by Kathy Acker
A conversation between Tommy and Janey before disaster hit: disaster beyond SPLIT:
Tommy: Do you think there’s a for ever?
Janey: Anything lasts for ever? (Thinks.) Sure. Everything lasts for ever.
Tommy: Huh?
Janey: Love goes away only when your mind goes away and then you’re someone else.
Tommy: There’re no truths anymore. Nothing stands up.
Janey: Your mind stinks, not ’cause you got all these opinions, ways of judging, but ’cause you depend on them.
You know your plans aren’t real. You’re a smart boy. All you see is nothing.
There’s a world right in front of your eyes. It ain’t money, the world of alienated action. Anyone can do absolutely anything he or she wants. It’s all absolutely free. In the brilliant sunlights. Events rise singly out of … I don’t know what I’m saying I gotta get money. I gotta shake hands with the death-world and death-world is killing off human beings ….
We gotta get to a point where we can be together ….
I can’t take you, Janey. I don’t want to know who you are.
But if we’re not together, we’re not going to be able to live. This isn’t romance. This isn’t about you and me being in love.
No.
NO to you language no to anything but the money-work I’m forced to do I sit alone in this room how do you get a book to split open, the object the event no a big flaming NO and only because of NO do you understand Tommy and I are together.
We pulled into the rock club about one o’clock. It looked like a war was happening.
We had heard that this rock band called THE CONTORTIONS was gonna play in a redneck town in New Jersey and the white head singer thought he was James Brown. The rest of the band would be too drunk to stop the rednecks from beating up Brown.
James Brown was crawling baby-style across the floor.
The rednecks were jerking their cocks off in a corner.
James Brown crawled up to the redneck’s boot.
The redneck, confused, jumped James.
Everyone in the club started hitting each other.
I heard cops’ sirens.
I ran.
The rest of THE SCORPIONS were behind me.
We piled into the van.
Green and pink lights flashed past us, neon yellow and violet lights gleamed.
The bright lights were denser and denser.
We were moving faster.
‘Hey,’ Sally said, ‘step on it.’
‘Huh?’
‘The cops’re after us.’
He drove faster.
‘Can’t ya go faster?’
He drove even faster.
I heard the cops’ sirens clearly.
‘Suck my tits.’ Greaso leaned over and sucked Sally’s tit while he drove.
‘Watch where you’re going, Greaso.’
The cops’ sirens were louder.
Greaso’s foot hit the accelerator all the way.
We were in a totally black section of Newark.
A tiny red light appeared in the blackness.
The red light grew larger and larger.
I don’t remember the crash. Everyone died but Monkey who got brain damage and me. For a few days I floated in a dream.
The blackness I now see everywhere comes from perverted because unrealized wants. I see this. I won’t be able to pretend the world isn’t horrible. Overwhelming fear separates me from the want I saw. Now overwhelming fear makes me part of the death-world.
She started to run from death …
She left high-school and lived in the East Village …
Outside High School
How spring came to the land of snow and icicles
1 The Hideous Monster and the Beaver
Once upon a time …
there was a big ugly hideous monster. He lived in a hut below the living fountain within the long icicles. All of the land was ice. The air was almost white. Air rapidly became solid and the solid became air.
The big ugly monster kept house with a beaver. While his head was scraping against the low kitchen ceiling, he would cook for the beaver. He would bring the food to the table. Then they would sit in two huge rocking chairs and face each other across the huge round red table. They wouldn’t say anything.
The beaver stood up and waddled to the upstairs of the hut. As he climbed the stairs, his tail said, ‘Pad, pad’. Alone the hideous monster scraped the plastic dishes, dumped them in the sink and washed them. Then he tied up a dark-green garbage bag and dragged it outside.
The snow was falling over the ice and turning to ice. The snow was falling over the ice and hiding the ice. The poor hideous monster couldn’t see anything. He started to cry and the tears turned to ice on his cheeks. He didn’t know what to do. He grew scared because he didn’t know what to do.
