What a long eleven months it’s been. The movie’s in the can, the premiere’s
Set for a Wednesday night just a week away. Infanta calls to tell me: Now,
Don’t forget. After this movie your life will never be your own again! She’s
Being dramatic, of course, even pleasantly melodramatic, & I know
This is the speech she makes when any of her movies wraps. So, I try to say,
Infanta, really…but she continues: Everyone will think they know you
& that they own you now; everyone will believe they understand the real you
Far better than you understand yourself. Everyone will believe you owe them
Something & everyone will make you pay. All of them, women & men,
Will come to you for a laying on of hands. For the seer’s song. They’ll kiss
The hems of your ragged garments, & they will kiss your ass. They will praise you
& they will despise you. They will pray to you & sue you. They’ll write memoirs
About your early years, your late years, & your “lost” years—Well, it’s about
This time I decide to put down the receiver on the kitchen counter
& go pour myself some orange juice, really
Fresh orange juice, & I mean…I take my time, but when I come back
To pick up the phone, she’s still ranting on: They’ll pay you off & they’ll sell
You out. Remember this, Infanta says. Remember what I’m telling you. After this,
Your life will never again belong to you!!—& the whole time I’m thinking to
Myself, Now when exactly was it that I ever could, in this world,
Call this life my own…? Oh yeah, I think, in those months before I handed over
All my memories to be tattooed on film, all of them sold as lightly as a sparrow’s
Soul; before, that is, before I fell into The World According to Infanta.