TAKE A NUMBER, TAKE A SEAT
61
tightens, the syllables-sharp and petulant before-grow long
and beginning high go higher, ending in a shriek, Take a num–
ber, I will
not
talk with you, take a number, take-a-se-e-eat
I
It is not only her voice, a blunt fork scratched across fry–
pan bottoms, not only her bitchy face, her maniacal eyes. Am
describing these to you, you see, because it's a pushover telling
it this way, they're the things you see first. It's the thought,
clear and ice-cold, oh what in hell is the use in arguing with
her, what speech can there be between us. Not only her face,
her voice, you see. -Back of this madness dance nightmares of
parties I've attended, been drunk at sometimes, affairs my three–
syllabled vocabulary and cockeyed authorship have given me
open sesame to. At which social workers, young wenches out
of college with theories, were present. With whom discussions,
between drinks and gay talk and screws attempted or about to
be, would start up. The wenches;
They-meaning us-are
de–
ceitful and lying, ain't got no honor nor industry nor hope,
they're filthy and no account, most of them, it'd be better to
let them go to hell and forget them if it weren't for oh-what-a–
bore-to-even-mention-it, our careers. Talking about us, you see,
I, to my everlasting shame, bland and disguised.
Memories reinforced by other memories. Our last visitor.
There is a word I love, I love it incestuously-visitor. This big–
nose and laceblouse up at the house, the old lady ill as usual
and inarticulate as to our wants as always, myself explaining
If
she had shoes now, she could go to the doctor. This because it
was the visitor's belief that the old lady
should
go to the doctor's,
Why didn't she I And warming up in my own wormfat, how
much we got coming into the house and how much more than
that should be going out if we had the money which we ain't.
Then, think of it, the visitor on leaving telling us, no more words
about the doctor now, mind you, no more words about the shoes,
You should try to manage, you should try to get by, the im–
portant thing was not what their charity can salvage of our
bodies, it was our self-respect which counted, our ability and
willingness to solve our own problem. Only robbing's out, the
river's out, turning radical's out, it's maybe the brave smile
rainbowing through tears is what she's driving at. Memories
before that even, memories I can't even remember now, harden–
ing all the memories after, visitor after visitor, visitation after
visitation, wenches, old, young, hairlipped, thinlipped and full–
lipped, Iippy bunches of charity-canned rules-and-regulations she-
