Mercy Page 7

  treated me as if I knew anything, which maybe I didn’t, but the

  boys were pretty ignorant pieces o f shit, I can tell you that. I was

  confused by it but I kept working for peace. These boys all called

  momma at home; I heard them. I didn’t. There were adults,

  some really old, at the War Resisters League but to me they

  weren’t anything like the adults from school. They were heroes

  to me. They had gone to jail for things they believed in. They

  weren’t afraid and they didn’t follow laws and they didn’t act

  dead and they had sex and they didn’t lie about it and they didn’t

  act like there was all the time in the world because they knew

  there wasn’t. They stood up to the government. They weren’t

  afraid. One had been a freedom rider in the South and he got

  beaten up so many times he was like a punched-out prizefighter.

  He could barely talk he had been beaten up so much. I didn’t try

  to talk to him or around him because I held him in awe. I thought

  I would be awfully proud if I was him but he wasn’t proud at all,

  just quiet and shy. Sometimes I wondered if he could remember

  anything; but maybe he knew everything and was just humble

  and brave. I have chosen to think so. He did things like I did,

  typed and put out mailings and put postage on envelopes and ran

  errands and got coffee; he didn’t order anyone around. They

  were all brave and smart. One wrote poems and lots o f them

  wrote articles and edited newsletters and magazines. One wrote

  a book I had read in high school, not in class o f course, about

  freedom and utopia, but when I asked him to read a poem I

  wrote— I asked a secretary who knew him to ask him because I

  was too shy— he wouldn’t and the secretary said he hated

  women. He had a wife and there was a birthday party for him

  one day and his wife brought a birthday cake and he wouldn’t

  speak to her. Everyone said he had boys. His wife was

  embarrassed and just kept talking, just on and on, and everyone

  was embarrassed but no one made him talk to her or thank her

  and I stayed on the outside o f the circle that was around him to

  think if it was possible that he hated women, even his wife, and

  w hy he would be mean to her as if she didn’t exist. Y o u ’d thank

  anyone for a birthday cake. From his book I thought he was

  wise. I thought he loved everyone. And if he hated women and

  everyone knew it how come they were so nice to him because

  hate wasn’t nonviolence. When he died a few years later I felt

  relieved. I wondered if his wife was sad or if she felt relieved. I

  suppose she was sad but why? I thought he was this one hateful

  man but the others were the great I-Thous, the real I-Thous;

  fighting militarism; wanting peace; writing; I wanted to be the

  same. The I-Its were the regular people on the streets dressed in

  suits all the same like robots busy going to business and women

  with lacquered hair in outfits. But when the boys who wanted to

  be conscientious objectors came in for help there were always

  a lot o f jokes about rape. I didn’t see how you could make

  jokes about rape i f you were against violence; maybe rape

  barely existed at all but it was pretty awful. The pacifists and

  w ar resisters would counsel the conscientious objectors about

  what to say to the draft boards. Vietnam was pulling all these

  boys to be killers. The draft board always asked what the c. o. ’s

  would do i f their mother was raped or their girlfriend or their

  sister and it was a big joke. The pacifists and the c. o . ’s would

  say things like they would let her have a good time. I don’t

  remember all the things they said but they would laugh and

  jo k e about it; it always made me sort o f sick but if I tried to say

  something they w ouldn’t listen and I didn’t know what to say

  anyway. Eventually the pacifists would tell the c. o. ’s the right

  w ay to answer the question. It was a lofty answer about never

  using violence under any circumstance however tragic or

  painful but it was a lie because none o f them ever thought it

  was anything to have their girlfriend raped or their mother.

  They always thought it was funny and they always laughed; so

  it wasn’t violence because they never laughed at violence. So

  I’m not sure i f rape even really existed because these pacifists

  really cared about violence and they never would turn their

  backs on violence. They cared about social justice. They cared

  about peace. They cared about racism. They cared about

  poverty. They cared about everything bad that happened to

  people. It was confusing that they didn’t care about rape, or

  thought it was a joke, but then I wasn’t so sure what rape was

  exactly. I knew it was horrible. I always had a picture in my

  mind o f a woman with her clothes torn, near dead, on the floor,

  unable to move because she was beaten up so bad and hurt so

  much, especially between her legs. I always thought the Nazis

  had done it. The draft board always asked about the Nazis:

