Kidnap.
To kidnap.
Mercy was kidnapped when she was three years old.
She remembers it in slow motion. The bicycle she abandoned, the pedals still spinning, all the shit stuck in her spokes exploding, there was a bicycle explosion in her memory the ground opened up and swallowed her, swallowed the bike and spit her back out in a new state in a new town far away from Mother who will die.
Patrick #1 asks her well, you were here, so I'm sure your happy now as an adult that your dad took you away from her, I'm sure right, I'm mean, she died anyway, at least you got along with your dad right.
Lovely Mercy bats her lashes sometimes and smiles. Sometimes she doesn't respond to his idiocy at all which turns him on which repulses her.
She has started to listen to sounds of traffic on mp3 to go to sleep at night.
Lovely Mercy says O Patrick, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Mother was supposed to be on a plane to get her, she told her on the phone, Mercy May I'm coming to get you, you sit tight, I'm coming to get you.
This was when Mercy was 7.
So 4 years later Mother is saying this. Saying don't you fret I'm coming to get you.
By then Mercy liked her new state which wasn't so new anymore and the memory of the slow motion pedals turning and wheel spokes exploding and a scene out of a TV show she didn't think of that memory anymore, Mercy liked Michigan and her friends and her father who was happy for once in his life and she was around her grandparents and I don't know I don't think you should come here, Ma, I don't think you should come here.
O, I'm on my way Mercy, I'll save you from him. He should be ashamed of himself. He should hang his head.
Mercy was kidnapped when she was three years old and according to the court she was legitimately kidnapped by her own father and taken over state line. No one came looking for her ever, and when Mother tried to, she died. On her way to rescue her and she drops dead. Headache. Anyerism.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
3 pages
Kidnapping. When in high school and taking naked photographs her boyfriend, Mercy thinks that it couldn't possibly get any worse, there's nothing worse than this. An abandoned bicycle. Spokes like eyetooth, plucked and rising like a cupcake. We are at the lake house, looking out of the wall of window, one big picture. I can see sailboats, but they are not there, it is winter. In my mind, Mercy thinks, I have taken a picture of every season out of this picture window, when the dogwood is in bloom, when it is shedding its paper skin, how we would write notes back and forth with pencil, bury them in the backyard. I remember you saying to me, remember when we are 20, we will come back and unbury these, this is our pact. Now you are dead and I am 20. I am even older than that. You are still very much dead.
Kidnapping. When the wheel's spokes are rotted out, how they no longer fit in gum like candy or root of mouth. Those photographs from when she was young. How she remembers what it felt like to be naked that day, on cool sheets, the weight. An abandoned bicycle. At the lake house, how high are the waves, the liferings are gone. The shadow in the bottom of the lake on the sand, the water so clear.
What horizon looks like, what do you think of it. An abandoned bicycle, how rust is and will be, like a cockroach or trilobite, ancient. I am 20 but I am older than 20, I am almost dead, but you are dead and at least we all know exactly where you are.
Kidnapping. Post-milk carton, pre-John Walsh and Code Adam and Amber Alert. An abandoned bicycle. The day we went miles and miles on bikes with people from church and I had a flat tire half way through and ruined the afternoon and cried and cried and all I remember really is the crying and wondering what would happen if everyone left me there to cry and die by myself on the cement of the 20 mile bike trail. These good kindly godly people leaving a child to die in the heat. Would someone have adopted me in the desolate little sidetown we were in front of? As an adult going back there, almost all the businesses are closed. I would have died in that town.
Kidnapping. We are at a resturant and we watch the skateboarders outside get harrassed by the owner. Does anyone ever think of me where I am from. An Abandoned bicycle, a calvary of abandoned bicycles all strolling along the bike trail with flat tires and hopeful riders. As an adult I ride the trail and my tires survive. I ride the trail to the town and back and I think about you the whole time.
I think about us and if things could have been different or not. Mercy knows probably not.
Kidnapping. When the wheel's spokes are rotted out, how they no longer fit in gum like candy or root of mouth. Those photographs from when she was young. How she remembers what it felt like to be naked that day, on cool sheets, the weight. An abandoned bicycle. At the lake house, how high are the waves, the liferings are gone. The shadow in the bottom of the lake on the sand, the water so clear.
What horizon looks like, what do you think of it. An abandoned bicycle, how rust is and will be, like a cockroach or trilobite, ancient. I am 20 but I am older than 20, I am almost dead, but you are dead and at least we all know exactly where you are.
