Mercy Read online

  being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart.

  He’s the great dancer, the most beautiful; he had all the women

  and all the men; and now he is self-immolating; he is torrential

  explosions o f fire, pillars o f flame, miles high; he is a force field

  o f heat miles wide. The ground burns under him and anything

  he touches is seared. The heat spreads, a fever o f discontent.

  The men are fevered, an epidemic o f fury; they are hot but

  they can’t burn. H e’s dying in front o f them, torched, and I’m

  smashed up on him, whole, arms up and outstretched, on

  him, flat up against the flames, indestructible. The whore’s

  killing him; she’s a whore and she’s killing you. He can’t stay

  away but he tries. He enumerates for me m y lovers. He misses

  some but I am discreet. He breaks down because I am not

  pregnant yet. I show him m y birth control pills, which he has

  never seen; I explain that I w on’t be getting pregnant. He

  disappears for a day, two days, then suddenly he is in front o f

  me, on his knees, his smile stopping m y heart, he stoops with a

  dancer’s swift grace, there is a gift in his hands but his hands

  don’t touch mine, he drops the gift and I catch it and he is

  gone, I catch it before it hits the ground and when I look up he

  is gone, I could have dreamed it but I have the flowers or the

  bread or the book or the red-painted Easter egg or the

  drawing. H e’s gone and time takes his place, a knife slicing me

  into pieces; each second is a long, slow cut. Tim e can slow

  down so you can’t outlast it. It can have a minute longer than

  your life. Tim e can stand still and you can feel yourself dying

  in it but you can’t make it go faster and you can’t die any faster

  and if it doesn’t m ove you will never die at all and it w o n ’t

  move; you are caved in underground with time collapsed in on

  top o f you. T im e’s the cruelest lover yo u ’ll ever have,

  merciless and thorough, wrapping itself right around your

  heart and choking it and never stopping because time is never

  over. Tim e turns your bed into a grave and you can’t breathe

  because time pushes down on your heart to kill it. Tim e crawls

  with its legs spread out all over you. It’s everywhere, a

  noxious poison, it’s vapor and gas and air, it seeps, it spreads,

  you can’t run aw ay somewhere so it w o n ’t hurt you, it’s there

  before you are, waiting. H e’s gone and he’s left time behind to

  punish you; but why? W hy isn’t he here yet; or now ; or now;

  or now; and not one second has passed yet. He doesn’t want to

  burn; but why? Why should he want less, to be less, to feel

  less, to know less; w hy shouldn’t he push him self as far as he

  can go; w hy shouldn’t he burn until he dies? I have a certain

  ruthless objectivity not uncommon among those who live

  inside the senses; I love him without restraint, without limit,

  without respect to consequences, for me or for him; I am not

  sentimental; I want him; this is not dopey, stupid, sentimental

  love; nostalgia and lingering romance; this is it; all; everything. I don’t care about his small stupid social life among stupid, mediocre men— I know him, self-im molating,

  torched, in me. His phony friends embarrass him, the men all

  around on the streets playing cards and drinking and gossiping, the stupid men who lust for how much he feels, can’t imagine anything other than manipulating tourists into bed so

  they can brag or sex transactions for money or the duties o f the

  marital bed, the roll-over fuck; and he’s burning, consumed,

  dying; so what? H e’d show up suddenly and then he’d be gone

  and he never touched me; how could he not touch me? He’d

  come in a burst and then he’d disappear and he’d never touch

  me and sometimes he brought someone with him so he

  couldn’t touch me or be with me or stay near me or come near

  me to touch me; how could he not touch me? I went into a

  white hot rage, a delirium o f rage; if I’d had his children I

  would have sliced their necks open. I used razor blades to cut

  delicate lines into my hands; physical pain was easy, a

  distraction. Keeping the blade on m y hand, away from my

  wrist, took all my concentration, a game o f nerves, a lover’s

  game. I made fine lines that turned burgundy from blood the

  w ay artists etch lines in glass but the glass doesn’t turn red for

  them and the red doesn’t smear and drip. There was a man, I

  wanted it to be M but it wasn’t M. He tied me up and hurt me

  and on m y back there were marks where he used a whip he had

  for animals and I wanted M to see but he didn’t come and he

  didn’t see. I would have stayed there strung-up against the

  wall m y back cut open forever for him to see but he didn’t see.

  Then one day he came in the afternoon and knocked on the

  door and politely asked me to have dinner with him that night.

  Usually we talked in broken words in broken languages,

  messy, tripping over each other. This was a quiet, formal,

  aloof invitation with barely any words at all. He came in a car

  with a driver. We sat in the back. He was elaborately

  courteous. He didn’t say anything. I thought he would explain

  things and say why. I sat quietly and waited. He was

  unfailingly polite. We ate pinner. He said nothing except do

  you like your dinner and would you like more wine and I

  nodded whatever he said and m y eyes were open looking right

  at him asking him to tell me something that would rescue me,

  bring me back to being someone human with a human life.

