I was promised a girl

 

held her glossy image, shatterable,

 

ice skating on a Soviet pond.

 

I’d never seen snow

 

but for the cut out paper flakes

 

hung in school hallways.

 

I only knew rain

 

as intermittent confusion.

 

Los Angeles in the ‘80s.

 

We set fire to hairspray

 

for fun we wrote half-truths

 

in our padlocked journals,

 

we collected the phone numbers

 

of grown men we collected

 

the gratification of grown men

 

to trade for money,

 

we were adolescent!

 

There was never enough

 

money and there were never

 

any quiet moments on a pond

 

there was never any pond only

 

swimming pools into whose

 

water I was not invited.

 

I couldn’t withstand the excess,

 

spent any money on bus fare

 

and lipstick and then,

 

then V showed up

 

on a plane from the Soviet Union

 

and was a boy, they told me

 

there was a mistake,

 

this beautiful 15 year old boy

 

with his family

 

all arranged to stay with us.

 

 

+

 

 

When I was 10

 

there was a presidential primary

 

and I ate lunch at a table

 

by the stacks

 

and told the librarian

 

I would vote for Alan Cranston

 

mostly because he reminded me

 

of a doctor I saw

 

before we came to California,

 

an old white man,

 

gentle, gentile. My childhood

 

was littered

 

with white men, mostly Jewish,

 

the way the state park

 

was littered with chaparral

 

and cigarette butts,

 

so my childhood

 

was not spent wondering

 

if Jews are white,

 

there are white people

 

and there are Jews

 

but white Jews are white,

 

I would have said

 

if anyone had asked me

 

and anyway

 

my Jewish men

 

were rarely gentle.

 

His whole career,

 

Alan Cranston

 

advocated for the abolition

 

of nuclear weapons. The next year

 

Sting wrote a song

 

about mutual assured destruction

 

and so we all wondered

 

if Russians loved their children

 

too but at that point

 

I’d begun to wonder

 

about Americans

 

and gentleness

 

and who loved me

 

and I stopped

 

going to the library

 

and by the time I watched Sting

 

perform his song

 

on our black-and-white television

 

I’d started trading

 

tit feels for vodka

 

and stopped worrying

 

about Russians for a bit

 

and I don’t think I thought

 

about Alan Cranston

 

again

 

until he died.

 

I wanted it all

 

to just stop but instead

 

I got tipsy

 

and learned capitalism,

 

learned

 

what a white female body

 

is worth

 

in liquid ounces.

 

 

+

 

 

When V and his family

found their own apartment 

 

his mother didn’t

 

want to unpack

 

the Judaica so we stuck it

 

under her bed.

 

We found some

 

of his mother’s turquoise jewelry

 

and V wore it

 

at school, luminous

 

in the hair band ‘80s when

 

men could wear jewelry

 

and be pretty

 

but let’s remind ourselves

 

that these pretty men

 

found my friends and me

 

up and down

 

Sunset and statutory

 

raped us in ways we felt

 

so good about until we didn’t.

 

I skipped school

 

and V fingered me

 

on his mom’s bed

 

like he wanted to comprehend

 

every part

 

and I was

 

not expecting to get off

 

anyway and later

 

we hid in the closet

 

when his mom came home

 

after looking for work

 

and we watched her

 

through the crack

 

of the door change

 

into something fancier,

 

watched her heft

 

her breasts

 

into her bra,

 

place her shoulder pads

 

in her blouse,

 

fix her makeup.

 

Awkward

 

and something

 

more than horny,

 

we watched 

 

for womanhood.

 

 

+

 

 

In breaking news,

 

a Jewish candidate

 

is almost preferred to a shiksa

 

but the other white man

 

wins anyway

 

and of course.

 

In broken news, Jewish men

 

keep lecturing me about it

 

but give me points for sitting here.

 

If you were me

 

would you dramatically cover your ears?

 

I should be noticed

 

for some reason.

 

I listen to the table talk Russia,

 

talk white men, talk Jews

 

of history destroyed by blood

 

libel laws wherein it’s said

 

we drink Christian blood.

 

I mean, I do that,

 

if you get what I’m saying.

 

Still,

 

I haven’t turned a trick

 

for years. Let me be

 

clear, let me be more clear

 

than I was the last time

 

I wrote about this:

 

my Mexican friend K

 

was busted for walking

 

a street corner

 

she and I walked together

 

but only she

 

was flung in a jail cell

 

with less care than how

 

earlier we’d flung cans

 

over a fence to kill time

 

and then I was gently instructed

 

by a white officer to fly out

 

the side of the station

 

before being charged

 

with anything.

 

What was handed to me

 

but my whiteness

 

and my mouth, but that is why

 

I’m here, that is why

 

you see me at all, I seem

 

to need to remind everyone.

 

A man around this round table

 

in this library

 

sits wide-legged in his chair

 

and talks at me for 30 minutes

 

about Nazis

 

and oh wow, really?

 

Nazis, you say?

 

Never heard of it.

 

Never not until you told me.

 

 

+

 

 

 

“We Are the World”

 

won the Grammy for everything

 

in 1986 as we all knew it would

 

and it did

 

and Sting won nothing but did

 

perform “Russians” both patriotic

 

and subversive, which was a thing

 

in the 80s and anyway

 

almost all the nominees

 

in the top categories

 

were white men

 

and I didn’t question it but

 

I’m sure

 

somebody somewhere did

 

in some archived page

 

in the coldest room

 

in the library written well

 

before I showed up.

