happening, but I hadnt, I had felt something else. I had felt almost
nothing, which was something else, when I was sleeping each thing
would happen to me as it had happened and I would feel what I had
not felt.
then I began to feel it when I was awake.
then I decided that though I might never feel better, I didnt want
to feel worse, that was my decision to give up men.
women were the next to go. now that may sound a little nutty since
Im nuts about women, it all began when I was very young, 13 to be
exact, and I had many an amorous night well into adulthood and
even past it. sometimes when he beat me up I went to my next door
neighbor who comforted me kindly with orgasm after orgasm but I
couldnt stay there or think anything through because she was m arried to a man she hated and he was usually there, there didnt seem to be any rest or happiness anywhere in those troubled times.
to tell the truth I gave up women after some very bitter sweet love
affairs which got fucked up because I was still fucking men and was
still very fucked up by men. I was, to tell the truth, one running, festering sore, and I didnt do anyone much good, a lot of women were good to me and I fucked them over time and time again because I
couldnt seem to get anything straight, finally I figured that since I
couldnt do anyone any good I might at least stop doing monumental
harm.
little boys were the last to go. 18, 19, 20. not prepubescent, certainly not. all long and gangly and awkward and ignorant, they never beat me up but they didnt stay hard long either, soon I came to
appreciate that as some sort of good faith, finally though it hardly
seemed worth the effort.
now I was in what all those men writers call “an existential position. ” that, contrary to the lewd images that might be evoked because Im a woman, is when youve given up everything youve ever
tried, or havent tried but definitely had planned on. in my case, being quite taken with the arts, that included having mustard rubbed into whip wounds (Henry Miller), fucking Norman Mailer (Norman
Mailer), and being covered in chocolate and licked clean by a horde
of Soho painters (me).
now the problem with telling you what it means for me, bertha
schneider, to be in an existential position is that I dont have Sartres
credibility. I mean, theres just no emotional credibility that I can call
on. look at Jackie Kennedy for instance, there she was, John dead,
her very very rich, and she didnt have emotional credibility until she
married Onassis. I mean, we all knew right away that she had done
the only thing she could do. I mean, if De Beauvoir hadnt been Sartres mistress, do you think anyone would have believed her at all? or look at Oedipus as another example of emotional credibility, suppose he and his mother had fucked, and it had been terrific, and they had just kept fucking and ruling the kingdom together, whod
believe it, even if it was true, or look at Last Tango in Paris, when
Maria Schneider shot Brando most people didnt believe it at all. how
is it possible, they asked, why did she do that? me I believed it right
away.
so look at me. here I am, bertha schneider, someone not so special
as these things go, right with my heels on the existential edge and my
toes curling over the abyss, no men, no women, no boys, and what I
want to tell you, though you wont believe it at all, is that its better
here than its ever been before, bertha schneiders existential position
is that shes not going to be fucked around anymore, now maybe that
doesnt sound like much to all of you but I call it Day One. I figure
that when my mind and body heal its my mother Im going to get it
on with after all. I always did have a high regard for that woman
although it did get obscured by the necessities of daily life, when I
think of bliss, not to mention freedom, frankly its my ma and me
alone somewhere kissing and hugging and sucking like God intended. and despite the obvious pressures I will not have second thoughts, or be unfaithful, or gouge my eyes out. thats my promise to
posterity.
as for my ex-husband, well I didnt have Marias good sense. Im
told he suffered a lot when I left, oh I dont kid myself, it wasnt out of
love or regard or anything like that, whatever he called it. it was
more like when a limping person dripping shit leaves you, you figure
youre in real trouble and even a Clint Eastwood fan has to notice. I
mean, when the baseball tells the bat to fuck off, the games over and
I for one am never going to forget it.
for right now Im reading a book that says women can reproduce
parthenogenetically. its a biology book so I have reason to hope for
the best, frankly Im just going to curl up with that book in any existential position I can manage and concentrate on knocking myself up. I never did like that crap about the child being father to the
man.
how seasons pass
there was a woman, she was a big woman and she was a sad
woman, she had been in her life to the mountains and to the ocean,
she had seen the sand, she did not go to the desert.
she had never been sad before, she had felt everything else, she had
been very smart all the years she was growing up. she had had big
beautiful eyes, she had opened her legs a lot. she didnt remember
much of all that.
she had been very powerful, she had absorbed all the men she
knew into her, one by one, two by two, then, as time passed, three by
three and four by four, she remembered her husband, she
remembered her first love, she remembered the first 4 men even
when she forgot the rest.
sometimes she would walk down the street, then she would see a
face that remembered her. she walked faster then.
when she was married she had a dog and a cat. she did not think
much of people then, each day she thought less of people.
her friends liked her a lot. they thought that she was strong, they
were good to her. sometimes they touched her. sometimes they fed
her. sometimes they put on a record, sometimes they walked
with her.
her friends gave her money, because she was poor, her friends
always cared what happened to her. the more they cared, the less she
let them know, the more they cared, the sadder she became.
she never betrayed her friends, she never betrayed strangers, she
had a code, she wanted to be good, she wanted to be strong, she
wanted to feel everything all the time, and she wanted to feel so
much all at once that she would die young, and never have to grow
old and never have to live all those years, she wanted to pack everything into a short space of time, her first goal was 19. then she became 19, and she didnt die. it surprised her. nothing had ever surprised her like that.