  Then he said he would take me home, form ally, politely, and

  at m y door he asked i f he could come in and I said he could

  only i f we could talk and he nodded his assent and the driver

  waited for him and we went in and he touched me to fuck me,

  his hands pushing me down on the bed, and I wanted him dead

  and I tried to kill him with m y bare hands for touching me, for

  not saying one word to me, for pushing me to fuck me, and I

  hit his face with m y fist and I hit his neck and I pushed his neck

  so hard I twisted it half around and he was stunned to feel the

  pain and he was enraged and he pushed me down to fuck me

  and he pinned me down with his hands and shoulders and

  chest and legs and he kept fucking me and he said now he was

  fucking me the w ay he fucked all whores, yes he went to

  brothels and fucked whores, what did I think, that he only

  fucked me, no man only fucked one wom an, and I would find

  out how much he had loved me before because this was how

  he fucked whores and this was how he would fuck me from

  now on and it went on forever and I stopped fighting because

  m y heart died and I lay still and I didn’t m ove and it still kept

  going on and I stared at him and I hated him, I kept m y eyes

  open and I stared, and it w asn’t over for a long time but I had

  died during it so it didn’t matter when it ended or when he

  stopped or when he pulled out o f me finally or when he was

  gone from inside me and then it was over and there w
as

  numbness close to death throughout me and there was some

  man between m y legs. I hadn’t moved and I didn’t move, I

  couldn’t m ove, I was on m y back and he had been on top o f me

  to fuck me and then he slid down to where his head was

  between m y legs and he turned over on his back and he rested

  the back o f his head between m y legs where he had fucked me

  and he rested there like some sweet, tired baby who had ju st

  been born only they put him between m y legs instead o f in m y

  arms and he said we would get married now because there was

  nothing else left for either o f us; pity the poor lover, it hurt him

  too. He was immensely sad and immensely bitter and he said

  we would get married now because married people did it like

  this and hated each other and felt dead, fucking was like being

  dead for them; pity the poor husband, he felt dead. He stayed

  between my legs, resting. I didn’t move because there is an

  anguish that can stop you from moving and I couldn’t kill him

  because there is an anguish that can stop you from killing.

  Something awful came, a suffering bigger than my life or your

  life or any life or G od ’s life, the crucifixion God; the nails are

  hammered in but you don’t get to die. It’s the cross for ladies, a

  bed, and you don’t get to die; the lucky boy, the favorite child,

  gets to die. Y o u ’ve been mowed down inside, slaughtered

  inside, a genocide happened in you, but you don’t get to die.

  Y o u ’re not G od ’s son, you’re His daughter, and He leaves you

  there nailed because you’re some stupid piece o f shit who

  loved someone and you will be there forever, in some bed

  somewhere for the rest o f your life and He will make it a long

  time, He will make you get old, and He will see to it that you

  get fucked, and the skin around where you get fucked will be

  calloused and blistered and enraged and there will be someone

  climbing on you and getting in you and God your Father will

  watch; even when you’re old H e’ll watch. M left at sunrise,

  sad boy, poor boy, immensely sad, tired boy, and time was

  back on top o f me and I couldn’t move and I waited on the bed

  to die but I didn’t die because God hates me; it’s hate. I couldn’t

  m ove and I endured all the seconds in the day, every single

  second. A second stretches out past hell and when one is over

  another comes, longer, worse. It got dark and I dressed

  m yself—that night, ten thousand years later, ten million years

  later; I dressed m yself and I went to the club and M was

  serving drinks and his friend the pied noir was there, the

  handsome fascist, the gunrunner for the O. A . S., and this time

  he looked at me, now he looked at me, and it was hard to

  breathe, and I was transfixed by him; and the noisy room got

  quiet with danger and you could feel him and me and you

  could see him and me and we couldn’t stop and the fuck we

  wanted filled the room even though we didn’t go near each

  other and he was absolutely still and completely frightened

  because M might kill him or me and I didn’t care but he was

  afraid, the great big man was afraid, and I wanted him and I

  didn’t care what it cost ju st so I had him, and M said take her, I

  give her to you, he shouted, he spit, and I walked out in a rage,

  a modern rage that anyone would dare to give me to someone;

  me; a free woman. Outside there’s an African wind blow ing

  on the island, restless, violent, and there’s perfume in the

  wind, a heavy poppy smell, intoxicating, sweet and heavy.

  The pied noir is deranged by it and he know s what M did and he

  is deranged by that, he wants me with M ’s nasty fuck on me,

  fresh like fresh-killed meat. God is the master o f pain and He

  made it so you could love someone forever even if someone

  cut your heart open. I wait in m y bed, I leave the front door

  open. I want the fascist; I want him bad. I am fresh-killed

  meat.

