Mercy (45 page)

blues record by Dave Van Ronk, the first man I ever saw with

a full beard like a beatnik or a prophet; I took money when I

needed it and could get it easy enough; pills; clothes. M o n ey’s

w hat’s useful. He began dealing some shit, it w asn’t too hard

or dangerous compared to running borders with other

contraband but it got so he did it without me more and more;

he spent more and more time with these low life gangster

types, not political revolutionaries at all but these vulgar guys

who packed guns and just did business; he said it’s just for

money, what’s it got to do with you or with us, I’ll just do it

fast, get the money, it’s nothing; and it was nothing, I didn’t

have no interest in money per se, but it got so he did the

running, he was free, freedom and flight were his, he’d pick up

and go, I didn’t know where he was or who with or when I’d

meet them they’d be lowlife I had no interest in, just toadies as

much as some corporate businessmen were and I’d feel very

bored with them and they’d treat me like I was a skirt and I’d

feel superior and because I didn’t want no part o f them I didn’t

challenge it, I’d just put up with it and be relieved when he did

his shit for money elsewhere; he hunted money down, he

hunted dope down, he drove the secret highways o f Europe at

a hundred miles an hour, without me, increasingly without

me, and I stayed home and dusted walls, waiting, I waited,

while I waited I cleaned, I dusted, I washed things, I made

things nice, I put something here or there, little touches, but

especially I washed things— I washed floors, dishes, clothes,

anything could be washed I fucking washed it; and I would o f

course keep thinking; I’d be doing laundry but I’d think I was

thinking— housework wasn’t what
I
was doing, not me, no, I

was thinking. I shared the fruits o f all this labor with him,

clean clothes, clean dishes, clean floors, my thinking, which

has always been first-rate in some senses, and I saw him put the

thinking I had done into action so I felt like some pretty major

player, running dope and making money all over Europe, and

I kept thinking, and I saw the thinking go into political

actions, so I felt pretty major, and I just kept washing and

thinking; washing, ironing, and thinking; washing, shopping,

and thinking; washing, cooking, and thinking; washing,

scrubbing, and thinking; washing, folding, and thinking. I

saw the consequences o f m y thinking; it was us out there, not

just him. I was important; he knew; you don’t need

recognition in a revolutionary life. Increasingly he incarnated,

freedom, I dreamed it; especially he was the one who got to be

free outside the four walls, and I got to be what he rolled over

on when he got home, dead tired and mean as madness. He

did— he got on top, he fucked me, he went to sleep. I was

incredulous. In the aftershock I ironed, I washed, I scrubbed, I

cooked. I’d lie there awake after he rolled o ff me, on m y back,

not m oving, for hours— outraged, a pristine innocence,

stunned in disbelief; this was me;
me.
We’d entertain too, the

revolutionary couple, the subversives— I learned to do it. It’s

like you see in all those films where the bourgie wife slinks

around and makes the perfect martini amidst the glittering

furniture; well, shit, honey, I made the most magnificent joint

a boy could sit down to on a beanbag chair. I mean, I made a

joint so gorgeous, so classic and yet so full o f savagery and

bite, so smooth and so deadly, so big and so right, yo u ’d leave

your wife and fam ily and kill your fucking mother ju st to sit

on the floor
near
it. I was the perfect wife, illegally speaking; I

mean, I learned how to be a stoned sweet bitch, the new good

housekeeping. Y ou r man comes to visit m y man and he

don’t walk home; I am dressed fine and mostly I am quiet

except for an occasional ironic remark which establishes me, at

least in m y own mind, as smart, and I roll a fine joint, and in

this w ay I’ve done m y man proud; he’s got the best dope and a

fine wom an— and a clean house, I mean, a fucking clean

house; and I ain’t som ebody’s dumb wife except in the eyes o f

the law because I defy society— I defy society— I roll joints, I

have barely seen a martini, there’s nothing I ain’t done in bed,

including with him, except anal intercourse, I w o n ’t have it,

not from him, I don’t know w hy but I just w o n ’t, I don’t want

him in me that way, I think it’s how I said he’s m y husband;

husband. But I don’t think he even knew about it. I’d be as

perfect as I could according to his demands, gradually

expressed, over time. Everything escalates. D idn’t matter

how brilliant m y joints were once he started using a chellum, a

Turkish pipe for hash, rare in Europe, not used because you,

had to be so fucking aggressive to use it, the hashish and

tobacco went in it, it was like a funnel, and you pulled it fast

and hard into your lungs through a kind o f wind tunnel made

by your hands clasped at the bottom o f the funnel and the

bitter smoke hit your lungs with a burning punch, with the

force o f an explosion, and your bloodstream was oxygenated

with hash and nicotine. I didn’t like the chellum but I had to do

it, keeping up with Mr. Jones as it were. C an’t find yourself

being too delicate, too demure, unable to take the violence o f

the hit; not if you are Mrs. Jones; have to run
with
the boy or

the boy runs without you, he don’t slow down to wait, he

don’t say, Andrea doesn’t like this, she likes that, so let’s do

that. Same with sex. He pushes you down and does it. Y ou

solicit his personal recognition. Y ou ask his indulgence. Y ou

beg: remember me; me. It changes slow. He tied me up to fuck

me more and more; tied me up to this nice little modern brass

bed we got, we had a little money; he had from the beginning,

in rented rooms, on mattresses, on floors, it doesn’t take

much, but it was only sometimes; now he tied me up to fuck

me invariably and I was bored, tired and bored, irritated and

bored; but he wanted it which had to mean he needed it and I

want him to do what he needs, I think every man should have

what he needs, I think if he has it maybe he w on ’t need it in a

bad w ay; and I love him— not in love but I love him;
him
; I’m

with him because it’s him; him; I want him to want me; me. I

said no or not now or let’s just make love and don’t tie me up,

we don’t need it, or even I don’t want it now, I don’t like it, or

trying to say that I didn’t want to anymore and it had to matter

to him that I didn’t want to because this is me; me. I said in all

kindness and with all tenderness that I didn’t want to but he

did want to and so we did because it was easier to than not to

and it wasn’t like we hadn’t before so it wasn’t like I had any