CHAPTER VII
THE ART OF PAIN: In happier times (did we ever have happier times?) Scop and I visit the museum together. Hand in hand we stroll by the exhibits in the outer hall, the animate and inanimate image of our past; the energized torso of Kennedy particularly compelling as we stand before it for a while, listening to him recite certain highlights of his career and collected speeches. The hall is deserted of course, it is always deserted, very few people in the sector we occupy have any interest whatsoever in the past and specialists have their separate facilities in the museum, little carels in which they exhibit the minutae and miniaturizations of the Golden Era, seeking esoterica which such as we can never understand. Scop is affectionate, memories of death and disaster seem to bring us closer together, open up a warmth in him previously unsuspected and as we stand before the film exhibit of the events at Dealey Plaza he leans against me, rubs his thumb in my palm, mutters little private obscenities into my ear which in less stricken circumstances might cause me to feel a sexual longing . . . but of course I cannot, unlike Scop I am made quite solemn by recollections of these terrible events. In fact if it were not for his immoderate obsession I would never come here.
The clips are old and somewhat strained but even through the cracks in the filter, the poor and wavering quality of the projector, the horror of the assassination comes through quite clearly. In black and white, in color, in reverse and in freeze-frame Kennedy dies over and again, the first bullet a fly bite at the side of the neck causing him to absently swat it away, the second the enormous reflexive sneeze that blows half his brain and all of his life away while his fingers absently pinch the spot of first entrance as if by holding that together he could deny the terrific impact. Without sound the films acquire a power which they could not possibly have had in the real, Dealey Plaza—I have been there by now many times—cannot compare at all with the representation of it caught in Zapruder’s fix. The miracle of art is that it can transform the hurried and aimless, give it a sense of purpose which it could not possibly have had without the framing of the artist . . . and Zapruder, for all of his limitations, is nothing if he is not an artist. Scop stands in the booth, pressing the buttons, running the scene of impact over and over while little lines of concentration appear and disappear around his eyes, his mouth pursed to solemn attention. I know that if he were to put out my hand to verify I would find him with an erection. I have found him so at other times. But even though he would enjoy this, even though—I am sure—every cell of his body leans toward, claims that shocking touch with which I would grasp and unload him, I stand perfectly still, do nothing whatsoever. There would be an impropriety about this which even in our bleak and painful age I could not possibly tolerate. There are limits to all human conduct. Not only that but seeing the films is exceedingly depressing; it reminds me of the rot of human life, the mortality of kings. “God,” Scop says. He is deeply moved. “God, that’s something.” He turns off the projector. In the dense spaces of the booth I become aware of an over-whelming putrescence which the odors of the projector had only masked. “Something’s got to be done about that,” he says, “that’s all there is to it.” In his voice I hear a determination that, perhaps, I have never sensed before.
“What are you talking about?”
“That,” he says. He must gesture but of course it is too dark to see. “This slaughter. We cannot exist in a world predicated upon slaughter.”
“I do not know what you mean.” There is no dissemblance in my tone. At the time to which I am referring I had no conception of his obsessive search for a “different” past; it was only much later that I became aware of the specific dimensions of his lunacy. At this time I was quite young, quite naive and emotionally involved with him in a way which could not continue but at the time seemed all-encompassing. “Please let’s go. It smells here.”
“It’s all clear to me now,” he says, “why did I never understand this before?” He reaches out, flicks on the projector once again: here is Zapruder frames 345etseq . stop action at the moment of the second impact. The film has been thoughtfully spliced to always start there; the custodians are quite aware of what the few onlookers who come here want to see. (The Games are much better on all counts.) “That’s where it went wrong.”
Dimly I sense the outlines of his purpose. “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “It all happened a long time ago. Maybe it never really happened at all.”
“Oh, it happened all right.” He is transfixed by the film, stops it, runs it through again. “It is the central fact of our history.”
“But how can we besure? Maybe it’s all a myth. Maybe it’s something that they made up, that they gave films and talks about just as a fantasy. Well,” I say aggressively as he turns on me in the darkness his eyes wide, I know, with astonishment or maybe then again it is rage. “This is possible.”