Kidnapping. Post-milk carton, pre-John Walsh and Code Adam and Amber Alert. An abandoned bicycle. The day we went miles and miles on bikes with people from church and I had a flat tire half way through and ruined the afternoon and cried and cried and all I remember really is the crying and wondering what would happen if everyone left me there to cry and die by myself on the cement of the 20 mile bike trail. These good kindly godly people leaving a child to die in the heat. Would someone have adopted me in the desolate little sidetown we were in front of? As an adult going back there, almost all the businesses are closed. I would have died in that town.
Kidnapping. We are at a resturant and we watch the skateboarders outside get harrassed by the owner. Does anyone ever think of me where I am from. An Abandoned bicycle, a calvary of abandoned bicycles all strolling along the bike trail with flat tires and hopeful riders. As an adult I ride the trail and my tires survive. I ride the trail to the town and back and I think about you the whole time.
I think about us and if things could have been different or not. Mercy knows probably not.
MERCY
Mercy had a brother that committed suicide when she was 10 years old. He was called a faggot when he was not one. He was bullied and harassed and if it would have happened today, it would have been a hate crime, Mercy thinks. He ripped someone off some money, weed and soon after the rumors started flying. Brother was a faggot. Brother had fucked a cat with a candlestick. Brother had tried to suck everyone's cock, by everyone they meant all the boys he hung out with. The rumors spread so thin, so deep, like ice. He had to change schools five times. The rumor followed him, people knew his name by the rumor. O, that's your brother? Is it true that he stuck a candlestick up a cat's ass? Is it true that he's a faggot?
When Mercy was young, where Mercy was raised, was a desolate Midwest town. When she told her brother she was going to adopt an Asian baby, he said he would call it Slope-y. When her friend was dating many black guys, he called her the Black Guy's Girlfriend. These are the types of things that were ingrained.
Mercy's brother shot himself and in Mother's house there were no pictures of him and at Mercy's father's house there were so many from every stage of his life.
When Mercy was young, where Mercy was raised, was a desolate Midwest town. When she told her brother she was going to adopt an Asian baby, he said he would call it Slope-y. When her friend was dating many black guys, he called her the Black Guy's Girlfriend. These are the types of things that were ingrained.
Mercy's brother shot himself and in Mother's house there were no pictures of him and at Mercy's father's house there were so many from every stage of his life.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Mercy
Mercy's friend Caroline tells her over sandwiches in the park that she was raped by one of Mercy's dear friends at a party two years ago. Watch out for her, she says, watch out for her.
She believes Caroline, of course she does, but she thinks about consent and what it means to consent and how can a 5'2, 100 pd person rape anything or anyone espeically a 5'7 150 pd person.
That doesn't mean it didn't happen, Patrick #1 says, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. People can rape others, its really easy.
O really? Mercy says. It's really easy to rape someone?
O, you know what I mean, c'mon Mercy.
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Mercy keeps having dreams of water, of plunging into dark and menacing waters and plunging so far that she can't find the surface again, and the feeling of dropping into nothing, and sometimes her mother is there underwater with her, her mother is there and she can feel her and see her like a ghost or like a mermaid. She is there, not too close, as if up against glass, as if inside of an aquarium looking out, smushed and undefinitive. She is there and then she is not and Mercy always has an end to the plunge, she feels the pull that drives her back to the surface, but there is no surface, at once in summer water and under winter ice. She is under ice. Mercy under ice.
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Patrick #1 never called her his girlfriend until the very end of their relationship and even then Patrick #1 wouldn't actually say it. Now that they have been broken up for awhile and they are best friends with a weird relationship, Patrick #1 wants to reminice and remember and feel nostalgic for the fact that at one time they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Patrick #1 is the first real relationship Mercy ever had, her first real boyfriend, even if he wouldn't admit it. In high school boys just wanted blow jobs and she slept with her first girl when she 17 but if you would have asked her she would have told you she was straight or bi-sexual, she certainly wasn't anything else. In college she missed the boat in dating all together. Now, in her late twenties, she had Patrick #1 for 1 year and 5 months. 1 year and 5 months of Patrick #1 not admitting that Mercy was his girlfriend. 1 year and 5 months later, Patrick #1 tells her how great of a girlfriend she was. Patrick #1 has not had a girlfriend since Mercy. Because, Patrick #1 is gay gay gay her daddy says to her, that boy is gay as the day is long, child.
