by Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker
* * *
BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Contents
Inside high school
Parents stink
The Scorpions
Outside high school
How spring came to the land of snow and icicles
Janey becomes a woman
The mysterious Mr Linker
A book report
Translating
Cancer
A journey to the end of the night
Tangier
In Egypt, the end
A second of time
So the doves
The Journey
The World
Follow Penguin
PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS
BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Kathy Acker was born in 1947 and was raised in New York City. In her twenties she broke ties with her family and worked as a stripper, while writing and publishing in the underground literary scene. The 1984 publication of Blood and Guts in High School caused a sensation – the book was at the centre of a surge of media attention. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, she abandoned Western medicine after a traumatic experience of surgery. She died in an alternative cancer clinic in Tijuana, Mexico in 1997. Her major novels include Blood and Guts in High School, Great Expectations, Don Quixote and Pussy, King of the Pirates. A collection of her emails with cultural theorist McKenzie Wark was published in 2015, titled I’m Very into You.
Inside High School
Parents stink
Never having known a mother, her mother had died when Janey was a year old, Janey depended on her father for everything and regarded her father as boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father.
Janey Smith was ten years old, living with her father in Merida, the main city in the Yucatan. Janey and Mr Smith had been planning a big vacation for Janey in New York City in North America. Actually Mr Smith was trying to get rid of Janey so he could spend all his time with Sally, a twenty-one-year-old starlet who was still refusing to fuck him.
One night Mr Smith and Sally went out and Janey knew her father and that woman were going to fuck. Janey was also very pretty, but she was kind of weird-looking because one of her eyes was lopsided.
Janey tore up her father’s bed and shoved boards against the front door. When Mr Smith returned home, he asked Janey why she was acting like this.
Janey: You’re going to leave me. (She doesn’t know why she’s saying this.)
Father (dumbfounded, but not denying it): Sally and I just slept together for the first time. How can I know anything?
Janey (in amazement. She didn’t believe what she had been saying was true. It was only out of petulance): You ARE going to leave me. Oh no. No. That can’t be.
Father (also stunned): I never thought I was going to leave you. I was just fucking.
Janey (not at all calming herself down by listening to what he’s saying. He knows her energy rises sharply and crazy when she’s scared so he’s probably provoking this scene): You can’t leave me. You can’t. (Now in full hysteria.) I’ll … (Realizes she might be flying off the handle and creating the situation. Wants to hear his creation for a minute. Shivers with fear when she asks this.) Are you madly in love with her?
Father (thinking. Confusion’s beginning): I don’t know.
Janey: I’m not crazy. (Realizing he’s madly in love with the other woman.) I don’t mean to act like this. (Realizing more and more how madly in love he is. Blurts it out.) For the last month you’ve been spending every moment you can with her. That’s why you’ve stopped eating meals with me. That’s why you haven’t been helping me the way you usually do when I’m sick. You’re madly in love with her, aren’t you?
boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father
Father (ignorant of this huge mess): We just slept together for the first time tonight.
Janey: You told me you were just friends like me and Peter (Janey’s stuffed lamb) and you weren’t going to sleep together. It’s not like my sleeping around with all these art studs: when you sleep with your best friend, it’s really, really heavy.
Father: I know, Janey.
Janey (she hasn’t won that round; she threw betrayal in his face and he didn’t totally run away from it): Are you going to move in with Sally? (She asks the worst possibility.)
Father (still in the same sad, hesitant, underlyingly happy because he wants to get away, tone): I don’t know.
Janey (She can’t believe this. Every time she says the worst, it’s true): When will you know? I have to make my plans.
Father: We just slept together once. Why don’t you just let things lie, Janey, and not push?
Janey: You tell me you love someone else, you’re gonna kick me out, and I shouldn’t push. What do you think I am, Johnny? I love you.
Father: Just let things be. You’re making more of this than it really is.
Janey (everything comes flooding out): I love you. I adore you. When I first met you, it’s as if a light turned on for me. You’re the first joy I knew. Don’t you understand?
Father (silent).
Janey: I just can’t bear that you’re leaving me: it’s like a lance cutting my brain in two: it’s the worst pain I’ve ever known. I don’t care who you fuck. You know that. I’ve never acted like this before.
Father: I know.
Janey: I’m just scared you’re going to leave me. I know I’ve been shitty to you: I’ve fucked around too much; I didn’t introduce you to my friends.
Father: I’m just having an affair, Janey. I’m going to have this affair.
Janey (now the rational one): But you might leave me.
Father (silent).
Janey: OK. (Getting hold of herself in the midst of total disaster and clenching her teeth.) I have to wait around until I see how things work out between you and Sally and then I’ll know if I’m going to live with you or not. Is that how things stand?
Father: I don’t know.
Janey: You don’t know! How am I supposed to know?
That night, for the first time in months, Janey and her father sleep together because Janey can’t get to sleep otherwise. Her father’s touch is cold, he doesn’t want to touch her mostly ’cause he’s confused. Janey fucks him even though it hurts her like hell ’cause of her Pelvic Inflammatory Disease.
