Mercy Read online

  w o lf couldn’t blow them down, the big bad bomb. I thought

  maybe we had a chance but if we lived in some other kind o f

  house we wouldn’t have a chance. I tried to think o f the bomb

  hitting and the brick turned into blood and dust, red dust

  covering the cement, wet with real blood, but the cement

  would be dust too, gray dust, red dust on gray dust, just dust

  and sky, everything gone, the ground just level everywhere

  there was. I could see it in my mind, with me sitting in the

  dust, playing with it, but I wouldn’t be there, it would be red

  dust on gray dust and nothing else and I wouldn’t even be a

  speck. I thought it would be beautiful, real pure, not ugly and

  poor like it was now, but so sad, a million years o f nothing,

  and tidal waves o f wind would come and kill the quiet o f the

  dust, kill it. I went away to N ew Y ork C ity for freedom and it

  meant I went away from the red dust, a picture bigger than the

  edges o f m y mind, it was a red landscape o f nothing that was in

  me and that I put on everything I saw like it was burned on my

  eyes, and I always saw Camden that way; in m y inner-mind it

  was the landscape o f where I lived. It didn’t matter that I went

  to Point Zero. It would just be faster and I hadn’t been hiding

  there under the desk afraid. I hate being afraid. I hadn’t grown

  up there waiting for it to happen and making pictures o f it in

  m y mind seeing the terrible dust, the awful nothing, and I

  hadn’t died there during the Bay o f Pigs. The red dust was

  Camden. Y ou can’t forgive them when you’re a child and they

  make you afraid. So you go away from where you were afraid.

  Some stay; some go; it’s a big difference, leaving the

  humiliations o f childhood, the morbid fear. We didn’t have

  much to say to each other, the ones that left and the ones that

  stayed. Children get shamed by fear but you can’t tell the

  adults that; they don’t care. They make children into dead

  things like they are. If there’s something left alive in you, you

  run. Y ou run from the poor little child on her knees; fear

  burned the skin o ff all right; she’s still on her knees, dead and

  raw and tender. N ew Y o rk ’s nothing, a piece o f cake; you

  never get afraid like that again; not ever. I live where I can find

  a bed. Men roll on top, fuck, roll off, shoot up, sleep, roll on

  top again. In between you sleep. It’s how it is and it’s fine. I

  never did feel more at home. It’s as i f I was always there. It’s

  familiar. The streets are the same gray, home. Fucking is

  nothing really. Hiding from the law and dumb adults is

  ordinary life; yo u ’re always hiding from them anyw ay unless

  yo u ’re one o f their robots. I hate authority and it’s no jo k e and

  it’s no game; I want them dead all right, all the order givers.

  N ew Y o r k ’s home because there’s other people the same; we

  know each other as much as you have to, not much. The only

  other w ay is the slow time o f mothers; facing a wall, staring at

  a blank wall, for life, one man, forever, marriage, the living

  dead. I don’t want to be like them. I never will be. I’m not

  afraid o f dying and I’m not standing quiet at some wall; the

  bomb comes at me, I’m going to hurl m yself into it; flashfly

  into its fucking face. I’m fine on the streets. I’m not afraid; o f

  fucking or anyone; and there’s nothing I’m afraid of. I have

  ideals about peace and freedom and it doesn’t matter what the

  adults think, because they lie and they’re stupid. I’m sincere

  and smarter than them. I believe in universal love. I want to

  love everybody even if I don’t know them and not to have

  small minds like the adults. I don’t mind if people are strangers

  or how they look and no matter how raw som ebody is they’re

  human; it’s the plastic ones that aren’t human. I don’t need a

  lot, a place to sleep, some money, almost none, cigarettes.

  Everyone in this place knows something, jazz or poems or

  anarchism or dope or books I never heard o f before, and they

  don’t like the bomb. T h ey’ve lived and they don’t hide from

  knowing things and sex is the main w ay you live— adults say it

  isn’t but they never told the truth yet. N ew Y o rk ’s the whole

  world, it’s like living inside a heartbeat, you know, like a

  puppy you can put your head up against the ticking when

  you’re lonely and when you want to move the beat’s behind

  you. I don’t need things. I’m not an American consumer. I’m

  on the peace side and I have ideals about freedom and I don’t

  want anyone telling me what to do, I’ve had enough o f it, I’m

  against war, I go to demonstrations, I’m a pacifist, I have been

  since I can remember. I read books and I go to places in N ew

  Y ork, churches and bare rooms even, and I hear people read

  poems and in m y mind I am with Sartre or Camus or Rimbaud

  and I want to show love to everyone and not be confined and

  sex is honest, it’s not a lie, and I like to feel things, strong

  things. In N ew Y ork there’s people like me everywhere,

  hiding where regular people don’t look, in every shadow

  there’s the secret people. There are pockets o f dark in the dark

  and the people like me are in them, poor, with nothing, not

  afraid, I’m never afraid. It’s as if every crack in the sidewalk is

  an open door to somewhere; you can go between the cracks to

  the hidden world but regular people never even see the cracks.

