Mercy

with the knife. Inside there’s too many hours to dawn; too

many hours o f dark to hold them off; they’ll get in; I know this

small world as well as they do, I know what they can do and

what they can’t do and once it’s night they can break the door

down and no one will stop them; and the police don’t come

here; you never see a cop here; there’s no w ay to keep them out

and m y blood’s running cold from the banging, from the noise

o f them, fists, knives, I don’t know what, sticks, I guess,

maybe baseball bats, the arsenal o f the streets. The telephone’s

worthless, they cut the wire when they broke in; but no one

would come. This is the loneliest I ever knew existed; now;

them banging. There’s things you learn, tricks; no one can

hurt me. I’m not some stupid piece o f shit. Y ou got a gang

outside, banging, making threats. They want to come in;

fuck. T h ey’ll kill me; fuck me dead or kill me after. It’s like

anything, you have to face what’s true, you don’t get to say if

you want to handle it or not, you handle it to stay alive. So

what’s it to me; if I can just get through it; minimum damage,

minimum pain, the goal o f all women all the time and it’s not

different now. If you’re ever attacked by a gang you have to

get the leader. If you get him, disable him, pull him away from

the others, kill him, render him harmless, the others are

nothing. If you miss him, attack him but miss, wound him,

irritate him, aggravate him, rile him, humiliate him without

taking him out, you are human waste, excreta. So it’s clear;

there’s one way. There’s him. I have to get him. if I can pull

him away from them, to me, I have a chance; a chance. I open

the door. I think if I grab him between the legs I’m in charge; if

I pull his thing. I learn the limits o f m y philosophy. Every

philosophy’s got them. I ain’t in charge. It’s fast. It’s simple. I

open the door. It’s a negotiation. The agreement is he comes

in, they stay out; he doesn’t bring the big knife he has in with

him; it stays outside; if I mess with him, he will hurt me with it

and turn me over to them; if anything bad happens to him or if

I don’t make him happy, he will turn me over to them. This is

consent, right? I opened the door myself. I picked him. I just

got to survive him; and tom orrow find a w ay out; away from

here. He comes in; he’s Pedro or Jo e or Juan; he swaggers,

touches everything, there’s not much left he notes with

humor; he wants me to cook him dinner; he finds m y knife; he

keeps it; he keeps saying what he’ll do to me with it; I cook; he

drinks; he eats; he keeps talking; he brags; he talks about the

gang, keeps threatening me, what he’ll do to me, what they’ll

do to me, aspects o f lovemaking the gang would also enjoy

and maybe he’ll just let them in now or there’s time after,

they’re waiting, right outside, maybe he’ll call them in but

they can come back tom orrow night too, there’s time, no need

to w orry, nice boys in the gang, a little rough but I’ll enjoy

them, w o n ’t I? Then he’s ready; he’s excited himself; he’s even

fingered him self and rubbed himself. Like the peace boys he

talks with his legs spread wide open, his fingers lightly

caressing his cock, the denim pulled tight, exerting its own

pressure. He goes to the bed and starts to undress and he runs

one hand through the hair on his chest and he holds the knife in

the other hand, he fingers the knife, he rubs his thumb over it

and he caresses it and he keeps talking, seductive talk about

how good he is and how good the knife is and I’m going to like

them both and he’s got a cross on a chain around his neck and it

glistens in his hair, it’s silver and his skin is tawny and his hair

on his chest is black and curly and thick and it shines and I’m

staring at it thinking it shouldn’t be there, the shiny cross, I am

having these highly moral thoughts against the blasphemy o f

the cross on his chest, I think it is w rong and concentrate on

the im m orality o f wearing it now, doing this, w hy does he

wear it, what does it mean, his shirt is o ff and his pants are

coming o ff and he is rapturous with the knife in his hand and I

look at the cross and I look at the knife and I think they are both

for me, he will hold the knife, maybe I can touch the cross, I

will try to touch it all through and maybe it will be something

or mean something or I w o n ’t feel so frightened, so alone in

this life now, and I think I will just touch it, and there’s him,

there’s the cross, there’s the knife, and I’m under them and I

don’t know, I will never remember, the hours are gone, blank,

a tunnel o f nothing, and I’m naked, the bell rings, it’s light

outside so it’s been five hours, six, there’s a knock on the door,

insistent knocking, he says don’t answer it, he says don’t

move, he holds the knife against me, just under m y skin, the

tip just under it, and I try to fight for m y life, I say it’s a friend

who expects me to be here and will not go away and I will have

to answer the door and I w on’t say anything and I w on’t tell or

say anything bad, I will just go to the door to tell m y friend to

go away, to convince him everything’s fine, and someone’s

knocking and he has a deep voice and I don’t know what I will

do when I reach the door or who it is on the outside or what

will happen; but I’m hurt; dizzy; reeling; can’t feel anything

but some obscure pain somewhere next to me or across the

room and I don’t know what he’s done, I don’t look at any part

o f me, I cover m yself a little with a sheet, I pull it over me and I

don’t look down, I have trouble keeping m y head steady on

m y shoulders, I don’t know if I can walk from the bed to the

door, and I think I can open the door maybe and just keep

walking but I am barely covered at all and maybe the gang’s

outside and you can’t walk naked in a sheet, they’ll just hurt

you more; anyone will. I can’t remember and I can barely

carry m y head up and I have this one chance; because I can’t

have him do more; you see? I got up, I put something around

me, over me, a sheet or something, just held it together where

I could, and I took some steps and I kept whispering to the

man with the knife in m y bed that I would just get rid o f the

man at the door because he wouldn’t go away if I didn’t come

to the door and really I would just make him go aw ay and I

kept walking to the door to open it, not knowing if I would fall

or if the man in the bed would stick the knife in me before I got

there, or who was on the other side o f the door and what he