Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

atomic flames on the way, coming soon, at a theater near you,

the dread fire that could never be put out once it was ignited; I

saw it, simple, in front o f m y eyes, there never was a chance, I

lived in the flames and the flames were a ghostly wash o f

orange and red, as i f an eternal fire mixed with blood were the

paint, and a great storm the brush. I lived in the ordinary fire,

whatever made them follow you and push you down, yo u ’d

feel the heat, searing, you didn’t need to see the flame, it was

more as if he had orange and burning hands a mile high; I

burned; the skin peeled off; it deformed you. The fire boils

you; you melt and blister; then I’d try to write it down, the

flames leaping o ff the cement, the embodiment o f the lover;

but I didn’t know what to call it; and it hurt; but past what they

will let you say; any o f them. I didn’t know what to call it, I

couldn’t find the words; and there were always adults saying

no, there is no fire, and no, there are no flames; and asking the

life-or-death question, you’re still a virgin, aren’t you; which

you would be forever, poor fool, in your pitiful pure heart.

Y ou couldn’t tell them about the flames that were lit on your

back by vandal lover boys, arsonists, while they held you

down; and there were other flames; the adults said not to

watch; but I watched; and the flames stayed with me, burning

in m y brain, a fire there, forever, I lived with the flames my

whole life; the Buddhist monks in Vietnam who burned

themselves alive; they set themselves on fire; to protest; they

were calm; they sat themselves down, calm; they were simple,

plain; they never showed any fear or hesitation; they were

solemn; they said a prayer; they had kerosene; then they were

lit; then they exploded; into flame; and they burned forever; in

my heart; forever; past what television could show; in its gray;

in its black and white and gray; the gray cement o f gray

Saigon; the gray robes o f a gray man, a Buddhist; the gray fire,

consuming him; I don’t need to close my eyes to see them; I

could reach out to touch them, without even closing my eyes;

the television went off, or the adults turned it off, but you

knew they were still burning, now, later, hours, days, the

ashes would smolder, the fire’d never go out, because if it has

happened it has happened; it has happened always and forever.

The gray fire would die down and the gray monk would be

charred and skeletal, dead, they’d remove him like so much

garbage, but the fire’d stay, low along the ground, the gray

fire would spread, low along the ground, in gray Saigon; in

gray Camden. The flames would stay low and gray and they

would burn; an eternal fire; its meaning entrusted to a child for

keeping. I think they stayed calm inside the fire; burning; I

think they stayed quiet; I mourned them; I grieved for them; I

felt some shadow o f the pain; maybe there was no calm;

maybe they shrieked; maybe it was an agony obscene even to

God; imagine. I’d go to school on just some regular day and

it’d happen; at night, on the news, they’d show it; the gray

picture; a Buddhist in flames; because he didn’t like the

government in Vietnam; because the United States was

hurting Vietnam; we tormented them. Y o u ’d see a plain street

in Saigon and suddenly a figure would ignite; a quiet, calm

figure, simple, in simple robes, rags almost; a plain, simple

man. It was a protest, a chosen immolation, a decision,

planned for; he burned him self to say there were no words; to

tell me there were no words; he wanted me to know that in

Vietnam there was an agony against which this agony, self-

immolation, was nothing, meaningless, minor; he wanted me

to know; and I know; he wanted me to remember; and I

remember. He wanted the flames to reach me; he wanted the

heat to graze me; he wanted this self-immolation, a pain past

words, to communicate: you devastate us here, a pain past

words. The Buddhists didn’t want to fight or to hurt someone

else; so they killed themselves; in w ays unbearable to watch; to

say that this was some small part o f the pain we caused, some

small measure o f the pain we made; an anguish to communicate anguish. Years later I was grow n, or nearly so, and there was Norm an M orrison, some man, a regular man, ordinary,

and he walked to the front o f the White House, as close as he

could get, a normal looking citizen, and he poured gasoline all

over him self and he lit it and the police couldn’t stop him or get

near him, he was a pillar o f fire, and he died, slow, in fire,

because the war was w rong and words weren’t helping, and he

said we have to show them so he showed them; he said this is

the anguish I will undergo to show you the anguish there,

there are no words, I can show you but I can’t tell you because

no words get through to you, yo u ’ve got a barricade against

feeling and I have to burn it down. I grew up, a stepdaughter

o f brazen protest, immense protest; each time I measured m y

ow n resistance against the burning man; I felt the anguish o f

Vietnam; sometimes the War couldn’t get out o f m y mind and

there was nothing between me and it; I felt it pure, the pain o f

them over there, how wronged they were; you see, we were

tormenting them. In the end it’s always simple; we were

tormenting them. Others cared too; as much as I did; we were

mad to stop it; the crime, as we called it; it was a crime.

Sometimes ordinary life was a buffer; you thought about

orangejuice or something; and then there’d be no buffer; there

was ju st the crime. The big protests were easy and lazy up

against Norm an Morrison and the Buddhist monks; I remember them, as a standard; suppose you really care; suppose the

truth o f it sits on your mind plain and bare; suppose you don’t

got no more lies between you and it; if a crime was big enough

and mean enough to hurt your heart you had to burn your

heart clean; I don’t remember being afraid to die; it just wasn’t

m y turn yet; it’s got your name on it, your turn, when it’s

right; you can see it writ in fire, private flames; and it calls, you

can hear it when you get up close; you see it and it’s yours.

There’s this Lovelace creature, they’re pissing on her or she’s

doing the pissing, you know how they have girls spread out in

the pictures outside the movies, one’s on her back and the

urine’s coming on her and the other’s standing, legs spread,