Mercy

by Andrea Dworkin

  weeping wom bs; they’ll be born, the next generation, out o f

  what the assholes do to me; I’ve got enough semen dripping in

  me for a literary renaissance, an encyclopedia o f novellas, a

  generation o f genius; maybe some o f them will paint or write

  songs. Mother earth, magic vessel, the altar where they

  worship, the sacred place; fifty dollars to burn a candle, or

  pills, or a meal and money; bang bang ain’t never without

  consequences for the future o f the race. N o reason the race

  should be different from the people in it. There’s no tom orrow

  I know of. I never seen one that ain’t today. It’s fine to be slut-

  mama to a literary movement; the corporeal altar o f sym pathetic motherhood to a generation; his loins; m y ass.

  Immortal, anonymous means to his end. It’s what the hippie

  girls all glittering, flecked, stardust, want: to be procreatrix

  with flowering hips and tea made from plants instead o f

  Lipton; they recline, posh and simple, all spread out draped in

  flowing cotton and color; they don’t take money; well, they

  do, but they don’t say so upfront— from my point o f view

  they are mannerless in this regard; mostly they just hang on,

  like they have claws, it passes for spiritual, they just sit there

  until he comes back from wherever he’s gone after coitus has

  made him triste, they say it’s meditating but it’s just waiting

  for some guy to show w ho’s left; they ain’t under the light,

  they are o f it— luminescent fairy things from on high, just

  down for a fast, ethereal screw. I been to bed with them;

  usually a man and one o f them, because they don’t do women

  alone— too real for the nitrous oxide crowd, not Buddhistic

  enough— it’s got an I want right between the legs and it’s got

  your genitals leading your heart around or vice versa, who the

  hell knows, and it don’t make the boy happy unless he gets to

  watch and the hippie girls do not irritate the love-boys by

  doing things that might not be directly and specifically for

  them. The hippie boys like bringing another woman into bed.

  Y ou can shake some coke loose from them if you do it; or

  money, which they pretend is like nothing but they hold onto

  it pretty tight. Coke and orange juice is my favorite breakfast;

  they want you to do the coke with them because it makes them

  hard and high and ready but I like to take some o ff with me and

  do it alone or with someone I pick, not with someone in bed

  with some silly girl who ought to be a housewife but is seeing

  the big city and he’s so hip he has to be able to roll over from

  one to another, dreaming it’s another housewife, all girls are

  housewives to him; peace, flowers, love, clean m y house, bake

  m y bread. They try to tell you they see the real you, the

  sensitive you, inside, and the real you doesn’t want money—

  she wants the good fucking he’s got and to make strings o f

  beads for him and sell them in flea markets for him; darling,

  it’s sad. Y ou convey to the guy that you’re the real thing, what

  he never thought would be near him, street grime he w on ’t be

  able to wash off, and he’s so trembling and overw rought his

  prick starts shaking. There’s some who do things real, don’t

  spend their time posturing or preening; they just pull it out

  without philosophy. There’s this one I had once, with a

  woman. I was on Demerol because I had an operation; m y

  appendix came out but it had got all infected and it was a big

  slice in me and then they let me loose with a blood clot because

  there w asn’t somewhere for me to stay and I didn’t have

  money or no one to take care o f me so they just let me out. M y

  side didn’t seem like it would stay sewed, it felt open, and

  there was a pain from the clot that was some evil drilling in m y

  shoulder that they called reflexive pain which meant the pain

  was really somewhere else but I could only feel it in m y

  shoulder. It hurt to breathe. Y ou don’t think about your

  shoulder or how it moves when you breathe unless some Nazi

  is putting a drill in it; I saw God the Nazi pushing His full

  weight on the drill and if I breathed it made more pressure

  from inside on where the drill was and there w asn’t enough

  Demerol in the world. So I’m walking around, desperate and

  dreamy, in pain but liking the pills, and I see this shirt, fucking

  beautiful shirt, purple and turquoise and shades o f blue all in

  flowers, silk, astonishing whirl o f color; and the man’s dark

  with long hair and a beard, some prototype, no face, ju st hair;

  and I take him back but there’s this girl with him too, and she’s

  all hippie, endlessly expressing herself and putting little pats

  on m y hand, teeny weeny little pats, her hand to mine:

