Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

Donna Campion's apartment was on the tenth floor of a white brick building on East Seventeenth Street.The living room window faces west.When I got there, the flickering sun just came out and flooded the room.Lush plants abound, hanging from windows or resting on ledges and tables.Sunlight pours through the plants, casting intricate patterns of light and shadow on the dark parquet floor. I sat in a wicker armchair and sipped a cup of black coffee.Donna sat curled up on a four-foot-wide oak bench with a backrest nearby.She said it was originally a church pew, pure English oak, from the time of King James I or possibly Queen Elizabeth.It has been polished smooth by three or four centuries of pious rump, as it has darkened with age.A country vicar in Devon decided to renovate her church, and she duly bought the pew at an auction.

Her long face matched the bench, from a high, broad forehead to a pointed chin.Her skin was pale, as if the only sunlight that could reach her was through layers of green leaves.She wore a white crepe blouse with a round lapel, a short gray flannel pleated skirt, and a pair of black leggings, with her toes showing through camel silk brocade slippers. Her nose is narrow and long, her lips are thin and her mouth is small.The dark brown hair hangs down to the shoulders and falls straight down from the "beauty tip" on the forehead.Dark circles under eyes, tobacco stains on two fingers of right hand.No nail polish, no jewelry, no obvious traces of makeup.Of course she is not beautiful, but her medieval temperament is quite close to beauty.

She looked very different from any whore I'd ever seen.She is more like a poet, or I think a poet should look like this. She said, "Chance asked me to actively cooperate with you. He said you wanted to find out who killed the Milk Queen." "Milk Queen?" "She looked like a beauty queen, and then I heard she was from Wisconsin, and I thought of the health and innocence of milk-fed there. She is like a royal milkmaid." She chuckled softly, "I'm talking about my imagination , I don’t really know her very well.” "Have you met her boyfriend?"

"I didn't know she had a boyfriend." She also didn't know that Kim was planning to leave Chance, which seemed amused to her. "I'm wondering," she said, "whether she moves in or out." "What do you mean?" "Is she going to get in, or is she going to get out? The focus is different. When I first got to New York, I was going to get in. I was just out of my family and home, but that was secondary. Later, when I broke up with my husband , I want to escape. Rather than finding a home, I want to escape." "Have you ever been married?"

"Three years. Uh, three years together. One year of cohabitation and two years of marriage." "How long ago were you married?" "Four years?" She calculated, "Next spring it will be five years. But legally speaking, I am still married, but I have been too lazy to get a divorce. Do you think I should get divorced?" "have no idea." "Maybe it's time to leave, it's over." "How long have you been with Chance?" "Almost three years. Why do you ask this?" "You're not like a whore." "Is there a pattern for whores? I know I don't look like King, neither royal nor milkmaid." She laughed. "We're like the Colonel's wife and the bitch, though I don't know which is which. "

"" She was very surprised that I knew this line of the poem. She said, "I lived on the Lower East Side after I left my husband. You know Norfolk Street? Between Stanton and Rivington?" "I'm not very familiar with it." — Stick School · E Book Group — "I knew it very well. I used to live there and did odd jobs around the area. I worked at the laundromat, as a waiter and as a store clerk. Every time I quit or got fired. There was never enough money. I started hating where I lived, and my life. I was going to call my husband and ask him to pick me up and raise me. Once I called his number, but it was busy."

So she started selling almost inadvertently.There was a store owner on her block who had been coveting her.One day she said without planning, "Look, if you really want to sleep with me, how about giving me twenty dollars?" Panicked, he blurts out that he didn't know she was a prostitute. "I'm not," she told him, "but I need money. And I'm pretty good in bed." She began taking customers a few times a week, moving from Norfolk Street to a better neighborhood and then to Ninth Street just east of Tompkins Square.She doesn't have to go to work anymore, but she has other troubles to deal with.She was beaten severely and robbed several times.Once again, she considered calling her ex-husband.

Then she meets a neighbor girl who works at a massage parlor in the middle of the city.Donna tried working there and felt very safe.There was a man at the door who dealt with troublemakers, and the work itself was mechanical, almost as detached as a doctor performing an operation.Pretty much all her clients ask for is masturbation or oral sex.Her body will not be violated, and there is no further intimacy other than pure physical contact. At first she liked it, seeing herself as a "sex technician," like some kind of physical therapist.Then there was an upheaval. “There was a Mafia vibe to the place,” she said, “in the curtains and the carpet, and you could smell death. And it started to feel like a job, commuting regularly, taking the subway to work. Drying — I like that word — sucked the poetry out of me.”

