Valerie

by Sara Stridsberg

  The shop assistants help you test lipstick and perfume on your wrists. They are blond and inspire confidence. But you walk too quickly from one to another and the security guards want to escort you to the exit. And it is so difficult to understand why everything that was dazzling with possibilities has been turned into nothing. Andy Warhol is obviously an ignorant illiterate, because he will not read Up Your Ass, but just keeps looking at pictures in his imbecile fashion magazines. And all you want is to send one damn book to the desert sometime so that Dorothy can finally have something good to read.

  SECURITY GUARDS: You have to leave. We’ll accompany you to the door.

  VALERIE: Why?

  SECURITY GUARDS: You have to leave the department store immediately.

  VALERIE: I’m shopping.

  SECURITY GUARDS: We’ll accompany you to the door.

  VALERIE: Why do I have to leave?

  SECURITY GUARDS: You’re in too much of a hurry in here. You’re dashing from one counter to the next. It makes the other customers uneasy when you race around like that.

  VALERIE: I’m shopping for lipstick and books for Cosmogirl. And a powder compact for Silk Boy. A little fuck-wig for Dorothy.

  SECURITY GUARDS: It doesn’t matter what you’re shopping for. You still have to leave.

  VALERIE: You can buy the manifesto for half a dollar.

  SECURITY GUARDS: Come with us, now.

  VALERIE: I’m a writer.

  SECURITY GUARDS: You’re switching between the sales staff too much. It makes people nervous. It’s time for this shopping trip to end, miss.

  VALERIE: Valerie Jean Solanas. I studied for a doctorate for several years at the University of Maryland. Almost a Ph.D. in psychology. Almost a professor in the art of ruling the universe without letting on.

  SECURITY GUARDS: This way, Miss Solanas. The main entrance, Miss Solanas.

  VALERIE: I’m an author.

  SECURITY GUARDS: It’s time for this shopping trip to end now.

  VALERIE: I’ve traveled here and there. I’ve done this and that. For a while I lived at the Chelsea Hotel. I mix with artists, writers, publishers, big game, hotshots, high-class prostitutes, and wealthy people with hot parties.

  SECURITY GUARDS: We’ll go with you to the door, miss.

  VALERIE: I’m writing a novel for Olympia Press based on the manifesto.

  SECURITY GUARDS: You’re welcome back another day, miss.

  VALERIE: I got an advance of six hundred dollars.

  SECURITY GUARDS: Sure. That’s great. As long as you leave the store.

  VALERIE: Hey-ho. Lipstick and literature.

  SECURITY GUARDS (push you through the revolving door at the entrance): Thanks, that’s enough from you.

  VALERIE: Cosmogirl calls all the time from the underworld. It’s torture, I can’t sleep anymore. She rings and whispers that being unloved is an act of terror and giant tears roll out of the receiver and I’ve moved from the Chelsea to Hotel Early and it’s absolutely all right, but it’s absolutely wrong. I loved the Chelsea, but I’m sure it wasn’t mutual. They don’t like me there. As soon as I settle down in the lobby, there they are, asking me to leave. They’re planning a summer party. I think it’ll be fantastic. They won’t invite me, but you’d definitely be invited.

  SECURITY GUARDS: Sure, sure. Thanks for coming, miss.

  VALERIE: Cosmogirl says she needs more lipstick. She has my Pink Panther and she’s very particular. She wants me to hang myself in Central Park or drown myself in the docks. Negotiations are currently ongoing with the underworld to find an alternative course of action that would mean I might possibly survive.

  CHELSEA HOTEL, STILL MAY 1968

  By the time Maurice finally arrives, with a haughty “It’s okay” to the porter and no time to talk, you have waited outside in the street for half a day and the son-of-a-bitch doorman has called in reinforcements. And nobody harbors the idea anymore that you were the most wonderful guest the hotel ever had and no one remembers your favorite doorman, the polite one, but never mind. But Maurice has to stop to discuss the novel and the future with you, it is the very least a female mammal who knows she is on the way down can expect. Anything else would be indecent, unnatural.

  VALERIE: I’ve been writing all night. I need more money.

  MAURICE: Hello, Valerie.

  VALERIE: I need more money for the novel.

