blues record by Dave Van Ronk, the first man I ever saw with
a full beard like a beatnik or a prophet; I took money when I
needed it and could get it easy enough; pills; clothes. M o n ey’s
w hat’s useful. He began dealing some shit, it w asn’t too hard
or dangerous compared to running borders with other
contraband but it got so he did it without me more and more;
he spent more and more time with these low life gangster
types, not political revolutionaries at all but these vulgar guys
who packed guns and just did business; he said it’s just for
money, what’s it got to do with you or with us, I’ll just do it
fast, get the money, it’s nothing; and it was nothing, I didn’t
have no interest in money per se, but it got so he did the
running, he was free, freedom and flight were his, he’d pick up
and go, I didn’t know where he was or who with or when I’d
meet them they’d be lowlife I had no interest in, just toadies as
much as some corporate businessmen were and I’d feel very
bored with them and they’d treat me like I was a skirt and I’d
feel superior and because I didn’t want no part o f them I didn’t
challenge it, I’d just put up with it and be relieved when he did
his shit for money elsewhere; he hunted money down, he
hunted dope down, he drove the secret highways o f Europe at
a hundred miles an hour, without me, increasingly without
me, and I stayed home and dusted walls, waiting, I waited,
while I waited I cleaned, I dusted, I washed things, I made
things nice, I put something here or there, little touches, but
especially I washed things— I washed floors, dishes, clothes,
anything could be washed I fucking washed it; and I would o f
course keep thinking; I’d be doing laundry but I’d think I was
thinking— housework wasn’t what
I
was doing, not me, no, I
was thinking. I shared the fruits o f all this labor with him,
clean clothes, clean dishes, clean floors, my thinking, which
has always been first-rate in some senses, and I saw him put the
thinking I had done into action so I felt like some pretty major
player, running dope and making money all over Europe, and
I kept thinking, and I saw the thinking go into political
actions, so I felt pretty major, and I just kept washing and
thinking; washing, ironing, and thinking; washing, shopping,
and thinking; washing, cooking, and thinking; washing,
scrubbing, and thinking; washing, folding, and thinking. I
saw the consequences o f m y thinking; it was us out there, not
just him. I was important; he knew; you don’t need
recognition in a revolutionary life. Increasingly he incarnated,
freedom, I dreamed it; especially he was the one who got to be
free outside the four walls, and I got to be what he rolled over
on when he got home, dead tired and mean as madness. He
did— he got on top, he fucked me, he went to sleep. I was
incredulous. In the aftershock I ironed, I washed, I scrubbed, I
cooked. I’d lie there awake after he rolled o ff me, on m y back,
not m oving, for hours— outraged, a pristine innocence,
stunned in disbelief; this was me;
me.
We’d entertain too, the
revolutionary couple, the subversives— I learned to do it. It’s
like you see in all those films where the bourgie wife slinks
around and makes the perfect martini amidst the glittering
furniture; well, shit, honey, I made the most magnificent joint
a boy could sit down to on a beanbag chair. I mean, I made a
joint so gorgeous, so classic and yet so full o f savagery and
bite, so smooth and so deadly, so big and so right, yo u ’d leave
your wife and fam ily and kill your fucking mother ju st to sit
on the floor
near
it. I was the perfect wife, illegally speaking; I
mean, I learned how to be a stoned sweet bitch, the new good
housekeeping. Y ou r man comes to visit m y man and he
don’t walk home; I am dressed fine and mostly I am quiet
except for an occasional ironic remark which establishes me, at
least in m y own mind, as smart, and I roll a fine joint, and in
this w ay I’ve done m y man proud; he’s got the best dope and a
fine wom an— and a clean house, I mean, a fucking clean
house; and I ain’t som ebody’s dumb wife except in the eyes o f
the law because I defy society— I defy society— I roll joints, I
have barely seen a martini, there’s nothing I ain’t done in bed,
including with him, except anal intercourse, I w o n ’t have it,
not from him, I don’t know w hy but I just w o n ’t, I don’t want
him in me that way, I think it’s how I said he’s m y husband;
husband. But I don’t think he even knew about it. I’d be as
perfect as I could according to his demands, gradually
expressed, over time. Everything escalates. D idn’t matter
how brilliant m y joints were once he started using a chellum, a
Turkish pipe for hash, rare in Europe, not used because you,
had to be so fucking aggressive to use it, the hashish and
tobacco went in it, it was like a funnel, and you pulled it fast
and hard into your lungs through a kind o f wind tunnel made
by your hands clasped at the bottom o f the funnel and the
bitter smoke hit your lungs with a burning punch, with the
force o f an explosion, and your bloodstream was oxygenated
with hash and nicotine. I didn’t like the chellum but I had to do
it, keeping up with Mr. Jones as it were. C an’t find yourself
being too delicate, too demure, unable to take the violence o f
the hit; not if you are Mrs. Jones; have to run
with
the boy or
the boy runs without you, he don’t slow down to wait, he
don’t say, Andrea doesn’t like this, she likes that, so let’s do
that. Same with sex. He pushes you down and does it. Y ou
solicit his personal recognition. Y ou ask his indulgence. Y ou
beg: remember me; me. It changes slow. He tied me up to fuck
me more and more; tied me up to this nice little modern brass
bed we got, we had a little money; he had from the beginning,
in rented rooms, on mattresses, on floors, it doesn’t take
much, but it was only sometimes; now he tied me up to fuck
me invariably and I was bored, tired and bored, irritated and
bored; but he wanted it which had to mean he needed it and I
want him to do what he needs, I think every man should have
what he needs, I think if he has it maybe he w on ’t need it in a
bad w ay; and I love him— not in love but I love him;
him
; I’m
with him because it’s him; him; I want him to want me; me. I
said no or not now or let’s just make love and don’t tie me up,
we don’t need it, or even I don’t want it now, I don’t like it, or
trying to say that I didn’t want to anymore and it had to matter
to him that I didn’t want to because this is me; me. I said in all
kindness and with all tenderness that I didn’t want to but he
did want to and so we did because it was easier to than not to
and it wasn’t like we hadn’t before so it wasn’t like I had any