Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Dance of Reality - A Psychomagical Autobiography

“Of course, young man, who doesn’t? She comes here often to write and drink beer. She used to work for the secret police, where she learned karate chops. Then she was a journalist, but they fired her for being too controversial. Now she’s a poet. The critic in El Mercurio says she’s better than Gabriela Mistral. He must have slept with her. Watch out, young man, that beast can break your nose.”

Trembling, I watched her finish a second liter of beer, feverishly fill several pages in her notebook, and then walk haughtily out into the street. I followed her as inconspicuously as possible. I noticed that she was walking barefoot, and her feet were painted in watercolors, forming a rainbow from the red nails to the violet ankles. She got on a bus that ran all the way along the Alameda de las Delicias toward the central station. I got on as well and sat in front of her. I felt her eyes on the nape of my neck, piercing me like a stiletto. The night became a dream. To be in the same vehicle with this woman meant moving toward our common soul. Suddenly, as the bus was starting to move again after a stop, she ran to the door and jumped out. Surprised, I begged the driver to stop, which he did two hundred meters farther on. I walked toward the point where Stella had jumped off. I saw with surprise that she was looking at me, motioning to me to stop. With my heart pounding in terror, I stood still. I closed my eyes and waited for the fierce punch. Her hands began to touch my body, without sensuality. Then she opened my fly and examined my penis like a doctor. She sighed.

“Open your eyes, squirt! I can see you’re still a virgin! I’m too much for you. An ostrich can’t hatch a pigeon’s egg. What do you want?”

“I hear you write. So do I. Could I have the honor of reading your poems?”

She smiled. I saw that one of her incisors was broken, giving her a cannibalistic air.

“You’re only interested in my poetry? What about my ass and my tits? Hypocrite! Do you have some money?”

I dug in my pockets. I found a five-peso bill and showed it to her. She snatched it.

“There’s a café open all night next to the Alameda Theater. Let’s go there. I’m hungry. We’ll eat a sandwich and drink a beer.”

So we did. She opened her notebook and, munching bread with salami, her lips whitened by beer foam, began to read. She recited for an hour, which seemed like ten to me. I had never heard poetry like this. I felt each sentence like a knife. In the instant that I heard them these verses transformed themselves into deep but pleasurable wounds. To listen to this real poet, liberated from rhyme, meter, and morality, was one of the most moving moments of my youth. The café was dirty, ugly, lit by glaring lights, and full of sordid, bestial patrons. And yet, as I heard those sublime words, it became a palace inhabited by angels. There was the proof that poetry was a miracle that could change one’s vision of the world. And to change the vision was to change the perceived object as well. The poetic revolution seemed more important than political revolution to me. One part of that reading remains in my memory like treasure from a shipwreck: “The woman who loved doves in a virgin’s ecstasy, and fed irises at night with her sleeping nipple, dreamed with her back to the wall, and everything seemed beautiful without being so.” She abruptly closed the book and, not wanting to hear my words of admiration, got up, took me by the arm, went out into the street, and led me to the nearest corner by the Pedagogical Institute. A narrow door was the entrance to the boarding house where she rented a small room. With a push, she sat me down on the stone step in front of the door, knelt beside me, and caught my right ear in her sharp teeth. She stayed like this, the way a panther holds its prey in its mouth before crushing it. A thousands thoughts ran through my mind. “Maybe she’s crazy, she might be cannibalistic, she’s testing me; she wants to see if I’ll sacrifice a piece of ear to get her.” Well, I decided to sacrifice it, knowing this woman was worth such mutilation. I calmed down, stopped tensing my muscles, and gave myself over to the pleasure of feeling the touch of her moist lips. Time seemed to solidify. She made no move to let go. Instead, she squeezed her teeth a little more. I tried to remember where the nearest open pharmacy was, so that I could run there after losing part of my ear to buy alcohol, disinfect the wound, and stop the bleeding. Miraculously, I was saved by an exhibitionist; he passed by us, face covered with an open newspaper, his fly open to show his bulky phallus. Stella let go of me to drive him away, kicking him. The man, running as fast as his legs could carry him, disappeared into the night. The poet, laughing, sat down beside me, wiped the sweat off one of my palms with her hand, and examined my lines by the light of a match.

