Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

his hours doing what he wants; and she tells me she’s

disappointed with me for not being loving and we could all

share and this is some dream come true, the most amazing

thing that’s ever happened, to her or ever on earth, it’s the

pro o f that everything is possible, and the pain I’m in is keeping

me from m oving because I can’t even sit up but I’m saying

very quiet, get out now. And she’s saying it’s her first time

with a woman and she didn’t really get to do anything—

tourist didn’t get to see the Eiffel T ow er— and I say yes, that’s

right, you didn’t get nothing. So she’s sad like some lover who

was real left her and she’s handling me like she read in some

book, being a tender person, saying everything bland and

stupid, all her ideals about life, everything she’s hoped for, and

she’s preachy with the m orality o f sharing and unity and

harm ony and I expect her to shake her finger at me and hit m y

knuckles with a ruler and make me stand in a corner for not

being some loving bitch. T here’s a code o f love you have to

learn by heart, which I never took to, and I’m thinking that if

she don’t take her treacle to another planet I’m going to stand

up, no matter what the pain, and physically carry her out, a

new little bride, over the threshold to outside. She’s some

sobbing ingenue with a delicate smile perpetually on her face

shining through tears which are probably always with her and

she’s talking about universal love when all the boy did was

fuck us to death as best he could, which in m y case was close

but no cigar and I couldn’t bring m yself to think it was all that

friendly; and I had a short fuse because I needed another pill, I

was a few behind and I was looking forward to making them

up now in the immediate present, I could talk real nice to

Demerol and I didn’t want them there for when I got high

again; so I said, you go, because he really likes you and you

should stay with him and be with him and be good to him, so

the dumb bitch leaves with the prince o f peace over there, the

b o y’s already smoking dope so he’s already on another plane

taking care o f him self which is what he’s really good at; and

she’s uncomprehending and she’s mournful that I couldn’t get

the love part right but they went, I saw the b o y’s turquoise and

purple silk shirt float by me and the drippy, sentimental girl in

cotton floated out still soliciting love. I never understood w hy

she thought you could ask for it. N o one can ask it from me. I

never can remember his face; peculiar, since his head was right

above me for so long, his tongue in my mouth, he kissed the

whole time he fucked, a nice touch, he was in her kissing me or

in me kissing her so no one’d get away from him or decide to

do something else; I just can’t remember his face, as if I never

saw it. He was a Taurus. I stayed away from them after that if I

knew a man was one because they stay too long, slow, steady,

forever. I never saw such longevity. She was Ellen, some

flower child girl; doomed for housework. I’m not. I ain’t

cleaning up after them. I keep things as clean as I can; but you

can’t really stay clean; there’s too much heat and dirt. It’s a

sweltering night. The little nymphs, imps, and pimps o f

summer flitter about like it’s tea time at the Ritz. There’s been

uprisings on the streets, riots, lootings, burning; the air is

crackling with violence, a blue white fire eating up the

oxygen, it’s tiny, sharp explosions that go o ff in the air around

your head, firecrackers you can’t see that go o ff in front o f you

when you walk, in front o f your face, and you don’t know

when the air itself will become some white hot tornado, ju st

enough to crack your head open and boil your brains. T hat’s

outside, the world. Summertime and the living is easy. Y ou

just walk through the fires between the flames or crawl on

your belly under them; rough on your knees and elbows. Y o u

can be in the street and have a steaming mass, hot heat, kinetic,

come at you, a crowd, men at the top o f their energy, men

spinning propelled by butane, and they bear down on you on

the sidewalk, they come at you, martial chaos; they will march

over you, yo u ’ll be crushed, bone m arrow ground into a paste

with your own blood, a smear left on a sidewalk. The crow d ’s

a monster animal, a giant w olf, huge and frantic, tall as the

sky, blood pulsing and rushing through it, one predator,

bearing down, a hairy, freaky, hungry thing, bared teeth,

ugly, hungry thing, it springs through the air, light and lethal,

and you will fucking cringe, hide, run, disappear, to be safe—

you will fucking hide in a hole, like some roachy thing you

will crawl into a crack. Y ou can hear the sound o f them

coming, there’s a buzz coming up from the cement, it vibrates

and kicks up dust, and somewhere a fire starts, somewhere

close, and somewhere police in helmets with nightsticks are

bearing down on the carnivorous beast, somewhere close and

you can hear the skulls cracking open, and the blood comes,

somewhere close there’s blood, and you can hear guns, there’s

guns somewhere close because you smell the burning smell,

it’s heat rising o ff someone’s open chest, the singed skin still

sm oking where the bullet went through; the w o lfs being beat

down— shot over and over, wounded, torn open— it’s big

manly cops doing it, steel faces, lead boots— they ain’t

harassing whores tonight. It looks like foreplay, the w ay the

cops bear down on the undulating mass; I stroke your face

with m y nightstick; the lover tames the beloved; death does

quiet you down. But a pig can’t kill a wolf. The w o lfs the

monster prick, then the pigs come and turn the w o lf into a girl,

then it’s payback time and the w o lf rises again. In the day

when the w o lf sleeps there are still fires; anything can suddenly

go up in flames and you can’t tell the difference at first between

a fire and a summer day, the sun on the garbage, the hot air

making the ghetto buildings swell, the brick bulging,

deformed and in places melting, all the solid brick w avy in the

heat. At night the crowd rises, the w o lf rises, the great

predator starts a long, slow walk toward the bullets waiting

for it. The violence is in the air; not symbol; not metaphor; it’s

thick and tasty; the air’s charged with it; it crackles around