Caroline cut another piece and handed it to her on a napkin.
“Thank you. So this guy by himself was very young, maybe nineteen or twenty, and he was sipping a beer and smoking a cigarette as though they were still novelties to him. Like he wasn’t quite sure he was pulling it off.” Caroline sat on the floor next to Berry. She wore the loose embroidered cotton nightgown that Berry had given her. She started to rub Berry’s feet, pushing her knuckles into the soles, kneading slowly. She liked taking care of someone. It made her feel less wounded and more solid. Berry always wound up sitting on the floor, and Caroline again noted that this had a definite effect: it made you feel earth-tied and natural and safe. You can’t fall or get tipped over. Furniture towers around you, but you are self-contained and somehow liberated from the structure of chairs and couches. It sounded silly, but it was undeniable. If you were sitting on the floor, you would be one sort of person and not another. You couldn’t picture Spiro Agnew on the floor, say, or Henry Kissinger. It was a litmus test, one of many — can you picture them cross-legged on the floor?
“I walked over to him and asked if I could sit down. He said, ‘Of course,’ and then got up to hold my chair. I swear. I said, ‘Don’t, I can sit by myself. I can do lots of things by myself.’ Anyway, I asked him if, for instance, I could buy him a beer. He said he would buy me a beer. I said, ‘No way, I buy or I don’t stay.’ So he let me buy him a drink. He looked at the other guys, who naturally were all staring at him. I ordered a shot of tequila. Then another.”
“At least you were being cautious.”
Berry frowned.
“I’m sorry. But what were you thinking? You don’t even drink tequila, do you?”
“I don’t drink tequila with you, Caroline, but I do, in fact, drink tequila. I do when I want to get my nerve up. I really wanted to see this through. But I admit, it gave me the heebies having them stare at me. And I think I was off a little, I didn’t read it the way I should’ve. I didn’t take very long to ask him to leave with me, to go to my room was how I put it. I didn’t want to be coy or have repartee or use any bullshit euphemism. I just wanted to be real and straight about it. So he blushes. I’m not joking. He says, Sure, all casual-like, but he is totally red, even in the dark of the bar.”
It was nearing dawn. The room started to fill with weak, gray Oregon morning light. It was unlovely, flat, toneless light; not at all golden, not tender. The damp sunsets were subtle and lovely; the sunrises diluted, murky, unremarkable.
“The others made comments as we left. Really nasty stuff, like ‘Watch it, these libbies have dicks’ and ‘Use a pool cue on the dyke.’ I was getting a little queasy at this point. It was not yet fun. I was thinking maybe this was a bad idea. But there we were on the street, away from the bar, and I reached for the guy, kissing him. He tasted like Budweiser and unfiltered cigarettes. He was instantly shoving his tongue in my mouth. And grabbing at my tits. Apparently not wearing a bra really gets them tit obsessed, even with the baggiest dress. I said, ‘Hey, hey, let’s take our time,’ like couldn’t he kiss my neck a little. He pressed himself against me and pushed his leg between my thighs. I was turned on but sort of grossed out too, you know? Both at once. I can’t really explain it, but I hesitated, and he pressed my hand against his cock and said something corny like ‘You know you want this.’ I had this vision, suddenly, of a porno film I saw once, you know, where the guy is just balling the chick and she’s practically bouncing around, and it is superaggressive and not, you know, at all Kris Kristofferson — like, and I thought, I am not into this. I didn’t want to get screwed by this guy, and no matter who I think is screwing who, that’s how he’ll look at it. For once I actually figured out that getting pummeled by some smelly John Bircher who thought he was really gonna show me was not going to make me feel too hot. So I lost my taste for it, just like that. I told him, sorry, I wasn’t into it, I had to split.”
“Now I get the picture.”
“So he grabbed me, and I said, ‘Get away.’ He saw the fear in my face, and he slugged me. He fucking punched me, one shot, knuckles to nose and mouth, bam. And he held his hand like it hurt him and I ran.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, especially how am I going to explain it? Mel will take one look at me and she’ll know. They will never understand, not like you. You know what I am about. You know that I am not a joke, I am a genuine person. That I think about things.”
“Of course. And you don’t just think about them. You act on them and put yourself right on the line.”
“She’ll say it’s destructive and self-loathing.”
“You take your own hits. It is none of her business.”
“Screw this town. I should get out of here. I have to get away, I do. Oh God, I am starting to really hurt now.” She felt her lip with her tongue. She pulled herself up and went to the bathroom mirror. “I can’t believe it. I’m screwed. That dumb-ass. He thought I was making fun of him, but I don’t think I was. This better not scar.”
Caroline called Mel the next morning.
“I think you’re right. I should leave town.”
“Probably a good idea. Before there is any real reason to. A woman I know can help you. She lives in a women’s commune near New Harmon, New York. Ten miles north. She doesn’t have a phone, but I will send her a message that you are coming to see her.”
“What’s her name?”
“She goes by Mother Goose.”
“Really?”
“It’s these rural acid lesbians — everyone has a ‘special’ name, like Alice or Mother Goose or Medea.”
“Gotcha.” Caroline took a deep breath. “Mel?”
“Yeah.”
“We never expected it to go down like that. We were being so careful, I swear.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
Caroline pressed her head against the phone, crying.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done,” Mel said.
“I know, I know.”
“And Caroline?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t call me or contact me again, okay? You have already made me an accessory after the fact, and I don’t want to be a part of your mess. I don’t want to hear from you again, ever.”
PART FOUR. Fall and Winter, 1998
Jason’s Journal
I AM THE center of the culture. I am genesis, herald, harbinger. The absolute germinal zero point — that’s me. I am the sun around which all the American else orbits. In fact, I am America, I exist more than other Americans. America is the center of the world, and I am the center of America. I am fifteen, white, middle class and male. Middle-aged men and women scurry for my attention. What Internet sites I visit. What I buy. What my desires are. What movies I watch. What and who I want; when and how I want it. People get paid a lot of money to think of how to get to me and mine.
Everything is geared to me. When you see those herky-jerky close-ups in action movies, where the camera jumps and chops its way in rather hyperly to the close-up of the hero, that is not for anyone but me. That is a movie being made to look like a video game or, rather, a computer game. That’s right — the superior technology aping the inferior technology, which was trying to be like a movie in the first place. The mannered, telltale visual grammar of the computer graphic becomes the cool thing itself. It identifies cool. The real question is, if you don’t get it, why are you watching it? It is for me and mine. It is legible to me and mine. It is our grammar, our visual slang and our rhythm — the speed and the super-percussive blowout sound effects. The most advanced technology making reference to and imitating inferior technology. Don’t worry if you don’t get it — that’s the point. You are excluded.