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other mistake and when I told him
    he didn’t listen to me and he rubbed me and I didn’t want him
    to, I wanted him to go away, and I tried to be polite and act like
    an adult and not make noise in public and I didn’t cry like a
    child and he had a dark jacket on and they asked me if it was
    leather but I didn’t know what leather was and they asked me
    what it felt like but I didn’t know how to say and he had on a
    striped shirt and he had on dark pants and he had dark hair and
    he didn’t sit straight even when he first sat down and he had
    bad posture because he couldn’t sit straight and he smoked and
    he asked me i f I wanted to smoke, and I did but I didn’t say that
    to m y mother because I just looked ahead o f me and said no
    even though I wanted to and so I was good and I didn’t have to
    say I wanted to, and then he slumped all over me and held me
    still with his arm around m y shoulder and his head pinned
    under m y head so I couldn’t m ove aw ay and I couldn’t
    describe him enough for them but I could still see him; and m y
    mother cried; and now I can see him, almost, I can’t remember
    yesterday as well, even now he’s right next to me, almost, on
    me, almost, the pressure o f his body covering m y heart,
    almost, I can touch him, nearly, I could search the earth for
    him and find him, I think, or if he sat down next to me I w ould
    die, except I can’t quite see his face, nearly but not enough, not

    quite, and I can feel his fingers going in, almost, if I touch my
    face his fingers are more real, and it hurts, the bruised, scraped
    labial skin, the pushed, twisted skin; and my daddy came into
    my room after I couldn’t cry anymore and said nothing
    happened and not to cry anymore and we wouldn’t talk about
    it anymore; and I waited to be pregnant and tried to think i f I
    would die. I could have the baby standing up and I wouldn’t
    make any noise. M y room is small but I can hide behind the
    door.

    T W O
    In 1961 and 1962
    (Age 14, 15, 16)
    M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe
    only boys are named it. I live in the U . S . A. I was bom down
    the street from Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street in
    Camden in 1946, after the war, after the bomb. I was the first
    generation after the bomb. I’ve always known I would die.
    Other generations didn’t think so. Everyone says I’m sad but
    I’m not sad. It doesn’t make me sad. The houses were brick,
    the brick was made o f blood and straw, there was dust and dirt
    on the sidewalks, the sidewalks were gray, the cement was
    cracked, it was dark, always dark, thick dark you could reach
    out and touch and it came down all around you and you could
    feel it weighing on you and bumping up against you and
    ramming you from behind. Y o u m oved against the dark or
    under it or it pushed you from behind. The dark was
    everything. Y o u had to learn to read it with your fingers or
    you would be lost; might die. The cement was next, a great
    gray desert. Y ou were on it, stuck and abandoned, a great gray
    plain going on forever. They made you fall on your knees on
    the cement and stay there so the dark could come and get you.
    The dark pushed you, the cement was the bed, you fell on
    your knees, the dark took you, the cement cradled you, a
    harsh, angry embrace tearing the skin o ff your knees and
    hands. Some places there is a great, unbearable wind, and the
    fragile human breaks in it, bends in it, falls. Here there was this
    dark; like the great, unbearable wind but perfectly still, quiet,

    thick; it pushed without moving. Them in the dark, the
    cement was the bed, a cold slat o f death, a grave with no rest,
    the best bed you could get, the best bed you would ever have,
    you fell forward on your knees pushed by the dark from
    behind and the dark banged into you or sometimes there were
    boys in cars flying by in the dark and then coming around
    from behind, later, the same ones; or sometimes different
    ones. The dark