to kill him but I just can’t bear them no longer, really, and it’s
unknown i f I could do it to me; so fast; but I keep practicing in
m y mind so if the time comes I w o n ’t even think. It would be
the right thing. I don’t really believe in hurting him or anyone.
I have the knife; I can’t stand to think about using it, what it
would be like, or going to jail for hurting him, I never wanted
to kill anybody and I’d do almost anything not to. I know the
men outside, they’re neighborhood, this block, they broke in
before, in daylight, smashed everything, took everything,
they ran riot in here, they tell me they’re coming to fuck me,
they say so out on the street, hanging on the stoop; they say so.
T h ey’ve broken in here before, that’s when I started sleeping
with the knife. Inside there’s too many hours to dawn; too
many hours o f dark to hold them off; they’ll get in; I know this
small world as well as they do, I know what they can do and
what they can’t do and once it’s night they can break the door
down and no one will stop them; and the police don’t come
here; you never see a cop here; there’s no w ay to keep them out
and m y blood’s running cold from the banging, from the noise
o f them, fists, knives, I don’t know what, sticks, I guess,
maybe baseball bats, the arsenal o f the streets. The telephone’s
worthless, they cut the wire when they broke in; but no one
would come. This is the loneliest I ever knew existed; now;
them banging. There’s things you learn, tricks; no one can
hurt me. I’m not some stupid piece o f shit. Y ou got a gang
outside, banging, making threats. They want to come in;
fuck. T h ey’ll kill me; fuck me dead or kill me after. It’s like
anything, you have to face what’s true, you don’t get to say if
you want to handle it or not, you handle it to stay alive. So
what’s it to me; if I can just get through it; minimum damage,
minimum pain, the goal o f all women all the time and it’s not
different now. If you’re ever attacked by a gang you have to
get the leader. If you get him, disable him, pull him away from
the others, kill him, render him harmless, the others are
nothing. If you miss him, attack him but miss, wound him,
irritate him, aggravate him, rile him, humiliate him without
taking him out, you are human waste, excreta. So it’s clear;
there’s one way. There’s him. I have to get him. if I can pull
him away from them, to me, I have a chance; a chance. I open
the door. I think if I grab him between the legs I’m in charge; if
I pull his thing. I learn the limits o f m y philosophy. Every
philosophy’s got them. I ain’t in charge. It’s fast. It’s simple. I
open the door. It’s a negotiation. The agreement is he comes
in, they stay out; he doesn’t bring the big knife he has in with
him; it stays outside; if I mess with him, he will hurt me with it
and turn me over to them; if anything bad happens to him or if
I don’t make him happy, he will turn me over to them. This is
consent, right? I opened the door myself. I picked him. I just
