The Faculty of Dreams

by Sara Stridsberg

  ANDY (laughs): I’m not that political.

  VALERIE: You are political, you just don’t know it. Besides, the auxiliary – and this applies to the auxiliary’s leader as well – has a full and clear agenda to follow. An agenda that’s exhaustive and explicit and can be implemented with no further interpretation. We’re talking about putting it into effect, Andy. The job requires neither talent nor political conviction. It requires energy and the ability to obey orders, not brains.

  ANDY: I’m flattered, Valerie.

  VALERIE: And what do you say? I haven’t decided yet. There are other candidates, but your prospects look good, Andy.

  ANDY: Tell me about the auxiliary, Valerie. Is it open to all men?

  VALERIE: No, definitely not. A select few.

  ANDY: Look into the camera when you speak.

  VALERIE: Here are a few examples of the men in S.C.U.M.’s Men’s Auxiliary. Men who kill men. Biological scientists who are working on constructive programs, as opposed to biological warfare. Journalists, writers, editors, publishers and producers who disseminate and promote ideas that will lead to the achievement of S.C.U.M.’s goals. Faggots – this is where you come in, dear Andy – who, by their glittering, glowing example, encourage other men to de-man themselves and thereby make themselves relatively inoffensive. Men who consistently give things away – money, things, services. Men who tell it like it is. So far no-one ever has.

  ANDY (laughs): It sounds fantastic.

  VALERIE: It is fantastic. Nice, clean-living women will be invited to the sessions to help clarify any doubts and misunderstandings they may have about the male sex. Some other examples of the men in S.C.U.M.’s Men’s Auxiliary are makers and promoters of sex books and movies, etc., who are hastening the day when all that will be shown on the screen will be Suck and Fuck. Males, like the rats following the Pied Piper, will be lured by Pussy to their doom. They will be overcome and submerged and will eventually drown in the passive flesh that they are . . . And that’s also where you come in, Andy, with your voyeuristic sex films—

  ANDY: —Wait, Valerie, I just need to change the film . . . (shouts into the light) . . . Morrissey! We need more film. Valerie’s talking about the auxiliary.

  VALERIE: Being in the Men’s Auxiliary is an essential condition for getting onto S.C.U.M.’s exemption list, but isn’t sufficient. It’s not enough to do good; in order to save their worthless asses men must also avoid evil—

  ANDY: —Stop, Valerie. We need more film.

  (Viva Ronaldo and Morrissey appear.)

  VALERIE: Do you have anything to drink, Morris? And maybe a sandwich. Just a small chicken sandwich and something to drink, anything at all.

  ANDY: Viva. We need sandwiches and drinks.

  VALERIE: Right, Viva. Sandwiches and drinks. Quickly.

  (Viva Ronaldo hurries away. Morrissey fumbles with the film.)

  MORRISSEY: It’ll just take a second.

  VALERIE: Do you need help, Morris?

  MORRISSEY: It’ll work now.

  ANDY: Thanks . . . (to you) . . . We were on something to do with the auxiliary. Just carry on talking and a drink and sandwich will arrive.

  VALERIE: You’re fortunate to get a place in the auxiliary. Possibly as leader, if you’re lucky. We’ll have to see how it turns out, your chances look good . . . Some examples of the most obnoxious or harmful male types are: rapists, politicians and all who are in their service. Campaigners and members of political parties. Lousy singers and musicians. Chairmen of boards. Breadwinners. Landlords. Owners of greasy spoons and restaurants that play Muzak. “Great Artists”. Cheap pikers and welshers. Cops. Tycoons. Scientists working on death and destruction programs or for private industry. Practically all scientists. Liars and phonies. Disc jockeys. Men who intrude in the slightest way on any female they don’t know. Real-estate men. Stockbrokers. Men who speak when they have nothing to say. Men who stand around idly on the street and mar the landscape with their presence. Double dealers. Flimflam artists. Litterbugs. Plagiarizers. Men who harm any female in the least bit. All men in the advertising industry. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Dishonest writers. Journalists. Editors. Publishers. Censors in both public and private sphere. All members of the armed forces, including the brains behind them.