“That’s ridiculous. Scholars and writers have been back through the converter any number of times; this has all been precisely verified—”
“But how can you be sure? Can you be sure of any of this? Maybe it’s a lie, all of it is a lie; I mean it could be a compact to deceive.” I am floundering and yet I cannot accept the films without protest. Is this not better for all? Should I have let him go on without argument, would it all have been easier if he had not felt that he had to prove something to me as well as to himself? I will never know. Now, I will never know. “Never mind,” I say, “forget it.”
His grasp is harsh on my upper arm. I never knew that those fingers which had brushed me so delicately, a witch’s kiss in the places where the soul lies embalmed could bring such pain. “Then why do you say it? Why do you say something like that?”
“I was only trying—”
“You bitch,” he says against my ear, “you bitch, you won’t ever leave me alone, will you? You won’t ever accept the truth of this, the truth of what is going on, you’ve got to protest—”
“Please,” I say, “please, you’re hurting me,” and this is true, he is hurting me terribly, he is hurting me in a way which cannot be described but his hand is tight and tightening upon me and suddenly he yanks me free of the booth, we are out in the dusty and musty, the nearly lightless but still dimly illuminated area of the museum himself and he is dragging me through the exhibits, dragging me past them while he is saying, “You’ve got to face the truth, you can’t go back, can’t go back into lies, we are what we are because of whatthey have been,” and I can say nothing, the pain is terrific, also the realization that he can do this to me, me who he says that he has loved who, in a sense has been closer (he told me this) to him than anyone he has ever known. We stand before a monstrous diorama, the younger Kennedy in the act of receiving the shot in the pantry that killed him, one hand raised, the other down, the head exploding in the impact, the bodies around him in those strange postures of attention which can be captured only in frieze, trapped movement is grotesque and he puts a hand in my back, pushes, sends me lunging through the serim and I am literally in the pantry, the dead air coursing through my open mouth, the dead forms surrounding me and closer to the plasticine than I am meant to be I can see all of the tiny flaws driven into their faces, the cracked and broken places where the dead spaces of wire and putrefecation begin. These figurines have not been treated for fifteen years, they stink but even though they are more dead in proximity they are more alive as well; the immobilized eyes retain the aspect of recognition, the cardboard appendages seem shaped for caress and as I look at Robert Kennedy, it is as if I am transported to the pantry itself, this is not twenty-forty but the nineteen-seventies which overtake and here I am andthenextshotisforme . The assassin’s gun is levelled, he has killed the Senator andIamnext and I do not want to die, not in this place, not in this fashion, I must be screaming, sunk to my knees, my forehead against the waist of the dummy, curiously resilient and ponderous under the cheap fabrics. I cannot believe that this is happening; I do not want to die and it must be then that my screams begin although there is very little conscious sensation and the screams might come from outside. I am dragged away from there, the scene diminishing as something takes me from the diorama and onto the floor of the museum and when I come back to myself I am on the floor, Scop leaning over me. His face is implacable.
“Do you see?” he says.
I say nothing. There is nothing to say. I cannot control my voice, little broken sounds emerge which may or may not come from me. They may emerge from the diorama. They may even have come from Scop.
“Listen to me,” he says. He puts his hands on my cheeks, cups them, brings my head slightly off the floor so that he is looking at me at close range, the same small spots of ruination around his eyes as I saw in the Kennedy figure. Are they all artificial? “Do you see now what I was trying to tell you?”
“See what?”
“You fool,” he says staring at me, “you fool, try to understand, damn it,” and now he leans in even more closely, the conjunction of our faces is absolute, as absolute as in the motions of intercourse itself but there is something other than desire in his eyes, something even more necessitious. “You thought you were going to be killed,” he said, “the diorama came alive for you, the figures were real, you felt your death in their assemblage, you damned fool,” he says, “you damned fool don’t you see now that that’s exactly the way I feel living in this time? They are killing us? They have already killed us.Wearethevictims .”
And it falls away (so many things fall away but then again there is the lurching sense of recovery also) and I see weeping on the floor the message that he has tried to bring to me: that there is an art to pain.