Mercy Read online

  feels like G o d ’s in it, it’s got dots o f light in it all dancing and

  sparkling or it’s almost thick so it’s just all surrounding you

  like a nest or something, it’s something alive and you’re

  something alive and it’s all around you, real friendly, real close

  and kind as if it will take care o f you. I was so excited to be at

  the movies by myself. I thought it was a very great day in my life

  because usually I would be fighting with my mother and she

  wouldn’t let me do anything I wanted to do. I had to play with

  children and she didn’t like for them to be older than me but all

  my real friends were older than me but I kept them secret. I

  had to go shopping with her and try on clothes and go with her

  to see the wom en’s things and the girls’ things and there were

  millions o f them, and they were all the same, all matching sets

  with the dressy ones all messed up with plastic flowers, all

  fussy and stupid, and they were so boring, all skirts and

  dresses and stupid things, little hats and little white gloves, and

  I could only try on things that she liked and I wanted to read

  anyway. I liked to walk around all over and go places I had

  never seen before and I would always try to find a w ay to

  wander around and not have to shop with her, except I loved

  being near her but not shopping. N o w she was going on a big

  trip to Lits, the biggest department store in Camden and

  almost near Philadelphia, right near the bridge, and I loved to

  be near the bridge, and I used to love to have lunch with m y

  mother at the lunch counter in the giant store because that

  wasn’t like being a child anymore and we would talk like

  girlfriends, even holding hands. So this time I asked if I could

  go to the movie across the street while she shopped and come

  back to Lits all by m yself and meet her when the movie was

  over and instead o f fighting with me to make me do what she

  wanted she said yes and I couldn’t believe it because it made

  me so happy because she didn’t fight with me and she had faith

  in me and I knew I could do it and not get lost and handle the

  money right and get back to the store on time and be in the

  right place because I was mature. I had to act like a child but I

  w asn’t one really. She wanted to have a child but I had been on

  m y ow n a long time so I had to keep acting like a child but I

  hated it. When she was sick I was on m y own and when I was

  with relatives I was alone because they didn't know anything

  and when she was in the hospital or home from the hospital I

  did the ironing and I peeled the potatoes and once when she

  couldn’t breathe and fell on the kitchen floor and it was late at

  night and m y daddy was w orking I called the doctor and he

  told me to get her whiskey right aw ay but I didn’t know what

  whiskey was or how to find some so he told me to go to the

  neighbors and I did and I got her whiskey and I ran like he told

  me to in the dark at night and I took care o f her and made her

  drink it even though she was on the floor dead and the doctor

  said i f not for how calm I was she would have died but I w asn’t

  calm and I wanted to cry but I didn’t. I thought she was dead

  and I stopped breathing. I had already lived in lots o f different

  houses and you can’t act like some normal child even though

  everyone wants you to be just normal and they don’t want you

  to feel bad but you have to be grown up and not give them

  trouble and they never know what is in your heart or what you

  really think about because their children are normal to them

  and you aren’t their children and their children don’t know

  about dying or being alone so you have to pretend. So I was

  grow n up inside and acted grow n up all the time except when

  m y mother was around because she wanted to have a child, a

  real child, and got angry i f I didn’t act like a child because it

  upset her to think I had got grow n up without her when she

  w asn’t there because she wanted to be the mother o f a real

  child. When I forgot to be a child or didn’t want to be I made

  her very mad at me and very unhappy and she thought I was

  trying to hurt her on purpose but I w asn’t because I loved ju st

  being near her, sitting near to her when she drank her coffee,

  and I was so proud once when I had helped m y daddy shovel

  snow and she let me drink some coffee ju st like her. I loved her

  hair. I loved when she talked to me about things, not telling

  me what to do but just said things to me about things not

  treating me like a baby. I loved when she let me go somewhere

  with her and her girlfriends. I loved even when she was sick

  but not real sick and was in bed for many days or sometimes

  many weeks and I was allowed to go in and visit her a little and

  sit on the bed and watch television with her and we would

  watch “ The $64, 000 Question, ” and we were both crazy for

  Charles Van Doren because he was so cute and so intellectual

  and we rooted for him and bit our lips waiting for him to

  answer and held hands and held our breath. Then I had to leave

  her alone because I had tired her out but I felt wonderful for

  hours after, so warm and happy, because m y mother loved

  me. We held hands and we sat. But I couldn’t stand the stuff

  she made me do. She made me sew and knit and do stupid

  things. I was supposed to count the stitches and sit still and be

  quiet and keep my legs closed when I sat down and wear white

  gloves and a hat when I went out in a dress. She made me close

  my legs all the time and I kept trying to get her to tell me w hy I

  couldn’t sit how I wanted but she said girls must not ever sit so

  sloppy and bad and she got mad because I said I liked to have

  m y legs open when I sat down and I always did what I wanted

  even if I got punished. She said I was a relentless child. But if I

  had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just

  sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t

  going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just

  trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit

  with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted

  her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I

  was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go

  somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or

  ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I

  got caught because two boys who were bigger and older

  threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and

  blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a

  trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some

  poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought

  it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was

  walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there

  alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came

  running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole

  Christma
s tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and

  blood started running down and I got home walking with the

  blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came

  and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he

  said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being

  hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so

  it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was

  supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange

  places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or

  cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I

  wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another

  life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and

  thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop

  me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to

  listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she

  could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was

  nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and

