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THEY IS US
A cautionary horror story
Tama Janowitz
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The Friday Project
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Tama Janowitz 2008
Tama Janowitz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781906321307
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007380954 Version: 2016-10-05
To Fay Weldon and Nick Fox
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Walt Kelly, poster caption for World Earth Day, 1973
The Small Loaf of an Artist in Society
Two chihuahuas have tiny pillowcases
pulled over their heads with holes cut out for eyes and noses. Are they members of the Ku Klux Klan?
We do not know. Only, they must
itchy in this warm dampness, this summer sprinkled with peppery flies over the ash can of our lives.
What has blighted the stout cart-
puller, the homebody, the watch cur, Beware of the Dog, a sign leading to reticence in strangers.
All is changed, deranged and gone,
even slouches have a political roll to fill. This is not a country for old schnauzers or dull doubters
who muddle and fiddle and refuse
to remember the name of the street they live on simply because they’ve changed address once too often
and their furniture grows
molds and fungi in a warehouse in Walla-Walla Washington. Changes! Get used to them! Some young rabble
rouser keeps yelling in the parking
lot on Twenty-Third street, where the organ grinder used to play O sole Mio just beneath the windows
of our mansion and his monkey tipped
his hat in mock thanks for the penny that we threw him, although he cavorted on hollyhocks and crushed petunias in
our Moorish garden, but it’s too late
for giving an artist advice, who having taken on the guise (gorge and hackles) of a purebred dalmatian, is polymorphous perverse now, indeed always has been.
Phyllis Janowitz
Contents
