Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

typewriter, I need money for just staying alive, orange juice

and coffee and cigarettes and milk, vodka and pills, they’ll just

smash it or take it anyway, I have to just learn to write with a

pen and paper in handwriting so no one can steal it and so it

don’t take money. When I read the big men writers I’m them;

careening around like they do; never paying a fucking price;

days are long, their books are short compared to an hour on

the street; but if you think about a book just saying I’m a prick

and I fuck dirty girls, the books are pretty long; m y cock, m y

cock, three volumes. They should just say: I Can Fuck.

Norm an M ailer’s new novel. I Can Be Fucked. Jean Genet’s

new novel. I ' m Waiting To Be Fucked Or To Fuck, I Don't

Know. Samuel Beckett’s new novel. She Shit. Jam es Jo y c e ’s

masterpiece. Fuck Me, Fuck Her, Fuck It. The Living Theatre’s

new play. Paradise Fucked. The sequel. Mama, I Fucked a Jewish

Girl. The new Philip Roth. Mama, I Fucked a Shiksa. The new,

new Philip Roth. It was a bad day they w ouldn’t let little boys

say that word. I got to tell you, they get laid. T h e y’re up and

down these streets, taking what they want; tw o hundred

million little Henry Millers with hard pricks and a mean prose

style; Pulitzer prizewinning assholes using cash. Looking for

experience, which is what they call pussy afterward when

they’re back in their posh apartments trying to ju stify

themselves. Experience is us, the ones they stick it in.

Experience is when they put down the money, then they turn

you around like yo u ’re a chicken they’re roasting; they stick it

in any hole they can find just to try it or because they’re blind

drunk and it ain’t painted red so they can’t find it; you get to be

lab mice for them; they stick the famous Steel Rod into any

Fleshy Hole they can find and they Ram the Rod In when they

can manage it which thank God often enough they can’t. The

prose gets real purple then. Y ou can’t put it down to

impotence though because they get laid and they had wom en

and they fucked a lot; they just never seem to get over the

miracle that it’s them in a big man’s body doing all the

damage; Look, ma, it’s me. Volum e Tw elve. They don’t act

like human beings and they’re pretty proud o f it so there’s no

point in pretending they are; though you want to— pretend.

Y o u ’d like to think they could feel something— sad; or

remorse; or something ju st simple, a minute o f recognition.

It’s interesting that yo u ’re so dangerous to them but you

fucking can’t hurt them; how can you be dangerous if you

can’t do harm; I’d like to be able to level them, but you can’t

touch them except to be fucked by them; they get to do it and

then they get to say what it is they’re doing— yo u ’re what

they’re afraid o f but the fear just keeps them coming, it doesn’t

shake them loose or get them o ff you; it’s more like the glue

that keeps them on you; sticky stuff, how afraid the pricks are.

I mean, m aybe they’re not afraid. It sounds so stupid to say

they are, so banal, like making them human anyw ay, like

giving them the insides you wish they had. So what do you

say; they’re just so fucking filled with hate they can’t do

anything else or feel anything else or write anything else? I

mean, do they ever look at the fucking moon? I think all the

sperm they’re spilling is going to have an effect; something’s

going to grow. It’s like they’re planting a whole next

generation o f themselves by sympathetic magic; not that

they’re fucking to have babies; it’s more like they’re rubbing

and heaving and pushing and banging and shoving and

ejaculating like some kind o f voodoo rite so all the sperm will

grow into more them, more boys with more books about how

they got themselves into dirt and got out alive. It’s a thrilling

story, says the dirt they got themselves into. It’s bitterness,

being their filth; they don’t even remember right, you’re not

distinct enough, an amoeba’s more distinct, more individuated; they go home and make it up after they did it for real and

suddenly they ain’t parasites, they’re heroes— big dicks in the

big night taming some rich but underneath it all street dirty

whore, some glamorous thing but underneath filth; I think

even i f you were with them all the time they wouldn’t

remember you day-to-day, it’s like being null and void and

fucked at the same time, I am fucked, therefore I am not.

M aybe I’ll write books about history— prior times, the War o f

1812; not here and now, which is a heartbreaking time, place,

situation, for someone. Y o u ’re nothing to them. I don’t think

they’re afraid. Maybe I’m afraid. The men want to come in; I

hear them outside, banging; they’re banging against the door

with metal things, probably knives; the men around here have

knives; they use knives; I’m familiar with knives; I grew up

around knives; Nino used a knife; I’m not afraid o f knives.

Fear’s a funny thing; you get fucked enough you lose it; or

most o f it; I don’t know w hy that should be per se. It’s all

callouses, not fear, a hard heart, and inside a lot o f death as if

they put it there, delivered it in. And then out o f nowhere you

ju st drown in it, it’s a million tons o f water on you. if I was

afraid o f individual things, normal things— today, tom orrow ,

w hat’s next, w h o ’s on top, what already has transpired that

you can’t quite reach down into to remember— I’d have to

surrender; but it drowns you fast, then it’s gone. I’d like to

surrender; but to whom , where, or do you just put up a white

flag and they take you to throw your body on a pile

somewhere? I don’t believe in it. I think you have to make

them come get you, you don’t volunteer, it’s a matter o f pride.

Who do you turn yourself into and on what terms— hey,

fellow, I’m done but that don’t mean you get to hurt me

more, you have to keep the"deal, I made a deal, I get not to feel

more pain, I’m finished, I’m not fighting you fucks anymore,

I’ll be dead if it’s the w ay to accomplish this transformation

from what I am into being nothing with no pain. But if you get

dead and there’s an afterlife and it’s more o f the same but