  People the same as you go through the cracks because they’re

  not afraid and you meet them there, in the magic places, real

  old from other generations even, hidden, some great underground city, dirty, hard, dark, free. There’s always sex and dope and you can get pretty hungry but you can get things if

  you have to; there’s always someone. I never doubted it was

  home from the start; where I was meant to come. I’m known

  and invisible at the same time; fitting in but always going m y

  own way, a shy girl alone in a dark corner o f the dark, the

  dark’s familiar to me and so are the men in it, no rules can ever

  stop night from putting its arms around a lonely girl. I like

  doing what I want no matter what it is and I like drifting and I

  run i f I have to; someone’s always there, kind or otherwise,

  you decide quick. I love the dark, it’s got no rough edges for

  me. I hear every sound without trying. I feel as if I was born

  knowing every signal. I’m an animal on instinct lucky to be in

  the right jungle, a magic animal charged with everything

  intense and sacred, and I hate cages. I’m the night, the same.

  Y ou have to hurt it to hurt me. I am one half o f everything

  lawless the night brings, every lawless embrace. I can smell

  where to turn in the dark, it’s not something you can know in

  your head. It’s a whisper so quiet not even the dead could hear

  it. It’s touching fire so fast you don’t burn your hand but the

  fire’s real. I don’t know much, not what things are called or

  how to do them right or ho
w people act all the regular times.

  Everything is ju st what it is to me with nothing to measure it

  against and no w ay to check and I don’t have any tom orrow

  and I don’t have a yesterday that I can remember because the

  days and nights just go on and on and never stop and never

  slow down and never turn regular; nothing makes time

  normal. I have nineteen cents, I buy a big purple thing, it’s

  with the vegetables, a sign says eggplant, it’s the cheapest

  thing there is, I never saw one before, I try to cook it in m y one

  pan in a little water, I eat it, you bet I do, it’s an awful thing, I

  see w hy momma always used vegetables in cans but they cost

  more. I buy rice in big unmarked bags, I think it’s good for

  you because Asian people eat it and they have lived for

  centuries no matter how poor they are and they have an old

  civilization so it must be good but then someone says it has

  starch and starch is bad so I stop buying it because the man’s very

  disapproving as if I should know better because it makes you fat

  he says. I just boil what there is. I buy whatever costs what I have

  in m y pocket. I don’t know what people are talking about

  sometimes but I stay quiet because I don’t want to appear so

  ignorant to them, for instance, there are funny words that I

  can’t even try to say because I think they will laugh at me but I

  heard them once like zucchini, and if someone makes something and hands it to me I eat it. Sometimes someone asks me if

  I like this or that but I don’t know what they mean and I stare

  blankly but I smile and I don’t know what they think but I try

  to be polite. I worked at the Student Peace Union and the War

  Resisters League to stop the bomb and I was a receptionist at a

  place that taught reading and I was a waitress at a coffee shop

  that poured coffee-to-go and I typed and carried packages and

  I went with men and they had smoke or food or music or a

  place to sleep. I didn’t get much money and I didn’t keep any

  jobs because mostly I lived in pretty bad places or on the streets

  or in different places night to night and I guess the regular

  people didn’t like it or wanted to stay away but I didn’t care or

  think about it and I never thought about being regular or

  looking regular or acting regular; I did what I wanted from

  what there was and I liked working for peace and the rest was

  for cigarettes. I slept in living rooms, on cots, on floors, on

  soiled mattresses, in beds with other people I didn’t know who

  fucked while I slept, in Brooklyn, in Spanish Harlem, near

  Tompkins Square Park, in abandoned buildings, in parks, in

  hallways, curled up in corners. Y ou can build your own walls.

  Even the peace people had apartments and pretty things and

  warm food, it seemed regular and abundant but I don’t know,

  I never asked them for anything but sometimes someone took

  me home and I could see. I didn’t know where it came from; it

  was just like some play with scenery. They had plants or

  pretty rugs or wool things or pots; posters; furniture; heat;

