The New Womans Broken Heart Read online

  women always do, and theyre always glad. I wasnt glad goddam it

  but whod believe it anyway, the painter told me that if I didnt want it

  my cunt wouldve been locked and no man couldve penetrated it. I

  told him I wasnt a yogi though I was seeing the value of all that

  oriental shit for the first time. I figure thats why there arent too

  many women yogis in India, they dont want them locking their cunts

  which is obviously the first thing they would do.

  it wasnt even being married for 3 years, it wasnt the time he kept

  banging my head on the kitchen floor (hard wood) so that I would

  say I really did like the movie after all. I mean, lets face it, I just dont

  like Clint Eastwood and if thats a fatal flaw, well it just is. it wasnt

  the time he beat me up in front of my mother either, it wasnt the

  time he threw me out on the street in my nightgown and called the

  police, it wasnt even the time he brought home 4 drunken friends,

  one of whom kept calling me kike, and they tied me to the bed and

  fucked me until I passed out and thank god I dont know what happened after that, after all, that was only 4 events in 3 years which is 1, 095 days, besides, I loved him. besides, I didnt have anywhere else

  to go.

  I never exactly made a grand exit. I mean, I could have, for instance, running away with another man wouldve been a grand exit, it also wouldve required presence of mind and a basically unbruised

  body. I couldve changed the locks and gotten a court order, except,

  frankly, and I know this for a fact, no one wouldve believed me. I

  know that thats true from the time I went to a doctor after he bashed

  my head against the kitchen floor. I was, I admit, hysterical, what I

  kept trying to explain to the doctor was that if someone had bashed

  his head against a hard wood kitchen floor because he didnt like

  Clint Eastwood he would be hysterical too. my fatal flaw wasnt

  regarded kindly by him either, he told me that they could have me

  locked up or I could go home, then he gave me some valium. I considered it but I guess I was more afraid of the nuthouse than I was of being beaten to death.

  anyway, finally 2 events led to my final departure, first I went

  shopping and he tried to run me over with his car. the police came at

  the point where he had gotten out of the car after backing me

  against a wall and was strangling me and screaming obscenities simultaneously. I refused to press charges. I kept thinking that he was confused and had made a mistake. I thought that every time which,

  for an educated woman, was quite an accomplishment, then I went

  home and cried and told him I loved him and would do anything for

  him and sucked his cock and made dinner, then the next day I got a

  stomach virus and had terrible diarrhea and vomiting and when I

  asked him to drive me to the doctor he kicked me in the leg midway

  between the knee and ankle, the kick sent me flying across the room

  whereupon I hit my shoulder against the wall, he went back to sleep,

  and I shit in my pants. I lay there for a long time and when I did

  finally get up, I limped, dripping shit, into the sunset.

  I never did get revenge or anything like that, his new girlfriend

  moved in with him right away. I had provoked him she said which,

  for an educated woman, was quite an accomplishment, he got tearful whenever he saw me on the street and asked, bertha, why did you leave me. that is, until our day in court, on that day he beat me up,

  called me a whore, and told me that he always finished what he

  started.

  oh, I fucked around for a while after I left, in fact I was one big

  fuck around. I had that look men love, utterly used. I had that posture men lust after, flat on my back, also I was poor and usually hungry and fucking was the only way I knew to get a meal.

  I didnt actually decide to give up men until almost a year and a

  half later. I took a lot of acid and on those nights, or even on afternoons, looking into the void which was located precisely between my legs, I would simply shake and tremble, for 8 hours, or 12 hours, or

  however long the acid lasted, I would shake and tremble.

  I also had nightmares, somehow all the feelings I didnt feel when

  each thing had actually happened to me I did feel when I slept. I

  hated going to sleep because then I had to feel. I felt him hit me, and

  I felt what it felt like, and christ it felt awful. I would sleep, sometimes with my eyes open, and I would feel it all over, and most of it for the first time. I didnt understand how I had not felt it when it was

  happening, but I hadnt, I had felt something else. I had felt almost

  nothing, which was something else, when I was sleeping each thing

  would happen to me as it had happened and I would feel what I had

  not felt.

  then I began to feel it when I was awake.

  then I decided that though I might never feel better, I didnt want

  to feel worse, that was my decision to give up men.

  women were the next to go. now that may sound a little nutty since

  Im nuts about women, it all began when I was very young, 13 to be

  exact, and I had many an amorous night well into adulthood and

  even past it. sometimes when he beat me up I went to my next door

  neighbor who comforted me kindly with orgasm after orgasm but I

  couldnt stay there or think anything through because she was m arried to a man she hated and he was usually there, there didnt seem to be any rest or happiness anywhere in those troubled times.

