Mercy (7 page)

me what to do but just said things to me about things not

treating me like a baby. I loved when she let me go somewhere

with her and her girlfriends. I loved even when she was sick

but not real sick and was in bed for many days or sometimes

many weeks and I was allowed to go in and visit her a little and

sit on the bed and watch television with her and we would

watch “ The $64, 000 Question, ” and we were both crazy for

Charles Van Doren because he was so cute and so intellectual

and we rooted for him and bit our lips waiting for him to

answer and held hands and held our breath. Then I had to leave

her alone because I had tired her out but I felt wonderful for

hours after, so warm and happy, because m y mother loved

me. We held hands and we sat. But I couldn’t stand the stuff

she made me do. She made me sew and knit and do stupid

things. I was supposed to count the stitches and sit still and be

quiet and keep my legs closed when I sat down and wear white

gloves and a hat when I went out in a dress. She made me close

my legs all the time and I kept trying to get her to tell me w hy I

couldn’t sit how I wanted but she said girls must not ever sit so

sloppy and bad and she got mad because I said I liked to have

m y legs open when I sat down and I always did what I wanted

even if I got punished. She said I was a relentless child. But if I

had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just

sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t

going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just

trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit

with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted

her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I

was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go

somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or

ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I

got caught because two boys who were bigger and older

threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and

blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a

trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some

poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought

it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was

walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there

alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came

running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole

Christmas tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and

blood started running down and I got home walking with the

blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came

and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he

said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being

hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so

it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was

supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange

places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or

cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I

wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another

life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and

thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop

me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to

listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she

could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was

nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and

I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did

or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it

was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being

alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and

yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always

nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you

because then they left you alone more and sometimes they

would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f

intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you

have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they

w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f

you aren’t nice to them because adults get to punish you if they

want and you can’t stop them. I knew I had to be nice to the

man in the movies because he was an adult and I had to talk to

adults in a certain w ay because I was a child and I got punished

if I didn’t but I also wanted to act like an adult so they would

leave me alone so I had to talk t o him like an adult and not cry

or be stupid or act silly or act like a baby or be rude or raise my

voice or run away or be scared like a baby. Y ou had to say

mister or sir and you had to be polite and if you wanted to be

grown up you had to talk quiet and be reasonable and say

quiet, intelligent things in a certain quiet, reasonable way.

Children cried. Y ou didn’t cry. Little babies screamed like

ninnies. Y ou didn’t scream. Adults didn’t scream when

someone talked to them quietly. The man talked very quiet.

The man was very polite. I was too grown up to scream and

cry and then I would have had to leave the movie if I made

noise because you weren’t even allowed to make any noise in a

movie. You weren’t allowed to whisper. I couldn’t understand how come the man kept talking once the movie started

because I knew you weren’t allowed to talk during it. M y

daddy hated for me to cry. He walked away in disgust. M y

momma yelled at me but my daddy went away. Adults said I

was a good child or I was very mature for my age or I had

poise. Sometimes they said I was a nice girl or a sweet child or

a smart, sweet child with such nice manners. It was a big act on

my part. I waited for them to go away so I could go

somewhere and do what I wanted but I wanted them to like

me. M y momma made me talk with respect to all adults no

matter what they did. Sometimes a teacher was so stupid but

m y momma said I had to talk with respect or be quiet and I

wasn’t allowed to contradict them or even argue with them at

all. One teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind

her when she was sitting at her desk in the front o f the room

and you had to brush o ff her collar, just stand there behind her

for fifteen minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing

her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, palms

down, stroking all the whole w ay from her neck to her arms.

She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing

something or answering her questions and she would say

someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore