Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

about mortality, finding the one thin strain o f significance, a

line o f sorrow, the thread o f a meaning, an idea against death,

an assertion with color or shape as if you could draw a perfect

line to stand against it, you know , so it would break death’s

heart or something. I can see w hy he wanted to walk me

through this because it’s his paintings, precious to his soul.

Y ou w ouldn’t want some stranger rooting around in it; or

even touching it. Y ou have to go through the whole room, the

whole distance o f it, its full length, to get to the stairs that take

you to the top floor where he lives. I keep being afraid I’ll sink

in the paint but I get to the stairs and they’re normal, ju st wood

stairs, even, sanded, finished, with a bannister, and I climb up

after him; it was different N ew Y ear’s Eve, soft and glow ing,

with grand tables and linen and crystal. N o w it’s pretty

empty, big, vast really; there’s a big blow heater hanging from

the ceiling and he turns it on and it blows hot air out at you, it’s

like being in a hot wind, it dries the air out, it’s a m usky,

lukewarm , smelly draft, and he puts it on higher and it’s like

being in a hot wind, warm but unpleasant, an awful August

day with a wind so steady and stale that the air pushes past

you, old air, used already. At one end o f the huge room is a

single wood chair. At the other end is a sort o f kitchen, a sink,

running water, a refrigerator, and in front there’s a kitchen

counter and in front o f that there’s a single bed to sleep on, a

sort o f sofa maybe, flat, no headboard, no cushions, no back,

nondescript, covered with cloth, it’s a couch or an old mattress

on springs or something. Way in the back, to the left o f the

kitchen, hard to see, extending behind the kitchen but you

can’t really see how far, there’s a kind o f cage, it’s chicken

wire, it goes from the floor to the ceiling, and there’s a double

bed behind the chicken wire, and I ask what it is, and he says he

sleeps there with girls, some girls like it, it’s his bedroom, he’s

got cuffs for it that fasten on the chicken wire but it’s got

nothing to do with me, I can sleep on the sofa, and I’m feeling a

chill, m y blood goes cold and I feel a certain fear I can’t define

and do not want to think about, and I’ve tried to shake him all

night but there’s the fact he’s sort o f stuck on, I can’t shake him

loose, and I’m feeling like I’ve been traveling a long time in a

foreign place, the land’s strange, the natives are strange, it’s

been a long w ay up the mountain and you don’t know if the

w ay dow n’s booby-trapped and you know the sidewalks are

roads o f windswept death, they’re not harboring no lost souls

tonight, you ain’t going to make it some hours out there. I am

fucking blind drunk, asshole drunk, dumb bitch drunk, and

I’m figuring he’s Jill’s lover w ho’s got to be back because it’s

her opening night and he’ll go back soon, it’s just a matter o f

time, and I don’t look at the cage, like he said it’s got nothing

to do with me and I try not to think about the cuffs and I stay

w ay on the other side o f the place, near the single wood chair,

m y solace, m y home, the place I pick out where I’m staying as

long as he’s here and I can sit here the whole night, just sit, and

he says hey it’s no problem you sleep on the sofa here see and

he makes some tea and we take the tea downstairs to where the

paintings are and I think this is the right direction, at least he’s

on his w ay out, and he shows me the paintings, one by one, he

shows them to me, it’s sort o f amazing, it’s like being scraped

up o ff the street and suddenly the Museum o f Modern A rt’s,

open to you, a special honored guest, he shows them to me

one by one and I’m pretty awed and pretty quiet except he asks

me questions, what do I think o f this and what do I think o f

this and I try to say something, I say things about poems they

remind me o f because I don’t know how to say things about

paintings and there’s one a little different, it’s an emotional

upheaval, not intellectual like most o f the others, and I like it a

lot, it’s brazen and aggressive and real romantic and I say so

and he says well, it’s named after me then, and I think it’s

probably because he’s drunk and he’ll change it back

tom orrow but tonight it is named for me; Andy he calls it, a

nickname I hate. I say I’ll lock him out and he says he’s going

to call Jill to say he’s on his w ay and we walk upstairs and I sit

on the single wood chair but he doesn’t go near any phone

which I don’t even know where it is, I sit on the wood chair

and I dig m y nails into it and he pours me another drink and

I’m saying I’ve had enough but once it’s in m y hands I’m

nervous so I drink it and it’s pretty much like I’m submerged

in a tank o f alcohol, the fumes are drowning out any air, I’m

close to asphyxiation. I sit real still on the chair, I down the

drink like it’s water, I hold onto the chair for dear life, I see the

chicken wire and it scares me, I think about outside and it

scares me, and he’s just standing there, real benign, there’s not

a hint o f sex, there’s not a spark I can see, it’s Jill’s art opening,

he’s her lover and these facts have only one outcome which is

he’s going to her now or soon and I just have to sit here still

until he does and I ask where Jill sleeps and he says behind the

chicken wire and I feel out o f m y fucking mind, I feel insane,

and he’s totally level; and his eyes change, I never looked at his

eyes before but now they’re cold, they are real cold, they have

a steel quality, you might say they are mean and you might say

they are cruel and you might say they have m y blood smeared

on them and he’s saying he’ll just tuck me in, I should just lie

down and he’ll cover me with a blanket and then he’ll leave

and I’m saying he should leave now and I’m Jill’s friend and he

says he just wants me to sit next to him on the single bed just

for a minute, just sit there next to him, and I am some falling

down drunk stupid bitch but I am not going near him, I am

sitting on the chair, I have got m y fingernails dug in, and he’s

spying, totally level, totally calm, you can leave if you want,

quiet voice he has, you can just leave, quiet voice, soft voice,