by Rhoda Lerman
Well, then, would a form letter impress you at all?
To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
The human cell is a semiconductor. You are surrounded by a vast electromagnetic force field. That field regulates the clocks of your body systems. Electronic waves regulate cell functions. Electronic waves begin growth, initiate healing, stop growth, replace damaged parts with new parts, you name it. All of this has been arranged above. Your engineers, however, are sending up vast quantities of electronic disturbances into my system and I am having great difficulty keeping all the systems in balance up here. Because, down there, your cells are receiving messages from me, you follow normal cycles of birth, growth and healing. With the incidence of the man-made erratic electronic activity in my force field, the normal cycles of birth and growth and healing have been severely interrupted. There is at present great trouble in Booneville, New York. Many mutants are coming from Booneville. There is at present a severe and shocking relationship between terminal cancer deaths and electronic centers. I do not know offhand what is happening in Booneville except that there is a great deal of radiation in the Watertown area. City dwellers who live in highly disturbed areas with complex computer systems, etc., should be advised to take great caution. If enough of these electronic devices are fed into my system, I will have no alternative other than reversing the magnetic poles once again and re-establishing foundations and forms. Microwave ovens, television sets, computer banks should be avoided with diligence. It has been called to my attention that bedsores are being healed with a low intensity electromagnetic force field … DC 1–3 or something (I didn’t hear the fellow well) in small black boxes in major hospitals. Please advise your associates that, since they do not yet know what the effect of microwave injection into cells might be, they would do well to keep the bedsores and avoid other cell behavior of a more drastic nature. The triggering of cancerous growth is a direct result of electronic messages from the atmosphere. I do not know what the imbalance does to potency and sterility. It is, in conclusion, my sincere hope that you and your associates learn to accomplish healing and regrowth with electronic energies. However, allow me to remind you that since the commissions that use, test and distribute much of the power are self-regulating, the safety levels set, for instance by the Atomic Energy Commission on the amount of radiation which is safe for human beings, or the safety level of television leakage … these safety levels are equivalent to a rotten child setting his own bedtime. The regulations and levels of safety are established by the commissions in order that they may operate as they wish. The smallest electronic activity is residual (and it is in the small frequencies where the danger lies). You may expect, as the electronic industry advances, more cancer, more mutation and more cellular disturbances within the next fiscal year.
I do not know what fiscal means.
Very sincerely yours,
THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
Does that make sense? The electronic forces we surround ourselves with directly affect the basic biologic activity of our cells. This has been done in laboratories. But it has been done also in your cities and you are in great and immediate danger.
Does that make sense?
I will try again. Don’t stand behind television sets. Don’t buy microwave ovens. Don’t live in areas where there is an intensification of electronic equipment.
Does that make sense?
Does this make sense: Don’t fuck with Mother Nature. You keep messing up my timing system and I may just pull the plug on the big clock up here.
I really don’t know how to make you listen.
We, the undersigned, find that since the electromagnetic field has vast and terrible and positive effects on our biological functions, anything which is of a radioactive and/or electronic nature which might change or imbalance the original intention of the force field of this planet, is needful of careful, immediate and far-reaching controls.
Maybe if I tell Mack. He understands transistors and he in many senses has knowledge of me. Perhaps he can explain it to you.
On the steppe she created Enkidu.
Offspring of the moon that fell down from heaven.
Shaggy with hair is his whole body.
He is endowed with head hair like a woman.
With the gazelles he feeds on grass.
With the wild beasts he jostles at the watering-place.
With the wild beasts he drinks at the watering-place.
With the creeping creatures his heart delights in water.
“There he is, O Lass! Free thy breasts.
Bare thy bosom that he may possess thy ripeness.
Be not bashful. Welcome his ardor!
As soon as he sees thee, he will draw near to thee.
Lay aside thy cloth that he may rest upon thee.
Treat him, the savage, to a woman’s task!
