2
longing for better things
“You know that city called San Francisco,” Giannina says to Vincent Van Gogh one day in the brothel.
“Huh,” says Vincent.
“You know. The place where all the criminals and perverts live. They’ve got lots of earthquakes there so the U.S.A. government encourages all its misfits to live there so maybe the earthquake’ll kill them.”
“Huh,” says Vincent.
“I want to go there, Vincent. I love this American poet Ron Silliman who lives in San Francisco.”
“Giannina, you shouldn’t be here, in the brothel. You’re only a lowly waitress.”
“I’m desperately in love. I’m going to kill myself if I don’t get to San Francisco. Maybe I can become a prostitute; earn enough money to get to San Francisco.”
“You’re too much like a cat. You’re not tough enough, and you don’t like people enough. You’re good in bed, G., when you love someone and only when you love someone. That’s a problem.”
“You’re not so terrific yourself, big boy, and I’ve heard that you’ve turned a few tricks. I’ve seen you go crazy when you’re in bed with me; you love what I do to you; what d’ya mean I’m not any good in bed? And I’ve never fallen in love with you! You’re too young anyway!”
“Does this guy in San Francisco love you?”
“I’m not even sure he knows who I am.”
Vincent sighs. These waitresses sure can be stupid. “Giannina,” he moans, “don’t go to San Francisco. In this city there’s no such thing as love. We’re all too much into doing our art: when we fuck, we fuck, but really, fucking’s not very important . . .”
“All there is is art . . .
“Giannina, we’re all friends here . . .
“Giannina, you can’t go running half-way across the world . . .
“You can’t race to San Francisco after some guy who doesn’t even know you or love you . . . “
Giannina the cat’s not listening to this claptrap. She’s too sensual to be smart. She’s not sure what she wants. There’s a faint idea in her mind, a kind of shitty goosh feeling. A glimmering knowledge of feeling for someone so strongly nothing else exists. A possibility of living in a world to which she’s not always alien. San Francisco!
San Francisco!
“Listen,” Poirot tells Rhys the prostitute, “we have to use our brains. If we don’t find this murderer, more murders’ll occur in this brothel.
“Who could have possibly murdered the girl?”
“I don’t know,” Rhys replies.
“O.K. According to the coroner’s report, the girl was murdered during Norvins’ party. Could anyone have gotten from the bar or from the outside street into the party?”
“No.”
“Then it was someone at the party . . .”
“It was one of us . . .”
“Who exactly was at the party? Do any of these people dislike the little girl who was murdered?”
“Norvins was at the party. Vincent, you know, Toulouse, Paul, all those artists who hang out at the brothel. And their teacher friends: Theo, who’s also Vincent’s brother, and Père Tanguy, headmaster of the school Vincent teaches at. Marie, the girl who was murdered, went to that school. Marie’s family, her mother brother and sister, were there. They’re all prostitutes and older than Marie. Berthe, Giannina, and Veronique. All of us: myself, Peter, Garrett. And Zidler, the whore lawyer.”
“Who are these people?”
“Veronique, Berthe, Giannina work as waitresses for Norvins. They’re too stupid to murder anyone. Peter Garrett and I are Norvins’ boys. Marie’s mom, sis, and brother sometimes work for Norvins. Vincent Van Gogh Toulouse Lautrec Paul Gauguin the artists hang around here cause they work so hard, they need to calm down to play hard so they can start working hard again. Theo and Tanguy hang out with them. Zippy Zidler’s the family lawyer for this whole neighborhood.”
“The murderer must be one of these people.”
“Listen, Poirot, you have to stop thinking like that. We all love each other here.”
“I hate every one and thing I know,” that mad flighty girl Giannina confesses. “All I think about is Ron.
“I think about his blond moustache.
“I think about his uncircumcised cock. I never saw one before.
“I think about how he gets so scared in bed, when he really loves someone, that his cock can’t get hard.
“Now he’s wearing a red flannel shirt. Thin off-white pants that make his hips look wide. He’s got a funny flat kind of heavy body. A hat slung low over his eyes.
“He’s so smart.
“He’s very male; he goes after whoever he wants. He never pushes.
“He’s strong and quiet.
“He knows so much more than me he can teach me stuff I don’t know.
“He’s so secure, he’ll give me some stability. I’m too flighty.
“He doesn’t love me which means he’ll be mean to me so I can look up to him even more.
“He’s less sensual than me.”
“I thought you didn’t know this guy, G. Maybe you just want to get out of this doom claustrophobic filth city like the rest of us. There must be someplace else besides here.”
Giannina scratches her dark head. “I don’t think that’s the only reason I’m falling in love with Ron, though I certainly hate this city. I have to be totally dull in this city. If I open myself to feeling anything, I’ll get totally destroyed.”
“Yeah. Paris’ a rotting stinking shithole. Every now and then, suddenly, I realize that no person should be able to live in such filth. I ask the person I’m with: “why d’you stay here?” The invariable reply “cause the pressure excitement keeps me working hard” proves my friend’s becoming immersed in the filth.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about being here too hard.”
“Sometimes I think I’m going crazy: I’m walking down the filthy street to work, and I think I’m going crazy. The skin on my head starts swelling. My fingers, hands, shoulders, legs, feet. My sinuses are pounding. I’ve got to run. The air’s too thick. There’s too many people. Thousands of people’re sitting on rows of folding chairs in one tiny filthy room. Water’s gushing out of their skins. I’m one of these people. Nobody says a word. Nobody complains. More and more people enter the room. They tell us to go to another room. We go to another room and sit on identical folding chairs. One person says they’re about to close off the cities cause our government can’t handle the city problems any more and doesn’t need the cities.
