prison. I have written it. It strangely resembles my own story:
jailed over Vietnam the woman is endlessly strip-searched and
then mangled inside by jail doctors. N will make it— direct it,
shoot it, edit it. It is her film. R is the star. She is N ’s lover for
years, plans on forever, it is on the skids but she hangs on,
pretending not to know. She is movingly loyal and underneath
pathetically desperate. N and I are not allowed to be lovers so
we never are, alone. We evade the spirit of the law. N refuses
to make a political film. Politics, she argues, is boring and
temporary. Vietnam will be over and forgotten. A work of art
must outlast politics. She uses words sparingly. Her language
is almost austere, never ornate. We are artists, she says. I am
liberal with her. She always brings out my generosity. I take
no hard line on politics. I too want art. We need money. Most
of ours goes for cigarettes, after which there isn’t any left. We
fuck for drugs. Speed is cheaper than food. We fuck for pills.
We fuck for prescriptions. We fuck for meals when we have
to. We fuck for drinks in bars. We fuck for tabs of acid. We
fuck for capsules of mescaline. We fuck for loose change. We
fuck for fun. We fuck for adventure. We fuck when we are hot
from the weather. We fuck for big bucks to produce our movie.
In between, we discuss art and politics. We listen to music and
read books. She plays sax and clarinet and I write short stories.
We are poor but educated.
*
The day we moved in the men, our neighbors, paid us a visit.
We will get you, they said. We will come when we are ready.
We will fuck you when we are ready. We will come one
night when we decide. Maybe we will sell you. N is worth a
lot of money in Puerto Rico, they say. I am worth not so
much but still a little something. They are relaxed, sober.
Some have knives. They take their time. How will you keep
us out, one man asks logically. What can you do to keep us
out. One night we will come. There are six or seven of them
4i
there. Two speak, alternating promises. One night we will
come.
Our friend M shows up then, cool cool pacifist hippie type,
white, long hair in a ponytail. Hey man, he says, hey man,
hey man, let’s talk peace not war, let’s be friends man, let’s have
some smoke. He invites them into our storefront. The men sit
in a circle in the front room, the front door wide open. Hey,
man, come on, these chicks are cool. Hey, man, come on, these
chicks are cool. Hey, man, come on, I got some good smoke, let’s
just cool this out man smoke some smoke man together man
these are cool chicks man. He passes a pipe, passes joints: it is
a solemn ceremony. We gonna come in and get these chicks
when we want them man. Hey man, come on, man, these
