The townspeople think Pearl’s evil because she lives off the roads. ‘No man will ever love a woman like you when you grow up,’ say the townspeople. ‘The roads are our civilization. They’re the order men have impressed on the chaos so that men’s lives can be safe and more secure and, thus, so that we all progress. Human life gets better and better.’
The roads are getting so super-paved and big and light and loaded with BIG MACS and HOWARD JOHNSONS that the only time people are forced into danger or reality is when they die. Death is the only reality we’ve got left in our nicey-nicey-clean-ice-cream-TV society so we’d better worship it. S & M sex. Punk rock. Don’t you know, you can step into the snow, the raging ocean and the freezing snow, you can step into danger…
anytime you please…
step into me…
— Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School