“You got talent, kid. We’ll get along well. Come and pee.”

She led me to a nearby church. Next to the gate was a sculpture of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

“Do it on the saint,” she said, rolling up her skirt. “Praying and pissing are both sacred acts.”

She wore no panties, and her pubic hair was abundant. Kneeling beside me, she let a thick yellow stream fall onto the monk’s stone chest. I, with a stream that was thinner but went farther, bathed the statue’s forehead.

“I warmed his heart and you crowned him, boy. Now go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow at midnight at Café Iris.”

She gave me a quick but intense kiss on the mouth, walked with me to the central station, and the moment I turned my back on her, kicked me in the rear. Without offering any resistance I let myself be pushed, took four precipitous steps, then regained my normal gait and, with great dignity, walked away from her without looking back.

The next day the hours slipped by without my noticing anything. Immobilized, I moved through flat, gray time as through an empty tunnel, at the end of which the anticipated midnight hour shone like a splendid jewel. I arrived at Café Iris at twelve o’clock sharp, with my Nicanor Parra puppet hidden, clutched to my chest. It was a gift for Stella. but my beloved had not yet arrived. I ordered a beer. At 12:30 I asked for another; at 1:00, yet another, and at 1:30 another; another at 2:00, and another at 2:30. Drunk and sad I finally saw her enter, looking smug, accompanied by a man shorter than her with a face like a boxer and wearing that sardonic expression common to those broken offspring of Spanish soldiers and raped Indian women. Glancing at me defiantly, she sat in front of me with, I assumed, her lover. They both smiled, looking satisfied. I was furious. I slipped my hand under my vest, took out the puppet, and threw it on the table. “Let this Nicanor Parra be your teacher! You deserve to be with a poet of this dimension, not to debase yourself with down-and-outs like the one you’re with right now. If you read his brilliant poem “The Viper” you will find your portrait. Goodbye forever.” And, stumbling, getting caught in the legs of the chairs, I headed for the exit. Stella chased me down and brought me back to the table. I thought the insulted boxer would punch me, but no. With a smile he held out his hand and said, “I appreciate what you said. I am Nicanor Parra and the woman who inspired me to write ‘The Viper’ is Stella.” While it is true that my creation bore no resemblance to the features of the great poet, I felt certain that I had my puppet to thank for my having met him. This miracle came from one of the threads from which the world is woven together. Parra graciously gave me his telephone number, informed me with a single glance he was not Stella’s lover and that I had a good chance of being that, and said goodbye to us.

Faced with this extravagant and beautiful woman, I was speechless. My drunkenness had dissipated as if by magic. She looked at me with the intensity of a tiger, inhaled the smoke from her pipe, and blew it in my face. I started coughing. She gave a hoarse cackle that drew the attention of everyone in the café, then turned serious and said in an accusing tone, “Don’t deny it; you have a knife. Give it to me!” Embarrassed, not wishing to deny it, I dug in a pocket and pulled out my modest knife. She took it, opened it, looked at the half-rusted blade, and asked what my name was. She spread out her open left hand on the table, and with the knife in her right hand made three cuts on the back of it, forming a bloody A. She licked the blood off the blade and returned it to me, wet with saliva. With dizzying speed, I thought, “The A is formed by three straight lines, which makes the cuts easier. If I cut an S I’ll have to make a long curvy wound; I might cut a vein, I don’t have oily skin like her. What should I do? I’m being tested. I’m going to look like a stupid coward. I have to find an elegant solution.” I took her hand and licked the wound, five, ten, endless minutes, until not a drop of blood was left. I offered her my red-stained mouth. She kissed me passionately.