Andrea Dworkin - Ice And Fire

of the afternoon. In the glaring heat of the sun he is still cold,

glistening, mean. He wears a suit. He wears a tie. He has on a

clean shirt, buttoned up to the top. His shoes are polished. His

face is set, he doesn’t try to smile, he has no expression, he

doesn’t sweat. Standing up he is towering, dangerous, cold. N

is happy to see him, reserved, courteous. I am bewildered and

afraid. I just want to fuck him, she says quietly to me. We

have dropped the acid. He is dangerous, I say. What are you

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going to do when you start tripping? He will be gone by then,

she says. One fuck, then he will go. I wait outside like she tells

me to. They go into our storefront. I expect to hear screams. I

hear nothing. I strain to hear but I hear nothing. Forty-five

minutes later they come out. Nothing has changed with him.

Suit. Tie. Clean shirt, buttoned up. Polished shoes. No expression. Still not sweating. N is glassy-eyed, creamy, content.

I got what I wanted, she said. Whad ya do in there, I ask,

casual but really scared, worse now since I see no sign of human

emotion or exertion in him. Just fucked, she says. He is not a

man who fucks. I can see that. He may kill but he doesn’t

fuck. Either the needle or he tied her up. I am pretty sure. She

is wearing a blouse with long sleeves, not her usual T-shirt. I

don’t see her naked for the next few days. Even as the street

begins to slide and whirl, I know that there are bruises on her

arm from one thing or another. I don’t exactly know the word

sadist but that is what I think he is anyway. I strain for the

word without finding it but I know what I mean. I am scared.

She is satisfied. I never see him again. I think he kills people.

Most of the violent men we see are sloppy, one way or another.

Their violence sort of oozes out. This man is a perfect diamond

cutting through glass.

*

There are the layers, the dumb, slobbering junkies, oozing pus

and grief, dealing a little, stealing, falling down on top of whatever doesn’t move fast enough; there are bastards a little colder, still oozing, and the pimps, who drool. There is a ladder of

street slobber, so that the violence gushes out like tears or

drips like a leaky faucet, but it is a mistake, not cold, ruthless

art: as much accident as intention, not coldly calculated and

perfectly executed. Then there is this other level. No fear. No

ooze. No slobber. No exhibitionism. No boast. Nothing except

serious intention, perfectly conceived and coldly executed, an

interior of ice and a perfect economy of motion.

*

What has he done to her? The acid begins to grip and she will

not say anyway. Poor R had left when she heard N was inside

with a man. N is politely, resolutely silent. She will not budge.

We are worlds apart and the subject is closed. Then we are

awash in acid and beyond all human argument. We begin to

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roam the magnificent city streets and to play like children in

their decaying monumental splendor. We range over these

grand cement plains like wild animals, we dance up mountains

fleet of foot, we rush down rivers dancing on the silver light of

the rapids: each sight and sign of squalor is dazzling and

unique: there is no language for this and sadist is a word even

when you can’t quite find it: and each and every human form

shimmers in light and motion: the cold, cold man is more than

gone or forgotten: there is no place in the universe for him: he

is behind us now and time is a river, rushing on. The cement is

a luminous rainbow of garish silver and blinding white coming

out of the gravel, rising up like a phoenix from it: gold mixes

into the stone from the heat and the scarlet from the blood is

brilliant and intensely beautiful.

The air is spectacular, daylight, light that dances, a million

shining fragments of light like tiny speckled stones: you could

reach out and touch them except instead you walk between

them, skirting their shiny surfaces, never feeling their glossy

round edges. You reach out your arm to touch a piece of light

and your arm stretches into the distance, it has the curves of a

gracious hill and subtle valley and your fingers slide gracefully

past each other, one then another then another, and they are

gracefully curved, like a valley between two hills, a slight curve,

slack but aesthetic and delicate. And the tips of your fingers

touch the light and dance, dance.

The red from the traffic light spreads out through the air, it

is circle on circle of diffusing red light, it is like a red light in

the sky and with the sun behind it, it becomes fierce and hot.

The streets are endless arcades filled with gentle refuges. There

are stores where they greet you warmly, hippie boys all hairy

and with wet eyes, and give you tea and have you sit and offer

you smoke: and you laugh and laugh: or are deadly solemn:

and there is sitar music and you get lost on each note and drift

until the hot tea is in your hand: and you come back, treated

like a holy traveler, an honored guest, by the warm hairy

strangers. You look at the colored beads and the huge drawings

of tantric intertwinings on the walls: and you are home here

on earth, taken care of, given refuge: until you move on, the

acid pushing you, the pulse somewhere calling you.

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Outside it is dark now, and you roam through the streets

until dawn when you watch the light come up. There are people

you touch, their faces, their tongues, you slip behind cars or

into doorways or spread out on suddenly available floors,

mattresses that seem to just be there waiting for the simple

traveler with legs that spread all wet. You smoke and smiling

people hand you pills and you swallow them because nothing

can hurt you now: and you stop cars with your acid smile: and

communicate with your acid brain: and you watch something

you could never look at before, a huge roach, a dead rat, and

you are awed by its monstrous beauty.

Your sweat simply melts you and you take off your clothes

somewhere with someone and you come and come and come:

and laugh: and fuck: and smoke: and drink: and run, run, run:

and smile: and the music is everywhere, in the traffic, in the

rumbling of the heavy trucks, in the sirens, in the screeching

wheels of police cars, in nasty motorcycles and in the sucking

sounds of the dirty men who whisper cunt when you walk by.

And you talk, intensely. The universe. Reality. Light. Truth.