Milkbottle h, p.31
Milkbottle H, page 31
all right
can you repel them altogether
but i cannot be responsible if they do not respond, if they still persist in being close to me
then take them altogether
i really cannot be unfaithful to you
that means you cannot slap my face
that is correct
you cannot render me so close to you as to be hurt by you
not at that cost
it would cost you nothing
you might die
yes
I cannot take that chance
it is the chance I ask you to take. Death, after all, is an unmistakable demonstration of contact
you are a foolish foolish woman, Anne Kanovsky, an impossible woman, I did not suspect
no, you did not suspect, really, what it would mean to kill me, did you
no
and now that you do suspect, you are no longer willing to go through with it, is that right
yes
but the knowing should give you dignity. The knowledge that death is an unmistakeable contact, your discovering that knowledge, should give you enormous pride. You can now murder pridefully, and pridefully collect twenty thousand dollars. What an enormous triumph
but i drive my car rapidly, i endanger my life and the lives of others
yes, but you can do that with great pride, Kanovsky, with perfect insanity and not with that imperfect neuroticism
i cannot accept such knowledge
it is true then you want nothing from me that you must know, but you will take anything from me that you do not have to know
yes
are you certain
yes
good. You are killing me, now. She leans back, gasping. A faint bluish discoloration begins to diffuse her face flesh
but I know nothing, Anne. Nothing.
watch out, youre saving my life, youre resuscitating me, its easier for me to breathe but wheres the twenty thousand dollars, you can certainly and absolutely pull me back to unconditional life by my chickenbreast. Grab it and pull
no
just grab it, it isnt slippery, its protruding enough from my chest
She lies flat on her back on the swing that sways gently. Kanovsky stands over her, this chunk of lavender meat. Grab it, she says
no
Lee squeezes out his eyeballs, they sound as two soft farts vented by his anus plopping to the carpet, why cant you seize my breastbone
but hes only a dramatist, his two eyeballs are stage directions then youve nothing to be afraid of
but hes naked
take off your clothes, Kanovsky, do a striptease
but thats for no money, i wont get a twenty thousand dollar fee for the performance
thats correct, but youll excite me back to life
i dont want to excite you, Anne
true. Is there anyone at all whom you want to excite
yes
the truth, Kanovsky, the truth. Whom do you wish to excite
I cant tell you
liar. You dont know. There isnt anyone. Dont you want the twenty thousand dollars and your wife alive at the same time?
no, no
which, then, do you prefer—the money or my staying alive
but youre directing me, Anne
of course. Dont you want me to
but that very question is a direction
of course. Dont you want me to
Absolutely not, Kanovsky thunders self righteously. If I surrender my directing you, youll give up wanting to live
yes. But you said you cant cast me. Remember
Ill cast you, Ill cast you
better and better, Kanovsky my darling. Tell me what you want me to play
I havent given it too much thought, Ill have to reflect you havent given me very much thought, is that right well, not in terms of casting you
But those are your whole terms of being in relationship to me no, I did not say that
oh. Then you can partly direct me, and I can partly direct you. Is that a more reasonable description
more reasonable, maybe. But the direction should be only the man’s
then you havent been living with me. Theres nothing much you can realize from me. Thats good. You are interested only in realizing yourself
that is the distinctive male quality, my dear
then it really makes very little difference to you if I live or die since you put it that way, Anne, if you must put it that way, yes, yes
then I choose to die
but that escapes my direction. The choice is not yours
then you tell me, my husband. Shall I live or die
this is not a play
certainly it is. The best of life is the essence of a play. Have not you yourself said that
you must, after all, permit a man to speak theoretically
a man permits himself to do so. A woman does not thus permit a man
