Herbert White

 "When I hit her on the head, it was good,

and then I did it to her a couple of times,--
but it was funny,--afterwards,
it was as if somebody else did it .
.
.


Everything flat, without sharpness, richness or line.


Still, I liked to drive past the woods where she lay,
tell the old lady and the kids I had to take a piss,
hop out and do it to her .
.
.


The whole buggy of them waiting for me
 made me feel good;
but still, just like I knew all along,
 she didn't move.


When the body got too discomposed,
I'd just jack off, letting it fall on her .
.
.


--It sounds crazy, but I tell you
sometimes it was beautiful--; I don't know how
to say it, but for a miute, everything was possible--;
and then,
then,--
 well, like I said, she didn't move: and I saw,
under me, a little girl was just lying there in the mud:

and I knew I couldn't have done that,--
somebody else had to have done that,--
standing above her there,
 in those ordinary, shitty leaves .
.
.


--One time, I went to see Dad in a motel where he was
staying with a woman; but she was gone;
you could smell the wine in the air; and he started,
real embarrassing, to cry .
.
.

 He was still a little drunk,
and asked me to forgive him for
all he hasn't done--; but, What the shit?
Who would have wanted to stay with Mom? with bastards
not even his own kids?

 I got in the truck, and started to drive
and saw a little girl--
who I picked up, hit on the head, and
screwed, and screwed, and screwed, and screwed, then

buried,
 in the garden of the motel .
.
.


--You see, ever since I was a kid I wanted
to feel things make sense: I remember

looking out the window of my room back home,--
and being almost suffocated by the asphalt;
and grass; and trees; and glass;
just there, just there, doing nothing!
not saying anything! filling me up--
but also being a wall; dead, and stopping me;
--how I wanted to see beneath it, cut

beneath it, and make it
somehow, come alive .
.
.


 The salt of the earth;
Mom once said, 'Man's spunk is the salt of the earth .
.
.
'

--That night, at that Twenty-nine Palms Motel
I had passed a million times on the road, everything

fit together; was alright;
it seemed like
 everything had to be there, like I had spent years
trying, and at last finally finished drawing this
 huge circle .
.
.


--But then, suddenly I knew
somebody else did it, some bastard
had hurt a little girl--; the motel
 I could see again, it had been
itself all the time, a lousy
pile of bricks, plaster, that didn't seem to
have to be there,--but was, just by chance .
.
.


--Once, on the farm, when I was a kid,
I was screwing a goat; and the rope around his neck
when he tried to get away
pulled tight;--and just when I came,
he died .
.
.

 I came back the next day; jacked off over his body;
but it didn't do any good .
.
.


Mom once said:
'Man's spunk is the salt of the earth, and grows kids.
'

I tried so hard to come; more pain than anything else;
but didn't do any good .
.
.


--About six months ago, I heard Dad remarried,
so I drove over to Connecticut to see him and see
if he was happy.

 She was twenty-five years younger than him:
she had lots of little kids, and I don't know why,
I felt shaky .
.
.


 I stopped in front of the address; and
snuck up to the window to look in .
.
.

 --There he was, a kid
six months old on his lap, laughing
and bouncing the kid, happy in his old age
to play the papa after years of sleeping around,--
it twisted me up .
.
.

 To think that what he wouldn't give me,
 he wanted to give them .
.
.


 I could have killed the bastard .
.
.


--Naturally, I just got right back in the car,
and believe me, was determined, determined,
to head straight for home .
.
.


 but the more I drove,
I kept thinking about getting a girl,
and the more I thought I shouldn't do it,
the more I had to--

 I saw her coming out of the movies,
saw she was alone, and
kept circling the blocks as she walked along them,
saying, 'You're going to leave her alone.
'
'You're going to leave her alone.
'

 --The woods were scary!
As the seasons changed, and you saw more and more
of the skull show through, the nights became clearer,
and the buds,--erect, like nipples .
.
.


--But then, one night,
nothing worked .
.
.

 Nothing in the sky
would blur like I wanted it to;
and I couldn't, couldn't,
get it to seem to me
that somebody else did it .
.
.


I tried, and tried, but there was just me there,
and her, and the sharp trees
saying, "That's you standing there.

 You're .
.
.

 just you.
'

 I hope I fry.


--Hell came when I saw
 MYSELF .
.
.

 and couldn't stand
what I see .
.
.
"

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