”I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob.”
"Understand. Not actually understand, but... understand."
”Intelligence evolves to give us an advantage over the other animals in our planet. But evolution is lazy. Once a problem is solved, the trait stops evolving… We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets.”
“Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.”
Later, people would think the photo was of you looking sexy, as if the image were a come-on to take your body, or a shot of postcoital bliss... But I knew the truth. It was just an image of you, exhausted beyond human limits.
I watched through the viewfinder as he led you to a gambling table. He handed you a pair of dice."How do I do this?" you said."You women overthink things. Don't think about it," he said, as if we have that privilege. "Just roll."
Through my 35mm lens you were but a small girl in a jean jacket on a vast, bleak plain. Dwarfed and alone on the hostile expanse, you bunched into yourself like Rocky Marciano in a crouch and, with fists to your mouth, incanted lines.
I took snaps of you cuddling on the laps of everyone... and then snaps of the men cuddling on your lap.
You became Roslyn, the divorcée trapped in a body so beautiful that no one could see the lonely woman within it..
He grabbed your waist and your hand, then pushed you around the floor. You lowered your head, not in submission but as if ashamed for him. Furious, I snapped the shot.
"I have never seen Joan Crawford look so" - she laughed - "likable. What did you give the old girl?"I signed. "A break."
"I followed them around for a week, doing the whitest things rich, white Eastern WASPs could do. Forgive my boasting, but if this poor Black boy from Fort Scott, Kansas, can get into their heads, he can get into anyone's."
From her table, she extended one finger, which he then clenched, clinging to his lifeline. My camera, with me behind it, swallowing tears, caught it all.
They raised their brows at each other, now in cahoots against the weirdo taking their picture in the school bathroom. This lady's crazy.Oop!
"My soul flew up through physical barriers to my son, even as I forced my attention back to my tray, where Thurgood Marshall's thick-lidded eyes were swimming into view."
"What about us?"
With your tiny black camisole stretched low across your breasts, you pivoted on spike heels, stuck out a hip so that the black stripes of your stretchy slacks slithered down your curves, and threw a slit-eyed sneer over your shoulder like a smutty Betty Grable.
"...you slumped on a bench and clutched your hair in a topknot, the sheriff and his deputy smirking down at you, waiting for you to perform. You looked up at me from under your arms as if to say,
You slumped back, knock-kneed, on the chair. "This is nuts!""Understatement." When I brought my camera to my eye, you threw your arms out as if shot, then chortled like a girl as I photographed your amusement.
"You did a photo of a woman in a bar in Cuba just like this. I saw it inEsquire.
"Juana. The funny, bold child I'd left behind. Of all my photos, the curators chose hers, and rightly so. Her vivaciousness, and her parents' love for her, radiated from the photo. I'd captured love so pure that it was almost hard to look at."
"She is like a little girl jumping rope."Were you? Did little girls jump with their fists clenched at their sides? The anxiety in those hands said everything. You - New Marilyn, Old Marilyn, Norma Jeane - were under a great deal of stress.
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