S.C.U.M.

I'm not sure when I agree to let her shoot me.

We are drinking again. It's the only time we ever have serious
conversations anymore. Drinking. For once we aren't down some rat hole
about who is going to leave who, whose love is deeper, more true. It
starts out as an innocent conversation. Really. We are talking about
movies. Our favorite ones. Actors too. I'm off on my soapbox tangent
about the so called non-glamorous actresses, the ones I have big
crushes on, how they are more glamorous, more beautiful, more sexy than
a million blonde Barbie doll Claudia Shiffers or statuesque Cindy
Crawfords, because they are real you know? They feel obtainable. Like
you could meet them on a bus, in a coffee shop. Like they might get
drunk with you. Might argue with you over stupid shit, like politics,
or if motorcycles belong in the Guggenheim. You could never bum a smoke
off a Claudia Shffer, but you sure as fuck could off Lili Taylor, or
Janeane Garofalo . They'd shake one out of the pack and hand it to you.
Offer their already burning cig as a light, without even breaking up
the conversation.

It's in the middle of this that she turns to me and says, "SCUM."

I'm not paying attention, so she repeats, "SCUM ? Wasn't that the name
of that book? From the Lili Taylor movie? You know the one ? about that
Valerie girl ? the crazy one who shot Andy Warhol?"

It takes a second for my eyes to focus. "Manifesto. It was the S.C.U.M.
Manifesto. Society for Cutting Up Men." Why to I have to pretend to
know everything? "Yeah, she was pretty fucked up. But Lili was great in
that movie, don't you think? She made her into a sympathetic character.
The crazy bitch who shot Andy. Sympathetic. I mean she was just a junky
right? Well, crazy, angry, lesbian junky. I remember reading how Henry
Miller met her all fucked up one night offering to shoot a man ? any
man. Supposedly he told someone. The people who ran the Chelsea I
think. They ignored him. Then she goes and shoots Andy Warhol. But in
the movie, she's almost an anti-hero. Lili makes you feel for her. I
remember after it came out, they started selling that S.C.U.M.
Manifesto down at the bookstore. Crazy."

She looks at me all funny. I'm sure we're about to get into it. "Maybe
she was a sympathetic character."

Yeah, into it. "What?! What do you mean by that? She hated men ? enough
to want to shoot them ? then she went around and advertised it, and
when no one was interested, she got a gun, and shot Andy fucking
Warhol. No real reason. It's not like he did anything to her. She just
shot him ?"

She smiles. "Sounds pretty proactive to me. Kinda like therapy."

I just stare at her.

"Seriously. Hear me out. She's all filled up with rage right? She
doesn't know how to channel it. Who could fucking know? She's so angry
it makes her sick inside. Men'll do that. Every woman has to understand
that. Helplessness. Rage. Makes you feel sick. Every woman. And she's a
lesbian for Christ sake. She shouldn't even have to worry about men,
but she can't get away from them." She stares off down the bar. I'm
even not sure she knows what she's looking at. "So, she fixates on this
idea. Such a great idea. A Camille Paglia idea. A fucking statement.
Symbolic. She's gonna take a gun right? The source of all that
patrilineal power. This fucking male thing. And she's gonna penetrate
some man with it. She's gonna fuck him with his gun. She's gonna own
it. Make it her own. Take the power away, right? Ritual. Catharsis. I
mean how fucking brilliant is that?"

I always know the right thing to say to defuse her, this time is no
different, "What the fuck are you talking about?! She's a fucking
criminal! She fucking shot Andy Warhol! She was insane! It wasn't a
fucking ritual. It was random senseless violence, not a goddamned
statement!"

She looks at me and I see something stirring behind her eyes. "Yeah,
but that's because she didn't do it right. She didn't give it a
ritualistic space. She didn't perform the act properly. She was too
angry to see the beauty in the act. The symbolism. She needed a willing
collaborator. A partner in crime. She needed a target. Someone who
wanted to be shot."

Later on, after we get home, and we're fucking, when she's pushing down
hard into me, grinding her hips like she's the one with the cock, it
sinks in. A 'willing collaborator'. Someone who 'wants to be shot'. She
means me. She's going to shoot me.

I never say yes, but it doesn't matter. From that moment on, momentum
starts to build up. All those sticky laws of thermo dynamics. Which is
the one about an object in motion wanting to stay in motion until it
hits warm, wet, red flesh?

We go to the library. She checks out anatomy texts. Medical
journals.

I read up on Andy. I feel some crazy kinship with him. I read about his
childhood, the Factory, Studio 54, all of it. He didn't die after
Valerie shot him you know? He lived for years after that.

I think, "Andy, I'm with you dude, but I ain't going out like that.
Right now, my girlfriend is leafing through Gray's Anatomy. Oh no, I
ain't going out like that."

Suddenly I feel physically ill. Like at the very pit of my stomach.
Deep down. Like I'm going to vomit. Like everything inside me going to
come out. Like I'm going to turn inside out from it.

I leave her there thumbing through all those books. Leave her there and
walk out into the sunlight. For some reason it's the nicest, most
beautiful day I've ever seen.

The thing that takes longest is getting the gun. She figures out where
she's going to shoot me early on. I can tell because she tapes up a
page ripped out of a medical book, a picture of a guy standing there
sans skin like he's wearing some scarlet body suit. There's a little
circle with an x in it drawn on his side. Precise. Mathematical. Like
an equation.

She walks by and says, "X marks the spot." She smiles and pats my
ass.

I'm queasy again. I'm doing that a lot lately.

She figures out where, but the how takes weeks.

We fuck a lot in those weeks. Sometimes 2, sometimes 3 times a day. I
get sore, Bruised. She can't get enough. It's the best sex we've ever
had. I never have to ask her. She's the one who initiates every time.
And we never argue any more. Sometimes she gets really rough. Sometimes
it's like she's going to break me. Like I'm made out of glass.

When the gun comes, I can feel it when I get home from work. The whole
apartment is spotless. There is a tablecloth on our little dining room
card table. Candles. Real silverware and plates. She must have borrowed
them from a neighbor.

She makes this amazing meal. It's the first time she's ever cooked like
this. I didn't even know she could. I get sick to my stomach and just
pick at it. She keeps pouring wine into my glass. I do my best, but I
can't get drunk. She doesn't notice.

Finally she stands, reaches down to me, takes my hand. I feel like a
kid. She leads me into the bedroom. Our bed's pushed up against the
wall. There is a video camera in the corner on a tripod. She's tacked
up a big sheet of plastic on the wall. The clear kind. She rolls it out
on to the floor, and I feel numb. She looks at me, and I instinctively
start to take my clothes off. The whole time, all I think is, "I wish I
looked like that guy on the fridge. He has such a nice body. I feel
fat. I don't want everyone seeing me look so fat." I step onto the
plastic and stand there with my back to her. I feel really
self-conscious. I hear her behind me puttering around. She puts her
hand on my shoulder.

"You have to sign this."

I turn. I don't even see the paper that I'm signing. I don't know what
it is, maybe a release form? She draws a circle on my side, an x inside
it, with a sharpie. I see the red light on the camera. She's right in
front of me, something wrapped in brown paper in her hands. She fumbles
with it, with the paper, unwrapping the gun. I remember the first time
we made love, all that trouble I had with the condom wrapper. I was
drunk.

Suddenly it's in her hand. Silver. Shining. Twinkling. It seems too big
for her. Too big for anyone. I worry about the kick. I hope she won't
hurt herself. She swings it around, testing it. Points it at me, and
the whole room gets sucked into the black hole of the barrel.

All I can think to say is, "Did you ever even read that book?"

That's when she pulls the trigger.