youre not a woman, Anne, youre a terribly sick human being that can no longer be said to possess sex
you speak of my heart, I take it
what else is there left in you
ah, ah. Very good, Kanovsky. Youve finally hit on my sexlessness. Does that not frighten you
it relieves me, you goddamn bitch
it enables you to call me a goddamn bitch
with pleasure
with murderous pleasure
yes, yes
Anne Kanovsky stands in her wretched impressive crippledom, one leg shorter than the other, leaning on the chickenbreastedness she has extracted, her face mottled in the dark by jagged pink and white sores, her cool opalescent gray eyes as far apart as the whirling poles, the night with its nowstars hooping about her in constellative rings, one of her jaws shorter than the other, the woman wrenched, one side of her body slipping away from the other and still she maintains her wretched and miserable serenity, her housecoat gaping, her breasts balledup sacks as two tiny fists on her chest, the nipples pulsing as with a rosy jagged starlight, her groin something like an oinking pig at a trough since a steady stream of piss, amber streaked by red, courses from between her bowed legs on the roofporch floor
Anne, Anne, he says in a giggling embarrassment, do you know what youre doing
in the elemental matters, she answers dryly, I know all the time is there something I can do to help you stop it you can stanch it if you like
how
She grins. By sticking your finger in the dike. You remember the old story of the Dutch boy and
oh for christ’s sake, cer
go ahead, then. Lets see if you can deal with elemental matters. Otherwise, my darling husband, what will occur will be that I will literally piss my life away. She throws back her slipshod skull in a hawking, screeching laughter. Literally. Oh, I feel so happy. Im doing something literally, you dont know what that means to me, trala, trala, Anne Kanovsky literally pisses her life away. You see, my husband, the heart controls the bladder, which very few people realize. Now, since my heart grows weaker and weaker, my bladder is running amok. And, wonderfully, it doesnt stink. Remarkable, no? It is innocent, uncorrupted, nonputrefying piss. Do you think you can stanch that kind of piss, Kanovsky? Oh, I daresay you could easily stop the flow of the ranker kind by an act of desperation, so that your nose would not continue to be assaulted by the stench. But here, no stench. The odorless piss of Anne Kanovsky. How will you treat it?
you better let me call the doctor
She bars his way. Watch out, she says. Come any closer and youll be drenched. You cant get off that easily, my husband. This time—no doctor. You alone hold the therapy
youre committing suicide
ah, is that your interpretation? I was waiting for such a statement. You feel yourself justified in earning twenty thousand dollars if I commit suicide? Youd better hurry if youre going to do anything. Im getting weaker as my stream of piss grows stronger. The flow of her urine is a thick muscular fullbodied column of liquid amber striated by scarlet spicules of blood. In this tremendous operation of hydraulic engineering bits of bone emerge, a swirl of intestine flaps out, some foam rubber lung tissue jounces forth, there goes a pearshaped gland bouncing a few times on the roofporch floor, a glistening shivering nerve plexus that shoots far enough toward Kanovsky to tickle his bare toes so that he yelps both in horror and pleasure and does a brief dancestep sideways to avoid further contact and the bloated culdesac of Anne Kanovsky’s stomach that very nearly wraps itself around Kanovsky’s ankle and continues to puff with the effort as it huffs grayly against the porch railing
Dont let my heart come out, Anne Kanovsky cries, her voice in the hooping distance—please please please stop my heart from being pissed out, she falls to her knees, the vast column of coursing piss, now forced directly against the porch floor, developing a counterthrusting fountain against the woman’s thighs so that
Anne is buoyed upward, tossed and floating on top of her own fountain of urine as she extends her arms toward her husband—