  ANDY: And women?

  VALERIE: All women have a lousy streak in them, to a greater or lesser degree, but it stems from a lifetime of living among men. Eliminate men and women will shape up. Women are improvable; men are not, although their behavior is. When S.C.U.M. comes after their asses, they’ll shape up fast.

  ANDY: And rape?

  VALERIE: I think we should take a break now. I’m hungry and your assistants don’t seem to be very good at making sandwiches.

  ANDY: Just say something about rape.

  VALERIE: I hate rape. Rape is a totally male quality.

  ANDY: And the imperative to kill, should we interpret that as serious or ironic?

  VALERIE: Gorily serious. A woman knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others and that the meaning of life is love . . . A hundred thousand murdered women and utopias float ashore. Now we’ll take a break and have some chicken sandwiches and booze. We have a lot to celebrate. Your potential appointment, for example, and future position as leader of the auxiliary, maybe. Think about that while you go and fetch the champagne.

  ANDY: Just one more question—

  VALERIE: —A woman knows instinctively the only wrong is to hurt others and that the meaning of life is love.

  Movie Star 1968

  And then you are the film star Valerie Solanas in “I, a Man”, in which you have made up all your own lines. Andy is very pleased with the result, you are exceptionally pleased with the result and Maurice Girodias comes to the Factory to watch the film. You sit in the cool, dark room with the fans and the striking black-and-white sequences, the soporific sound from the film projector, Maurice’s discreet cigarette glow, and it is very easy to learn to love the smell of new film strips.

  *

  Andy never sits still during the screenings; the wig moves round the room and his associates shift respectfully like a nervous cloud around him. But you are the star now. Andy is impressed by your improvised lines, how easily you improvised in front of the camera. Andy, do you want to hear the line again? Gladly, Valerie. My instincts tell me to dig chicks – why should my standards be lower than yours? You’re a genius, Valerie. I know, Wiggy. Have you read my play yet? Not yet, Valerie. Soon, Valerie.

  *

  When you leave the room in search of champagne and sandwiches, they talk about you, and you stand behind a skin-colored curtain and eavesdrop. Everything is going your way now. New York, the Factory and Maurice Girodias are the answer to all your problems. The weather is fine, prospects are good, and soon you will have time to write that novel Olympia Press has given you money for. And Tropic of Cancer and Lolita and all the other shit books they publish will disappear from history without a trace.

  ANDY: How’s it going with Olympia?

  MAURICE: Olympia’s very successful at the moment. We’re expanding. We’re about to publish Henry Miller. Where did Valerie get to?

  ANDY: She’s out there somewhere.

  MAURICE: Shall we wait for her?

  ANDY: She’s looking for something to eat. She’s always hungry. Are you switching it on now, Viva?

  MAURICE: Have you read her play?

  ANDY: Not yet.

  MAURICE: Her use of words is fabulous.

  ANDY: Who knows, we might decide to produce it.

  The Parasites

  A. Black sun, black snow, black despair. Literary parasites, postmodern parasites. Take everything from me. Do it. That is what I want.

  B. A handbag full of dollar bills. A woman in a leopard-skin dress, dark men in dark plastic suits, black snowscapes. They really want to have you. Talk dirty, talk sweet. Money is all worth the same and has no value.

  C. The sky was made of nothing that night.
The stars were made of greaseproof paper. The porch seat creaked and squeaked. It was a straight story, a straight world. It was a heterosexual neurosis, there is no other way to describe it. You have to learn when you ought to leave. You have to learn to say no.

  D. There were only authentic American boys. Toy presidents. Roosevelt. Truman. Eisenhower. John F, Lyndon B, Nixon. Ford. Carter. Everything is made up. Miss World. Miss Universe.

  E. The American whore and the American women’s movement. Reagan’s spokeswoman, Faith Whittlesey, confused different types of material in her accounts of various contemporary phenomena. She described the twentieth century as one collective longing for hand-knitted underwear. There was Black Monday. The causes were sought in Wall Street and an old Hollywood film from 1947. Ronald Reagan drifted slowly into a garden of oblivion.

