Mercy (37 page)

moves good but he’s boring as hell, the same, the same, and

when the pain hits me I am pretty sure I am really going to die,

that the clot is loose in my blood somewhere and it’s going to

go to m y brain, and I’m trying to think this is real glorious,

dying with some Olympian fuck, but the pain is some vicious,

choked up tangle o f blades in my gut, and I try to

choreograph the pain to his fuck, and I try to rest when he’s

not in me, and I am praying he will stop, and I am at the same

time trying to savor every second o f m y last minutes on earth,

or last hours as it turns out, but intellectual honesty forced me

to acknowledge I was bored, I was spending m y last time

bored to death, I could have been a housewife after all; and the

light comes up and I think, well, dawn will surely stop him;

but he fucks well into daylight, it’s bright morning now with a

disagreeably bright sun, profoundly intrusive, and suddenly

there’s a spasm, thank the Lord, and the boy is spent, it’s the

seventh day and this man who fucks must rest. And I thank

God. I do. I say, thank you, Lord. I say, I owe Y ou one. I say, I

appear still to be alive, I know I was doing something

proscribed and maybe I shouldn’t address Y ou before he even

moves o ff me but I am grateful to Y ou for stopping him, for

making him tired, for wearing him out, for creating him in

Y our image so that, eventually, he had to rest. I can’t move

because m y insides are messed up. M y incision is burning as if

there are lighted coals there and I’m afraid to see i f it is open or

i f it will bleed now and m y shoulder has stones crushed into it

as i f some demolition team was crushing granite, reflexive

pain from some dead spot, I don’t know where, and I truly

think I might not ever move again and I truly think I might

have opened up and I truly think I might still die; and I want to

be alone; die alone or bleed alone or endure the pain alone; and

I’m lying there thinking they will go now when the girl starts

pawing me and says stupid, nice things and starts being all

lovey dovey like w e ’re both Gidget and she wants now to have

the experience, if you will, o f making love with a wom an; this

is in the too-little-too-late category at best; and I am fairly

outraged and astonished because I hurt so much and m y little

sister in sensitivity thinks we should start dating. So I tell them

to go; and she says but he doesn’t like me better, m aybe he

needs you to be there— needs you, can you imagine— and I’m

trying to figure out what it has to do with him, w hy it’s what

he wants when I want them to go; it’s what I want; I never

understand w h y it’s always with these girls what he wants— i f

he’s there and even if he ain’t in sight or in the vicinity; he had

his hours doing what he wants; and she tells me she’s

disappointed with me for not being loving and we could all

share and this is some dream come true, the most amazing

thing that’s ever happened, to her or ever on earth, it’s the

pro o f that everything is possible, and the pain I’m in is keeping

me from m oving because I can’t even sit up but I’m saying

very quiet, get out now. And she’s saying it’s her first time

with a woman and she didn’t really get to do anything—

tourist didn’t get to see the Eiffel T ow er— and I say yes, that’s

right, you didn’t get nothing. So she’s sad like some lover who

was real left her and she’s handling me like she read in some

book, being a tender person, saying everything bland and

stupid, all her ideals about life, everything she’s hoped for, and

she’s preachy with the m orality o f sharing and unity and

harm ony and I expect her to shake her finger at me and hit m y

knuckles with a ruler and make me stand in a corner for not

being some loving bitch. T here’s a code o f love you have to

learn by heart, which I never took to, and I’m thinking that if

she don’t take her treacle to another planet I’m going to stand

up, no matter what the pain, and physically carry her out, a

new little bride, over the threshold to outside. She’s some

sobbing ingenue with a delicate smile perpetually on her face

shining through tears which are probably always with her and

she’s talking about universal love when all the boy did was

fuck us to death as best he could, which in m y case was close

but no cigar and I couldn’t bring m yself to think it was all that

friendly; and I had a short fuse because I needed another pill, I

was a few behind and I was looking forward to making them

up now in the immediate present, I could talk real nice to

Demerol and I didn’t want them there for when I got high

again; so I said, you go, because he really likes you and you

should stay with him and be with him and be good to him, so

the dumb bitch leaves with the prince o f peace over there, the

b o y’s already smoking dope so he’s already on another plane

taking care o f him self which is what he’s really good at; and

she’s uncomprehending and she’s mournful that I couldn’t get

the love part right but they went, I saw the b o y’s turquoise and

purple silk shirt float by me and the drippy, sentimental girl in

cotton floated out still soliciting love. I never understood w hy

she thought you could ask for it. N o one can ask it from me. I

never can remember his face; peculiar, since his head was right

above me for so long, his tongue in my mouth, he kissed the

whole time he fucked, a nice touch, he was in her kissing me or

in me kissing her so no one’d get away from him or decide to

do something else; I just can’t remember his face, as if I never

saw it. He was a Taurus. I stayed away from them after that if I

knew a man was one because they stay too long, slow, steady,

forever. I never saw such longevity. She was Ellen, some

flower child girl; doomed for housework. I’m not. I ain’t

cleaning up after them. I keep things as clean as I can; but you

can’t really stay clean; there’s too much heat and dirt. It’s a

sweltering night. The little nymphs, imps, and pimps o f

summer flitter about like it’s tea time at the Ritz. There’s been

uprisings on the streets, riots, lootings, burning; the air is

crackling with violence, a blue white fire eating up the

oxygen, it’s tiny, sharp explosions that go o ff in the air around

your head, firecrackers you can’t see that go o ff in front o f you

when you walk, in front o f your face, and you don’t know

when the air itself will become some white hot tornado, ju st

enough to crack your head open and boil your brains. T hat’s

outside, the world. Summertime and the living is easy. Y ou

just walk through the fires between the flames or crawl on

your belly under them; rough on your knees and elbows. Y o u

can be in the street and have a steaming mass, hot heat, kinetic,

come at you, a crowd, men at the top o f their energy, men

spinning propelled by butane, and they bear down on you on

the sidewalk, they come at you, martial chaos; they will march

over you, yo u ’ll be crushed, bone m arrow ground into a paste

with your own blood, a smear left on a sidewalk. The crow d ’s

a monster animal, a giant w olf, huge and frantic, tall as the

sky, blood pulsing and rushing through it, one predator,

bearing down, a hairy, freaky, hungry thing, bared teeth,

ugly, hungry thing, it springs through the air, light and lethal,

and you will fucking cringe, hide, run, disappear, to be safe—

you will fucking hide in a hole, like some roachy thing you

will crawl into a crack. Y ou can hear the sound o f them

coming, there’s a buzz coming up from the cement, it vibrates