  I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did

  or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it

  was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being

  alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and

  yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always

  nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you

  because then they left you alone more and sometimes they

  would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f

  intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you

  have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they

  w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f

  you aren’t nice to them because adults get to punish you if they

  want and you can’t stop them. I knew I had to be nice to the

  man in the movies because he was an adult and I had to talk to

  adults in a certain w ay because I was a child and I got punished

  if I didn’t but I also wanted to act like an adult so they would

  leave me alone so I had to talk t o him like an adult and not cry

  or be stupid or act silly or act like a baby or be rude or raise my

  voice or run away or be scared like a baby. Y ou had to say

  mister or sir and you had to be polite and if you wanted to be

  grown up you had to talk quiet and be reasonable and say

  quiet, intelligent things in a certain quiet, reasonable way.

  Children cried. Y ou didn’t cry. Little babies screamed like

  ninnies. Y ou didn’t scream. Adults didn’t scream when

  someone talked to them quietly. The man talked very quiet.

  The man was very polite. I was too grown up to scream and

  cry and then I would have had to leave the movie if I made

  noise because you weren’t even allowed to make any noise in a

  movie. You weren’t allowed to whisper. I couldn’t understand how come the man kept talking once the movie started

  because I knew you weren’t allowed to talk during it. M y

  daddy hated for me to cry. He walked away in disgust. M y

  momma yelled at me but my daddy went away. Adults said I

  was a good child or I was very mature for my age or I had

  poise. Sometimes they said I was a nice girl or a sweet child or

  a smart, sweet child with such nice manners. It was a big act on

  my part. I waited for them to go away so I could go

  somewhere and do what I wanted but I wanted them to like

  me. M y momma made me talk with respect to all adults no

  matter what they did. Sometimes a teacher was so stupid but

  m y momma said I had to talk with respect or be quiet and I

  wasn’t allowed to contradict them or even argue with them at

  all. One teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind

  her when she was sitting at her desk in the front o f the room

  and you had to brush o ff her collar, just stand there behind her

  for fifteen minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing

  her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, palms

  down, stroking all the whole w ay from her neck to her arms.

  She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing

  something or answering her questions and she would say

  someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore

  one o f those fuzzy collars you put on top o f sweaters and

  someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and

  with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down,

  smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her

  shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side o f her collar

  and the right hand had to stroke the right side o f her collar, and

  it had to be smooth and in rhythm and feel good to her or she

  would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class.

  Y ou just had to stand there and keep touching her and they’d

  stare at you. Y ou were supposed to like it because she only

  picked you if she liked you or if you were done your test early

  or i f you were very good and everyone else stared at you and

  you were the teacher’s pet. But m y arms got tired and I hated

  standing there and I felt funny and I thought it was boring and

  I didn’t see w hy I couldn’t do something else like read while I

  was waiting for the test to be over and I tried to prolong it but I

  couldn’t too much and I thought she was mean but the meaner

  she was the more you wanted her to like you and be nice to you

  because otherwise she would hurt you so much by saying

  awful things about you to the class. And m y mother said she

  was the teacher and an adult and I had to be respectful and do

  what she said. I had to be nice to adults and do what they said

  because they were adults and I wanted to grow up so I

  w ouldn’t have to listen to them anymore and obey them but

  the only w ay to get them to think you were grow n up was to

  obey them because then they would say you were mature and

  acting like an adult. Y ou had to brush the teacher’s collar and

  no one ever had to say w hy to you even i f you kept asking and

  they just told you to keep quiet and stop asking. She could

  make you stand in the corner or sit alone or keep you after

  school or give you a bad mark even if you knew everything. I

  wanted to be an adult like my daddy. He was always very

  polite and intelligent and he listened to people and treated

  them fair and he didn’t yell and he explained things if you

  asked why except sometimes when he got tired or fed up. But

  he was nicer than anyone. He didn’t treat people bad, even

  children. He always wanted to know what you were thinking.

  He listened to what everybody said even if they were children

  or even if they were stupid adults and he said you could always

  listen even if you didn’t agree and even if someone was dumb

  or rude or filled with prejudice or mean and then you could

  disagree in the right way and not be low like them. He said you

  should be polite to everyone no matter who they were or

  where they came from or if they were colored or if they were


  smart or stupid it didn’t make any difference. M y relatives and

  teachers were pretty stupid a lot and they weren’t nice to

  Negroes but I was supposed to be quiet even then because they

  were adults. I was supposed to know they were wrong

  without saying anything because that would be rude. I got

  confused because he said you needed to be polite to Negroes

  because white people weren’t and white people were wrong

  and Jew s like us knew more about it than anyone and it was

  meaner for us to do it than anyone but I also had to be polite to

  the white people who did the bad things and used the bad

  words and said the ugly things that were poisonous and made

  the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I

  was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who

  called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and

  when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my

  daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen

  and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes

  were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being

  treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good

  enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to

  explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it

  was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not

  listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty

  sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going

  into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried

  so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he

  would be calling colored people bad names and I would have

  to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y

  daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and

  respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.

  I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many

  things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time

  during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could

  every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,