doesn’t make tom orrow something I can conceive o f in m y
mind; I mean words I say to m yself in m y ow n head; not social
words you use to explain to someone else. I barely know
anything and if I deviate I am lost; I have to be literal, if I can
remember, which m ostly I cannot. N o one will acknowledge
that some things happen and probably at this point in time
there is no w ay to say they do in a broad sweep; you describe
the man forcing you but you can’t say he forced you. If I was a
man I could probably say it; I could say I did it and everyone
would think I made it up even though I’d just be remembering
what I did last night or twenty minutes ago or once, long ago,
but it probably w ouldn’t matter. The rapist has words, even
though there’s no rapist, he ju st keeps inventing rape; in his
mind; sure. He remembers, even though it never happened;
it’s fine fiction when he writes it down. Whereas m y mind is
getting worn away; it’s being eroded, experience keeps
washing over it and there’s no sea wall o f words to keep it
intact, to keep it from being washed away, carried out to sea,
layer by layer, fine grains washed away, a thin surface washed
away, then some more, washed away. I am fairly worn away
in m y mind, washed out to sea. It probably doesn’t matter
anyway. People lead their little lives. T here’s not much
dignity to go around. T here’s lies in abundance, and silence for
girls who don’t tell them. I don’t want to tell them. A lie’s for
when he’s on top o f you and you got to survive him being
there until he goes; M alcolm X tried to stop saying a certain
lie, and maybe I should change from Andrea because it’s a lie.
It’s just that it’s a precious thing from my mother that she tried
to give me; she didn’t want it to be such an awful lie, I don’t
think. So I have to be the writer she tried to be— Andrea; not-
cunt— only I have to do it so it ain’t a lie. I ain’t fabricating
stories. I’m making a different kind o f story. I’m writing as
truthful as the man with his fingers, if only I can remember
and say; but I ain’t on his side. I’m on some different side. I’m
telling the truth but from a different angle. I’m the one he done
it to. The bait’s talking, honey, if she can find the words and
stay even barely alive, or even just keep the blood running; it
can’t dry up, it can’t rot. The bait’s spilling the beans. The
bait’s going to transcend the material conditions o f her
situation, fuck you very much, Mr. M arx. The bait’s going
w ay past Marx. The bait’s taking her eviscerated, bleeding self
and she ain’t putting it back together, darling, because,
frankly, she don’t know how; the bait’s a realist, babe, the
bait’s no fool, she’s just going to bleed all over you and you are
going to have to find the words to describe the stain, a stain as
big as her real life, boy; a big, nasty stain; a stain all over you,
all the blood you ever spilled; that’s the esthetic dimension,
through art she replicates the others you done it to, gets the
stain to incorporate them too. It’s coming right back on you,
sink or swim; fucking drown your head in it; give in, darling;
go down. That’s the plan, in formal terms. The bait’s got a
theory; the bait’s finding a practice, working it out; the bait’s
going to write it down and she don’t have to use words, she’ll
make signs, in blood, she’s good at bleeding, boys, the vein’s
open, boys, the bait’s got plenty, each month more and more
without dying for a certain long period o f her life, she can lose
it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures,
big signs; oh and honey there’s so much bait around that
there’s going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when
the new art gets its start. Y ou are going to be sitting in it; the
new novel; participation, it’s called; I’m smearing it all over
you. It ain’t going to be made up; it ain’t going to be a lie; and
you are going to pay attention, directly, even though it’s by a
girl, because this time it’s on you. if I find a word, I’ll use it;
but I ain’t waiting, darling, I already waited too long. If you
was raised a boy you don’t know how to get blood off, yo u ’re
shocked, surprised, in Vietnam when you see it for the first
time and I been bleeding since I was nine, I’m used to putting
m y hands in it and I live. Y ou don’t give us no words for
w hat’s true so now there’s signs, a new civilization just
starting now: her name’s not-cunt and she’s just got to express
herself, say some this and that, use w hat’s there, take w hat’s
hers: her blood’s hers; your blood’s hers. Here’s the difference
between us, sweet ass: I’m using blood you already spilled;
mine; hers; cunt’s. I ain’t so dirty as to take yours. I don’t
confuse this new manifesto with being Artaud; he was on the
other side. There are sides. If he spills m y blood, it’s art. if I put
mine on him, it’s deeply not nice or good or, as they say,
interesting; it’s not interesting. There’s a certain— shall we
understate? — distaste. It’s bad manners but not rude in an
artistically valid sense. It’s just not being the right kind o f girl.
