Mercy (21 page)

they said N o jokes, no laughs, no Nazis; rape; we can’t have

the heroes o f the revolution raped. And them that’s raped ain’t

heroes o f the revolution; but there were no words for that. The

women had honor. We stood up to the police. We didn’t post

bail. We went on a hunger strike. We didn’t cooperate on any

level, at any time. The pacifists just cut us loose so we could go

under, no air from the surface, no lawyers, no word, no

solace, no counsel, no help; but we didn’t give in. We didn’t

shake and we didn’t scream and we didn’t try to die, banging

our heads against concrete walls until they were smashed. We

were locked in a special hell for girls; girls you could do

anything to; girls who were exiled into a night so long and

lonely it might last forever, a hell they made for those who

don’t exist. “ Ladies, ” they kept calling us; “ ladies. ” “ Ladies, ”

do this; “ ladies, ” do that; “ ladies, ” come here; “ ladies, ” go

there. We had been in the cold all day. We picketed from real

early, maybe eight in the morning, all through the afternoon,

and it was almost five in the evening before Adlai Stevenson

came. About three or four we blocked the doors by sitting

down so then we couldn’t even keep warm by walking

around. We sat there waiting for the police to arrest us but they

wouldn’t; they knew the cold was bad. Finally they said they’d

arrest us i f we blocked a side door, the one final door that

provided access to the building. Then we saw Adlai Stevenson

go in and we got mad because he didn’t give a fuck about us

and then we blocked the final door and then the police arrested

us; some people went limp and their bodies were dragged over

cement to the police vans and some people got up and walked

and you could hear the bones o f the people who were dragged

cracking on the cement and you wondered if their bones had

split down the middle. Then we went to the precinct and the

police made out reports. Then the men were taken to the city

jail for men, the Tom bs, a place o f brutality, pestilence, and

rape they said; rape; and we went to the w om en’s jail; no one

said rape. It was w ay late after midnight when we got there.

We got out o f the van in a closed courtyard and it was cold and

dark and we walked through a door into hell, some nightmare

some monster dreamed up. Hell was a building with a door

and you walked through the door. But the men got out the

next day on their own recognizance because the pacifists

hurried to get them lawyers and hearings, spent the whole day

w orking on it, a Friday, dawn to dusk, and the wom en didn’t

get out because the pacifists didn’t have time; they had to get

the heroes o f the revolution out before someone started

sticking things up them. They just left us. Then it was a

weekend and a national holiday and the jail w asn’t doing any

nasty business like letting people who don’t exist and don’t

matter loose; we were nothing to them and they left us to rot

or be hurt, because it was a torture place and they knew it but

they didn’t tell us; and they left us; the wom en who didn’t exist

got to stay solidly in hell; and no one said rape; in jail they kept

sticking things up us all the time but no one said rape, there is

no such w ord with any meaning that I have ever heard applied

when someone spreads a girl’s legs and sticks something in

anywhere up her; no one minds including pacifists. One

woman had been a call girl, though we didn’t know it then,

and she was dressed real fine so the women in the jail spit on

her. One woman was a student and some inmates held her

down and some climbed on top o f her and some put their

hands up her and later the newspapers said it was rape because

lesbians did it so it was rape if lesbians piled on top o f you and

lesbians was the bad word, not rape, it was bad because

lesbians did it, like Nazis, and it wasn’t anything like I knew,

being around girls and how we were. Later the newspapers

said this w om en’s jail was known as a hellhole torture place

and there’s a long history o f wom en beat up and burned and

assaulted for decades but the pacifists let us stay there; didn’t

bother them. There was a woman killed there by torture.

There were women hurt each and every day and the newspapers couldn’t think o f enough bad names to say how evil the

place was and how full o f cruelty and it was known; but the

pacifists let us stay there; didn’t bother them; because if you

get tortured they don’t hear the screams any more than if you

talk in a meeting; you could be pulled into pieces in front o f

them and they’d go on as if you wasn’t there; and you weren’t

there, not for them, truly you were nothing so they weren’t

w orrying about you when you were well-hidden somewhere

designed to hide you; and they weren’t all overwrought just

because someone might stick something up you or bring you

pain; and if you got a hole to stick it up then there’s no problem

for them if someone’s sticking something up it, or how many

times, or if it’s very bad. I don’t know what to call what they

did to me but I never said it was rape, I never did, and no one

did; ever. T w o doctors, these men, gave me an internal

examination as they called it which I had never heard o f before

or seen and they used a steel speculum which I had never seen

before and I didn’t know what it was or why they were putting

it up me and they tore me apart inside so I couldn’t stop

bleeding; but it wasn’t rape because it wasn’t a penis and it was

doctors and there is no rape and they weren’t Nazis, or lesbians

even, and maybe it was a lie because it’s always a lie or if it did

happen was I a virgin because if I wasn’t a virgin it didn’t

matter what they did to me because if something’s been stuck

up you once it makes you dirty and it doesn’t matter if you tear

someone apart inside. I didn’t think it was rape, I never did, I

didn’t know what they did or w hy they did it except I knew

how much it hurt and how afraid I was when I didn’t stop

bleeding and I wouldn’t have ever said rape, not ever; and I

didn’t, not ever. The peace boys told me I was bourgeois; like I

was too spoiled to take it. The pacifists thought if it was bad

for the prison in the newspapers it was good. But even after

the pacifists didn’t say, see, these girls hate the War. Even

these silly girls hate the War. Even the girl w h o ’s stupid

enough to type our letters and bring us coffee hates the War.

Even these dumb girls who walked through a door into hell

hate the War. Even these silly cunts we left in a torture pit

know ing full well they’d be hurt but so what hate the War.

They are too stupid to hate us but they hate the War. So stop

the War because these dregs, these nothings, these no ones,

these pieces we sent in to be felt up and torn up and have things

stuck in them hate the War. The peace boys laughed at me

when they found out I was hurt. It was funny, how some

bourgeois cunt couldn’t take it. They laughed and they spread

their legs and they fingered themselves. I w asn’t the one who

told them. I never told them. I couldn’t speak anym ore at all; I

was dumb or mute or however you say it, I didn’t have words

and I w ouldn’t say anything for any reason to anyone because I

was too hurt and too alone. I got out o f jail after four days and I

walked on the streets for some days and I said nothing to no

one until this nonviolence woman found me and made me say

what happened. She was a tough cookie in her ow n w ay which

was only half a pose. She cornered me and she w ouldn’t let me