Literal madness, p.1
Literal Madness, page 1
Literal
Madness:
KATHY GOES TO HAITI
MY DEATH MY LIFE
BY PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
and
FLORIDA
Three Novels by
KATHY ACKER
GROVE PRESS
New York
Copyright © 1978, 1984, 1987 by Kathy Acker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Kathy Goes to Haiti was first published by Rumor Publications in 1978, and My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini was first published by Pan Books, Ltd., London, in 1984.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Acker, Kathy, 1948—
Literal madness.
Contents: Kathy goes to Haiti—My death, my life,
by Pier Paolo Pasolini—Florida.
I. Title.
PS3551.C44L51988813’.5487-14860
ISBN-10: 0-8021-3156-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-3156-0
eISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4660-1
Designed by Irving Perkins Associates
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com
0607080910LS-060610987654
Literal
Madness
WORKS BY KATHY ACKER
PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS
Blood and Guts in High School
Don Quixote
Empire of the Senseless
Great Expectations
In Memoriam to Identity
Literal Madness
My Mother: Demonology
Portrait of an Eye
Pussy, King of the Pirates
Rip-off Red, Girl Detective and
The Burning Bombing of America
Essential Acker
CONTENTS
KATHY GOES TO HAITI
MY DEATH MY LIFE
BY PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
FLORIDA
KATHY GOES TO HAITI
“THE LORD GIVETH AND THE LORD TAKETH AWAY;
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.”
FIRST DAYS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE
KATHY is a middle-class, though she has no money, American white girl, twenty-nine years of age, no lovers and no prospects of money, who doesn't believe in anyone or anything. One summer she goes down to Haiti. She steps out of the American Airlines plane and on to the cement runway, her first example of Haitian soil. She's scared to death because she doesn't know anybody, she doesn't know where to go in Haiti, and she can't speak the language.
Kathy has her small duffel bag strapped to her shoulder and is going through Customs. The Customs man asks Kathy where she's going to stay in Port-au-Prince. “I don't know,” Kathy replies. “Most tourists stay at the —— or the ——” The Customs man says two indistinguishable names. “Oh,” says Kathy. “I'm sure you'll be very comfortable there. We just want to make sure that you know where you're going.” “Thank you,” says Kathy. “I'll be sure to take your advice.”
Kathy takes up her bag and continues traveling through the airport. A man comes over to her.
“Would you like a taxi?”
“No, thank you. I prefer to travel more cheaply.”
“Do you know anyone in Port-au-Prince?”
“No.”
“You'll have to take a taxi to get into the city.”
“OK I'll take a taxi.”
The man introduces Kathy to another man. The second man is fat. Kathy and the fat man shake hands.
“OK,” she says. “Where's the taxi?”
“It's outside.”
Kathy and the fat man walk out of the Jean-Claude Duvalier airport to a small parking lot. The light from a big white sun is beating down on the cement. The man opens the door of a light blue Plymouth.
“This is a nice car.”
“I decorated it myself.”
Kathy and the fat man climb into the car.
The fat man starts the car.
Everywhere she sees the combinations of things she's never seen before. The land is very flat and dry. Shoeless women with huge baskets balanced on their heads walk on the sides of the road. Sometimes these women walk past small brick and cement motel and cocktail lounges. Nothing surrounds these motel and cocktail lounges. There are no trees. No brush. Suddenly there's a bridge and a huge cement bank which is tall enough to look like an American bank. It says THE BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA.
“Where am I going?” the driver asks the woman.
“I don't know. I've never been to Haiti before I know nothing about Haiti. I guess to a hotel.”
“Which hotel?”
“I don't know. Which one do you recommend? I don't have much money.”
“It all depends on how much you want to spend. How much do you want to spend?”
“I don't have any idea. It depends on how much I have to spend. Do you understand?”
“Do you want to spend twelve a night? Fifteen? Twenty? You can spend as much as you want.”
“Twelve, fifteen would be OK. I'd like to get cheaper. I want a bathroom.”
“Do you want a pool? Most Americans like a pool.”
“I don't care much about a pool. You know what I'd really love? I'd love to be next to the ocean. Can I go swimming in the ocean?”
“Not around here.”
“I mean can I find a place that's near the ocean?”
“I know a place you'll like. It won't cost you much.”
“Is it near the ocean?”
“It's right on the ocean.”
“Oh goody. I'm so happy. This is the first time I've ever been out of New York. Everything is so strange to me.” She watches the children in torn dresses, the men in cut-off sandals shirtless lead the yoked cows and mules. The doorless stores set on wooden platforms. “How much will it cost for you to take me there?”
“That depends.”
“What does it depend on?”
“Do you like me?”
“Yes.”
“I'll take you for nothing. You'll be my girlfriend.”
“I don't know.”
“Why not?”