  would you have fought against the Nazis, suppose the Nazis

  tried to rape your sister. They would rehearse how to answer the

  draft board and then, when it came to the rape part, they always

  laughed and madejokes. I would be typing because I never got

  to talk or they would act irritated if I did or they would just

  keep talking to each other anyway over me and I felt upset and

  I would interrupt and say, well, I mean, rape is. . . . but I

  could never finish the sentence, and if I’d managed to get their

  attention, sometimes by nearly crying, they’d all just stare and

  I’d go blank. It was a terrifying thing and you would be so

  hurt; how could they laugh? And you wouldn’t want a Nazi to

  come anywhere near you, it would just be foul. The Nazis, I

  would say, trying to find a way to say— bad, very bad. Rape is

  very bad, I wanted to say, but I could only say Nazis are very

  bad. What’s bad about fucking my sister, someone would say;

  always; every time. Then they’d all laugh. So I wasn’t even

  sure if there was rape. So I don’t think I could have been raped

  even though I think I was raped but I know I wasn’t because it

  barely existed or it didn’t exist at all and if it did it was only

  with Nazis; it had to be as bad as Nazis. I didn’t want the man

  to be fucking me but, I mean, that doesn’t really matter; it’s

  just that I really tried to stop him, I really tried not to have him

  near me, I really didn’t want him to and he really hurt me so

  much so I thought maybe it was rape because he hurt me so

  bad and I didn’t want to so much but I guess it wasn’t or it

  doesn’t matter. I had this boyfriend named Arthur, a sweet

  man. He was older; he had dignity. He wasn’t soft, he knew

  the streets; but he didn’t need to show anything or prove

  anything. He just lived as far as I could see. He was a waiter in a

  bar deep in the Lower East Side, so deep down under a dark

  sky, wretched to get there but okay inside. I was sleeping on a

&nb
sp; floor near there, in the collective. Someone told me you could

  get real cheap chicken at the bar. I would go there every night

  for m y one meal, fried chicken in a basket with hot thick

  french fried potatoes and ketchup for ninety-nine cents and it

  was real good, real chicken, not rat meat, cooked good. He

  brought me a beer but I had to tell him to take it back because J

  didn’t have the money for it but he was buying it for me. Then

  I went with him one night. The bar was filled and noisy and

  had sawdust on the floors and barrels o f peanuts so you could

  eat them without money and there were low life and artists

  there. He smiled and seemed happy and also had a sadness, in

  his eyes, on the edges o f his mouth. He lived in a small

  apartment with two other men, one a painter, Eldridge, the

  other I never met. It was tiny, up five flights on Avenue D,

  with a couple o f rooms I never saw. Y ou walked in through a

  tiny kitchen, all cracked wood with holes in the floor, an

  ancient stove and an old refrigerator that looked like a bank

  vault, round and heavy and metal, with almost no room

  inside. His bed was a single bed in a kind o f living room but

  not quite. There were paintings by the artist in the room. The

  artist was sinewy and had a limp and was bitter, not sad, with a

  mean edge to anything he said. He had to leave the room so we

  could be alone. I could hear him there, listening. I stayed the

  night there and I remember how it was to watch the light come

  up and have someone running his finger under m y chin and

  touching m y hands with his lips. I was afraid to go back to the

  bar after that because I didn’t know if he’d want me to but it

  was the only place I knew to get a meal for small change.

  Every time he was glad to see me and he would ask me what I

  wanted and he would bring me dinner and some beer and

  another one later and he even gave me a dark beer to try

  because I didn’t know about it and I liked it; and I would stay;

  and I would go with him. I didn’t talk much because you don’t

  talk to men even if they seem nice; you can never know if they

  will mind or not but usually they will mind. But he asked me

  things. He told me some things, hard things, about his life,

  and time in jail, and troubles; and he asked me some things,

  easy things, about what I did that day, or what I thought, or i f I

  liked something, or how I felt, or if something felt good, or i f I

  was happy, or i f l liked him. He was my lover I guess, not

  really my boyfriend, because I never knew i f l should go to the

  bar or not but I would and then w e’d make love and when we

  made love he was a sweet man with kisses and soft talk into

  sunrise and he’d hold me after and he’d touch me. Sometimes

  he took me to visit people, his friends, and I was too shy to say

  anything but I thought it might mean he liked me or trusted

  me or had some pride in me or felt right about me and they

  asked me things too and tried to talk with me. Eldridge would

  come into the bar and get drinks and say something but always

  something cutting or mean so I didn’t-know what to say or do

  because I didn’t know i f l was supposed to be his friend or not;

