Blood and Guts in High School (3 page)
Janey:
I
remember Anne.
(Anne is a tall blonde who now plays in soap operas.)
The conversation died. Janey to herself: Sally is the only subject we have left to talk about.
Janey:
Do you think you'll live with Sally?
Father:
Oh, Janey, I don't think so.
Janey:
I
didn't mean anything.
We went to the movies. Johnny paid for everything. As soon as the movie started, I wanted to lay my head on Johnny's shoulder, but I was scared he didn't want to feel my flesh against his. 'Are you still interested in me sexually?' I asked him. 'Yes,' and his hand took my hand. But all through the movie his touch was dead.
LASHES I FEEL. In the taxi my mood changed to lousy. I wanted to get out of the cab. Oh shit, I was ruining everything again. Just when things were going good.
Johnny realized something was the matter and asked me what was wrong.
I said nothing was the matter and tried to jump out of the cab.
He replied that we shouldn't have talked about Sally.
Why shouldn't we have talked about Sally?
He didn't answer, so I realized that Sally was a sacred subject.
Once we were safe inside our kitchen, we rehashed all the times he had wanted to be close to me and I had refused; all the times I had driven him away when he loved me; all the times he had rejected my timid advances of sex, and all the times I had cut him dead, I had told him I would never care about him; how the slightest rejection from me or affair had made him turn away from me and seek someone else; how I reacted to his hurting me so badly by looking for someone more stable; how hurt causes increasing hurt; how our mutual fantasy that he adored me and I was just hanging on to him for the money actually concealed the reality that he had stuck to me all these years cause I didn't ask too much of him, especially emotionally. In this way a fantasy reveals reality:
Reality
is just the underlying fantasy, a fantasy that reveals need. I have an unlimited need of him. I explained all my lousy characteristics: my irritability, my bossiness, my ambition in the world, my PRIDE.
By this time we were both crying. A fag friend of mine just walked into the apartment and I chased him away, but he saw us crying. Then Johnny said that my characteristics that had attracted him at first now repelled him. He hinted that I'm a loud, brassy Jewess. I'm too dependent on him and that freaks him out of his mind. What makes it worse is that even though I need help, I don't know how to ask anyone for it. So I'm always bearing down on him and blaming him. I'm too macho (that's my favourite one).
I repeated all these sentences in my mind. I knew that I was hideous. I had a picture in my head that I was a horse, like the horse in
Crime and Punishment,
skin partly ripped off and red muscle exposed. Men with huge sticks keep beating the horse.
Johnny said he thought I was his mother and all the resentment he had felt against her he now felt against me. I scared him so badly he wanted to run away.
I said, 'OK. I guess it's good this is all coming out.'
LASHES MAKE ME NO LONGER MYSELF. Now I knew that Johnny hated me. I was still trying to remain calm, to be mature. My fever from my sickness rose real high, I think to 102°, and the pain in my ovaries increased.
The thought flashed through my mind that I was getting off on all this. I was a masochist. So: was I making the situation worse?
I told Johnny that I loved him deeply, very deeply. I saw now that he
needed to be alone and to decide by himself what he wanted. In a little over twenty-four hours I would be going to the United States. I would not see or speak to him again, unless he asked me to see or speak to him.
Father:
I
have to get out of the house. I'll be back in a while.
(He
had arranged to meet Sally in a bar.)
LASHES, AS IF THE WORLD, BY ITS VERY NATURE, HATES
ME.
Early that morning, a few hours before the sun was due to come up, nothing else in the world being due, Johnny returned home (what is home?) and told Janey he had been drinking with Sally.
It was very dark outside. She lay down on the filthy floor by his bed, but it was very uncomfortable: she hadn't slept for two nights. So she asked him if he wanted to come into her bed.
The plants in her room cast strange, beautiful shadows over the other shadows. It was a clean, dreamlike room. He fucked her in her asshole cause the infection made her cunt hurt too much to fuck there, though she didn't tell him it hurt badly there, too, cause she wanted to fuck love more than she felt pain.
