MERCY

Mercy is in the presence of an all male boys choir and she begins to think about her life. It is Christmas and it is winter and she is alone.

Mercy turn around. Precious Mercy.

Mercy crosses her legs and tries to find her breathing. Tries to count her breaths like Patrick #1 tried to make her do so long ago when they meditated together.

The boys begin to sing Ave Maria. The eldest, the boy that is the tallest and that looks like his voice will drop soon, he will be kicked out soon, has the hardest solo and he nails it and its beautiful. It is cold outside and yet the boys are dressed in brown hooded robes.

Turn around, Mercy.

They stop Ave Maria. They begin Bach's Air. All of these little voices coming from these little boys, sounding like a symphany. Bach's Air.

Mercy thinks about the times her father would get into a fight with his parents and make them go to church.

It is well with my Soul, It is well with my soul, this song was written when this dude lost his whole family, his entire family died, so says her Internet research, and he reached out and wrote this song. What does it mean to reach out to God when your whole family is dead.

She reads about a story in the newspaper at work when she is bored of a family found bound and gagged in the position of prayer as she knew it: knees on the ground, hands pressed together towards the sky. What does it mean to be forced to reach out to god, when your family is dead all around you.

I was an orphan at 15 is what she liked to tell people, she was embarrassed of her father when she was a teenager, she didn't want anyone to know that he was a female impersonator, she would later say, but he was not a female impersonator, he would tell her, I am a drag performer, I perform some female entertainers but you don't get gigs by being like everybody else, child.

When Mercy was 15 she kissed a fat girl for the first time. It is not mean to say that she was fat because that is how she identified, and, although, she wasn't fat in Mercy's definition, she looked like a regular girl to her, but she said she was fat and so that is how she identified. Mercy kissed a fat girl when she was 15. If you were to have asked Mercy then if she was gay or straight or bisexual she would have said bisexual but not gay.

When Mercy's brother who killed himself had to fight people daily who called him gay but he wasn't.

What does all of this still mean.

Mercy kissed a girl at 15 and had sex with a girl at 17. She's an orphan at 15. She was not an orphan at 15. Her father was very much alive. Her father gave her lunch money that she used to buy joints in the bathrooms from girls that will later not like her as adults. This will happen many times to Mercy, girls in childhood who she is cool with hating her in adulthood. This is growing up.

Mercy's brother nearly killed a kid once in a fight over his sexuality. The kid lost conciousness. You'd be surprised how hard it is to actually choke someone to death he told her. You'd be surprised how hard it is. It's pretty hard. It's like shooting a gun. It's actually kinda hard. So, he wasn't dead. The kid. But Mercy's brother had to do this all the time, fight for his life over his sexuality. He wasn't gay. But he wasn't allowed to figure it out, either, even if he was. He wasn't allowed to properly experiment. He wasn't allowed a real teenage experience. He was called a faggot and that was it, and the rumors flew and he had to defend himself.

Mercy's brother nearly killed a lot of kids in fights. Mercy's brother broke arms and ribs and legs and noses. He whipped this shit out of them. He would take his tshirt and shoes off. He would fold them in a pile and put them to the side and whip the shit out of these kids. Until it was too much. Until it was too much.