him and puts him in the tub. She washes his hair and scrubs his skin, being very careful not to hurt his sore arms. This is a body she no longer knows.
She thinks he looks like a starved ten-year-old child. She rubs his clavicle bones and his hip bones.
“You have to get clean, Jean,” she says. “You have to just stop it.”
“I always loved it that you were the one person who never said that to me,” he answers. “I’m sick and tired of people telling me to get off drugs.”
“I am sorry, Jean. I won’t say it again,” the girl answers.
Jean-Michel lets Suzanne brush his teeth. He opens his mouth wide and says, “Ahhhhhh.”
When I got back from Europe, which had been hell, I immediately went to see Jean. He was a mess and so I bathed him like I always used to. His paintings were all facing the wall so that he would not have to look at them. It was very strange. The only one I saw was
Riddle Me This, Batman
that was against the wall of the bathroom. In the center of the painting Jean had written “NOTHING TO BE GAINED HERE.” Further down in the painting he had written, “COWARDS WILL GIVE TO GET RID OF YOU.”
It was the first time I had ever seen him feeling sorry for himself. He was usually so gutsy.
After the bath we watched television and went to sleep. When I woke up he had already left the loft. He had left me a note that said, I remember it perfectly, “Venus, morning glory, sweet potato, I have the money and you have the gold. JMB.”
Later I saw those words “morning glory and sweet potato” in a painting of his,
Eroica I
, one of his last paintings. On that same painting he had also written “man dies” four times.
HE WAKES HER UP
One night Suzanne is asleep alone in her apartment and the doorbell rings. It is Jean-Michel. He asks if he can come in. Suzanne presses the buzzer and waits for him to come upstairs. She waits two minutes, three minutes, ten minutes and he doesn’t appear.
Suzanne laces up her ballet shoes and runs downstairs but she can’t find him. She walks around the block but she can’t find him.
She is wide awake now and takes a taxi to buy some dope. On the way back to her apartment she asks the driver to go past the Great Jones loft. All the lights are turned off there and she goes home.
In her apartment Suzanne sniffs the heroin and her room looks round and blue. Words come to her mind in a great rush: Euclid, Newton, Galileo. She wants to look into microscopes and be surrounded by formulas and equations. She thinks about
Gray’s Anatomy
and how she and Jean-Michel, high on coke, used to look at the book for hours as if they were reading a book on magic.
Suzanne remembers how Jean-Michel would paint and suddenly yell out to her, “Venus, read me the names of the bones in an arm.” And she would call back, “Humerus, ulna, radius, carpus.”
Two weeks before his death, at two a.m., he came and rang my buzzer. I let him in but he never came up. He was in a very bad state and sounded desperate. But this was as much as he could do. He had crossed the line, the invisible line in drug addiction. Every heroin addict has some sense of where that line is. It is a choice to cross it. I chose not to.
I know that he came to say good-bye and this is the kindest thing he ever did for me. I know he came to say good-bye because he knew his death was imminent but then he must have suddenly changed his mind. He didn’t want me to see him in such a terrible state, ravaged by heroin.
THE WEIGHT OF ARMS
Suzanne gets a job as a bartender at Tunnel. She works there five nights a week. This pays her rent and gives her enough money to buy heroin every day. She sniffs it before work, during work and when she gets home. It has turned her into a skeleton with great big black holes for eyes. The heroin keeps her warm and safe. It is animal fur around her bones.
On August 12, 1988, Jean-Michel is found dead from an overdose of heroin. He is found leaning in front of a fan as if
She thinks he looks like a starved ten-year-old child. She rubs his clavicle bones and his hip bones.
“You have to get clean, Jean,” she says. “You have to just stop it.”
“I always loved it that you were the one person who never said that to me,” he answers. “I’m sick and tired of people telling me to get off drugs.”
“I am sorry, Jean. I won’t say it again,” the girl answers.
Jean-Michel lets Suzanne brush his teeth. He opens his mouth wide and says, “Ahhhhhh.”
When I got back from Europe, which had been hell, I immediately went to see Jean. He was a mess and so I bathed him like I always used to. His paintings were all facing the wall so that he would not have to look at them. It was very strange. The only one I saw was
Riddle Me This, Batman
that was against the wall of the bathroom. In the center of the painting Jean had written “NOTHING TO BE GAINED HERE.” Further down in the painting he had written, “COWARDS WILL GIVE TO GET RID OF YOU.”
It was the first time I had ever seen him feeling sorry for himself. He was usually so gutsy.
After the bath we watched television and went to sleep. When I woke up he had already left the loft. He had left me a note that said, I remember it perfectly, “Venus, morning glory, sweet potato, I have the money and you have the gold. JMB.”
Later I saw those words “morning glory and sweet potato” in a painting of his,
Eroica I
, one of his last paintings. On that same painting he had also written “man dies” four times.
HE WAKES HER UP
One night Suzanne is asleep alone in her apartment and the doorbell rings. It is Jean-Michel. He asks if he can come in. Suzanne presses the buzzer and waits for him to come upstairs. She waits two minutes, three minutes, ten minutes and he doesn’t appear.
Suzanne laces up her ballet shoes and runs downstairs but she can’t find him. She walks around the block but she can’t find him.
She is wide awake now and takes a taxi to buy some dope. On the way back to her apartment she asks the driver to go past the Great Jones loft. All the lights are turned off there and she goes home.
In her apartment Suzanne sniffs the heroin and her room looks round and blue. Words come to her mind in a great rush: Euclid, Newton, Galileo. She wants to look into microscopes and be surrounded by formulas and equations. She thinks about
Gray’s Anatomy
and how she and Jean-Michel, high on coke, used to look at the book for hours as if they were reading a book on magic.
Suzanne remembers how Jean-Michel would paint and suddenly yell out to her, “Venus, read me the names of the bones in an arm.” And she would call back, “Humerus, ulna, radius, carpus.”
Two weeks before his death, at two a.m., he came and rang my buzzer. I let him in but he never came up. He was in a very bad state and sounded desperate. But this was as much as he could do. He had crossed the line, the invisible line in drug addiction. Every heroin addict has some sense of where that line is. It is a choice to cross it. I chose not to.
I know that he came to say good-bye and this is the kindest thing he ever did for me. I know he came to say good-bye because he knew his death was imminent but then he must have suddenly changed his mind. He didn’t want me to see him in such a terrible state, ravaged by heroin.
THE WEIGHT OF ARMS
Suzanne gets a job as a bartender at Tunnel. She works there five nights a week. This pays her rent and gives her enough money to buy heroin every day. She sniffs it before work, during work and when she gets home. It has turned her into a skeleton with great big black holes for eyes. The heroin keeps her warm and safe. It is animal fur around her bones.
On August 12, 1988, Jean-Michel is found dead from an overdose of heroin. He is found leaning in front of a fan as if
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