YOUR FIST, SHE YELLS AT KANOVSKY, THRUST YOUR FIST BETWEEN MY THIGHS, NO LONGER CAN THE FINGER OF THE BOY AT THE DIKE DO ANNE KANOVSKY JUSTICE
ONLY A MAN WITH HIS FIST UP A WOMANS URETHRA CAN SAVE HER LIFE CAN SAVE HER HEART OTHERWISE MY HEART WILL STRIKE YOU IN THE FACE CAN YOU STAND THAT KANOVSKY
CAN YOU STAND MY HEART STRIKING YOU IN THE FACE
FOR IF YOU CAN IT IS WORTH TEN TIMES TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS
OTHERWISE, KANOVSKY, YOU WILL BE CHEATED, YOU WILL CHEAT YOURSELF, YOU WILL HAVE TO BE SATISFIED WITH THE MINIMAL AMOUNT
FOR NOW I DIE KANOVSKY LET US SEE IF YOU WILL CHEAT YOURSELF OR NO
and Anne Kanovsky’s heart, whanging out in snarling systole and diastole, in savage bright red and lustrous black spurting bellows from between her legs, scoots out from one curve of the climactic foaming yellowred urinary fountain straight toward Kanovsky’s face, vena and artery tom mouth superbly and bloodily cursing
BUT ITS NOT A WEAK HEART AT ALL, KANOVSKY SCREAMS, YOUVE MISLED ME ALL ALONG, YOUVE LIED TO ME ALL ALONG, YOUVE MISREPRESENTED YOURSELF ANNE KANOVSKY AND A STRONG HEART CAN DO ME IRREPARABLE DAMAGE
So saying, Kanovsky plummets prostrate to the roofporch floor as Anne’s heart curses and whistles and cheers derisively as it arcs directly over Kanovsky’s blubbering body and goes careening toward the Fairmount Park reservoir, sirens screeching as Anne Kanovsky herself, holding her chicken breastbone aloft as the one component of her body she has magically saved, gently then snuffs out the soft tranquil serene glow of her gray eyes with the bone even as she would two gray candleflames and, like a sadly crippled Aphrodite who has risen in birth from the waters only to find that they are, after all, only the purest piss, settles down once again, having blinded herself, into her rapidly drying pool of urine, for
the night, now, rid of its moisture, is passing itself off in a hot dry wind. A limp, hollow Anne Kanovsky hes quite dead on the roofporch floor: heartless.
Rising, Kanovsky skirts his wife’s lifeless body. His whole thick squat purpleblubbered lavenderpimpled organism feels quite cheated. He must phone the physician, he must obtain a death certificate. He very nearly trips over an empty beercan. A curse suggests itself to Kanovsky, but he finds himself incapable of it. Instead, as if to rid the scene of incriminating evidence, he bends, snatches up the empty beercan and throws it over the porch railing. Only one odd thought strikes him as he lifts the phone in the dark bedroom: the empty tin beercan has made absolutely no sound in presumably striking the surface of the street beneath. But Kanovsky dismisses that with the word
Shit
and the thought that empty beer cans can be heartless, too.
but youve got to hand it jaredlee to the hand that hands down the decree
THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY IS ANGRY WITH ESTHER GOLDSTEIN; dont you think lee my mothers attracted to your father BUT THE SEX
shoes are far too large, sexJEWS
Aaron Emanuel as Lot is my Judge THROW the
Salt. Penis. Over. My. Shoulder listen you bastard Marcus Kronthal you handsome blackkinky movieowner from next door I know youve been after my wife Esther for
Solomon, Solomon so hows your daughters husbandtobes mother and father with AWESPECIAL RUTHREFERENCE TO LEVI EMANUEL does Lot have one daughter or two one daughterinlaw or
IM GOING TO START THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE ALL OVER AGAIN ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR RIND oh,
Levi, deaddrunk in Philadelphia send your brother Aaron in his flopping army overcoat to Esther Goldstein and the two perform a dance both in the same pair of shoes large enough for both of them
my daughters too young for you, Levi, however if you
will permit your younger brother Aaron who has magic bulletless cannon to go BOOMBOOMBOOM into my little Renale what harm can be done WHAT LORD GOD JEHOVAH COULD POSSIBLY BECOME ENRAGED
on the choppingblock with your hand, jaredlee
my surgical hand?
aye
to deflower Rena?
in a manner of spoking, aye
Levi Emanuel looks back and the Nurse is turned to salt
and the chandelier above him glitters salt
his eyes burn with Atlantic City
OUT IN THE SUN TOO LONG Rachel whispers behind him.
