During my first post-verdict visits with Nina, she seemed crankier and didn’t talk as much, but she’d never been a morning person. One Saturday, she said she had good news. Did the Supreme Court change its mind? I asked. Silly Sammo, she said. That wasn’t how this country worked. She smiled like she was about to tell me I’d won the lottery, then informed me the Lacuna was moving to Manhattan.

That spring, the gallery was all paintings of oversize body parts: lips, a hand, a knee. At first I didn’t recognize the vagina; I’d never looked at one closely, and there was more to it than I’d have guessed. As I focused on unfamiliar anatomy, Nina explained that she’d had it up to here with the small-mindedness of Brooklyn, not to mention the whole U.S. legal system, but at least her efforts hadn’t been in vain. A supporter had offered her a new gallery space, somewhere she could show anything she wanted without having to worry about someone calling in the vice squad. Her benefactor owned a building on Broome Street. It was on a block slated for demolition to make way for the Lower Manhattan Expressway, so she could use the storefront gratis and rent the upstairs apartment for a song. Maybe the highway would come through, maybe it wouldn’t; all she knew was that she’d set something in motion, and she wasn’t about to break the momentum she’d worked so hard to build.

Nina explained in her winningest voice how visiting the new place would be as easy for me as a straight shot into Manhattan on the IND, followed by a short walk. As her sales pitch rolled on, I tried to copy various stoic expressions from various Friday-night boyfriends I’d seen being offered Saturday-morning coffee for the train. Nina tried to send me home with the card rack she’d made me and a peanut-butter-and-potato-chip sandwich, but I tossed them both into the trash on my way out.

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, JUNE 1965: When I went to the Lacuna to say goodbye, I thought if Nina apologized for the way things had gone, she and I could try again at being friends. But Deb, it was exactly the opposite! I’d hardly stepped through the gallery door before Nina announced that if she could do it over again, she’d do it exactly the same. As far as she’s concerned, it’s just a matter of time before New York and the Supreme Court and everyone else sees things the right way, which is her way, and she’s willing to keep putting everything on the line until that day arrives. When I asked if she was at least a little sorry for parts of what she did, she actually became sore. “Sorry for what?” she growled. “For defending your art with everything I had? For defending your rights and artists’ rights everywhere?” “But Nina,” I told her, “you didn’t ask if that was what I wanted! You didn’t let me choose!” Nina shook her head. “You don’t get it,” she said. “When something like this happens, you don’t choose; you get chosen.”