money.
*
We run back and forth from our storefront to Woolworth’s as
we get the money to take more photos. We run back and forth
as we add pages and pages to our interview with each other. I
sit at the typewriter ponderously. This is an important project.
We run back and forth each time we think of something new
to add: a new pose to try, a new sentence to write down, a
new topic to explore, a new intensely artistic sulk or pout. We
make feverish notes in Woolworth’s and run home to type them
up. On one trip a policeman follows us. He walks half a block
behind us, keeping us in sight. We go faster, go slower, he stays
half a block behind us. Girls, he calls finally, girls. We wait.
44
He catches up. There is a silence. Did you know, girls, that
about half an hour ago you crossed the street against a red
light? We are properly stunned, truly stunned, silent and
attentive. I have to write you girls a ticket but listen I don’t
want to be too hard on you, I don’t want to give you a
record or anything so why don’t I write it just for one of
you. The three of us decide he will give the ticket to N since
the apartment is not in her name. He slowly, soberly, prints
her name out in big block letters. Now listen girls you be
careful next time I don’t want to have to do this again you
hear. We stand there, dazed and acquiescent. We walk on
slowly, once we are sure he is really gone. We look over our
shoulders. Is he still there or was he really there? N has a
ticket for jaywalking in her hand. Between us right then we
have a dozen tabs of acid and a bag of marijuana and some
loose joints. We have no money for food so we have been
living on speed and alcohol. We have the speed on us, in a
prescription bottle but you would have to be a fool to believe
it. We are hungry and as soon as we mail off our interview
we know we are going to have to find a fuck. We are stoned
beyond all imagining, and yet of course intensely serious
about art. Still, in the scheme of things, jaywalking is not
a good thing to do. We can see that now, once we think
about it. We think about it now quite a lot, rolling along the
city streets in the burning heat, our sides splitting with
laughter. We are dazzled with the universe and its sense of
humor. We are dazzled too by its generosity: we are left to
pursue art: we are not carted off, dangerous criminals,
drowning in drugs. We are artists, not riffraff. We are scared,
the cop’s breath still hot on our silly necks. Hungry, we find
a fuck, a safe one, N ’s girlfriend, to whom we recount our
uproarious adventure, stressing our triumphant escape. She
feeds us, just barely pretending to be amused. I leave them
alone. N pays for the meal.