  expressing affection for another woman; heavy shit. I can

  barely believe this one’s rubbing her hands on me. And the

  guy starts fucking, and he’s some kind o f monster o f fuck, he

  lasts forever and a day, it’s night, it’s dark, and hours go by,

  and I see the light coming up, and she and me are next to each

  other, and he’s in me, then he’s in her, then me, then her, and

  m y side is splitting open and I’m not supposed to be m oving

  around with the clot but you can’t keep your hips still the

  whole time although my interest comes and goes, at some

  point the boy takes o ff the shirt and I’m wondering who he is

  and w hy he’s here, and I don’t have to w orry about her

  sentimentality because the boy isn’t seeking variety and he

  don’t want to watch, this is a boy who wants to fuck and he

  moves good but he’s boring as hell, the same, the same, and

  when the pain hits me I am pretty sure I am really going to die,

  that the clot is loose in my blood somewhere and it’s going to

  go to m y brain, and I’m trying to think this is real glorious,

  dying with some Olympian fuck, but the pain is some vicious,

  choked up tangle o f blades in my gut, and I try to

  choreograph the pain to his fuck, and I try to rest when he’s

  not in me, and I am praying he will stop, and I am at the same

  time trying to savor every second o f m y last minutes on earth,

  or last hours as it turns out, but intellectual honesty forced me

  to acknowledge I was bored, I was spending m y last time

  bored to death, I could have been a housewife after all; and the

  light comes up and I think, well, dawn will surely stop him;