  food; things around. I tried to live in a collective on Avenue B

  and I was supposed to have a bed and we were going to cook

  and all but that was where the junkies kept rolling on top o f me

  because the collective would never tell anyone they couldn’t

  sleep there and I never was there early enough so there wasn’t

  someone asleep where I thought was mine. I never did really

  sleep very well, it’s sort o f a lie to say I could sleep with junkies

  rolling over on top o f me, a little bravado on m y part, except I

  fell o ff to sleep, or some state o f less awake, and then it’d

  happen. Y ou are always awake a little. I lived in a living room

  o f a woman for peace who lived with her brother. He slept in

  the living room, she slept in the bedroom, but she put me in

  the living room with him. He breathed heavy and stayed up

  watching me and I had to move out because she said he

  couldn’t sleep. I stayed anywhere I could for as long as I could

  but it w asn’t too long usually. I slept on benches and in

  doorways. D oorw ays can be like palaces in the cold, in the

  dark, when it’s wet; doorways are strong; you feel sheltered,

  like in the arms o f God, unless the wind changes and comes

  right at you and drives through you; then you wake up already

  shivering, sleep pulling you down because you want to believe

  you are only dreaming the wind is driving through you, but

  you started to shake unconscious and the cold permeates your

  body before you can bring your mind to facing it. Y ou can’t

  find any place in N ew Y ork that doesn’t have me in it. I’m

  stuck in the dark, m y remembrance, a shadow, a shade, an

  old, dark scar that keeps tearing, dark edges ripping, dark

  blood spilling out, there’s a piece left o f me, faded, pasted onto

  every night, the girl who wanted peace. Later I found out it

  was Needle Park or Bed-Stuy or there were whores there or it

  was some kind o f sociological phenomenon and someone had

  made a documentary showing the real shit, some intrepid

  filmmaker, some hero. It never happened. N o one ever

  showed the real shit because it isn’t photogenic, it doesn’t

  stand still, people just live it, they don’t know it or conceptualize it or pose for it or pretend it and you don’t get to do it over i f you make a mistake. Y ou just get nailed. Fucked or hit

  or hurt or ripped o ff or poisoned with bad shit or yo u ’re just

  dead; there’s no art to it. There’s more o f me stuck in that old

  night than anywhere. Y o u don’t just remember it; it remem­

  bers you; Andrea, it says, I know you. Y ou do enough in it and

  it takes you with it and I’m there in it, every night on every

  street. When the dark comes, I come, every night, on every

  street, until N ew Y ork is gone; I’m alive there in the dark

  rubbing up against anything flesh-and-blood, not a poor,

  homeless girl but a brazen girl-for-peace, hungry, tired,

  waiting for you, to rub up against you, take what you have,

  get what you got; peace, freedom, love, a fuck, a shy smile,

  some quarters or dimes or dollars. The dark’s got a little anger

  in it m oving right up against you. You can feel it pushing right

  up against you now and then, a burning flash across your

  thing; that’s me, I’m there, Andrea, a charred hallucination,

  you know the w ay the dark melts in front o f you, I’m the

  charred thing in the melting dark, the dark fire, dark ash

  burned black; and you walk on, agitated, to find a living one,

  not a shade stuck in midnight but some poor, trembling, real

  girl, hungry enough even to smile at you. That’s m y home

  you’re misbehaving in with your mischievous little indulgences, your secret little purchases o f girls and acts, because I was on every street, in every alley, fucked there, slept there,

  got drugs there, found a bed for my weary head; oh, it got

  weary; curled up under something, a little awake. C an’t be.

  N o one can live that way. C an’t be. Isn’t true. C an’t be. Was.
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br />   Was. I wasn’t raped really until I was eighteen, pretty old.

  Well, I wasn’t really raped. Rape is just some awful word. It’s a

  w ay to say it was real bad; worse than anything. I was a pacifist

  and I didn’t believe in hurting anyone and I wouldn’t hurt

  anyone. I had been eighteen for a couple o f months; o f legal

  age. It was winter. Cold. Y ou don’t forget winter. I was

  w orking for peace groups and for nonviolence. It wouldn’t be

  fair to call it rape; to him; it wouldn’t be fair to him. I wasn’t a

  virgin or anything; he forced me but it was m y own fault. I

  was working at the Student Peace Union then and at the War

  Resisters League. I typed and I answered phones and I tried to

  be in the meetings but they didn’t really ever let me talk and I

  helped to organize demonstrations by calling people on the

  phones and I helped to write leaflets. They didn’t really believe

  in rape, I think. I couldn’t ask anyone or tell anyone because

  they would just say how I was bourgeois, which was this

  word they used all the time. Women were it more than

  anybody. They were hip or cool or hipsters or bohemians or

  all those words you could see in newspapers on the Low er East

  Side but anytime a woman said something she was bourgeois.

  I knew what it meant but I didn’t know how to say it w asn’t

  right. They believed in nonviolence and so did I, one hundred

  percent. I w ouldn’t hurt anybody even if he did rape me but he

  probably didn’t. Men were supposed to go crazy and kill

  someone if he was a rapist but they wouldn’t hurt him for raping

  me because they didn’t believe in hurting anyone and because I

  was bourgeois and anything that brought me down lower to the

  people was okay and if it hurt me I deserved it because if you

  were bourgeois female you were spoiled and had everything and

  needed to be fucked more or to begin with. At the Student Peace

  Union there were boys m y age but they were treated like grown

  men by everyone around there and they bossed me around and

  didn’t listen to anything I said except to make fun o f it and no one