So she resigned and resumed her previous freelance career.One day, Chance found her, and everything fell into place.He put her in this apartment, her first decent place in New York, and he spread the word about her phone number, and he solved all her troubles.Her bills are paid, her apartment is cleaned, everything is in order.She only needs to concentrate on writing poems, and then send them to magazines.When the phone rang, she was friendly and charming. "Chance takes all the money you make," I said. "Would you resent it?" "Should you be dissatisfied?" "I have no idea."

"It's not real money anyway," she said. "Money comes easy and goes away. Otherwise, all the drug dealers could open a stock exchange. That kind of money goes where it comes in." She put her legs down and sat on the pew. "In short," she said, "I got everything I wanted. I just wanted to be alone. I wanted a decent place to live and time to do my own thing. I mean writing poetry." "I understand that." "Do you know the experience of most poets? They teach, or have a legitimate career, or play the poet's game, go around reciting speeches, writing project reports for foundation grants, meeting noble people, and flattering. I never Instead of doing that shit, I just want to write poetry."

"What does Kim want?" "God knows." "I think she was having an affair with someone and was killed because of it." "Then I'm safe," she said. "I'm not related to anyone. Of course you could say that I'm related to all human beings. Do you think that puts me in danger?" I don't understand what she means. She closed her eyes and said: "'Anyone's death hurts me, for I am related to all mankind.' A line by the English poet John Donne. Do you know what she is related to other people? To whom?" "have no idea." "Do you think her death hurt me too? I wonder if I have anything to do with her. I don't know her, don't really know her, but I wrote a poem about her." "Can I see it?" "I suppose so, but I don't see how it can tell you anything. I wrote a poem about the Big Dipper, but if you really want to know about it, you should go to an astronomer, not me. You know, the poem says It is not itself, but the poet." "I still want to see it." This seemed to please her.She walked to the desk—a modern take on an old flip-top desk—and found it right away.The poem is handwritten in italics on a white file. “I typed my manuscripts when I submitted them,” she says, “but I like the way they are on paper. I learned the script from books, and it’s not as difficult as it looks.” I read: Bathe her with milk, let the white flow Purity in milk baptism Heal the rifts opened by the first light. Take her hand and tell her not to worry, Told her not to cry for milk, Seeds scattered from the silver barrel. pounded her spine in a mortar, smashed the bottle at her feet, Let the green glass flicker in her hands. let it go.Let the milk flow. Let it gush down, into the old meadow. I asked her if she could copy the poems into my notebook.Her laugh was soft and cheerful: "Why? The poem tells you who killed her?" "I don't know what it told me. Maybe I can figure out what it said by copying it down." "If you figure out what it means," she said, "I wish you could tell me. It's an exaggeration, and I kind of know what I'm trying to write. But you don't have to bother copying the poem, you can take this. " "Don't be silly, it's yours." She shook her head: "The poem is not finished yet, so I have to work on it. I want to write her eyes in. If you have seen Jin, you must pay attention to her eyes." "Yes." - Stick School · E Book Group - "I originally wanted to compare blue eyes to green glass, so the green glass imagery was in the poem, but when I wrote it, the eyes were missing. I think it was in the previous draft, but it was removed. " She laughs: "They're fleeting. I wrote silver, green and white, but left out the eyes." She put her hand on my shoulder and looked down at the poem. "How many, twelve lines? I think at least fourteen lines, sonnets, though they vary in length. I'm not sure about the word 'crack' either. Maybe half a rhyme would be better .Use 'gap', 'void', or whatever." She went on and on, talking more to herself than to me, discussing the points in the poem that could be revised. "Anyway, take it," she said at last. "It's far from finished. It's funny that I haven't read the poem since she was killed." "You wrote it before she was killed?" "Yes. Although I copied it with a pen, I never considered it a finished product. I will finish the poem from the rough draft. I should be able to think about what to change and what to keep. If she doesn't If I die, I will continue to polish it up." "What stopped you? Shock?" "Am I shocked? I think so. 'It could happen to me too,' but of course I wouldn't believe it. It's like lung cancer, only someone else gets it. 'Anyone's death hurts me.' Does King's death affect me? I don't think so. I don't think I'm connected to all of humanity like John Donne." "Then why did you put poetry aside?" "I didn't set it aside, I just set it aside. That's nitpicking, isn't it?" She considered for a moment, "Her death changed my opinion of her. I wanted to continue writing the poem, but I didn't want to put her There are already enough colors in the poem, I don’t want to add blood.”