  F. A white fake fur, white tights, always a dress slightly too short. She had her dead flowers and the sunny porch. She had her constant hopes and defeats. All married women are prostitutes. Hey wait, Mister!

  G. Because the child wished for a film projector, the mother was convinced she had produced a little artist. She knocked on doors in the neighborhood with assorted flower arrangements in jam jars wrapped in pretty paper, she read comic books to him in her incomprehensible English and every time he finished a page of his coloring book, she rewarded him with a sweet. This created a lifelong passion for painting and chocolate and for himself. He regarded his surroundings as giant coloring books and all other people as clones of his mother.

  H. The whole sky was purple that night. Violet. There was a taste of plastic. I held my hands in front of my face. I am the only one here without a soul. It was a high-class concentration camp. God was not there. No-one was there.

  I. Metaphor. The rhetoric of sexual politics. Serious error. NOW had its roots in the American middle class and in the dreadfully boring decade that is referred to as the ’50s.

  J. An unfortunate metaphor. How would you like to describe that bird?

  K. Metaphysical cannibalism. Predator of nature. Black birds hurtling down. A temporary deformation of the body for the sake of art. The parasitic fetus. Pathological condition. Mass neurosis. Happy housewife. Happy whore. A beautiful child.

  L. August 26, 1970. Thousands of women march along Fifth Avenue. They are burning their underwear, kissing one another and holding hands. What is on the agenda? Is there actually anything on the agenda?

  M. Lunch meeting in the White House. Carter. Reagan. Friedan. The nation’s military and economic plunder. Rape. Vampires. Dracula. Andy Warhol sucking blood out of people. The personal is very individual. Make-up. Beauty salon. A revolutionary in every bedroom. An Andy Warhol in every thought.

  N. Mass prostitution. Mass murder. To meet is murder. Hey. Wait. Mister.

  O. They take what they want. They never want it again. Hey wait mister.

  P. Patriarchal projections. The world’s oldest and finest profession. I am the only one here without a soul.

  Q. Screen prints, projection screens, torture. An out-and-out man-hater. An endangered species. I could have told you from the start how it would end.

  R. I do not want to submit to your laws. I do not want to carry all these paper bags around. I always walk too quickly between the counters in department stores. I always steal. My mother tries to maintain normal behavior and blend in with the surroundings. Hey wait, Mister!

  S. Experiences were not documented, they were eliminated, eradicated. Her signature was removed, her ideas devoured by an art factory. Loss of name. Of memory. Loss of everything. Andy’s collected works: Pain. Albino. Dracula. Prosthetics. Human experiments. Machinations. Massacre.

  T. What does it matter? I have doll-eyes, doll-mouth, doll-legs, doll-heart. They really want me.

  U. All civilization is based on sublimation. All civilization is based on money. All civilization is based on heterosexual neuroses. c/o The Factory, New York, 1968.

  V. Pornography. Prostitution. Presidents.

  W. All civilization is based on repetition. All civilization is based on money, masculinity, weapons. All civilization is based on previous civilizations’ mistakes. Make no mistake, make women. Make no mistake, make lesbians. Military intervention. Vietnam. Distraction.

  X. Money, shopping, surface. He worshipped America and its presidents. He celebrated his birthday on Hiroshima day. Be a SOMEBODY with a BODY. Hiroshima. My love.

  Y. You wanted to merge with the skyscrapers. Reach for the sky. Spread out. Not lose yourself in the night. You longed for your high-heeled sisters.

  Z. Explosivity and fear are the same thing. A morbid fear of running out of ideas or a morbid fear of strange people’s strange thoughts. He could not abide his earlier work. He was convinced he could outsmart death by wearing a silver-gray wig prematurely. He continued to be dependent on fictitious prosthetics. The accessories gave him a strange appearance.

  Love Valerie

  New York, May 1968

  Vietnam War Is the Longest in American History, Riots in Hundreds of Cities After the Assassination of Martin Luther King

  You loved Central Park. In those days, you cycled between the trees beyond the pedestrian paths. Cosmo and you rode your bicycles into the lake and left them there. All that was long ago; now there is only the monotone autumn cry of the crows as they swoop down at your head while you try to walk slowly along with your shopping cart. You run across the park so fast your bottles nearly break. Thousands of cawing crows raid your possessions and your cap. When you emerge onto the street they sit in a row on the telephone lines and laugh at you. Even the crows laugh at you.

