Mercy (8 page)

one o f those fuzzy collars you put on top o f sweaters and

someone had to stand behind her chair facing the class and

with their hands keep brushing the fuzzy collar down,

smoothing it down, with one stroke from her neck to her

shoulder, the left hand had to stroke the left side o f her collar

and the right hand had to stroke the right side o f her collar, and

it had to be smooth and in rhythm and feel good to her or she

would get mean and say sarcastic things about you to the class.

Y ou just had to stand there and keep touching her and they’d

stare at you. Y ou were supposed to like it because she only

picked you if she liked you or if you were done your test early

or i f you were very good and everyone else stared at you and

you were the teacher’s pet. But m y arms got tired and I hated

standing there and I felt funny and I thought it was boring and

I didn’t see w hy I couldn’t do something else like read while I

was waiting for the test to be over and I tried to prolong it but I

couldn’t too much and I thought she was mean but the meaner

she was the more you wanted her to like you and be nice to you

because otherwise she would hurt you so much by saying

awful things about you to the class. And m y mother said she

was the teacher and an adult and I had to be respectful and do

what she said. I had to be nice to adults and do what they said

because they were adults and I wanted to grow up so I

w ouldn’t have to listen to them anymore and obey them but

the only w ay to get them to think you were grow n up was to

obey them because then they would say you were mature and

acting like an adult. Y ou had to brush the teacher’s collar and

no one ever had to say w hy to you even i f you kept asking and

they just told you to keep quiet and stop asking. She could

make you stand in the corner or sit alone or keep you after

school or give you a bad mark even if you knew everything. I

wanted to be an adult like my daddy. He was always very

polite and intelligent and he listened to people and treated

them fair and he didn’t yell and he explained things if you

asked why except sometimes when he got tired or fed up. But

he was nicer than anyone. He didn’t treat people bad, even

children. He always wanted to know what you were thinking.

He listened to what everybody said even if they were children

or even if they were stupid adults and he said you could always

listen even if you didn’t agree and even if someone was dumb

or rude or filled with prejudice or mean and then you could

disagree in the right way and not be low like them. He said you

should be polite to everyone no matter who they were or

where they came from or if they were colored or if they were

smart or stupid it didn’t make any difference. M y relatives and

teachers were pretty stupid a lot and they weren’t nice to

Negroes but I was supposed to be quiet even then because they

were adults. I was supposed to know they were wrong

without saying anything because that would be rude. I got

confused because he said you needed to be polite to Negroes

because white people weren’t and white people were wrong

and Jew s like us knew more about it than anyone and it was

meaner for us to do it than anyone but I also had to be polite to

the white people who did the bad things and used the bad

words and said the ugly things that were poisonous and made

the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I

was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who

called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and

when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my

daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen

and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes

were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being

treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good

enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to

explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it

was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not

listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty

sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going

into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried

so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he

would be calling colored people bad names and I would have

to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y

daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and

respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.

I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many

things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time

during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could

every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,

and I prayed to God that m y uncle w ouldn’t talk but nothing

stopped him and I would try not to m ove and not to breathe so

I w ouldn’t run aw ay or call him bad names or scream because

it caused me such outrage in m y heart, I hated him so much for

being so stupid and so cruel. I sometimes had cuts on the inside

o f m y mouth because I would bite down to stop from talking

back and I would press m y fingernails into m y palms so bad

they would bleed and I had sores all over m y hands so I bit m y

nails to keep the sores from coming. Y ou had to do what

adults said no matter what even if you didn’t know them or

they were creeps or very bad people. The man was an adult.

He w asn’t so mean as m y uncle in how he talked, he talked

nicer and quieter. I was sitting there, acting grow n up,

wearing m y black bermuda shorts. Outside it was hot and

inside it was cold from air-conditioning. I liked the cold inside.

O ur house was hot and the city was hot but the movie was nice

and cold and the sweat dried on you and I liked how amazing it

felt. The man sat down next to me. There were a million empty

seats and the theater was like a huge, dark castle, but he

sat down right next to me, on m y left. The whole big theater

was empty. The usher was a teenager but I didn’t think he was

cute. He had a light blue uniform and a flashlight. He showed

me to my seat. He wanted it in the middle but I kept wanting

to go closer to the screen. I sat down in front where I’m not

allowed with my parents because they think it’s too close but I

like it because then the movie is big and it seems like the people

are giants and you forget everything looking at them. The

theater was so big and the ceiling was so high and you could

get lost in it except that the seats were all in rows. The theater

was dark but not completely dark. There was dim light but

not enough light really to see in or to read my book in. I had a

book stuffed in my pocket. I always carried a book. I liked to

read whenever I could. Y ou could read almost anywhere but

there wasn’t enough light even for me so I had to sit and wait

for the lights to go down all the w ay and the movie to start. I

crossed m y legs because I thought it was sophisticated. I

crossed them one way, then the other way. I opened the top

buttons on my blouse because I was alone now and I could do

what I wanted. The man sat down and the usher wasn’t there

because I tried to look but I didn’t want to insult the man by

acting like anything was wrong. I didn’t understand w hy he

had to sit there and I wished he wouldn’t but you had to be nice

to people who sat next to you in a bus or in a synagogue or

anywhere and I wanted to move but he hadn’t done anything