used to know; and some woman too who I liked. Then
somehow this guy Paul got us all back to N ew York. He had
been in the loft bed with Jill. It was the only real bed and it was
private because it was up so high and behind a structural beam.
They just kept fighting all night so he was aggravated and he
was angry anybody else made love, he said the noise kept him
up. So he wanted to leave and it was follow the leader. It was a
nice Thanksgiving, a real one in a way, as if I lived here, on
this earth, in ways that were congenial to me. The people had
furniture and books and music and food and a big fire and they
talked about all sorts o f things, books, music, everyday
things, and the filmmaker showed her film. I got back to N ew
Y ork, slept where I could, mostly on floors, it could get
harrowing, I would get pretty tired, I wasn’t really understanding how to put an end to it, I felt just perpetually exhausted and stupid, I didn’t see how you get to be one o f
these people who seemed plugged in— food, money, apartment, that stuff. I’d get warm in the bars with the painters. I’d
go downtown and they’d be there and w e’d drink. Sometimes
one o f the guys would hit on me but mostly I said no. I don’t
like painters. They seem very cold to me, the men; and the
women were all tormented like Jill, talked about men all the
time, suffered, drank. I don’t know. I made love with some o f
the women but they were just sort o f servants to the men;
drunk, servile. I fucked some o f the men but they were so
self-involved, so completely cold, in love with themselves, so
used to being mean to whoever was with them. They put this
shit on a canvas and they make it thick or thin and it’s blobs or
something and then they’re known for doing that and they just
do it over and over and then they’re very crass in bed, they’re
just fucking-machines, I never knew men w ho just wanted to
fuck and that’s it, I mean, you couldn’t even say it was a power
trip because it was too cold and narrow for that, greedy and
cold; they really should have just masturbated but they wanted
to do it in a girl. Paul kept making social events and he and Jill
invited me. Then N ew Y ear’s came and Paul had me to this
big dinner; Jill too but it was at his loft, his building I guess, I
couldn’t really grasp that part o f it. I was afraid to go but he
said it would be fine and I didn’t have to do anything or say
anything; I didn’t believe it because usually you had to cook or
clean or something but it was true because this was some
elegant sit-down dinner and there was people serving dinner
and he hadn’t cooked it but someone, some real cook, had. It
was N ew Y ear’s Eve. It made me feel special to be there, even
though I was scared. I felt like someone, not someone famous
or someone rich, ju st someone who could be somewhere
inside with people and nice things, I felt warm and in the midst
o f grace and abundance. It made me feel that there were people
in the world who were vibrant, who talked, who laughed. It
was not ju st some place to be— it was fine, a fine place. I was
almost shaking to see it, the table, the candles, the china, the
silverware, vigorous, jubilant people, warm and ruddy and
with this physical vitality that almost bounced o ff the walls. I
was so lonely that winter. I came back in N ovem ber 1972, all
broke down. It was a bitter cold winter. I went to Paul’s loft on
N ew Y e ar’s Eve for dinner; a formal dinner; except no one
was dressed formal or acted formal. It was shimmering. It was
dazzling. There was plates and beautiful glasses and there was
food after food, all cooked, all served, first one thing, then
another, then another, it went on and on, it was like a hundred
meals all at once, and no one seemed to find it surprising like I
did; I was like a little child, I guess; I couldn’t believe it was
real. There were candles and music but not just candles, the
candleholders were so beautiful, silver, crafted, antique, old,
so old, I thought they must have come right from Jerusalem.
There were about twenty people altogether. The men were
mostly painters, mostly famous, pretty old. They talked and
told jokes. The girls were painters too but they didn’t say
much except for one or two who talked sometimes and they
were real young, mostly. There was a man and a girl and a
man and a girl all around the table. There was all these wines
and all these famous men asking you if you wanted more. Y ou
had the feeling you could ask for anything and these great
men, one o f them or all o f them, would turn heaven and earth
to get it for you. I was shy, I didn’t know what to say; I
certainly wasn’t no great artist yet and I wanted to keep my
dreams private in my heart. I said I was writing stories. I said I
was against the War. The men said, one by one, that you
couldn’t be political and an artist at the same time but they
didn’t argue or get mad at me; it was more like how you would
correct a child who had made an embarrassing mistake. One
o f them took me aside and asked me if I remembered him. He
looked so familiar, as if I should reach out and touch his face. I
said hadn’t we seen a movie together once. He said we had
made love and I was on mescaline and hadn’t I liked it and
didn’t I remember him. He was real nice about it and I said oh
yes, o f course, and it was nice, and there were a lot o f colors.
