Mercy

be conscientious objectors came in for help there were always

a lot o f jokes about rape. I didn’t see how you could make

jokes about rape i f you were against violence; maybe rape

barely existed at all but it was pretty awful. The pacifists and

w ar resisters would counsel the conscientious objectors about

what to say to the draft boards. Vietnam was pulling all these

boys to be killers. The draft board always asked what the c. o. ’s

would do i f their mother was raped or their girlfriend or their

sister and it was a big joke. The pacifists and the c. o . ’s would

say things like they would let her have a good time. I don’t

remember all the things they said but they would laugh and

jo k e about it; it always made me sort o f sick but if I tried to say

something they w ouldn’t listen and I didn’t know what to say

anyway. Eventually the pacifists would tell the c. o. ’s the right

w ay to answer the question. It was a lofty answer about never

using violence under any circumstance however tragic or

painful but it was a lie because none o f them ever thought it

was anything to have their girlfriend raped or their mother.

They always thought it was funny and they always laughed; so

it wasn’t violence because they never laughed at violence. So

I’m not sure i f rape even really existed because these pacifists

really cared about violence and they never would turn their

backs on violence. They cared about social justice. They cared

about peace. They cared about racism. They cared about

poverty. They cared about everything bad that happened to

people. It was confusing that they didn’t care about rape, or

thought it was a joke, but then I wasn’t so sure what rape was

exactly. I knew it was horrible. I always had a picture in my

mind o f a woman with her clothes torn, near dead, on the floor,

unable to move because she was beaten up so bad and hurt so

much, especially between her legs. I always thought the Nazis

had done it. The draft board always asked about the Nazis:

would you have fought against the Nazis, suppose the Nazis

tried to rape your sister. They would rehearse how to answer the

draft board and then, when it came to the rape part, they always

laughed and madejokes. I would be typing because I never got

to talk or they would act irritated if I did or they would just

keep talking to each other anyway over me and I felt upset and

I would interrupt and say, well, I mean, rape is. . . . but I

could never finish the sentence, and if I’d managed to get their

attention, sometimes by nearly crying, they’d all just stare and

I’d go blank. It was a terrifying thing and you would be so

hurt; how could they laugh? And you wouldn’t want a Nazi to

come anywhere near you, it would just be foul. The Nazis, I

would say, trying to find a way to say— bad, very bad. Rape is

very bad, I wanted to say, but I could only say Nazis are very

bad. What’s bad about fucking my sister, someone would say;