“I don't want to stay in Port-au-Prince more than one night. I want to go to Jacmel.”
“To be my girlfriend you'll have to stay in Port-au-Prince a week. I can tell. You're going to like it in Port-au-Prince a lot.”
“I don't know. I don't think I'm going to stay here.”
“Do you speak French?”
“A little.”
“Speak French.”
From now on Kathy speaks only French in Port-au-Prince. Her French stinks.
“I'll stay in Port-au-Prince two days.”
“A week.”
“We're arguing already.”
The fat man smiles. His right hand covers her left hand. Kathy and the taxi-driver hold hands.
Haiti is a mountainous country. Mountains rise from the seacoasts and cover most of the inland part of the country. There are almost no roads in Haiti and many of the people who live inland have not and cannot leave the acres that are their village of birth. The city of Port-au-Prince lies between the beginning of the mountains and the ocean. Because hot winds sweep dust and then pollution down from the mountains into the lower lands and because the heat collects in the lower regions, the rich Port-au-Prince inhabitants—the tourists and the Haitian multimillionaires—live in the mountains: at the edge of Port-au-Prince in the suburb of Petionville and even farther west into the mountains. Port-au-Prince is a city that descends. One moves from the mansions hidden in the mountainous luxuriant foliage down to the tourist hotels and government offices of the wide city streets down, as it gets hotter and hotter, to the block-large markets, the Iron Market, where all the Haitians buy their necessities, down to the slums where shacks are piled on shacks, where twenty people live in one room, down to the edge of the water, the docks, where there are no breezes, only hot dust, and where the United States Navy waits a mile away in the ocean.
This is what Kathy sees: First paper-thin paper-like-wall shacks on thin wooden platforms. Walls are dirty pink, dirty pale green, dirty tan. Some of these shacks are stores because they have no doors and bear signs like EPICERIE and BOUTIQUE DE PARIS. There are more and more people everywhere. Soon there's at least one person per square foot. Men and women and girls and boys and babies sit and argue and sell and buy and stand around and eat and walk. No animals in sight. A few thin mangy green-leafed trees. The shacks move closer and closer together until they form a solid row that walls in the road. So there's this road with lots of cars running up and down it and long eight-feet-high paper strips on each side of it. The paper strips contain small paper doors. As they grow larger, the paper strips separate from each other and become individual buildings. Partly rotting two-and three-story houses surrounded by weeds and high concrete white fences. Larger semi-decaying mansions. Some of the buildings are stone and there are one or two rectangular cement office buildings. The buildings lie far apart from each other. The roads are wide. All the people here are walking. Some of the people wear clothes which aren't torn. There's a park. To the left and right of the road there are quasi-triangular ten-acre sections of low-cut grass, trimmed hedges, and here and there small circles of red flowers in the low-cut grass. To the right, below the grass, there's another few acres of plain dirt. Across the road from the dirt, still descending, there're a strip of joined yellow concrete houses which form a fence around a large dirt square.
“That's the army barracks,” the taxi-driver says. The light blue Plymouth keeps moving. “To your left's a mausoleum.”
On the left, the park continues. Low-cut grass and occasional small white and yellow flowers surround white steps and the large white building the white steps lead up to. Below the park there's a huge oval strip of land. A black metal fence surrounds this strip. Within the fence is a huge totally clean whiter-than-the-sun mansion. The mansion looks like an American government mansion. White white steps lead up to the mansion. There are no trees. There are no people. The shacks begin again and all the people walk and sit and talk and carry baskets and have dogs and quarrel. The road's a hard dirt road. It winds around, goes up and down, basically it moves north-south. There's dust everywhere. Dust on the road, dust in the air, dust on the skin, dust on the straw and wood shacks. The distance is a light tan haze. The shacks are light tan and grey. They're about two feet apart from each other. Dogs and chickens run from the shacks into the street. The sides of the road are ruts. Women and a few children walk in these ruts. There are almost no men. The women wear brightly colored scarves around their heads and closefitting dresses or blouses and skirts ending at their knees. Some of the dresses and skirts are torn. Sometimes they wear aprons over their skirts. The road's flat and runs directly north and south. On the right the dry land rises and on the left it slopes down and can't be seen again. Eight-feet-high paper walls line the road. There are so many men and women walking in front of the walls, there's a closer wall of black flesh. Cars pass on top of each other. Honk. Honk. The people thin out. To the right, on the sloping dirt's a small cement house. The sign on the wood fence that surrounds this house says MARIE'S VOODOO, NIGHTLY. There are lots of similar houses surrounded by fences that are nightclubs and voodoo places. The sun is hot and bright. There are fewer and fewer houses. Just a long strip of road and more trees.
Kathy hasn't seen any white people.