She believes Caroline, of course she does, but she thinks about consent and what it means to consent and how can a 5'2, 100 pd person rape anything or anyone espeically a 5'7 150 pd person.
That doesn't mean it didn't happen, Patrick #1 says, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. People can rape others, its really easy.
O really? Mercy says. It's really easy to rape someone?
O, you know what I mean, c'mon Mercy.
----------
Mercy keeps having dreams of water, of plunging into dark and menacing waters and plunging so far that she can't find the surface again, and the feeling of dropping into nothing, and sometimes her mother is there underwater with her, her mother is there and she can feel her and see her like a ghost or like a mermaid. She is there, not too close, as if up against glass, as if inside of an aquarium looking out, smushed and undefinitive. She is there and then she is not and Mercy always has an end to the plunge, she feels the pull that drives her back to the surface, but there is no surface, at once in summer water and under winter ice. She is under ice. Mercy under ice.
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Patrick #1 never called her his girlfriend until the very end of their relationship and even then Patrick #1 wouldn't actually say it. Now that they have been broken up for awhile and they are best friends with a weird relationship, Patrick #1 wants to reminice and remember and feel nostalgic for the fact that at one time they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Patrick #1 is the first real relationship Mercy ever had, her first real boyfriend, even if he wouldn't admit it. In high school boys just wanted blow jobs and she slept with her first girl when she 17 but if you would have asked her she would have told you she was straight or bi-sexual, she certainly wasn't anything else. In college she missed the boat in dating all together. Now, in her late twenties, she had Patrick #1 for 1 year and 5 months. 1 year and 5 months of Patrick #1 not admitting that Mercy was his girlfriend. 1 year and 5 months later, Patrick #1 tells her how great of a girlfriend she was. Patrick #1 has not had a girlfriend since Mercy. Because, Patrick #1 is gay gay gay her daddy says to her, that boy is gay as the day is long, child.
Mercy
Patrick #1 has his arm around in her in the booth, the red vinyl deeply cracked and rubbing her underthigh the wrong way, tearing her pantyhose, she could feel it. He is getting closer and closer as their friends begin to arrive, he is putting his arm down, he is feeling her shoulder. He puts his arm on her arm. He puts his arm on his side and puts his hand on her thigh. He puts his hand up her leg, under the hem of her skirt. Their friends do not notice. She pushes his arm away, and away. She pushes his arm away so many times she finally loses count after demanding of herself that she would keep track to tell him in the morning, o Patrick, don't you remember, you were practically trying to fist me in public.
He takes her hand and puts it on his crotch. Two of the girls that have themselves flanked with pink lipstick and around the waists of two of their best butch girlfriends notice and giggle behind pink-nailed hands. They whisper something but the music is loud and maybe Mercy is just thinking she is seeing that they are whispering about her exboyfriend trying to get her to give him a handjob at the bar in the middle of the evening.
She orders a round of shots for everyone, something that smells like liquourice and tastes like death.
She orders one more round but just for her and Patrick #1.
Patrick #1 kisses her neck, moves her hair away from her face, it is long and flowing, always so flowing, some girl last week told her that it reminded the girl of an American Apparel advertisement, how all the girls have long flowing wavy hair. Patrick #1 is kissing her and she feels herself blush.
Stop, she says. Stop right now. I don't care. I don't want you to. Stop.
It is the end of the night, the pink-lipped, pink-nailed girls are making out with their butch friends as the house lights are turned up and the bartender yells to get the hell out. She and Patrick #1 don't stop to say good-bye. They don't search for the rest of their friends. They check to make sure they have their phones and keys and wallets and thread fingers and leave.
Patrick #1 is holding her ass in his hand as she walks and she breaks from him. He runs behind her and grabs both of her asscheeks in his hands and she screams and laughs and runs. He catches her and lifts her onto the lawn next to them of some random neighborhood house. Her laughs fade into Stop, stop, right now, quit, get off me, stop, Patrick, stop Patrick stop Patrick stop Patrick Stop. He is holding her arms down with his knees.
Mercy kicks her legs up and hits his back. He yells in surprise more than pain. He falls off her, over into the lawn, laughing. Ow, he says. Ow, that really fucking hurt. You're a good shot.
