Chris Kraus - I Love Dick

For a long time now I’ve been interested in dismemberment. Did you ever read about the Monika Beerle murder in the East Village, circa 1989? The case was apocryphal of conditions in New York at that time. Monika’d come from Switzerland to study Martha Graham dance. She made money part-time topless dancing at Billy’s Lounge. She met a guy named Daniel Rakowitz hanging around the outside of her building and she liked him. One thing led to another and she invited Daniel to move in. Maybe with someone sharing rent she could cut down on dancing? But putting up with Daniel Rakowitz was worse than Billy’s Lounge. He disappeared for days, then brought groups of crazy people from the Park back home. She said he’d have to leave. But Daniel wanted Monika’s rent-stabilized apartment lease. And maybe he set out to kill her, ’cause the New York City Council, in the wake of AIDS, had passed a bill entitling non-related roomates to inherit leases of the deceased. Or maybe he just hit her in the throat with the broom handle accidentally too hard. But Daniel Rakowitz found himself alone on 10th Street with her corpse.

Getting rid of bodies in Manhattan must be very hard. It’s bad enough trying to get out to the Hamptons without a car or credit card. A carpenter friend loaned him a chainsaw. Parting out the arms-legs-head. He jammed the different body parts in garbage bags and hit the street like Santa Claus. A leg turned up at Port Authority Bus Terminal in the trash. Monika’s thumb came floating to the surface of some Welfare Soup in Tompkins Square Park.

And then there was the airline pilot in Connecticut who killed his wife, strapped a rented woodchipper onto the bed of his pickup truck and drove around the streets of Groton in a snowstorm, chipper whirling skin and bones. Sylvère says this story reminds him of the Romance of Perceval . The blood must’ve been a sight.

Speaking of Sylvère, he now thinks the best way of disposing of a body would be to cement a basketball hoop above it. This presumes a suburban setting (perhaps like yours). The land I own is in the Town of Thurman, upstate New York, 3000 miles away—although I will be driving there next week.

Dick, did you realize you have the same name as the murdered Dickie in Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley books? A name connoting innocence and amorality, and I think Dick’s friend and killer confronted problems much like these.

Crestline, California

December 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

On December 15 I’ll be leaving Crestline to drive our pickup truck and personal belongings and our miniature wire-haired dachshund Mimi back to New York. Six or seven days, three thousand miles. I will drive across America thinking of you. The Idaho Potato Museum, every landmark that I pass, will draw me closer to the next and they’ll all be meaningful and alive ’cause they’ll trigger different thoughts of you. We will do this trip together. I will never be alone.

Crestline, California

December 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

I bet if you could’ve done this with Jane you never would’ve broken up with her, right? Do you envy our perversity? You’re so priggish and judgmental but deep down I bet you’d like to be like us . Don’t you wish you had someone else to do it with?

Crestline, California

December 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

Sylvère and I have just decided to drive out to Antelope Valley and post these letters all around your house and on the cactuses. I’m not sure yet whether we’ll hang around next door with a video camera (machete) to document your arrival, but we’ll let you know what we decide.

Crestline, California

December 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

We’ve decided to publish this correspondence and were wondering if you’d like to write an introduction? It could read something like this:

“I found this manuscript in the drawer of an old kitchen cabinet that I picked up at the Antelope Valley Swapmeet. It makes strange reading. Obviously, these people are very sick. I don’t think there’s much film potential in it because none of the characters are likeable.

“Still, I believe these letters will interest the reader as a cultural document. Obviously they manifest the alienation of the postmodern intellectual in its most diseased form. I really feel sorry for such parasitic growth, that feeds upon itself…”

What do you think?

PS: Could you Express Mail us a copy of your latest book, The Ministry of Fear ? We feel that if we’re going to write for you we should get more familiar with your style.

Crestline, California

December 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

Chris and I have spent the whole morning lying around with our computer thinking about you. Do you think this whole affair was just a means for Chris and me to finally have sex? We tried this morning but I think we’ve gone too far into our morbid imaginations. Chris continues to take you seriously. She thinks I’m sick, now she’ll never touch me again. I don’t know what to do. Please help—

PS: Thinking about it further, these letters seem to open up a new genre, something in between cultural criticism and fiction. You told us how you hope to revamp the writing program at your institution along these lines. Would you like me to read from it in my Critical Studies Seminar when I visit next March? It seems to be a step towards the kind of confrontational performing art that you’re encouraging.

By now it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Sylvère was triumphant, Chris was desperate. All she’d really wanted, for the past seven days was a chance to kiss and fuck Dick ——, and now all hope was receding, their meeting grew more distant every day, leaving everfewer pretexts for her to call. Clearly the letters were unsendable. And Sylvère was so excited by their writing, and aroused by it, and he knew that if there wasn’t another event soon, another point of contact to fuel Chris’ expectations, all this would end. For all these reasons, the pair decided they would write a fax.

FAX TO: DICK ——

FROM: CHRIS KRAUS & SYLVÈRE LOTRINGER

DATE: DECEMBER 10, 1994

Dear Dick,

It’s a pity that we missed each other Sunday morning. It’s funny, both of us thought a lot about your video—so much that we’ve had an idea for a collaborative piece, inspired by and hopefully involving you. It’s kind of like, Calle Art. We’ve written about 50 pages over the last few days and were hoping we could shoot something with you out in Antelope Valley soon before we leave (Dec. 14).

Basically our idea was to paste the text we’ve written all over your car, house and cactus garden. We (i.e., Sylvère) would videotape me (i.e., Chris) doing this—probably a wideshot of all the papers flapping in the breeze. Then, if you like, you could enter and discover it.

I guess the piece is all about obsession, although we wouldn’t think of using images that belong to you without your agreeing to it. What do you think? Are you game?

But of course the fax was never sent. Instead, Sylvère left one more message on Dick’s answering machine:

“Hi Dick, it’s Sylvère. I’d like to talk to you about an idea I had, a collaborative piece we could do before I leave on Wednesday. I hope you won’t find it too crazy. Call me back.”