days on seven dollars. I wait in line and the tellers are very
disturbed that I have come for m y money. It’s a long walk to
the bank, it’s far aw ay because there aren’t any banks in the
neighborhood where I live, and it’s a good check on me
because it keeps me from getting money for frivolous things; I
have to make a decision and execute it. When an emergency
occurs, I am in some trouble; but if I have five dollars in my
pocket I feel I can master most situations. M y astrology said
that M ercury was doing some shit and Saturn and things
would break and fall apart and I went to unlock the two locks
on m y door to my apartment and the first lock just crumbled,
little metal pieces fell as if it was spiders giving birth, all the
little ones falling out o f it, it just seemed pulverized into grains
and it just was crushed to sand, the whole cylinder o f the lock
just collapsed almost into molecules; and the second lock just
kept turning around and around but absolutely nothing locked
or unlocked and then there was this sound o f something falling
and it had fallen through the door to the other side, it just fell
out o f the door. It was night, and even putting the chain on
didn’t help. I sat with m y knife and stared at it all night to keep
anyone from breaking in. The crisis o f getting new locks made
me destitute and desperate and on such occasions I had to steal.
I always considered it more honorable to m yself than fucking;
less honorable to who I did it to; it was new to pick me over
them. I just knew I’d live longer stealing than fucking. O f
course I stole from the weak; who doesn’t? I had thought
fucking for money was stealing from the strong but it only
robbed me, although I can’t say o f what, because there’s more
wordlessness there, more what’s never been said; I’m not
formulated enough to get at it. I had a dog someone dumped
on me saying they were going to have it killed. It was so fine;
you can weave affirmation back, there can be a sudden miracle
o f happiness; m y dog was a smiling, happy creature; I thought
o f her as the quintessential all-Amerikan, someone w holly
extroverted with no haunted insides, just this cheerful, big,
brilliant creature filled with licks and bounces; and I loved
what made her happy, a stick, a stone, I mean, things I could
actually provide. I think making her happy was m y happiest
time on earth. She was big, she bounced, she was brown and
black, she was a German shepherd, and she didn’t have any
meanness in her, just play, just jum p, just this jo y . She didn’t
have a streak o f savagery. If there was a cockroach in the
apartment, a small one because we didn’t have the monsters,
she’d stand up over it and she’d study it awhile and then she’d
pick it up in her mouth and she’d carry it to her corner o f the
room and she’d put it down and sit on top o f it. She’d be proud
