*
On the right when you enter the coffeehouse there are unappealing tables near the trash, and behind them a counter with cakes under cheap plastic covers but the cakes are good,
not cheap. All the light is on the other side, a solid wall of
glass and light, and all the tables near the glass and light were
always filled with people with notebooks writing notes to themselves on serious subjects as serious people who are also young do. I always looked over their shoulders, glanced sideways,
eavesdropped with my eyes, read whole sentences or paragraphs. Sometimes there were equations and triangles and words printed out with dull blue ballpoint pens, like in the
fifth grade, block lettering. More often there were sentences,
journals, stories, essays, lists of important things to remember
and important books to find. Sometimes there were real books,
and the person never looked up, not wanting to be thought
frivolous. Of course he had gotten a table filled with light,
something I rarely managed to do, next to the glass, and the
glass was colder than I had ever seen it, moist and weeping,
and the light had become saturated with dull water. Outside
there was the funniest phone box, so small it wasn’t even the
size of a fire hydrant, and there was a plant shop with the
ugliest plants, all the same color green with no letup, no
flower, no variation. The street running alongside the wall of
glass was stones, the old kind of street, suffering under the
cars, humans push ourselves on it and it moves under us, trying
to get away.
His ears meanwhile flared out. His tongue splattered water.
His nose was caked. His shoulders dropped, trying to find
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China. His shirt was open to the middle of his chest, showing
off his black hairs, all amassed, curled, knotted. It is not normal
for a man not to button his shirt. God was generous with
signs.
His fingers intruded, reaching past everything, over the ashes
and butts, over the hills and reservoirs and deserts of torn
matchbook covers that I had erected as an impenetrable geography, and they were so finely tuned to distress that they went past all those piles, and they reached mine, small, stubby,
hard to find. Oh, his teeth were terrible.
All round there were students, archangels of hope and time
to come, with dreams I could hear in their chatter and see
circling their heads. Faces unlined, tired only from not sleeping,
those horrible reminders of hope and time. Hamburgers were
abundant. Serious persons, alone, ate salad. We drank coffee,
this man and me.
*
I was appropriately frail and monosyllabic. “ No. ” Soft. No.
His was a discourse punctuated with intense silences, great
and meaningful pauses, sincere and whispered italics. “ Look—
I need you— to do something on jeans commercials — Brooke
Shields —something on the First Amendment — I want— you—
to talk about little— girls— and seeing— their tooshies. I
mean— listen — what
you— have— is— terrific— /
mean— /
know— I know — how good it— is— and I d o n 't— want— you—
to change— it. But the country needs— to know— what you—
think— about Calvin Klein— which is— to— me— frankly— and
I— tell— you— this— straight—out — worse than cocaine— and
I want— you— to say— that. I want —your voice— right—
up— there— right— up— front. "
No. My Crime and Punishment. My Inferno. My heart. Soft,
frail, no arrogance. “ No. ”
“ Listen— I— need—something
hot— something— like—
Brooke— Shields— and— something hot for the lawyers— an—
essay on the— First— Amendment. I mean — I know — your
book— isn't— about— the— First— Amendment— but I need—
you to tear— those bastard— lawyers— apart— and something
on— advertising. I mean— The New York— Times— is— as
bad— as Hustler — any day— and we all know— that— and I
need— you— to say— so. And why—aren’t you— advocating—
95
censorship— I mean— the bastards— deserve— it— and— we—
could get— some press— on that.
say— to the fucking salespeople — I don't have anything— on—
jeans
commercials— and— I— don’t— have— anything— on—
Brooke— Shields— and
everyone
thinks
you— want—
censorship— so why don’t you— just give— us— that— and
then— we can sell— the fucking thing. I mean— listen— I think
you are— right — all the way—I do. I— want— you— to know—
I hate— pornography— too— more— than— you— even. I have
my reasons. I mean. I don’t think you are— completely— right
in everything— you say — but listen— just— add — a few—
things. You can have — the rest — I mean— listen. I am — with
you— one
hundred— percent— because—I— see— what
all
this— does— to— women— but— the thing is— teenagers— and
all those— tooshies— on tellie— in the — living room— and I—
mean— that is what people— understand. ”
“ No. Thank you for seeing me. ” Soft smile. “ Listen, I appreciate your time, but no. ” Homer would die. Dante would shit.
Dostoyevsky would puke; and right too. Quiet, frail, polite, not
daring to show the delusions of grandeur in the simple
“ Thanks, no. ”
I stand up and reach out to shake his hand. I am ready
to go. This is in the first five minutes. Then he begins with
literature, my heart.
