted on
me by law and I knew his secrets, this one and then others,
slow ly all o f them, the revolutionary ones and the ones that
went with being a boy o f his time, his class, his parents, a boy
raised to conform, a boy given a dull, stupid name so he would
be dull and stupid, a boy named to become a man who would
live to collect a pension. I was M rs. him, the female one o f him
by law, a legal incarnation o f what he fucking hated, an actual
legal entity, because there is no Mrs. nom de guerre and no girl’s
name ever mattered on the streets or underground, not her
own real name anyway, only if she was some fox to him, a
legendary fox. I was one: yeah, a great one. I had m y time. But
it was nasty to become Mrs. his Christian names and his
daddy’s last name, the w ay they say M rs. Edw ard Jam es Fred
Smith, as if she’s not Sally or Jane; the wedding was m y
baptism, m y naming, Mrs. what he hates, the one who needs
furniture and money, the one you come home to which means
you got to be somewhere, a rule, a law, Mrs. the law, the one
who says get the mud o ff your shoes because it’s dirtying the
floor, the one who just cleaned the fucking floor after all. I
never thought about mud in my whole fucking life but when
you clean the floor you want to be showed respect. I lived with
him before we got married; we were great street fighters; we
were great. N o one could follow the chaos we made, the
disruptions, the lightning-fast transgressions o f law; passports, borders, taking people or things here or there; street actions, explosions, provocations, property destruction, sand
in gas tanks, hiding deserters from Vietnam, the occasional
deal. We had a politics o f making well-defined chaos,
strategically brilliant chaos; then we made love. We did the
love because we had run our blood together; it was fraternal
love but between us, a carnal expression o f brotherhood in the
revolutionary sense, a long, fraternal embrace for hours or
days, in hiding, in the hours after when we wanted to
disappear, be gone from the world o f public accountability;
and he whispered Andrea, he whispered it urgently, he was
urgent and frantic, an intense embrace. He taught me to cook;
in rented rooms all over Europe he taught me to cook; a bed, a
hot plate, he taught me to make soup and macaroni and
sausages and cabbage; and I thought it meant he was specially
taking care o f me, he was m y friend, he loved me, w e’d make
love and he’d cook. H e’d learned in the N avy, mass meals
enhanced by his private sense o f humor and freedom, the jokes
he would tell in the private anarchy o f the relatively private
kitchen, more personal freedom than anywhere else, doing
anything else. He got thrown out; they tried to order him
around, especially one vicious officer, he didn’t take shit from
officers, he poured a bowl o f hot soup over the officer’s head,
he was in the brig, you get treated bad and you toughen up
or break and his rebellion took on aspects o f deadly force, he
lost his boyish charm although he always liked to play but
inside it was a life-or-death hate o f authority, he made it look
like fun but it was very dark; a psychiatrist rescued him, got
him discharged. His parents were ashamed. He joined real
young to get aw ay from them; he didn’t have much education
except what he learned there— some about cooking and
explosives; some about how to do hard time. He learned some
about assault and authority; you could assault anyone; rules
said you couldn’t; in real life you could. M om m y and daddy
were ashamed o f him when he came home; they got colder,
more remote. Oh, she was cold. Ignorant and cold. D addy
too, but he hid him self behind a patriarchal lethargy; head o f
the clan’s all tuckered out now from a life o f real work, daily
service, for money, for food, tired for life, too tired to say
anything, too tired to do anything, has to just sit there now on
his special chair only he can sit on, a vinyl chair, and read the
newspaper now, only he gets to read the newspaper, which
seems to take all day and all night because he ponders, he
addresses issues o f state in his head, he’s the daddy. D ay and
night he sits in the chair, all tuckered out. H e’s cold, a cold
man whose wife took the rap for being mean because she did
things— raised the kids, cleaned the floor, said eat now, said
sleep now, said it’s cold so where’s the coal, said we need
money for clothes, terrible bitch o f a woman, a tyrant making
such demands, keeping track o f the details o f shelter; and she
got what she needed i f she had to make it or barter for it or steal
it; she was one o f them evil geniuses o f a mother that kept her
eye open to get what was needed, including when the Nazis
were there, occupying, when some didn’t get fed and
everyone was hungry. Daddy got to sit in the special chair, all
for him. O f course, when he was younger he worked. On
boats. Including for the Nazis. He had no choice, he is quick to
say. Well, not that quick. He says it after a long, rude silence
questioning w hy is it self-evident that there was no choice or
questioning his seeming indifference to anything going on
around him at the time. Well, you see, o f course, I had no
choice. N o, well, they didn’t have to threaten, you see, I
simply did what they asked; yes, they were fine to me; yes, I
had no trouble with them; o f course, I only worked on a boat,
a ship, you know. Oh, no, o f course, I didn’t hurt anyone; no,
we never saw any Jew s; no, o f course not, no. M om m y did, o f
course; saw a Jew ; yes, hid a Je w in a closet for several days,
yes. Out o f the kindness o f her heart. Out o f her goodness.
Yes, they would have killed her but she said what did the Jew s
ever do to me and she hid one, yes. Little Je w girl became his
daughter-in-law— times have changed, he would note and