He turns. Out in the sun too CANCER OF THE EYES the visions multiply out of hand
MY HAND twitches on the bedrail,
the cold saltwet Atlantic City rail in the spraysmitten night and the sea coming in to smite his forehead with the suns Aaron
dances with Esther Goldstein, a MADMAN
YOU SEE
CAN
TAKE
OFF
HIS
SHOES
HAND ME MY SHOES LEE
Ive lost my hand
Lee hand me my
hand
As the cleaver of his nephewson poises above his wrist but I dont really think I can have Esther, Marcus, we change places, now you in front, now I, now you, now I Rachel, what do you see
I dont have to visit the Goldsteins Rachel says it enough you should
But its not right
You go
But Im not a representative
Ah, Levi, your son
Ah, Esther, your daughter
Ah, theres a customer in the store, Solomon stumbles looking neither to right nor to left of their merriment
SLICE OFF YOUR HAND Solomon Goldstein stumbleshuffles into the store the customer in a sleepy voice requests a half pound of swiss cheese
coming up halfpound swiss cheese Solomon arranges the cheese in the tilted slicer a circular steel and white sailboat anchored to a sliding white dock the question is what do you do to prevent what you cannot prevent that isnt going to be prevented because theres nothing to prevent I mean Im talking about Esther and Levi what can you do to stop from happening what is bound to happen in the circumstance that cannot happen at all after all she isnt that old and after all no beard is growing from its testicles either and yet its commonsense theyre laughing about the same thing Im slicing cheese about namely and to wit why should they prevent what cannot be prevented when theres nothing to prevent because they know I cannot prevent what they dont want to prevent because I cannot find anything to prevent what has already been prevented because it is unpreventable but why should they be laughing while Im sadly slicing cheese if theres nothing to prevent I cant even go in there to stop what doesnt have to be stopped I think maybe if I would be slicing red meat instead of cheese I could see better what Im slicing because this cheese shes looking whiter and whiter of course I know why its because the red meat is in the livingroom being Esther and Levi while Solomon is the white cheese in the store I dont want to get angry because while theres something to be angry about my anger cant stop what isnt going on when it should be going on. Oh, is that a dirty trick. Now at the trick I can get angry all right. But where do I put the dirty trick when Esther and Levi cant look at the dirty trick seriously. If I show them how dirty the trick is right away theyll volunteer the two of them to clean it up, laughing. And Ill laugh, too, a dirtier trick. Here I am already laughing in the dirtier trick while it makes me angrier and angrier, Solomon Goldstein my wife and Levi have in common, me. Do I have Rachel Emanuel in common with Levi? No I do not, because she doesnt show up here. She doesnt show up here because she doesnt want to be where I am, we could joke with each other seeing ourselves the same person, one male and one female, playing with the cheese slicer. I hope the customer chokes on the cheese but unfortunately it has holes in it
mein kint
Yes, mother, Rena critically altering a skirt, her mouth skimped with pins. Esther bends and straightens at the diningroom table, deftly placesetting, her redglinting black hair in oriental piles atop her skull, her cotton housedress slopping over with breast. Silver and porcelain take fragile breaths and pinch them in. Behind the alleyway fence next door the policedog wobbles small sounds in his throat
Mein kint, Esther trickles out a chuckling tolerance. Youre not yet eleven years old, am I right?
Yes, mother.
But already youre bigger than I am, isnt that right? Esther’s voice is positively frivolous, wobbling in her throat something may be tickling her with a longhandled mop Rena thinks, but no thats impossible. Tickling him, yes. My mother does have a deep contralto voice though doesnt she. It would be interesting to attach a chain to her and tantalize her she slides a pin into the hem of the skirt
If I lower it an inch thatll be enough wont it mother?
An inch is plenty mein kint
Maybe two inches
No an inch is enough
Remember how almost to a year ago you made me go around in baby skirts so half my thighs were showing
Because you were still a baby mein kint
Yeh but everybody was pinching me
Oh mein kint such ideas Esther trills
Mother look dont you remember my blackandblue marks
Of course I remember them
So how can you
But children do such funny things, dont they mein kint? Esther Goldstein takes a towel and rewipes an already spotless plate Mother you washed that plate yourself, I know, So why are you cleaning it again, I just handled it didnt I, But your hands are perfectly clean, Who knows how long they stay clean, Your hands are the cleanest I know, Thank you mein kint, Then why should you, Just to make sure, Every night you have to make sure, Every night they can get a little dirty, But its not even summer its autumn the airs crisp and, Ill take care of my hands and you should take care of yours, But I do mother you know I do my hands are my most valuable, Be careful you dont stick yourself
