Mercy

by Andrea Dworkin

the muscles don’t stretch, at some point the muscles tear, and

  it must be spectacular, when they rip; then he’d come; then

  he’d run. Y ou couldn’t push a baby through, like with the

  vagina; though they’d probably think it’d be good for a laugh;

  have some slasher do a cesarean; like with this Lovelace girl,

  where they made a jo k e with her, as if the clit is in her throat

  and they keep pushing penises in to find it so she can have an

  orgasm; it’s for her, o f course; always for her; a joke; but a

  friendly one; for her; so she can have a good time; I went in,

  and I saw them ram it down; big men; banging; you know,

  mean shoving; I don’t know w hy she ain’t dead. They kept her

  smiling; i f it’s a film you have to smile; I wanted to see if it

  hurt, like with me; she smiled; but with film they edit, you

  know, like in H ollyw ood. She had black and blue marks all

  over her legs and her thighs, big ones, and she smiled; I don’t

  know w hy we always smile; I m yself smile; I can remember

  smiling, like the smile on a skeleton; you don’t ever want them

  to think they did nothing wrong so you smile or you don’t

  want them to think there’s something w rong with you so you

  smile, because there’s likely to be some kind o f pain coming

  after you if there’s something w rong with you, they hit you to

  make it right, or you want them to be pleased so you smile or

  you want them to leave so you smile or you just are crapping

  in your pants afraid so you smile and even after you shit from

  fear you keep smiling; they film it, you smile. Sometimes a

  man still offers me money, I laugh, a hoarse, ugly laugh, quite

  mad, m y throat’s in ribbons, just hanging streaks o f meat, you

  can feel it all loose, all cut loose or ripped loose in pieces as if

  it’s kind o f like pieces o f steak cut to be sauteed but someone

  forgot and left it out so there’s maggots on it and it’s green,

  rotted out, all crawling. Some one o f them offers me money

  and I make him sorry, I prefer the garbage in the trash cans,

  frankly, it’s cleaner, this walking human stuff I don’t have no

  room in m y heart for, they’re not hygenic. I’m old, pretty old,

  I can’t take the chance o f getting cancer or something from

  them; I think they give it to you with how they look at you; so

  I hide the best I can, under newspapers or under coats or under

  trash I pick up; m y hair’s silver, dirty; I remember when I was

  different and these legs were silk; and m y breasts were silk; but

  now there’s sores; and blood; and scars; and I’m green inside

  sometimes, if I cut m yself something green comes out, as if

  I’m getting green blood which I never heard o f before but they

  keep things from you; it could be that if you get so many bad

  cuts body and soul your blood changes; from scarlet to a dank

  green, an awful green; some chartreuse, some Irish, but

  mostly it is morbid, a rotting green; it’s a sad story as I am an

  old-fashioned human being who had a few dreams; I liked

  books and I would have enjoyed a cup o f coffee with Camus in

  m y younger days, at a cafe in Paris, outside, w e’d watch the

  people walk by, and I would have explained that his ideas

  about suicide were in some sense naive, ahistorical, that no

  philosopher could afford to ignore incest, or, as I would have

  it, the story o f man, and remain credible; I wanted a pretty

  whisper, by which I mean a lover’s whisper, by which I mean

  that I could say sweet things in a man’s ear and he’d be thrilled

  and kind, I’d whisper and it’d be like making love, an embrace

  that would chill his blood and boil it, his skin’d be wild, all

  nerves, all smitten, it’d be my mark on him, a gentle mark but

  no one’d match it, just one whisper, the kind that makes you

  shiver body and soul, and it’d just brush over his ear. I wanted

  hips you could balance the weight o f the world on, and I’d

  shake and it’d move; in Tanzania it’d rumble. I wanted some

  words; o f beauty; o f power; o f truth; simple words; ones you

  could write down; to say some things that happened, in a

  simple way; but the words didn’t exist, and I couldn’t make

  them up, or I wasn’t smart enough to find them, or the parts o f

  them I had or I found got tangled up, because I couldn’t

  remember, a lot disappeared, you’d figure it would be

  impressed on you if it was bad enough or hard enough but if

  there’s nothing but fire it’s hard to remember some particular

  flame on some particular day; and I lived in fire, the element; a

  Dresden, metaphysically speaking; a condition; a circum-

  stance; in time, tangential to space; I stepped out, into fire. Fire

  burns m em ory clean; or the heart; it burns the heart clean; or

  there’s scorched earth, a dead geography, burned bare; I

  stepped out, into fire, or its aftermath; burnt earth; a dry, hard

  place. I was born in blood and I stepped out, into fire; and I

  burned; a girl, burning; the flesh becomes translucent and the

  bones show through the fire. The cement was hot, as if flames

  grew in it, trees o f fire; it was hot where they threw you down;

  hot and orange; how am I supposed to remember which flame,

  on which day, or what his name was, or how he did it, or what

  he said, or w hy, if I ever knew; I don’t remember knowing.

