Mercy (33 page)

edge, no blade you can see. If you could stomp on me, this is

what yo u ’d see— a line, touch it, yo u ’re slivers. I’d be cut

glass, yo u ’d be feet. Y o u ’d dance blood. The edge o f the blade,

no surface, just what cuts, a thin line, touch it, draw blood.

Inside, nothing else is alive. Where’s the love I dream of. I hole

up, like a bug in a rug. There’s women who bore me; wasted

time; the taste o f death; junkie time; a junkie woman comes to

me, long, languid afternoons making love but I didn’t like it,

she got beat up by her boyfriend, she’s sincerely in love, black

and blue, loving you, and he’s her source; pure love; true

romance. D on ’t like m ixing women with obligation— in this

case, the obligation to redeem her from pain. I want to want; I

like wanting, ju st so it gets fulfilled and I don’t have to wait too

long; I like the ache just long enough to make what touches it

appreciated a little more, a little drama, a little pain. I don’t like

no beat-up piece o f shit; junkie stooge. Y ou don’t want the

edge o f the blade to get dull; then you got dullness inside and

this you can’t afford. The w om an’s got to be free; a beast o f

freedom; not a predator needing a bow l o f fucking soup, not a

fool needing a fucking fix; she’s got to give freedom off, exude

it, she’s got to be grand with freedom, all swelled up with it, a

Madame Curie o f freedom, or she’s Garbo, or more likely,

she’s Che, she’s got to be a monster o f freedom, a hero o f

loveless love; Napoleon but they didn’t lock her up or she got

loose, now, for me; no beat up junkie fool; no beautiful piece

looking for a hamburger. There’s magnificent women out

here. These lights light you up. Y ou are on Broadw ay and

there are stars o f a high magnitude. There’s the queen o f them

all who taught me— sweet name, Rebecca; ruthless crusher o f

a dyke; honest to God, she’s wearing a gold lame dress when I

meet her in jail when I’m a kid, eighteen, a political prisoner as

it were, as I saw myself, and she loves poetry and she sends me

a pile o f
New Yorker
magazines because, she says, I’m a poet;

and I don’t want her on me, not in jail, I’m too scared, too

hurt, but she protects me anyway, and I get out fast enough

that I don’t have to do her, and I see her later out here and I

remember her kindness, which it was, real kindness, taking

care o f me in that place, which was w hy I was treated right by

the other inmates as it were; I see her on the street, gold lame

against a window, I see her shimmering, and I go with her for

thanks and because she is grand, and I find out you can be free

in a gold lame dress, in jail, whoring, in black skin, in hunger,

in pain, in strife, the strife o f the streets, perpetual war, gritty,

gray, she’s the wild one with freedom in her soul, it translates

into how you touch, what’s in your fingers, the silk in your

hands, the freedom you take with who you got under you;

you got your freedom and you take theirs for when you are

with them, you are a caretaker o f the fragile freedom in them,

because most women don’t got much, and you don’t be afraid

to take, you turn their skin to flames, you eat them raw, your

name’s all over them, you wrap them up in you, crush them in

you, and what you give is ambition, the ambition to do it

big, do it great, big gestures, free— girls do it big, girls soar,

girls burn, girls take big not puny; stop giving, child, better

to be stole from than to give— stop giving away the little that

you got. I stay with her until she’s finished with me, she’s

doing her art on me, she’s practicing freedom on me; I’m

shaking from it, her great daring, the audacity o f her body on

mine; she’s free on me and I learn from it on me how to do it

and how to be it; flamboyant lovemaking, no apology, dead

serious, we could die right after this and this is the last thing

we know and it’s enough, the last minute, the last time, the

last touch, God comes down through her on me, the good

God, the divine God; master lovemaker, lightning in a girl,

I’ve got a new theology, She’s a rough Girl; and what’s

between m y legs is a running river, She made it then She

rested; a running river; so deep, so long, clear, bright, smart,

racing, white foam over a cliff and then a dead drop and then it

keeps on going, running, racing, then the smooth, silk calm, the

deep calm, the long, silk body, smooth. I heard some man say I

put it in her smooth, smooth was a noun, and I knew right

away he liked children, he’s after children, there are such men;

but it’s not what I mean; I mean that together w e’re smooth, it’s

smooth, w e’re smooth on each other, it’s a smooth ride; and if I

died right after I wouldn’t feel cheated or sorry and every time

I’m happy I had her one more second and I feel proud she wants

me; and she’ll disappear, she’ll take someone else, but I’ll sit here

like a dumb little shit until she does, a student, sitting, waiting at

her feet, let her touch me once, then once more, I’m happy near

her, her freedom ’s holding me tight, her freedom ’s on me,

around me, climbing inside me, her freedom ’s embracing me;

wild woman; a wild w om an’s pussy that will not die for some

junkie prick; nor songwriter; nor businessman; nor

philosopher. The men are outside, they want to come in, I

hear them rattling around, death threats, destruction isn’t

quiet or subtle, imagine those for whom it is, safe, blessedly

safe; so in m y last minutes on this earth, perhaps, I am

remembering Rebecca who taught me freedom; I would sit

down quiet next to her, wait for her, watch her; did you ever

love a girl? I’ve loved several; loved. N ot just wanted but

loved in thought or action. Wasn’t raped by any o f them. I

mean, rape’s just a word, it doesn’t mean anything, someone

fucks you, so what? I can’t see complaining about it. But I

wasn’t hurt by any o f them. I don’t mean I w asn’t hurt by love;

shit, that’s what love does, it drags your heart over a bed o f

nails, I was hurt by love, lazy, desperate drinks through long

nights o f pain without her, hurting bad. Wasn’t pushed

around. Saw others who were. It’s not that wom en don’t. It’s

just that it had m y name on it, men said pussy or dyke or

whatever stupid distortion but I saw freedom, I heard Andrea,

I found freedom under her, wrapped around her, her lips on

me and her hands on me, in me, her thighs holding on to me;

there’s always men around waiting to break in, throw

themselves on top, pull you down; but wom en’s different, it’s

a fast, gorgeous trip out o f hell, a hundred-mile-an-hour ride

on a different road in the opposite direction, it’s when you see