“We’ll never get out again.
“Ron is so wonderful, Vincent.”
“Giannina, if you have to fall in love, fall in love with someone who’s rich. We need money to get out of here.”
“Ron was my closest friend when I lived in San Francisco.
“I never talked to anyone when I loved out there. I was very shy.
“One night I was sitting in a bar in North Beach with my friend Andrei. We were drinking Angels’ Clits.
“A friend of Andrei’s named Jim walked into the bar.
“After we had drunk a lot of Angels’ Clits, we decided to bust up this poetry reading that was happening a few blocks away. Andrei and Jim walked me in a shopping cart into the reading. I jumped out of the cart just as it began to clatter down a series of steep steps . . .
“Andrei wanted to go into the reading cause in the reading people’d come to him and tell him he was famous. Jim and I lumbered into an empty theater right above the reading.
“Jim began to eat me. His jaw dislocated. A guy named Stanley, another friend of Andrei’s, punched it back into place. We knew Stanley was a Buddhist genius. People were coming out of the reading, so Andrei, Jim, Stanley and I stood by the door, greeted the people by kissing my nipples. I propositioned the women.
“Suddenly I noticed some man’s eyes on me.
“He looked straight. I decided he was a creep.
“He said, ‘Excuse me, are you Giannina? I’m Ron Silliman. Bruce Leary told me you’re a waitress.’
“ ‘Yeah,’ I said, and ignored him. I went back to kissing Jim. “I don’t remember the next time I saw him. I got to know Rae Armantrout, one of Ron’s closest friends, who’s bi like me. We hung out together. I guess I got to know Ron gradually. My closest friend at that time, Clay, decided he liked David Melnick and David’s friends.
“I remember the first time I wanted to fuck Ron. We were on a bus on Market Street. I asked, ‘Do you want to come home with me?’ He replied, ‘No.’ I figured he didn’t want to fuck me.
“About a month before I planned to leave San Francisco, I was planning to leave San Francisco temporarily,” Giannina rubs her black-haired cat’s head. “Ron moved to a house near my house. We started going drinking a lot. One night we were drinking in a bar called The Pub. We spent hours talking about writing and people. When we left, I put my hand on Rob’s shirt, told him to button his shirt so he wouldn’t catch cold. I figured if he wanted to fuck me, he’d touch my hand.
“He didn’t.”
Vincent’s not even listening anymore to this inanity. He’s got to figure out how to get out of Montmartre.
“We drank and talked together twice more. At that time I felt I had more in common with Ron than with anyone else I knew.
“The night before I was going to Paris, I went over to Ron’s house to see him once more and say goodbye to him. We talked for hours, again about writing. Also, something about his ex-wife. He was becoming friendly again with his ex-wife. He was tired. About midnight I said, ‘I’d better go.’ He says, ‘You can stay the night if you want.’
“I feel confused. I don’t know what to do. I figure I should stay the night because I’ve been wanting to. I don’t know how to approach Ron sexually. There’s never been anything sexual between us. I walk into the tiny room in which’s his bed, leaf through his new work. It looks terrific. I turn around to him. He’s larger than me. Is he as frightened as I am?
“I’m not confused: I’m frightened.
“I don’t understand why Ron’s face’s so close to mine. I’m not used to seeing Ron like this. His face looks strange: his yellow moustache his blue eyes. He looks too familiar and not familiar enough. We take our clothes off. He looks totally strange to me now he’s naked. I can recognize his head, but not his body. His head doesn’t belong to his body. He’s very tender to me.
“I want hot violent passionate sex. That way the intensity of my physical feelings will make me forget, not have to deal with the person I’m with, the total confusion I’m feeling.
“Ron’s so gentle with me. I can’t handle it. He wants to kiss my lips. I’m committed to going to Paris. I’m feeling crazy. He tells me some woman he’s been fucking’s great in bed. I should fuck her. I’m wondering if I’m good in bed. I keep licking nibbling at, squeezing, sucking, rubbing his cock so I don’t have to look at his face.
“As soon as I can, I’m running out of his house, into the San Francisco night, and home.”
“Giannina, do you even know this guy?” Vincent asks.
“I love Ron mainly because I love his work. I always fall in love that way. Ron’s a great poet. His varied sensuous language reflects and questions itself. What emerges, finally, is a restless deeply-perceiving consciousness. A consciousness, finally, I don’t understand. I adore him.”
“We’ll get out by going to Tahiti,” Vincent says. “We can take a freighter past Morea to Papeete. Then we’ll go into the countryside. As far away as we can get from Paris. No one ever works in this countryside. No one does art, for art is a category separate from other activities. No one needs such separations in Tahiti cause no one needs to escape. We don’t have to suffer all the time.
“From Tahiti, we’ll sail to the Fiji Islands. We’re gonna get out of here.”
“I want to live with Ron for a while,” Giannina decides. “I don’t think he wants to live with me. I don’t know how he feels. I know he doesn’t want to live with me. I know I’m crazy saying this. If I don’t say this, if I don’t keep throwing myself into the unknown, I’ll die. Vincent, Vincent, do you understand what I’m saying?”