Mercy (89 page)

it’d happen; at night, on the news, they’d show it; the gray

picture; a Buddhist in flames; because he didn’t like the

government in Vietnam; because the United States was

hurting Vietnam; we tormented them. Y o u ’d see a plain street

in Saigon and suddenly a figure would ignite; a quiet, calm

figure, simple, in simple robes, rags almost; a plain, simple

man. It was a protest, a chosen immolation, a decision,

planned for; he burned him self to say there were no words; to

tell me there were no words; he wanted me to know that in

Vietnam there was an agony against which this agony, self-

immolation, was nothing, meaningless, minor; he wanted me

to know; and I know; he wanted me to remember; and I

remember. He wanted the flames to reach me; he wanted the

heat to graze me; he wanted this self-immolation, a pain past

words, to communicate: you devastate us here, a pain past

words. The Buddhists didn’t want to fight or to hurt someone

else; so they killed themselves; in w ays unbearable to watch; to

say that this was some small part o f the pain we caused, some

small measure o f the pain we made; an anguish to communicate anguish. Years later I was grow n, or nearly so, and there was Norm an M orrison, some man, a regular man, ordinary,

and he walked to the front o f the White House, as close as he

could get, a normal looking citizen, and he poured gasoline all

over him self and he lit it and the police couldn’t stop him or get

near him, he was a pillar o f fire, and he died, slow, in fire,

because the war was w rong and words weren’t helping, and he

said we have to show them so he showed them; he said this is

the anguish I will undergo to show you the anguish there,

there are no words, I can show you but I can’t tell you because

no words get through to you, yo u ’ve got a barricade against

feeling and I have to burn it down. I grew up, a stepdaughter

o f brazen protest, immense protest; each time I measured m y

ow n resistance against the burning man; I felt the anguish o f

Vietnam; sometimes the War couldn’t get out o f m y mind and

there was nothing between me and it; I felt it pure, the pain o f

them over there, how wronged they were; you see, we were

tormenting them. In the end it’s always simple; we were

tormenting them. Others cared too; as much as I did; we were

mad to stop it; the crime, as we called it; it was a crime.

Sometimes ordinary life was a buffer; you thought about

orangejuice or something; and then there’d be no buffer; there

was ju st the crime. The big protests were easy and lazy up

against Norm an Morrison and the Buddhist monks; I remember them, as a standard; suppose you really care; suppose the

truth o f it sits on your mind plain and bare; suppose you don’t

got no more lies between you and it; if a crime was big enough

and mean enough to hurt your heart you had to burn your

heart clean; I don’t remember being afraid to die; it just wasn’t

m y turn yet; it’s got your name on it, your turn, when it’s

right; you can see it writ in fire, private flames; and it calls, you

can hear it when you get up close; you see it and it’s yours.

There’s this Lovelace creature, they’re pissing on her or she’s

doing the pissing, you know how they have girls spread out in

the pictures outside the movies, one’s on her back and the

urine’s coming on her and the other’s standing, legs spread,

and she’s fingering her crotch and the urine’s coming from

her, as i f she’s ejaculating it, and the urine’s colored a bright

yellow as if someone poured yellow dye in it; and they’re

smiling; they’re both smiling; it’s girls touching each other, as

i f girls would do so, laughing, and she’s being peed on, one o f

them; and there’s her throat, thrown back, bared, he’s down

to the bottom, as far as he can go; i f he were bigger he’d be in

deeper; and she’s timid, shy, eager, laughing, grateful;

laughing and grateful; and moaning; you know, the porn

moan; nothing resembling human life; these stupid fake

noises, clown stuff, a sex circus o f sex clowns; he’s a freak, a

sinister freak; a monstrous asshole if not for how he subjugates

her, the smiling ninny down on her knees and after saying

thank you, as girls were born for, so they say. There’s this

Lovelace girl on the marquee; and even the junkies are

laughing, they think it’s so swell; and I think who is she,

w here’s she from, who hurt her, who hurt her to put her here;

because there’s a camera; because in all my life there never was

a camera and if there’s a camera there’s a plan; and if it’s here

it’s for money, like she’s some animal trained to do tricks;

when I see black men picking cotton on plantations I get that

somewhere there’s pain for them, I don’t have to see it, no one

has to show it to me for me to know it’s there; and when I see a

wom an under glass, I know the same, a sex animal trained for

sex tricks; and the camera’s ready; maybe M asta’s not in the

frame. Picking cotton’s good; you get strong; black and

strong; getting fucked in the throat’s good; you get fucked and

female; a double-female girl, with two vaginas, one on top.

M aybe her name’s Linda; hey, Linda. Cheri Tart ain’t Cheri

but maybe Linda’s Linda; how come all these assholes buy it,

as i f they ain’t looking at Lassie or Rin Tin Tin; it’s just, pardon

me, they’re dogs and she’s someone real; they’re H ollyw ood

stars too— she’s Tim es Square trash; there’s one o f them and

there’s so many thousands o f her you couldn’t tell them apart

even when they’re in separate coffins. There’s these girls here,

all behind glass; as if they’re insects you put under glass; you

put morphine to them to knock them out and you mount

them; these weird crawling things, under glass, on display;

Tim es Square’s a zoo, they got women like specimens under

glass; block by city block; cages assembled on cement; under a

darkening sky, the blood’s on it; wind sweeping the garbage

and it’s swirling like dust in a storm; and on display, lit by

neon, they have these creatures, so obscene they barely look

human at all, you never saw a person that looked like them,

including anyone beaten down, including street trash, including anyone raped however many times; because they’re all

painted up and polished as if you had an apple with m aggots

and worm s and someone dipped it in lacquer and said here it is,

beautiful, for you, to eat; it’s as i f their mouths were all swelled

up and as if they was purple between their legs and as if their

breasts were hot-air balloons, not flesh and blood, with skin,

with feeling to the touch, instead it’s a joke, some swollen

joke, a pasted-on gag, what’s so dirty to men about breasts so