such and there’s a terrible decline and fall awaiting you, fear
and travail, because the m oney’s gone, you been handing it
over to the big man behind the bar and you been drinking and
you been contemplating and the pile’s gone and there’s terrible
challenges ahead, like physically getting o ff the stool and
physically getting out o f the room and physically getting
home; it hardly seems possible that you could actually have so
many legs and none o f them have any bones that stand up
straight and you break it down into smaller parts; pay up so the
bartender don’t break your fingers; get o ff the stool; stand up;
walk, try not to lean on anyone, you can’t use the men as
leaning posts, you can’t volley yourself to the front sort o f
springing o ff one after the other, because one or another will
consider it affection; get to the door; don’t fall on the mandarin
with the list, don’t trip in front o f him, don’t throw up; open
the door on your own steam; get out the door fully clothed,
jacket, T-shirt, keys; once outside, you make another plan.
These are hard things; some o f them may actually be
impossible. It may be impossible to pay the bartender because
you may have drunk too much and it may be impossible to get
o ff the stool and it may be impossible to walk and it may be
impossible to stand up and it may be impossible to find the
door. It’s sad, yo u ’re an orphan and it’s hard to concentrate,
what with poor nutrition and a bad education; but sociology
w ill not save your ass if you drank more money than you got
because a citizen has to pay their bar bills. There’s tw o dollars
sitting on the bar in front o f you, the remains o f your pile like
old bones, fragments o f an archaic skeleton, little remnants o f
a big civilization dug up and yo u ’re eyeing it like it’s the grail
but with dishonorable intent and profane desire. It’s rightly
the bartender’s. H e’s been taking the money as it’s been due
with righteous discipline, which is w hy you ain’t overdrawn
on the account; you asked him in a tiny mouse voice afraid o f
the answer, you squeaked in the male din, a frightened
whisper, you asked him if you owed, you got up the nerve,
and yo u ’re straight with him as far as it goes but these extra
bills are rightly his; or you could have another drink; but you
had wanted to end it well, with some honor; and also he ain’t a
waitress, dear, and the m oney’s got his mark on it; and he ain’t
cracked a smile or said a tender word all night, which a girl
ain’t used to, he don’t like girl drinkers as a matter o f principle
you assume, he’s fast, he’s quiet, he’s got a hard, cold face with
a square ja w and long, oily hair and a shirt half open and a long
earring and bad teeth and he’s aloof and cold to you; and then
suddenly, so fast it didn’t happen, there’s a big, warm hand on
your hand, a big, hairy hand, and he’s squeezing your fingers
around the two dollars and he’s half smiling, one half o f his
face is smiling, and he says darling take a fucking cab. Y ou
stare at him but you can’t exactly see him; his face ain’t all in
one piece; it’s sort o f split and moving; and before you exactly
see his mouth move and hook it up with his words he’s gone,
w ay to a foreign country, the other end o f the bar where
they’re having bourbon, some cowboys with beards and hats.
Life’s always kind in a pinch. The universe opens up with a
gift. There’s generosity, someone gives you something special
you need; two dollars and you don’t have to suck nothing, you
are saved and the man in his generosity stirs you deeply.
Y o u ’re inspired to succeed with the rest o f the plan— move,
stand, walk, execute each detail o f the plan with a military
precision, although you wish you could take o ff your T-shirt
because it’s very hot but you follow the plan you made in your
mind and although your legs buckle and the ground isn’t solid,
it’s swelling and heaving, you make it past the strange, w avy
creatures with the deep baritone voices and the erections and
you get out, you get out the door even though it’s hard and
yo u ’re afraid because you can see outside that it’s raining, it’s
raining very hard, it’s pouring down, it’s so wet, you really
have an aversion to it because all your clothes will be drenched
and soaking and your lungs will be wet and your bones will
get all damp and wet and you can’t really see very well and the
rain’s too heavy and everything looks different from before
and you can’t really see through the rain and it’s getting in
your eyes as if your eyes are under water and burning, all
drowned in water, they hurt, and everything’s blurred and
your hair’s all wet as if it w o n ’t ever be dry again and there’s
water in your ears deep down and it hurts and everything's
chilly and wet. The w o rld ’s wet and watery and without
definition and without any fixed places o f reference or fixed
signs and it’s as if the city’s floating by you, like some flood
uprooted everything and it’s loose on the rapids and everywhere you step you are in a flood o f racing cold water. Y ou r feet are all wet and your legs are all wet and you squoosh in
your boots and all your clothes are soaked through and you are
