Mercy (65 page)

out loose and disorganized and then they move their bodies

around to be in the same direction as the legs that fell down,

they m ove the trunks o f their bodies from behind the steering

wheels against gravity and disregarding common sense and

the air moves out o f the way, sluggish and slow, displaced by

their hanging bellies, and they are tired men, and they see

everything, they have eyes that circle the globe, insect eyes

and third eyes, they see in front and behind and on each side,

their eyes spin without m oving, and they see you no matter

how blank and quiet you are, they see you sneaking by, and

they wonder w hy you are sneaking and what you have to hide,

they note that you are trash, they have the view that anything

female on this street is a piece o f gash, an open wound inviting

you in for a few pennies, and that you especially who are

walking by them now have committed innumerable evils for

which you must pay and you want to argue except for the fact

that they are not far from wrong, it is not an argument you can

win, and that makes you angrier against them and fearful, and

you try to disappear but they see you, they always see you; and

you learn not to think they are fools; they will get around to

you; today, tom orrow, someday soon; and they see the boys

playing basketball and they want to smash them, smash their

fucking heads in, but they’re too old to smash them and they

can’t use their guns, not yet, not now; even the young cops

couldn’t smash them fair, they’re too rigid, too slow up

against the driving rage o f the boys with the ball; so you see

them noting it, noting that they got a grudge, and the cars are

parked on gravel and broken glass and rocks and they should

have better and they know it but they don’t and they w o n ’t

and later they get to use the guns, somewhere, the city’s full o f

fast black boys who get separated from the pack; and you hear

the fuck, shit, asshole, o f the basketball players as a counterpoint to the solitary fuck, shit, asshole, o f the lone cops as they emerge from their cars, they put down their heavy legs and

their heavy feet in their bad old shoes, all worn, chewed

leather, and they pull themselves out o f their old cars, and

they’re tired men, overweight, there ain’t many young ones at

all, and there’s a peculiar sadness to them, the fascists are

melancholy in Gotham, they say fuck, shit, asshole, like it’s

soliloquies, like it’s prayers, like it’s amen, like it’s exegesis on

existence, like it’s unanswered questions, urgent, eloquent,

articulated to God; lonely, tired old Nazis, more like Hamlet,

though, than like Lear, introspective from exhaustion, not

grand or arrogant or merciless in delusion; and the boys hurl

the ball like it’s bombs, like it’s rocks and stones, like it’s

bullets and they’re the machines o f delivery, the weapons o f

death, machine guns o f flesh, bang bang bang, each round so

fast, so hard, as the ball hits the ground and the boy moves

with it, a weapon with speed up its ass; and they’re a choir o f

fuck, shit, asshole, voices still on the far edge o f an adolescent

high, not the raspy, cigarette-ruined voices o f the lonely, sad

men; the boys run, the boys sing the three words they know, a

percussive lyric, they breathe deep, skin and viscera breathe,

everything inside and outside breathes, there’s a convulsion,

then another one, they exhale as if it’s some sublime soprano

aria at the Met, supreme art, simple, new each time, the air

comes out urgent and organized and with enough volume to

fill a concert hall, it’s exhilarating, a human voice, all the words

they don’t know; and the cops, old, young, it don’t matter,

barely breathe at all, they breathe so high up in the throat that

the air barely gets out, it’s thin and depressed and somber, it’s

old and it’s stale and it’s pale and it’s flat, there’s no words to it

and no music, it’s a thin, empty sound, a flat despair, Hamlet

so old and dead and tired he can’t even get up a stage whisper.

The cops look at the boys, each cop does, and there’s this

second when the cop wants to explode, he’d unleash a grenade

in his own hand if he had one, he’d take him self with it if it

meant offing them, fuck them black boys’ heads off, there’s

this tangible second, and then they turn away, each one,

young, old, tight, sagging, each one, every day, and they pull

themselves up, and they kick the rocks, the broken glass, the

gravel, and they got a hand folded into a fist, and they leave the

parking lot, they walk big, they walk heavy, they walk like

John Wayne, young John, old John, big John, they walk slow

and heavy and wide, deliberate, like they got six-shooters

riding on each hip; while the boys m ove fast, mad, mean,

speeding, cold fury in hot motion. Y ou want them on each

other; not on you. It ain’t honorable but it’s real. Y o u want

them caught up in the urban hate o f generations, in wild west

battles on city streets, you want them so manly against each

other they don’t have time for girlish trash like you, you want

them fighting each other cock to cock so it all gets used up on

each other. Y o u take the view that wom en are for recreation,

fun, when the battle’s over; and this battle has about another

hundred years to go. Y o u figure they can dig you up out o f the

ground when they’re ready. Y o u figure they probably will.

Y o u figure it don’t matter to them one w ay or the other. Y ou

figure it don’t matter to you either; ju st so it ain’t today, now,

tonight, tom orrow ; ju st so you ain’t conscious; just so you

ain’t alive the next time; just so you are good and dead; just so

you don’t know what it is and w h o ’s doing it. If yo u ’re buying

milk or bread or things you have to go past them, walk down

them streets, go in front o f them, the boys, the cops, and you

practice disappearing; you practice pulling the air over you

like a blanket; you practice being nothing and no one; you

practice not making a sound and barely breathing; you

practice making your eyes go blank and never looking at

anyone but seeing where they are, hearing a shadow move;

you practice being a ghost on cement; and you don’t let

nothing rattle or make noise, not the groceries, not your shoes

hitting the ground, not your arms, you don’t let them m ove or

rub, you don’t make no spontaneous gestures, you don’t even

raise your arm to scratch your nose, you keep your arms still

and you put the milk in the bag so it stays still and you go so far

as to make sure the bag ain’t a stupid bag, one o f them plastic

ones that makes sounds every time something touches it; you

have to get a quiet bag; if it’s a brown paper bag you have to