Mercy (35 page)

remorse; or something ju st simple, a minute o f recognition.

It’s interesting that yo u ’re so dangerous to them but you

fucking can’t hurt them; how can you be dangerous if you

can’t do harm; I’d like to be able to level them, but you can’t

touch them except to be fucked by them; they get to do it and

then they get to say what it is they’re doing— yo u ’re what

they’re afraid o f but the fear just keeps them coming, it doesn’t

shake them loose or get them o ff you; it’s more like the glue

that keeps them on you; sticky stuff, how afraid the pricks are.

I mean, m aybe they’re not afraid. It sounds so stupid to say

they are, so banal, like making them human anyw ay, like

giving them the insides you wish they had. So what do you

say; they’re just so fucking filled with hate they can’t do

anything else or feel anything else or write anything else? I

mean, do they ever look at the fucking moon? I think all the

sperm they’re spilling is going to have an effect; something’s

going to grow. It’s like they’re planting a whole next

generation o f themselves by sympathetic magic; not that

they’re fucking to have babies; it’s more like they’re rubbing

and heaving and pushing and banging and shoving and

ejaculating like some kind o f voodoo rite so all the sperm will

grow into more them, more boys with more books about how

they got themselves into dirt and got out alive. It’s a thrilling

story, says the dirt they got themselves into. It’s bitterness,

being their filth; they don’t even remember right, you’re not

distinct enough, an amoeba’s more distinct, more individuated; they go home and make it up after they did it for real and

suddenly they ain’t parasites, they’re heroes— big dicks in the

big night taming some rich but underneath it all street dirty

whore, some glamorous thing but underneath filth; I think

even i f you were with them all the time they wouldn’t

remember you day-to-day, it’s like being null and void and

fucked at the same time, I am fucked, therefore I am not.

M aybe I’ll write books about history— prior times, the War o f

1812
; not here and now, which is a heartbreaking time, place,

situation, for someone. Y o u ’re nothing to them. I don’t think

they’re afraid. Maybe I’m afraid. The men want to come in; I

hear them outside, banging; they’re banging against the door

with metal things, probably knives; the men around here have

knives; they use knives; I’m familiar with knives; I grew up

around knives; Nino used a knife; I’m not afraid o f knives.

Fear’s a funny thing; you get fucked enough you lose it; or

most o f it; I don’t know w hy that should be per se. It’s all

callouses, not fear, a hard heart, and inside a lot o f death as if

they put it there, delivered it in. And then out o f nowhere you

ju st drown in it, it’s a million tons o f water on you. if I was

afraid o f individual things, normal things— today, tom orrow ,

w hat’s next, w h o ’s on top, what already has transpired that

you can’t quite reach down into to remember— I’d have to

surrender; but it drowns you fast, then it’s gone. I’d like to

surrender; but to whom , where, or do you just put up a white

flag and they take you to throw your body on a pile

somewhere? I don’t believe in it. I think you have to make

them come get you, you don’t volunteer, it’s a matter o f pride.

Who do you turn yourself into and on what terms— hey,

fellow, I’m done but that don’t mean you get to hurt me

more, you have to keep the"deal, I made a deal, I get not to feel

more pain, I’m finished, I’m not fighting you fucks anymore,

I’ll be dead if it’s the w ay to accomplish this transformation

from what I am into being nothing with no pain. But if you get

dead and there’s an afterlife and it’s more o f the same but

worse— I would just die from that. Y ou got all these same

mean motherfuckers around after yo u ’re dead and you got the

God who made it all still messing with you but now up

close— H e’s around. Y o u ’re listening to angels and yo u ’re

not allowed to tell God H e’s one m aggoty bastard; or yo u ’re

running around in circles in hell, imprisoned by your fatal

flaw, instead o f being here on a leash with all your flaws, none

fatal enough, making you a m aggoty piece o f meat. I want

dead to mean dead; all done; finished; quiet; insensate;

nothing; I want it to be peaceful, no me being pushed around

or pushing, I don’t want to feel the worm s crawling on me or

eating me or the cold o f the wet ground or suffocating from

being buried or smothering from being under the ground; or

being stone cold from being dead; I don’t want to feel cold; I

don’t want to be in eternal dark forever stone cold. N othing

by which I mean a pure void, true nonexistence, is different; it

isn’t filled with horror or dread or fear or punishment or pain;

it’s ju st an absence o f being, especially so you don’t have to

think or know anything or figure out how yo u ’re going to eat

or w ho’s going to be on you next. It’s not suffering. I don’t

have suffering in mind; not jo y , not pain— no highs, no lows.

Just not being; not being a citizen wandering around the

universe in a body or loose, ethereal and invisible; or just not

being a citizen here, now, under street lights, all illuminated,

the light shining down. I hate the light shining down— display

yourself, dear, show them; smile, spread your legs, make

suggestive gestures, legs wide open— there’s lots o f ways to sit

or stand with your legs wide open. Which day did God make

light? You think He had the street lights in some big

storeroom in the sky to send down to earth when women

started crawling over sidewalks like cockroaches to stay alive?

I think He did. I think it was part o f the big plan— light those

girls up, give them sallow light, covers pox marks, covers

tracks, covers bruises, good light for covering them up and

showing them at the same time, makes them look grotesque,

just inhuman enough, same species but not really, you can

stick it in but these aren’t creatures that get to come home, not

into a home, not home, not quite the same species, sallow

light, makes them green and grotesque, creatures you put it in,

not female ones o f you, even a fucking rib o f you; you got ones

in good light for that. They stick it in boys too; anything under

these lights is here to be used. Y o u ’d think they’d know boys

was real, same species, with fists that work or will someday,

but someday isn’t their problem and they like the feel that the

boy might turn mean on them— some o f them like it, the ones

that use the older ones. I read about this boy that was taken o ff

the street and the man gave him hormones to make him grow

breasts and lose his body hair or not get it, I’m not sure; it

made me really sick because the boy was nothing to him, just

some piece o f something he could mess with, remake to what

he wanted to play with, even something monstrous; I wanted

to kill the guy; and I tried to figure out how to help the kid, but

I just read it in
Time
or
Newsweek
so I wondered i f I could find