dripping so much that it is as if you yourself are raining,
w ater’s flooding o ff you and it’s useless to be a person with
legs who counts on solid ground because here you have to
walk through water, which isn’t easy, yo u ’re supposed to
sw im through it but there’s not enough to swim through and
there’s too much to walk through, it’s as if yo u ’re glued and
gum m y and loose and the ground’s loose and the water’s loose
and yo u ’re breathing in water as much as air and you feel like
some fucking turkey that’s going to drow n in the rain; which
probably you will. Y o u ’re trying to walk home and it’s been a
long time, the old trick o f putting one foot in front o f the other
doesn’t seem to be working and you don’t seem to have got
very far but it’s hard to tell since nothing looks right or
familiar and everything’s under water and blurry and yo u ’re
cold and sort o f fixed in place because the w ater’s weighing
you down, kind o f making you so heavy you can’t really m ove
as i f yo u ’re an earthbound person m oving effortlessly through
air as is the case with normal people on normal days because it
ain’t air, it’s water. Y o u ’re all wet as if you was naked and your
clothes are wet and heavy as if they was lead and your breasts
are sore from the wet and the cold and your pubic hair’s all
wet and rubbing up against the wet stu ff all bunched up in
your crotch and there’s rain rolling down your legs and
com ing out the bottom o f your pants and yo u ’d be happier
naked, wet and naked, because the clothes feel very bad on
you, wet and bad. T h ey’re heavy and nasty and cold. The
wet, and your hand’s clutched, and you try proceeding
through the wet blur, you need to stay on the sidewalks and
you need to avoid oncoming cars and turning cars and crazy
cars that can’t see any better than you and you need to see the
traffic lights and you need to see what’s in front o f you and
w hat’s on the side o f you and what’s behind you, just as on any
regular day, and at night even more; but you can’t see and the
rain keeps you from hearing as well and you proceed slow ly
and you don’t get too far; it’s been a long time you been out
here and you haven’t gone but half a block and you are
drenched in water and breathing too fast and breathing too
hard and your legs aren’t carrying you right and the ground’s
not staying still and the water’s pushing you from behind and
it’d like to flatten you out and roll over you, and it ain’t nice
lapping against the calves o f your legs; and a cab stops; which
you have barely ever ridden in before, not on your own; it
stops; you’ve been in them when someone’s given you money
to deliver packages and said where to go and exactly what to
do and how much it would cost and still you were scared it
would cost too much and you wouldn’t have it and something
terrible would happen; a cab stops and you don’t know if two
dollars is enough or if he thinks you’re turning tricks, a dumb
wet whore, or if he just wants to fuck or if you could get inside
and he’d just take you home, a passenger; a cab stops and
yo u ’re afraid to get in because you’re not a person who rides in
cabs even in extremis even though you have two dollars and
it’s for taking a cab as the bartender said if you didn’t dream it
and probably he knows how much everything costs; a cab
stops; and yo u ’re wet; and you want to go home; and if you
got in the cab you could be home almost right away, very
close to right away, you could be home in just some few
minutes instead o f a very long time, because if you walk you
don’t know how long it will take or how tired yo u ’ll be and
you could get so tired you just stop somewhere to give up, a
doorw ay, an abandoned car, or even if you keep going it will
take a long time; and i f you got in the cab you could sit still for
a few minutes in perfect dignity and it would be dry and quiet
and you would be in the back, a passenger, and you could
ju m p if he pulled shit, if he started driving wild or going
somewhere strange, and yo u ’d give him the tw o dollars and
he’d take you home, and you get in the cab, it’s dark and
leather and yo u ’re scared about the m oney so you say upfront
that you only got two dollars and he asks where yo u ’re going
and you say and he says fine, it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s no
problem, and he says it’s raining and you say yeah, it is; and he
says some quiet, simple things, like sometimes it rains too
hard, and you say yes; he’s quiet and softspoken and there’s
long, curly hair cascading down his back and he says that I’m
wet with some sym pathy and I say yes I am; and he asks me
what I do in a quiet and sympathetic w ay and I say I’m a writer;
and he says he’s a musician, very quiet, nice; and I say I drank
too much, I was writing and I got restless and I got drunk and
he says yes he knows what that’s like, very quiet, very nice,
he’s done it too, everyone does it sometimes, but he doesn’t
keep talking, he’s very quiet, he talks soft, not a lot, and there’s
quiet moments and I think he’s pretty nice and I’m trying to
watch the streets to see where we are and w e’re going towards
where I live but up and down blocks, it doesn’t seem direct but
