Mercy (70 page)

getting worn away; it’s being eroded, experience keeps

washing over it and there’s no sea wall o f words to keep it

intact, to keep it from being washed away, carried out to sea,

layer by layer, fine grains washed away, a thin surface washed

away, then some more, washed away. I am fairly worn away

in m y mind, washed out to sea. It probably doesn’t matter

anyway. People lead their little lives. T here’s not much

dignity to go around. T here’s lies in abundance, and silence for

girls who don’t tell them. I don’t want to tell them. A lie’s for

when he’s on top o f you and you got to survive him being

there until he goes; M alcolm X tried to stop saying a certain

lie, and maybe I should change from Andrea because it’s a lie.

It’s just that it’s a precious thing from my mother that she tried

to give me; she didn’t want it to be such an awful lie, I don’t

think. So I have to be the writer she tried to be— Andrea; not-

cunt— only I have to do it so it ain’t a lie. I ain’t fabricating

stories. I’m making a different kind o f story. I’m writing as

truthful as the man with his fingers, if only I can remember

and say; but I ain’t on his side. I’m on some different side. I’m

telling the truth but from a different angle. I’m the one he done

it to. The bait’s talking, honey, if she can find the words and

stay even barely alive, or even just keep the blood running; it

can’t dry up, it can’t rot. The bait’s spilling the beans. The

bait’s going to transcend the material conditions o f her

situation, fuck you very much, Mr. M arx. The bait’s going

w ay past Marx. The bait’s taking her eviscerated, bleeding self

and she ain’t putting it back together, darling, because,

frankly, she don’t know how; the bait’s a realist, babe, the

bait’s no fool, she’s just going to bleed all over you and you are

going to have to find the words to describe the stain, a stain as

big as her real life, boy; a big, nasty stain; a stain all over you,

all the blood you ever spilled; that’s the esthetic dimension,

through art she replicates the others you done it to, gets the

stain to incorporate them too. It’s coming right back on you,

sink or swim; fucking drown your head in it; give in, darling;

go down. That’s the plan, in formal terms. The bait’s got a

theory; the bait’s finding a practice, working it out; the bait’s

going to write it down and she don’t have to use words, she’ll

make signs, in blood, she’s good at bleeding, boys, the vein’s

open, boys, the bait’s got plenty, each month more and more

without dying for a certain long period o f her life, she can lose

it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures,

big signs; oh and honey there’s so much bait around that

there’s going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when

the new art gets its start. Y ou are going to be sitting in it; the

new novel; participation, it’s called; I’m smearing it all over

you. It ain’t going to be made up; it ain’t going to be a lie; and

you are going to pay attention, directly, even though it’s by a

girl, because this time it’s on you. if I find a word, I’ll use it;

but I ain’t waiting, darling, I already waited too long. If you

was raised a boy you don’t know how to get blood off, yo u ’re

shocked, surprised, in Vietnam when you see it for the first

time and I been bleeding since I was nine, I’m used to putting

m y hands in it and I
live
. Y ou don’t give us no words for

w hat’s true so now there’s signs, a new civilization just

starting now: her name’s not-cunt and she’s just got to express

herself, say some this and that, use w hat’s there, take w hat’s

hers: her blood’s hers; your blood’s hers. Here’s the difference

between us, sweet ass: I’m using blood you already spilled;

mine; hers; cunt’s. I ain’t so dirty as to take yours. I don’t

confuse this new manifesto with being Artaud; he was on the

other side. There are sides. If he spills m y blood, it’s art. if I put

mine on him, it’s deeply not nice or good or, as they say,

interesting; it’s not interesting. There’s a certain— shall we

understate? — distaste. It’s bad manners but not rude in an

artistically valid sense. It’s just not being the right kind o f girl.

It’s deranged but not in the Rimbaud sense. It’s just not being

M arjorie Morningstar, which is the height to which you may

aspire, failed artist but eventually fine homemaker. It’s loony,

yes, it’s got some hate in it somewhere, but it ain’t revolutionary like Sade who spilled blood with style; perhaps they think a girl can’t have style but since a girl can’t really have

anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;

there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y

friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black

Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing

the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me

poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f

encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I

wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the

problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the

press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to

see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the

revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place

in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and

old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and

women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.

H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for

the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it

helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can

see that, it makes his simple language look strong and

purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that

whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have

words. I can’t tell if
raped
is a word he knows or not; if he

thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;

because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each

other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is

taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great

thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy

and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f

revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for

m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance

and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past

sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this

apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write

without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so

and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it

happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough

confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or

maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to

us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it

happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We

w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the