feels like G o d ’s in it, it’s got dots o f light in it all dancing and
sparkling or it’s almost thick so it’s just all surrounding you
like a nest or something, it’s something alive and you’re
something alive and it’s all around you, real friendly, real close
and kind as if it will take care o f you. I was so excited to be at
the movies by myself. I thought it was a very great day in my life
because usually I would be fighting with my mother and she
wouldn’t let me do anything I wanted to do. I had to play with
children and she didn’t like for them to be older than me but all
my real friends were older than me but I kept them secret. I
had to go shopping with her and try on clothes and go with her
to see the wom en’s things and the girls’ things and there were
millions o f them, and they were all the same, all matching sets
with the dressy ones all messed up with plastic flowers, all
fussy and stupid, and they were so boring, all skirts and
dresses and stupid things, little hats and little white gloves, and
I could only try on things that she liked and I wanted to read
anyway. I liked to walk around all over and go places I had
never seen before and I would always try to find a w ay to
wander around and not have to shop with her, except I loved
being near her but not shopping. N o w she was going on a big
trip to Lits, the biggest department store in Camden and
almost near Philadelphia, right near the bridge, and I loved to
be near the bridge, and I used to love to have lunch with m y
mother at the lunch counter in the giant store because that
wasn’t like being a child anymore and we would talk like
girlfriends, even holding hands. So this time I asked if I could
go to the movie across the street while she shopped and come
back to Lits all by m yself and meet her when the movie was
over and instead o f fighting with me to make me do what she
wanted she said yes and I couldn’t believe it because it made
me so happy because she didn’t fight with me and she had faith
in me and I knew I could do it and not get lost and handle the
money right and get back to the store on time and be in the
right place because I was mature. I had to act like a child but I
w asn’t one really. She wanted to have a child but I had been on
m y ow n a long time so I had to keep acting like a child but I
hated it. When she was sick I was on m y own and when I was
with relatives I was alone because they didn't know anything
and when she was in the hospital or home from the hospital I
did the ironing and I peeled the potatoes and once when she
couldn’t breathe and fell on the kitchen floor and it was late at
night and m y daddy was w orking I called the doctor and he
told me to get her whiskey right aw ay but I didn’t know what
whiskey was or how to find some so he told me to go to the
neighbors and I did and I got her whiskey and I ran like he told
me to in the dark at night and I took care o f her and made her
drink it even though she was on the floor dead and the doctor
said i f not for how calm I was she would have died but I w asn’t
calm and I wanted to cry but I didn’t. I thought she was dead
and I stopped breathing. I had already lived in lots o f different
houses and you can’t act like some normal child even though
everyone wants you to be just normal and they don’t want you
to feel bad but you have to be grown up and not give them
trouble and they never know what is in your heart or what you
really think about because their children are normal to them
and you aren’t their children and their children don’t know
about dying or being alone so you have to pretend. So I was
grow n up inside and acted grow n up all the time except when
m y mother was around because she wanted to have a child, a
real child, and got angry i f I didn’t act like a child because it
upset her to think I had got grow n up without her when she
w asn’t there because she wanted to be the mother o f a real
child. When I forgot to be a child or didn’t want to be I made
her very mad at me and very unhappy and she thought I was
trying to hurt her on purpose but I w asn’t because I loved ju st
being near her, sitting near to her when she drank her coffee,
and I was so proud once when I had helped m y daddy shovel
snow and she let me drink some coffee ju st like her. I loved her
hair. I loved when she talked to me about things, not telling
me what to do but just said things to me about things not
treating me like a baby. I loved when she let me go somewhere
with her and her girlfriends. I loved even when she was sick
but not real sick and was in bed for many days or sometimes
many weeks and I was allowed to go in and visit her a little and
sit on the bed and watch television with her and we would
watch “ The $64, 000 Question, ” and we were both crazy for
Charles Van Doren because he was so cute and so intellectual
and we rooted for him and bit our lips waiting for him to
answer and held hands and held our breath. Then I had to leave
her alone because I had tired her out but I felt wonderful for
hours after, so warm and happy, because m y mother loved
me. We held hands and we sat. But I couldn’t stand the stuff
she made me do. She made me sew and knit and do stupid
things. I was supposed to count the stitches and sit still and be
quiet and keep my legs closed when I sat down and wear white
gloves and a hat when I went out in a dress. She made me close
my legs all the time and I kept trying to get her to tell me w hy I
couldn’t sit how I wanted but she said girls must not ever sit so
sloppy and bad and she got mad because I said I liked to have
m y legs open when I sat down and I always did what I wanted
even if I got punished. She said I was a relentless child. But if I
had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just
sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t
going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just
trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit
with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted
her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I
was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go
somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or
ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I
got caught because two boys who were bigger and older
threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and
blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a
trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some
poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought
it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was
walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there
alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came
running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole
Christma
s tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and
blood started running down and I got home walking with the
blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came
and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he
said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being
hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so
it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was
supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange
places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or
cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I
wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another
life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and
thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop
me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to
listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she
could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was
nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and
I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did
or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it
was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being
alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and
yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always
nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you
because then they left you alone more and sometimes they
would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f
intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you
have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they
w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f
you aren’t nice to them because adults get to punish you if they
want and you can’t stop them. I knew I had to be nice to the
man in the movies because he was an adult and I had to talk to
adults in a certain w ay because I was a child and I got punished
if I didn’t but I also wanted to act like an adult so they would
leave me alone so I had to talk t o him like an adult and not cry
or be stupid or act silly or act like a baby or be rude or raise my
voice or run away or be scared like a baby. Y ou had to say
mister or sir and you had to be polite and if you wanted to be
grown up you had to talk quiet and be reasonable and say
quiet, intelligent things in a certain quiet, reasonable way.
