Empire of the Senseless. Кэти Акер

bathroom in town.

      When daddy wasn’t with me, he lived in a brothel. A sex-show was the brothel’s front. Since the sex show actors had only fake sex, this sex show’s legality acted a cover for the rest of the filth which went on.

      The desperate voyeurs who sought their sexual gratification in the masturbatory contemplation of a remote object of fantastic desire and an array of attendant secret fetishisms; the exploitation of sex for commercial and assorted equally venial reasons; the way in which patrons of this seedy burlesque house fell prey to its psychotically disturbed perverts; the degradation of the performers who not only put their flesh and minds on parade in the tradition of the Miss America beauty pageant but also were forced to watch this deterioration, this deterioration of themselves, so that they, like the other objects, were simply objects of scorn to the ‘fans’ … Their buyers … This sex show had nothing to do with pornographic voyeurism. None but the most callous of males was unconcerned enough to be voyeuristic. Most humans felt totally disgusted by and repudiated both what they saw, what they felt, and the whole system of values behind the sex show and the pornographic magazines and especially novels sold outside the ‘theatre’. In other words, the primal urge of sex had become a revolting phenomenon.

      Here language was degraded. As daddy plumbed and plummetted away from the institute of marriage more and more downward deeply into the demimonde of public fake sex, his speech turned from the usual neutral and acceptable journalese most normal humans use as a stylus mediocris into … His language went through an indoctrination of nothingness, for sexuality had no more value in his world, until his language no longer had sense. Lack of meaning appeared as linguistic degradation.

      This is what daddy said to me while he was fucking me: ‘Tradicional estilo de p … argentino. Q … es e. mas j … de t … los e … dentro d. la c … es m … indicado p … entablar g … amistades o t … tertulias a … es m … similar a. estilo t …: se c … la c … con l. palma de la m … y s. apoyan l … cinco d … se s … y s. baja l. mano, l … de e … manera y. el c … se h … hombre. origen e. profundamente r … y s. han h … interesantes t … en l … jeroglificos e … y m … Es e. mas r … para d … de l … comidas p … no c … la de …’ He had become a Puerto Rican.

      One night I dreamed my mother had a lover. She realized how powerful and addictive fucking is. Then I was free to be.

      I told my father my dream. Even though he despised her, he cared so much for me, he determined to find her a lover.

      He picked up a young anarchist. Since this slut had problems with vermin, fleas and crabs, the slut needed money to delouse himself so he could be a successful slut. He was too poor to buy any medicine. The parasites were so numerous at night he often dreamed that he was attacking a young girl. His right hand became a claw and tore at her face. Worms reared out of the skinned female visage. The anarchist, waking, wanted only to stick razors into himself. My father explained to the boy that it’ld give his wife only pleasure to take a lover.

      The anarchist agreed to fuck my mother.

      My mother, being weak, was so desperate to talk to anyone she let the anarchist fuck her. Then she became a nymphomaniac. My mother took one drink and fucked everyone in sight.

      One account of the degeneration of language. Slut.

      My father went to Greece. One night he was sitting on his yacht off the coast of the island of Ithaca, from where Ulysses had set off on his own to find out the truth. At night the water, the sky and the few buildings of the nearest town were many different colors of black. There was only black. My father saw a shadow on the other side of his yacht, took out his pistol, and shot. The shadow fell, dead, down to the deck. In the law court, my father declared that he hadn’t recognized the young man who he had killed.

      The blood lying over the waters was light. The fishing boats stank.

      Pleasure gathered only in freedom. According to the law court, my father had murdered. My mother and I were unable to do anything. We wrote letters, pleading daddy was insane. Mommy thought he was insane. I was so scared I came from an insane family, I stopped writing. I had to. Insanity, in my blood, was poisoning me. I was going to spend my adult life screaming to the moon.

      The family wealth succeeded in getting daddy six months in the looney bin on a lunacy charge. Then daddy, desperate to find out what had happened to me, escaped from the madhouse.

      He wandered through streets he didn’t know, looking for a cab. Six youths who were armed stopped him and looked through his body for money. Daddy grabbed one of their knives and got three of them before the others stuck it into him. They left him without money and bleeding over the sidewalk.

      Desperate, daddy began to pray. But he had no one to whom to pray. Meanwhile my mother had killed herself cause, though she hated daddy, she was unable to live without him. Once his restraining hand had been gone, she had blown all her money. She faced poverty and took sleeping pills instead.

      I saw my mother’s dead body in the morgue on Christmas Day. It was the first dead body I had ever seen. The two cops there were anxious to return home to their warm Christmas meals. They told me to identify her.

      I wanted to kill myself just as my mother had killed herself. This is my madness.

      Meanwhile daddy realized all he had done, all he had destroyed through lust. He began to cry. Two tears ran down his cheeks. He raced to his only possession, his yacht, which moved, and moved off. Into the bloody sea. No one’s ever seen him again. I don’t know what happened to daddy. I decided to keep on living rather than kill myself.

II Raise Us From The Dead

       (Thivai speaks)

       Male

      As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a pirate. As long as I can remember, I have wanted to sail the navy seas. As long as I can remember wanting, I have wanted to slaughter other humans and to watch the emerging of their blood.

      Insofar as I know myself I don’t know either the origin nor the cause of my wants.

      It was a dark night for pirates.

      Winter had approached all of us on the ship. One night whose beginning was death, three pirates squatting on the deck just like fat cunts or pigs held a consultation which lingered, like death, without becoming anything else. For one human they had taken during their last battle remained bound and gagged near the bowsprit. Their discussion became more confused, then too confused, at least for the victim who could still hear; the pirates had become increasingly drunk. A fat slob waddled over to the victim who was a child and raped her again.

      She didn’t struggle as the other two did the same.

      ‘Afterwards I’d like to do it to you,’ the first pirate turned to the second pirate.

      ‘No. I’m younger than you so it’s possible for me to have a child. I don’t want one. Just cause it’s safe for you …’

      ‘Not if I do it in your asshole. In your asshole you’re safe.’

      ‘Just stop what you’re doing. Above all I don’t want to be pregnant!’

      ‘You don’t believe me. You don’t trust …’

      ‘No.’ The second one explained: ‘Why should I trust you? You tell me why I should trust you. You tell me why I should trust you who can’t get pregnant not to make me pregnant.’

      The third pirate came in his pants. A round stain showed.

      ‘Don’t you believe I can fuck you and not make babies?’

      Used to protecting his virginity like a girl, the youngest of the pirates capitulated. ‘If you let me alone I’ll let you do it tonight. But you’ve got to promise you won’t tell anyone.’

      Fatty