by Chris Kraus
And yet being together as a couple was all either of them could imagine. Did they read their “private” letters to each other out loud? Probably. And then they made love, thinking about what? The absent Dick? At any rate they were on the bus again, committed to the game. Lying in bed beside Sylvère, Chris wrote this post-coital letter:
Crestline, California
December 10, 1994
Dear Dick,
It’s several hours later and we’ve just had sex and before that spent the last two hours talking about you. Since you’ve come into our lives our house has turned into a brothel. We smoke cigarettes, knock ashtrays over without picking them up, lay around for hours. We’ve only worked halfheartedly and for a few hours at a time. We’ve lost all interest in packing for the move, or trips ahead, the future, consolidating our possessions or moving forward with our work and our careers. It isn’t fair that you’re so unaffected. Are you spending Saturday night thinking about Sylvère’s phone call? I doubt it. Sylvère says you’re right to tune it out, because this correspondence has nothing to do with you. He says it’s just about us as a couple, but that’s not true.
When I was 23 my best friend Liza Martin and I invited a famous rock star known for his forays into the bizarre to fuck us as if we were one person. Under the guidance of two artists we revered, Richard Schechner and Louise Bourgeois, we’d been developing a schizophrenic twin act in the backrooms of several topless bars (Oops the phone is ringing. Is it you? No, it’s just another fax about the fucked up EDL of my movie from the negative cutter in New Zealand, which I’ve become so indifferent to.) Anyway we told him Liza’d do the physical part of sex, I’d do the verbal. Together we incarnated the cyborgian split projected on all females by this culture. We even offered ——his choice of venue: the Gramercy Park Hotel or the Chelsea. But —— never answered. Easier I guess to fuck a bimbo than get involved with such weird girls.
And now Sylvère and I are the weird girls. I never dreamed I’d do anything like this again, especially never with Sylvère. But frankly I feel like I’ve come to the end of something with the movie. I don’t know what will happen next and maybe you’ve fallen into the vacuum. Don’t you think the only way of truly understanding things is through Case Studies? I read a book last month about the Guatemalan Coca Cola strike by Henry Frundt: a total reconstruction of events through documents and transcripts. By understanding one simple thing—a strike—it’s possible to understand everything about corporate capitalism in third world countries. Anyway I think a case study is what we’ve started to create with you.
I feel like I’m awaiting an execution. Probably all this will come screeching to a halt tomorrow morning when you call. There’re just a few hours left for the whole story (what story?) to unfold.
Love,
Chris
Crestline, California
December 10, 1994
Dear Dick,
I wonder what I’d do if I were you.
Love,
Sylvère
PS: We decided we will leave you alone for the rest of the night.
They were delirious, ecstatic. Chris had wished so many times that she could reach inside Sylvère’s head or heart and exorcize his unhappiness. On Saturday, December 10, they rested, blissful and exhausted, finally inhabiting the same space at the same time.
THE LONGEST SUNDAY IN THE WORLD
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994: Sunday morning
Dear Dick,
I guess it’s been a case of infatuation. Funny I haven’t thought to use that word before.
You are the fourth and a half person (Shake, the Good Yvonne, the Bad Yvonne and David B., the Jesuit) I’ve been infatuated with since living with Sylvère. Mostly this infatuation-energy is about wanting to know someone.
It’s funny, with the two Yvonnes, the sex-infatuation part came after already knowing them quite well, adoring them and wanting to be with them in other ways. Whereas the sex-infatuations that’re male (you, Shake, the priest) leap out of nowhere, based on not knowing them at all. As if sex could provide the missing clues. Can it? In the cases of the males it’s like I felt some kind of hint of who that person was floating underneath the surface. Wanting sex to realize things I knew.
Before I got together with Sylvère I’d usually get dumped by guys as soon as they found someone else more feminine or bovine. “She’s not like you,” they’d say. “She is a truly nice girl.” And it hurt ’cause what turned me on in sex was believing that they knew me, that I’d found somebody to understand. But now that I’ve become a hag, i.e., accepted all the contradictions of my life, there’s nothing left to know. The only thing that moves me now is moving, finding out about another person (you).
I know how lame these letters are. Still, I wanted to use the last few hours before your call to tell you how I feel,
Love,
Chris
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
We’re under the gun now. In a few hours you might blow our whole story into shreds and reveal it for what it is: a strange perverse machine to get to know you, Dick. Oh Dick, what am I doing here? How did I ever get into this strange, embarrassing situation, telling you on the phone about my wife’s infatuation with you? (I’m calling her my “wife,” a word I never use, to emphasize the depth of our depravity…)
Would Chris have fallen in love with you if I hadn’t been there to make it so embarrassing? Is knowledge a desperate form of acceptance? Or does acceptance transcend itself in knowledge to reach more interesting ground? “Knowledge” is supposed to be my concern…
So I was thinking about you, longing for a crisis, a bright future to keep death away. Do we have any right to push our fantasies on you? Is there any way they can connect that would be beneficial to us all? I understand what we have to gain from it. But what would I do if I were you, Dick? If you’d wanted the complexity of human relationships you wouldn’t have moved alone out to the Antelope Valley. It reminds me of something Chris said the other day: the best place to hide a corpse is under everybody’s eyes. And you’re so close to everything but so difficult to grasp.
