Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

all swelled from drinking, they’re mean, they’d kill you for the

fucking bottle they’re clutching to them, sometimes they got

it buried under them, and they’re curled up on cardboard or

newspapers on the street, all secure in the shadows, manly

men, behind garbage cans, hidden in the dark; but the light in

them reaches out to the light in me, my brothers, myself, I

pick on men at least twice my size, I like them with fine

shoulders, wide, real men, I like them six feet or more, I like

them vicious, I pick them big and mean, the danger psyches

me up but what I appreciate is their surprise, which is absolute,

their astonishment, which invigorates me; how easy it is to

make them eat shit; they will always underestimate me,

always, from which I enunciate the political principle, Alw ays

pick on men at least twice your size. This is the value o f

practice as opposed to theory; they’re so easy; so arrogant; so

used to the world always being the w ay they thought it was.

The small ones are harder. The small ones have to learn to

fight early and take nothing for granted, the small, w iry ones

you cannot surprise; when I am a master I will take on the

small, w iry ones; or assign them to someone else, maybe

someone who can step on them, a real tall girl who would get

something out o f it by just treating them like bugs; but now I

take the big ones, and I fucking smash their faces in; I kick

them; I hit them; I kick them blind; I like smashing their faces

in with one kick, I like dancing on their chests, their rheumy

old chests, with my toes, big, swinging kicks, and I like one

big one between the legs, for the sake o f form and symbolism,

to pay my respects to content as such, action informed by the

imperatives o f literature. Sometimes they got knives or

bottles, they’re fast, they’re good, but they are fucking drunk

and all sprawled out, and I like smashing the bottles into their

fucking faces and I like taking the knives, for my collection; I

like knives. I find them drunk and lying down and I hurt them

and I run; and I fucking don’t care about fair; discuss fair at the

U . N .; vote on it; from which I enunciate another political

principle, It is obscene for a girl to think about fair. Every girl

needs a man, gets an itch, the nights are long, I’m restless, it’s

not natural for a girl to be alone, without a man; instead o f

locking the windows and locking the doors and waiting for

one to crawl in I go out to find him; not ladylike but selfdetermining, another girl for choice; a girl needs someone big and strong, a macho man, a streetwise, street tough, street

crazy man, a hero o f freedom, a loose man, unattached, a

solitary poet o f drink and darkness, a city prince; I have always

found that a girl needs a boy. These ones are old and mean;

none o f them’s innocent and who cares? I fucking don’t care.

It’s been justified up m y ass. Besides it’s just sport, recreational

training, some ways to get through the night, means and

methods, because I can’t sleep, because if you go to sleep they

will hurt you, one o f them or some o f them or some other o f

them; whoever these ones hurt, I’m taking her place, whoever

she was, they don’t know us apart, cunt is cunt is cunt, I’m

taking her place now, when I choose, I’m standing in for her

now, when it’s good for me; is it good for you? And there’s

one will stand in for me. There’s anonymous women m oving

through the night; I have m y husband here, right in front o f

me, I have a gun to his head, I pull the trigger, it is an

execution, m y right, any time, any place; his life is mine,

because he hurt me; dreadful; a dreadful hurt. I want him

executed so I can be free o f fear; and if there was justice I could

do it any time, any place; I’d have the gun; I’d have the choice;

I’d have the right. I think I have a twin in the night, some girl

standing in for me; who will just smash his fucking head in. I

think one day they will gather, the women, outside where he

lives, I think there will be thousands o f them, I think it will be a

crowd, a mob, a riot, a revolution, and I think they will chant

his name, and I think they will surround his house, and I think

they will block the city streets for blocks, and I think they will

stop traffic, and I think no one will be able to pass in or out and

they w ill stop the police from getting to him to protect him

because they will stretch for miles and someone, an unknown

someone, will kill him, it will be one and it will be all and no

one will ever know who except for her herself, they will smash

him or shoot him or knife him, or fifty will knife him, or a

hundred, but so it’s final, not making a mistake, they will kill

him good and real and quick, and no one will know who,

because it will be all o f them; for me; do this; for me; and when

an indictment is read they will all stand up; for me; including

the ones who heard me scream and including the ones who

weren’t born yet. M y eyes work. I see. It is not a mystery. If

it’s in front o f you you can see how it works itself out. It’s not

prophecy; it’s simple seeing; what is there; now; naked from

the lies. I see the future, a pretty place. The men make a sex

circus, we are the performing animals. There are hoops o f fire,

we are chained in cages, they whip us to make us jum p: high

enough for them to look under. We jum p, we hop, we spread

our legs; they’ll paint us purple underneath; or shave us so we

look like babies; or put brands on us, or chains through us,

underneath; they’ll hurt us, more; more than now; more;

killing w on ’t be enough; rape will be the good old days, when

it was simple, how they just forced us, in private, or how they

just beat us, with fists, in private, or how they put fingers

inside us, when we were too small, underneath; w e’ll be the

dog-and-pony show; they’ll leash us and they’ll manacle us

and they’ll paint us pink and w e’ll have nostalgia for the good

old days when the living was easy before they grabbed us o ff

the streets in vans and gang-raped us and bashed us with

baseball bats, smashing us not looking where, arms, head,

chest, stomach, legs, and filmed it, and dumped us, some o f us

lived, some o f us died, or before they set dogs on us to fuck us,

and filmed it, or before they cut us open, to ejaculate on us,

and filmed it, or before they started urinating on us, using us