front o f you to anywhere, with anyone. Limits were another
lie, a social fiction all the zombies got together to tell. The
destination was always the street because the destination was
always freedom; out from under; no rule on top o f you. Y ou
could almost look through the brick, which was crumbling,
and you had this sense that every building had holes in it, a
transparency, and that no walls were ever finished or ever
lasted; and the cement outside was gray, cracked, streaked
with blood from where they threw you down to have fun with
you on hot nights and cold nights, the boys with their cars and
knives; I knew some o f those boys; I loved Nino who said
“ make love” as if it was something real special and real nice
and so fine, so precious and kind and urgent, his eyes burned
and his voice was low and soft and silk, it wrapped itself
around you, he didn’t reach out, he didn’t m ove towards you,
you had to let him know, you had to; I could still fucking die
for what he promised with his brilliant seduction, a poor,
uneducated boy, but when he did it I got used to being hurt
from behind, he used his knife, he made fine lines o f blood,
delicate, and you didn’t dare m ove except for your ass as he
wanted and you didn’t know if yo u ’d die and you got to love
danger i f you loved the boy and danger never forsakes you; the
boy leaves but danger is faithful. Y ou knew the cement under
you and the brick around you and the sound o f the boys
speeding by in their cars and the sudden silence, which meant
they were stalking you. I was born in Camden down the street
from where Walt Whitman lived, M ickle Street, he was the
great gray poet, the prophetic hero o f oceanic verse; also not-
cunt. Great poet; not-cunt. It’s like a mathematical equation
but no one learns it in school by heart; it ain’t written down
plain on the blackboard. It’s algebra for girls but no one’s
going to teach you. Y ou get brought down or throwed down
and you learn for yourself. There’s no mother on earth can
bear to explain it. I can’t write down what happened and I can’t
tell lies. T here’s no words for what happened and there’s
barely words for the lies. if I was a man I would say something
about fishing and it would be a story, a perfectly fine one too;
the bait, the hook, the lake, the wind, the shore, and then
everything else is the manly stuff. If I was a man at least I’d
know what to say, or I’d say it so grand it wouldn’t matter if it
was true or not; anyone’d recognize it and say it was art. I
could think o f something important, probably; recognizably
so. If I was a man and something happened I could write it
down and probably it would pass as a story even if it was true.
O f course, that’s just speculation. I’d swagger, too, if I was a