He didn’t seem to get mad. I smiled all night, because I was
nearly awed. The men had this vitality, they were sort o f
glowing. I never knew such a thing could happen. Y ou
listened to them, because they might say something about art.
One talked to me about death. He was a real famous painter.
He said that both him and me were artists. He said artists were
the only people who faced death without lying. He said that
was the reason to make love— because you had looked death in
the face and then you defied it. He said the others didn’t
understand that but he did and I did and so would I come with
him. And I laughed. I didn’t go with him but I laughed, he
made me happy, I laughed, I felt it was such beautiful bullshit
and I laughed. I thought it was a real nice thing for him to say.
It was a new year. I was drinking champagne. I w asn’t alone. I
wasn’t outside. I was safe. It was so much— beauty and life and
gracious ease; it was so surprising, so completely wonderful
and new; it was glittering and sparkling, it was small and
warm, it was new and scary and exciting and real fine. I started
having this dream over and over. It was N ew Y ork, streets I
knew, usually down in the Village, around Washington
Square, sometimes on Fifth Avenue above the Square. It was
very dark. The dark was almost a person, a character in the
dream. The dark had a kind o f depth, almost a smell, and it
was scary and dense and it was over everything, you almost
couldn’t see anything thr
ough it. The dream was somewhere
in the Village, sometimes near those big impersonal buildings
on Fifth Avenue, but even i f it’s deeper in the Village the
buildings are stone, big, impersonal, not the town houses or
brownstones o f the Village, but the impersonal Fifth Avenue
buildings, a cold rich city made o f cold stone. Som ehow I go
into one and it opens into this huge feast, this giant party in this
giant ballroom, physically it’s almost underground as if you
are going down inside the ground but there is this grand
ballroom and the women have gow ns and jew els and the men
are shiny and pretty in black suits and ruffled silk shirts but no
one makes me leave, at first I’m afraid but no one makes me
leave, there’s lots o f noise and there’s music and there’s food,
all sorts o f weird kinds o f food, cocktail food and real food and
drinks and it’s warm and friendly and in the dream I say yes,
I’ve been here before, it’s waiting, it’s always here, it’s just part
o f N ew Y ork , you don’t have to ever be afraid, hidden aw ay
there’s always something like this, you ju st have to find it, and
it fades, the dream fades, and I wake up feeling flushed and
tired and happy and I think it’s out there if only I can
remember where it is and it’s not until I’m out on the streets
that I understand I just dreamed it, I wasn’t really there, not
just last night but ever, but still I think N ew Y ork is full o f
such places, only I don’t know where they are. But after N ew
Year it just was colder and harder; there’s not a lot o f magic in
the world, no beautiful fairy godmother to wave her wand so
you can stop sifting through ashes and go to the ball. I slept
outside the kitchen in m y old friend’s apartment; I wrote
stories, slow, real slow, over and over, a sentence again and
again, I did peace stuff against the War, I got food from bars
mostly. Y ou go during happy hour and you only need one
drink. Y ou can get a man to get it for you or if you have the
change you can do it and then there’s warm food and you can
eat; they make it real fatty usually but it’s good, heavy and
warm and they bring out more and more until happy hour’s
over. I met the actor and his wife and she took me everywhere,
all around. Sometime I moved into the loony’s room with the
carnivorous plants and I wrote stories, slow, real slow, word
by word, then starting over. I had nothing and I was nothing
and I couldn’t tell no one how I was hurt from being married.
And I kept drinking with the painters. I liked the noisy bars
and the people all excited with drinking and art and all the love
affairs going on all around, with all the torment, because it
wasn’t m y torment, it didn’t come near m y torment. It was
distracting, a kind o f static that interrupted the pain I was
carrying. I got the peace group to give me seventy-five dollars
a week and I worked every morning for them, making phone
calls, writing leaflets, mimeographing, typing, doing shit. I
said I was a writer i f someone asked. I worked on m y stories,
slow; I stayed alive as best I could; I waited through long
nights, I waited. N o w it’s bitter cold; a bitter cold night;
unusual in N ew Y ork; with the temperature under zero; with
the wind blowing about fifteen miles an hour, trying to kill
you, cutting you in half and then in half again, you can’t
withstand it, there’s nothing can keep it from running through
you like a knife. I’m in m y little room, the loon y’s room; I’m
staying calm; I don’t like being alone, it’s hard, but I’ m
thinking I’m okay, I’m inside, I’m okay; I’m thinking I will
take out m y notebook and w ork, sit with the words, make
sentences, cross words out, you hear a kind o f music in your
head and you transpose it into words but the words sit there,
block letters, just words, they don’t sing back, so you have to
keep making them better until they do, until they sing back to
you, you look at it and it moves like a song. Y ou hear it
m oving, there’s a buzz on it and the buzz is music, not noise; it
can be percussive but it’s still lyrical, it sings. It’s a delicate
thing, knowing when it’s right. At the same time it’s like
being in first grade where you had to write the words down
careful in block letters and you had to make them perfect;
because you keep trying like some six-year-old to make the
words perfect so they look back at you and they are right, as if
there’s this one right w ay and it sits there, pure and clear, when
yo u ’re smart enough, finally, to put it on the page in front o f
you. I always want to run away from it: putting the words
down, because they’re always w rong at first and for a long
time they stay wrong, but now the cold night keeps me in, the
wind, the killer wind, I sit on the cot, I m ove m y papers to the
tiny table, I get out a pencil and I find some em pty paper, and I
start again, I begin again, I have started again over and over
and tonight I start again, and I hear the words in m y heart. I
came back with two laundry bags, like canvas shopping bags.
