and I prayed to God that m y uncle w ouldn’t talk but nothing
stopped him and I would try not to m ove and not to breathe so
I w ouldn’t run aw ay or call him bad names or scream because
it caused me such outrage in m y heart, I hated him so much for
being so stupid and so cruel. I sometimes had cuts on the inside
o f m y mouth because I would bite down to stop from talking
back and I would press m y fingernails into m y palms so bad
they would bleed and I had sores all over m y hands so I bit m y
nails to keep the sores from coming. Y ou had to do what
adults said no matter what even if you didn’t know them or
they were creeps or very bad people. The man was an adult.
He w asn’t so mean as m y uncle in how he talked, he talked
nicer and quieter. I was sitting there, acting grow n up,
wearing m y black bermuda shorts. Outside it was hot and
inside it was cold from air-conditioning. I liked the cold inside.
O ur house was hot and the city was hot but the movie was nice
and cold and the sweat dried on you and I liked how amazing it
felt. The man sat down next to me. There were a million empty
seats and the theater was like a huge, dark castle, but he
sat down right next to me, on m y left. The whole big theater
was empty. The usher was a teenager but I didn’t think he was
cute. He had a light blue uniform and a flashlight. He showed
me to my seat. He wanted it in the middle but I kept wanting
to go closer to the screen. I sat down in front where I’m not
allowed with my parents because they think it’s too close but I
like it because then the movie is big and it seems like the people
are giants and you forget everything looking at them. The
theater was so big and the ceiling was so high and you could
get lost in it except that the seats were all in rows. The theater
was dark but not completely dark. There was dim light but
not enough light really to see in or to read my book in. I had a
book stuffed in my pocket. I always carried a book. I liked to
read whenever I could. Y ou could read almost anywhere but
there wasn’t enough light even for me so I had to sit and wait
for the lights to go down all the w ay and the movie to start. I
crossed m y legs because I thought it was sophisticated. I
crossed them one way, then the other way. I opened the top
buttons on my blouse because I was alone now and I could do
what I wanted. The man sat down and the usher wasn’t there
because I tried to look but I didn’t want to insult the man by
acting like anything was wrong. I didn’t understand w hy he
had to sit there and I wished he wouldn’t but you had to be nice
to people who sat next to you in a bus or in a synagogue or
anywhere and I wanted to move but he hadn’t done anything
bad and I knew it would be an insult to him and I didn’t think I
was better than other people. He said some things to me and I
tried to look straight ahead and I tried to be polite and not talk
to him at the same time and I tried to ask him to leave me alone
but not to be rude because he was an adult and it wasn’t right to
be mean anyway. I didn’t understand what was w rong
because people sit next to people all the time but I thought he
could move over one seat and not be right next to me but I
didn’t know how to say he should m ove over w ith o u t. it
seeming like I was mean or thought he was dirty or poor or
something bad. He said things and I said yes or no or I don’t
know or I don’t think so and kept looking ahead to show I
w asn’t interested in talking and had other things on m y mind
and he told me I was pretty and grow n up and I said I was ju st a
child really and I had never been to the m ovies before m yself
and m y mother was waiting for me and I wanted to watch the
m ovie but when someone says yo u ’re pretty you have to say
thank you. Then the lights went o ff and it was really dark and
the room was dark and big, an enormous cave o f darkness, and
I felt buried alive in it as if it wasn’t good and then the light
started flickering across things from the screen and the man
put his arm around m y shoulder and I asked him not to touch
me but I was very polite because I thought he was just being a
friendly person because people only touched you if they were
your friends or your relatives and liked you and I wanted to
scream for the usher to come but I was afraid o f making noise
because it w asn’t right to make noise and I didn’t want to do
something w rong and insult the man and he did all those
things, many things but as i f it was one thing with no breaks or
stops in it because he ju st curled and curved and slid all over
with his arms everywhere and his mouth all over and his hands
everywhere and keeping me in the seat without stopping, and
he kept whispering and he hurt me and I didn’t know what to
do except that grow n-ups don’t cry or make noise and he
pushed his hands in me and I didn’t know what to do, except
he was hurting me, and he slumped more over me and in m y
chest and kept pressing me and then he slumped again and
shaked and stopped pressing so hard and I pulled m yself aw ay
from him grabbing on me and I ran and I ran all the w ay up the
aisle in the dark and I found the usher w ho was all the w ay in