The light blue Plymouth pulls into a driveway. On one side of the driveway there's a white stucco rectangular building. The other side is a patio: a round thatched roof reaches upward to a point over a raised cement floor. There are about ten rough wood chairs and tables and then a clear space around the jukebox which says WURLITZER.
“You stay in the car,” the taxi-driver says to his new girlfriend. “I'm going to talk to somebody.”
When the fat man returns to the taxicab, he tells Kathy she can stay here for nine dollars a night. That includes two meals a day. Kathy thinks that's cheap. “Is this a motel or your friend's house?” she asks the taxi-driver.
“A motel. Lots of tourists stay here.”
The proprietor of the motel, a tall elegant Haitian who speaks French rather than Creole walks with the taxi-driver and the girl through the rubble and stones in back of the white building. From the rubble a hill made up of stone pebbles and a bit of dirt rises sharply upward toward inland Haiti. The sun beats down on the broken glass and rubbish under the girl's feet. Small white concrete rooms stick together and form the two rows of buildings behind the large white building. The last room is about a foot from the paved highway.
“How long will you be staying here?”
“I don't know. Probably three days.”
“She'll be staying longer,” the taxi-driver says.
“No, I won't.”
“Well, we can have this room fixed up for you tomorrow.” The proprietor shows Kathy the last room, a ten foot by eight foot room containing a rocking chair and a large window. The room has no floor.
“I like the room,” the girl says. “I like the rocking chair.”
“You also have your own bathroom here and you can come and leave without anyone bothering you.”
The proprietor, the taxi-driver, and the girl walk around the building, through the hot rubble, to the first row of stuck-together rooms. The proprietor opens the door of the first room on the right. The room is ten feet by seven feet, has a cot, a small window, a table with a fan on it, and a straw mat. It looks like a cell.
“You can take this room for tonight. The other will be ready tomorrow.”
“This is fine. This is perfect. I'm very happy.” The taxi-driver goes to bring the girl her bag. The proprietor leaves. The taxi-driver brings the girl her bag and she starts unpacking.
“I'm going to go swimming. That's what I want to do most of all. I haven't been swimming in two years.” The taxi-driver leaves the girl alone.
There's a knocking at the door.
“Who's there?”
“It's Sammy.”
Kathy opens the door and sees the taxi-driver.
“I went to the car to get my bathing suit.” He walks into the room. “Close the door.”
Kathy closes the door and puts her arms around him and hugs him. He kisses her. Their tongues touch. Their tongues touch for a long time.
“Put on your suit. I'll put mine on,” says the taxi-driver. She watches the taxi-driver and takes off her blue shirt. Her blue jeans. She's taking off her underpants. The taxi-driver walks into the bathroom. He comes back wearing a tiny yellow and orange flower bikini. His stomach sticks out over the bikini.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Sure.”
A tall rather handsome young man's leaning against a stone wall. On the top of the stone wall's a bottle of rum, a tin bowl of ice, and two plastic cups. He pours rum into one of the cups and hands it to Kathy.
The taxi-driver puts his arm around Kathy. A small girl in a green bathing suit leans against the handsome young man's front.
“Where are you from?” the handsome man asks Kathy.
“I'm from New York City.”
“Oh. How old are you?”
“I'm twenty-nine.”
“I'm twenty-four. Sammy is twenty-nine.”
“You are my age,” she says to the fat man. “How old are you?” she asks the girl.
“Twenty-two.”
“Uh.”
Sammy and the two other people talk for a while in Creole.
“I want to talk to you,” the handsome man says to Kathy and takes her hand in his.
“Is something the matter?”
“My brother tells me he loves you very much. There is a great deal of love in his heart for you. He says to me that he's very glad he has met you.”
“Uh. That's nice.”
“When are you going to get married?”
“Married? Wait a minute. Who's your brother?”
“Sammy. He's your driver.”
“But we were just holding hands. You know. I don't even know him. Even if I did know him, I don't want to get married.”
“Maybe you're married already.”
“No, I'm not married.”
“You're not going to marry him? He tells me he loves you very much.”
“I don't want to get married. No. No way.”
The handsome man leads Kathy to the right, on to the empty porch of a deserted white stucco house. “I want to talk to you very openly. I want you to tell me the truth. My brother says he feels a lot of love for you in his heart. Do you love him?”
“I don't love him or don't not love him. I don't know your brother.”
“I want you to understand. My brother has been very lonely. He has had no girlfriend for a long time. His girlfriend left him and went away to the north last year. He needs to go with someone. Are you going with anyone?”
“No.”
“Then he'll go with you. And we'll see what happens.”
“I'm not staying. I'm going away tomorrow.”
“Why? You could stay here for awhile.”
“I want to go to Jacmel.”
“Do you have some friends in Jacmel?”
“No. I just want to go to Jacmel.”
“You could stay here for a few days and we could see what happens.”
