Andrea Dworkin - Ice And Fire

N meets some of his women. She is not happy. They are real

Times Square whores.

*

He seems to be keeping N separate, apart. He and his best

friend share her.

*

One night he comes to the storefront all soft-spoken, a

friend. He has been thinking about our situation. We are all

standing in the dark dank middle room, near the single mattress. He wants to help us. He has an apartment in Times Square we can move into, both of us. We don’t have to do

anything for him, absolutely nothing. We can just come live

there. N defers to me to say yes or no. I say no. I have been

thinking a lot about pimps. He is unruffled. He is our friend.

If we don’t want to move in with him, it’s OK. He will think of

some other way to help us. He and N go off. I wonder if she is

going to live with him. She does now and then, for a day or

two. He is a friend. I know he adores her: I can see it. I can’t

see him pimping but for a fact he pimps so so much for what I

can see. I like him and she is loyal to him: her loyalty once

given is not breachable: her code is close to absolute, unspoken,

I have never seen it breached: it is his lost hand, the punctures

in his body, his best friend and the routine, his courtesy and

intelligence, and something in him irredeemably outside: she

even does their laundry. I say to her, you know, N, about

pimps. Don’t worry, she says, yeah I know.

I would believe her except for the smack. She doesn’t do it

regular but who knows what it takes, not much. He is besotted

with her but the smack is easy: and he isn’t any fool. I ask N

what his girls on the street are like. She frowns, looks down.

*

He shows me his drawings, pen sketches, elaborate and skillful,

images of horror and death. I show him my poems: the same.

N plays her clarinet. These are family times.

*

He sits in the coffeehouse, in the bar, wherever, as we come

and go: bringing money back: he doesn’t touch it and buys his

own coffee.

*

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What else can I do? he says solemnly. I can’t dance anymore.

*

I wait for him to mention the apartment again: to seduce, to

convince. Then I will know. He doesn’t. He is either sincere or

no fool. He is no fool but is he also sincere?

Can a pimp be sincere?

Ah, he says, not too often, I wanted to dance.

*

He brings N a silk scarf: and me a book.

*

I am wondering if I should sleep with him: but they are a real

pair, boy and girl: she waits for him and he comes often. I take

my cues from her. She is not obligated, as far as I can see: she

wants him around: she really likes him, for himself as we say,

a lot. He remains nice. I begin to think I am wrong about the

apartment. Then I remember his girls. Then I think about N

and smack. I keep my distance. She is loyal to me too. She

won’t go without me. I think.

*

He died, my daddy, kind man, in a poverty of loneliness and

disregard. I was not a good daughter. Nothing came to me

when he died. I took a bus to the funeral. The relatives who

raised me on and off were there. I hadn’t dressed right. I was

dirty and hot. I only had pants. Him being dead wasn’t the

main thing for them: it was me, not dressed right. The cemetery

was flat and ugly. There were weeds. I got back on the bus

right away. I got back late at night. I walk into the storefront

and I think fucking pig, what the hell is wrong with her, there

are things thrown everywhere, papers all around all over the

floor and clothes thrown all around and everything is a fucking

mess. She is not there. I know she is out at a bar. I am pissed

like hell. I keep looking around, unable to take the mess in.

Then it registers. There is nothing left. Everything is gone. The

records are gone, the record player, the sax, the clarinet, the

typewriter, almost all our clothes, except that some are thrown

all over, every fucking thing that can be picked up and carried

is gone: I walk through the apartment: the metal has been

lifted off the back door like King Kong had done it: it

must have taken hours to do and had to have been done in

daylight: the neighbors must have enjoyed it: and in the re65

frigerator there had been a bottle of vodka, that’s all, and now

the empty bottle was there on the sink. The fucks had drunk

the fucking vodka. There is nothing left, and at the same time

an indescribable mess of strewn things, like junk, trash, like

garbage.

I go to the bars to find N. She is far east, at a rough place I

have gone to long before I even knew her— I am two years

older and show it— and the bars are littered with my lost late

adolescence— I find her— I have fucked all the bartenders in

this bar and the one she is talking to now is the best— and I

grab her and take her home. She is pissed with me until she

sees. It is impossible to calculate our loss. Everything we own.

They ravaged it. Went through. Decimated it. There hadn’t

been much until it was gone. I barely saw the damage the

first time. Barely saw what was gone. Barely remembered what

had been there. We have nothing left, except some T-shirts.

They have even taken underwear and blue jeans. They have

taken belts. They have taken everything.

The next morning our neighbors all greet us with smiles.

The next morning the boys across the street ask us how things

are going.

The next morning the head of the pack smiles and says hi

girls, next time we gonna come for you.

*

We are sleeping on the narrow mattress in the day. Next door

there is a thunderous sound. The thunderous sound moves

from one end of the apartment to the other and back again.

There are screams and laughs and things crash and break. The

feet are loud and fast, running back and forth. There is only a

thin wooden door between us and the next apartment. The

sound is very loud. It is not precisely human, not identifiably

human: it could be anything: like what? a herd of buffalo: we

are drifting off back to sleep: we dismiss it: it can’t be anything:

it is broad daylight: the sound is thunderous, back and forth,

back and forth: we sleep. Later, we go in. They have been

there, while we slept, in broad daylight. Everything is gone

except for what they left broken so we could see it good. They

didn’t take the TV that was in there. Instead they smashed it.

Hey girls we coming for you.

A knock on our door: head of the pack: hey we gonna pay

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