Blood and Guts in High School

by Kathy Acker

  We don’t hate, understand, we have to get back. Fight the dullness of shit society. Alienated robotized images. Here’s your cooky, ma’am. No to anything but madness.

  Broken glass lies over the floor. Gum sticks everywhere. Shit smeared in the cracks of the table. Their cash register is ash-black like a burnt-up telephone book.

  We made the store into a death-house and the street look like the New York City east-side slum we had to live in.

  As soon as we had accomplished our purpose, we left the Connecticut town.

  We stole.

  Me and Monkey were the first to steal. We were high on meth. We ripped off Bloomingdale’s, a big department store in New York City.

  I was going somewhere my father and his girlfriend were also going. Johnny and his girlfriend wanted nothing to do with me.

  We took a taxi to Bloomingdale’s so we could be straight. I was dressed in a red wool suit and a light brown wool coat. It’s necessary to be straight when you steal.

  I was hanging on to the end of the taxi Johnny and his girlfriend had picked me up in. Clearly they wanted nothing to do with me. The rest of Johnny’s rock band were in the car.

  As soon as Monkey and I got to Bloomingdale’s, we separated. I checked my appearance. My dark curly hair, light makeup, and dark red suit made me look like a nice, rich girl. I wanted to stay that way. Being nice and rich is a dream. I checked my vibes. I told myself to stay guarded, slow and calm. As I entered the store, I checked out the store’s vibes. No one was following me.

  Daddy and I are standing in the downstairs of the Laguna Beach Hotel, which is Nixon’s favourite hotel. Facing me there’s a rectangular white wall. A few feet below this white wall and to its right, single stairs with no back move upwards. Further to the right, another large rectangular white wall. Set in this wall, one-third of its width further right, an absolutely black hallway. Above this white wall, empty space; above the empty space, a white hanging rectangle means a room. There’s nothing around these walls, staircase, and hall.

  Back east, architectural objects are connected to, hidden in each other.

  I move alone without daddy forwards BACKWARDS through the hotel. The hotel is now, is really large transparent squares. I glide to the final back room.

  The back wall of this room is really windows. Windows are opaque. Windows through which I’m seeing a black phosphorescent ocean. None of the men in daddy’s band want to be with me and daddy’s with Sally. I want to go swimming I have to go swimming. The ocean is bright green, even though it’s night. The ocean is glowing.

  Now the window is totally transparent. Through it I see a man’s body as if dead turning in the sparkling green water.

  I wanted a fur coat.

  Little halls surround one long black major hall. Thin white walls, almost non-existent, separate these halls.

  I bought a red sweater in the Junior Department on the third floor so anyone who was watching would know that I wasn’t a thief.

  Then I rode the escalator upstairs to the Fur Department. Tossing my brown woolen coat across a rack, I tried on fur after fur. Stealing is luxury. Ten or fifteen minutes later the salesgirl had to run across the hall to get change.

  Of course, daddy and Sally and the boys in his band are given their rooms first. My room is the room no one else in the world wants.

  My bedroom is the huge white hexagon in the front left corner of the hotel. It has no clear outside or inside or any architectural regularity. Long white pipes form part of its ceiling. Two of its sides, which two is always changing, are open.

  My bedroom’s function is also unclear. Its only furniture is two barber’s chairs and a toilet. It’s a gathering place for men.

  Hotel men dressed in white and black come in and want to hurt me. They cut away parts of me. I call for the hotel head. He explains that my bedroom used to be the men’s toilet. I understand.

  My cunt used to be a men’s toilet.

  I walk out in a leopard coat.

  Dear dreams,

  You are the only thing that matters. You are my hope and I live for and in you. You are rawness and wildness, the colours, the scents, passion, events appearing. You are the things I live for. Please take me over.

  Dreams cause the vision world to break loose our consciousness.

  Dreams by themselves aren’t enough to destroy the blanket of dullness.

  The dreams we allow to destroy us cause us to be visions/see the vision world.