  Caw-Haw-Caw-Haw

  Caw-Haw-Caw-Haw

  Caw-Haw-Caw-Haw

  At the police station outside Central Park, there are cops everywhere and a penetrating, high-voltage light. Interrogation methods, hidden microphones, false smiles and knowing looks under the table. Gripping the hem of your jacket tightly, you drum the manifesto on the interview desk.

  *

  Everything is going to shit. You cannot write with Cosmo calling all the time from the underworld, nagging you whenever you lose concentration. Andy is always busy and Maurice refers in an increasingly unlovely way to your so-called contract. You have the chance to appear on the Johnny Carson television show, but even that is a fiasco, it is obvious you have been invited so they can ridicule you. All you wanted was to send some pretty pictures home to Dorothy’s television set.

  *

  And Andy never has time to read your play, even though you stand outside the Factory waiting every day, and the promise of taking part in more films imperceptibly fizzles out.

  VALERIE: I want to report a crime.

  THE STATE: What crime?

  VALERIE: There are crows in the park. I was hunted down. Almost killed.

  THE STATE: What do you want to report, Miss?

  VALERIE: There were no people there. A crow. It sat in the middle of the footpath and stared. Black. It refused to move when I tried to get past. Then the whole flock came. They dive-bombed my face. They were laughing at me.

  THE STATE: That’s no crime. We can’t prosecute birds. What’s your name?

  VALERIE: Valerie Solanas. I flew straight into the light. I’m here to report a crime.

  THE STATE: Are you on drugs?

  VALERIE: You bet I am. Without amphetamines, it’s like a mini world war in here.

  THE STATE: Where do you live?

  VALERIE: In the docks for the time being. On roofs during summer.

  (Silence.)

  (The State makes notes.)

  VALERIE: What are you writing in that notebook?

  THE STATE: I’m recording that you were here. You’re not suspected of any crime.

  VALERIE: And what are you writing? A little novel about Dostoevsky?

  THE STATE: I’m reporting.

  VALERIE: Write that I’m an author. You can write that. Author. A-U-T-H-O-R. I’m writing a novel for Olympia Press. You can record that.

&
nbsp; THE STATE: I’m recording that you were here, that you’re on drugs and that you have nowhere to live.

  VALERIE: Write that I was here and reported my ass.

  THE STATE: Hustling isn’t allowed here.

  VALERIE: I’m not hustling. I’m selling the manifesto. Do you want to buy one, Mister? A dollar.

  THE STATE: You’re known to us. You’ve tried your shenanigans in here before.

  VALERIE: For half a dollar I’ll tell you something really disgusting.

  THE STATE: Clear out before we arrest you.

  VALERIE: O.K. . . . Men . . . You owe me half a dollar, just so you know. You can buy two hundred copies of the manifesto. But no credit, no discount. Minimum order of two hundred copies. I don’t like arithmetic.

  THE STATE: It is you posting fliers everywhere? There are penalties for that.

  VALERIE: In Washington I put up scientific texts and lab reports. Then I patrolled round to make sure no-one took them down. It’s been a long time since I stuck up any notes or reports.

  THE STATE: That’s good, Madam.

  VALERIE: That’s good, Mister. I’ll come and collect my dimes tomorrow. By the way, I’m not a bag lady. I just find it unworthy to save my own ass when my people are being destroyed. When pussy souls are being sent to the slaughter. Otherwise another pussy soul will have to do the work. I might as well do it.

  Chelsea Hotel, May 1968

  You are in overdrive again, the colors in the lobby are unusually bright, and it seems as though everything is grotesquely large and coming at you very fast. The check-in desk is a pounding, florid heart advancing dangerously close to you, and the Little Desk Clerk is no longer there. You move along, hugging the walls, when suddenly something in your chest shatters, a crystal of silver and frost, making it easier to think, and quicker. Maurice is nowhere to be found; the office in Gramercy Park has been closed for several days.