 

My mistake has always been

 

in thinking I’m the center.

 

I thought I was pregnant,

 

which happened

 

about once a month

 

but this time

 

I really wondered

 

and I stood outside Thrifty’s

 

while V bought me a pregnancy test

 

and I was 12

 

and not pregnant

 

and the woman at Thrifty’s

 

thought V was a girl

 

and he was happy

 

but when I asked him

 

if he wanted me

 

to think he was a girl

 

he said shut up

 

and when I told him no

 

one wants to be treated like a girl

 

he said screw you

 

as if he’d been waiting months

 

to say that. I let him

 

fondle my breasts

 

in an empty stairwell

 

after I’d peed on the plastic test stick

 

and we watched the spill

 

of yellow downwards.

 

I’m not kidding when I tell you

 

“We Are the World” blasted

 

from at least two cars

 

circling the levels.

 

 

+

 

 

Blue eye shadow was big mid-decade

 

with me and also V’s mom.

 

Time was,

 

you could put a dollar price tag

 

on a six dollar cosmetic

 

and the cashier wouldn’t notice.

 

I tried all the colors.

 

Everything was an option.

 

Oh how I wanted things in the 80s!

 

Beaten down denim.

 

Sleeves of rubber bracelets.

 

The used blue eye shadow

 

slipped into my pocket

 

while V’s mom looked

 

through the paper for work.

 

I believed capitalism

 

could save my life. My peacock eyes

 

I thought could deliver assimilation.

 

 

+

 

 

In 1939, Hitler’s publisher sued

 

Alan Cranston for publishing

 

an English translation

 

of Mein Kampf without erasing

 

the antisemitism.

 

You should know.

 

I grew up being told everyone hated us

 

but I saw no evidence of that

 

in Los Angeles,

 

only us hating ourselves.

 

We all believed the stereotypes.

 

V and I sat

 

outside a Purim carnival

 

smoking thin cigarettes

 

riffing on the danger

 

we'd put ourselves in.

 

I wanted everyone to stop

 

howling about how

 

much I'd survived

 

and I still want this.

 

I let V start to stub out

 

the dig-end on my forearm.

 

I don't know who I am,

 

he said.

 

V threw a bean bag at a target

 

and accepted a goldfish.

 

I'm telling you this

 

because V named the fish Hitler,

 

though he told his mother

 

he’d named it Spot.

 

Even he’d become that comfortable.

 

 

+

 

 

In daily news,

 

I am full of vengeance

 

because I was born

 

with the Old Testament

 

in my veins. The curator

 

for Jewish texts couldn’t look me

 

dead on because maybe

 

I talked about my pussy

 

too many times

 

in my presentation

 

at the flagship library

 

where I am being paid

 

to write about Jews.

 

I said why don’t we stop

 

pretending modern Judaism

 

gives a nod to women

 

when on the wall of the last shul

 

I stepped into

 

that called itself feminist

 

a sign carved into the stone read

 

“Have We Not All One Father?”

 

and unless you take a chisel to it

 

I am done.

 

In 1988, I told V I was nothing

 

if not Jewish

 

and I knew I meant it

 

and I know I mean it now.

 

 

+

 

 

V began to scorn me,

 

my form, my city. A wall

 

came down

 

and Americans felt so superior,

 

dangerous. Caustic

 

rays shone and shone

 

onto Fairfax Avenue

 

where I stood in my dayglo

 

bikini top

 

asking for money.

 

I was happy in my old life, V said.

 

We sat outside

 

CBS studios and smoked a joint

 

I’d seduced a stranger

 

into handing over

 

and V and I walked

 

to the shul

 

on Olympic for a basement

 

reception for Soviet Jews

 

where the women wore boots

 

studded in rhinestones

 

that outshone what had once

 

been fancy place settings

 

and everyone

 

was really very proud

 

of themselves

 

and Jews and America

 

and I felt stoned

 

and cocky and breathlessly

 

I marveled,

 

We are living through history!

 

and V said,

 

I never want to see you again.

 

 

+

 

 

Because,

 

in the end,

 

the flora of Los Angeles

 

will make you gasp

 

every few steps

 

because it’s outlandish

 

and sharp

 

and you always forget

 

how beautiful

 

the way you forget

 

the intensity of pain

 

because it’s all unbearable,

 

like the sun

 

of Southern California

 

which burned and still burns

 

our white skin quick

 

as white Jews are white

 

but with an asterisk because Nazis

 

march against us

 

and Russians plot a takeover

 

while politicians look away.

 

Alan Cranston was publicly

 

reprimanded

 

in 1991 for something

 

to do with money.

 

Have I touched enough

 

on money here?

 

It’s all that any of this was ever about,

 

though

 

it’s always about power

 

my colleagues will correct me,

 

as ever,

 

to sum up. 

 

 

+

 

 

When I ran into V

 

the last time on a street corner

 

in 1990, surrounded

 

by the glorious excess

 

we scarred ourselves

 

trying to burn down

 

we kind of laughed

 

about all of it and he said

 

just two ladies of the night!

 

because V was always proud

 

to use an idiom.

 

The air smelled of eucalyptus

 

and spice

 

from a Mexican market

 

with its doors thrown open

 

into the pleasure of the plashing air

 

in whatever season that was

 

and V touched my arm gently

 

and told me about how at night

 

back home in winter

 

it was so gravely hushed

 

that your every

 

insufficient exhalation

 

could actually matter

 

the world around you.