saying it but no one dared. O f course now the adults were
saying everything was fine and no bomb was com ing and
there was no danger; we didn’t have to stand in the halls, not
that day, the one day it was clear atomic death was right there,
in N ew Jersey. But we knew and everyone thought the same
thing and said the same thing and it was the only thought we
had to say how sad we were to die and everyone giggled and
was almost afraid to say it but everyone had been thinking the
same thing all night and wanted to say it in the morning before
we died. It was like a record we were making for ourselves, a
history o f us, how we had lived and been cheated because we
had to die virgins. We said to each other that it’s not fair we
have to die now, today; we didn’t get to do anything. We said
it to each other and everyone knew it was true and then when
we lived and the bomb didn’t come we never said anything
about it again but everyone hurried. We hurried like no one
had ever hurried in the history o f the world. O ur mothers
lived in dream time; no bomb; old age; do it the first time after
marriage, one man or yo u ’ll be cheap; time for them droned
on. B ay o f Pigs meant no more time. They don’t care about
w hy girls do things but we know things and we do things;
w e’re not just animals who don’t mind dying. The houses
where I lived were brick; the streets were cement, gray; and I
used to think about the three pigs and the bad w o lf blow ing
down their houses but not the brick one, how the brick one
was strong and didn’t fall down; and I would try to think i f the
brick ones would fall down when the bomb came. They
looked like blood already; blood-stained walls; blood against
the gray cement; and they were already broken; the bricks
were torn and crumbling as if they were soft clay and the
cement was broken and cracked; and I would watch the houses
and think maybe it was like with the three pigs and the big bad
w o lf couldn’t blow them down, the big bad bomb. I thought
maybe we had a chance but if we lived in some other kind o f
house we wouldn’t have a chance. I tried to think o f the bomb
hitting and the brick turned into blood and dust, red dust
covering the cement, wet with real blood, but the cement
would be dust too, gray dust, red dust on gray dust, just dust
and sky, everything gone, the ground just level everywhere
there was. I could see it in my mind, with me sitting in the
dust, playing with it, but I wouldn’t be there, it would be red
dust on gray dust and nothing else and I wouldn’t even be a
speck. I thought it would be beautiful, real pure, not ugly and
poor like it was now, but so sad, a million years o f nothing,
and tidal waves o f wind would come and kill the quiet o f the
dust, kill it. I went away to N ew Y ork C ity for freedom and it
meant I went away from the red dust, a picture bigger than the
