Mercy (Ether) (Impatient)

Call a physician.

Mercy says that she is going to kill herself and all of the Queens say baby, you are just hungover, you are just so hungover, baby don't be talking all that shit about dying, you don't know nothing about dying. How selfish can you be, talkin all this shit about dyin, when yr daddy is dying, you know that shit is true, yr daddy is on his death bed and all you is talkin about is dying. I can't believe it.

Mercy watches a War Against Drugs commercial that talks about meth and shows a girl that looks like her cutting her wrists because the meth voices told her to and so the meth voices told her to and
her mom is like LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE, LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE, and its like, jesus, right, look at what she's done, she's the crazy one, not me, Mercy thinks, this girl is nuts, some voice told her to cut her wrists and run them under hot water because she smokes meth.

Yes, I guess so, Mercy reads in the paper a dude out in the country who ate his baby's face off because voices were telling him to do so because of meth.

What side of the brain does meth work, Mercy asks Anita Hard Cock when Anita is over dropping off the laundry. Anita and Hillary Clitton trade off doing the linens so Mercy doesn't have to.

Honey, who knows with that stuff, one second yr alright and the next second yr a monster. That shit'll make you crazy.

Anita Hard Cock had a boyfriend who was on Teena, she called it, Teena was his first girlfriend, his only girlfriend, his only love, Anita said, and she locked Anita in a room one night in this basement of his house and tied her up and hit her with a bullwhip so many times she passed out.

Did that really happen to you? Mercy asked, embarrassingly quickly, as if she was skeptical of the entire story.

No, I just made it up for you, what do you think, fucking a.



Apply Artificial Respiration


Patrick #2 is Red Cross trained and he wanted to practice on Mercy, she is remembering their last night together before he left for Alaska. Let me show how to breathe into a person properly, he said. He carried protective mouth gear in his wallet, you just never know, he says to Mercy, you just never know. It's his favorite saying you just never know, Mercy says, you just never ever know when you'll need to protect your heart.

When Mercy's mom's heart stopped, when Mercy's mom's heart stopped, when Mercy's mom's heart stopped, when Mercy's mom's heart stopped, when Mercy's mom's heart stopped, she tried to apply mouth-to-mouth, she tried to apply to apply mouth-to-mouth. Nothing worked, nothing worked.

Nothing ever works the way I want it to Mercy thinks daily.



Also Hot Applications


Apply heat. Apply heat. Apply heat. Apply heat. Apply heat.
What does it mean to apply heat.
Where do you apply heat.
When told to apply heat, how can you, how can you.
Apply heat, how can you apply heat.

We trade text messages back and forth and we say to each other I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF because we are hungover, because we are once again for the 10th day in a row hungover. I understand why alcoholics kill themselves, I understand why coke addicts kill themselves, I have been up for a few days, I have been up for a few weeks, I understand now why in this weird clarity, why people kill themselves, I don't have many pills left, I am sick and I am hungover, o, the despair, o, the despair, the suffering. We suffer, don't we?

Apply heat. Apply heat. Apply heat. Apply heat.
What and where and how.
How do you apply heat. Why and what.

An application as request, an effort, sustained, mediated.



Massage Extremities

Patrick #2, when getting medical training, when getting CPR training, when getting Red Cross training, when getting all the training to live alone in Alaska, was first a massage therapist, was first a massage therapist. 



If Patient's Face is Pale

It is when you lose all the color in your face that you become paranoid that people believe that you are not what you seem. The color in your face is indicative to any unsupported principles you may feel that make you inferior. Sometimes I get really jealous when I know that you don't actually want to hang out with me, sometimes I get really jealous when you hang out with other people.

Patrick #1 is saying all of this to Mercy at a bar where the bartenders are too smug and the barstools too low. Patrick #1 is saying all of this to Mercy and Mercy is not listening, Mercy is nodding off mostly because she is tired and her father hasn't been sleeping well at night, waking up in night terrors and pulling all of the tubes from his arms.

Patrick #1 says "Look, I'm just really jealous of you babe. I want you all to myself. When you hang out with other people it makes me feel like you don't love me anymore. Do you love me babe? You do, don't you, everything I do is perfect and so being with you means its perfect. Don't you agree, babe?"

Mercy's face is pale when she sees herself in the partition reflection of their booth. Her long dark hair is full and bouncy and won't stay behind her ears even though she pushes it back, push pushes it back, out of the way. She looks long in the mirror. She looks uneven. Her eyes are at half-mast. The straps of her dress won't stay up.

Mercy, are you fucking listening? Jesus, its like talking to a brick wall sometimes. I'm going outside to have a smoke, do you want to join me or are you just gonna keep staring at yourself like some dumb idiot

What did you say, Mercy asks? What did you just say.

I said, are you just gonna keep staring at yourself like some riot act or are you gonna come with me

Mercy swore swore he said dumb idiot. She swore up and down.

Why would I call you a dumb idiot? Patrick #1 asks when she confronts him once outside. Look baby if I was gonna call you a name, it'd be more hurtful than that.


Lower The Head

Mercy father has ordered that a priest come and serve his last rites every Friday and then he and his queen girlfriends can have fish sandwiches together. They all gather in black professional skirt suits that really do look like they came out of the real Hilary Clinton's wardrobe and long black wigs of all shades and styles, and hats that looked like an funeral on Easter. They would sit politely in their purples and deep blues and browns and blacks and once the priest was done Amber Wavves, normally the only one not crying by the end, would thank the priest and pay him and see him out of the door.
Mercy's father would always keep his eyes shut and mouth closed until the priest had left as a ritual, more than anything else. Mercy's father told her that he kept his eyes closed in a type of prayer. When he opened his eyes, once Amber would come back in the room and the other queens would hustle to the bathroom to change clothes to eat dinner in, he said that it would be bittersweet, especially as he got sicker. He wanted to die in his funeral garbage garb, as the Priest was doing the last rite, which technically didn't count he'd tell Amber every week, this technically doesn't count, he needs to die sooner than later for this to count and Amber would hush him and kiss his bald head. We got to thinking that the Priest really liked coming and was kind of sad when Mercy's dad didn't die. It would have been a miracle to the priest if, in the third-to-last rites, his eyes didn't open. Then it would have been the last last rites, and it would have worked, it would have been fine, it would have been for real last rites.