Memories That Smell Like Gasoline

Memories That Smell Like Gasoline

David Wojnarowicz

THANKS TO

PETER HUJAR

TOM RAUFFENBART

AMY SCHOLDER

CONTENTS

INTO THE DRIFT AND SWAY

MEMORIES THAT SMELL LIKE GASOLINE

DOING TIME IN A DISPOSABLE BODY

SPIRAL

INTO THE DRIFT AND SWAY

Sometimes it gets dark in here behind these eyes I feel like the physical equivalent of a scream. The highway at night in the headlights of this speeding car speeding is the only motion that lets the heart unravel and in the wind of the road the two story framed houses appear one after the other like some cinematic stage set, houses on both sides of my face unravelling towards me and the trees casting shadows like fallen x-rays into the sides of the white clapboard and occasionally some yard dog hooting a silent fear noise it's lost in the rush of everything; and once before when I felt this way I screamed loud and long and hated the sound of my own voice and so haven't ever tried it again. I hate highways but love speeding and I can only think of men's bodies and the drift and sway of my own if sex was a dance I'd do a crawl for that body I saw this afternoon the guy stepping out from the cab of his truck in the parking lot of the bus stop he looked kinda canadian and in a sexy collared shirt and tight faded jeans and thick leather belt and boots and a crease in the front of his pants that let his dick rest lazy and calm and forearms I'd want under my tongue and after the turn on the bridge when I'd swung back going north stopped at a rest stop and a truck pulled in I walked past it a little later and a ruby red light flicked on and a silhouette of a man in worker's pants stepped out swinging from the bar next to the outside rear view mirror and walked past me in a blaze of car lights and entered the bathroom. I walked around for a while he never came back out finally I went in and bent slightly saw his legs beneath the frame of one of the stalls and took the one next to him pulled down my pants and sat on the cold toilet and looked down to my side and there was a puddle of water between the two stalls under the dividing panel and it reflected light from the overhead ceiling fixture and through its transparency was the squared outline of gray floor tiles and as I looked at it I realized that I could see the overhead-lit features of this truck driver and the pale wash of his eyes and jaw line and cheek bones and following the illuminated shoulders in the surface of the puddle down his arms only one was illuminated and part of his chest pressing through the flimsy t-shirt and down his forearms and to his wrists and the puddle moved a bit breaking the image into wavy lines and pieces of light and when his face came back in focus and the water was still I held my breath so as not to disturb it I looked in the vicinity of his hands two hands lit from various angles pieces of fingers with cold white lights and parts of wrists and all of it wrapped around a silhouette of a hard dick which he waved back and forth in the reflection his image for a moment looked like it was floating upside down beneath the surface of the floor and I was therefore floating right side up and from his vantage point I was floating upside down and he right side up and up in the cab of his rig he pulled off his pants saying don't worry about the

cops they always check

the cars first and by

flashing their flashlights

through each one we got

plenty of time just to enjoy

it go ahead enjoy yourself

and putting his big hand

around the back of my

neck and pressing gently

till my face could make

out the outline of his

moving dick I could see

the dim hairs covering his

balls go ahead use your

tongue a lot and less teeth

that's it more tongue and

less teeth yeah where

I come from there's three

brothers who come over

my place when they can get

away they come over for

the night and they love it go

ahead that's right enjoy

it enjoy yourself.
His fingers and face scattered into shards of light*

MEMORIES THAT SMELL LIKE GASOLINE

It's that face. I knew I'd seen it before. I was standing in the lobby of a movie theater surrounded by crowds of people waiting to enter the auditorium to watch a film about a bunch of teenagers and a dead body and codes of teenage silence. It was the end of the previous show and the doors flung open and hundreds of people were pouring out towards the exits. Suddenly that face. It was one anonymous face in the crowd that tripped the switch in the back of my head. I froze and the face became magnified. It expanded in size until it was five feet tall and disembodied and floating in the darkness of the open doors. I guess he froze too. He was a pale gray color with fastidiously combed hair plastered down around the skull. Thin lips, bloodless and tight. His eyes were colorless and they widened for a moment. We both stood there trying to uncoil each other's private histories and solve the dislocation of familiarity. I had been drugged, tossed out a second story window, strangled, smacked in the head with a slab of marble, almost stabbed four times, punched in the face at least seventeen times, beat about my body too many times to recount, almost completely suffocated, and woken up once tied to a hotel bed with my head over the side all the blood rushed down into it making it feel like it was going to explode, all this before I turned fifteen. I chalked it up to adventure or the risks of being a kid prostitute in new york city. At that point in my life dying didn't mean anything to me other than a big drag. I had mixed feelings about death. When I was trying to get enough money to eat or find a place to sleep for the night, death actually seemed attractive, an alternative. I would go without changing my clothes or bathing for months at a time. I could see my reflection in the legs of my pants if I bent close to them. Periodically if I had a surplus of money from spreading my legs in seven dollar hotels on eighth avenue I would walk Into the Port Authority bus terminal and look at all the various names of towns painted on the glass windows of ticket booths. I'd choose one that suggested bodies of water and then buy a ticket, get on the bus and ride It for as long as It took till I spotted a lake or pond In the countryside. I'd then ask the bus driver to let me off, usually having to argue with him because it wasn't a scheduled stop. After the bus continued on its way I would walk across the field and into the water until I was up to my neck. I never bothered to take off my shoes or my clothes. I would float around for hours and then hike back to the road and hitch a ride to a bus-stop or all the way back into the city.

That face. When I noticed his suit and his hands, palms back and manicured nails, I remembered. Maybe it was the quality of light or lack of it in the lobby as the door swung open and people were exiting before the end of the film. Maybe it was the color of his flesh, the look of no oxygen, the look of anticipation or fear, the complexion of anticipation. I remember that night fifteen years earlier. I had spent the later part of the afternoon paddling around this small pond, pushing my face under water looking for signs of life. It was rapidly turning to dusk and I was wet and feeling cold. The town was too small to offer much evening traffic so it was hard to get a ride. I didn't really know where I was. I was gray inside my head and wishing that killing myself was an effortless act.

Those eyes, that face gray and floating disembodied in the dark of the open window. A small beat-up red pick-up truck coasted to a stop along the side of the road. He was waving me into the truck. I remember thinking his skin was fake, like a semi-translucent latex. I asked him how far he was going. Oh, a ways. Thin tight voice layered with a friendliness I couldn't hook into. We drove for a while in silence and I looked out the side window at all the illuminated houses and occasional glimpses of people in driveways, interacting with each other. A stray dog running along the highway in a small panic. He said he worked for a bank in the city. That depressed me for some reason, maybe the formality of it that translated into an image of years and years of writing in ledgers and stale cups of coffee and dealing with people in need. At some point he had his dick out and stared out through the windshield at the beacons of light illuminating the dark roadway. He steered with one hand and jerked with the other. I was leaning against the door and didn't answer when he murmured something about this place he knew where we could go. After a while he made a left turn down a gravel and dirt road winding up through a forest over small hills. I remember moths and bugs diving into the headlights, a small wooden sign with a boy scout symbol on it, and then some scattered cabins. The sound of lake water in the near distance.