He forgot he didn’t know what to do.
He just stood there.
He went back inside the hut.
You couldn’t tell the difference between a snowflake and a star.
2 How a bear tried to get into the Monster’s and the Beaver’s House
A bear came sludging through the snow. The big brown bear was cold, hungry, and tired. All night he had been wandering in the falling snow looking for food. The falling snow had obscured the ice that hid the frozen fish. Falling snow had obscured the world. The bear saw the beaver’s and the monster’s hut.
When he lifted his paw to knock on a door almost the size of his paw, an avalanche of snow fell to the ground.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The monster had just stumbled out of bed. He hadn’t had his coffee yet. It was too early for someone to be at the door, so no one could be at the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
‘Whatta ya want?’ the monster grumbled. He was looking for the coffee. He didn’t listen to the answer.
Knock. Knock. Knock. ‘Please let me in,’ the bear yelled in a little girl’s yell.
‘Why should I let you in? You might rape me or kill me or you might be one of those muggers who robbed three people down the street yesterday. We know all about you.’
‘I’m not a robber. I’m a little girl who lost her way in the woods last night. I want to call my mommy ’cause she’s worried to death about me. I want to tell her I’m still alive.’
‘What were you doing out in the snow all night?’
‘My mommy and my twenty sisters live in a horrible slum on the east side of town. Mommy has no limbs and ten of my sisters are paralyzed. The other ten are wanted by the police for bank robberies. They didn’t really do them. So I’m the only one who can get the food. Every day I go out and gather weeds. Then my ten bank robber sisters make a soup out of them.
‘There aren’t any weeds left around our house, so yesterday I went farther away from the house than usual.
‘Before I knew it, it became dark.
‘It was the blackest night. Huge sheets of snow and hail and sleet suddenly fell out of the blackness. I couldn’t see anymore and I couldn’t hear anymore.’ (The monster remembered when he was out in the falling snow with the green garbage bag.) ‘Everywhere I turned was blackness. Everywhere was pure whiteness and blackness and cold, cold.’
‘I know what you’re talking about,’ the monster replied.
‘I started walking to my home (I had an idea of home in my mind), but I didn’t know where home was. There were just unending blocks of pure blackness and whiteness. Finally grey morning light began to filter through and as I began to see, the first thing I saw was your hut. Smoke was coming out of the chimney and lights shone through the windows.
‘Please let me come in for a minute.’
‘You poor baby.’ The hideous monster opened the front door, saw a huge brown bear, and screamed. He slammed the front door. ‘BEAVER! BEAVER!’ He raced up to beaver’s room. Beaver was asleep, snuggled under three layers of white satin quilting. ‘BEAVER! BEAVER!’ He sat on beaver’s face and told him
what the problem was. The beaver waddled downstairs and locked all the doors and windows securely so no one could possibly get in.
3 The Bear tries a second time to get into the House
The bear’s difficulties made the house even more wonderful to the bear. He decided he’d force his way into the house with all his strength.
Sun was now pouring down, in through tiny closed kitchen windows, and flooding the kitchen.
In this light the monster was frying four eggs in a huge black frying pan. Golden pieces of buckwheat-and-rye toast popped out of an old iron toaster, hit the ceiling, bounced on to the blue-tiled floor, then on to two Dutch china plates sitting on the round red table. Tiny china bowls filled with rose-petal jam, orange-lemon-ginger marmalade, huckleberries and raspberries, chrysanthemum blossoms and guava jellies covered the remainder of the table. The beaver was taking a shower upstairs. He refused to use shower curtains so blue water was going ‘plop, plop’ and flooding the bathroom. The only thing beaver saw was the white morning sunlight and the only thing he heard was shower water falling like the beating of his heart.
Just as the monster was turning the eggs, the kitchen door started to shake so hard and to resound so loudly with hits and bangs, the monster decided there must be a bill collector at the door.
