some piece o f trash who ain’t worth nothing on this earth. N o
one can’t kill someone; h o w ’d I become no one; and w h y ’s he
someone; and how come there’s no I inside me; how come I
can’t think he should die i f that’s what it takes to blow him
loose? I’m a pilgrim searching for understanding; because
there’s nothing left, I’m empty and there’s nothing and it takes
a lot o f pride to lie. I wanted; what did I want? I wanted:
freedom. So they are ripping me apart and I smile I say I have
freedom. Freedom is semen all over you and some kinky
bruises, a lot o f men in you and the certainty o f more, there’s
always more; freedom and abundance— m y cup ran over.
There’s a special freedom for girls; it doesn’t get written down
in constitutions; there’s this freedom where they use you how
they want and you say
before, when you ’re young or when you’re a hundred— it’s
the liturgy o f the free woman— I choose, I decide, I want, I
am— and you have to be a devout follower o f the faith, a
fanatic o f freedom, to be able to say the words and remember
the acts at the same time; devout. Y ou really have to love
freedom, darling; be a little Buddha girl, no I, free from the
chain o f being because you are empty inside, no ego, Freud
couldn’t even find you under a microscope. It’s a cold night,
one o f them unusual ones in N ew Y ork, under zero with a
piercing wind about fifteen miles an hour. There’s no coat
warm enough. I lived in someone’s room, slept on the floor. It
was Christmas and she said to meet her at M acy’s. I followed
the directions she gave me and went to the right floor. I never
saw anything so big or so much. There’s hundreds o f kinds o f
sausages all wrapped up and millions o f different boxes o f
cookies all wrapped up and bottles o f vinegar and kinds o f oil
and millions o f things; I couldn’t get used to it and I got dizzy
and upset and I ran out. I lived with the woman who helped
me when I was just a kid out o f jail— she still had the same
apartment and she fed me but I couldn’t sleep in m y old room,
her husband slept in it now, a new husband, so I slept on a sofa
in the room right outside the kitchen and there were no doors.
There was the old sofa, foam rubber covered with plaid cloth,
and books, and the door to the apartment was a few feet away.
When you came in you could turn right or left. I f you turned
left you went to the bathroom or the living room. The living
room had a big double bed in it where she slept, m y friend. If
you turned right you came to the small room that was the
husband’s and past that you came to the open space where I
slept and you came to the kitchen. The husband didn’t like me
being there but he didn’t come home enough for it to matter.