  Every day a sharp tool, a powerful destroyer, is necessary to cut away dullness, lobotomy, buzzing, belief in human beings, stagnancy, images, and accumulation. As soon as we stop believing in human beings, rather know we are dogs and trees, we’ll start to be happy.

  Once we’ve gotten a glimpse of the vision world (notice here how the conventional language obscures: WE as if somebodies are the centre of activity SEE what is the centre of activity: pure VISION. Actually, the VISION creates US. Is anything true?) Once we have gotten a glimpse of the vision world, we must be careful not to think the vision world is us. We must go farther and become crazier.

  I didn’t have enough food, so I started working in a hippy bakery.

  It was 1977.

  Working for money is the omnipresent fact of American life.

  I wasn’t allowed to cook or make any decisions. My job was to hand people the bread or cookies they wanted and take their money. I also made vegetable juices, sliced bialies, dumped spreads made out of tofu and vegetables between the slices.

  I am nobody because I work. I have to pretend I like the customers and love giving them cookies no matter how they treat me:

  (Inside a small East Village bakery.)

  Fat Lady: What’s the ingredients in that cooky?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: a bit of coconut and safflower oils, all hard-pressed, wheat flour, barley malt, water, and sesame seeds.

  Fat Lady: Is the wheat flour organic?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: All the ingredients we use are organic.

  Fat Lady: What’s barley malt?

  (Clammerings of ten customers in background. One grimy kid is feeling up the cookies.)

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl (who never has any expression): It’s a grain derivative.

  Fat Lady: You don’t use sugar or honey.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: No.

  (The grimy kid has grabbed two maple-hazelnut cookies and run.)

  Fat Lady: What’s in that cooky there?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: That’s a sunflower-cranberry cooky.

  Fat Lady: Is there wheat flour in that one?

  (A thirty-year-old man is rummaging through the bialies. The salesgirl turns around and says, ‘Excuse me, sir, I’ll be with you in a second.)

  Thirty-year-old Man: I want this bialy.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: I’ll be able to help as soon as I finish with this lady.

  Fat Lady: What’s in this cooky? (She upsets the whole tray.)

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl (looking around quickly): That’s a maple-currant oatflour. (To the thirty-year-old man) I’ll be with you in a second.

  Thirty-year-old Man (crying): Every time I come to this bakery, nobody pays any attention to me. It isn’t like it used to be in the old days when I could sit here and talk. People would take care of me. (He walks out sobbing loudly.)

  Fat Lady: And what’s in this cooky? I have to be very careful. My doctor told me I’m not allowed to eat any sweets.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: That’s a carob fudgie.

  Fat Lady: That means it has sugar.

  A Rich Girl: I just want this cooky. (Grabbing a peanut cooky and breaking the shelf.) Here.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl (taking the change and returning 5¢): that’ll be 40¢. Thank you. (To the Fat Lady) We only use barley malt, and maple syrup in the cookies that have maple in their names.

  (The baker comes out of the kitchen and tells the salesgirl she’s not working hard enough. Why are so many people still waiting to be served
? He hired her to WORK. None of his other workers have these problems.)

  Fat Lady: Well, what’s in that cooky?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: That’s a peanut cooky.

  Fat Lady: Does it have any sugar in it?

  A Thin Young Woman: I want ten loaves of rice bread, a dozen bialies, three dozen assorted cookies, two vegetable juices, and two sandwiches wrapped to go. I need it now.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl (To the Fat Lady): Would you like a cooky, ma’am?

  (While five customers are grabbing cookies, a sixth customer climbs on their shoulders to get at the cookies. All the cooky shelves collapse.)

  Fat Lady: Miss? I want that cooky over there. (Points to a poppy-seed cooky lying under a dead – concussion due to falling shelf – body.)

  Because I work I am nobody. The bakery has many customers. Hippies have ideals and sell good cookies cheap. As soon as I dare to take the time to think a thought, to watch a feeling, usually hatred, develop, to rest my aching body, a customer enters.