Enkidu sits before the Harlot. Sits the two of them. Enkidu forgot where he was born. For six days and seven nights was Enkidu come forth mating with the Lass. Then the Harlot opened her mouth saying to Enkidu, As I look at thee, Enkidu, thou art become like a god. Wherefore with the wild creatures dost thou range over the steppe? Up, I will lead thee to broad marted Uruk, to the holy temple. Enkidu, arise. He hearkened to her words, accepted her speech. The Woman’s counsel fell upon his heart. She pulled off clothing. With one piece she clothed him. With the other garment she clothed herself. Holding on to his hands, she leads him like a mother.
16
I HAVE BEEN REQUESTED BY THE BOYS NOT TO WATCH THIS SMALL television set while they play their music and I receive admittance monies at the Lake Oneida Amusement Park. However, just as I am drawn to that manner of auto accidents at which onlookers lift the eyelids of the car occupants, I wish to watch this current moon walk. It is, as you know, a female attribute to blame oneself for death. Many of us, at a distance, take pleasure in war for that reason. Which is a perverted use of our instincts. I take no pleasure in a moon walk. The moon after all, had been, in better times, my son, and I cry his death each month with my own bleeding. Blind he was and torn from my thigh. His life was short. They do not know this. His bones are his mother’s bones. And they, unknowing and unfeeling, walk on his grave now, tampering, and I am not happy. But I watch.
I sit with the set here in the back dining porch of this abandoned summer hotel with its unmatched chairs and linoleum capped tables. It is open now for its bar and its rock and roll dance hall. I had walked proudly through the bar, holding the set far from the reaches of my functions for it is, although informative, poisonous, and I walked to this slope-floored dining room. Alone I sit now, watching and waiting for Mack, who will finish his music soon and find me. The set is unclear. As I near it, it clears. As I back away it becomes misty. Beyond the plastic covered windows is the parking lot, beyond that the row of elms and a small stone seawall, more like a farmer’s fencing, and the choppy lake with dots of boat lights and jetty lights. And beyond the lake are vast flatlands of onion fields, and as I sniff I draw in, through the plastic, the onions, a multitudinous mixture of dead fish, the fresh bottom land of the fields, vinegar, strange meats of the runway stands and the cheap perfumes and tonics of the hundreds of children beyond this room.
I have sat patiently without Robert this night for his business again calls him away. He has a new patent on a machine for gossamer threads and I have received handfuls of dollar bills from children who do not even count their change but crane to see beyond into the crowded room. I, of course, give them proper change. I cannot, however, trust the hotelkeeper’s loose-panted phlegmy friend who carries hundred dollar bills and wears a belt engraved with a horse on its buckle. Now he will take the monies and assumably there will be less than expected but as usual more than deserved and Robert, when I give him his dollar bills and the old pennies for his collection, will be pleased I came here with the band. I am not pleased. I attempt to adjust the television, holding a magazine over my private parts, but the action on the screen slips further into invisibility. Soo
n Mack will come and adjust it for me. He is more neutral.
I am, as you know, more interested in Mack than the moon. He kissed me last night. Mack stands above me. My skin tingles. There is excitation in me. He kissed me last night in the parking lot of the Port Byron Savarin on the Thruway. We sat waiting for each other for long intolerable moments in the dark early morning. I would not attack. Finally he brushed my lips with his. He swallowed afterward with such terrible tension I could hear the seas retreating in the constriction of his tongue and throat muscles. Now he is above me. There is a fallen, sunken look about his mouth.
“I gotta talk to you.”
“You are very attractive tonight, Mack. Blue as in your shirt is a fine color for you.”
“Yeah. I washed my hair.” He runs his hands through his long hair.
