Studying Hunger Journals, page 28
September 24
I’ve got no track of the time and I’ve got no track of the railroad running, in desperation, count worries in and you and wanna go home to a mommy and wanna come home to mamma and the train’s not in the vestibule’s a diary too the answer to: easy reading, public messages, extending arms legs and feet of the letters of the alphabet making green soup through a sieve out of the universe from a mix called the German Mechanics Mechanismus Mix, German Chocolate Cake Mix and German Macaroon Mix, that’s the universe mush, B. Mayer, and, I dream in a fix that someone’s outside (rewrite it, it’s an analogy to reprocessing in process, a memory, according to how you write now: dream’s a memory kept in process kept in present, whose consciousness?) and someone’s outside and close to waking in another room I think maybe the loft is being robbed or someone’s here but to avoid waking I will not wake and I turn over to dream grandfather’s outside in the other room in Ridgewood (with curtains and the wallpaper and I can tell by the wallpaper, one beneath the other, layers) and he’s puttering around and I’m annoyed by this invasion of my privacy, announced death, conserved electricity, delivered milk: to announce death, to conserve electricity, to deliver the milk. Participate in death, witness death, announce it, the drudgery of it, then mix things up, then die: go to a wedding in black with someone on your side to stand for, to represent (why not say “know”) past experiences. I was going to list everything GP ever did but I know and no use your knowing except that I know and this one thing: he invades my space of mourning by surviving, strange thing to say about a dead man who shows up in dreams ecclesiastically except that in the dream I wasn’t surprised to see him at all and unlike the parent dreams I didn’t know he died so I cried but only when I coughed, mirror mirror what a heel and this is a strong day.
September 25
And more red anger and more red tide, a simple play and maybe what can’t be seen, David went fishing in my shoes, some geniuses, you don’t have to live with them they won’t have you live with them and maybe your eyes are wrong about living alone cause after all it’s a generation without families to be seen and Max is sleeping in bed, broke his promise cause he said he was my family and why not worry about living alone is left or being left, abandoned, nobody left, alone, many friends, just friends and every one not quite right to rely on, to count on, to know what they’re doing and where and where you are but anger and resentment is shown, it shows and we were wrong and there is nothing long term about living someone else’s life and the reason there’s no milk and crackers in this here is cause it seems so urgent it seems so important like a life and death issue as one might say, from one to one, and she was still there and she was still there and then she was gone all gone and Max was over and Stanislaus was here and Andy came in and school’s open but not for us cause without the milk and crackers you can’t I can’t tell what I’m thinking at recess I don’t think, I can tell it’s 2:30 by looking at the clock but with them I don’t know what I’m waiting for so that’s waiting for you (and me), it’s writing to decipher, if I can, you always can as I underestimate my over-estimated perceptions funnily so writing’s become so precious like bird in tree, like $4.95 notebook, blue with double Japanese cover and I have my will, knowing exactly what’s going to happen as if it were routine or routinely written in less than two dimensions as if in a modern novel and what’s Max got, he don’t feel all right and what’s he want, perfection from me like rising up out of the sea and movie and money to make and no ice, I mean no trouble, troubles take a lot of time, like my father’s business failed and he was 35 years old and there is no life left except what your culture tells you to do unless you got rebellion to tell you elsewise and there ain’t enough eyes dying in the sea to suckle you with that protein, to just fight, for fun cause there’s nothing else to do and there’s another one involved here, Nixon the trickster as Max would like to cough-control him and as one who wins here a piece of penitence from me but for all: I am sorry folks that I made such a great mistake but especially cause it’s one I don’t have to pay for: I will try to explain my mistake: but first a word in paler grey about the other one who would take care of me support me, all this if only I will be his full-time mother too and a third one who will excite me and my own brain which is under my hair somewhere impulsing fingers at least, if any: the mistake my mistake was this: I picked a pack a peck of pickled peppers along the glass to the spider, no, I went out on a limb, it’s like playing the numbers when we all know they’re all the same, and does anybody I mean do other people get all their work done too? Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning get married, then what do they do, do they sink ships, no, they write simple short verses, have a child or two, maybe not so simple, and move to Italy where they always wanted to be. Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia or Rose or whatever her name is visit them after seeing the Faun of Praxiteles and knowing what it feels like to have the kind of knowledge, little as it is as Hawthorne would say, you accumulate by 28, in poor health, an old hypochondriac, compared to Stanislaus’ 22 years when he thinks he knows nothing, well I still know nothing but I can smell something and I’m interested in changing the world still, now here I am living with the most unhappy man who is most unhappy as he ever has been, from his own mouth. A more intrepid talker than myself would have shouted her ideas across the gulf but for me there must first be a close and unembarrassed contiguity with my companion or I cannot say one real word. I doubt whether I have ever really talked with half a dozen persons in my life, either men or women. And before I saw the Faun of Praxiteles. So, there’s nothing else to do but magic, miracles and spectacles, I cannot cure him with a note a letter on rebellion a case of money and I cannot change myself but the thing that fucks me up is this: this is the fashion, what I’ve described and I have always been intrepidly out of fashion and perversely in disguise and I can sit here alone all night every night and write till my eyebrows grow even longer, they glare out and begin to describe my whole face, some shadow on the face I’m looking out on and do you like good music and no I don’t even like good writing, it’s pure poetry, it’s pure crap what you decide to like and what does it matter who loves you and what does it matter to? But I never described my mistake to you, here:
July 1917, I mean 1971—Memory, a difficult time.