The following poem is by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo who, born 18 March 1892 (Janey was born 18 April 1964), lived in Paris fifteen years and died there when he was 46:
September
This September night, you fled
So good to me … up to grief and include!
I don’t know myself anything else
But you, YOU don’t have to be good.
This night alone up to imprisonment no prison
Hermetic and tyrannical, diseased and panic-stricken
I don’t know myself anything else
I don’t know myself because I am grief-stricken.
Only this night is good, YOU
Making me into a whore, no
Emotion possible is distance God gave integral:
Your hateful sweetness I’m clinging to.
This September evening, when sown
In live coals, from an auto
Into puddles: not known.
Janey (as her father was leaving the house): Are you coming back tonight? I don’t mean to bug you. (No longer willing to assert herself.) I’m just curious.
Father: Of course I’ll be back.
The moment her father left the house, Janey rushed to the phone and called up his best friend, Bill Russle. Bill had once fucked Janey, but his cock was too big. Janey knew he’d tell her w
hat was happening with Johnny, if Johnny was crazy or not, and if Johnny really wanted to break up with Janey. Janey didn’t have to pretend anything with Bill.
Janey: Right now we’re at the edge of a new era in which, for all sorts of reasons, people will have to grapple with all sorts of difficult problems, leaving us no time for the luxury of expressing ourselves artistically. Is Johnny madly in love with Sally?
Bill: No.
Janey: No? (Total amazement and hope.)
Bill: It’s something very deep between them, but he’s not going to leave you for Sally.
Janey (with even more hope): Then why’s he acting this way? I mean: he’s talking about leaving me.
Bill: Tell me exactly what’s been happening, Janey. I want to know for my own reasons. This is very important. Johnny hasn’t been treating me like a friend. He won’t talk to me anymore.
Janey: He won’t? He feels you’re his best friend. (Making a decision.) I’ll tell you everything. You know I’ve been very sick.
Bill: I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, I won’t interrupt anymore.
Janey: I’ve been real sick. Usually Johnny helps out when I am, this time he hasn’t. About a month ago he told me he was running around with Andrea and Sally. I said, ‘Oh great,’ it’s great when he has new friends, he’s been real lonely, I told him that was great. He said he was obsessed with Sally, a crush, but it wasn’t sexual. I didn’t care. But he was acting real funny toward me. I’ve never seen him act like that. The past two months he’s treated me like he hates me. I never thought he’d leave me. He’s going to leave me.
Bill (breaking in): Janey. Can you tell me exactly what happened last night? I have to know everything. (She tells him.) What do you think is going on?
Janey: Either of two … I am Johnny. (Thinks.) Either of two things. (Speaks very slowly and clearly.) First thing: I am Johnny. I’m beginning to have some fame, success, now women want to fuck me. I’ve never had women want me before. I want everything. I want to go out in the world as far as I can go. Do you understand what I’m talking about?
Bill: Yes. Go on.
Janey: There are two levels. It’s not that I think one’s better than the other, you understand, though I do think one is a more mature development than the other. Second level: It’s like commitment. You see what you want, but you don’t go after every little thing; you try to work it through with the other person. I’ve had to learn this this past year. I’m willing to work with Johnny.
Bill: I understand what’s happening now. Johnny is at a place where he has to try everything.
Janey: The first level. I agree.
Bill: You’ve dominated his life since your mother died and now he hates you. He has to hate you because he has to reject you. He has to find out who he is.
Janey: That would go along with the crisis he was having in his work this year.
Bill: It’s an identity crisis.
Janey: This makes sense …. What should I do?
Bill: The thing you can’t do is to freak out and lay a heavy trip on him.
Janey: I’ve already done that. (If she could giggle, she would.)
Bill: You have to realize that you’re the one person he hates, you’re everything he’s trying to get rid of. You have to give him support. If you’re going to freak out, call me, but don’t show him any emotion. Any emotion he’ll hate you even more for.
Janey: God. You know how I am. Like a vibrating nut.
Bill: Be very very calm. He’s going through a hard period, he’s very confused, and he needs your support. I’ll talk to him and find out more about what’s going on. I have to talk to him anyway because I want to find out why he hasn’t been friendly to me.
Later that afternoon Mr Smith came home from work.
Janey: I’m sorry I got upset last night about Sally. It won’t happen again. I think it’s great you’ve got a girlfriend you really care about.
Father: I’ve never felt like this about anyone. It’s good for me to know I can feel so strongly.
Janey: Yes. (Keeping her cool.) I just wanted you to know if there’s anything I can do for you, I’d like to be your friend. (Shaking a little.)
Father: Oh, Janey. You know I care for you very deeply. (That does it: Janey bursts into tears.) I’m just confused right now. I want to be my myself.
Janey: You’re going to leave me.
Father: Just let things be. I’ve got to go. (He obviously wants to get out of the room as fast as possible.)
Janey: Wait a minute. (Collecting her emotions and stashing them.) I didn’t mean it. I was going to be calm and supportive like Bill said.