‘Go away, you stupid bill collector!’ he shouted. He was proud of himself for shouting.
The bear threw himself even harder against the kitchen door.
‘Go away, you damn bill collector: I don’t have any money and I’ll never have any money. This world is a pit-hole and a garbage dump. It’s ’cause of people like you. All anyone cares about,’ the monster’s voice was shaking, ‘all all of you care about is getting as much money any way you can, and lying and cheating and using people, and passing this filthy paper around in devious circles, so it’s all power, power power power and I can’t sleep or think or dream of anything else. I hate you and I hate your money.’
The bear raged. Foam frothed out of his mouth. He threw himself against the door as hard as he could.
That didn’t work.
The bear forgot himself and threw himself against the door even harder.
‘And if I had any money, I wouldn’t give it to you. I’d piss on it and set it on fire, I’d bury it under all the ice in the world, I’d sprinkle oil on it and set Con Edison on fire, I’d tear it up and make some new fetishes. I’d feed it to the rats who live in my house, but I wouldn’t give it to you. I hate you.’
By this time the bear’s shoulders were masses of bruises, his mouth was a froth-pit, his fur was gone, and blood was streaming down his torso so he went away.
4 Betrayal and treachery
The hideous monster had a pet named Fritzy. Fritzy was a red-eyed white rat. As Fritzy was sleepily glomping around the kitchen and waiting for breakfast to get finished so she could get hold of some good crumbs, a big drop of butter leaped out of the frying pan onto her head, so just as the bear gave up and stomped into a nearby snowdrift, Fritzy ran out of her special door into the snow. ‘Ah hah!’ the bloody bear said. ‘Food!’ and snatched Fritzy up in his sharp-clawed paws.
‘I’ll tell how you can trade me for some bigger game,’ Fritzy squeaked as fast as she could. ‘It’d be worth your while to keep me alive.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘The guys who keep me are bigger and taste better than me. Rats are poison. Just tell hideous monster and beaver you’ve got me. They love me so much, especially that stupid monster, they’ll come running through the walls to save me.’
The bear was so desperately in love with the house, he’d do anything to get inside it. ‘Listen you,’ he yelled at the house. ‘I asked you nicely to let me in. You wouldn’t let me in. Now I’m going to get you. I’ve got your pet Fritzy and I’m going to eat her up in one second flat if you don’t let me in.’
‘BEAVER! BEAVER!’ The hideous monster fainted. When he came to, he stumbled, bumbled up the stairs, and dragged beaver out of the flooded shower. ‘That horrible beast has Fritzy. He’s going to eat Fritzy up! I’m going to trade myself for Fritzy, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to throw myself into the bear’s arms …’
‘No!’ beaver screamed. The monster raced down the stairs, but he couldn’t go very fast because one of his legs didn’t work and the other was knock-kneed. ‘Monster, I love you. I adore you. I’ll give myself to the bear!’
The monster and the beaver rushed down the stairs in a race to get into the bear’s arms.
The bear had been waiting for an answer, but no one had answered him. When he lifted the rat to his mouth to eat her, she bit him and leaped into the snow.
By the time monster and beaver got outside, the bear had disappeared.
5 The Bear’s defeat
The bear was defeated. There was no way he could get into the wonderful house.
He couldn’t stop being in love with the house. He stared and stared at the house. He saw a white horse pawing short green grass. The magnificent horse started racing without effort, flying, across the sloping meadows, meadow-hills, tiny houses nestling in the hills, patches of all-colours flowers. A long time passed. The white horse was lying on the dirt, dying. A huge open red wound gaped in his right side. Several humans with sticks were plunging their sticks into the wound.
The bear’s teeth started moving up and down. Soon these teeth were chattering so loud and fast, the bear got scared he was a chattering skull. All of his warm fur would fall off, his skin and his veins. The teeth kept chattering and biting. He got real pissed and his claws came out, but he couldn’t figure out who to claw.
