Mercy

by Andrea Dworkin

  a fast, gorgeous trip out o f hell, a hundred-mile-an-hour ride

  on a different road in the opposite direction, it’s when you see

  an attitude that sets you free, the way she moves breaks you

  out, or you touch her shoulder and exhilaration shoots

  through you like a needle would do hanging from your vein if

  it’s got something good in it; it’s a gold rush; your life’s telling

  you that if you’re between her legs you’re free— free’s not

  peaceful and not always kind, it’s fast, a shooting star you ride,

  i f you’re stupid it shakes you loose and hurls you somewhere

  in the sky, no gravity, no fall, just eternal drift to nowhere out

  past up and down. You can live forever on the curve o f her

  hip, attached there in sweat and desire taking the full measure

  o f your own human sorrow; you can have this tearing sorrow

  with your face pushing on the inside o f her thigh; you can have

  her lips on you, her hands pushing on you as if you’re marble

  she’s turning into clay, an electricity running all over you

  carried in saliva and spit, you’re cosseted in electric shock,

  peeing, your hair standing up on end, muscles stretched, lit

  up; there’s her around you and in you everywhere, the

  rhythm o f your dance and at the same time she’s like the

  placenta, you breathe in her, surrounded; it’s something men

  don’t know or they’d do it, they could do it, but instead they

  want this push, shove, whatever it is they’re doing for

  whatever reason, it’s an ignorant meanness, but with a woman

  you ’re whole and you’re free, it ain’t pieces o f you flying

  around like shit, it ain’t being used up, you got scars bigger

  than the freedom you get in everyday life; do it the w ay you ’re

  supposed to, you got twenty-four hours a day down on your

  knees sucking dick; that’s how girls do hard time. There’s not

  many women around who have any freedom in them let alone

  some to spare, extravagant, on you, and it’s when they’re on

  you you see it best and know it’s real, now and all, there w o n ’t

  be anything wilder or finer, it’s pure and true, you see it, you

  chase them, they’re on you, you get enraptured in it, once you

  got it on you, once you feel it m oving through you, it’s a

  contagion o f wanting more than you get being pussy for the

  boys, you catch it like a fever, it puts you on a slow bum with

  your skin aching and you want it more than you can find it

  because most women are beggars and slaves in spirit and in life

  and you don’t ever give up wanting it. Otherwise you get

  worn down to what they say you are, you get worn down to

  pussy, bedraggled; not bewitched, bothered, bewildered; ju st

  some wet, ratty, bedraggled thing, semen caked on you, his

  piss running down your legs, worn out, old from what yo u ’re

  sucking, I’m pretty fucking old and I have been loved by

  freedom and I have loved freedom back. Did you ever have a

  nightmare? Men coming in’s m y nightmare; entering; I’m in,

  knock, knock. There’s writers being assholes about outlaws;

  outlaw this, outlaw that, I’m bad, I’m sitting here writing m y

  book and I’m bad, I’m typing and I’m bad, m y secretary’s

  typing and I’m bad, I got laid, the boys say, like their novels

  are letters home to mama, well, hell’s bells, the boys got laid:

  more than once. It’s something to write home about, all right;

  costs fifty bucks, too; they found dirty wom en they did it to,

  dirty women too fucking poor to have a typewriter to stu ff up

  bad boy w riter’s ass. Shit. Y ou follow his cock around the big,

  bad city: N ew Y ork, Paris, Rom e— same city, same cock.

  B ig, bad cock. Wiping themselves on dirty women, then

  writing home to mama by w ay o f G rove Press, saying what

  trash the dirty women are; how brave the bad boys are,

  writing about it, doing it, putting their cocks in the big, bad,

  dirty hole where all the other big, brave boys were; oh they say

  dirty words about dirty women good. I read the books. I had a

  typewriter but it was stolen when the men broke in. The men

  broke in before when I w asn’t here and they took everything,

  my clothes, my typewriter. I wrote stories. Some were about

  life on other planets; I wrote once about a wild woman on a

  rock on Mars. I described the rock, the red planet, barren, and

  a woman with tangled hair, big, with muscles, sort o f Ursula

  Andress on a rock. I couldn’t think o f what happened though.

  She was just there alone. I loved it. Never wanted it to end. I

  wrote about the country a lot, pastoral stuff, peaceful, I made

  up stories about the wind blowing through the trees and leaves

  falling and turning red. I wrote stories about teenagers feeling

  angst, not the ones I knew but regular ones with stereos. I

  couldn’t think o f details though. I wrote about men and

  women making love. I made it up; or took it from Nino, a boy

  I knew, except I made it real nice; as he said it would be; I left

  out the knife. The men writers make it as nasty as they can, it’s

  like they’re using a machine gun on her; they type with their

  fucking cocks— as Mailer admitted, right? Except he said

  balls, always a romancer. I can’t think o f getting a new

  typewriter, I need money for just staying alive, orange juice

  and coffee and cigarettes and milk, vodka and pills, they’ll just

  smash it or take it anyway, I have to just learn to write with a

  pen and paper in handwriting so no one can steal it and so it

  don’t take money. When I read the big men writers I’m them;

  careening around like they do; never paying a fucking price;

  days are long, their books are short compared to an hour on

  the street; but if you think about a book just saying I’m a prick

  and I fuck dirty girls, the books are pretty long; m y cock, m y

  cock, three volumes. They should just say: I Can Fuck.

