MERCY

A caravan of black SUV's circle the block numerous times and Mercy circles the block with them. They want a picture of her driving into her father's driveway. They want to see the elusive daughter of Jessica H. Christ. They slow down and she slows down. They speed up and she speeds up. She gets in between two of them, a man hanging out of the passenger side window with a camera as big as his head, click click, she puts on the brakes, the car slows down more, more and she turns a sharp left, through a side two-track dirt road that will take her through the woods to her father's house. She pulls into the driveway without being detected, she can hear the truck doors open and shut and open and shut again all the way through the huge front yard, the trees, the night. When it is clear near the lake, you can hear everything, as if water rushing in, through, everywhere, water, water, everywhere.

You would think they would get sick of me by now her father says to her but they never do, a new batch of those fuckers arrive weekly. What kind of photo do they really ever get? Me in my robe. They should actually pay the money to come to the performances in the city, instead of trying to find dirt on my ass.

In fact, they did come to the shows in the city. And when her father was asked to perform other places, in New York, in LA, he said, that was when I knew Jessica was a star. But, you know, an old star. Same as ever, the young girls get all the sexy attention, the old funny ones just get old and funny. Mercy's father graced the style pages and the socialite pages of many a magazine on either coast. I don't know what you're talking about Mercy says to him.