So why would you want to blow your cover, such a fragile eggshell, to enter a game you’ve refused to play anymore? The thing that’s most embarrassing isn’t telling you my wife’s in love with you—that’s just transgressive, and so ultimately acceptable. What’s more embarrassing is to strip the whole intrigue bare, to bring it down to raw desire, like the “…”s in Chris’ story when she imagines making love to you. Does knowledge stand for “…”? Does it need to be eroticized to find its point? And why should any point be finer than the raw “…”s of our desires? We know what the “…”s stand for. And what does your name stand for, Dick?
Here is mine, Sylvère
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
I disagree with Sylvère about your living situation. He thinks that it’s escapist, as if living alone is an evasion of the inevitable coupledom, rejecting life. It’s what parents say about the childless. But I think your life choices are totally valid, Dick.
Love,
Chris
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
Noon. (Already). We’re still waiting for your call. We think we’ll switch now to the conversational mode since all our time between these letters has been spent talking about you anyhow.
Love,
Chris & Sylvère
EXHIBIT Ð: SYLVÈRE AND CHRIS CONVERSE THROUGH SIMULTANEOUS TRANSCRIPTION
Sunday, December 11, 1994: 12:05 p.m.
C: Sylvère what’re we gonna do if he doesn’t call? Are we gonna call him?
S: No, we can continue this without him anyway.
C: But you’re forgetting that I really want for him to call. I’m tingling all over waiting for the phone to ring. I’ll be really disap
pointed if he doesn’t call.
S: Well this time you should talk to him. Why let us two white guys decide the course? I got him in. It’s your turn now.
C: But I’m afraid he’s not gonna call at all. What then? Do I call him? It’s already feeling like the Frank Zappa song You Didn’t Try And Call Me.
S: He’ll call, but not today. He’ll call when it’s too late.
C: Oh Sylvère, I hate that.
S: But Chris, that’s why he’ll do it that way.
C: If he doesn’t call today I think I’ll have to disengage. Because, you know, I’ll lose respect. We’ve done so much. All he has to do is call.
S: But maybe he’ll realize we’ve already done everything in his place. Why disturb it?
C: I disagree. He should be curious. If some one called me and said they’d written 50, 60, 70 pages about me overnight I’d definitely be curious. You know, Sylvère, I think if this whole Dick thing falls through I’ll go to Guatemala City. I have to do something with my life.
S: But Chris. The Antelope Valley is Guatemala.
C: I’ll just be so disappointed if he doesn’t call. How can you continue loving someone who doesn’t pass this first and really basic test?
S: What test? The adultery test?
C: Nooo. The first test is to call.
Since their telephone has call-waiting, Chris phones her unshockable friend Ann Rower in New York.
TEN MINUTES LATER—
S: What did Ann think?
C: Ann thought it was a great project, more perverse than just having an affair. She thinks it’d make a good book! When Dick calls shall we tell him we’re considering publication?
S: No. The murder hasn’t happened yet. Desire’s still unconsummated. Let the media wait.
C: (whining) Whyyyyyyy??
SEVEN HOURS LATER—
C: Look Sylvère, this’s hopeless. We’re leaving in two days and I can’t think past this phone call. I got a fax this afternoon from a producer who wants to see my film. I didn’t even read it. Maybe it’s already thrown away.
(Pause)
It’s an impossible situation! I don’t even know what I want from Dick anymore. Nothing good can come of this. The only thing I’m thankful for is that it’s not the ’70s and I didn’t already fuck him. You know that anguish? Waiting by the phone until the burn and torment finally goes away? Our only hope is for some resumption of our normal lives. What seemed so daring just looks juvenile and pathetic.
S: Chris, I already told you he wouldn’t call. He has a tendency to pull away. We’ve taken the decision for him. Deciding on his thoughts. Remember the introduction that we wrote for him? In a sense Dick isn’t necessary. He has more to say by not saying anything and maybe he’s aware of it. We’ve been treating Dick like a dumb cunt. Why should he like it? By not calling he’s playing right into his role.
C: You’re wrong. Dick’s response has nothing to do with character. It’s the situation. This reminds me of something that happened when I was 11 years old. There was this man at the local radio station who’d been very nice to me. He let me talk over the air. Then one day a cloud came over me, I started throwing rocks into the windshield of his car. It made sense while I was doing it but later I felt crazy and ashamed.
S: Do you want to throw a rock through Dick’s Thunderbird?
C: I already have. Though mostly I’ve debased myself.
S: No.
C: Of course. I’ve projected a total fantasy onto an unsuspecting person and then actually asked him to respond!
S: But Chris, I think his embarrassment isn’t in relation to you or me but to himself. What can he do?
C: I hate being thrown into such a physical state. When the phone rang during dinner my face flushed, my heart was pounding. Laura and Elizabeth drove all this way to visit us and I like them but I couldn’t wait for them to leave.
