Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

like common toilets, to film it; but I don’t expect to be listened

to or believed, certainly even the simplest things o f an already

distinguished life cannot be believed, I couldn’t say anything

simple in the whole course o f m y actual life and have there be

belief; as if justice for me, from him to me, could count; but I

been through that; m y grievances on that score are between

the lines, at least there, always read the white space; I’m tired

from it and I’m sad; Walt could say blah blah blah this will

come and this will come and this will be and he was venerated

for dreaming, as i f his dreams was true dreams o f a true future;

m y nightmares are true dreams o f a true future. I’m not alone;

though I can’t find them; in the dark raped girls wander;

smashing drunks; sometimes someone sets one on fire; I see

the flames; I smell the carcass; the raped have stopped being

kind, generally speaking, though it’s still a secret. I personally

have done the following. I have blown up several rape

emporiums. I don’t have bombs or explosives but I cannot be

stopped. I steal a car; I back it into the rape emporium when it’s

deserted; I make a fuse to the gas tank; I light the fuse; the

whole thing blows; it’s simple, if a bit extravagant. Any man

will follow any feminine looking thing down any dark alley;

I’ve always wanted to see a man beaten to a shit bloody pulp

with a high-heeled shoe stuffed up his mouth, sort o f the pig

with the apple; it would be good to put him on a serving plate

but yo u ’d need good silver. Y o u ’re the piece o f ass; he’s

invulnerable, o f course; it’s his right, to come after you; so if

he follow s you and you have the urge to smash him to death

he’s asked for it, hasn’t he? I mean, he actually did ask for it.

The arm y o f raped ghosts got together and we marched, we

marched, we marched in Tim es Square and the Tenderloin

and Soho; we marched; everyw here there’s neon w e’ve

marched; we visit the slave auctions; we have the names o f the

pimps, addresses, photos, telephone numbers, social security

numbers; I plaster their neighborhoods with pictures o f them;

I say they are pimps who slaughter wom en for fun and money;

I say he’s at your P . T . A ., he’s with your children; I pursue

him; the army o f raped ghosts stays on his tail; we drive him

out. They hide; they run. One day the women will burn down

Tim es Square; I’ve seen it in m y mind; I know; it’s in flames.

The women will come out o f their houses from all over and

they will riot and they will burn it down, raze it to the ground,

it will be bare cement; and we will execute the pimps. N o

woman will ever be hurt there again; ever; again; it is a simple

fact. I threw blood all over their weaponry; their whips; their

chains; their spiked dildos; their leashes; I have buckets o f

blood, nurses give it to me, raped nurses; and I cover

everything, the slave clothes, the bikinis, the nighties, the

garter belts, and the things they tie you down with and the

things they stick up you and the things they hurt you with,

nipple clips and piercing things; I drench them in blood; I

make them blood-soaked, as is a w om an’s life; I think over

time I will engage in a new art, painting their world blood red

as they have painted mine; simple self-expression, with a

political leaning but neither right nor left per se, the anti-rape

series it will be called, with real life as the canvas; and I will try

to make the implicit explicit; a poet said, make the implicit

explicit; a political theorist said, make the implicit explicit; the

blood o f women is implicit in the weaponry; I will take the

blood o f women implicit in the weaponry and I will make it

explicit; and from this I enunciate another political principle,

which is, The blood o f women is implicit, make it explicit. A

woman I didn’t know with the face o f an angel approached

me. She leaned over. She touched me softly on the shoulder.

She whispered. She had serious and kind eyes. She had a soft

and kind voice. Andrea, she said, it is very important for

women to kill men. I contemplated this, shuddering; I

meditated on it; I breathed in deeply; I drew pictures, stories o f

life with men, with pencils, with crayons; I dreamed; I

understood yes; yes, it is. I enunciated a political principle,

which went as follows: It is very important for women to kill

men. His death, o f course, is unbearable. His death is

intolerable, unspeakable, unfair, insufferable; I agree; I learned

it since the day I was born; terrible; his death is terrible; are you

crazy; are you stupid; are you cruel? He can’t be killed; for

what he did to you? It’s absurd; it’s silly; unjustified; uncivilized; crazed; another madwoman, where’s the attic? He didn’t mean it; or he didn’t do it, not really, or not fully, or not

knowing, or not intending; he didn’t understand; or he

couldn’t help it; or he w on ’t again; certainly he will try not to;

unless; well; he just can’t help it; be patient; he needs help;

sym pathy; over time. Yes, her ass is grass but you can’t expect

miracles, it takes time, she wasn’t perfect either you know; he

needs time, education, help, support; yeah, she’s dead meat;

but you can’t expect someone to change right away, overnight, besides she wasn’t perfect, was she, he needs time, help,

support, education; well, yeah, he was out o f control; listen,

she’s lucky it wasn’t worse, I’m not covering it up or saying

what he did was right, but she’s not perfect, believe me, and he

had a terrible mother; yeah, I know, you had to scrape her o ff

the ground; but you know, she w asn’t perfect either, he’s got a

problem; he’s human, he’s got a problem. Oh, darling, no; he

didn’t have a problem before; now he’s got a problem. I am on

this earth to see that now he has a problem. It is very important

for wom en to kill men; he’s got a problem now. I was in the

courtroom. The walls were brown. The judge wore a long

black dress. G o d ’s name was written on the wall over his head.

There were police everywhere. The rapist smiled; at the

woman. He had kidnapped her. He had held her for nearly

tw o days, or was it four, or were there five o f them, each being

tried separately? He had fucked her over and over, brutally.

He had sliced her with a knife. He had sodomized her. He had

burned her. She shaked; she shivered; she screamed; she cried.