you, old air, used already. At one end o f the huge room is a
single wood chair. At the other end is a sort o f kitchen, a sink,
running water, a refrigerator, and in front there’s a kitchen
counter and in front o f that there’s a single bed to sleep on, a
sort o f sofa maybe, flat, no headboard, no cushions, no back,
nondescript, covered with cloth, it’s a couch or an old mattress
on springs or something. Way in the back, to the left o f the
kitchen, hard to see, extending behind the kitchen but you
can’t really see how far, there’s a kind o f cage, it’s chicken
wire, it goes from the floor to the ceiling, and there’s a double
bed behind the chicken wire, and I ask what it is, and he says he
sleeps there with girls, some girls like it, it’s his bedroom, he’s
got cuffs for it that fasten on the chicken wire but it’s got
nothing to do with me, I can sleep on the sofa, and I’m feeling a
chill, m y blood goes cold and I feel a certain fear I can’t define
and do not want to think about, and I’ve tried to shake him all
night but there’s the fact he’s sort o f stuck on, I can’t shake him
loose, and I’m feeling like I’ve been traveling a long time in a
foreign place, the land’s strange, the natives are strange, it’s
been a long w ay up the mountain and you don’t know if the
w ay dow n’s booby-trapped and you know the sidewalks are
roads o f windswept death, they’re not harboring no lost souls
tonight, you ain’t going to make it some hours out there. I am
fucking blind drunk, asshole drunk, dumb bitch drunk, and
I’m figuring he’s Jill’s lover w ho’s got to be back because it’s
her opening night and he’ll go back soon, it’s just a matter o f
time, and I don’t look at the cage, like he said it’s got nothing
to do with me and I try not to think about the cuffs and I stay
w ay on the other side o f the place, near the single wood chair,
m y solace, m y home, the place I pick out where I’m staying as
long as he’s here and I can sit here the whole night, just sit, and
he says hey it’s no problem you sleep on the sofa here see and
he makes some tea and we take the tea downstairs to where the
paintings are and I think this is the right direction, at least he’s
on his w ay out, and he shows me the paintings, one by one, he
shows them to me, it’s sort o f amazing, it’s like being scraped
up o ff the street and suddenly the Museum o f Modern A rt’s,
open to you, a special honored guest, he shows them to me
one by one and I’m pretty awed and pretty quiet except he asks
me questions, what do I think o f this and what do I think o f
this and I try to say something, I say things about poems they
remind me o f because I don’t know how to say things about
paintings and there’s one a little different, it’s an emotional
upheaval, not intellectual like most o f the others, and I like it a
lot, it’s brazen and aggressive and real romantic and I say so
and he says well, it’s named after me then, and I think it’s
probably because he’s drunk and he’ll change it back
tom orrow but tonight it is named for me; Andy he calls it, a
nickname I hate. I say I’ll lock him out and he says he’s going
to call Jill to say he’s on his w ay and we walk upstairs and I sit
on the single wood chair but he doesn’t go near any phone
which I don’t even know where it is, I sit on the wood chair
and I dig m y nails into it and he pours me another drink and
I’m saying I’ve had enough but once it’s in m y hands I’m
nervous so I drink it and it’s pretty much like I’m submerged
in a tank o f alcohol, the fumes are drowning out any air, I’m
close to asphyxiation. I sit real still on the chair, I down the
drink like it’s water, I hold onto the chair for dear life, I see the
chicken wire and it scares me, I think about outside and it
scares me, and he’s just standing there, real benign, there’s not
a hint o f sex, there’s not a spark I can see, it’s Jill’s art opening,
he’s her lover and these facts have only one outcome which is
he’s going to her now or soon and I just have to sit here still
until he does and I ask where Jill sleeps and he says behind the
chicken wire and I feel out o f m y fucking mind, I feel insane,
and he’s totally level; and his eyes change, I never looked at his
eyes before but now they’re cold, they are real cold, they have
a steel quality, you might say they are mean and you might say
they are cruel and you might say they have m y blood smeared
on them and he’s saying he’ll just tuck me in, I should just lie
down and he’ll cover me with a blanket and then he’ll leave
and I’m saying he should leave now and I’m Jill’s friend and he
says he just wants me to sit next to him on the single bed just
for a minute, just sit there next to him, and I am some falling
down drunk stupid bitch but I am not going near him, I am
sitting on the chair, I have got m y fingernails dug in, and he’s
spying, totally level, totally calm, you can leave if you want,
quiet voice he has, you can just leave, quiet voice, soft voice,
cold eyes, not brown, yellow eyes, ochre eyes, dirty yellow
eyes, quiet voice, you can leave or you can just come here and
sit with me, sit next to me, just for a minute, or you can leave,
or you can leave, or you can sit here, next to me or you can
leave; and I thought, can I? — the door’s locked from inside,
you can’t stay on the streets, the bars are closed, there’s no
strangers outside you can find, even if you was going to risk it,
and you can barely put one foot in front o f another, everything
in front o f your eyes is streaked and moving, everything’s got
a tail like a comet racing through the sky, everything’s a shiny
streak whirling past you and you are standing still unless you
are falling, you fall and stop, fall and stop; and he’s saying you
can leave and you’re wondering if he’d let you anyway,
because finally it occurs to you he is more than a liar, or w hy
would he be so calm? He’s so quiet; quiet voice; you can leave;
or come right here, sit near me, just near me; and then there’s
w hatever’s past the fucking sunset, you know, the ocean
pounds the shore or something, there’s a hurricane, many die,
it breaks apart the beach, shacks, houses, stone walls, they’re
wrecked, Atlanta burns, you know, metaphor, I’d rather talk
in metaphor than say the things he did, God made metaphor
for girls like me, you know, life is nasty, short, brutish, short,
you can be snuffed out, it’s so fast, so mean, so easy,
someone’s eyes go cold, they go mean, they say sit near me