On the news we saw a story about brown tree snakes in Guam. They’re long, these things, and aggressive, and not too bright. The report showed a human baby one of them had tried to eat. The child weighed fifteen pounds; the snake, two. They come up through people’s toilets sometimes, and one bit a man on the testicles (!).
According to the report, the snakes are spreading. One was found in Texas. When things get bad in New York, I remind myself that at least there are no snakes here. Rats, but no snakes.
July 15, 1994
New York
Hugh and I went to Dixon Place and now I want to be reimbursed for those two hours of my life. We’d gone to see Lily sing and play guitar and had she been the only one on the bill, it would have been fine. Sadly, there were several other acts. The first and worst was a woman named Estelle. I wouldn’t call her a dancer; rather, she pranced while a second woman read a poem and a third batted pots and pans with a stick. The three of them wore something akin to war paint. If they were trying to scare the enemy, it didn’t work. If they were trying to entertain the audience, it didn’t work either. Estelle twirled in circles. She skipped and flailed her arms and then threw herself onto the floor. Unfortunately, she picked herself back up and began again from the top. It was my worst nightmare of performance art.
She was followed by a thin, bearded troubadour. “This next song is about illusions and falsifications,” he said at one point. “I think you all know what I’m talking about.” He had either a great voice or a terrible one. I couldn’t quite tell which.
August 25, 1994
La Bagotière, France
Hugh and I left Scotland yesterday afternoon and got back to France almost twenty-four hours later. The first leg of the trip involved a bus from Pitlochry to Edinburgh. I sat behind a pair of young women and a very fat baby girl, who I’m guessing belonged to one of them. The two took turns holding her. I watched as the first put the child on her knee and pushed chocolate candies into her tiny mouth with her fingers. Then she handed her to her friend, who poured some Coca-Cola into a baby bottle and had the kid suck on it until she vomited. After that, she was handed back over for a candy refill. The baby wore several gold bracelets and rings, and I wondered how she’d ever get them off her ever-expanding wrists and fingers.
October 4, 1994
New York
This afternoon David Rakoff and I went to see The River Wild. It was preceded by a very lengthy preview for the new Warren Beatty movie. The thing went on and on, and just as it ended, David turned to me, whispering, “I understand the remaining seven seconds of this film are remarkable.”
Later, at dinner, Paul D. tried to tell us that cows are nocturnal but that farmers force them to stay awake during the day. That is so funny to me, the idea of keeping a cow awake.
October 31, 1994
New York
As research for the new play (One Woman Shoe), Amy and I went to the welfare office on 14th Street. We’d wondered what we might say if anyone asked why we were there and decided on “They told us to come back on Monday.”
But nobody asked.
I got the idea it’s possible to spend all day in the welfare office without being asked any questions. After entering the ground-floor waiting room, we joined a line that never moved. Out of six windows, only two were open, and the woman behind one of them was dressed for Halloween as a cat, with ears and whiskers. There was some confusion as to what the line we were standing in was for. The woman ahead of us had no teeth and had brought a wooden crate she used as a chair. Sometime later a Hispanic woman tried to sneak her friend into the line and the toothless woman called for security. “I know who’s in front of me and I know who’s behind of me,” she said, “and she wasn’t no way in front of me or I would have seed her.”
Other people chimed in, but the Hispanic woman stood her ground, claiming that her friend needed to cut in line because she has asthma.
“Oh, yeah, well, my baby’s got asthma too,” a black woman said.
“Oh, really, where’s the baby?”
The black woman pointed to her stomach. “In here.”
The Hispanic woman’s friend was booted to the back of the line. Like a lot of other people, she was dressed in spandex pants. These she wore with a T-shirt that pictured a number of cartoon pigs fucking in various positions.
Everyone in line seemed to have a story about a misplaced form, a missing check, a stolen wallet. Everyone complained about the staff. “They make it hard, hoping we’ll just give up and go away. The bitches is acting like the money come outta they own pockets.”
“Someone tolt me they’re hiring at UPS,” a woman said to one of the few men in the office.
“I ain’t working for them because I’m a certified chef,” the man said.
People limped and had their arms in slings. One man walked like he was a marionette worked by a novice, his legs bent almost to a kneeling position.
The office was filthy and everyone ignored the NO SMOKING signs. There were crumbs and cigarette butts on the floor, the noise of fights and crying children. The seats were all occupied by exhausted-looking people, some sleeping, hardly any of them reading. “I’ve been here since nine this morning!” There were white people, black people, Puerto Ricans, Japanese, an Indian family—the mother talked like she was channeling a spirit, while her daughter stared straight ahead. Loudspeakers would call out a name, but the person was hardly ever there. People seemed to know each other. They socialized. So much time spent waiting.
There were signs everywhere. TAKE THE NAME OF YOUR CASEWORKER, REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR APPOINTMENTS. The signs were all marked with graffiti. Men would approach waiting women, and the women would ignore them, sometimes surrendering their seats to get away.
A woman with braids left the line every so often to spit in the trash can. A grown man suckled a pacifier and dribbled saliva all over his hands. He would lift his shirt, walk in a circle, then stare at the wall as if it were a mirror and laugh. It felt wrong to be there. Amy and I could leave anytime we wanted to. The others either could or couldn’t, depending on how you think about it. Which brings us back to the play.
December 14, 1994
New York
I went to a deli on 2nd Avenue and 73rd Street for lunch and waited behind a seventy-five-year-old woman with wild gray hair and sad, poorly fitting slacks. She ordered a bit of chicken salad and when the clerk asked for her definition of “a bit,” the woman turned to me and rolled her eyes. “See, they don’t know because they can’t talk English. I want to make myself a sandwich at home. I got bread at home, but they don’t understand.”
December 27, 1994