Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

she depended on me or someone, she had to; so I felt I had to

feed her and I felt I had to have enough m oney and I felt her life

was in m y hands and I felt her life was important and I felt she

was the nicest, most kind creature I ever knew. She’d sit with

me and watch the door when the locks fell apart but she didn’t

grasp it and I couldn’t count on her sense o f danger, because it

w asn’t attuned to the realities o f a w om an’s life. Someone

might be afraid o f her or not. Someone might hurt her. I’d die

i f they hurted her. I’d probably have throwed m yself on her to

protect her. I ju st couldn’t bear the thought o f someone

hurting her. Her name was Gringo, because the man who had

her and who named her w asn’t a fine, upstanding citizen, he

was degenerate, and I was afraid he would hurt her, and I was

afraid she would die, and I think there is nothing worse than

knowing an animal is being hurt, except for a child, for which

I thank God I don’t have one, even though my husband would

have taken it away from me, I know. If something’s in your

charge and it must love you then for something cruel to

happen to it must shatter your heart into pieces, by which I

mean the pain is real and it is not made better by time because

the creature was innocent and you are not; or I am not. I kept her

fine. I kept her safe. I kept her sleek and beautiful and without

any sores or any illnesses or any bad things on her skin or any

marks; I kept her gleaming and proud and fine and fed; I kept

her healthy and I kept her strong and I kept her happy; and she

loved me, she did. It was a little beyond an ignorant love, I

truly believe. She knew me by my reverence for her; I was the

one that lit up inside every time my eyes beheld her. I never

could train her to do anything but sit; usually I said sit a second

after she had done it, for my own self-respect; and she pulled

me about one hundred miles an hour down the street; I loved

her exuberance and could not condemn it as bad behavior; I

loved that she was sweet and extrovert and unhaunted and I

didn’t want any shadows forming on her mind from me

shouting or pulling or being an asshole in general; I couldn’t

romp but my heart jum ped when she bounced and wagged

and waved and flew like some giant sparrow heading toward

spring; and I counted on the respect pricks have for big dogs to

keep me safe but it didn’t always, there was always ones that

wanted to fight because she was big, because they thought she

was more male than them, bigger than them, stronger than

them, especially drunks or mean men, and there was men in

the park with bigger dogs who wanted their dogs to hurt her

or fight with her or mount her or bite her or scare her or who

made me m ove by threatening to set their dog on her to show

their dog was bigger or meaner or to make me move because I

was gash according to them and they was men. It’s simple and

always the same. I moved with a deep sense o f being wronged.

I shouldn’t have had to m ove but I couldn’t risk them hurting

her— more real life with a girl and her dog who are hurting no

one. The toilet was too small to take her into and I couldn’t

leave her loose in the hall because some man upstairs, a

completely sour person, hated her and kept threatening to call

all these different city agencies with cops for animals that

would take her away; but probably I w ouldn’t have left her

there anyw ay because I’d be afraid something unexpected

would happen and she’d be helpless; so she had to stay in the

apartment when I went to the toilet and I locked the door to

protect her. It’s unimaginable, how much I loved her. She was

so deep in m y heart I w ould’ve died for her, to keep her safe.

E very single piece o f love I had left in me was love for her;

except for revolutionary love. Y o u become the guardian o f a

creature and it becomes your soul and it brings jo y back to

you, as i f you was pure and young and there was nothing

rough or mean and you had tom orrow, really. She made me

happy by being happy and she loved me, a perfect love, and I

was necessary, beyond the impersonal demands o f the revolution per se. I had always admired the Black Panthers, with a

certain amount o f skepticism, because I been on the streets

they walked and there’s no saints there, M ao’s long march

didn’t go through Camden or Oakland or Detroit or Chicago.

I didn’t get close with Huey until I saw a certain picture. I think

it will be in m y brain until I die. I had admired him; how he

created a certain political reality; how he stood up to police

violence, how he faced them down, then the Survival

Program , free food for children, free shoes, some health care,

teaching reading and writing; it was real brilliant; and he ju st

didn’t die, I mean, you fucking could not kill him, and I

admire them that will not die. I knew he had run wom en but I

also been low ; I couldn’t hold it against him; I couldn’t hold

anything against him, really, because it’s rough to stay alive

and reach for dignity at the same time; you can fucking feed

children on top o f that and you got my respect. I stayed aloof,

also because I wasn’t some liberal white girl, middle-class by

skin, I had to take his measure and I couldn’t do it through

public perceptions or media or propaganda or the persona that

floated through the air waves. I saw him do fucking brilliant

things; I mean, you got to know how hard it is to do fucking

anything; and I saw him survive shootings, the police were

trying to assassinate him, no doubt; and I saw him transcend it;

and I saw him build, not just carry a fucking gun. Then there’s

this picture. H e’s been shot by the police and he’s cuffed to a

gum ey in an emergency room at Kaiser Hospital, October

1967. His chest is bare and raised; it’s raised because his arms

are cuffed to the legs o f the gurney, pulled back towards his

head; he’s wounded but they pulled his arms back so his chest

couldn’t rest on the gurney, so he’s stretched by the manacles,

his chest is sticking up because o f the strain caused by how his

arms are pulled back and restrained, it would hurt anyone, I

have been tied that way, it hurts, you don’t need a bullet in you

for it to give you pain, there’s a white cop in front o f him, fully

dressed, fully armed, looking with surprise at the camera, and