GODDESSES: the way I do (a sweet punctuation. Now they are women waiting for their men, soft and wet they squat on balconies looking for our smoke signals, touching themselves)
GAVIN GATE: Don’t you realize
even fools have feelings too?
So baby
GODDESSES: Ahhhhhhhhh
GAVIN GATE: C’mon back (a command)
and let me dry (a hope)
the tears (the real life of pity)
from your eye (one eye, darling, one eye at a time)
GAVIN AND THE GODDESSES WHIP THEMSELVES WITH ELECTRIC BRAIDS
Cause I would never hurt you
GODDESSES: I would never hurt you
GAVIN GATE: No no I would never hurt you
GODDESSES: I would never hurt you
GAVIN GATE: Cause Baby when it hurt you
DRUM: Swak!
GAVIN GATE: Don’t you know it hurts me too?
GODDESSES: hurt me too
GAVIN GATE: It hurts me so bad
GODDESSES: hurt me too
GAVIN GATE: I never desert you
GODDESSES: hurt me too
THEY FADE, THE ELECTRIC OPERATORS, GAVIN, THE GODDESSES, THEIR BACKS BLEEDING, THEIR GENITALIA RED AND SORE. THE GREAT STORY HAS BEEN TOLD, IN THE DICTATORSHIP OF TIME, A COME HAS RENT THE FLAG, TROOPS ARE MASTURBATING WITH 1948 PIN-UPS IN THEIR TEARS, A PROMISE HAS BEEN RENEWED.
RADIO: That was Gavin Gate and the Goddesses.…
I ran for the telephone. I called the station. Is that the Early Morning Record Gal, I shouted into the mouthpiece. Is it? Is it really you? Thank you, thank you. A dedication? Oh, my love. Don’t you understand how long I’ve been in the kitchen alone? I’m irregular. I suffer from irregularity. I’m burnt bad in the thumb. Don’t Sir me, you Early Morning Record Gal. I have to talk to someone such as you because –
TELEPHONE: Click click.
What are you doing? Hey! Hey! Hello, hello, oh, no. I remembered that there was a telephone booth a few blocks down. I had to talk to her. My shoes stuck in the semen as I walked across the linoleum. I gained the door. I commanded the elevator. I had so much to tell her, her with her blue voice and city knowledge. Then I was out on the street, 4 a.m. in the morning, the streets damp and dark as newly poured cement, the streetlamps nearly merely decoration; the moon given speed by flying scarves of cloud, the thick walled warehouses with gold family names, the cold blue air filled with smells of burlap and the river, the sound of trucks with country vegetables, the creaks of a train unloading skinned animals from beds of ice, and men in overalls with great armfuls of traveling food, great wrestling embraces in the front-line war of survival, and men would win, and men would tell the grief in victory – I was outside in the cold ordinary world, F. had led me here by many compassionate tricks, a gasp in praise of existence blasted my chest and unfolded my lungs like a newspaper in the wind.
31
The King of France was a man. I was a man. Therefore I was the King of France. F.! I’m sinking again.
32
Canada became a royal colony of France in 1663. Here come the troops led by le marquis de Tracy, lieutenant-general of the armies of the king, here they come marching through the snow, twelve hundred tall men, the famous régiment de Carignan. The news travels down the icy banks of the Mohawk: the King of France has touched the map with his white finger. The Intendant Talon, the Governor M. de Courcelle, and Tracy, they gaze over the infested wilderness. My brothers, let us be masters of the Richelieu! Voices spoken over maps, voices spoken into windows, and the forts rise along shore, Sorel, Chambly, Sainte-Thérèse, Saint-Jean, Sainte-Anne on an island in Lake Champlain. My brothers, the Iroquois live in too many trees. January 1666, M. de Courcelle led a column of men deep into Mohawk country, a Napoleonic blunder. He went without his Algonquin scouts, who did not happen to show up on time. The Indians marked the aimless trail of his retreat with many bristling corpses. Tracy waited until September of the same year. Out of Québec, into the scarlet forests, marched six hundred of the Carignan, another six hundred of the Militia, and one hundred friendly Indians. Four priests accompanied the expedition. After a three-week march they reached the first Mohawk village, Gandaouagué. The fires were cold, the village was deserted, as were all the villages they would come to. Tracy planted a Cross, a Mass was celebrated, and over the empty long houses rose the solemn music of the Te Deum. Then they burned the village to the ground, Gandaouagué and all those they came to, they devastated the countryside, destroyed provisions of corn and bean, into the fire went every harvest. The Iroquois sued for peace, and as in 1653 priests were dispatched to every village. The truce of 1666 lasted eighteen years. Mgr. de Laval blessed his Fathers before they left Québec in the search for souls. The priests entered the rebuilt village of Gandaouagué in the summer of 1667. The Mohawks sounded their great shell trumpets as the Robes-Noires, they of the long black dresses, settled among them. They stayed three days at the village we have studied, but here we may note a delicate attention of Providence. They were billeted in the cabin of Catherine Tekakwitha, and she served them, she followed them as they visited the captives of the village, Christian Hurons and Algonquins, watched as they baptized their young, wondered as they isolated the old in far-off cabins. After three days the priests moved on to Gandarago, then to Tionnontoguen, where they were greeted by two hundred braves, a chief’s eloquent welcome, and the cheers of the people who preferred the intrusion of foreign magic to the wrath of the Carignan. Five missions were established throughout the Iroquois confederation: Sainte-Marie at Tionnontoguen, Saint-François-Xavier at Onneyout, Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Onnontagué, Saint-Joseph at Tsonnontouan – from lac