*
He does the canon, my heart. Dostoyevsky, Rimbaud, Homer,
Euripides, Kafka my love, Conrad, Eliot, Mann, Proust. His
courtesy is sublime. Dickinson, the Brontes, Woolf, Cather,
Wharton, O’Connor, McCullers, Welty. Oh, I love them but I
have ambition like a man. I am curt, quiet, tender, bleeding,
especially quiet, but lit up from inside. He seduces. Dante.
Bach, the greatest writer. Months later I will finally read
Faulkner and he will be the only one I can tell, trembling in
my pants.
The next three hours are him, seducing, talking this passion,
I am building my little castles in the sand. Tess. Flaubert.
Hedda. Marquez. Balzac. Chekhov.
He wants to publish my book. As Is. It is bold and has
no manners. I am in life now confused, overwhelmed. On the
96
page never: but here I am dizzy, why does he, why will he, can
he, is it true? Hush hush little baby, hush hush my dear. As Is.
I am profoundly loved. We go to dinner in the rain.
*
Byron, the Song of Songs, Dickens, Mozart, Jean Rhys, Tolstoy
and the Troyat biography and the new biography of Hannah
Arendt, Singer, Freud, Darwin, Milton. I am profoundly loved.
I am trembling. Donne. Utterly female. Bought and saved.
*
I am afraid to eat, wet, in the restaurant, out of the rain,
trembling and wet: too carnal, too vulgar, too much the
mountain of thigh, I want the ether.
*
lt is, of course, not entirely this way. Somehow, Conrad reminds him of a high school teacher who had a boat in his sophomore year of high school; and Dostoyevsky reminds him
of someone he fucked three weeks ago in Denver— it was cold
there; and Milton reminds him of how misunderstood he was
when he was eighteen; and Zola’s J ’Accuse reminds him of
how he stood up to his parents and finally told them whatever;
and Mann reminds him of a lover who told him how hard it
was being German and of course he remembers the room they
were in and the sex acts that went before and after the desperately painful discussion of how hard it is; and Virginia Woolf reminds him of how depressed he is when he has to attend
sales conferences; and Singer reminds him of how his Jewish
mother reacted when he told her whatever; and Mozart reminds him of all the piano lessons he took and how brilliant he was before he decided to be brilliant now as an editor of
literature and also how he was unappreciated especially when
he taught English to a bunch of assholes in the sixties who had
no critical standards; and Freud reminds him of what it was
like to be such a sensitive child in school when all the boys
were masturbating and telling whatever jokes; and Jean Rhys
reminds him that he has been stalled on his own novel for
quite a while because of the demands of his job, which can be
quite pedestrian; and Djuna Barnes reminds him of a party he
went to in the Village dressed not in a dress like the other
whatevers but in a suit and didn’t that show whomever; and
Dickens reminds him of how much he abhors sentimentality
97
and the many occasions on which he has encountered it and
since he is in his late thirties there have been many occasions
and he remembers them all. And the Brontes remind him of his
last trip to England, which Maggie is really fucking up, which,
he tells me sternly, is going to hurt feminism.
And I wonder how I am going to survive being loved so
profoundly, like this. My palms do not sweat; they weep.
*
We went from the coffeehouse to the restaurant in the rain,
wet. I tried to slide along the broken New York sidewalks,
drift gracefully over the cracks, dance over the lopsided cement,
not hit the bilious pieces of steel that jut up from nowhere for
no reason here and there, not fall over the terrible people
walking with angry umbrellas into me. I tried to glide and
talk, an endless stream of pleasant yesses with an occasional
impassioned but do you really think. We stopped, we breathed
in the rain, breathless, in a crack I saw a broken needle, syringe,
I want it a lot these days, the relief from time and pain, I keep
going, always, away from it, he followed and we walked far,
across town, all the way from east to west, in the rain, wet,
cold, and I tried not to be breathless, wet, and the hair on his
lip glistened with lubrication and he strutted, his shoulders
sometimes hanging down, sometimes jutted back. They hung
down for the Japanese. They jutted back for Celine.
The cement disappeared behind us, a trail of rice at a
wedding, and stretched out in front of us, the future, our life,
our bed, our home, our earth, wet.
We went into the restaurant, wet.
*
A small cramped table, an omelette, a dozen cups of coffee, a
million cigarettes, one brutal piss after waiting all night, no
dessert, his credit card: dinner: I was tired enough to die. Hours
more of the canon, my heart. Except that we had reached the
end hours before, but still he went on.