  MAURICE: Nice to see you, Valerie.

  VALERIE: I can suck your dirty cock, if you like.

  MAURICE: Thanks, but no, Valerie.

  VALERIE: Have you spoken to Andy?

  MAURICE: No, I have no contact with Andy Warhol, as you know.

  VALERIE: I know you’ve discussed Up Your Ass. I know you’ve discussed my work. I know you laugh at me behind my back.

  MAURICE: I don’t know Andy Warhol. I know nothing about his play.

  VALERIE: It’s my play.

  MAURICE: Sorry, Valerie. You don’t need to worry about your play. There’s hardly anyone interested.

  VALERIE: I need a bigger advance. I need to discuss my work. Can I sleep in your hotel room?

  MAURICE: Definitely not.

  VALERIE: I can suck your ugly cock again.

  MAURICE: Move. I’m on my way to the airport.

  VALERIE: Maybe we could put on a show, it might earn us some cash.

  MAURICE: You’re disgusting.

  VALERIE: You said I had talent. You said we should work together.

  MAURICE: And now I regret it.

  VALERIE: We have a contract.

  MAURICE: That doesn’t matter. You need to get ahold of yourself. Stop the amphetamines, for example. Then we can talk about it. It’s impossible to talk to you when you’re like this.

  VALERIE: All you’re bothered about are your horrible Lolita books and sex books.

  MAURICE: You’re not well, Valerie. Those pills you’re taking make you look like an idiot, standing there licking your lips like a cow. Stop taking them, and then we’ll see.

  VALERIE: I’ve never felt better. The sun’s shining. I’m writing. The natural order of things. The annihilation of men.

  MAURICE: Goodbye, Valerie. I’m going to work now, Valerie. Good luck with the novel. I’m looking forward to reading it.

  BRISTOL HOTEL, APRIL 23, 1988

  NARRATOR: And the question of identity?

  VALERIE: Suspended identity. What’s the use in being a little boy, if you’re going to grow up and become a man? Giving up isn’t the answer, fucking up is.

  NARRATOR: I only wish I knew how to fuck all this up.

  VALERIE: Artificial historiography. The story of the whore and mental illness. Of the American underwater population.

  NARRATOR: And the question of identity?

  VALERIE: Non-identity is the answer. Non-female females. Non-lesbian lesbians. A nonlower-class lower class. Peonies smell like magnolias. Dogs smell like dogs. And gardens smell different at different times of the year. There are no given identities, there are no women, there are no men, no boys, no girls. There’s only a little puppet show. An endless shitty play with a shitty script.

  NARRATOR: So it mustn’t end like this?

  VALERIE: You’ll have to write something new, baby-writer, you’ll have to find new endings. There’ll be new rose gardens. Dorothy burns down a rose garden and the flowers that grow again are entirely different. A garden full of pussies, roses, fragments of text and oblivion. Now we’ll close the literary factory for the time being.

  (Silence.)

  NARRATOR: Valerie.

  VALERIE: Yes?

  NARRATOR: I can’t stop thinking about you.

  VALERIE: It’ll pass, you’ll see. Go home and finish this novel now.

  NARRATOR: The novel’s just shit.

  VALERIE: That’s fine. Go now, baby-writer. It’s going to be a nice day out there.

  MAX’S KANSAS CITY, NEW YORK, MAY 1968

  Summer arrives in New York in earnest. You and the wind chase along the avenues, amphet
amine pumps in your blood and through the half light. Your heart keeps up its beating like a Manhattan church bell. You pass out on a rooftop after a night with sharks, and when you wake up again, the wind has taken all your papers and one shark has stolen your turquoise Swintec. Andy does not answer your calls anymore. Maurice never calls back. At the Chelsea you are stopped before you come in from the street and Cosmo makes her fevered calls from the underworld no matter where you are, no matter whether a phone booth is nearby.

  You no longer sleep, because she prefers to pay you a visit when your guard is down and you cannot defend yourself. At the end of every night she is waiting for you with her pearl necklace and her pale eyes and all she wants (all she has ever wanted) is for you to drop by in the underworld. And if you have really forgiven her, why have you not been to see her?

