Dots; and how to sit down at a window and think, and focus your attention and thoughts on things above; and learn how to out-smart them
bitches and bastards, and use them the same way they uses you; and you have to learn how to use the same weapons they use on you; and you have to understand what them weapons is. Lemme tell you: them weapons is brainpower and brainwashing; and I know, ’cause I come across it in a magazine I got in Harlem, when I was visiting there. Brainpower and brainwashing …
“Come here, Dots,” she said aloud, in her make-believe conversation, “come and let me show you something.” …
you see them things running ’bout in the trees, looking as if they is big big mice? there, on Mrs. Burmann’s lawn and all over the sidewalk? What you think their name is, Dots? …
“Squirrels, gal.” …
you’re blasted right, they is squirrels. And I wish that you, Mister Squirrel, you dark-brown one down there, had the sense to read my mind when I throw you a piece o’ stale bread; and I wish too, Mister Squirrel, that I could, some day, come down there and talk with you, ’cause you have open up my eyes to many mysteries of this place …
“Gal, are you telling me there is something important with a simple thing as a damn squirrel? Christ, a big woman like me, and wasting time talking ’bout squirrel? I must be going mad as hell!” …
you ain’t going mad, child; and if you going mad, you going mad only to learn sense. Don’t forget every mad person is a sensible person in some way. I come across that in a book, in Harlem, too; a lot o’ things and mysteries I come across in Harlem … but Lord, at this moment, that isn’t a damn use to me, because there ain’t one man I could call on to ask for a favour from. Not one blasted person, white, black or blue, or pink! the only person I could think of, is Brigitte; I inviting Brigitte tonight, that German girl from ’cross the street; never mind she is a, a-a-a, what Mrs. Gasstein boy called Brigitte?
… and the steam in the breath of her conversation melted, and the glass in the window returned to the window; and she looked down and saw it. Andshe called Dots to watch. Since the steam in her conversation had polished the glass in the window, and she could see, and she knew she was seeing, there was no need to pretend that Dots was still in the room with her. She had to see the act for herself: there were two men, standing beside a tree, while their two dogs (Bernice didn’t know the pedigree of the dogs) were bent stiff as icicles, in their shivering act of easing their bowels. A brown, dotted line of spaghetti, dit-dotted and dot-ditted out, into the cloud bank of snow. The men stood nearby, like landlords. They were pretending: they were pretending their presence was based on the pretences of the past, and all the time, the endless sausage was coming out of the two dogs; and they pretended they knew it was going to end. They were jerking their heads, up and down the street, at second floors and bottom floors, to see if anyone was going to raise a window, and screel down at them,
Take your goddam dogs, and scoot, or!
But the dogs, both white, continued to shiver and to strain from the exercise and the exertion of their deliverance. A smile came to the faces of the men, as they saw the faeces of the dogs, still bent like two skeletons of a dinosaur, curved backs, still in the position of the act, although the act itself was now only wind, and air, and gas. “Now, watch,” Bernice told the presence of Dots, which she felt in the room. “You watching, Dots? Watch something now.” The dogs were finished now. One of the men, the tall one, with wisps of grey hair at his temples, raised the left side of his winter coat, and pulled out a piece of tissue paper, the colour of snow and blood mixed, the colour of pink. And he was about to bend down to the snow and to the dog that was his dog, when Bernice turned away her eyes. (She made
bitches and bastards, and use them the same way they uses you; and you have to learn how to use the same weapons they use on you; and you have to understand what them weapons is. Lemme tell you: them weapons is brainpower and brainwashing; and I know, ’cause I come across it in a magazine I got in Harlem, when I was visiting there. Brainpower and brainwashing …
“Come here, Dots,” she said aloud, in her make-believe conversation, “come and let me show you something.” …
you see them things running ’bout in the trees, looking as if they is big big mice? there, on Mrs. Burmann’s lawn and all over the sidewalk? What you think their name is, Dots? …
“Squirrels, gal.” …
you’re blasted right, they is squirrels. And I wish that you, Mister Squirrel, you dark-brown one down there, had the sense to read my mind when I throw you a piece o’ stale bread; and I wish too, Mister Squirrel, that I could, some day, come down there and talk with you, ’cause you have open up my eyes to many mysteries of this place …
“Gal, are you telling me there is something important with a simple thing as a damn squirrel? Christ, a big woman like me, and wasting time talking ’bout squirrel? I must be going mad as hell!” …
you ain’t going mad, child; and if you going mad, you going mad only to learn sense. Don’t forget every mad person is a sensible person in some way. I come across that in a book, in Harlem, too; a lot o’ things and mysteries I come across in Harlem … but Lord, at this moment, that isn’t a damn use to me, because there ain’t one man I could call on to ask for a favour from. Not one blasted person, white, black or blue, or pink! the only person I could think of, is Brigitte; I inviting Brigitte tonight, that German girl from ’cross the street; never mind she is a, a-a-a, what Mrs. Gasstein boy called Brigitte?
… and the steam in the breath of her conversation melted, and the glass in the window returned to the window; and she looked down and saw it. Andshe called Dots to watch. Since the steam in her conversation had polished the glass in the window, and she could see, and she knew she was seeing, there was no need to pretend that Dots was still in the room with her. She had to see the act for herself: there were two men, standing beside a tree, while their two dogs (Bernice didn’t know the pedigree of the dogs) were bent stiff as icicles, in their shivering act of easing their bowels. A brown, dotted line of spaghetti, dit-dotted and dot-ditted out, into the cloud bank of snow. The men stood nearby, like landlords. They were pretending: they were pretending their presence was based on the pretences of the past, and all the time, the endless sausage was coming out of the two dogs; and they pretended they knew it was going to end. They were jerking their heads, up and down the street, at second floors and bottom floors, to see if anyone was going to raise a window, and screel down at them,
Take your goddam dogs, and scoot, or!
But the dogs, both white, continued to shiver and to strain from the exercise and the exertion of their deliverance. A smile came to the faces of the men, as they saw the faeces of the dogs, still bent like two skeletons of a dinosaur, curved backs, still in the position of the act, although the act itself was now only wind, and air, and gas. “Now, watch,” Bernice told the presence of Dots, which she felt in the room. “You watching, Dots? Watch something now.” The dogs were finished now. One of the men, the tall one, with wisps of grey hair at his temples, raised the left side of his winter coat, and pulled out a piece of tissue paper, the colour of snow and blood mixed, the colour of pink. And he was about to bend down to the snow and to the dog that was his dog, when Bernice turned away her eyes. (She made
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