1. Threatened by my insinuations, my self-confidence (assumption), my pretentious moralistic opinions (opinion). (I didn’t realize I was infuriating him. I didn’t look. But my ego condemned him.) He brandished a knife (a hunting knife out of a leather sheath on his side), and jumped. I just sat. Shock maybe. It all happened too fast. I was expecting the knife to cut and I was even surprised when the knife blade passed across my arm leaving only a white line, which the blood under my skin quickly made good. He backed off. I looked at him gaping at me, astonished, in a wrestler’s stance, ready to jump either direction. I would have risen up, growing tall and mighty, ridiculing his very presence, and he would have run. But I was puzzled. After this silence, I stood in a rise of emotion, and I mocked him, said he could never cut me, with disgust, cutting him deeply, watching his face turn hatred. He was hurt more by that. Pride, maybe. He jumped at me again around my back his arm around my neck swearing, sweating, panting, intent: He was sure he could cut me this time. And he put the knife up to my throat, and he pressed and drew the knife across. But the knife didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. 2. Threatened by my insinuations, my self-confidence (assumption), my pretentious moralistic opinions (opinion). (I didn’t realize I was infuriating him. I didn’t look. But my ego condemned him.) He brandished a knife (a hunting knife out of a leather sheath on his side), and jumped. I just sat. Shock maybe. It all happened too fast. I was expecting the knife to cut and I was even surprised when the knife blade passed across my arm leaving only a white line, which the blood under my skin quickly made good. He backed off. I looked at him gaping at me, astonished, in a wrestler’s stance, ready to jump either direction. I would have risen up, growing tall and mighty, ridiculing his very presence, and he would have run. But I was puzzled. After this silence, I stood in a rise of emotion, and I mocked him, said he could never cut me, with disgust, cutting him deeply, watching his face turn hatred. He was hurt more by that. Pride, maybe. He jumped at me again around my back his arm around my neck swearing, sweating, panting, intent: He was sure he could cut me this time. And he put the knife up to my throat, and he pressed and drew the knife across. But the knife didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. It didn’t cut. Later, I realized he used the wrong edge of the knife.
November 1970