Diary of a Performance Artist: July, 1990

We stopped en route to Barkerville - on the road for a video production

Weeks in a motel room with my colleague a woman of power - we wrestled - no introduction, no transition - maybe we got sprung from the blood orgy of Francis Bacon the mattresses shot and soaked the rust and mold of our bodies emptied celebrated our efforts - hide the knives before we sleep dear as the battle will continue into our dreams and I'm a practicing somnambulist - and because at times I don't know where the orders come from - they come from on high, they come from below - I am nothing if not compliant reliable and exacting - there's nothing I love as much as completing an assignment - so hide the knives and gird your loins - when we met you didn't expect this did you, she said

We spent the night playing Oka - she put up her barricades and soaked a rag with tequila which she used to disinfect the scratches on my back - she looked them over and giggled, reminding her of "In the Penal Colony" - she wanted to take a rubbing but it was too wet so she freshened them and laid a thin piece of linen across my stretched and weary back and made a fresh impression of what she found there - who knows who writes these things - she said - there is a zomba spirit that sends us these messages - it's good to not judge, to not look into the dark from where these messages come from - like she said the whole body is an ear and it perks up erect when That Thing whispers 

We practised submission holds - we played the game where you flip a coin and whoever wins can put the other into a submission hold - we took a break and went for drinks at the local bar - we sat hunched over our drinks giddy and exhausted listening to each other's wearniess and excitement - Oka on the television - the horror of the locals they talked aloud not caring about the Indian in the bar about the coming insurrection - we found a modicum of peace in our mutual dissatisfaction and in the trust that our words and actions would never leave the room - as I write I feel the hawks of her revenge target my skull from far angles and distant shores - Penthelesia is alive and well with the spear in her chest jigging up and down chest full of rancour and revenge like a strap-on with my name on it - she's got a sharpened strap-on with my name on it, etched deep and, and, deep

She will come for me for betraying her to the sisterhood - but with my collapsible vagina it shouldn't be an issue I said to her then and I say to her now - besides it wasn't fucking like that because it lacked that certain intent plus it was democracy in action - besides the political field will always be undone by the people we sleep with - it will always be this way 

I turned on the television and there we were, Indians in battle garb