I Love Dick by Chris Kraus

started liking them.
    Then we walked over to another, 19th-century house that Bruce and Betsey bought at auction after it’d been repossessed. They joked about the pathetic former owner, a chainsmoking 50-year-old spinster who lived alone and made a living as a “commercial writer.” Of course I identified immediately. Betsey’d more or less cleared out the mess except for a few crateloads of trashy paperback romances. How odd. Perhaps these were books the “commercial writer” wrote? At any rate, Sylvère and I were ecstatic. Didn’t their titles perfectly describe my feelings? We’d found the missing clue.
    Here are the titles of some books we took from Bruce and Betsey’s:
    Second Chance At Love—Halfway There
    Second Chance At Love—Passion’s Song
    Second Chance At Love—A Reckless Longing
    Research Into Marriage
    Wife In Exchange
    Beyond Her Control
    All Else Confusion
    Bruce and Betsey seemed puzzled and bemused but I don’t think they connected it with you. On the car ride home I started reading Research Into Marriage , then underlining, footnoting and annotating all the passages that could relate to me and you. It’s an exercise both adolescent (me!) and academic (you!)…my first art object, which I’ll give you as a present.
    Later when I asked Sylvère why we like you so much better than Bruce and Betsey, he said: Because Dick is sensitive. I think that’s true. Bruce and Betsey are undeserving of your loyalty.
    Dick, all the work in the house is going to start this afternoon, so I’d better get ready for it. But I keep you in my heart, it keeps me going.
    Love,
Chris

    December 31, 1994
    On New Year’s Eve Sylvère and Chris had dinner at Bernardo’s with Tad and Pam, his ex-biker girlfriend. Chris had always liked, admired, Pam—her life story, her interests and her art aspirations. Over drinks Pam told them how much she “hated” Chris’ movie, “although,” she said “I’m still thinking about it.” Chris wondered what it was in her appearance or her character that made people think they could say these things. As if she had no feelings. Earlier that day she’d felt awful, haggling with David about the price of windows that she’d offered to buy upstate and transport to a Bridgehampton barn he was renovating. David offered her 500 bucks. Well, no—that was way too little—would she spend two days on someone else’s windows if she didn’t need the money? In five minutes David called back, offering to pay double and Chris was stunned. Buy cheap sell dear. She didn’t expect these laws to apply between two friends. She felt the same as when she’d let some guy feel her tits for 50 bucks at the Wild West Topless Bar, then learned Brandi always held out for 100.
    That night Sylvère and Chris had faltering sex. He was upset, confused, not knowing where or who he was. Crestline-Paris-East Hampton and now Thurman. In three weeks he’d be in New York again: a new semester, another seven years of teaching. Considering Thurman as their “home” was a provisional delusion like everything else in his life with Chris. The house wasn’t Leonard Woolf’s estate in southern England—it was a woodframe rural slum, trashed by a family of deadbeat hicks who they’d evicted before Christmas. Now they were painting, cleaning, and in three weeks they’d be gone again. What kind of life could they believe in? What kind of life could they afford?
    In the early hours of the New Year Chris wrote to Dick:
    â€œI don’t know where I am and the only reality is moving. Soon I’ll have to deal with the reality of this expensive, unlikeable movie, the fact I don’t have a job. You moved to California because Europe was so claustrophobic. You cleared the junk out of your life…is it possible for you to understand this kind of freefall?