the users. It’s got to be brute so it blocks out anything subtle or
nuanced or kind, even, and it’s got to be unceasing so you can’t
hear a human breath and it’s got to stomp on you so your heart
almost stops beating and it’s got to be lunatic, unorganized,
perpetual, and it has to be in a crowded room where there’s
gristle and muscle and cold, mean men and you can’t hear the
timbre o f their voices and you don’t need to see them or touch
them because the noise has you, it’s air, it’s water, you
breathe, you swim; I need noise, and it’s too late to buy a bottle
anyway, even if I had enough money, because it is very dear, it
would be like buying a diamond tiara for a princess or some
fine clothes, a fine jew el, it is out o f m y reach, I have not had
one o f m y own ever and I don’t count the bottles you can’t see
in the paper bags because that is a different thing altogether,
more like gasoline or like someone took matches and lit up
your throat or yo u ’re pouring kerosene down it or some
sharp-edged thing scrapes it raw. I need enough bills to keep,
drinking so no one’s going to chase me aw ay or say I can’t pay
rent on the stool or so I don’t have to smile at no one or so no
bartender don’t have me throwed out; I am fearful about that;
they always treat you so illegitimate but if you can show
enough money they will tolerate you sitting there. There’s not
enough money for me to eat even if they’d let me so I put that
out o f m y mind, I would like lobster o f course with the biggest
amount o f drawn butter, just drenched in it, ju st so much it
drips down and you can feel it spreading out inside your
mouth all rich and glorious, it’s like some divine silky stu ff but
there’s never enough o f it and I have to ask for more and they
act parsimonious and shocked. If you sit at a table you have to
buy dinner, they don’t have some idea that you could just sit
there and be cool and watch or have a little o f this and a little o f
that; they only have the idea that everyone’s lying, you know,
everyone’s pretending, everyone’s trying to rip them off,
everyone’s pretending to be rich so they have to see the money
or everyone’s pretending they’re going to eat so they have to
see the m oney or everyone’s pretending they can pay for the
drinks so they have to see the money and if yo u ’re a woman
you don’t get a table even i f you got money; m y idea is if I have
enough m oney and I put it out in front o f me on the bar and I
keep drinking and drinking I can stay there and then I don’t
have to look to m y right or to m y left at a man for a fucking
thing; I can i f I want but I am not obliged. I’m usually too shy
to push m y w ay in and I’ve never tried it, I ju st know yo u ’re
not supposed to be there alone, but tonight I want to drink, it’s
what I want like some people want to win the Indy 500 or
there’s some that want to walk on the moon; I want to drink;
pure. I want to sit there and have m y ow n stool and I don’t