We walked out, I wanted to go, off on my own, back to
myself, alone, apart, noiseless, no drone of text and interpretation, no more writers to love together as only (by now it was established) we could: just the dread silence of me alone,
with my own heart. On cement, in rain, wet.
I left him on a corner. Asked him which way he was going.
98
Would have gone the opposite. Extended my hand, kind but
formal, serious and sober, ladylike and gentlemanly, quiet but
taut, firm and final. He took it and he pulled me into his lips
so hard that I would have had to make both of us fall to get
away: and I didn’t scream: and he said he loved me and would
publish my book. Oh, I said, wet.
*
We left the restaurant and walked down a wide street full of
shops, cards, clothes, coffeehouses, restaurants, some trees
even, brick buildings, light from the moon on the rain. We
talked nervous clips, half sentences, fatigue and coffee, wet.
We crossed a small street. We stood in front of a blooming
garden, all colored and leafy, where a prison used to be, I had
been in it, a tall brick building, twelve floors of women, locked
up, a building where they took you and spread your legs and
tried to hurt you by tearing you apart inside. A building where
they put you in cells and locked that door and then locked a
thicker door and then locked a thicker door, and you could
look out the window and see us standing on that corner below,
looking like a man and a woman kissing under the moon in
the rain, wet. You could see the lights and the hookers on the
street corners and the literati fucking around too. You could
see a Howard Johnson’s when it was still there and gaggles of
pimps right across a huge intersection and you could hear a
buzz, a hum, that sounded like music from up there, up on one
of those floors inside that brick. You could see the people
underneath, down below, and you could wonder who they
were, especially the boys and the girls kissing, you could see
everything and everyone but you couldn’t get at them, even if
you screamed, and inside they spread you on a table and they
tore you up and they left you bleeding. And they tore me up.
And now it was a garden, very pretty really, and my honey the
publisher who I had just met was right there, in the moonlight,
wet: and the blood was flowing: he grabbed me and pulled me
and kissed me hard and held me so I couldn’t move and it was
all fast and hard and he said he loved me.
*
I am bleeding again on this corner; where there was a prison;
where a man has kissed me against my will; and will publish
my book, oh my love; and it is wet; and the cement glistens;
99
and the moon lights up the rain; and I am wet. I turn away
and go home.
*
The windows were open, as always. The cold no longer
streamed in as it had the first few months when the windows
first had to stay open day and night: winter, fall, summer,
spring: wind, rain, ice, fire. Now the cold was a tired old resident, always there, bored and heavy, lazy and indifferently spinning webs tinged with ice, stagnant, ever so content to stay
put. Even when the wind was blowing through the apartment,
blowing like in some class
ic Hollywood storm, the cold just
sat there, not making a sound. It had permeated the plaster. It
had sunk into the splintered red floors. It was wedged into the
finest cracks in pipes, stone, and brick. It sat stupidly on the
linoleum. It rested impressively on my desk. It embraced my
books. It slept in my bed. It was like a great haze of light, a
spectacular aura, around the coffeepot. It lay like a corpse in
a bathtub. The cats hunched up in it, their coats wild and
thick and standing on end, their eyes a little prehistoric and
haunted. They tumbled together in it, touching it sometimes
gingerly with humbly uplifted paws to see if it was real.
Prowling or crouched and filled with disbelief, they sought to
stumble on a pocket of air slightly heated by breath or accidental friction. There was no refuge of more than a few seconds’ duration.
The fumes that polluted the apartment came through the
walls like death might, transparent, spreading out, persistent,
inescapable. A half mile down, five long flights, immigrants
cooked greasy hamburgers for junkies, native-born. Each
hamburger spit out particles of grease, smoke, oil, dirt, and
each particle sprang wings and flew up toward heaven, where
we tenement angels were. The carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion was a gaseous visitation that blurred vision, caused acute, incomprehensible pain inside the head,
and made the stomach cringe in waiting vomit. The gas could
pass through anything, and did: a clenched fist; layers of human
fat; the porous walls of this particular slum dwelling; the
human heart and brain and especially the abdomen, where it
turned spikelike and tore into the lower intestine with sharp
bitter thrusts. Molecules whirled in the wall: were the wall
100
itself whirling: wondrous: each molecule providing elaborate
occasion for generous invasion: dizzying space for wandering
stink and stench and poison. The wall simply ceased to be
solid and instead moved like atoms under a microscope. I
expected to be able to put my hand, gently, softly, kindly,
through it. It would fade and part like wisps of cotton candy,
not clinging even that much, or it would be like a film ghost: I
would be able to move through it, it not me being unreal. The