  Norm an M ailer’s new novel. I Can Be Fucked. Jean Genet’s

  new novel. I ' m Waiting To Be Fucked Or To Fuck, I Don't

  Know. Samuel Beckett’s new novel. She Shit. Jam es Jo y c e ’s

  masterpiece. Fuck Me, Fuck Her, Fuck It. The Living Theatre’s

  new play. Paradise Fucked. The sequel. Mama, I Fucked a Jewish

  Girl. The new Philip Roth. Mama, I Fucked a Shiksa. The new,

  new Philip Roth. It was a bad day they w ouldn’t let little boys

  say that word. I got to tell you, they get laid. T h e y’re up and

  down these streets, taking what they want; tw o hundred

  million little Henry Millers with hard pricks and a mean prose

  style; Pulitzer prizewinning assholes using cash. Looking for

  experience, which is what they call pussy afterward when

  they’re back in their posh apartments trying to ju stify

  themselves. Experience is us, the ones they stick it in.

  Experience is when they put down the money, then they turn

  you around like yo u ’re a chicken they’re roasting; they stick it

  in any hole they can find just to try it or because they’re blind

  drunk and it ain’t painted red so they can’t find
it; you get to be

  lab mice for them; they stick the famous Steel Rod into any

  Fleshy Hole they can find and they Ram the Rod In when they

  can manage it which thank God often enough they can’t. The

  prose gets real purple then. Y ou can’t put it down to

  impotence though because they get laid and they had wom en

  and they fucked a lot; they just never seem to get over the

  miracle that it’s them in a big man’s body doing all the

  damage; Look, ma, it’s me. Volum e Tw elve. They don’t act

  like human beings and they’re pretty proud o f it so there’s no

  point in pretending they are; though you want to— pretend.

  Y o u ’d like to think they could feel something— sad; or

  remorse; or something ju st simple, a minute o f recognition.

  It’s interesting that yo u ’re so dangerous to them but you

  fucking can’t hurt them; how can you be dangerous if you

  can’t do harm; I’d like to be able to level them, but you can’t

  touch them except to be fucked by them; they get to do it and

  then they get to say what it is they’re doing— yo u ’re what

  they’re afraid o f but the fear just keeps them coming, it doesn’t

  shake them loose or get them o ff you; it’s more like the glue

  that keeps them on you; sticky stuff, how afraid the pricks are.

  I mean, m aybe they’re not afraid. It sounds so stupid to say

  they are, so banal, like making them human anyw ay, like

  giving them the insides you wish they had. So what do you

  say; they’re just so fucking filled with hate they can’t do

  anything else or feel anything else or write anything else? I

  mean, do they ever look at the fucking moon? I think all the

  sperm they’re spilling is going to have an effect; something’s

  going to grow. It’s like they’re planting a whole next

  generation o f themselves by sympathetic magic; not that

  they’re fucking to have babies; it’s more like they’re rubbing

  and heaving and pushing and banging and shoving and

  ejaculating like some kind o f voodoo rite so all the sperm will

  grow into more them, more boys with more books about how

  they got themselves into dirt and got out alive. It’s a thrilling

  story, says the dirt they got themselves into. It’s bitterness,

  being their filth; they don’t even remember right, you’re not

  distinct enough, an amoeba’s more distinct, more individuated; they go home and make it up after they did it for real and

  suddenly they ain’t parasites, they’re heroes— big dicks in the

  big night taming some rich but underneath it all street dirty

  whore, some glamorous thing but underneath filth; I think

  even i f you were with them all the time they wouldn’t

  remember you day-to-day, it’s like being null and void and

  fucked at the same time, I am fucked, therefore I am not.

  M aybe I’ll write books about history— prior times, the War o f

  1812; not here and now, which is a heartbreaking time, place,

  situation, for someone. Y o u ’re nothing to them. I don’t think

  they’re afraid. Maybe I’m afraid. The men want to come in; I

  hear them outside, banging; they’re banging against the door

  with metal things, probably knives; the men around here have

  knives; they use knives; I’m familiar with knives; I grew up

  around knives; Nino used a knife; I’m not afraid o f knives.

