248
JOHN HOLLANDER
"Like not there for real. 'I mean I don't exist,' she always was
saying, 'unless some guy's looking at me, unless I can feel him looking
at me, then I can feel like I'm here.' I don't get it, and the Vontz
never got it, but he was stuck on her and stuck
with
her, you know
what I mean, and one night they're in bed and Vontzel is sleepy, but
she's awake and gets the heebie-jeebies. But he won't look at her. So
she goes to the window and pulls up her nightie and sits out on the
ledge and lets the streetlight shine on her quiff so you could see it
from a block away. Vontzel gets screaming mad and yells at her to
get back, like anyone can see her. But that's what she wants, she
says,
she wants to be
there.
So Vontz knows what he's putting up with and
gets foxy and says she should come back to bed, nobody can see her
there, he can't even. So she turns and gives him a crazy eye and says
'God sees, you pig, God sees.' He gets even madder, and starts yelling
even louder, and he's just about to give her a clop in the chops when
the cops walk in. And that nutty Elaine starts coming over all sweet
and pulls her skirt down and tells them it was Vontzel made her do
it, that he can't raise one unless he can see somebody looking a t
her,
like from across the street. So off they carted him to the creep block.
Vontzel was wild; they kept him here three days before they fixed
it
up downtown."
"What happened to Elaine?"
"Yeah, so they'll probably let you out on bail in a day or two,
and then your folks can fix you up. Look, I gotta go now, Sonny, I
have to report to the psychologists.
If
you got any questions, ask
Hagestolz." So saying, my nameless informant sauntered down to the
door of the room, where a uniformed shape awaited him with a bored
look barely discernible, in that awful glare of overhead lighting, on its
face. I was left alone for the moment, and although Hagestolz looked
to be a man of knowledge and power, I decided to remain where I
was and devote myself to the business of being watched. Except for
that one picture that Virgilia took of me long ago, and that I only
discovered some years later, I cannot recall being aware of being
spied upon myself. That knowledge didn't bother me in the least, and
I was only perplexed about how to go about dutifully being an event.
An event in my sense, of course; a piece of reality, just happening,
unprepared by frame or arrangement or selection for the eye of a
beholder. It became, suddenly, very difficult to do anything at all.
I wandered about until I found a place on one of the benches that
seemed to be at a good visual angle from one of the spy-holes: I had