It’s deranged but not in the Rimbaud sense. It’s just not being
M arjorie Morningstar, which is the height to which you may
aspire, failed artist but eventually fine homemaker. It’s loony,
yes, it’s got some hate in it somewhere, but it ain’t revolutionary like Sade who spilled blood with style; perhaps they think a girl can’t have style but since a girl can’t really have
anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;
there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y
friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black
Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing
the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me
poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f
encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I
wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the
problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the
press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to
see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the
revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place
in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and
old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and
women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.
H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for
the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it
helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can
see that, it makes his simple language look strong and
purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that
whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have
words. I can’t tell if raped is a word he knows or not; if he
thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;
because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each
other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is
taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great
thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy
and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f
revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for
m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance
and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past
sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this
apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write
without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so
and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it
happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough
confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or
maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to
us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it
happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We
w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the
blood that was spilled and smear it in public w ays so it’s art and
politics and science; the fisherman w o n ’t like the book so
w hat’s new; he’ll say it ain’t art or he’ll say it’s bullshit; but
here’s the startling part; the bait’s got a secret system o f
communication, not because it’s hidden but because the
fisherman’s fucking stupid; so arrogant; so sure o f forever and
a day; so sure he don’t listen and he don’t look and he says it
ain’t anything and he thinks that means it ain’t anything
whereas what it means is that we finally can invent: a new
alphabet first, big letters, proud, new letters from which will
come new words for old things, real things, and the bait says
what they are and what they mean, and then we get new
novels in which the goal is to tell the truth: deep truth. So
make it all up, the whole new thing, to be able to say w hat’s
there; because they are keeping it hidden now. Y o u ’re not
supposed to write something down that happened; yo u ’re
supposed to invent. W e’ll write down what happened and
invent the personhood o f who it happened to; w e’ll make a
language for her so we can tell a story for her in which she will
see what happened and know for sure it happened and it
mattered; and the boys will have to confront a new esthetic
that tells them to go suck eggs. I am for this idea; energized by
it. It’s clear that if you need the fisherman to read the book—
his critical appreciation as it were— this new art ain’t for you. If
he’s got what he did to you written on him or close enough to
him, rude enough near him, is he different, will he know? I say
he’ll have to know; it’s the brilliance o f the medium— he’s it,
the vehicle o f political and cultural transcendence as it were.