Father: What’d Bill say? (Janey repeats the conversation. Everything comes splurting out now. Janey’s not good at holding words back.) You’ve completely dominated my life, Janey, for the last nine years and I no longer know who’s you and who’s me. I have to be alone. You’ve been alone for a while, you know that need: I have to find out who I am.
Janey (her tears dry): I understand now. I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing. All year I’ve been asking you, ‘What do you want?’ and you never knew. It was always me, my voice, I felt like a total nag; I want you to be the man. I can’t make all the decisions. I’m going to the United States for a long time so you’ll be able to be alone.
Father (amazed she’s snapped so quickly and thoroughly from down hysteria to joy): You’re tough, aren’t you?
Janey: I get hysterical when I don’t understand. Now everything’s OK. I understand.
Father: I’ve got to go out now – there’s a party uptown. I’ll be back later tonight.
Janey: You don’t have to be back.
Father: I’ll wake you up, sweetie, when I get back. OK?
Janey: Then I can crawl in bed and sleep with you?
Father: Yes.
Tiny Mexican, actually Mayan villages, incredibly clean, round thatched huts, ducks, turkeys, dogs, hemp, corn; the Mayans are self-contained and thin-boned, beautiful. One old man speaks: ‘Mexicans think money is more important than beauty; Mayans say beauty is more important than money; you are very beautiful.’ They eat ears of roasted corn smeared with chili, salt, and lime and lots of meat, mainly turkey.
Everywhere in Merida and in the countryside are tiny fruit drink stands: drinks jugos de frutas made of sweet fresh fruits crushed, sugar, and water. Every other building in Merida is a restaurant, from the cheapest outdoor cafés, where the food often tastes the best; to expensive European-type joints for the rich. Merida, the city, is built on the money of the hemp-growers who possess one boulevard of rich mansions and their own places to go to. Otherwise the poor. But the town is clean, big, cosmopolitan, the Mexicans say, un-Mexican.
Mexico is divided into sections: each has its specialty: Vera Cruz has art. Merida has hemp, baskets, hammocks.
Uxmal: Mayan ruins, huge temples, all the buildings are huge, scary, on high. Low low land in centre. Everything very far apart. Makes forget personal characteristics. Wind blows long grass who! whoot! Jungle, not Amazonian swamp, but thick, thick green leafage so beautiful surrounds. Hear everything. No one knows how these massive rectangular structures were used. Now birds screech in the little rooms in the buildings, fly away; long iguanas run under rocks. Tiny bright green and red lizards run down paths past one tiny statue, on lowish ground; on a small concrete block, two funny-monkey-hideous-dog-jaguar faces and paws back-to-back. Janus? The sun?
A small Mayan village in the ruins of an old stone hacienda; church, factory, the whole works. Huge green plants are growing out of the stones; chickens, lots of dark-brown feathered turkeys, three pigs, one pink, run around; people, thin and little, live in what ruins can still be lived in.
And further down this dirt road, another village. On Sunday the men, normally gentle and dignified, get drunk. The man driving the big yellow truck is the head man. All the male villagers are touching his hand. They’re showing him love. He will get, they say, the first newborn girl. In return, he says, h
e will give them a pig. All of the men’s bodies are waving back and forth. The women watch.
By the time the clock said five (a.m.) Janey couldn’t stand it anymore, so, despite her high fever, she walked the streets. Where could she run to? Where was peace (someone who loved her)? No one would take her in. It was raining lightly. The rain was going to increase her infection. She stood in front of Sally’s house. Then she made herself walk away.
She walked back into her father’s and her apartment. She hated the apartment. She didn’t know what to do with her hateful tormented mind.
Merida
At 7:30 a.m. she woke up in her own bed. As she walked by her father’s bed to get to the toilet, she saw her father and spontaneously asked, ‘You must have gotten home late. How was the party?’
Father: I didn’t go to the party.
Janey: You didn’t go to the party!? (Realizing the truth. In a little girl’s voice.) Oh.
Father (reaching for her): Come here (meaning: into my arms).
Janey: No. (She jumps back.) I don’t want to touch you. (She realizes her mistake. She’s very jumpy.) Just go to sleep. Everything’s fine. Goodnight.
Father (commanding): Janey, come here.
Janey (backing away like he’s a dangerous animal, but wanting him): I don’t want to.
Father: I just want to hold you.
Janey: Why d’you lie to me?
Father: It got late and I didn’t feel like going to the party.
Janey: What time d’you get home?
Father: Around seven.
Janey: Oh. (In an even smaller little girl’s voice.) You were with Sally?
Father: Come here, Janey. (He wants to make love to her. Janey knows it.)
Janey (running away): Go to sleep, Johnny, I’ll see you in the morning.
Janey (a half-hour later): I can’t sleep by myself, Johnny. Can I crawl into bed with you?
Father (grumbling): I’m not going to get any sleep. Get in. (Janey gives him a blow job. Johnny isn’t really into having sex with Janey, but he gets off on the physical part.)