  to tell the truth I gave up women after some very bitter sweet love

  affairs which got fucked up because I was still fucking men and was

  still very fucked up by men. I was, to tell the truth, one running, festering sore, and I didnt do anyone much good, a lot of women were good to me and I fucked them over time and time again because I

  couldnt seem to get anything straight, finally I figured that since I

  couldnt do anyone any good I might at least stop doing monumental

  harm.

  little boys were the last to go. 18, 19, 20. not prepubescent, certainly not. all long and gangly and awkward and ignorant, they never beat me up but they didnt stay hard long either, soon I came to

  appreciate that as some sort of good faith, finally though it hardly

  seemed worth the effort.

  now I was in what all those men writers call “an existential position. ” that, contrary to the lewd images that might be evoked because Im a woman, is when youve given up everything youve ever

  tried, or havent tried but definitely had planned on. in my case, being quite taken with the arts, that included having mustard rubbed into whip wounds (Henry Miller), fucking Norman Mailer (Norman

  Mailer), and being covered in chocolate and licked clean by a horde

  of Soho painters (me).

  now the problem with telling you what it means for me, bertha

  schneider, to be in an existential position is that I dont have Sartres

  credibility. I mean, theres just no emotional credibility that I can call

  on. look at Jackie Kennedy for instance, there she was, John dead,

  her very very rich, and she didnt have emotional credibility until she

  married Onassis. I mean, we all knew right away that she had done

  the only thing she could do. I mean, if De Beauvoir hadnt been Sartres mistress, do you think anyone would have believed her at all? or look at Oedipus as another example of emotional credibility, suppose he and his mother had fucked, and it had been terrific, and they had just kept
fucking and ruling the kingdom together, whod

  believe it, even if it was true, or look at Last Tango in Paris, when

  Maria Schneider shot Brando most people didnt believe it at all. how

  is it possible, they asked, why did she do that? me I believed it right

  away.

  so look at me. here I am, bertha schneider, someone not so special

  as these things go, right with my heels on the existential edge and my

  toes curling over the abyss, no men, no women, no boys, and what I

  want to tell you, though you wont believe it at all, is that its better

  here than its ever been before, bertha schneiders existential position

  is that shes not going to be fucked around anymore, now maybe that

  doesnt sound like much to all of you but I call it Day One. I figure

  that when my mind and body heal its my mother Im going to get it

  on with after all. I always did have a high regard for that woman

  although it did get obscured by the necessities of daily life, when I

  think of bliss, not to mention freedom, frankly its my ma and me

  alone somewhere kissing and hugging and sucking like God intended. and despite the obvious pressures I will not have second thoughts, or be unfaithful, or gouge my eyes out. thats my promise to

  posterity.

  as for my ex-husband, well I didnt have Marias good sense. Im

  told he suffered a lot when I left, oh I dont kid myself, it wasnt out of

  love or regard or anything like that, whatever he called it. it was

  more like when a limping person dripping shit leaves you, you figure

  youre in real trouble and even a Clint Eastwood fan has to notice. I

  mean, when the baseball tells the bat to fuck off, the games over and

  I for one am never going to forget it.

  for right now Im reading a book that says women can reproduce

  parthenogenetically. its a biology book so I have reason to hope for

  the best, frankly Im just going to curl up with that book in any existential position I can manage and concentrate on knocking myself up. I never did like that crap about the child being father to the

  man.

  how seasons pass

  there was a woman, she was a big woman and she was a sad

  woman, she had been in her life to the mountains and to the ocean,

  she had seen the sand, she did not go to the desert.

  she had never been sad before, she had felt everything else, she had

  been very smart all the years she was growing up. she had had big

  beautiful eyes, she had opened her legs a lot. she didnt remember

  much of all that.

  she had been very powerful, she had absorbed all the men she

  knew into her, one by one, two by two, then, as time passed, three by

  three and four by four, she remembered her husband, she

  remembered her first love, she remembered the first 4 men even

  when she forgot the rest.

  sometimes she would walk down the street, then she would see a

  face that remembered her. she walked faster then.

  when she was married she had a dog and a cat. she did not think

  much of people then, each day she thought less of people.

  her friends liked her a lot. they thought that she was strong, they

  were good to her. sometimes they touched her. sometimes they fed

  her. sometimes they put on a record, sometimes they walked

  with her.

  her friends gave her money, because she was poor, her friends

  always cared what happened to her. the more they cared, the less she

  let them know, the more they cared, the sadder she became.