S: Isn’t that experiencing life to the hilt?
C: No, it’s just a dumb infatuation. I’m so ashamed.
S: But even if his silence hurts you, isn’t that what attracted you to him? The fact that he was inaccessible. So, I think there is a contradiction there, at least nothing to feel ashamed of—
C: I took terrible liberties with another person. He has every right to laugh at me.
S: I doubt he’s laughing. Perhaps biting his fingers.
C: I feel so teenage. When you’re living so intensely in your head you actually believe when something happens you’ve imagined, that you caused it. When Leonora OD’d on bad acid from my boyfriend Donald, he and Paul and I sat up all night in the park and made a pact that if Leonora wasn’t out of Ward 16 tomorrow we’d kill ourselves. When you’re living so intensely in your head there isn’t any difference between what you imagine and what actually takes place. Therefore, you’re both omnipotent and powerless.
S: You’re saying teenagers aren’t in their heads?
C: No, they’re so far in that there’s no difference between the inside of their heads and the world.
S: So what’s happening in Dick’s head now?
C: Oh Sylvère, he’s not a teenager. He’s not experiencing any feeling of infatuation for me. He’s in a normal state, well, whatever’s normal for him, wondering how to deal with this horrible mawkish situation.
S: If he’s thinking about it, he’ll call tonight. If not, he’ll call on Tuesday morning. But he will definitely call.
C: Sylvère, this is like the Institute of Emotional Research.
S: It’s funny how what we’re after is so fleeting and so easily lost. The only way we can recapture any feeling is by evoking Dick.
C: He’s our Imaginary Friend.
S: Do we need that? It’s so mixed up. At times we reach these peaks of real possession at his expense, but through it we’re able to see him more clearly than he ever would himself.
C: Don’t be so presumptuous! You keep talking about Dick as if he was your little brother. You think you have his number—
S: Well, I don’t have the same take on him as you do.
C: I don’t have a take. I’m in love with him.
S: It’s so unfair. What has he done to deserve this?
C: Do you think we’re doing this because we’re anxious and confused about leaving California?
S: No, leaving’s our routine. But what would’ve happened if he’d been involved and willing?
C: I would’ve fucked him once and then he’d never call.
S: But what makes all this legitimate is that you didn’t. What thinking about it’s brought up is the essential thing. You know, I was picturing Dick before as a wicked, manipulative creature. But perhaps he’s keeping silent just to give us time…
C: To get over him. He wants us to get over him.
S: Chris, what sort of strange zone are we entering? To write to him is one thing but now we’re writing to each other. Has Dick been a means of getting us to talk, not to each other but to someTHING?
C: You mean that Dick is God.
S: No, maybe Dick never existed.
C: Sylvère, I think we’re entering the post-mortem elegiac form right now.
S: No. We’re just waiting for his call.
8:45 p.m.
S: It’s so unfair. I guess these silent types make you work twice as hard and then you can’t escape because you yourself create the cage. Maybe that’s why you feel so bad. It’s like he’s watching, watching you do this to yourself.
C: Misery and self-loathing is the essence of rock & roll. When stuff like this happens you just want to turn the music up really loud.
TWO HOURS LATER—
(Dick hasn’t called. Chris writes another letter and proudly reads it to Sylvère.)
C:
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Hey Dick—
It’s Sunday night, we’ve been through hell and not quite back, but now that you’ve been semi-informed about “the project” I guess it’s only fair to bring you up to date: we�
�re ready to call it off. We’ve travelled galaxies since Sylvère talked to you last night about shooting video at your place… Well, the video was not the point, we just wanted to find a mechanism for involving you in the process. Since then I’ve embraced/discarded several other art ideas but all we really have’re these letters. Sylvère and I are wondering if we should submit them to Amy and Ira at High Risk or publish them ourselves in Semiotext(e)? In three days, we’ve written 80 pages. But I’m miserable and confused and judging by your silence you’re not into any of this at all. Let’s let it rest.
Bonne nuit,
Chris
S: Chris you can’t send that. It makes no sense at all. You’re supposed to be intelligent.
C: Okay, I’ll try again.
EXHIBIT E: THE INTELLIGENT FAX
(printed on Gravity & Grace letterhead)
Sunday night
Dear Dick,
Well the “tempest in a teapot” seems to’ve passed without your entering it, which’s fine with me. What is it we’ve been doing here over the last few days? I’ve been in limbo since disengaging emotionally from the movie and when this THING—the “crush”—came up, it seemed interesting to try and deal with dumb infatuation in a self-reflexive way. The result: 80 pages of unreadable correspondence in about 2 days.
It was interesting, though, to plummet back into the psychosis of adolescence. Living so intensely in your head that boundaries disappear. It’s a warped omnipotence, a negative psychic power, as if what happens in your head really drives the world outside. Kind of a useful place to move around in, though maybe not so interesting to you.
In the future I’d like not to have to leave a room if you happen to be in it, so it seemed best not to leave things hanging.
Do let me know if you’d like to read (perhaps selections from) the letters. Through all the haze, at least some of them relate to you.
All best,
Chris