  You spend entire days at Max’s Kansas City, waiting for Andy to appear and drink a toast to the production of Up Your Ass. Meanwhile a thin, cigar-smoking professor and a projectionist jerk off on your face in the toilet. When Andy finally arrives with a new wig, he is nervous and forgets to say hello. And he has that way of sliding through the walls and being swallowed up by the shadowy presence of his companions.

  Hey you, hey you, hey you, Andy, what do you know

  about torture and histrionics?

  MORRISSEY: Andy doesn’t want to speak to you. He’s tired of your telephone terrorism.

  VALERIE: Thanks for the information. But I’d like to speak to Andy … (to Andy who is hiding behind Morrissey) … Andy Stupid Warhol?

  MORRISSEY: You’re vile, Valerie. Everybody hates you. No one gives a fuck what you say. We’re laughing at you in the Factory. Andy’s laughing. Everyone’s laughing at you.

  VALERIE: Read my manifesto. That’ll tell you who I am. I was in I, a Man. Played myself. Had a role in I, a Man. Didn’t I, Andy? You said you liked it. Didn’t you, Andy? I made up my lines myself.

  MORRISSEY: There isn’t anyone in this city who’s not laughing at you.

  VALERIE: My instincts tell me to dig chicks. Why should my standards be lower than theirs? Well, not yours. Your standards are abysmal. Man lover. Faggot standards.

  (Silence.)

  VALERIE: I just want to know whether you’ve read my play. I want to know if you intend to produce it.

  (Silence.)

  VALERIE: Hello? Andy? If that bad Muzak you listen to has given you hearing problems, we can use sign language. The sign for lesbian is very easy. A quick stroke of the lips … (signs in the air) … Do you understand me now, Andy?

  (Silence.)

  VALERIE: Do you have a dollar, Andy? I need money for a hamburger.

  MORRISSEY: It doesn’t matter how much you talk, you’ll still be filthy and vile.

  VALERIE: That Johnny Carson show you lured me onto, Andy, the one where you sat painting your nails and calling yourself Miss Warhola, it was a disaster for me. I went on there to talk about the manifesto. There were bright spotlights pointing at me and spiteful laughter from the audience. That Carson guy was a killing machine under the TV powder, and all the workers in the studio were snickering. Then they cut me out. The show was never broadcast. I’m glad I refused to wear their disgusting powder. That whole program is just a means for male fake artists and male plagiarists to lie about their work.

  MORRISSEY: And what does that have to do with us?

  VALERIE: I don’t know, but being unloved is an act of terror.

  Morrissey tries to move you and there is nothing you hate more than someone trying to move you. The only thing you hate more is someone imitating your voice.

  MORRISSEY (imitates your voice): It was really nothing special. Louis used to screw me in the porch seat after Dorothy had gone into town. The fabric on the seat cover was covered with roses and I counted the roses and the stars while I rented out my little pussy for no money. And I don’t know why, but some chewing gum got stuck in my hair every time. It must have fallen out of my mouth. We used to cut out the stickiest snarls afterward and he would chain-smoke. The strange thing is I sometimes miss the electricity and that tingling sensation in my legs and arms.

  Sounds of crowd laughter and individual sniggers. Andy laughs like a desert animal and tries to disguise it behind a copy of Vogue. The ceiling tilts toward you at alarming speed and in a flash you duck.

  VALERIE: They’re my words.

  VIVA: You were even disgusting when you were a child, Valerie. Men wanted to screw you, because you were disgusting by the time you were seven. No wonder you’re a lesbian.

  Andy gets up and walks away. He never needs to say anything; like fleeting shadows they move behind him, picking up his Vogue magazine and his cigarettes. And he does not answer when you shout after him.

  VALERIE: I want my play back.

  VIVA: Valerie, that play was too dirty even for us.

  VALERIE: It’s not nice to steal other people’s plays.

  VIVA: The amusing thing about your paranoia is that you have nothing any sensible person would be interested in stealing.

  MORRISSEY: Goodbye, Valerie. I hope we don’t see you again. There’s no point in hanging around outside the Factory. Andy still won’t want to speak to you.

  VALERIE: Remember … Remember … Remember I’m the only sane woman here.