Children cried. Y ou didn’t cry. Little babies screamed like
ninnies. Y ou didn’t scream. Adults didn’t scream when
someone talked to them quietly. The man talked very quiet.
The man was very polite. I was too grown up to scream and
cry and then I would have had to leave the movie if I made
noise because you weren’t even allowed to make any noise in a
movie. You weren’t allowed to whisper. I couldn’t understand how come the man kept talking once the movie started
because I knew you weren’t allowed to talk during it. M y
daddy hated for me to cry. He walked away in disgust. M y
momma yelled at me but my daddy went away. Adults said I
was a good child or I was very mature for my age or I had
poise. Sometimes they said I was a nice girl or a sweet child or
a smart, sweet child with such nice manners. It was a big act on
my part. I waited for them to go away so I could go
somewhere and do what I wanted but I wanted them to like
me. M y momma made me talk with respect to all adults no
matter what they did. Sometimes a teacher was so stupid but
m y momma said I had to talk with respect or be quiet and I
wasn’t allowed to contradict them or even argue with them at
all. One teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind
her when she was sitting at her desk in the front o f the room
and you had to brush o ff her collar, just stand there behind her
for fifteen minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing
her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, palms
down, stroking all the whole w ay from her neck to her arms.
She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing
something or answering her questions and she would say
someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore
one o f those fuzzy collars you put on top o f sweaters and
someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and
with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down,
smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her
shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side o f her collar
and the right hand had to stroke the right side o f her collar, and
it had to be smooth and in rhythm and feel good to her or she
would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class.
Y ou just had to stand there and keep touching her and they’d
stare at you. Y ou were supposed to like it because she only
picked you if she liked you or if you were done your test early
or i f you were very good and everyone else stared at you and
you were the teacher’s pet. But m y arms got tired and I hated
standing there and I felt funny and I thought it was boring and
I didn’t see w hy I couldn’t do something else like read while I
was waiting for the test to be over and I tried to prolong it but I
couldn’t too much and I thought she was mean but the meaner
she was the more you wanted her to like you and be nice to you
because otherwise she would hurt you so much by saying
awful things about you to the class. And m y mother said she
was the teacher and an adult and I had to be respectful and do
what she said. I had to be nice to adults and do what they said
because they were adults and I wanted to grow up so I
w ouldn’t have to listen to them anymore and obey them but
the only w ay to get them to think you were grow n up was to
obey them because then they would say you were mature and
acting like an adult. Y ou had to brush the teacher’s collar and
no one ever had to say w hy to you even i f you kept asking and
they just told you to keep quiet and stop asking. She could
make you stand in the corner or sit alone or keep you after
school or give you a bad mark even if you knew everything. I
wanted to be an adult like my daddy. He was always very
polite and intelligent and he listened to people and treated
them fair and he didn’t yell and he explained things if you
asked why except sometimes when he got tired or fed up. But
he was nicer than anyone. He didn’t treat people bad, even
children. He always wanted to know what you were thinking.
He listened to what everybody said even if they were children
or even if they were stupid adults and he said you could always
listen even if you didn’t agree and even if someone was dumb
or rude or filled with prejudice or mean and then you could
disagree in the right way and not be low like them. He said you
should be polite to everyone no matter who they were or
where they came from or if they were colored or if they were
smart or stupid it didn’t make any difference. M y relatives and
teachers were pretty stupid a lot and they weren’t nice to
Negroes but I was supposed to be quiet even then because they
were adults. I was supposed to know they were wrong
without saying anything because that would be rude. I got
confused because he said you needed to be polite to Negroes
because white people weren’t and white people were wrong
and Jew s like us knew more about it than anyone and it was
meaner for us to do it than anyone but I also had to be polite to
the white people who did the bad things and used the bad
words and said the ugly things that were poisonous and made
the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I
was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who
called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and
when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my
daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen
and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes
were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being
treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good
enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to
explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it
was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not
listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty
sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going
into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried
so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he
would be calling colored people bad names and I would have
to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y
daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and
respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.
I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many
things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time
during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could
every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,
Mercy Page 3
