Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

they’d stop making paint but such things do not happen and

such things cannot occur, any more than the rape so-called can

happen or occur or the being beaten so bad can happen or

occur and there are no words for what cannot happen or occur

and i f you think something happened or occurred and there are

no words for it you are at a dead end. There’s nothing where

they force you; there’s nothing where you hurt so much;

there’s nothing where it matters, there’s nothing like it

anywhere. So it doesn’t feel right to make things up, as you

must do to write fiction, to lie, to elaborate, to elongate, to

exaggerate, to distort, to get tangled up in moderations or

modifications or deviations or compromises o f m ixing this

with that or combining this one with that one because the

problem is finding words for the truth, especially if no one will

believe it, and they will not. I can’t make things up because I

w ouldn’t know after a while w hat’s blood, w hat’s ink. I barely

know any words for what happened to me yesterday, which

doesn’t make tom orrow something I can conceive o f in m y

mind; I mean words I say to m yself in m y ow n head; not social

words you use to explain to someone else. I barely know

anything and if I deviate I am lost; I have to be literal, if I can

remember, which m ostly I cannot. N o one will acknowledge

that some things happen and probably at this point in time

there is no w ay to say they do in a broad sweep; you describe

the man forcing you but you can’t say he forced you. If I was a

man I could probably say it; I could say I did it and everyone

would think I made it up even though I’d just be remembering

what I did last night or twenty minutes ago or once, long ago,

but it probably w ouldn’t matter. The rapist has words, even

though there’s no rapist, he ju st keeps inventing rape; in his

mind; sure. He remembers, even though it never happened;

it’s fine fiction when he writes it down. Whereas m y mind is

getting worn away; it’s being eroded, experience keeps

washing over it and there’s no sea wall o f words to keep it

intact, to keep it from being washed away, carried out to sea,

layer by layer, fine grains washed away, a thin surface washed

away, then some more, washed away. I am fairly worn away

in m y mind, washed out to sea. It probably doesn’t matter

anyway. People lead their little lives. T here’s not much

dignity to go around. T here’s lies in abundance, and silence for

girls who don’t tell them. I don’t want to tell them. A lie’s for

when he’s on top o f you and you got to survive him being

there until he goes; M alcolm X tried to stop saying a certain

lie, and maybe I should change from Andrea because it’s a lie.

It’s just that it’s a precious thing from my mother that she tried

to give me; she didn’t want it to be such an awful lie, I don’t

think. So I have to be the writer she tried to be— Andrea; not-

cunt— only I have to do it so it ain’t a lie. I ain’t fabricating

stories. I’m making a different kind o f story. I’m writing as

truthful as the man with his fingers, if only I can remember

and say; but I ain’t on his side. I’m on some different side. I’m

telling the truth but from a different angle. I’m the one he done

it to. The bait’s talking, honey, if she can find the words and

stay even barely alive, or even just keep the blood running; it

can’t dry up, it can’t rot. The bait’s spilling the beans. The

bait’s going to transcend the material conditions o f her

situation, fuck you very much, Mr. M arx. The bait’s going

w ay past Marx. The bait’s taking her eviscerated, bleeding self

and she ain’t putting it back together, darling, because,

frankly, she don’t know how; the bait’s a realist, babe, the

bait’s no fool, she’s just going to bleed all over you and you are

going to have to find the words to describe the stain, a stain as

big as her real life, boy; a big, nasty stain; a stain all over you,

all the blood you ever spilled; that’s the esthetic dimension,

through art she replicates the others you done it to, gets the

stain to incorporate them too. It’s coming right back on you,

sink or swim; fucking drown your head in it; give in, darling;

go down. That’s the plan, in formal terms. The bait’s got a

theory; the bait’s finding a practice, working it out; the bait’s

going to write it down and she don’t have to use words, she’ll

make signs, in blood, she’s good at bleeding, boys, the vein’s

open, boys, the bait’s got plenty, each month more and more

without dying for a certain long period o f her life, she can lose

it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures,

big signs; oh and honey there’s so much bait around that

there’s going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when

the new art gets its start. Y ou are going to be sitting in it; the

new novel; participation, it’s called; I’m smearing it all over

you. It ain’t going to be made up; it ain’t going to be a lie; and

you are going to pay attention, directly, even though it’s by a

girl, because this time it’s on you. if I find a word, I’ll use it;

but I ain’t waiting, darling, I already waited too long. If you

was raised a boy you don’t know how to get blood off, yo u ’re

shocked, surprised, in Vietnam when you see it for the first

time and I been bleeding since I was nine, I’m used to putting

m y hands in it and I live . Y ou don’t give us no words for

w hat’s true so now there’s signs, a new civilization just

starting now: her name’s not-cunt and she’s just got to express

herself, say some this and that, use w hat’s there, take w hat’s

hers: her blood’s hers; your blood’s hers. Here’s the difference

between us, sweet ass: I’m using blood you already spilled;

mine; hers; cunt’s. I ain’t so dirty as to take yours. I don’t

confuse this new manifesto with being Artaud; he was on the

other side. There are sides. If he spills m y blood, it’s art. if I put

mine on him, it’s deeply not nice or good or, as they say,

interesting; it’s not interesting. There’s a certain— shall we

understate? — distaste. It’s bad manners but not rude in an

artistically valid sense. It’s just not being the right kind o f girl.

It’s deranged but not in the Rimbaud sense. It’s just not being

M arjorie Morningstar, which is the height to which you may