I don’t know because I don’t drive and I don’t know if there’s
one-w ay streets and the meter’s o ff anyw ay and he’s English
like in films with a distinguished accent, sort o f tough like
Albert Finney but he talks quiet and nice, a little dissonant; he’s
sort o f slim and delicate, you know how pretty a man can be
when he’s got fine features, chiseled, and curls, and he’s sort o f
waif-like, kind o f like a child in Dickens, appealing with a pull
to the heart, street pretty but softspoken, not quite hard, not
apparently cynical, not a regular N ew Y ork taxi driver as I’ve
seen them, all squat and old, but graceful, lithe, slight, young,
younger than me probably, new, not quite used but not
untouched, virginal but available, you can have him but it isn’t
quite right to touch him, he’s withdrawn and aloof and it
appears as a form o f refinement, he’s delicate and finely made,
you wonder what it would be like to touch him or if he’d be
charmed enough to touch you back, it’s a beauty without
prettiness except this one’s pretty too, too pretty for me, I
think, I never had such a pretty, delicate boy put together so
fine, pale, the face o f an old, inbred race, now decadent,
fragile, bloodless, with the heartrending beauty o f fine old
bones put together delicately, reconstructed under glass, it
w ouldn’t really be right to touch it but still you want to, just
touch it; and you couldn’t really stop looking at him in the
m irror o f the taxi, all the parts o f his face barely hang together,
all the parts are fragile and thin, it’s delicate features and an
attitude, charm and insouciance but with reserve, he puts out
and he holds back, he decides, he’s used to being wanted, he’s
aloof, or is it polite, or is it gentle? He turns around and smiles
and it’s like angel dust; I’m dusted. I get all girlish and
embarrassed and I think, really, he’s too pretty, he doesn’t
mean it, and there’s a real tense quiet and we drive and then he
stops and w e’re there and I hand him the two dollars because
we agreed and he says real quiet, maybe I could come in, and I
say yes, and I’m thinking he’s so pretty, it’s like being in a
m ovie with some movie star you have a crush on only he’s
coming with you and it’s not in a movie but you know how a
crush on someone in a film makes you crazy, so weird, as if
you could really touch him even though he’s flat and on film
and the strange need you think you have for him and the things
you think you would do with him, those are the feelings,
because I have a stupid crush, an insane crush, a boy-crazy
crush, and I am thinking this is a gorgeous night with the
visitation o f this fine boy but I am so fucking drunk I can
barely get up the steps and I think he’ll turn around and go
because it can’t be nice for him and now he can see how drunk;
smashed; as if I got Stoli pumping through m y heart and it’s
fumes I’m inhaling, fumes rising out o f m y ow n veins or rising
from m y chest, like a fog rising out o f m y chest, and I am
falling down drunk and such a fool, in m y heart I am romantic
for him, all desire and affection verging on an impolite
hunger, raw, greedy, now, now, but there’s m y beautiful
dog, m y very gorgeous and fine dog, m y heart, m y beast o f
jo y and love, m y heart and soul, m y friend on romps and good
times around the block, and she’s jum ping up and down and
she’s licking me and she’s jum ping all over me and it makes me
fall and I say I have to walk her because I do, I must, she’s got
rights, I explain, I have this idea she’s got rights, and I think he
will leave now but he says, very quiet and nice, oh I’ll walk
her, you ju st lie here, and I am flat out drunk, laid out drunk,
flat and drunk on m y bed, a mattress on the floor, barely a
mattress, a cut piece o f foam rubber, hard and flat, it’s an
austere bed for serious solitude or serious sex and I am fucking
stretched out and the walls move, a fast circle dance, and he
takes her leash and they leave and I’m smiling but time goes by
and I get scared, I start waiting, I start feeling time brushing by
me, I start thinking I will never see m y dog again and I think
what have I done and I think I will die from losing her if he
doesn’t bring her back and I think I have to call the police or I
have to follow him and find him or I have to get up and get out
and call to her and I think about life without her if she were
gone and I’d die and I try to m ove an arm but I can’t m ove it
and there’s a pain coming into m y heart which says I am a pale
shadow o f what you will feel the rest o f your life if she’s gone,
it says yo u ’ll mourn the rest o f your life and there’s a grief that
will burn up your insides and leave them just bare and burned
and em pty, burned ugly and barren, obliterated; and I know
that if she’s gone I’m going to pull m yself to pieces, pull my
mind apart, tear m yself open, rend my breast, turn m y heart to
sackcloth, make ashes out o f m y heart; if she’s gone I’m lost; a
wanderer in madness and pain; despondent; a vagabond
turned loose one last time, sad enough to turn the world to
hell; I’ll touch it, anything before me, and make it hell. I will
rage on these streets a lifetime and I will build fires from
Mercy Page 35