Free Mercy by Andrea Dworkin Page A

Eldridge, the
    other I never met. It was tiny, up five flights on Avenue D,
    with a couple o f rooms I never saw. Y ou walked in through a
    tiny kitchen, all cracked wood with holes in the floor, an
    ancient stove and an old refrigerator that looked like a bank
    vault, round and heavy and metal, with almost no room
    inside. His bed was a single bed in a kind o f living room but
    not quite. There were paintings by the artist in the room. The
    artist was sinewy and had a limp and was bitter, not sad, with a
    mean edge to anything he said. He had to leave the room so we
    could be alone. I could hear him there, listening. I stayed the
    night there and I remember how it was to watch the light come
    up and have someone running his finger under m y chin and
    touching m y hands with his lips. I was afraid to go back to the
    bar after that because I didn’t know if he’d want me to but it
    was the only place I knew to get a meal for small change.
    Every time he was glad to see me and he would ask me what I
    wanted and he would bring me dinner and some beer and
    another one later and he even gave me a dark beer to try
    because I didn’t know about it and I liked it; and I would stay;
    and I would go with him. I didn’t talk much because you don’t
    talk to men even if they seem nice; you can never know if they
    will mind or not but usually they will mind. But he asked me
    things. He told me some things, hard things, about his life,
    and time in jail, and troubles; and he asked me some things,
    easy things, about what I did that day, or what I thought, or i f I
    liked something, or how I felt, or if something felt good, or i f I

    was happy, or i f l liked him. He was my lover I guess, not
    really my boyfriend, because I never knew i f l should go to the
    bar or not but I would and then w e’d make love and when we
    made love he was a sweet man with kisses and soft talk into
    sunrise and he’d hold me after and he’d touch me. Sometimes
    he took me to visit people, his friends, and I was too shy to say
    anything but I thought it might mean he liked me or trusted
    me or had some pride in me or felt right about me and they
    asked me things too and tried to talk with me. Eldridge would
    come into the bar and get drinks and say something but always
    something cutting or mean so I didn’t-know what to say or do
    because I didn’t know i f l was supposed to be his friend or not;
    only that Arthur said he loved him. I would ask him about his
    paintings but he would look away. I went to the bar for a long
    time, maybe three months, and I went with Arthur to where
    he slept in the bed in the living room; and w e’d kiss, face to
    face, and the light would come up. I learned to love dawn and
    the long, slow coming o f the light. One night I went to the bar
    and Arthur wasn’t nice anymore. He brought dinner to me
    and he brought beer but he wouldn’t look at me or talk to me
    and his face was different, with deep anger or pain or I didn’t
    know what because I don’t know how to know what people
    feel or think. A lot o f time went by and then I thought I should
    go away and not come back but he sat down, it was a Saturday
    night, early in the night because he usually worked Saturdays
    until four a. m. but now it was only ten at night and it was
    busy, very busy, so it wasn’t easy for him to sit down; and he
    said his sister, an older sister, Caroline, was in the hospital,
    and she had brought him up, and she had cancer, and she had
    had cancer for a long time but now it seemed she was dying,
    now, tonight, and he was hurting so bad, he was in bad grief,
    sad and angry and fucked up, and he had to go to the hospital
    right now and it was far away up town and it would take most
    o f the night and probably she would die tonight; and would I

    go to his place, he would take me there to make sure I got there
    safe, and would I wait for him there— he knew I might not
    want to and it was a lot to ask, but would I? And I said I