outside because inside was ridiculous, too silly, an insupportable idea: the absurd idea that this was a place to live.
Sleep kept him believing he had a home— somewhere, after all,
to sleep. But I spent the nights awake, I had to sit at a desk,
turn on electric lights, refer to many different and highly
important books, pace, sharpen pencils, change typewriter
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ribbons, make drafts, take notes, make phone calls, in meaningful and purposeful ways, with dignity and skill, physically inside, certainly inside. That old woman I would soon be,
always outside, sat right near me, I could smell her savage
skin, the mixture of sweat and ice, fear and filth. I already had
her sores on my feet and her bitterness in my heart. I knew
her: I was her already, carefully concealing it: waiting for the
events between this moment and later when I would be her.
My gray hair would hang from the dirty saliva in my mouth
and I would push along some silly belongings: books no doubt,
and some writings, and maybe a frazzled cat on a leash, because
otherwise I would be desperately lonely. Between us, this old
woman and me, there was just this sweet sleeping boy, a giant
of pale beauty and barely conceivable kindness. He was at
least slightly between her and me, and all my rush to despair
was moderated by this small quiet miracle of our time together
on earth. There was nothing perfect in it: but it was gentle: for
me, the kindest love in a life of being loved too much. I sat in
the typing chair, warmed by watching him sleep that foreign
sleep of peace, I watched him and I believed in his peace and
his rest: what was impossible he made real: and then his eyes
fluttered open, and with so many different sounds in his voice,
the whole range of calling and wanting, he called me: said my
name, reached out, and I walked over and touched his hand:
and he said, you’re home, and he asked what was wrong.
And I raged. I bellowed. I howled. I was delirious with pain.
I was shrill with humiliation. I was desperate with accusation
and paranoid but defensible prophecy and acrid recrimination
against what would happen to
editor, the arrogance, the terms of the agreement: my fury, my
rage, my memory of my life as a woman. Nearly keening in
anguish, I told him about the cafe, the literature, the obsessed
man, the kiss.
“ You’ve done it before, ” he said quietly. And went back to
sleep.
*
You know what I meant. This is the world you live in. You’ve
done it before, he said. Oh, yes.
Shit you know what I meant.
You know what I meant.
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