On the way over I get: The early influence of animalism is a product of men pandering to Rimbaud. The avoidance of trivial painting obligingly continues in the bland influence of gross company talk. Educated females are distractions. The dignity of childhood becomes the second product, an irrelevant discourse about the niceness of small men. I shout this out as I hear it, and G furiously writes it down, having wisely put Hank’s pad and pen in a duffel. “Rimbaud?” she says. “Would the SCUM Manifesto really mention Rimbaud? I never read it. I did see the movie, I Shot Andy Warhol. And I do know Solanas was considered important to second-wave feminists. She wasn’t simply dismissed as a lunatic.”

“No idea,” I shrug. “Never read it, didn’t see the movie. How was it? The movie.”

“It was interesting. But I read it was partly fictionalized.”

“Yeah, well, so’s the DoN’s take on reality.” It seems improbable, but Rimbaud was a man, after all, and why wouldn’t Solanas like to kick a one-legged man when he’s down, reduced to gun-running in Africa, which I assume for Solanas is standard evil-guy fare. But never mind, we’re in action: I skid to a stop by the chopper, charge into it like a post-woman possessed and, yes! there’s Earline’s camo backpack to match her camo bullwear. I’m on my knees rifling through it outside the tow, Jen filming this, G leaning over my shoulder, and, yes! I pull out a rumpled bunch of stapled pages, presumably printed off the Internet, and . . . it’s a buncha bulletins from the DoN news group, fuck me. I rummage a bit more, I pull out a little red book, about passport size and very skinny, like Chairman Mao had almost nothing to say, and I am holding the SCUM Manifesto! It’s got an embossed gold title on the cover with a “Compliments of the Daughters of Nausicaa” on the bottom like they distribute these at Girl Scout meetings. Maybe you can get a merit badge in castration. I flip through it madly and, lo and behold, I come upon the line: “the influence of Rimbaud on symbolist painting,” and in this paragraph are other words from my recitation like “pandering,” “company” and “animalism,” and G, after a moment’s study, has to agree with me, what I said was a garbled version, a cut-up, perhaps, of a small section of Solanas’ cri de queer. I hate that word, but I like this pun.

“I’m not insane, I’m possessed!” I yell triumphantly.

“She’s a preta,” says G. “A hungry ghost.”