Mercy (71 page)

blood that was spilled and smear it in public w ays so it’s art and

politics and science; the fisherman w o n ’t like the book so

w hat’s new; he’ll say it ain’t art or he’ll say it’s bullshit; but

here’s the startling part; the bait’s got a secret system o f

communication, not because it’s hidden but because the

fisherman’s fucking stupid; so arrogant; so sure o f forever and

a day; so sure he don’t listen and he don’t look and he says it

ain’t anything and he thinks that means it ain’t anything

whereas what it means is that we finally can invent: a new

alphabet first, big letters, proud, new letters from which will

come new words for old things, real things, and the bait says

what they are and what they mean, and then we get new

novels in which the goal is to tell the truth: deep truth. So

make it all up, the whole new thing, to be able to say w hat’s

there; because they are keeping it hidden now. Y o u ’re not

supposed to write something down that happened; yo u ’re

supposed to invent. W e’ll write down what happened and

invent the personhood o f who it happened to; w e’ll make a

language for her so we can tell a story for her in which she will

see what happened and know for sure it happened and it

mattered; and the boys will have to confront a new esthetic

that tells them to go suck eggs. I am for this idea; energized by

it. It’s clear that if you need the fisherman to read the book—

his critical appreciation as it were— this new art ain’t for you. If

he’s got what he did to you written on him or close enough to

him, rude enough near him, is he different, will he know? I say

he’ll have to know; it’s the brilliance o f the medium— he’s it,

the vehicle o f political and cultural transcendence as it were.

It’s a new, forthright communication— they took the words

but they left your arm, your hand, so far at least; it could

change, but for now; he’s the living canvas; he can refuse to

understand but he cannot avoid know ing; it’s your blood, he

spilled it, yo u ’ve used it: on him. It’s a simplicity Artaud

failed, frankly, to achieve. W e’ll make it new;
epater
the

fuckers. Then he can be human or not; he’s got a choice, which

is more than he ever gave; he can put on the uniform, honest,

literal Nazi, or not. The clue is to see what you don’t have as

the starting place and you look at it straight and you say what

does it give me, not what does it take; you say what do I have

and what don’t I have and am I making certain presumptions

about what I need that are in fact their presumptions, so much

garbage in my way, and if I got rid o f the garbage what then

would I see and could I use it and how; and when. I got hope. I

got faith. I see it falling. I see it ending. I see it bent over and

hitting the ground. And, what’s even better is that because the

fisherman ain’t going to listen as if his life depended on it we

got a system o f secret communication so foolproof no

scoundrel could imagine it, so perfect, so pure; the less we are,

the more we have; the less we matter, the more chance we get;

the less they care, the more freedom is ours; the less, the more,

you see, is the basic principle, it’s like psychological jujitsu

except applied to politics through a shocking esthetic; you use

their fucking ignorance against them; ignorance is a synonym

in such a situation for arrogance and arrogance is tonnage and

in jujitsu you use your opponent’s weight against him and you

do it if yo u ’re weak or poor too, because it’s all you have; and if

someone doesn’t know you’re human they’re a Goddamn fool

and they got a load o f ignorance to tip them over with. Y ou

ain’t got
literature
but you got a chance; a chance; you

understand— a chance; you got a chance because the bait’s

going to get it, and there’s going to be a lot o f w riggling things

jum ping o ff G o d ’s stick. I live in this real fine, sturdy tenement

building made out o f old stone. They used to have immigrants

sleeping in the hallways for a few pennies a night so all the

toilets are out there in the halls. They had them stacked at

night; men sleeping on top o f each other and women selling it

or not having a choice; tenement prostitution they call it in

books, how the men piled in the halls to sleep but the women

had to keep putting out for money for food. They did it

standing up. N o w you walk through the hall hoping there’s

no motherfucker with a knife waiting for you, especially in the

toilets, and if you have to pee, you are scared, and i f you have

to shit, it is fully frightening. I go with a knife in m y hand

always and I sleep with a knife under m y pillow, always. I

have not had a shit not carrying a knife since I came here. I got

a bank account. I am doing typing for stupid people. I don’t

like to make margins but they want margins. I think it’s better

i f each line’s different, if it flows like a poem, if it’s uneven and

surprising and esthetically nice. But they want it like it’s for

soldiers or zombies, everything lined up, left and right, with

hyphens breaking words open in just the right places, which I

don’t know where they are. I type, I steal but less now, really

as little as possible though I will go to waitress hell for stealing

tips, I know that, I will be a prisoner in a circle o f hell and they

will put the faces o f all the waitresses around me and all their

shabby, hard lives that I made worse, but stealing tips is easy

and I am good at it as I have been since childhood and when I

have any m oney in m y pocket I do truly leave great chunks o f

it and when I am older and rich I will be profligate and if I ever

go broke in m y old days it will be from making it up to every

waitress alive in the world then, but this generation’s getting

fucked unavoidably. Someday I will write a great book with

the lines m oving like waves in the sea, flowing as much as I

want them. I’m Andrea is what I will find a deep w ay to

express in honor o f m y mama who thought it up; a visionary,

though the vision couldn’t withstand what the man did to me

early; or later, the man, in the political sense. I make little

amounts o f m oney and I put them in the bank and each day I

go to the bank for five dollars, except sometimes I go for two

days on seven dollars. I wait in line and the tellers are very

disturbed that I have come for m y money. It’s a long walk to

the bank, it’s far aw ay because there aren’t any banks in the

neighborhood where I live, and it’s a good check on me

because it keeps me from getting money for frivolous things; I

have to make a decision and execute it. When an emergency