Giannina Braschi - Yo-Yo Boing!

— Don’t let them snatch away what belongs to you.

I screamed in a voice that wasn’t my own. It was my grandmother’s voice. Just when I thought the furies had defeated me, the mother of all furies, my grandmother, sent them running scared, without saying goodbye, leaving my precious stones on the table, sparkling and untouched. Now listen, come up here.

— Where? On your back?

— Damn, I take a breath of fresh air and feel fine. I swear. I’m not ready for another tragedy, really, who’s ever ready for a tragedy. I grasp, for heaven’s sake, to be caressed by your benevolent you, to be loved so, so much. Oh, I breathe suspicion — my grandmother taught me to suspect — always suspect, even of the sun — she used to tell me — if you’re satisfied, something must be wrong. I’m so comfortable in bed I don’t even want to get dressed to go outside. I click on the TV, content to watch nothing. I read so much. I’m bored to death by Ibsen. Do I act upon the reading? Act upon the character? What fills my brain? Cotton balls and snowballs. Plus the flu, antibiotics, soup, and no exercise. And yet my appetite is here — do I dare to snack? Do I deserve to nap? Everybody dies. Even the ones who accomplish nothing. Do I deserve? Here comes my guilt. For niente a fare . Not for acting an injustice. It’s not an ethical dilemma. It’s a vital existential problem. Indulging my being in waves of distractions. The hot and lazy weather. As if it mattered whether it was day or night. If I don’t wake up — the consciousness of my being alive — time goes by, merry go lucky, quick, a coffee, quick, I have to work, but it’s too hot, and you come and go in the lazy swelter like a train bringing me shoes, seductions, smiles, gossip, temptations, beauty, your sweet face glowing, my Circe, indulging me to forget my mission. What mission? I had it. Now the day pains me and drives me crazy, this railroad inside my house. Thinking about 10 years ago, it will be 10 years since my last work. What have I done in 10 years? When I write checks I do not know 10 years have passed. I write 1983, 1984 because I’m stuck in:

— What do you mean here? Too many nouns. I would take out the ghosts because they have nothing to do with clowns or buffoons.

One life, one work. Work on my present. Do the experiences I live each day, are they — am I — experiencing something that I can feel 10 years have passed? Apart from changing the names of my friends. The problems are the same — nasty, grimy streets, repeating themselves, the same buildings crumbling, the same Broadway shows, movies ad infinitum, parties ad nauseam. You working ad infinitum, me trapped in the house — doing nothing— niente a fare , reading, rocking — what is this word, what is this world — even my nasty moods, the river, the city — and Woody Allen repeating himself — doesn’t he get tired of doing year after year the same old scene.

— Marcello put it aptly. Crisis of inspiration. And what if what you already did is forgotten by you? Even by you?

— It worries me. I don’t feel anything. Touch it. Squeeze my temples. Energize me like Jabi used to.

— Harder?

— Don’t crush my skull. Focus my energies like this.

— Look. Look. That’s the expression of intensity we’re looking for. A hideous pout.

— Don’t you see, when I was at my best, maybe I didn’t look nice, but my head was in top shape. Touch it, right here. Knock it.

— Like knuckles on a door.

— Worse than that because, wait, somebody might answer the door, but here, snivels, who answers? Who?

— Trust me, this is the best you’ve ever written.

— You also thought that slop I wrote three years ago was the best I’ve ever written. I wonder, where is your head? I may feel better, look better, of course, you think profound people look nice, no, intensity deforms, it evolves you. I should never look nice, never, and if I look nice it’s because I don’t have a thorough thought in my heavy head.

— Hang in there.

— Where are you going?

— To the vending machine. Coke? Pineapple juice?

— I could go for spare ribs, but I don’t want you in the streets at this hour. Get Coke and nachos from the lobby. Don’t go. I’m not ready to sleep. How can I face the twilight? What have I done tonight? What right do I have to even nibble those nachos?

— Buridan’s ass starved to death because he could not choose between two equally good smelling bundles of hay.

— Go get nachos.

— You wanted a thought.

— That’s not your thought, it was Mona’s, and before it was Mona’s it was Hannah Arendt’s. It was nice of you to think of it, although I would have preferred it with a nacho in my mouth.

— You’ll starve to death if you don’t decide.

— Par delicatesse, j’ai perdu ma vie .

— You’re Buridan’s ass, not Rimbaud.

— Don’t explain, okay. I don’t need your explanation. I prefer to listen to the words. Think them. If I can apply them to my life, then I understand and I’m happy. Fetch me ribs.

— I would prefer not to. Bartleby.

— Don’t cite your references.

— The owl of Minerva beats its wings at dusk!

— I don’t get it.

— I’m here to present thoughts, not to explain them.

— Nachos.

— Mona took it from Arendt, and Arendt took it from Borges.

— Maybe that’s why it doesn’t appeal to me. He is too conceptual. I prefer the dramatic.

— You’re like the owl of Minerva.

— An old bat?

— Profound people capture youth at dusk.

— I still don’t get it.

— A friend is another self.

— Who said it?

— Who cares?

— I guess it’s my other self.

— Mona.

— Aristotle.

— Wasn’t it you?

— Who?

— My other self.

— Alright already, nachos and a Diet Coke.

— You don’t want to come with me?

— No, I’ll just bat my wings until you get back. It’s irrational, my hate for Borges. Do I have to know who Minerva is to understand that wisdom comes late in life? Why do the wings have to beat at dusk? Wisdom sometimes comes at dawn. Look at Rimbaud. That’s probably why he lost his life.

— Sometimes I wonder if you understand anything.

— I don’t get it like everybody else gets it, but I get it. There’s always an understanding in misunderstanding.

— You have a point there.

— I don’t have anything. Not to contradict you, but I only have eyes for you. Things are disappearing. If you want to see anything, you have to hurry. Trust me. If you don’t want to see anything, you won’t. But, since I have this urgency to see, to touch and be touched, and sometimes even hurt, if I don’t hurry, if somebody — not necessarily you — an accident — takes me by surprise, I see then that that’s what I must write because I can’t be dishonest to what I see. I have to show things, believe it or not, as they are. C’mon, tell me the truth. Now that we’re alone. Mona doesn’t have a clue who I am, does she? C’mon, you can tell me the truth.

— Yes, I think the category of genius still exists.

— But I don’t think like she thinks. I don’t think it’s harder to be a philosopher than to be an artist. Look, she said there are very few philosophers in the history of humanity. I don’t know, every time I hear her talk I become a little nervous. Before, I was so sure. But now, how can I know? Besides, if she doesn’t think I am, who is going to think I am? She is alive. She knows me. And believe me, I try to make my impression. I try to become one. But she just gives me her smiles, shows me her teeth, and I get nervous. And then you just blind me all over, by protecting me so much. I ask you, am I one of them?