  It was as if he had risen before me, I read, a man who, in his wild and passionate youth, had been the idol of Madrid and a source of dismay to his parents. He had carried away, by violence, a nun from a convent, incurring the enmity of the Church and the displeasure of his Sovereign. He had followed desire regardless of anything else and survived. To see. To see the nothingness. That is vision. He had sacrificed all his fortune in Europe to the service of his king, had fought against the French, had a price put on his head by special proclamation. He had known passion, power, war, exile, and love. He had been thanked by his returned king, honoured for his wisdom, and crushed with sorrow by the death of his young wife.

  A twenty-six-year-old English-accented Parisian hippy worked the counter with the Lousy Mindless Salesgirl. The hippy never did any work because she had to spend all her time finding out from the customers what she should do with her life and how she was going to be creative. ‘Why do you smile at everyone?’ the hippy asked the Lousy Mindless Salesgirl while the latter was desperately trying to read just one page.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I smile?’

  ‘You don’t really like everyone, do you? You shouldn’t act nice if you don’t feel like it.’

  ‘How should I act?’

  ‘Act like you feel. You don’t want to be a hypocrite.’

  ‘I don’t feel anything.’ The Lousy Mindless Salesgirl wanted to kill the stupid hippy.

  ‘Then don’t smile and be nice to customers.’

  ‘I’m being paid to smile.’

  ‘You’re acting hypocritically, Janey. It’s because you’re male-centred. Look at me. I don’t smile when I don’t feel like it and I don’t go out of my way to help anyone.’

  Just then a middle-aged shrivelled man walked into the bakery. ‘Can I have a glass of wheat-grass juice?’ he asked.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: Certainly, sir. (She runs around the counter to get a paper cup, runs back around the counter, down on her hands and knees to get the juice out of the front fridge, stands to pour, down on her hands and knees to put the juice away, back to standing.) Here you are, sir.

  Middle-aged Shrivelled Man: Did you know that this juice kills all the diseases in the world if you drink enough of it? It kills cancer. In the Bible Nebuchadnezzar ate grass and cured all of his afflictions.

  Twenty-year-old Whore-like Jew Lady (entered the bakery while Lousy Mindless Salesgirl was making the wheat-grass run. Standing very close to Lousy Mindless Salesgirl): What do you do?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: What do you mean ‘What do I do?’

  Twenty-year-old Whore-like Jew Lady: How else do you make your money? Are you a whore?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: No. I go to school.

  A Wispy Blonde Hippy Girl: I want that cooky and that cooky and two of those and, is that one soft, I’ll take that one. And a loaf of round bread. (As the Lousy Mindless Salesgirl’s climbing on the shelf to get the bread.) Do you like your job?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: It’s OK.

  Wispy Blonde Hippy Girl: Is something the matter with this job? Are you discontent?

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: I’m not in love with handing out cookies and taking money four hours a day. It’s OK.

  Wispy Blonde Hippy Girl: If you took more of an interest in the bakery, went inside to see how the cookies are made, talked to the customers more, maybe you’d like this job better.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: When I’m here, I’m being paid to take care of the customers, and otherwise I don’t have any time. I have to do my homework.

  Wispy Blonde Hippy Girl: Oh, I see. You have your own thing. (As the wispy blonde hippy walks out of the bakery, the Parisian hippy says: ‘You’re rude.’)

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: Why am I rude?

  Parisian Hippy Salesgirl: You should know.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl (panicking): I don’t know. Why am I rude?

  Parisian Hippy Salesgirl: You’re just not a nice person.

  Lousy Mindless Salesgirl: Look. If we’re going to work together, we’re going to have to get along some minimal bit. You can’t just insult me for no reason at all.

  Parisian Hippy Salesgirl: You don’t like playing those games, do you? (Walks away from the Lousy Mindless Salesgirl.)

  From then on, everyone at the bakery avoided me. I was the plague and there was a huge circle of emptiness around me. if another counter girl was supposed to be working, the moment she saw me she retreated into the back room.

  I had to do all the counter work. My father stopped sending me money. I had to work seven days a week. I had no more feelings. I was no longer a real person. If I stopped work for just a second, I would hate. Burst through the wall and hate. Hatred that comes out like that can be a bomb.