  THE PRESIDENTS

  A. Political machines. Political paradoxes. I had my fluffy silver fox fur. High white boots. I missed all the protests and demonstrations.

  B. Amendment to the Constitution. The Treaty Factory. The White House. The white president. Some things do not change. Some things never change. You have to stand still when I speak to you. You have to close your eyes and open that sexy little mouth of yours. That sexy little hole in your face and between your legs. Sexual politics. The whole world would have loved me by now.

  C. They were only false promises. There never was an amendment to the Constitution. They walked along the streets of Chicago in their white skirts. They shed tears on the tarmac. A hundred thousand handbags washed up on the beaches.

  D. August 26, 1980. Sarah Weddington. Eleanor Smeal. Florence Howe. Bella Abzug. Someone chains herself to the railings outside the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. The Second Stage. Betty Friedan sucks cock in the White House. The white architecture. The white witch. Sex is, itself, a sublimation.

  E. I walk across New York in my bra and girdle. Welcome to happiness. Who is president of America? I actually have no idea. The Lavender Menace. They toss their bras and girdles into the Freedom Trash Can.

  F. Remember that I am sick and longing to die. Remember that I am the only sane woman here. The feminine mystique. Self-proclaimed revolutionaries. Disorders in every thought. Patriarchal hegemony.

  G. Paranoid associations. They dreamed of publishing the manifesto. They dreamed of a feminist sanctuary. Time passed, publishing houses kept their bordello wallpaper, their overgrown vocabulary. In Washington, women’s rights became a bad joke, embarrassing. The first wave came and went. The second wave rinsed every thought away.

  H. The Equal Rights Amendment turned into a social club, where ex-suffragettes came out with their confessions. Emma Goldman was deported, cases of insanity increased, tuberculosis, diabetes, various nasty cancerous tumors on society and the social mother. Obviously, I knew they were lying to me. Obviously, I knew nothing was for real. That novel. That play. The manifesto, the satire. When I left, they laughed at me like a pack of desert animals.

  I. There were only superwomen. It was the second wave. They were all courageous, they all loved sucking cock. Passion. Obviously, I knew they were laughing at me.

  J. Suffragettes. One by one they joined the underworld. Lung cancer, heart attacks, shark attacks. The inquests never ended. Formalities were set aside. It was overrun with weeds around the house. There were no people left in the old house in Washington. Former HQ. Women’s Party. The suffrage movement.

  K. It was no game. These were not fun-size demonstrations. Miss Pankhurst chained herse
lf to a lamppost. Rioters set fire to themselves in the street, went on hunger strikes, were imprisoned. The future. Future generations. They are dead now. Miss Pankhurst. Clark Gable. The moon.

  L. The performative dynamic in those girls. Their pseudo-radicalness. The biological relationship between men and women. They always returned to that. Sexual love between men and women without martyrdom. Welcome to happiness.

  M. We chained ourselves to the lampposts. We went on hunger strikes. Women died in the demonstrations. Strangers sent turds and semen through the post. They locked us up, we got out again, they locked us up, we were back on the streets. Fuck you, Miss Pankhurst. The white blouse. That was 1913. I had seen her on Fifth Avenue. The next summer she died from her injuries at the racecourse.

  N. Atlantic City emptied of tourists and casinos and demonstrators. The Freedom Trash Can abandoned on the boardwalk. Underclothes destroyed by rain. Of course, I knew they were all laughing at me.

  O. There was not a problem I could put my finger on. Yet still I was in despair. I walked around my backyard all day long. With nothing to do.

  P. It was after the revelation of the feminine mystique, after Watergate, after Agent Orange. They did their gardening on Long Island. They no longer attended demonstrations. Sexual politics. You dreamed of a revolutionary in every bedroom. You dreamed of occupying and eradicating every bedroom. In retrospect, they said: It was not political at all, it was simply personal. In retrospect, they said: It was not the enemy who frightened us; it was our violent sisters.

  Q. I was dressed in a flowing white fur. High white boots. I did not fit in anywhere. I had my pockets full of filthy knives. There was Muzak playing in my ears. Flimflam artists and other sharks shouting (or wanking or pissing or crying) in my face. I wanted to go home. I cried out for someone like you.