August 1971—sensational dreams resulting from Memory. But before that:
1964 (October)—I meet Max and live with him, I move to Syracuse and quit school.
(December)—I get pregnant, Max’s parents give him a lot of shit about school during the holidays, I tell him I’m pregnant.
1965 (January)—I go back to Syracuse, Max stays home and suffers.
(February)—I move back to New York, try to get an abortion, fail, get an apartment.
(August)—have baby.
(September)—go back to school and get a job.
1966 (March)—start to work at home so I can write more.
1966 (May)—turn 21, inherit money, quit job.
(July)—move into apartment with Max, Max works for Arnold Eagle.
1967 (June)—I graduate, get another job, Max gets a movie job, we move to York Avenue, do 0 TO 9.
1968—I quit my job again, Max works on more movies, I publish STORY.
1969 (June)—We move into Beatrice’s loft for the summer, Max works on “A New Leaf,” GP gives me ten thousand dollars.
(July)—I travel across country and go to California, Max quits his job and meets me there, he’s unhappy.
(September)—We buy a car, drive back. I look for a house in the country, Max is planning to work on “Revolution.” We stay in sporadic places in New York with Parnell.
(October)—I move to Massachusetts, Max lives on 36th St. with Parnell, works on the movie.
(December)—we buy the loft, Parnell’s still living with us, they go to Chicago to shoot.
1970 (May)—I have to leave Massachusetts, come back to the loft, eventually Parnell leaves, I work on MOVING, we make many trips to the country, I hate the city for a long time, we buy videotape equipment, Beatrice and Kathleen have to go to the hospital, Max has many projects, MOVING goes to the printer’s in February, we make tapes, have shows, Andy’s around.
If only I had some whiskey maybe I could go on: September 1971—Max makes trips to Toronto. October 1971—I start the workshops, start to see David. February 1972—Memory show, basketball. April 1972—I start writing when I’m alone.
Maps are startling, I stopped coughing so what can I do to make some money and people happy and still do my work cause I’ll do my work anyway cause I’m driven and it makes me happy even if I turn into a drunk or a dying person or a maniac, anyway it’s all true, paper, go up in flames if you want. So I seem to have lost the fear and it’s just the streets to rebel in, revel in.
I step into Kathleen’s shoes and you have to look your best for public transportation.
And I’m drunk and I’m fulfilling all their fantasies, and, what a big joke on them, so I dally with the construction workers who are repaving our road and they think Wallace painted my sign: Nixon has met his finish in the mad house. They say, “He’s gonna get up outta his wheelchair one of these days” and I say, “Oh yes.” And we talk of the price of beer.
September 27
And in relation to those dreams, come to think of it, it was my mother who was thinking of marriage in those dreams of August 1971, this is tasty cheese, or rather, we were thinking of it for her, don’t get a toothache in space it would spoil your space-trip, we wanted all the excitement of a new daddy and every time we put it to her she would say, “But I am a sick woman.” It’d be like stepping on a grave, well you can run but you sure can’t hide and the light gets pink on memory and at first we took the public transportation to the radiation treatments or maybe we took the car (“Why don’t you girls ever want to go for a ride?” and “We might as well get rid of it”—we gave it to Uncle George) and then as she got weaker we took the subway I mean we took taxis and just before she quit her job with the lawyer she was coming home on the subway one day, in winter, and got to feeling faint so when I got home from school she was lying on the couch and that couch was where something or everything is centered on: Marie was lying on the couch with my uncle there and everybody (I) wanted to know what was happening what had happened and they told me Marie had weakened on the subway had fainted or almost fainted, a cold sweat, close to loss of consciousness then and was resting, needed rest and I remember Marie’s winter coat and I thought to myself, was it too warm and shortly after that she had to quit her job and could never eat the meals I fixed without throwing up, usually, afterwards and lying on the couch when the doctor came Marie was embarrassed, I can’t really continue this though it’s already written down, so that’s why I dream too much and misinterpret my dreams, well they’re open to interpretation: I seem to dream her dreams as I seem to walk her steps, her steps in the subway, her fainting steps, her steps in the hallway, her watching, her watching alone steps, steps to the treatment, sweetmeats, to the treatmeat, she was afraid to go alone, she was afraid to go alone, I looked out the window, I waited too, I did it over and I repeated it, as a performance, what is an art show anyway, I did it over and over again for some years and then, I wanted to stop but I’m not sure, I’m not sure I can give up the pleasure or her or Marie, as I seem to dream her dreams, as I seem to walk her steps, what’s the pleasure, it’s the pleasure of ice and removal and talking nothing, taking no one, as if, you speak, you are planning the imminence of your own death or only have a moment to lose, close to loss of consciousness, on the edge of loss of consciousness, at any time, a desertion, any moment, an intention, to lose. I accuse Marie of planning. I am trying to understand something, a narrative, you wrap up your feet and then you make your feet so small you cannot walk, but her steps, I’m getting mixed up, does sex make trouble or transform and will a white market fit in at all, white slavery, sold, I’m too sold on this, I don’t trust it like I didn’t trust her, I accused her of planning death as her own pleasure as I am now planning yours, “at my pleasure, at my leisure,” it took four years, Marie, look at this, “at my anger,” at my anger is a place for your invasion of my seduction, you forget.