  but he fucks well into daylight, it’s bright morning now with a

  disagreeably bright sun, profoundly intrusive, and suddenly

  there’s a spasm, thank the Lord, and the boy is spent, it’s the

  seventh day and this man who fucks must rest. And I thank

  God. I do. I say, thank you, Lord. I say, I owe Y ou one. I say, I

  appear still to be alive, I know I was doing something

  proscribed and maybe I shouldn’t address Y ou before he even

  moves o ff me but I am grateful to Y ou for stopping him, for

  making him tired, for wearing him out, for creating him in

  Y our image so that, e
ventually, he had to rest. I can’t move

  because m y insides are messed up. M y incision is burning as if

  there are lighted coals there and I’m afraid to see i f it is open or

  i f it will bleed now and m y shoulder has stones crushed into it

  as i f some demolition team was crushing granite, reflexive

  pain from some dead spot, I don’t know where, and I truly

  think I might not ever move again and I truly think I might

  have opened up and I truly think I might still die; and I want to

  be alone; die alone or bleed alone or endure the pain alone; and

  I’m lying there thinking they will go now when the girl starts

  pawing me and says stupid, nice things and starts being all

  lovey dovey like w e ’re both Gidget and she wants now to have

  the experience, if you will, o f making love with a wom an; this

  is in the too-little-too-late category at best; and I am fairly

  outraged and astonished because I hurt so much and m y little

  sister in sensitivity thinks we should start dating. So I tell them

  to go; and she says but he doesn’t like me better, m aybe he

  needs you to be there— needs you, can you imagine— and I’m

  trying to figure out what it has to do with him, w hy it’s what

  he wants when I want them to go; it’s what I want; I never

  understand w h y it’s always with these girls what he wants— i f

  he’s there and even if he ain’t in sight or in the vicinity; he had

  his hours doing what he wants; and she tells me she’s

  disappointed with me for not being loving and we could all

  share and this is some dream come true, the most amazing

  thing that’s ever happened, to her or ever on earth, it’s the

  pro o f that everything is possible, and the pain I’m in is keeping

  me from m oving because I can’t even sit up but I’m saying

  very quiet, get out now. And she’s saying it’s her first time

  with a woman and she didn’t really get to do anything—

  tourist didn’t get to see the Eiffel T ow er— and I say yes, that’s

  right, you didn’t get nothing. So she’s sad like some lover who

  was real left her and she’s handling me like she read in some

  book, being a tender person, saying everything bland and

  stupid, all her ideals about life, everything she’s hoped for, and

  she’s preachy with the m orality o f sharing and unity and

  harm ony and I expect her to shake her finger at me and hit m y

  knuckles with a ruler and make me stand in a corner for not

  being some loving bitch. T here’s a code o f love you have to

  learn by heart, which I never took to, and I’m thinking that if

  she don’t take her treacle to another planet I’m going to stand

  up, no matter what the pain, and physically carry her out, a

  new little bride, over the threshold to outside. She’s some

  sobbing ingenue with a delicate smile perpetually on her face

  shining through tears which are probably always with her and

  she’s talking about universal love when all the boy did was

  fuck us to death as best he could, which in m y case was close

  but no cigar and I couldn’t bring m yself to think it was all that

  friendly; and I had a short fuse because I needed another pill, I

  was a few behind and I was looking forward to making them

  up now in the immediate present, I could talk real nice to

  Demerol and I didn’t want them there for when I got high

  again; so I said, you go, because he really likes you and you

  should stay with him and be with him and be good to him, so

  the dumb bitch leaves with the prince o f peace over there, the

  b o y’s already smoking dope so he’s already on another plane

  taking care o f him self which is what he’s really good at; and

  she’s uncomprehending and she’s mournful that I couldn’t get

  the love part right but they went, I saw the b o y’s turquoise and

  purple silk shirt float by me and the drippy, sentimental girl in

  cotton floated out still soliciting love. I never understood w hy

  she thought you could ask for it. N o one can ask it from me. I

  never can remember his face; peculiar, since his head was right

  above me for so long, his tongue in my mouth, he kissed the

  whole time he fucked, a nice touch, he was in her kissing me or

  in me kissing her so no one’d get away from him or decide to

  do something else; I just can’t remember his face, as if I never

  saw it. He was a Taurus. I stayed away from them after that if I

  knew a man was one because they stay too long, slow, steady,

  forever. I never saw such longevity. She was Ellen, some

  flower child girl; doomed for housework. I’m not. I ain’t

  cleaning up after them. I keep things as clean as I can; but you

  can’t really stay clean; there’s too much heat and dirt. It’s a

  sweltering night. The little nymphs, imps, and pimps o f

  summer flitter about like it’s tea time at the Ritz. There’s been

  uprisings on the streets, riots, lootings, burning; the air is

  crackling with violence, a blue white fire eating up the

  oxygen, it’s tiny, sharp explosions that go o ff in the air around

  your head, firecrackers you can’t see that go o ff in front o f you

  when you walk, in front o f your face, and you don’t know

  when the air itself will become some white hot tornado, ju st

  enough to crack your head open and boil your brains. T hat’s

  outside, the world. Summertime and the living is easy. Y ou

  just walk through the fires between the flames or crawl on

  your belly under them; rough on your knees and elbows. Y o u

  can be in the street and have a steaming mass, hot heat, kinetic,

  come at you, a crowd, men at the top o f their energy, men

  spinning propelled by butane, and they bear down on you on

  the sidewalk, they come at you, martial chaos; they will march

  over you, yo u ’ll be crushed, bone m arrow ground into a paste

  with your own blood, a smear left on a sidewalk. The crow d ’s

  a monster animal, a giant w olf, huge and frantic, tall as the

  sky, blood pulsing and rushing through it, one predator,

  bearing down, a hairy, freaky, hungry thing, bared teeth,

  ugly, hungry thing, it springs through the air, light and lethal,

  and you will fucking cringe, hide, run, disappear, to be safe—

  you will fucking hide in a hole, like some roachy thing you

  will crawl into a crack. Y ou can hear the sound o f them

  coming, there’s a buzz coming up from the cement, it vibrates

  and kicks up dust, and somewhere a fire starts, somewhere

  close, and somewhere police in helmets with nightsticks are

  bearing down on the carnivorous beast, somewhere close and

  you can hear the skulls cracking open, and the blood comes,

  somewhere close there’s blood, and you can hear guns, there’s

  guns somewhere close because you smell the burning smell,

  it’s heat rising o ff someone’s open chest, the singed skin still

  sm oking where the bullet went through; the w o lfs being beat

  down— shot over and over, wounded, torn open— it’s big

  manly cops doing it, steel faces, lead boots— they ain’t

  harassing whores tonight. It looks like foreplay, t
he w ay the

  cops bear down on the undulating mass; I stroke your face

  with m y nightstick; the lover tames the beloved; death does

  quiet you down. But a pig can’t kill a wolf. The w o lfs the

  monster prick, then the pigs come and turn the w o lf into a girl,

  then it’s payback time and the w o lf rises again. In the day

  when the w o lf sleeps there are still fires; anything can suddenly

  go up in flames and you can’t tell the difference at first between

  a fire and a summer day, the sun on the garbage, the hot air

  making the ghetto buildings swell, the brick bulging,

  deformed and in places melting, all the solid brick w avy in the

  heat. At night the crowd rises, the w o lf rises, the great

  predator starts a long, slow walk toward the bullets waiting

  for it. The violence is in the air; not symbol; not metaphor; it’s

  thick and tasty; the air’s charged with it; it crackles around

  your head; then you stay in or go out, depending on— can you

  stand being trapped inside or do you like the open street? I

  sleep days. It’s safer. I sleep in daylight. I stay awake nights. I

  keep an eye out. I don’t like to be unconscious. I don’t like the

  w ay you get limp. I don’ t like how you can’t hear what goes

  on around you. I don’t like that you can’t see. I don’t like to be

  waiting. I don’t like that you get no warning. I don’t like not to

  know where I am. I don’t like not to know m y name. I sleep in

  the day because it’s safer; at night, I face the streets, the crowd,

  the predator, any predator, head on. I’d rather be there. I want

  to see it coming at me, the crowd or anything else or anyone. I

  want it to look at me and I want a chance. There’s gangs

  everywhere. There’s arson or fires or w o lf packs or packs o f

  men; men and gangs. The men outside m y door are banging;

  they want to come in; big group fuck; they tear me apart; b oys’

  night out. It’s about eight or nine at night and I’m going out

  soon, it’s a little too early yet, I hear them banging on the door

  with knives and fists, I can’t get out past them, there’s only one

  w ay out; I can’t get past them. Once night comes it’s easy to