“I noticed. It shines.” I had not noticed. I had noticed his smoothly fitting bulging pants, the macrame belt of love knots with a snake buckle I wove for him, the transparent blouse through which I could see his body hair. He sits before the set. He crosses and uncrosses his legs, rubbing the inside of his shoe with his palm. He constructs another triangle and shines the other shoe with his other palm. I measure the triangle formed by his upper legs. I would enjoy stroking within this triangle, all the square roots and the shortest distances between two points. But I sit here. When one approaches frightened carnivores, one remains still and allows the animal to smell and hear. With bear, who are nominally powerful and attack out of fear, one, even if omnivorous, must sing to allay the bear’s fear. I wear little perfume and have not patience to sing. Also I remember with a modicum of shame that he called me old lady. But early in the evening as I held the cashbox and he tested runs on the Hammond he said, “I gotta talk to you.” And now we are together, I with a twitching triangle, he with a changing triangle and the plastic sheets flapping over the windows. He stands to fix the television. He carries a mirror. I offer him a Twinkie. It is the seventh night that I have offered him a Twinkie. He has come to expect them. I watch the moon through the windows. He eats his Twinkie and holds his mirror before the set. I think about his mouth with its fallen edges. His Twinkie finished, his crumbs picked off his see-through shirt, he adjusts dials and tubes, working in opposite directions to the image in the mirror.
“It is a lovely thing, that mirror with its snap and leatherette case. Do you always carry a mirror?”
He is surprised. “I told you I used to repair TV sets. I told you I got this whole video setup. We’re gonna video tape the screwing tonight.”
I say nothing.
“You want me to pick you up a mirror like this?”
“Yes.” There is pain in his mouth. The picture scrambles. “I want you to kiss me again.” The picture goes blank. He becomes busy with dials.
“How’s the horizontal?”
I am the prime force in human advancement. I sigh. “Not good.”
“Godalmighty, Houston,” I hear. “I dropped it.”
“Anything now?” Mack asks.
“No.” It is a nuclear instrument this man drops on the moon. Atlas, he drops it.
“Sorry as hell, Houston. I think nothing is damaged.”
A girl walks behind us to the stairs. There are bedrooms above, unused. She returns, walking toward Mack. “Hey.” He grabs at her. “Where’d you get the french fries?”
“Want some?” She stands at the stairs. “They got vinegar on them.”
“Come back and give me some.”
“Come get ’em.” She runs lightly up the stairs.
“I’ll see you later.”
He spreads his hands to me and shrugs. “Part of the game. Gotta line up my meat for tonight.”
“Of course.”
The bartender comes from the kitchen, wiping glasses on an apron. “They doing all right?”
We shake our heads yes and no. He leaves.
“You have a problem, Mack?”
“Yeah.” He sits beside me now once again. There is a muscle twitching along his thigh. “Claire.” This boy is able to collapse the hope in the lining of my stomach. I pale with jealousy.
“I got a reputation. I can’t get it up with her.”
“Goddamn, Houston, I guess I broke the cable.”
“I’ve been balling all week … except for last night …” I hear him swallow with difficulty. “No sweat. But with Claire …”
“You are afraid of her. Men fear the organs of birth. You cringe at menstrual napkins as we cringe at guns. We are superior.”
“C’mon, get serious.” He laughs, easier now. “Can you change a goddamn tire? Can you design a transistor like I can? Can you put in wiring? You can’t adjust a TV for God’s sakes.”
“The intent of nature is woman. We are superior.” I am jealous and unkind. I am also correct. “You fear Claire. She is not one of those.” I wave to another oddly clad young child walking up the stairs.
“What can I say? You’re wrong.”
“I still got the farts, Charley.” I hear a voice from the clouded set.
“Then come here and touch my breast and put your hand between my legs and kiss me.” My voice is cruel. I can not help the impatience and anger I experience.
“How they doing?” The bartender who thinks the clowns on my moon are the New York Yankees comes out. He has flour now on his hands and apron. “I got pizza going for later, Mrs.” I smile. He leaves.
“To begin with, don’t stand behind televisions. It will make you impotent. Come.”
“Knock it off, Ishtar. You’ve always been a lady.” Mack pulls at his sideburns.
“Come, Mack. Let me see you unafraid.”
“Forget it! I got enough going upstairs.”
The moon god fell down from heaven. But no one saw him. The storm god sent rain after him; he sent rainstorms after him so that fear seized him and fright seized him. What art thou going to do?
