The Mercy Journals Read Online Free PDF Page A

mind too, especially the not fussy part, but as far as desire for her was concerned, those thoughts crossed the room and just kept right on going out the door.
    She was a force field.
    Having sex with her was like colliding with a meteorite.
    The closest comparison I can make is to a fight where afterward, the only thing left is a whirlwind of impressions of violence: bone underneath flesh, something striking your jaw, the feeling of striving against gravity and, at the end, you stand up and you’re still alive and time winks and goes back to normal. You know you’re probably hurt, but you can’t feel it yet; you’re not sure how badly your opponent is hurt or even if the fight is really over.
    I surfaced the next morning, red lipstick on my face and tangled sheets the only proof I had that I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing. A flurry of images and sensations came at me—red mouth, green rods in her brown eyes, long dark hair against my cadaver skin, an open mouth laughing, startling in its lack of missing teeth, breasts dense, small, and close to the chest, muscular haunch, and in the middle, myself, dizzy but closing in at every turn, the synesthesia caused by my vertigo making everything smell of the sea and fresh dirt.
    It was six a.m. when I stepped out the door, exultant and clear-headed. The streets were empty, the fog thick. When there’s no wind, the fog usually hangs around all day except for maybe a couple of hours in the afternoon when it liftsto mere cloud. On the rare occasions when the sun comes out, people rush to wash their clothes and hang them out to dry. In spring, farmers check their watches and count the hours to see when they need to roll the tarps back over seedlings and less hardy crops so they don’t burn. Birds and insects take cover. Nature becomes still until the cloud cover rolls back in.
    I walked down the street, stump and foot, stump and foot, throwing my peg leg out in front of me like a land paddle, cooked oats and tea warming the inside of my ribs. Over the years I’ve come to like the new rhythm of my gait, the syncopated double beat, the rubber thud of my real foot followed on the off-beat by the higher-pitched shuffle-pad of the prosthesis in its shoe. I picked a simple prosthesis, a single-axis, constant-friction model with an adjustable cell that prevents the shank from swinging forward too fast. I’ve never regretted it.
    I felt exultant, yes, light-footed and bouncy, yes, but also like a man who had been picked out of a herd and savaged. Far behind my happiness, in the dark shadows at the farthest back of backstage, was a whisper of alarm. I ignored the whisper and focused on how the morning light changed gradually from dark slate to pearl, and the sky’s weight changed from a blanket of darkness to a basement ceiling of wet stone to swirling white mist. The dark green leaves of vines on buildings threw no shadows in the grey light.
    I walked through the old Chinatown below the viaduct where the majority of buildings are abandoned. The onesthat are inhabited are packed with people. Pink or yellow insulation cannibalized from empty houses has been tacked up inside windows and doors and stapled to ceilings to keep in the warmth. The neighbourhood looks like a gang of twelve-year-olds swept through and turned everything into a backyard fort. I made my way along the broken sidewalk that I have to take now that the viaduct has been condemned. I miss walking high above the city, mountains and ocean to the left, sky surrounding my head.
    Still, on the route under the viaduct I get to see street art, which is miraculously appearing again. I passed a painting I particularly like of a giant, bald, putty-coloured man peeping over a stone wall. One of his eyes, which are emerald green, had broken off, exposing the rusty rebar beneath. I found the missing chunk and leaned it against the wall, so one eye looked up at the other.
    As usual, I arrived at the Civic Security Station at 6:45