I carried them on the plane. T hey were m y laundry bags from
when I was a housewife. One has manuscripts and a couple o f
books. The other has a sweater and some underwear and a pair
o f pants. I don’t have anything else, except a fairly ragged skirt
that I’m wearing, I made it m yself with some cheap cloth, it
has clumps and bulges and I’ve got a couple o f T-shirts. I think
the manuscripts are precious. I think you can do anything if
you must. I think I can write some stories and I think it doesn’t
matter how hard it is. I’m usually pretty tired by night but the
nights are long and if you can write the time isn’t the same kind
o f burden; the words, like oxen, pull the dark faster through
time. I think it is good to write; I think perhaps someday I
might write something beautiful like Death in Venice, something just that lovely and perfect, and I think it would be worth a person’s whole life to write one such thing. I have an
invitation to go to Jill’s art opening, her first show ever. It is a
big event for her. Girls don’t get to have shows very easy, and
some people say it is because o f Paul; she’s resentful o f him; I
tell her it doesn’t matter one w ay or the other, the point is to do
it, just do it. I feel I should go but I don’t have clothes warm
enough for this particular night. I walk everywhere because I
don’t have money for subways, I walk long distances, I took
m y husband’s warm coat when I left— it’s the least you can
give me, I said, he was surprised enough when I grabbed it that
he didn’t take it away— it’s a sheepskin coat from Afghanistan
but it doesn’t have any buttons so you can’t stay warm in bad
wind— it’s heavy and stiff and it doesn’t close right and if
there’s bad wind it rips through the opening; I was running
away and I wanted the warm coat,
I knew it would last longer
than money, I was thinking about the streets, I was remembering. And he gave me some money too, took some change
out o f his pocket, some bills he was carrying, handed it to me,
said yeah, take this too. It was maybe what you’d spend on a
cheap dinner. I wanted his coat. I was leaving and there was
m y coat and I thought about having to get through one
fucking night in m y coat, a ladies’ coat, m y wife coat, tailored,
pretty, gray, with style and a little phony fur collar, a waist, it
had a waist, it showed o ff that you had breasts, and I thought,
shit, I w on ’t live through one night in that piece o f shit, I
thought, I’d better have a real coat, I thought, the bastard has a
real coat and yes I will risk m y life to get it so I grabbed it and at
first he didn’t want me to have it but I said shit boy it’s a real
cheap w ay to end a marriage and he could’ve smashed me but
he didn’t because he wanted me out and he looked at me and
said yeah take it and you don’t wait a second, you grab it and
you get out. I never was sorry I took it. I slept on it, I slept
under it, I wrapped it around me like it was m y real skin, m y
shelter, m y house, m y home, I didn’t need to buy other stuff
for staying warm , I wore a cheap T-shirt under it, nothing
else, I didn’t have to w o rry about clothes or nothing like that;
but tonight’s too cold for it, there’s nights like that, wind too
bad, too strong, no respite; tonight’s too cold. I think I’m
going to sit still, sit quiet and calm, inside, in a room, in this
quiet room, w ork on m y story, cross out, put new words
down, try to make it sing for me, for me now, here and now,
in m y head now. T hey say Mann was a bourgeois writer. I
never saw it myself. I think he was outside them and I
wondered how he knew when it was beautiful enough and
when it was right. It seemed you had to have this calm. Y ou
had to be still. I think it’s this funny thing inside that I’m just
getting close to, this w ay o f listening, you can sort o f vaguely
hear something, you have to concentrate and get real still but
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