Issue 22 - 1992

The Blue Wallet
William T.Vollmann
Coe Review • Issue 22
The thing you dislike or hate will surely come upon you, for
when a man hates, he makes a vivid picture in the
subconscious mind, and it objectifies.- Florence Scovel
Shinn, Your Word is Your Wand (1928) *
1
I loved Jenny most when, sitting beside her at sentimental
movies, I would look away from the big screen where the beautiful
actress was about to leave her lover forever, and see Jenny sitting
upright in her chair, her black button-eyes concentrating so hard on
the film, while she chewed and chewed her gum so earnestly, and I
ran my forefinger below her eyes to verify that her face was wet, that
Jenny was crying for the people on the screen, crying in perfect
placid happiness over this debacle that had never happened; and I
knew that after the movie was over Jenny would forget that she had
cried, but she would feel refreshed by her tears. - How harmless it all
was! Sometimes I myself, reminded by the actress of my own
failures, would be scalded by a single heavy tear; but this would not
be a good feeling, and I would have to stroke Jenny’s wet eyelid
again with my finger to be soothed.
2
“I got in a fight with this fucking fat woman!” cried
Bootwoman Marisa, who was now a bicycle messenger. Her legs
were covered with bruises like rotten apples. “Right when you get to
the end of the block you go up onto the sidewalk. And there was like
a Mack truck coming right at me, and it was totally obvious that I
was not gonna to be able to fucking avoid it unless I put on my
brakes to skid to like avoid this woman. And I told her, I go, MOVE!
I yelled really loud; I go, MOVE! and she goes, No!” - and, imitating
the woman’s voice, Marisa expressed this determined negation in a
birdlike screech - “and she stands right there, and I go, Fine! I’m
* Marina del Rey, California: DeVorss & Company, P. 74.
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