Mercy (62 page)

roads o f windswept death, they’re not harboring no lost souls

tonight, you ain’t going to make it some hours out there. I am

fucking blind drunk, asshole drunk, dumb bitch drunk, and

I’m figuring he’s Jill’s lover w ho’s got to be back because it’s

her opening night and he’ll go back soon, it’s just a matter o f

time, and I don’t look at the cage, like he said it’s got nothing

to do with me and I try not to think about the cuffs and I stay

w ay on the other side o f the place, near the single wood chair,

m y solace, m y home, the place I pick out where I’m staying as

long as he’s here and I can sit here the whole night, just sit, and

he says hey it’s no problem you sleep on the sofa here see and

he makes some tea and we take the tea downstairs to where the

paintings are and I think this is the right direction, at least he’s

on his w ay out, and he shows me the paintings, one by one, he

shows them to me, it’s sort o f amazing, it’s like being scraped

up o ff the street and suddenly the Museum o f Modern A rt’s,

open to you, a special honored guest, he shows them to me

one by one and I’m pretty awed and pretty quiet except he asks

me questions, what do I think o f this and what do I think o f

this and I try to say something, I say things about poems they

remind me o f because I don’t know how to say things about

paintings and there’s one a little different, it’s an emotional

upheaval, not intellectual like most o f the others, and I like it a

lot, it’s brazen and aggressive and real romantic and I say so

and he says well, it’s named after me then, and I think it’s

probably because he’s drunk and he’ll change it back

tom orrow but tonight it is named for me;
Andy
he calls it, a

nickname I hate. I say I’ll lock him out and he says he’s going

to call Jill to say he’s on his w ay and we walk upstairs and I sit

on the single wood chair but he doesn’t go near any phone

which I don’t even know where it is, I sit on the wood chair

and I dig m y nails into it and he pours me another drink and

I’m saying I’ve had enough but once it’s in m y hands I’m

nervous so I drink it and it’s pretty much like I’m submerged

in a tank o f alcohol, the fumes are drowning out any air, I’m

close to asphyxiation. I sit real still on the chair, I down the

drink like it’s water, I hold onto the chair for dear life, I see the

chicken wire and it scares me, I think about outside and it

scares me, and he’s just standing there, real benign, there’s not

a hint o f sex, there’s not a spark I can see, it’s Jill’s art opening,

he’s her lover and these facts have only one outcome which is

he’s going to her now or soon and I just have to sit here still

until he does and I ask where Jill sleeps and he says behind the

chicken wire and I feel out o f m y fucking mind, I feel insane,

and he’s totally level; and his eyes change, I never looked at his

eyes before but now they’re cold, they are real cold, they have

a steel quality, you might say they are mean and you might say

they are cruel and you might say they have m y blood smeared

on them and he’s saying he’ll just tuck me in, I should just lie

down and he’ll cover me with a blanket and then he’ll leave

and I’m saying he should leave now and I’m Jill’s friend and he

says he just wants me to sit next to him on the single bed just

for a minute, just sit there next to him, and I am some falling

down drunk stupid bitch but I am not going near him, I am

sitting on the chair, I have got m y fingernails dug in, and he’s

spying, totally level, totally calm, you can leave if you want,

quiet voice he has, you can just leave, quiet voice, soft voice,

cold eyes, not brown, yellow eyes, ochre eyes, dirty yellow

eyes, quiet voice, you can leave or you can just come here and

sit with me, sit next to me, just for a minute, or you can leave,

or you can leave, or you can sit here, next to me or you can

leave; and I thought, can I? — the door’s locked from inside,

you can’t stay on the streets, the bars are closed, there’s no

strangers outside you can find, even if you was going to risk it,

and you can barely put one foot in front o f another, everything

in front o f your eyes is streaked and moving, everything’s got

a tail like a comet racing through the sky, everything’s a shiny

streak whirling past you and you are standing still unless you

are falling, you fall and stop, fall and stop; and he’s saying you

can leave and you’re wondering if he’d let you anyway,

because finally it occurs to you he is more than a liar, or w hy

would he be so calm? He’s so quiet; quiet voice; you can leave;

or come right here, sit near me, just near me; and then there’s

w hatever’s past the fucking sunset, you know, the ocean

pounds the shore or something, there’s a hurricane, many die,

it breaks apart the beach, shacks, houses, stone walls, they’re

wrecked, Atlanta burns, you know, metaphor, I’d rather talk

in metaphor than say the things he did, God made metaphor

for girls like me, you know, life is nasty, short, brutish, short,

you can be snuffed out, it’s so fast, so mean, so easy,

someone’s eyes go cold, they go mean, they say sit near me

and you say no and they say sit near me and you say no and

they say sit near me and you say no and it’s like a boy and a girl

and some courtly dance except he is saying you can leave, -a

death threat, you can leave, with his cold eyes gleaming a

devil’s yellow from the meanness o f it, a dirty yellow , as i f his

eyeballs changed from brown to some supernatural ochre and

he puts his hands on m y shoulders and his hands are strong and

he lifts me up from the single wood chair and there’s this kind

o f long waltz the length o f the great ballroom where his arms

are around me and I am going one, two, three, four, against

him, in the opposite direction from him trying to get past him

and he is using m y own motion to push me back to where he

wants and he sits me down on the single bed and w e just sit there

like chaste kids, teenagers, side by side, we each look straight

ahead except he’s got his hand on m y neck, w e’re Norm an

Rockw ell except his fingers are spread the width o f m y neck,

his fingers are around m y neck, circling m y neck and I turn my

head to face him, m y b ody’s staring outwards but I turn m y

face toward him and I say to him I don’t want to do this, I get

him to face me and I look him in the eye and I say I don’t want

to do this and his hand tightens on m y neck and I feel his

fingers down under m y skin and into the muscle o f m y neck

and he says quiet, totally level, totally calm: it doesn’t matter,

darling, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m thinking he means it

doesn’t matter to him to fuck and I smile in a kind o f gratitude

but it’s not what he means and he takes his other hand and he

puts it up at the neck o f m y T-shirt and he pulls, one hand’s

holding m y neck from behind and the other’s pulling o ff my

T-shirt, pulling it half off, ripping it, it burns against m y skin

like whiplash, and he pushes me down on the bed and I see m y

breast, it’s beautiful and perfect and kind o f cascading, there’s

no drawing can show how it’s a living part o f me, human, and

when he puts his mouth on it I cry, not so he can tell, inside I’m

turned to tears, I see his face now up against m y breast, he’s

suckling and I hate him, I feel the inside o f his mouth, clam my

and toothy and gum m y, the cavity o f his mouth and the sharp