Fuck you, Mercy says.
Fuck you, that's not funny.
Mercy grabs her wallet and phone from where they had fallen out of her pockets, pulls her hair up into a ponytail and starts running towards their houses. Mercy is running and can hear Patrick #1 yelling for her wait, Mercy, wait, I'm sorry Mercy, I'm sorry Mercy, come back here, I'm sorry.
He takes her hand and puts it on his crotch. Two of the girls that have themselves flanked with pink lipstick and around the waists of two of their best butch girlfriends notice and giggle behind pink-nailed hands. They whisper something but the music is loud and maybe Mercy is just thinking she is seeing that they are whispering about her exboyfriend trying to get her to give him a handjob at the bar in the middle of the evening.
She orders a round of shots for everyone, something that smells like liquourice and tastes like death.
She orders one more round but just for her and Patrick #1.
Patrick #1 kisses her neck, moves her hair away from her face, it is long and flowing, always so flowing, some girl last week told her that it reminded the girl of an American Apparel advertisement, how all the girls have long flowing wavy hair. Patrick #1 is kissing her and she feels herself blush.
Stop, she says. Stop right now. I don't care. I don't want you to. Stop.
It is the end of the night, the pink-lipped, pink-nailed girls are making out with their butch friends as the house lights are turned up and the bartender yells to get the hell out. She and Patrick #1 don't stop to say good-bye. They don't search for the rest of their friends. They check to make sure they have their phones and keys and wallets and thread fingers and leave.
Patrick #1 is holding her ass in his hand as she walks and she breaks from him. He runs behind her and grabs both of her asscheeks in his hands and she screams and laughs and runs. He catches her and lifts her onto the lawn next to them of some random neighborhood house. Her laughs fade into Stop, stop, right now, quit, get off me, stop, Patrick, stop Patrick stop Patrick stop Patrick Stop. He is holding her arms down with his knees.
Mercy kicks her legs up and hits his back. He yells in surprise more than pain. He falls off her, over into the lawn, laughing. Ow, he says. Ow, that really fucking hurt. You're a good shot.
Fuck you, Mercy says.
Fuck you, that's not funny.
Mercy grabs her wallet and phone from where they had fallen out of her pockets, pulls her hair up into a ponytail and starts running towards their houses. Mercy is running and can hear Patrick #1 yelling for her wait, Mercy, wait, I'm sorry Mercy, I'm sorry Mercy, come back here, I'm sorry.
Mercy
Six months before Mercy's father fell ill, he agreed to be a part of a Reality Television show with the rest of his friends in the Clamshell Cocktail Lounge because some of the younger girls were going on the road in a grassroots effort to celebrate diversity or some shit crows Anita Hard Cock, I don't have a clue why they're doin what they do but they're doin and we're gonna be on T.V. stars, we are. Every single one of the queens had an appearance, including Mercy's father, which lead to some notoriety. When People magazine interviewed all of the Queens and gave them a nice spread in an April/March edition, Mercy's father was quoted that nothing really had changed for him or the rest of the girls in town, nothing had really changed, fame hadn't touched them unless they left town, even in the City where they worked, its an Andy Warhol uptown/downtown thing, really, Mercy's father said, she wasn't Jessica H. Christ, yet. She was some other name that did not stick. Mercy's father had more of a reputation around changing her name than actually sticking to one, and all phases of his career fell on what name and acts he was doing at the time. That's what makes me famous, I'm a ka-meel-eee-on.
The reality TV show was only 10 episodes, one season, non-renewed, but quickly a gay cult following, the Internet boosted them, the younger girls now can travel, get calls for appearances, the older ones that are funny or that are still beautiful or that can actually perform are also whisked away to islands in the middle of winter to work at festivals and gatherings of queers who love them. Mercy's father fell in the middle, not too young, not too old, gone sometimes but not in high demand.
He liked it that way. They were comfortable in their small town and he was comfortable with his life in the city.
The reality TV show was only 10 episodes, one season, non-renewed, but quickly a gay cult following, the Internet boosted them, the younger girls now can travel, get calls for appearances, the older ones that are funny or that are still beautiful or that can actually perform are also whisked away to islands in the middle of winter to work at festivals and gatherings of queers who love them. Mercy's father fell in the middle, not too young, not too old, gone sometimes but not in high demand.
He liked it that way. They were comfortable in their small town and he was comfortable with his life in the city.
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