  O r even if, at some point; really, even if. I lived in urban flame.

  There was the flat earth, for us gray, hard, cement; and it

  burned. I saw pictures o f woods in books; we had great flames

  stretching up into the sky and swaying; m oving; dancing; the

  heat melting the air; we had burning hearts and arid hearts;

  girls’ bodies, burning; boys, hot, chasing us through the forest

  o f flame, pushing us down; and we burned. Then there were

  surreal flames, the ones we superimposed on reality, the

  atomic flames on the way, coming soon, at a theater near you,

  the dread fire that could never be put out once it was ignited; I

  saw it, simple, in front o f m y eyes, there never was a chance, I

  lived in the flames and the flames were a ghostly wash o f

  orange and red, as i f an eternal fire mixed with blood were the

  paint, and a great storm the brush. I lived in the ordinary fire,

  whatever made them follow you and push you down, yo u ’d

  feel the heat, searing, you didn’t need to see the flame, it was

  more as if he had orange and burning hands a mile high; I

  burned; the skin peeled off; it deformed you. The fire boils

  you; you melt and blister; then I’d try to write it down, the

  flames leaping o ff the cement, the embodiment o f the lover;

  but I didn’t know what to call it; and it hurt; but past what they

  will let you say; any o f them. I didn’t know what to call it, I

  couldn’t find the words; and there were always adults saying

  no, there is no fire, and no, there are no flames; and asking the

  life-or-death question, you’re still a virgin, aren’t you; which

  you would be forever, poor fool, in your pitiful pure heart.

  Y ou couldn�
�t tell them about the flames that were lit on your

  back by vandal lover boys, arsonists, while they held you

  down; and there were other flames; the adults said not to

  watch; but I watched; and the flames stayed with me, burning

  in m y brain, a fire there, forever, I lived with the flames my

  whole life; the Buddhist monks in Vietnam who burned

  themselves alive; they set themselves on fire; to protest; they

  were calm; they sat themselves down, calm; they were simple,

  plain; they never showed any fear or hesitation; they were

  solemn; they said a prayer; they had kerosene; then they were

  lit; then they exploded; into flame; and they burned forever; in

  my heart; forever; past what television could show; in its gray;

  in its black and white and gray; the gray cement o f gray

  Saigon; the gray robes o f a gray man, a Buddhist; the gray fire,

  consuming him; I don’t need to close my eyes to see them; I

  could reach out to touch them, without even closing my eyes;

  the television went off, or the adults turned it off, but you

  knew they were still burning, now, later, hours, days, the

  ashes would smolder, the fire’d never go out, because if it has

  happened it has happened; it has happened always and forever.

  The gray fire would die down and the gray monk would be

  charred and skeletal, dead, they’d remove him like so much

  garbage, but the fire’d stay, low along the ground, the gray

  fire would spread, low along the ground, in gray Saigon; in

  gray Camden. The flames would stay low and gray and they

  would burn; an eternal fire; its meaning entrusted to a child for

  keeping. I think they stayed calm inside the fire; burning; I

  think they stayed quiet; I mourned them; I grieved for them; I

  felt some shadow o f the pain; maybe there was no calm;

  maybe they shrieked; maybe it was an agony obscene even to

  God; imagine. I’d go to school on just some regular day and

  it’d happen; at night, on the news, they’d show it; the gray

  picture; a Buddhist in flames; because he didn’t like the

  government in Vietnam; because the United States was

  hurting Vietnam; we tormented them. Y o u ’d see a plain street

  in Saigon and suddenly a figure would ignite; a quiet, calm

  figure, simple, in simple robes, rags almost; a plain, simple

  man. It was a protest, a chosen immolation, a decision,

  planned for; he burned him self to say there were no words; to

  tell me there were no words; he wanted me to know that in

  Vietnam there was an agony against which this agony, self-

  immolation, was nothing, meaningless, minor; he wanted me

  to know; and I know; he wanted me to remember; and I

  remember. He wanted the flames to reach me; he wanted the

  heat to graze me; he wanted this self-immolation, a pain past

  words, to communicate: you devastate us here, a pain past

  words. The Buddhists didn’t want to fight or to hurt someone

  else; so they killed themselves; in w ays unbearable to watch; to

  say that this was some small part o f the pain we caused, some

  small measure o f the pain we made; an anguish to communicate anguish. Years later I was grow n, or nearly so, and there was Norm an M orrison, some man, a regular man, ordinary,

  and he walked to the front o f the White House, as close as he

  could get, a normal looking citizen, and he poured gasoline all

  over him self and he lit it and the police couldn’t stop him or get

  near him, he was a pillar o f fire, and he died, slow, in fire,

  because the war was w rong and words weren’t helping, and he

  said we have to show them so he showed them; he said this is

  the anguish I will undergo to show you the anguish there,

  there are no words, I can show you but I can’t tell you because

  no words get through to you, yo u ’ve got a barricade against

  feeling and I have to burn it down. I grew up, a stepdaughter

  o f brazen protest, immense protest; each time I measured m y

  ow n resistance against the burning man; I felt the anguish o f

  Vietnam; sometimes the War couldn’t get out o f m y mind and

  there was nothing between me and it; I felt it pure, the pain o f

  them over there, how wronged they were; you see, we were

  tormenting them. In the end it’s always simple; we were

  tormenting them. Others cared too; as much as I did; we were

  mad to stop it; the crime, as we called it; it was a crime.