A few hours later they woke up together and decided they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he worked when he got off from work.
They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy.
Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.
CAUSE OF LASHES: THE SURGE OF SUFFERING IN THE SOUL
CORRUPTS THE SOUL.
Father:
You have to learn not to press so hard. This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made it happen.
Janey
(thinking hard. Slowly):
You said that before. I don't think so. I think you set this situation up.
(She doesn't say directly what she thinks: that he pretended he loved Sally so from anger she'd mention breaking up with him so they could break up.)
You know exactly how I react, and you set this situation up so I'd react this way. You wanted this to happen.
Father
(as if discovering something for the first time, slowly):
I think you're right.
A few hours later they woke up together and decided they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he worked when he got off from work.
They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy.
Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.
I AM NOT ME:
Janey
(sitting on her bed with Tarot cards):
Should I tell your fortune?
Father:
OK
(Johnny's fortune is that he's gone through a bad time; now
everything is clearing up; in the future a close friendship/marriage? with a
woman; final result: a golden life.)
I'm worried about this psychic stuff
of yours.
Janey:
What can I do about it? It freaks me.
Father:
You dreamed that night what she looked like - you hadn't even
met her.
Janey:
I
even described what she was wearing that night. A black jacket
over something white.
(Wondering.)
Father:
You said I was going to leave you before it even entered my
mind.
Janey:
I didn't want to provoke that. Oh God no. These things just
come into my head and I say them. Don't you understand?
Father:
I'm scared of it.
A few hours later they woke up together and decided they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he was working when he got off work.
They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy.
Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.
TINY SOUNDS, BUT SOUNDS . . . OPEN DARK DITCHES IN
THE FACE
Janey:
Now I'm going to tell my fortune.
(She gets a totally horrible
fortune: death and destruction before and after. Her fever gets high. She
wonders if she's going to die in the USA.)
Father:
Are you upset?
Janey:
Yes.
Father:
I
am, too. These cards are weird.
A few hours later they woke up together and decided that they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he worked when he got off from work.
They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy.
Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.
MAKE MORE FIERCE AND MAKE SEXUALITY STRONGER. THIS IS THE TIME FOR ALL PRISONERS TO RUN WILD. YOU ARE THE BLACK ANNOUNCERS OF OUR DEATH. (BE SUCH TIME YOUNG HORSES OF ATTILA THE HUN. OH ANNOUNCERS WHO US SEND DEATH.)
Johnny and Janey lay together and didn't, as on the last nights, touch. Janey was so upset she got up and sat in the kitchen. Johnny lay there awake. Janey returned to the bed and they lay there without touching.
A few hours later they woke up together and decided they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he worked when he got off from work. They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a
Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy. Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.
ANNOUNCE THE RUINS PROFOUND OF THE CHRISTS WITHIN (US). OF SOME BELIEF CHERISHED WHICH FATE CURSES, THESE
LASHES
BLOODY SOUND THEIR CRACKLINGS OF A LOAF OF BREAD WHICH IN THE VERY OVEN DOOR BURNS US UP.
Janey:
Sometimes I think we're star-crossed lovers.
(Pursuing and
explaining this thought.)
Each of us moves to the other at the wrong
time.
(She holds the movie
Gilda
in her mind.)
Father
(lightly, sadly):
It's just the wrong time now for you to do this.
Janey:
I know.
Father:
I do love you, Janey.
(Holding her in his arms.)
I don't want to
never see you again. Janey
(loving his arms):
I'll be OK in the United States. If you want
me, write me, I'll . . .
(She stops herself from saying more. She thinks
she's always saying too much.)
I've got to go now.
Father:
Take care of yourself, will you? Janey: OK
(She doesn't say that she might die in the USA.)
A few hours later they woke up together and decided they would spend the whole day together since it was their last day. Janey would meet Johnny at the hotel where he worked when he got off from work.
They ate raw fish salad
(cerviche)
at a Lebanese joint and tea at a
Northern Chinese place. They held hands. They didn't talk about Sally or anything heavy.
Johnny left her, telling her he'd be home later.