“I am the primary force in human advancement.” I put my hands on his square roots. He knocks them off. His hands are iced with fear. I laugh.
“Jesus, Ishtar, you’ve always been a lady. I’m going to get some fucking french fries.” It is too late for french fries. He has already had seven Twinkies. I laugh again.
“Go!” I say, and wave him off. He goes. The bartender brings in a small metal cashbox. The dollar bills are not new ones and Ishtar feels a repugnance. Nevertheless she counts the singles deliberately and stacks the coins into their ocher bankrolls and passes dollars to the bartender for the pizza and the gambler for taking the monies and writes up the tallies for Robert, after having separated his pennies with the different backs from the bags of coins. As she counts, the springs of whatever it is rolling on the floor above her rasp against the cracked linoleum and she knows it is the communal bed to which she has not been invited. “Tie their legs together,” she says to the television. “Keep them from my son. Get off,” she mutters. “You are sticking pennies in sockets. Get off my moon.” And then she does battle with the tables and with the chairs and flies, furious, into the kitchen. She does not laugh.
Patience has never been one of my greater attributes. Nevertheless I adore your geologic timetables. They are so believing and hopeful. To even consider, though, anything short of cataclysm in my stop and go procedures is foolhardy. I follow the noise to the stairs. I do not know if I am being compulsive or impulsive. When once one follows universal rhythms, the categories of behavior do not matter.
The hallways here are peeling in large green scales and the Wilton carpet strip, unbound, arches its muddy flowered back down the crevicular, cervicular hallway. I love it. I follow the smell of apple vinegar and french fries. I find the room. The pressed glass handle of the door, once painted white, is now chipped and jewel-like with striations of paint on its facets. I stand beyond it and breathe deeply and open the door. There is a giggle but it is hushed by a hand. The linoleum, interestingly enough is a 9×12 patterned Congoleum rug with a red, white and blue border of ships on chipped seas. I have
examined the linoleum. Around the bed on the floor, clothes are strewn like offerings. Though I admittedly obey the tugs of the universe, I still am human. On the bare bed, where there is a wild tumble of parts and limbs, the activity has stopped in a rather end of Pompeian scene, strangled positions caught by death.
There is another giggle, muffled once again.
“I am not Death, today,” I assure them with the deepest grandeur I can derive under the circumstances. My fingers perspire around the seam ripper and the #1 golf club sock I clutch. I find it difficult to remain calmly superior. Actually I feel left out. They are frightened for I have powdered my face white with flour from the kitchen and wrapped the fringed tablecloth over my shoulders. It is likely also that my eyes burn. I am blushing under the powder. I walk steadily over the cracked blue sea and find Mack’s face. There seem to be four female faces and five male faces. I am not certain though of their limbs and it is possible, with the slope-browed mien of the female faces, that each of them has more or less than the normal amount of parts. Television babies most likely. They continued to stare. The bed shakes as someone hidden underneath is racked with laughter. “I am not Death, but I wish one of you.” I find Mack’s shoulder. I tap it. He asks with his eyes what I wish.
There is a game we played as children with our hands piling one atop the other and then extricating the bottom hand. On ugly days we would pinch the thin top skin of the hand and hold it away from the bone. I watch these children trying to find their parts, pulling out limbs from the levels of the now writhing mass. There is something anti-structural about this. I do not like it. It is frightening. At last all of Mack has emerged. His body is very pretty. He has large parts that fit neatly between narrow hips and lovely tufts of body hair. I try to keep my face deathlike. He stands up and approaches me.
“What do you want, Ishtar?” He finds black undershirt and shorts on the floor.
I say nothing but beckon with one finger to lead him from the room.
“What do you want, Ishtar?”
He takes his pants from the floor. I throw his pants back onto the floor. He follows me from the room. The noise begins behind us as I close the door. I carry my furca openly now. It is, as you may remember, a large cursive e which glows with blue flames when I am needful of its energies. I direct Mack with it down the dark halls, trying doors as I follow him.