  only that Arthur said he loved him. I would ask him about his

  paintings but he would look away. I went to the bar for a long

  time, maybe three months, and I went with Arthur to where

  he slept in the bed in the living room; and w e’d kiss, face to

  face, and the light would come up. I learned to love dawn and

  the long, slow coming o f the light. One night I went to the bar

  and Arthur wasn’t nice anymore. He brought dinner to me

  and he brought beer but he wouldn’t look at me or talk to me

  and his face was different, with deep anger or pain or I didn’t

  know what because I don’t know how to know what people

  feel or think. A lot o f time went by and then I thought I should

  go away and not come back but he sat down, it was a Saturday

  night, early in the night because he usually worked Saturdays

  until four a. m. but now it was only ten at night and it was

  busy, very busy, so it wasn’t easy for him to sit down; and he

  said his sister, an older sister, Caroline, was in the hospital,

  and she had brought him up, and she had cancer, and she had

  had cancer for a long time but now it seemed she was dying,

  now, tonight, and he was hurting so bad, he was in bad grief,

  sad and angry and fucked up, and he had to go to the hospital

  right now and it was far away up town and it would take most

  o f the night and probably she would die tonight; and would I

  go to his place, he would take me there to make sure I got there

  safe, and would I wait for him there— he knew I might not

  want to and it was a lot to ask, but would I? And I said I was

  sorry about his sister and I would go there and I would wait for

  him. He took me there and he kissed me and he showed me

  with courtesy to the little bed where we slept that was all made

  up like a sofa in what was sort o f a living room, with the

  paintings all around, and he showed me where some books

  were, and he thanked me, and I said I would wait, and I was so

  sorry. I waited many hours. Sometimes I walked around.

  Sometimes I sat. There wasn’t enough light to read really. I

  looked at the paintings. Then Eldridge came in and he touched

  me on m y face and I pulled aw ay and said no and said I was

  waiting for Arthur and his sister was dying o f cancer and he

  was at the hospital and she was dying now, dying now, and he

  said yes but I’m his friend what’s w rong with me I’m as good

  as he is I’m as good; and he limped but he was tall and strong

  and angry and he forced me down on the bed and he hit me flat

  out with his fist in m y face and I fought him and he raped me

  and pushed me and he hit me and he was in me, sitting on top

  o f me, upright, m y skirt was up over m y face and he was

  punching me; and after I was bleeding on m y lips and down

  m y legs and I couldn’t m ove and I could hear Arthur coming

  and Eldridge said, I’m his best friend and I’ll tell him you

  wanted it, and he said, I’m his best friend and yo u ’ll kill him if

  you tell him, and he said, he’ll kill you if you tell him because

  he can’t stand any more. I straightened up the bed fast because

  I could have been sleeping on it so it didn’t have to be perfect

  and I straightened up m y clothes and I tried to get the blood o ff

  m y face by rubbing it on m y sleeve and I sat on the edge o f the

  bed with m y hands folded, waiting, and the lights were out,

  and I didn’t know if Arthur would see anything on m y face,

  pain or bruises or cuts, and I didn’t know what Arthur would

  believe; and he said his sister had died; and he sat down next to

  me and he cried; and I held him; and he asked me if everything

  was all right; and I said yes; and he asked me if anything was

  wrong and I said no; and he asked me if Eldridge had bothered

  me and I said no; and he wanted to make love so
we made love

  in the dark and the pain o f him in me was like some hot,

  pointed branding iron in me, an agony o f pain on pain, and I

  asked God to stop the pain, I had forgotten God but I

  remembered Him now and I supplicated Him with Arthur in

  me asking Him to stop the pain; and the light started coming

  up, so slow, and it fell, so slow, on Arthur’s grief-stricken,

  tear-stained black face, a face o f aging grace and relentless

  dignity, a handsome face with remorse and sorrow in it for

  what he had seen and known and done, the remorse and

  sorrow that is part o f any decent life, more sorrow, more

  trouble than white men had, trouble because o f color and then

  the burden o f regular human pain— an older sister, Caroline,

  dies; and I turned my face away because I was afraid he would

  see bruises or cuts where I was hit or I was afraid he could see I

  was raped and I didn’t know how to explain because I had

  already lied so it couldn’t be true now later and tears were

  coming down my face and he touched the tears and he asked if

  I was crying because I loved him and was sad for his sister and I

  said yes. He slept then and I went away. I didn’t come back.

  There’s this girl I loved but she disappeared a long time ago.

  When we were children we played in the rubble in the street, in

  the broken cement, on broken glass and with sticks and bricks

  and garbage, city garbage, we made up mysteries for ourselves and enacted stories, we made great adventures in

  condemned houses, deserted garages, empty, scary warehouses, we broke into cars and churches, we trembled and

  held hands, w e’d wrestle and w e’d fight, we were tender and

  we were fierce; and then in alleys we would kiss each other a

  hundred million times. Arthur was m y lover in m y heart, a

  city lover, near to her. It made me lonely, what wasn’t rape; I

  disappeared from him and grief washed over me pulling me

  near to her. She’d died when someone did something, no one

  would say what; but she was wild and strong, a man did

  something and she took pills, a beautiful girl all the adults said;

  it makes you lonely, what isn’t rape. He slept, and I left; lonely