Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

sw im through it but there’s not enough to swim through and

there’s too much to walk through, it’s as if yo u ’re glued and

gum m y and loose and the ground’s loose and the water’s loose

and yo u ’re breathing in water as much as air and you feel like

some fucking turkey that’s going to drow n in the rain; which

probably you will. Y o u ’re trying to walk home and it’s been a

long time, the old trick o f putting one foot in front o f the other

doesn’t seem to be working and you don’t seem to have got

very far but it’s hard to tell since nothing looks right or

familiar and everything’s under water and blurry and yo u ’re

cold and sort o f fixed in place because the w ater’s weighing

you down, kind o f making you so heavy you can’t really m ove

as i f yo u ’re an earthbound person m oving effortlessly through

air as is the case with normal people on normal days because it

ain’t air, it’s water. Y o u ’re all wet as if you was naked and your

clothes are wet and heavy as if they was lead and your breasts

are sore from the wet and the cold and your pubic hair’s all

wet and rubbing up against the wet stu ff all bunched up in

your crotch and there’s rain rolling down your legs and

com ing out the bottom o f your pants and yo u ’d be happier

naked, wet and naked, because the clothes feel very bad on

you, wet and bad. T h ey’re heavy and nasty and cold. The

m oney’s in your hand and it’s all wet, all rained out, soaking

wet, and your hand’s clutched, and you try proceeding

through the wet blur, you need to stay on the sidewalks and

you need to avoid oncoming cars and turning cars and crazy

cars that can’t see any better than you and you need to see the

traffic lights and you need to see what’s in front o f you and

w hat’s on the side o f you and what’s behind you, just as on any

regular day, and at night even more; but you can’t see and the

rain keeps you from hearing as well and you proceed slow ly

and you don’t get too far; it’s been a long time you been out

here and you haven’t gone but half a block and you are

drenched in water and breathing too fast and breathing too

hard and your legs aren’t carrying you right and the ground’s

not staying still and the water’s pushing you from behind and

it’d like to flatten you out and roll over you, and it ain’t nice

lapping against the calves o f your legs; and a cab stops; which

you have barely ever ridden in before, not on your own; it

stops; you’ve been in them when someone’s given you money

to deliver packages and said where to go and exactly what to

do and how much it would cost and still you were scared it

would cost too much and you wouldn’t have it and something

terrible would happen; a cab stops and you don’t know if two

dollars is enough or if he thinks you’re turning tricks, a dumb

wet whore, or if he just wants to fuck or if you could get inside

and he’d just take you home, a passenger; a cab stops and

yo u ’re afraid to get in because you’re not a person who rides in

cabs even in extremis even though you have two dollars and

it’s for taking a cab as the bartender said if you didn’t dream it

and probably he knows how much everything costs; a cab

stops; and yo u ’re wet; and you want to go home; and if you

got in the cab you could be home almost right away, very

close to right away, you could be home in just some few

minutes instead o f a very long time, because if you walk you

don’t know how long it will take or how tired yo u ’ll be and

you could get so tired you just stop somewhere to give up, a

doorw ay, an abandoned car, or even if you keep going it will

take a long time; and i f you got in the cab you could sit still for

a few minutes in perfect dignity and it would be dry and quiet

and you would be in the back, a passenger, and you could

ju m p if he pulled shit, if he started driving wild or going

somewhere strange, and yo u ’d give him the tw o dollars and

he’d take you home, and you get in the cab, it’s dark and

leather and yo u ’re scared about the m oney so you say upfront

that you only got two dollars and he asks where yo u ’re going

and you say and he says fine, it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s no

problem, and he says it’s raining and you say yeah, it is; and he

says some quiet, simple things, like sometimes it rains too

hard, and you say yes; he’s quiet and softspoken and there’s

long, curly hair cascading down his back and he says that I’m

wet with some sym pathy and I say yes I am; and he asks me

what I do in a quiet and sympathetic w ay and I say I’m a writer;

and he says he’s a musician, very quiet, nice; and I say I drank

too much, I was writing and I got restless and I got drunk and

he says yes he knows what that’s like, very quiet, very nice,

he’s done it too, everyone does it sometimes, but he doesn’t

keep talking, he’s very quiet, he talks soft, not a lot, and there’s

quiet moments and I think he’s pretty nice and I’m trying to

watch the streets to see where we are and w e’re going towards

where I live but up and down blocks, it doesn’t seem direct but

I don’t know because I don’t drive and I don’t know if there’s

one-w ay streets and the meter’s o ff anyw ay and he’s English

like in films with a distinguished accent, sort o f tough like

Albert Finney but he talks quiet and nice, a little dissonant; he’s

sort o f slim and delicate, you know how pretty a man can be

when he’s got fine features, chiseled, and curls, and he’s sort o f

waif-like, kind o f like a child in Dickens, appealing with a pull

to the heart, street pretty but softspoken, not quite hard, not

apparently cynical, not a regular N ew Y ork taxi driver as I’ve

seen them, all squat and old, but graceful, lithe, slight, young,

younger than me probably, new, not quite used but not

untouched, virginal but available, you can have him but it isn’t

quite right to touch him, he’s withdrawn and aloof and it

appears as a form o f refinement, he’s delicate and finely made,

you wonder what it would be like to touch him or if he’d be

charmed enough to touch you back, it’s a beauty without

prettiness except this one’s pretty too, too pretty for me, I

think, I never had such a pretty, delicate boy put together so

fine, pale, the face o f an old, inbred race, now decadent,