tonight and it’s, ah, freezing out there, and she says there’s
someone with her and she doesn’t want me to come in because
he’s with her and I say okay, fine, yeah, it’s fine, yeah, it’s
okay, yeah, okay, because you don’t press yourself on
someone even if they told you always to come to them and
they gave you keys, they have freedom and if they say no then
you ain’t wanted there, and I think about saying to her you
have to do this because I have nowhere to go and nothing and I
will die out there, this ain’t no joke, tonight’s a dying night,
but you can’t push yourself on someone and I figure she
knows that anyway and you can’t count on no one, they will
let you die and that’s just the truth, and she don’t even open the
door to see my face or pass me money, she keeps it locked and I
hear her fasten the chain, and I’m in the hall o f her building and
I think I can go to Jill’s art opening, it’s all I can think of, a bar’s
more uncertain, more dangerous, and I can spend at least a few
hours there inside and there’s people there I know and I can
find a place to sleep maybe on someone’s floor, I don’t want to
fuck anyone, I just know I don’t, but maybe I can find
somewhere, I only got a couple o f dollars and it don’t last long
and you can’t stay warm through a whole night on it and I
don’t know anything past I have to find a place to sleep tonight
and get out o f the cold and I will w orry about the rest
tom orrow, where to go and what to do, I will think about it
tom orrow, and I say to m yself that I ain’t scared and so what
and this is nothing, absolutely nothing, piece o f cake, no
problem, I’ll just go and have a drink or something at the
opening and I’ll ask around and the art opening will last maybe
until two a. m., and then there’s only four hours or maybe five
until dawn, five really, and I can do that; I can do it; if I think
four hours I can do it and then after it’s only a little more time
and there’ll be light; I can do it; it ain’t new and I can do it; and
probably I can find somewhere to sleep and if I have to fuck I
will but I don’t want to but so what if I do but I w on ’t; I can last
through tonight. I’m walking in the wind, it’s like swim m ing
in the ocean against a deep and deadly tide, I’m walking down
to Soho, the streets are bare and the wind is cruel, just fucking
brutal cruel, I get about half a block at a time and I try to find a
doorw ay, warm up, walk as much more as I can stand, the
wind just freezes you, your chest, your blood, your bones; it
fucking hurts; it ain’t some moderate pain, it’s desperate like
some anguish possessing you. Soho’s industrial lofts and.
galleries and a couple o f bars, there’s long streets with
nowhere to go, it’s as if the doorw ays disappeared because the
buildings are industrial buildings and there’s elevators you