the back and I said the man was bothering me but I was afraid
to say what he did and the usher didn’t say anything or do
anything so I asked if I could sit somewhere else please and
could he keep the man from bothering me please because I
knew you weren’t supposed to talk in the movies and the usher
could make you stop and he just stared at me and he took me
somewhere else with his flashlight and I sat there making my
shirt right and my pants right but I couldn’t make them right
and wiping my hand dry and I sat there looking all around in
the dark and there wasn’t enough light from the movie for me
to see where the man was and I couldn’t look at the movie
because I kept looking for the man but I was afraid that if he
saw me looking for him he would think I was wanting him to
come and I kept trying to see where he was in the dark and i f he
was going to try to talk to me more and the movie kept going
on but I was afraid to watch it because maybe the man would
come and I knew I couldn’t find my mother because it wasn’t
time to meet her yet and I had to stay in the movies or I didn’t
have anywhere to go and then the man came and I was going
to scream or hit him or shout but I was afraid to because I was
never allowed to hit adults, no such thing could ever happen,
and he looked at me and he stared and he walked by and down
the aisle and I was afraid he would come back and I got up and I
ran, I ran out, I ran into the street, into the cars, into the hot air,
into the light, it was like running into a wall o f heat and I
couldn’t breathe, and I ran to the department store and once
when I was a little child I had g
otten lost in a department store
and I was lost from m y mother a long time and someone took
me to the manager because I was crying and lost and scared
and they announced over the loudspeaker for m y mother to
come find me and she came and this was the first time I was
ever so scared since then but I w ouldn’t cry or make noise
because I didn’t want the man to find me so I kept running and
saying I needed the manager and I needed m y mother and it
was an emergency but I kept as quiet as I could and I couldn’t
breathe so they called her on the loudspeaker and then when
she came I shook and cried and I tried to tell her and she said,
did anything happen, and I kept saying yes and I kept trying to
say each thing that happened and then we were on the bus and I
kept crying but I w asn’t supposed to talk because people could
hear and it was something bad, and then we got home and I
said how I didn’t want the man to sit next to me and I didn’t
know how to tell him to go away because he was an adult and I
didn’t mean to do something w rong but I didn’t know how to
tell the man not to rub because I didn’t even know what it was
or if it was a mistake because maybe he was making a mistake
because it was dark and maybe he thought I was someone else
that he knew or it was some other mistake and when I told him
he didn’t listen to me and he rubbed me and I didn’t want him
to, I wanted him to go away, and I tried to be polite and act like
an adult and not make noise in public and I didn’t cry like a
child and he had a dark jacket on and they asked me if it was
leather but I didn’t know what leather was and they asked me
what it felt like but I didn’t know how to say and he had on a
striped shirt and he had on dark pants and he had dark hair and
he didn’t sit straight even when he first sat down and he had
bad posture because he couldn’t sit straight and he smoked and
he asked me i f I wanted to smoke, and I did but I didn’t say that
to m y mother because I just looked ahead o f me and said no
even though I wanted to and so I was good and I didn’t have to
say I wanted to, and then he slumped all over me and held me
still with his arm around m y shoulder and his head pinned
under m y head so I couldn’t m ove aw ay and I couldn’t
describe him enough for them but I could still see him; and m y
mother cried; and now I can see him, almost, I can’t remember
yesterday as well, even now he’s right next to me, almost, on
me, almost, the pressure o f his body covering m y heart,
almost, I can touch him, nearly, I could search the earth for
him and find him, I think, or if he sat down next to me I w ould
die, except I can’t quite see his face, nearly but not enough, not
quite, and I can feel his fingers going in, almost, if I touch my
face his fingers are more real, and it hurts, the bruised, scraped
labial skin, the pushed, twisted skin; and my daddy came into
my room after I couldn’t cry anymore and said nothing
happened and not to cry anymore and we wouldn’t talk about
it anymore; and I waited to be pregnant and tried to think i f I
would die. I could have the baby standing up and I wouldn’t
make any noise. M y room is small but I can hide behind the
door.
T W O
In 1961 and 1962
(Age 14, 15, 16)
M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe
only boys are named it. I live in the U . S . A. I was bom down
the street from Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street in
Camden in 1946, after the war, after the bomb. I was the first
generation after the bomb. I’ve always known I would die.