October 2
And well I didn’t, you gave me an idea, that is to write it sedated, and I still wear my thoughts on my scarf to excite you, you don’t you were never trained to and I still drink my milk after feeding a few, you don’t you were never trained to and this is the best meal you ever had but you will all be gone by Christmas, meal you ever had but you will all be gone by morning so if I hadn’t come home just a gesture, would it make you any difference at all and are the books still up on the shelf, so we’ll plan the trip to the cemetery by the full moon to lay heavy memory on their graves, visit graves. And Teresa in a green velvet hood jacket is in the station wagon back of the truck with memory, with the communists (what’s the difference to you, you’ve got your brother here, Tom, Andy and so on) and they’ve come with supplies with sugar for my coffee for us, we’re white, and I don’t take sugar, in the tomb, night. In white Stockbridge, where else, day, and in cool white, it’s orange, the college of New Rochelle, I see glaze color passes by eyes of design of modern building, I’m high, it passes that fast, and the buildings are a net, I’ll get to it (I’m always thinking of others), so I give Stanislaus my saxophone where it’s always off one note, Stanislaus the other one, another one and from the 31st floor they play a concert and his instrument, mine, fucks it up and after the show, show, we can hear them, they applaud, you are right and they yell to us, “Thank you Bernadette” and I’m living in a tent-room now, like a tent, sure, you can stand up in it, in the middle, an attic, but really though you can’t and you can’t even get out, it’s hard to get out, with all the numbers and the floors and the girls, call girls, I saw them all before, in school, yes in school. And somewhere, there, I find a man or he comes to me and we are lying on stone listening to Stanislaus’ grateful concert, all the wrong notes all the kisses, dead, and the man is giving me trouble, as always, all right, take it, about comings and goings, and my needs, all right, a nice man, too nice, Paul America, it’s three, you and Andy and me and also, it’s three and would you please be quiet, all right and where do you have to go in the morning, all right, I get up at 8:30 eat breakfast and go to the job, me too, and soon I’ll be finished too, memory what a shame, in black, all the same, you too and it could go on forever so, are you in love with me, are you not, where are you are you here, so, and were the palms out here out where something important’s going on, like the turning of pages in the family, it’s in the family, you you and you, one sleeps one reads and one writes, what could be more right all right except that none of the ones is exactly happy there and they all went out for a drink so they dream and one dreams boxes white boxes and one dreams colors come at him and one dreams, me this is me, all kinds of tombs visions, hardly visions of tombs, aching tombs aching to be seen, you guess. You come alone and see it’s a crowded cemetery and the roaches run all over the table and you get light: please believe me I’d do anything you say, so say it, you look so cute when your hair’s messed up that it’s hard for me to resist this long and whaddayou expect of me a faun, sexless faun, shag ears, Hawthorne’s dog, his favorite pet, I try to forget and I do what’s necessary politically to keep my comrades going, in arms, it’s our armed struggle and viva la sangre de Salvador Allende, the physician, but I seem to escape and he says the greater the poverty the greater the disease, I saw him speak, I watched him speak and it just happened that he died, was murdered by the U.S. govt. in the same week in the same time as mother grandfather and you but I am not angry with Salvador Allende and this so this could make a fanatic of you, I mean of me except I am not and never was anything but a flea a pawn, whaddayou call the welfare ragamuffins, a something on the back of the U.S. govt. that murders Allende and its council on the arts supports me, a weasel? Is that it? Thirty bucks a week, buy it from the copper mines of Chile? I don’t know. I am trying to change the world. I’ll take anything I can get for food, if I can eat it. So bet it at the OTB office and run from one to the other with the racing forms and newly pave the streets, Grand Street and Canal and someone says if it was one up from canal it’d be grand, and newly pave the highway with pre-cast concrete blocks, I don’t care, it’s the Parks Dept. of NYC, and it’s the city, new, blue police cars, have the cops, so spaced out, they can’t get out of the cars, blue cars, to make an arrest, and we are not in power, we just paint slogans on the wall and we are not in power, we just try to change the fucking language and we are not in power but we take money for food, if we can eat it: whose mother are you cause then you feed it too and then only then, you can eat, horseshit, and well at least we got no leaders to manifest a prick to you, or a circular, eat shit, but do not commit suicide, now, your arms are too pale, or too terrified, or too brown. The black smear-men of Monument Mountain, drawn to look like a sphinx with the cloud above a series of interlocking gears, black November.
