the Dick adventure. Isabelle listens carefully. âBut Sylvère!â she says. âYouâre crazy. You put yourself in danger.â
Back in Crestline, Chris sits hunched over her Toshiba. The truck is packed. She has a vague belief sheâll write to Dick throughout the trip. She has a vague belief that writing is the only possible escape to freedom. She doesnât want to lose the drift. She types this story:
EXHIBIT I: Â Â âLAST NIGHT AT DICKâSâ
I wake up wired, tired, but still running on nervous energy. The sunlight hurts my eyes, my mouthâs still fuzzy from last nightâs booze and cigarettes. The dayâs not slowing down for me and Iâm not ready.
Did we fuck? Yes â¦but the fuck seems insignificant beside the lengths we went to to get there. The daze Iâm in right now seems realer. Whatâs there to say? It was sensationless, pro-forma.
When I got to Dickâs around 8 he was expecting me. âDateâ arrangements had been made: dimmed lights, reggae music on the stereo, vodka, condoms waiting by the bed though of course I didnât see them until later. Dickâs place suddenly seemed like a cut-rate banquet hall or funeral parlor â generic props waiting to be cleared away for the arrival of the next corpse, bride, girl. Was I entering the same setting of seduction as poor Kyla?
I started out embarrassed and conciliatory, quite willing to admit I was a fly caught in the web of your enormous sex appeal, charisma. But then you deviated from the seducerâs role by freely voicing the contempt that lies beneath it. You asked me questions, held up my desire to the light as if it were a strange and mutant thing. As if it were a symptom of my uniquely troubled character. And how was I to answer? I wouldnât be here if I didnât want to fuck. Your questions made me feel ashamed. When I turned them back on you, you answered bored and noncommittally.
Because you patronize me and refuse to see the possible reversibility of our situations it is impossible for me to state my love for you as totally as I feel it. You make me backtrack, hesitate. Then later, confused and psychically dismantled, I fall into your arms. A last resort. We kiss. The obligatory first contact before fucking.
Months later, parts of Chrisâ story would turn out to be remarkably prophetic.
EXHIBIT J: Â Â HER LONG DRIVE ACROSS AMERICA
Flagstaff, Arizona
December 16, 1994
The Hidden Village Motel
Dear Dick,
I got here around 10, 11 last night depending on which time zone you figure, wondering if I can really drive another 3000 miles. The town is wall-to-wall motels, and the billboards advertise a race war between the local rednecks (âAmerican Owned and Operatedâ) and the Indian immigrant majority who offer âBritish Hospitality.â Competition keeps the prices down to 18 bucks a night.
This morning I woke up early and outside it was brilliantly cold and clear, that bright almost-weatherless mountain kind of cold with frosty ground. I made coffee and took Mimi for a walk back behind the train tracks through a scabby mix of low-rent complexes and trailer parks. 200 Dollars Moves You In to Blackbird Roost.
Walking, I thought about you or about the âproject.â How Iâm realizing that even though the movie âfailedâ Iâm left with a wider net of freedom than Iâve ever had before.
For two years I was shackled to Gravity & Grace everyday; every stage of it an avalanche of impossibility that I dismantled into finite goals. It didnât matter, finally, that the film was good or that I wrote 10 upbeat faxes every day, that I was accountable, available, no matter how I felt.
Anyway Dick, I tried my best but it still failed. No Rotterdam, no Sundance, no Berlinâ¦just neg cut problems in New Zealand that drag on. For two years I was sober and asexual every day, every ounce of psychic anima was channeled into
Back in Crestline, Chris sits hunched over her Toshiba. The truck is packed. She has a vague belief sheâll write to Dick throughout the trip. She has a vague belief that writing is the only possible escape to freedom. She doesnât want to lose the drift. She types this story:
EXHIBIT I: Â Â âLAST NIGHT AT DICKâSâ
I wake up wired, tired, but still running on nervous energy. The sunlight hurts my eyes, my mouthâs still fuzzy from last nightâs booze and cigarettes. The dayâs not slowing down for me and Iâm not ready.
Did we fuck? Yes â¦but the fuck seems insignificant beside the lengths we went to to get there. The daze Iâm in right now seems realer. Whatâs there to say? It was sensationless, pro-forma.
When I got to Dickâs around 8 he was expecting me. âDateâ arrangements had been made: dimmed lights, reggae music on the stereo, vodka, condoms waiting by the bed though of course I didnât see them until later. Dickâs place suddenly seemed like a cut-rate banquet hall or funeral parlor â generic props waiting to be cleared away for the arrival of the next corpse, bride, girl. Was I entering the same setting of seduction as poor Kyla?
I started out embarrassed and conciliatory, quite willing to admit I was a fly caught in the web of your enormous sex appeal, charisma. But then you deviated from the seducerâs role by freely voicing the contempt that lies beneath it. You asked me questions, held up my desire to the light as if it were a strange and mutant thing. As if it were a symptom of my uniquely troubled character. And how was I to answer? I wouldnât be here if I didnât want to fuck. Your questions made me feel ashamed. When I turned them back on you, you answered bored and noncommittally.
Because you patronize me and refuse to see the possible reversibility of our situations it is impossible for me to state my love for you as totally as I feel it. You make me backtrack, hesitate. Then later, confused and psychically dismantled, I fall into your arms. A last resort. We kiss. The obligatory first contact before fucking.
Months later, parts of Chrisâ story would turn out to be remarkably prophetic.
EXHIBIT J: Â Â HER LONG DRIVE ACROSS AMERICA
Flagstaff, Arizona
December 16, 1994
The Hidden Village Motel
Dear Dick,
I got here around 10, 11 last night depending on which time zone you figure, wondering if I can really drive another 3000 miles. The town is wall-to-wall motels, and the billboards advertise a race war between the local rednecks (âAmerican Owned and Operatedâ) and the Indian immigrant majority who offer âBritish Hospitality.â Competition keeps the prices down to 18 bucks a night.
This morning I woke up early and outside it was brilliantly cold and clear, that bright almost-weatherless mountain kind of cold with frosty ground. I made coffee and took Mimi for a walk back behind the train tracks through a scabby mix of low-rent complexes and trailer parks. 200 Dollars Moves You In to Blackbird Roost.
Walking, I thought about you or about the âproject.â How Iâm realizing that even though the movie âfailedâ Iâm left with a wider net of freedom than Iâve ever had before.
For two years I was shackled to Gravity & Grace everyday; every stage of it an avalanche of impossibility that I dismantled into finite goals. It didnât matter, finally, that the film was good or that I wrote 10 upbeat faxes every day, that I was accountable, available, no matter how I felt.
Anyway Dick, I tried my best but it still failed. No Rotterdam, no Sundance, no Berlinâ¦just neg cut problems in New Zealand that drag on. For two years I was sober and asexual every day, every ounce of psychic anima was channeled into
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