Bear was an elephant. Elephant rose up, mighty mighty grey, on two legs and roared. Roar of Universe. Elephant thudded down a narrow dirt road. Thud thud. Thud thud. Travelled many many miles to find water. His long trunk stuck food in his snake-shape mouth. Every now and then ROAR to tell the forest who he was.
Who am I? he asked. I’m an elephant.
A little boy who was thin and had a crew cut was sitting on the edge of his bed in pyjamas. The bed was as narrow as a cot. Someone had turned the sheets down for the night. Knees tucked under his chin, the little boy was looking directly ahead at a big being who was telling him a story. ‘Once upon a time,’ the big being said. ‘Once upon a time there was a man who roamed the whole land. This man wasn’t a giant physically, but he was a giant in every other way. The giant ate ears of corn and, now and then, the heads off of human beings …’
The bear’s teeth started chattering again and the bear cried. Why wouldn’t his teeth stop? Why was he shaking like this, like some crazy woman who’s possessed and turning, like a white horse being ridden by a rider for the first time? The bear had a fever. He wanted to run away, but he knew if he left this bondage, there’d be nothing else left in the world.
6 The Bear’s vision of blackness
The night was black and the universe was black. You weren’t able to distinguish any forms in this night. A black band separated the black earth from the black sky. All over was just blackness, a layer of blackness.
You, the thing you called ‘you’, was a ball turning and turning in the blackness only the blackness wasn’t something – like ‘black’ – and it wasn’t nothingness ’cause nothingness was somethingness. The whole thing turns up into a ball, the ball’s ephemeral, and where are you? Your self is a ball turning and turning as it’s being thrown from one hand to the other hand and every time the ball turns over you feel all your characteristics, your identities, slip around so you go crazy. When the ball doesn’t turn, you feel stable.
You exist in this darkness. Rebels. Creeps. Outcasts. Loners. People who hate everybody. People who feel uneasy around everybody. People who know everyone hates them. People who hate being tied down, restricted, constricted, and huge whirling snakes. The snakes climb around your neck and arms. The woman who’s the mother of snakes takes you in.
You feel very uneasy. You take a step. You don’t know what to do cause t
here’s nothing, ’cause there’s not even nothing.
7
For some reason this sight of blackness made the bear very happy. The bear began to dance and sing and make all sorts of funny noises. Tears like thunderballs rolled out of his eyes. Sweat-drops like hailstones fell out of his raunchy fur. The bear was causing all the weather. So he sang a song:
Sweet bird in the darkness
you’re living in my heart
your wings are my heart
your outstretched
wings are silver, sapphire, and violet
gold and light green
you’re flying away
I’m following you
whee whee
the world is
silver, sapphire, and violet, gold and light green
now trees and buds and leaves and streams
are springing up, and nettles, hawks, and wild mists
the leaves are dark greens and blues and
light greens
I don’t give a shit about anything
I don’t have to do anything
everything lives
What the bear sang about was true. The world was incredibly beautiful. All the forms had returned and all the colours.
Then the bear started to move his wings. The wings moved faster and faster and soon the bear rose into the air. He flew away from the beaver and hideous monster’s warm house and was never seen again.
Janey becomes a woman
Slums of New York City. A racially mixed group of people live in these slums. Welfare and lower-middle class Puerto Ricans, mainly families, a few white students, a few white artists who haven’t made it and are still struggling, and those semi-artists who, due to their professions, will never make it: poets and musicians, black and white musicians who’re into all kinds of music, mainly jazz and punk rock. In the nicer parts of the slums: Ukrainian and Polish families. Down by the river that borders on the eastern edge of these slums: Chinese and middle-middle class Puerto Rican families. Avenues of junkies, pimps, and hookers form the northern border; the southern border drifts off into even poorer sections, sections too burnt-out to be anything but war zones; and the western border is the Avenue of Bums.
