Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

He walked; the ju ry found her guilty. I was in the court. The

walls were gray. He beat the wom an near to death; they were

married; the judge didn’t see the problem; she’s the wife, after

all; the guy walked. T hejudge wore a long black dress. G o d ’s

name was written on the wall above his head. I was in the

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

black dress. G od ’s name was written on the wall above his

head. The daddy had raped the kid, over and over, so many

times, she was four, he wanted custody, he got it, it was a

second marriage, the first kid was raped too but the judge

w ouldn’t admit it into evidence, said it was prejudicial, you

know, just because he did it to that one doesn’t prove that he

did it to this one; they keep saying that; with them all; the

beaters and the rapers; just stack the women they did it to

before, the past women, in piles, for garbage collection; don’t

want them to prejudice how we look at him this time, when he

did it to this one w ho’s a slut anyway which isn’t prejudicial

because it is axiomatic; how many times does he get to do it in

his lifetime, to how many, whatever it is he likes doing, a

beater, a raper, o f women, o f children; that’s w hy they don’t

teach girls to count. I want each one followed. I want each one

killed. It is very important for women to kill men. I know girls

whose fathers fucked them; near to death; it’s a deferred death

sentence on her, she does it to herself, later. I know girls who

been banged by thousands o f men; I am one such girl myself. I

know girls who been cut open and fucked in the hole. I know a

girl who was kidnapped by a bunch o f college boys, a

fraternity, and kept for days; used over and over; beat her to

blood and pus; sliced her throat and dumped her; I know her

and I know another woman raped the same w ay, wasn’t

sliced, she escaped; I know so many girls who been kidnapped

and gang-raped you couldn’t fit them into a ballroom; I know

so many girls who been tortured as children you couldn’t fit

them into a ballroom; I know so many girls who was fucked

by their daddies you couldn’t fit them into a ballroom. N o one

cares; how many times can you say raped ; it don’t matter and

no one stops them. I throw rocks through the w indows o f rape

emporiums; I destroy business properties o f men who rape; or

men who beat women; if I find out; sometimes I hear her

screaming; there’s screaming all over the cities; it travels up the

air shafts o f apartment buildings; I spray-paint their w indows;

I spray-paint their cars; I go to the courts; I follow them home;

I follow them to w ork; I have an air rifIe; I break their w indows

with it; I am seeking to blind them; the raped women come out

at night, we convene, there’s rallies, marches, sometimes a

mob, we stomp on the rape magazines or we invade where

they prostitute us, where we are herded and sold, we ruin their

theaters where they have sex on us, we face them, we scream

in their fucking faces, we are the women they have made

scream when they choose, when they like it; do you like it

now? We’re all the same, cunt is cunt is cunt, w e’re facsimiles

o f the ones they done it to, or we are the ones they done it to,

and I can’t tell him from him from him; we set fires, to their

stores, to them when they come outside from the Roman

circuses, inside they are set on fire metaphorically, the pimp

uses the woman to make them burn, she’s torn to pieces and

they get hot, outside we introduce the literal; burn, darling,

using girls is hot; we smash bums and we are ready for Mr.

Wall Street who will follow any piece o f ass down any dark

street; now he’s got a problem; it is very important for women

to kill men. We surge through the sex dungeons where our

kind are kept, the butcher shops where our kind are sold; we

break them loose; Am nesty International will not help us, the

United Nations will not help us, the World Court will not

help us; so at night, ghosts, we convene; to spread justice,

which stands in for law, which has always been merciless,

which is, by its nature, cruel. T hey don’t stop themselves, do

they? T hey get scared, even the bouncers at the rape em poriums, it’s inspiring, they ain’t used to mobs o f girls who surge and kick and smash; let alone that we are almost ethereal, so

ghostly, so frail and fucked out, near to death. Y ou see one o f

the big ones afraid and it will inspire you for a thousand years.

A girl alone or any mass o f girls; kicking, pushing, shoving;

you can tear their prisons down where they keep women

caged in; you must, mustn’t you? I have spent some years

searching for words, writing, wanting to write, and I have

spent some years now, writing a plan, a map with words, a

drawing with songs, a geography o f us here, them there, with

lyrics for how to move, us through them, us over them, us

past them; I published the military plan in haiku— Listen/

Huey killed/M e too— and it was widely understood; among

the raped; who do not exist; except in my mind; because they

are not proven to exist; and it is not proven to happen; but still;

we convene. I map out a plan, which I communicate through

gesture, graphs and charts and poems and a dance I do alone

after dark; a stark and violent dance; on his face; the raped will

hear me. They don’t stop themselves, do they? I enunciate a

fundamental political principle; I write it down, in secret; I

enunciate a plan; Stop them. I have looked for words. I have

read books. I have tried to say some simple things that

happened, with borrowed words, or old words, with sad

words, words tacked together shamefully without art. I have

sobbed for wanting words; because o f wanting to say the

simplest things; what he did and what it was, or what it was

like, as if it would matter if it could be said, or said right; I have

sobbed to him saying stop; I have begged person-to-person;

stop. Walt was a poet o f abundance; he had a surfeit o f words;

the ones I struggled for mean nothing, I looked for raped , was

it real, was it Nazis, could it be; how much did it hurt; what

did it signify; I wanted to say, it destroys freedom, it destroys

love, I want freedom, I want love, freedom first, freedom

now; rape rape rape; fucking 0; I found the word, it’s the right

word; fucking 0; no one cares; enough to stop them; stop