  Fear’s a funny thing; you get fucked enough you lose it; or

  most o f it; I don’t know w hy that should be per se. It’s all

  callouses, not fear, a hard heart, and inside a lot o f death as if

  they put it there, delivered it in. And then out o f nowhere you

  ju st drown in it, it’s a million tons o f water on you. if I was

  afraid o f individual things, normal things— today, tom orrow ,

  w hat’s next, w h o ’s on top, what already has transpired that

  you can’t quite reach down into to remember— I’d have to

  surrender; but it drowns you fast, then it’s gone. I’d like to

  surrender; but to whom , where, or do you just put up a white

  flag and they take you to throw your body on a pile

  somewhere? I don’t believe in it. I think you have to make

  them come get you, you don’t volunteer, it’s a matter o f pride.

  Who do you turn yourself into and on what terms— hey,

  fellow, I’m done but that don’t mean you get to hurt me

  more, you have to keep the"deal, I made a deal, I get not to feel

  more pain, I’m finished, I’m not fighting you fucks anymore,

  I’ll be dead if it’s the w ay to accomplish this transformation

  from what I am into being nothing with no pain. But if you get

  dead and there’s an afterlife and it’s more o f the same but

  worse— I would just die from that. Y ou got all these same

  mean motherfuckers around after yo u ’re dead and you got the

  God who made it all still messing with you but now up

  close— H e’s around. Y o u ’re listening to angels and yo u ’re

  not allowed to tell God H e’s one m aggoty bastard; or yo u ’re

  running around in circles in hell, imprisoned by your fatal

  flaw, instead o f being here on a leash with all your flaws, none

  fatal enough, making you a m aggoty piece o f meat. I want

  dead to mean dead; all done; finished; quiet; insensate;

  nothing; I want it to be peaceful, no me being pushed around

  or pushing, I don’t want to feel the worm s crawling on me or

  eating me or the cold o f the wet ground or suffocating from

  being buried or smothering from being under the ground; or

  being stone cold from being dead; I don’t want to feel cold; I

  don’t want to be in eternal dark forever stone cold. N othing

  by which I mean a pure void, true nonexistence, is different; it

  isn’t filled with horror or dread or fear or punishment or pain;

  it’s ju st an absence o f being, especially so you don’t have to

  think or know anything or figure out how yo u ’re going to eat

  or w ho’s going to be on you next. It’s not suffering. I don’t

  have suffering in mind; not jo y , not pain— no highs, no lows.

  Just not being; not being a citizen wandering around the

  universe in a body or loose, ethereal and invisible; or just not

  being a citizen here, now, under street lights, all illuminated,

  the light shining down. I hate the light shining down— display

  yourself, dear, show them; smile, spread your legs, make

  suggestive gestures, legs wide open— there’s lots o f ways to sit

  or stand with your legs wide open. Which day did God make

  light? You think He had the street lights in some big

  storeroom in the sky to send down to earth when women

  started crawling over sidewalks like cockroaches to stay alive?

  I think He did. I think it was part o f the big plan— light those

  girls up, give them sallow light, covers pox marks, covers

  tracks, covers bruises, good light for covering them up and

  showing them at the same time, makes them look grotesque,

  just inhuman enough, same species but not really, you can

  stick it in but these aren’t creatures that get to come home, not

  into a home, not home, not quite the same species, sallow />
  light, makes them green and grotesque, creatures you put it in,

  not female ones o f you, even a fucking rib o f you; you got ones

  in good light for that. They stick it in boys too; anything under

  these lights is here to be used. Y o u ’d think they’d know boys

  was real, same species, with fists that work or will someday,

  but someday isn’t their problem and they like the feel that the

  boy might turn mean on them— some o f them like it, the ones

  that use the older ones. I read about this boy that was taken o ff

  the street and the man gave him hormones to make him grow

  breasts and lose his body hair or not get it, I’m not sure; it

  made me really sick because the boy was nothing to him, just

  some piece o f something he could mess with, remake to what

  he wanted to play with, even something monstrous; I wanted

  to kill the guy; and I tried to figure out how to help the kid, but

  I just read it in Time or Newsweek so I wondered i f I could find

  him or not. I guess it depends on how many boys there are

  being fed hormones by pedophiles. Once it’s in Newsweek, I

  guess there are thousands. The kid’s around here somewhere;

  it said Low er East Side; I hate it, what the man did to him.

  These Goddamn men would all be each other’s meat if they

  weren’t the butchers. They use fucking to slice you open. It’s

  like they’re hollow, there’s nothing there, except they make

  big noise, this unbearable static, some screeching, high-

  pitched pain, and you can’t see they’re hollow because the

  noise diverts you to near madness; big lovemaker with fifty

  dollars to spend, seed to spill making mimetic magic, grind,

  bang, it’s a boy, a big, bad boy who writes books, big, bad

  books. I see the future and it’s a bunch o f pricks making a

  literature o f fucking, high art about sticking it in; I did it, ma;

  she was filth and I did it. O nly yo u ’ll get a Mailer-Genet beast:

  I did it, ma, I did it to her, he did it to me. The cement will

  grow them; sympathetic magic w orks; the spilled seed, the

  grinding, bang bang, pushes the fuck out past the bounds o f

  physical reality; it lurks in the biosphere; it will creep into