  S IX

  In June 1967

  (Age 20)

  One night I’m just there, where I live, alone, afraid, the men

  have been trying to come in. I’m for using men up as fast as

  you can; pulling them, grab, twist, put it here, so they dangle

  like twisted dough or you bend them all around like pretzels;

  you pull down, the asshole crawls. Y ou need a firm, fast hand,

  a steady stare, calm nerve; grab, twist. First, fast; before they

  get to throw you down. Y ou surprise them with your stance,

  warrior queen, quiet, mean, and once your hands are around

  their thing they’re stupid, not tough; still mean but slow and

  you can get gone, it takes the edge o ff how mean he’s going to

  be. Were you ever so alone as me? It doesn’t matter what they

  do to you just so you get them first— it’s your game and you

  get money; even if they shit on you it’s your game; as long as

  it’s your game you have freedom, you say it’s fun but

  whatever you say you’re in charge. Some people think being

  poor is the freedom or the game. It’s being the one who says

  how and do it to me now; instead o f just waiting until he does

  it and he’s gone. Y ou got to be mad at them perpetually and

  forever and fierce and you got to know that you got a cunt and

  that’s it. Y ou want philosophy and you’re dumb and dead;

  you want true love and real romance, the same. Y ou put your

  hand between them and your twat and you got a chance; you

  use it like it’s a muscle, sinew and grease, a gun, a knife; you

  grab and twist and turn and stare him in the eye, smile, he’s

  already losing because you got there first, between his legs; his

  thing’s in your fist and your fist is closing on him fast and he’s

  got a failure o f nerve for one second, a pause, a gulp, one

  second, disarmed, unsure, long enough so he doesn’t know ,

  can’t remember, how mean he is; and then you have to take

  him into you, o f course, yo u ’ve given your word; there on the

  cement or in a shadow or some room; a shadow ’s warm and

  dark and consoling and no one can close the door on you and

  lock you in; you don’t go with him somewhere unless you got

  a feeling for him because you never know what they’ll do; you

  go for the edge, a feeling, it’s worth the risk; you learn what

  they want, early, easy, it’s not hard, you can ride the energy

  they give out or see it in how they m ove or read it o ff their

  hips; or you can guide them, there’s never enough blow jo b s

  they had to make them tired o f it i f worse comes to worse and

  you need to, it will make him stupid and weak but sometimes

  he’s mean after because he’s sure yo u ’re dirt, anyone w h o ’s

  had him in her mouth is dirt, how do they get by, these guys,

  so low and mean. It’s you, him, midnight, cement; viscous

  dark, slate gray bed, light falling down from tarnished bulbs

  above you; neon somewhere rattling, shaking, static shocks to

  your eye, flash, zing, zip, winding words, a long poem in

  flickering light; what is neon and how did it get
into the sky at

  night? The great gray poet talked it but he didn’t have to do it.

  He was a shithead. I’m the real poet o f everyone; the Am erikan

  democrat on cement, with everyone; it wears you down,

  Walt; I don’t like poetry anymore; it’s semen, you great gray

  clod, not some fraternal wave o f democratic j o y . I was born in

  1946 down the street from where Walt Whitman lived; the girl

  he never wanted, I can face it now; in Cam den, the great gray

  city; on great gray cement, broken, bleeding, the girls

  squashed down on it, the fuck weighing down on top,

  pushing in behind; blood staining the gravel, mine not his;

  bullshitter poet, great gray bullshitter; having all the men in

  the world, and all the wom en, hard, real, true, it wears you

  down, great gray virgin with fantastic dreams, you great gray

  fool. I was born in 1946 down the street from where Walt

  Whitman lived, in Camden, Andrea, it means manhood or

  courage but it was pink pussy anyway wrapped in a pink fuzzy

  blanket with big men’s fingers going coochie coochie coo.

  Pappa said don’t believe what’s in books but if it was a poem I

  believed it; m y first lyric poem was a street, cement, gray,

  lined with monuments, broken brick buildings, archaic,

  empty vessels, great, bloodstained walls, a winding road to

  nowhere, gray, hard, light falling on it from a tarnished moon

  so it was silver and brass in the dark and it went out straight

  into the gray sky where the moon was, one road o f cement and

  silver and night stained red with real blood, you’re down on

  your knees and he’s pushing you from inside, G od’s heartbeat

  ramming into you and the skin is scraped loose and you bleed

  and stain the stone under you. Here’s the poem you got. It’s

  your flesh scraped until it’s rubbed o ff and you got a mark, you

  got a burn, you got stains o f blood, you got desolation on you.

  It’s his mark on you and you’ve got his smell on you and his

  bruise inside you; the houses are monuments, brick, broken

  brick, red, blood red. There’s a skyline, five floors high, three

  floors high, broken brick, chopped o ff brick, empty inside,