Other generations didn’t think so. Everyone says I’m sad but
I’m not sad. It doesn’t make me sad. The houses were brick,
the brick was made o f blood and straw, there was dust and dirt
on the sidewalks, the sidewalks were gray, the cement was
cracked, it was dark, always dark, thick dark you could reach
out and touch and it came down all around you and you could
feel it weighing on you and bumping up against you and
ramming you from behind. Y o u m oved against the dark or
under it or it pushed you from behind. The dark was
everything. Y o u had to learn to read it with your fingers or
you would be lost; might die. The cement was next, a great
gray desert. Y ou were on it, stuck and abandoned, a great gray
plain going on forever. They made you fall on your knees on
the cement and stay there so the dark could come and get you.
The dark pushed you, the cement was the bed, you fell on
your knees, the dark took you, the cement cradled you, a
harsh, angry embrace tearing the skin o ff your knees and
hands. Some places there is a great, unbearable wind, and the
fragile human breaks in it, bends in it, falls. Here there was this
dark; like the great, unbearable wind but perfectly still, quiet,
thick; it pushed without moving. Them in the dark, the
cement was the bed, a cold slat o f death, a grave with no rest,
the best bed you could get, the best bed you would ever have,
you fell forward on your knees pushed by the dark from
behind and the dark banged into you or sometimes there were
boys in cars flying by in the dark and then coming around
from behind, later, the same ones; or sometimes different
ones. The dark was some army o f them, some mass, a creature
from the deep, the blob, a giant parasite, some spreading
monster, pods, wolfmen. They called you names and they
hissed, hot steam o ff their tongues. They followed you in
beat-up cars or they just stood around and they whistled and
made noises, and the dark pushed you down and banged into
you and you were on your hands and knees, the skin torn off,
not praying, waiting, wanting all right, wanting for the dark
to move o ff you, pick itself up and run. The dark was hissing
and hot and hard with a jagged bone, a cold, brutal bone, and
hips packed tight. The dark wasn’t just at night. The dark was
any time, any place; you open your eyes and the dark is there,
right up against you, pressing. You can’t see anything and you
don’t know any names, not who they are or the names for
what they do; the dark is all you know, familiar, old, from
long ago, is it Nino or Joe or Ken or Curt, curly hair or
straight, hard hips, tight, driven, familiar with strange words
whispered in your ear, like wind lashing it. Do they see you,
do they know your name? I’m Andrea you whisper in the dark
and the dark whispers back, okay babe; shut up babe; that’s
cool babe; that’s a pretty name babe; and pulls out all the w ay
and drives back in, harder, more. Nino is rough and bad, him
and his friend, and he says what’s w rong with making love
here, right now, on this lunch counter. We are in Lits. I’m
alone, a grown-up teenage girl; at the lunch counter, myself.
They come up to me. I don’t know the name o f the other one. I
have never heard any
one say “ making love” before. Nino
takes the salt shaker and the pepper shaker from the counter
and he rubs them against each other, slow , and he talks staring
at me so I can’t m ove m y head aw ay from his eyes and he says
w hat’s w rong with it, here, now , in the daytime, on this lunch
counter, you and me, now, and I don’t know w hat’s w rong
with it; is N ino one o f them, in the dark? Stuart is m y age from
school before he stopped coming and went bad and started
running with gangs and he warned me to stay aw ay from him
and Nino who is older and bad and where they go. N ino has a
knife. I write m y first poem for Nino; I want it to be N ino; I’d
touch him back. I ran away lots o f times. I was on the bus to
N ew Y o rk lots o f times. I necked with old men I found on the
bus lots o f times. I necked with Vincent and Charles different
times, adults, Vincent had gray hair and a thick foreign accent,
Italian, and Charles had a hard, bronze face and an accent you
could barely hear from someplace far, far away, and they liked
fifteen-year-old girls; and they whispered deep, horsey,
choked words and had wet mouths; and you crunched down
in the seats and they kissed you all over, then with their hands
they took your head and forced it into their laps. One became a
famous m ovie star and I went to watch him in cow boy films.
He was the baddie but he was real nice to me. I said I wanted to
be a writer, a real writer, a great writer like Rimbaud or
D ostoevsky. He didn’t laugh. He said we were both artists and
it was hard. He said, Andrea, that’s a pretty name. He said
follow your dream, never give up, it takes a long time, years
even, and we slouched down in the seats. I knew the highw ay
to N ew Y o rk and the streets when I got there. I knew the back
alleys in Philadelphia too but I didn’t like Philadelphia. It was
fake, pretend folksingers and pretend guitar players and
pretend drug dealers, all attitude, some pot, nothing hard,
pretend poets, a different attitude, no poems. Y o u couldn’t get
lost in the dark, it w asn’t dense enough, it w asn’t desolate
Mercy Page 4