Mercy

Amber Wavves, Anita Hard Cock, and Kay Mart are all coming over today to have tea with Mercy's father, even though he can't even sit up straight, even though he doubles over in pain and won't be able to speak clearly and his face is slurred because of the pills he's on and he doesn't move his mouth even though she's pretty sure he can, she's pretty sure he has talked himself right out of being able to use his mouth in his head, but he can if he tried, why can't he just try.

Mercy took her father to the grocery store and he asked to wear a large blonde wig that always made him feel like Goldie Hawn in Laugh-In. I love Goldie Hawn, he says to her. Mercy's dad has lost all of his front teeth in the most recent years of his life, mostly due to poor hyigene as a child but also due to the medications he's been taking to keep this disease at bay. The doctor's said this would happen, Mercy's father says, the doctor's told me that I could lose my hair, lose my teeth. In the long blonde wig, Mercy does his make-up carefully. Doing make-up takes a very long sometimes these days, sometimes up to an hour and half. Mercy's dad's hands shake so bad and when he's trying to put on eyeliner or mascara or eye lashes, it ends up everywhere, extremely whore-y cat-eyes her father would say and laugh, I mean, I'm all about the whore look but only when I have somewhere to be!

Mercy's father had a date with Judge Judy at 4pm most days. When he was dancing, he would record it and then, later, DVR-it right to the TV so when he got home he could have his Judge Judy time. Mercy would wake so scared at the laughter that seemed to come from nowhere, there would be dark silence and then there would be her father's laugher, high-pitched and full of joy, laughing at the dumbass that just got his ass strung up! he's say to no one, fucking right, Judy, you get it girl! he would say, booming laughter. Mercy longed for that laughter now, she longed to wake in her childhood bed in her childhood home to her father coming in from work and laughing along with Judge Judy.

Mercy's father worked all night shifts, because, its hard to be a drag queen during the day, this isn't Mexico! her father would say but what does that mean, Mercy always wondered, is there a daytime drag culture down there that she's never known about?  There is a framed picture of Ru Paul in boy drag and her father in girl drag and they are both laughing on a beach in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico, at a festival, it is day time, or at least it looks like day time, and Mercy is always confused when her father says things like "this isn't Mexico!" or  "this isn't Vietnam!"  which, he was too young for Vietnam anyway. He worked during the night, from 1030pm to 4am and when or if he was out of drag by 1am, it was a good night, he said, because he got paid regardless of hours, people like to be entertained, he says, people love to be entertained. They don't give a shit, as long as people are entertained.

Mercy's father's routines are exactly the same all the time, his father's routines are mostly about married people and his shows revolve around young women in the audience getting married. About how wearing a white dress is a lie. About how wearing a white dress insinuates virginity and c'mon honey, oh lord, c'mon, you are no virgin, look at you! LOOK AT YOU! and everyone always laughs. Everyone always laughs because you are saying the things that they can't say to their faces, and who is going to disagree with a mob of 6'3 men in high heels and wigs and make up screaming at you. No one. People love to hear what they can see in themselves and don't want to deal with.

Did you ever want to transition to being a woman? Mercy asked once over some burnt toast. Dad was not a good cook, her mother was always the best cook, her dad didn't even know how to cook toast. He believed in all of the conspiracy theories around appliances like toasters and microwaves, that they were being radioactively controlled by the government to take over your mind, they are mind control devices, why in the world would we use such things. So toast goes into the oven to bake and it is usually black on one side and burned on the other and because he made such a big deal about it, Mercy's Dad would eat two pieces and pretend its good but Mercy would not. That is one thing Mercy's dad always did, though, was stay up or get up (if he was home from the club early enough) with her to send her off to school, even it if was with a piece of burnt toast and water bottle of orange juice, to go.

Did you ever want to transition to being a woman? Mercy asked.

No, because I am a man, her dad answered.

But you just dress like a woman for money? Mercy asked.

Precisely. I am a man but I dress in both man drag and woman drag, everything is a performance, every outfit is just an outfit.

Do you like men when you are in boy drag and women when you are in man drag? she asked.

No, I like men all the time, no matter what drag I am in. Now, hurry up and eat that toast before it gets cold, you have a bus to catch.

Why did you and my mom have me? Mercy asked.

Because you were sent to us by the stork, how can we say no? he said with a smile only the devil could have created. One day, you were on our front porch. We can just send you back to where you were made, now can we?

Mercy loved that answer, even though it never made any sense. Her whole life all she heard was that she was dropped on the front porch and these kind people would take care of her. She always thought to herself a barrage of questions she would never put to her father about if that's true, then why didn't they just sent her to a group home? Why did they keep her? Why be a father when you don't want to be? If I didn't come out of my mother and wasn't created by you two together, what's the point?

Now Mercy, don't be so sad. Don't be sad, Mercy. You'll always be my baby girl. You are my baby girl. That's why we named you Mercy. You were never a punishment. You were always the forgiveness for my wrong doing.