  Sometimes ordinary life was a buffer; you thought about

  orangejuice or something; and then there’d be no buffer; there

  was ju st the crime. The big protests were easy and lazy up

  against Norm an Morrison and the Buddhist monks; I remember them, as a standard; suppose you really care; suppose the

  truth o f it sits on your mind plain and bare; suppose you don’t

  got no more lies between you and it; if a crime was big enough

  and mean enough to hurt your heart you had to burn your

  heart clean; I don’t remember being afraid to die; it just wasn’t

  m y turn yet; it’s got your name on it, your turn, when it’s

  right; you can see it writ in fire, private flames; and it calls, you

  can hear it when you get up close; you see it and it’s yours.

  There’s this Lovelace creature, they’re pissing on her or she’s

  doing the pissing, you know how they have girls spread out in

  the pictures outside the movies, one’s on her back and the

  urine’s coming on her and the other’s standing, legs spread,

  and she’s fingering her crotch and the urine’s coming from

  her, as i f she’s ejaculating it, and the urine’s colored a bright

  yellow as if someone poured yellow dye in it; and they’re

  smiling; they’re both smiling; it’s girls touching each other, as

  i f girls would do so, laughing, and she’s being peed on, one o f

  them; and there’s her throat, thrown back, bared, he’s down

  to the bottom, as far as he can go; i f he were bigger he’d be in

  deeper; and she’s timid, shy, eager, laughing, grateful;

  laughing and grateful; and moaning; you know, the porn

  moan; nothing resembling human life; these stupid fake

  noises, clown stuff, a sex circus o f sex clowns; he’s a freak, a

  sinister freak; a monstrous asshole if not for how he subjugates

  her, the smiling ninny down on her knees and after saying

  thank you, as girls were born for, so they say. There’s this

  Lovelace girl on the marquee; and even the junkies are

  laughing, they think it’s so swell; and I think who is she,

  w here’s she from, who hurt her, who hurt her to put her here;

  because there’s a camera; because in all my life there never was

  a camera and if there’s a camera there’s a plan; and if it’s here

  it’s for money, like she’s some animal trained to do tricks;

  when I see black men picking cotton on plantations I get that

  somewhere there’s pain for them, I don’t have to see it, no one

  has to show it to me for me to know it’s there; and when I see a

  wom an under glass, I know the same, a sex animal trained for

  sex tricks; and the camera’s ready; maybe M asta’s not in the

  frame. Picking cotton’s good; you get strong; black and

/>   strong; getting fucked in the throat’s good; you get fucked and

  female; a double-female girl, with two vaginas, one on top.

  M aybe her name’s Linda; hey, Linda. Cheri Tart ain’t Cheri

  but maybe Linda’s Linda; how come all these assholes buy it,

  as i f they ain’t looking at Lassie or Rin Tin Tin; it’s just, pardon

  me, they’re dogs and she’s someone real; they’re H ollyw ood

  stars too— she’s Tim es Square trash; there’s one o f them and

  there’s so many thousands o f her you couldn’t tell them apart

  even when they’re in separate coffins. There’s these girls here,

  all behind glass; as if they’re insects you put under glass; you

  put morphine to them to knock them out and you mount

  them; these weird crawling things, under glass, on display;

  Tim es Square’s a zoo, they got women like specimens under

  glass; block by city block; cages assembled on cement; under a

  darkening sky, the blood’s on it; wind sweeping the garbage

  and it’s swirling like dust in a storm; and on display, lit by

  neon, they have these creatures, so obscene they barely look

  human at all, you never saw a person that looked like them,

  including anyone beaten down, including street trash, including anyone raped however many times; because they’re all

  painted up and polished as if you had an apple with m aggots

  and worm s and someone dipped it in lacquer and said here it is,

  beautiful, for you, to eat; it’s as i f their mouths were all swelled

  up and as if they was purple between their legs and as if their

  breasts were hot-air balloons, not flesh and blood, with skin,

  with feeling to the touch, instead it’s a joke, some swollen

  joke, a pasted-on gag, what’s so dirty to men about breasts so

  they put tassles on them and have them swirl around in circles

  and call them the ugliest names; as if they ain’t attached to

  human beings; as if they’re party tricks or practical jokes or the

  equivalent o f farts, big, vulgar farts; they make them always

  deformed; as if there’s real people; citizens; men; with flat

  chests, they look down, they see their shoes, a standard for

  what a human being is; and there’s these blow-up dolls you