It’s a new, forthright communication— they took the words
but they left your arm, your hand, so far at least; it could
change, but for now; he’s the living canvas; he can refuse to
understand but he cannot avoid know ing; it’s your blood, he
spilled it, yo u ’ve used it: on him. It’s a simplicity Artaud
failed, frankly, to achieve. W e’ll make it new; epater the
fuckers. Then he can be human or not; he’s got a choice, which
is more than he ever gave; he can put on the uniform, honest,
literal Nazi, or not. The clue is to see what you don’t have as
the starting place and you look at it straight and you say what
does it give me, not what does it take; you say what do I have
and what don’t I have and am I making certain presumptions
about what I need that are in fact their presumptions, so much
garbage in my way, and if I got rid o f the garbage what then
would I see and could I use it and how; and when. I got hope. I
got faith. I see it falling. I see it ending. I see it bent over and
hitting the ground. And, what’s even better is that because the
fisherman ain’t going to listen as if his life depended on it we
got a system o f secret communication so foolproof no
scoundrel could imagine it, so perfect, so pure; the less we are,
the more we have; the less we matter, the more chance we get;
the less they care, the more freedom is ours; the less, the more,
you see, is the basic principle, it’s like psychological jujitsu
except applied to politics through a shocking esthetic; you use
their fucking ignorance against them; ignorance is a synonym
in such a situation for arrogance and arrogance is tonnage and
in jujitsu you use your opponent’s weight against him and you
do it if yo u ’re weak or poor too, because it’s all you have; and if
someone doesn’t know you’re human they’re a Goddamn fool
and they got a load o f ignorance to tip them over with. Y ou
ain’t got literature but you got a chance; a chance; you
understand— a chance; you got a chance because the bait’s
going to get it, and there’s going to be a lot o f w riggling things
building made out o f old stone. They used to have immigrants
sleeping in the hallways for a few pennies a night so all the
toilets are out there in the halls. They had them stacked at
night; men sleeping on top o f each other and women selling it
or not having a choice; tenement prostitution they call it in
books, how the men piled in the halls to sleep but the women
had to keep putting out for money for food. They did it
standing up. N o w you walk through the hall hoping there’s
no motherfucker with a knife waiting for you, especially in the
toilets, and if you have to pee, you are scared, and i f you have
to shit, it is fully frightening. I go with a knife in m y hand
always and I sleep with a knife under m y pillow, always. I
have not had a shit not carrying a knife since I came here. I got
a bank account. I am doing typing for stupid people. I don’t
like to make margins but they want margins. I think it’s better
i f each line’s different, if it flows like a poem, if it’s uneven and
surprising and esthetically nice. But they want it like it’s for
soldiers or zombies, everything lined up, left and right, with
hyphens breaking words open in just the right places, which I
don’t know where they are. I type, I steal but less now, really
as little as possible though I will go to waitress hell for stealing
tips, I know that, I will be a prisoner in a circle o f hell and they
will put the faces o f all the waitresses around me and all their
shabby, hard lives that I made worse, but stealing tips is easy
and I am good at it as I have been since childhood and when I
have any m oney in m y pocket I do truly leave great chunks o f
it and when I am older and rich I will be p
rofligate and if I ever
go broke in m y old days it will be from making it up to every
waitress alive in the world then, but this generation’s getting
fucked unavoidably. Someday I will write a great book with
the lines m oving like waves in the sea, flowing as much as I
want them. I’m Andrea is what I will find a deep w ay to
express in honor o f m y mama who thought it up; a visionary,
though the vision couldn’t withstand what the man did to me
early; or later, the man, in the political sense. I make little
amounts o f m oney and I put them in the bank and each day I
go to the bank for five dollars, except sometimes I go for two
days on seven dollars. I wait in line and the tellers are very
disturbed that I have come for m y money. It’s a long walk to
the bank, it’s far aw ay because there aren’t any banks in the
neighborhood where I live, and it’s a good check on me
because it keeps me from getting money for frivolous things; I
have to make a decision and execute it. When an emergency
occurs, I am in some trouble; but if I have five dollars in my
pocket I feel I can master most situations. M y astrology said
that M ercury was doing some shit and Saturn and things
would break and fall apart and I went to unlock the two locks
on m y door to my apartment and the first lock just crumbled,
little metal pieces fell as if it was spiders giving birth, all the
little ones falling out o f it, it just seemed pulverized into grains
and it just was crushed to sand, the whole cylinder o f the lock
just collapsed almost into molecules; and the second lock just
kept turning around and around but absolutely nothing locked
or unlocked and then there was this sound o f something falling
and it had fallen through the door to the other side, it just fell
out o f the door. It was night, and even putting the chain on
didn’t help. I sat with m y knife and stared at it all night to keep
anyone from breaking in. The crisis o f getting new locks made
me destitute and desperate and on such occasions I had to steal.
I always considered it more honorable to m yself than fucking;