  she never betrayed her friends, she never betrayed strangers, she

  had a code, she wanted to be good, she wanted to be strong, she

  wanted to feel everything all the time, and she wanted to feel so

  much all at once that she would die young, and never have to grow

  old and never have to live all those years, she wanted to pack everything into a short space of time, her first goal was 19. then she became 19, and she didnt die. it surprised her. nothing had ever surprised her like that.

  when she didnt die at 19 she became confused, so she got married,

  when she got married she wanted to live to be 80. that was her goal,

  so she dressed well then, and made a schedule, and fed her husband,

  and talked politely to his friends, and was faithful, and kept the

  house clean.

  soon she was in great pain, soon she was so lonely, soon she woke

  up, made the beds, cleaned the house, did the laundry, made the

  dinner, did the dishes, watched television, and went to sleep, soon he

  stopped coming home, and soon they stopped making love, and soon

  she knew she would live to be 80, and she didnt want that anymore.

  so she left her husband, and she was poor again, and this time she

  thought 33.

  she liked movies and books and music, it was harder to like

  people.

  she liked animals and she liked to talk to old people, she asked

  them where they had been and how they had lived, she asked them

  who they were and what had happened to them over the years.

  she was poor, and she went to the city, she remembered the mountains and the ocean and she remembered that she had never seen the desert.

  in the city there was great pain and suffering, in the city there were

  poor people and hungry people and angry people and brutal people,

  in the city she sat alone, in the city she was alone.

  everything changed, all day long she was alone, everything was different. all day long she was alone, everything changed, she was big and she was sad.

  now there were young boys, now they were young and soft and unsure. now they were children that she turned to, one by one, then two by two, and as the days passed, three by three and four by four.

  there was a special one. he was short, and he smiled, he had 2

  dogs, she didnt have any power anymore, she had given it all away,

  she didnt have any power and she wanted young boys.

  the special one lived near her. he hung out on the street, he liked

  the violence of the street, he was very young, he would feel it in the

  air and smile his smile and wait for it to happen, she liked him and

  she was afraid.

  he wanted her to come to him. he asked her many times, each time

  she smiled sadly, she had something to do. she was tired, in the heat

  of that summer she was dirty, her feet had blisters, her skin had

  boils, her sadness was in her like a lump blocking her throat hurting

  her breast choking inside her chest.

  each day she passed him on the street, each day he smiled and

  called to her. each day he asked her to come see him. each day she

  wanted him more and more, each day she sat alone and walked her

  dog and read from a book and listened to music, each day she was

  busy, each day they smiled at each other and he asked her to come to

  him and she said I will and she did not.

  then one day she did. she remembered the mountains and the

  ocean and the desert she had not seen and the power she had had.

  she went to him and he smiled at her and he was her lover and because she was sad she became more sad. and because he was young and soft and unsure she became more sad.

  they walked down the street sometimes, sometimes they were in his

  room, sometimes they took his 2 dogs and her 1 dog to the park.

  then the winter came and he was not very young anymore, she was

 
still sad and still he was her lover, sometimes they laughed together,

  she did not go to him anymore,

  when the spring came she left the city,

  she went to the mountains,

  she was alone there.

  when the summer came she let a young boy who lived in the mountains make love to her. her sadness returned again and worse, when the fall came she began to wait for the snows,

  when the snows came she took long walks.

  she had her dog, and a wood stove, and she loved the trees and the

  snow, she loved her solitude, and her sadness disappeared as the

  snow melted.

  when the spring came she wrote small fragile poems,

  when the summer came she went into the city,

  she was 27 now and the city was her mirror, she wore heavy boots

  and she smoked cigarettes as she walked down the streets and she

  gave quarters to the beggars, she drank tequila and four by four they

  were her lovers again,

  she was a famous writer by now.

  in the winter many people wanted to talk to her. in the winter

  many people took her to dinner, and touched her knee, and wanted

  her to know them.

  in the winter she was more and more on the streets, in the winter

  she fled from the people who wanted to take her to dinner, and touch

  her knee, and have her know them.

  in the spring she left the city, she went to the ocean, she walked on

  the sand, she walked up and down the oceans edge, over and over

  again, she did not remember what it felt like to be sad. she remembered very little,

  in the summer she wrote down everything she remembered,

  in the summer people crowded onto the sand and at the oceans

  edge so she went to the mountains,

  in the fall a famous actor made love to her.

  in the winter she forced him to leave, in the winter she called him

  terrible names and felt great rage and forced him to leave,

  then spring came and she went to the city.

  in the summer she was tired, in the summer she became weary into

  the marrow of her bones, in the summer she became so tired that her

  physical vision diminished and a darkness began to close in on her.