«Now after an injury, physical, spiritual, whatever, one always believes had one obeyed a
premonition (there is usually in such instances an imagined premonition) nothing would have happened;
still, had I had absolute foreknowledge, I should have gone right ahead, for in every lifetime there occur
situations when one is no more than a thread in a design willfully woven by. . . who should I say? God?
«It was one Sunday that they came, the prizefighter, Pepe Alvarez, and Ed Sansom, his manager.
A mercilessly hot day, as I recall, and we sat in the patio with fans and cold drinks: you could scarcely
select a group with less in common than we four; had it not been for Sansom, who was something of a
buffoon and therefore distracting, it would all have been rather too tense, for one couldn’t ignore the not
very discreet interplay between Dolores and the young Mexican: they were lovers, even slow-witted
Amy could’ve perceived this, and I was not surprised: Pepe was so extraordinary: his face was alive, yet
dreamlike, brutal, yet boyish, foreign but familiar (as something from childhood is familiar), both shy and
aggressive, both sleeping and awake. But when I say he and Dolores were lovers, perhaps I exaggerate:
lovers implies, to some extent, reciprocity, and Dolores, as became apparent, could never love anyone,
so caught was she within a trance; then, too, other than that they performed a pleasurable function, she
had no personal feeling or respect for men or the masculine personality. . . that personality which, despite
legend, can only be most sensitively appreciated by its own kind. As it was getting dark in the patio, I
looked at Pepe: his Indian skin seemed to hold all the light left in the air, his flat animal-shrewd eyes,
bright as though with tears, regarded Dolores exclusively; and suddenly, with a mild shock, I realized it
was not she of whom I was jealous, but him.
«Afterwards, and though at first I was careful not to show the quality of my feelings, Dolores
understood intuitively what had happened: ‘Strange how long it takes us to discover ourselves; I’ve
known since first I saw you,’ she said, adding, ‘I do not think, though, that he is the one for you; I’ve
known too many Pepes: love him if you will, it will come to nothing.’ The brain may take advice, but not
the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will
rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature;
only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of
righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the
one that leads to hell.
«It was different, this love of mine for Pepe, more intense than anything I felt for Dolores, and
lonelier. But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other; so fierce is the world’s
ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness; for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind
through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed
down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms,
nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart. There were moments, wonderful moments, when I
thought I was free, that I could forget him and that sleepy violent face, but then he would not let me, no,
he was always there, sitting in the patio, or listening to her play the guitar, laughing, talking, near but
remote, always there, as I was in Dolores’ dreams. I could not endure to see him suffer; it was an agony
to watch him fight, prancing quick and cruel, see him hit, the glare, the blood and the blueness. I gave him
money, bought him cream-colored hats, gold bracelets (which he adored, and wore like a woman),
shoes in bright Negro colors, candy silk shirts, and I gave all these things to Ed Sansom, too: how they
despised me, both of them, but not enough to refuse a gift, oh never. And Dolores continued with Pepe in
her queer compulsive way, not really interested one way or another, not caring whether he stayed or
went; like some brainless plant, she lived (existed) beyond her own control in that reckless book of
dreams. She could not help me. What we most want is only to be held. . . and told. . . that everything
(everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and Papa’s eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot-owls
and the boy who makes you cry after school, is Mama’s long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the
bedroom wall). . . everything is going to be all right.
«One night Pepe came to the house very drunk, and proceeded with the boldest abandon to a)
beat Dolores with his belt, b) piss on the rug and on my paintings, c) call me horrible hurting names, d)
break my nose, e and f and otherwise. And I walked in the streets that night, and along the docks, and
talked aloud pleading with myself to go away, be alone again, I said, as if I were not alone, rent another
room in another life. I sat in Jackson Square; except for the tolling of train bells, it was quiet and all the
Cabildo was like a haunted palace; there was a blond misty boy sitting beside me, and he looked at me,
and I at him, and we were not strangers: our hands moved towards each other to embrace. I never heard
his voice, for we did not speak; it is a shame, I should so like the memory of it. Loneliness, like fever,
thrives on night, but there with him light broke, breaking in the trees like birdsong, and when sunrise
came, he loosened his fingers from mine, and walked away, that misty boy, my friend.
«Always now we were together, Dolores, Pepe, Ed and I, Ed and his jokes, we other three and
our silences. Grotesque quadruplets (born of what fantastic parent?) we fed upon one another, as cancer
feeds upon itself, and yet, will you believe this? there are a medley of moments I remember with the kind
of nostalgia reserved usually for sweeter things: Pepe (I see) is lighting a match with his thumb nail, is
trying with a bare hand to snatch a goldfish from the fountain, we are at a picture-show eating popcorn
from the same bag, he has fallen asleep and leans against my shoulder, he is laughing because I wince at a
boxing-cut on his lip. I hear him whistling on the stairs, I hear him mounting toward me and his footsteps
are not so loud as my heart. Days, fast fading as snowflakes, flurry into autumn, fall all around like
November leaves, the sky, cold red with winter, frightens with the light it sheds: I sleep all day, the
shutters closed, the covers drawn above my eyes. Now it is Mardi Gras, and we are going to a ball;
everyone has chosen his costume but me: Ed is a Franciscan monk (gnawing a cigar), Pepe is a bandit
and Dolores a ballerina; but I cannot think what to wear and this becomes a dilemma of disproportionate
importance. Dolores appears the night of the ball with a tremendous pink box: transformed, I am a
Countess and my king is Louis XVI; I have silver hair and satin slippers, a green mask, am wrapped in
silk pistachio and pink: at first, before the mirror, this horrifies me, then pleases to rapture, for I am very
beautiful, and later, when the waltz begins, Pepe, who does not know, begs a dance, and I, oh sly
Cinderella, smile beneath my mask, thinking: Ah, if I were really me! Toad into prince, tin into gold; fly,
feathered serpent, the hour grows old; so ends a part of my saga.
«Another spring, and they were gone; it was April, the sixth of that rainy lilac April, just two days
after our happy trip to Pontchartrain. . . where the picture was taken, and where, in symbolic dark, we’d
drifted through the tunnel of love. All right, listen: late that afternoon when I woke up rain was at the
window and on the roof: a kind of silence, if I may say, was walking through the house, and, like most
silence, it was not silent at all: it rapped on the doors, echoed in the clocks, creaked on the stairs, leaned
forward to peer into my face and explode. Below a radio talked and sang, yet I knew no one heard it:
she was gone, and Pepe with her.
«Her room was overturned; as I searched through the wreckage, a guitar string broke, its twang
vibrating every nerve. I hurried to the top of the stairs, my mouth open but no sound coming out: all the
control centers of my mind were numb; the air undulated, and the floor expanded like an accordion.
Someone was coming towards me. I felt them like a pressure climbing the steps; unrecognized, they
seemed to walk straight into my eyes. First I thought it was Dolores, then Ed, then Pepe. Whoever it
was, they shook me, pleading and swearing: that bastard, they said, gone, sonofabitchinbastard, gone
with the car, all the clothes and money, gone, forever and ever and ever. But who was it? I couldn’t see:
a blinding Jesus-like glow burned around him: Pepe, is it you? Ed? Dolores? I pushed myself free, ran
back into the bedroom and shut the door: it was no use: the doorknob began to turn, and suddenly
everything was crazy plain: Dolores had at last caught me in her dreams.
«So I found a gun I kept wrapped in an old sock. The rain had stopped. The
