Chris Kraus - I Love Dick

C:Sylvère, this is like the Institute of Emotional Research.

S:It’s funny how what we’re after is so fleeting and so easily lost. The only way we can recapture any feeling is by evoking Dick.

C:He’s our Imaginary Friend.

S:Do we need that? It’s so mixed up. At times we reach these peaks of real possession at his expense, but through it we’re able to see him more clearly than he ever would himself.

C:Don’t be so presumptuous! You keep talking about Dick as if he was your little brother. You think you have his number—

S:Well, I don’t have the same take on him as you do.

C:I don’t have a take . I’m in love with him.

S:It’s so unfair. What has he done to deserve this?

C:Do you think we’re doing this because we’re anxious and confused about leaving California?

S:No, leaving’s our routine. But what would’ve happened if he’d been involved and willing?

C:I would’ve fucked him once and then he’d never call.

S:But what makes all this legitimate is that you didn’t. What thinking about it’s brought up is the essential thing. You know, I was picturing Dick before as a wicked, manipulative creature. But perhaps he’s keeping silent just to give us time…

C:To get over him. He wants us to get over him.

S:Chris, what sort of strange zone are we entering? To write to him is one thing but now we’re writing to each other. Has Dick been a means of getting us to talk, not to each other but to someTHING?

C:You mean that Dick is God.

S:No, maybe Dick never existed.

C:Sylvère, I think we’re entering the post-mortem elegiac form right now.

S:No. We’re just waiting for his call.

8:45 p.m.

S:It’s so unfair. I guess these silent types make you work twice as hard and then you can’t escape because you yourself create the cage. Maybe that’s why you feel so bad. It’s like he’s watching, watching you do this to yourself.

C:Misery and self-loathing is the essence of rock & roll. When stuff like this happens you just want to turn the music up really loud.

TWO HOURS LATER—

(Dick hasn’t called. Chris writes another letter and proudly reads it to Sylvère.)

C:

Crestline, California

December 11, 1994

Hey Dick—

It’s Sunday night, we’ve been through hell and not quite back, but now that you’ve been semi-informed about “the project” I guess it’s only fair to bring you up to date: we’re ready to call it off. We’ve travelled galaxies since Sylvère talked to you last night about shooting video at your place… Well, the video was not the point, we just wanted to find a mechanism for involving you in the process. Since then I’ve embraced/discarded several other art ideas but all we really have’re these letters. Sylvère and I are wondering if we should submit them to Amy and Ira at High Risk or publish them ourselves in Semiotext(e)? In three days, we’ve written 80 pages. But I’m miserable and confused and judging by your silence you’re not into any of this at all. Let’s let it rest.

S:Chris you can’t send that. It makes no sense at all. You’re supposed to be intelligent.

C:Okay, I’ll try again.

Sunday night

Dear Dick,

Well the “tempest in a teapot” seems to’ve passed without your entering it, which’s fine with me. What is it we’ve been doing here over the last few days? I’ve been in limbo since disengaging emotionally from the movie and when this THING—the “crush”—came up, it seemed interesting to try and deal with dumb infatuation in a self-reflexive way. The result: 80 pages of unreadable correspondence in about 2 days.

It was interesting, though, to plummet back into the psychosis of adolescence. Living so intensely in your head that boundaries disappear. It’s a warped omnipotence, a negative psychic power, as if what happens in your head really drives the world outside. Kind of a useful place to move around in, though maybe not so interesting to you.

In the future I’d like not to have to leave a room if you happen to be in it, so it seemed best not to leave things hanging.

Do let me know if you’d like to read (perhaps selections from) the letters. Through all the haze, at least some of them relate to you.

At midnight they transmit the fax. They go to bed but Chris can’t sleep, feeling like she’s compromised herself. Around 2 she slips into her office and scrawls the Secret Fax.

Dear Dick, The idée fixe behind the tempest was that I’d like to see you Wednesday night after Sylvère leaves for Paris. I’d still like to do this. If you fax me yes or no after 7a.m. Wednesday I’ll get your message privately.

She punches in Dick’s fax number, index finger hovering over SEND . But something stops her and she goes back to bed.

December 12, 1994

This morning as they lie in bed drinking coffee Chris says nothing to Sylvère about the Secret Fax. Instead she wonders about the difference in the prefix numbers in Dick’s fax and phone lines. Tiny wisps of doubt gather into a thunderhead. When she checks the numbers in Sylvère’s notebook she shouts: “Oh my God! We sent the fax to Dick at school!” (Curiously, Dick’s school has only one fax machine. It’s in the President’s office. The President was a nice man, a Jewish liberal scholar married to a friendly acquaintance of Chris’ from New York. Just two weeks ago, the four had spent a warm and animated evening at the President’s home…)

The situation is now so globally embarrassing there’s no choice but to phone Dick and alert him to the arrival of the fax. Miraculously, Sylvère reaches Dick on the first call. This time he doesn’t tape the conversation. Chris hides her head underneath the pillows. Sylvère returns, triumphant. Dick was gruff, annoyed, Sylvère reports, but at least we’ve headed off disaster. Chris sees him as a hero. She’s so in awe of Sylvère’s bravery she spontaneously confesses all about the Secret Fax.

And now Sylvère can’t avoid the reality of this anymore. This is not another coffee-game they’ve invented. HIS WIFE LOVES ANOTHER MAN. Upset, betrayed, he writes a story.

INFIDELITY

Chris thought a lot about deceiving her husband. She’d never understood the comedies of Marivaux, all that sneaking around behind closed doors, but now the logic of deception dawned. She’d just had sex with Sylvère (who thanked Dick afterwards) and Sylvère expressed his deep undying love for her. Wasn’t time ripe for betrayal?

Because in a sense, the story had to end this way. Isn’t it what Sylvère intended, really, when he practically forced Chris to write “The Intelligent Fax”?

Sylvère and Chris had been together for ten years, and she fanta-sized confessing her adulterous virginity to Dick — “You’re the first.” Now the only way to get what she wanted (age 40 looming fast) without hurting Sylvère’s feelings was to sneak. Sylvère also longed for an elegant conclusion to this adventure; didn’t the form dictate that Chris end up in Dick’s arms? And it would end there. Dick and Chris wouldn’t need to ever do this again; Sylvère would never have to know.