  I hated most that I didn’t have any more dreams or visions. It’s not that the vision-world, the world of passion and wildness, no longer existed. It always is. But awake I was disconnected from dreams. I was psychotic.

  I walked out of my crummy school. It was already night. I was running ’cause I was late for the bakery. I tripped.

  ‘Ha ha ha.’ Some boys were chuckling behind me. Fuck them.

  ‘Just ’cause she used to be part of THE SCORPIONS she thinks she’s tough,’ some dumb gum-chewer snarled. ‘Now she’s handing dumb little cookies to dumb little people. I bet she got her cunt sewn up.’

  I did. I kept running so I wouldn’t be late to work.

  ‘Cumere.’

  I kept on running.

  ‘Cumere.’ Something grabbed my shoulder. ‘Look at me.’ As the hand turned my body around, the other hand shoved my chin up so my eyes saw a pair of grey Chinese eyes and a long nose. I couldn’t see anything else ’cause of the darkness.

  ‘Don’t listen to them. They never used their cocks in their lives. I hear you make it with a lot of guys.’

  ‘I used to. I don’t anymore. Who’re you?’

  ‘Heh heh heh.’ His laugh sounded like a sneer to me. ‘I hear you used to not even care what the guys’ names were who you made it with.’

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘I want to stick my dick between your legs.’

  ‘You can’t.’ I was back to my old hard SCORPION way of speaking. And his hand running up and down my back hard made my legs wet.

  ‘You don’ wanna. You don’ wanna.’ He was talking right in my ear. ‘What does girlie wanna do? You gotta boy at home you gotta go and screw? You gotta boy who’s a better screw than me?’ The words were closer and hotter. ‘You’re coming home with me now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I gotta go to work.’

  ‘What’s the bitch crying about?’ ‘Why don’t you beat her up, Tommy?’ ‘Punch her in the stomach.’

  ‘My friends like you,’ he whispered right into my ear as he pushed me along. ‘We’re gonna be hot together.’

  ‘Listen. I can’t go home with you. I’m not what you think. I lose my jo
b and I’ll be up shitcreek. I’m not going to give up my life for a one-night fuck.’

  His lips came down on mine. His tongue travelled in and covered mine. His hands ran huge insects down my back.

  I guess a long time passed, but I didn’t know.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Uh …’ I didn’t know. ‘If I come home with you, I’ll ruin the friendship between us.’

  His hand brought my mouth to his mouth till his mouth was fucking my mouth. It was a fountain. We shoved against each other.

  He lifted his head. ‘It’s up to you,’ he told me.

  I went home with him and didn’t give a shit anymore about anything else but him.

  Love turned me back to crime. Tommy and I kidnapped children. Smeared up the walls of buildings. Carried dangerous weapons and used them. Did everything we could to dull our judgement and acted as outrightly violent as possible. Shitted on the streets. Attacked strangers with broken bottles. Hit people over the head with hard objects. Kicked the guts out of people on the streets. Started fights and riots.

  I could barely stand being so happy. The sex made me crazier than the crime. I started to thrash just when he touched me: just his fingers pinching my nipples made me come. I couldn’t stop rushing toward him like an overloaded volcano ….

  We still didn’t have any emotions but underneath …

  It’s hard to get beyond sex:

  My legs are split apart. Knees up. Fish is open. One hand on clit.

  Left leg raised up. Right leg bent and horizontal. Hand under left leg; middle finger all way in cunt.

  Legs spread; ass up. Third and fourth fingers, V open cunt wide.

  Tommy was a SCORPION

  He was an intellectual criminal.

  He believed his plans worked and they did.

  He couldn’t see reality beyond his plans.

  He was too smart to believe his plans.

  Totally scared out of his mind in the blackness no ground SPLIT.

  All the SCORPION boys hit SPLIT.

  That’s why they hated women.

  They depended on crime and crime kept them stupid.

  BEYOND CRIME, DREAMS, AND SEX: DISASTER