MICHAELA
“You fucking dyke.” This is how the attack ended as I ran for the elevator and hit the down button, finally getting away from him. His attendant did nothing to help me, just stood watching as he pushed me up against the wall. I assume I was being called a dyke because I did not want to be raped by him. It was in the early evening, he had been out drinking with his full-time live-in assistant, who was there to watch over his abuses and wipe his ass. You see, he was in a wheelchair. And this, in itself, had put me off guard.
It had been a motorcycle accident five years prior. He had been poised for stardom. They say he had looked like Robert Redford.
But on this night, it was in a deserted hallway that he came off the elevator and lunged at me from out of his chair like a crazy screwed-up Spider-Man on LSD. I thought I noticed him hopping on one leg, but I didn’t have time to put it together in my mind as he pressed me up against the wall.
I slipped away. With almost no struggle. And had no idea why until I looked back and noticed he was missing half his limbs.
So, how do you rape someone without your right arm and leg?
It’s a funny story that I tell over drinks. Everybody laughs. We even laugh at the “fucking dyke” part. I told this story over cocktails and torture in Iraq. With dust in my nose and liquor down my throat, I acted macho with the boys, showing off. They think it’s hot when I say “dyke.”
Ironic that I should lose my digits, too. And now I simply wonder how to mend the seam of an armpit, or how to stitch and embroider new limbs onto military ribbons and Purple Hearts. But mainly, I find myself worried. Wondering how to carry a baby without hands.
Do you pick her up by the scruff of the neck with your teeth? Then lick her diapers on? Do you feed her like a baby bird and learn to drink tea with your toes? Do you swallow bonbons sent by the media frenzy, and let male nurses drop them in your mouth while getting invitations to participate in the Special Olympics?
When an Iraqi holds up her hand, it means “hello,” a greeting. My partner took it to say “stop,” a threat. And shot her dead. Her whole family. Five bullets into them. And one of them was mine.
A trigger pulled by my fingers. From the hand that was blown off three days later. A land mine. And President Bush calls me a hero.
Sometimes I feel like my body parts are up for grabs. ’Cause if my arms hadn’t come off but my tongue had been sliced out, what would I have done? I guess I would have turned my story into a song and sung it with my pussy on President Bush’s front lawn. And then I’d have held a die-in on the final verse. If my feet had been burned, I’d have walked on my hands and blown smoke signals in the shape of peace signs. If my womb had been cut out, I’d have shocked him with my agitprop ways and made love to him with my eyes. If my eyes had been gouged out, I’d have put stars in my sockets and become the universe. And my ears? If they had been taken as trophies? If he had taken them instead of my arms? I’d start a silent protest. I’d hold your hand, and his hand, and her hand, and their hands, with my hands. I’d hold my hand up for you, a hello, a greeting. Not a threat. And I would not let go. Because they cannot, and will not, and are not ever allowed to break the bond between hands in protest.
The Bra
Sharon Olds
It happened, with me, on the left side, first,
I’d look down, and the soft skin of the
nipple had become like a blister, as if it had been
lifted by slow puffs of breath
from underneath. It took weeks, months,
a year. And those white harnesses,
like contagion masks for conjoined twins
—if you saw a strap showing, on someone
you knew well enough, you could whisper, in her ear,
It’s Snowing Up North. There were bowers to walk through
home from school, trellis arches
like aboveground tunnels, froths of leaves—
that Spring, no one was in them except,
sometimes, a glimpse of police. They found
her body in the summer, the girl in our class
missing since winter, in the paper they printed
the word in French, brassière, I felt a little
glad she had still been wearing it,
as if a covering, of any
kind, could be a hopeless dignity.
But now they are saying that her bra was buried
in the basement of his house—when she was pulled down into
the ground, she was naked. For a moment I am almost half
glad they tore him apart with Acteon
electric savaging. In the photo,
the shoulder straps seem to be making
wavering O’s, and the sorrow’s cups
are O’s, and the bands around to the hook
and eye in the back make a broken O.
It looks like something taken down
to the bones—God’s apron—God eviscerated—
its plain, cotton ribbons rubbed
with earth. When he said, In as much as ye have
done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me, he meant girls—or if he had known better
he would have meant girls.
Banana Beer Bath
Lynn Nottage
INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY I HEARD IN UGANDA.
An attractive woman stands in a pool of light.
THE BEAUTY
And when asked … this is how the story will be told:
There were three beautiful women in the house near the top of the hill. The Elem sisters. The beauties. This was known as far down the road as a market woman could walk in one day. It was a fact, cherished by our village like the tasty banana beer made by my father. We, my sisters and I, lived in that house near the top of the hill, unaware of local envy or the mild scorn our beauty provoked. We simply looked like our mother … this is how we responded to compliments. Beauty didn’t help us milk cows, dig roots, or make the sunset any later, so beauty was not something we needed. It was a treat that we allowed ourselves on market days. And yes, on our occasional walks to town that invited shopkeepers to rush to their doorways and blow warmair greetings in our direction.
My father wasn’t one to boast, but he knew we’d fetch a mighty fine dowry.
But here I’ll jump ahead past the part of the story that doesn’t really bear repeating, as we all remember the day when the rebels became more than market talk, and curious whispers gave way to civil war. When the wave of violence became too large to outswim, and swallowed our countryside. It is this part of the story that is repeated most often as a warning to children and unmarried women.
“They will beat you, rape you, and when they tire, they will kill you!”
“You’ll be lucky if they make you a concubine or slave!”
Time and time again, the cruelties recounted. No, I won’t repeat this part again.
Instead, here’s what I remember, the snapping of twigs that announced their arrival just after sundown. We joked that it was the mischievous chimpanzee that liked to sip on my father’s banana beer, but the insistence of the steps made my father believe otherwise. Shhhh. He blew out the candle. Shhhh. There were many of them on the wind, maybe twelve, fifteen in all, and they seemed to be moving with purpose. Shhhh. My mother quietly scooped up our warm dinners and dumped them into the latrine in the back. She rushed about our home looking for things to hide, whatever she could gather in a matter of minutes, anything and everything, working to erase our presence. Shhhh. Up the hill they marched.
“How do they know we are here?” asked Mother. Our house couldn’t be seen from the road.
“They know,” said Father. A curious look crossed between them. Mother fetched her celebration lipstick, smearing bright red color on her lips.
“Why are you putting on makeup, Mama?” I asked.
“We are expecting company,” she said, and then rubbed shea butter on her f
ace and body, giving her skin a robust glow.
We could hear rebels singing, a playful marching song, I think.
“They will beat you, rape you, and when they tire, they will kill you.”
My father grabbed our arms, too tightly, and dragged us to the backyard where he kept the deep troughs of fermenting banana beer.
“Get in!” he whispered. “Get in!”
“No, it’s too cold!” said my eldest sister.
“Get in, now!”
He thrust us into the trough, pushing our heads down into the cold ferment, and watched us sink into the sludge.
Then he covered the troughs with huge banana leaves and retreated into the house to wait. Wait. And wait. The singing was closer; we now could make out the lyrics of the playful marching song. We held hands, which we hadn’t done in years.
“They will beat you, rape you, and when they tire, they will kill you.”
There we floated in banana beer, getting drunk on vapors.
We listened to the rebels move about our home, shouting for food! Money! Women!
“Where are they?” demanded a boyish voice.
“Who?” My father’s panic drained him of authority.
“The three sisters, the beauties! We want them!” Our virginity was theirs, of course, and theirs to enjoy and ruin. The reward of war. They expected no less.
“There are no sisters left on this hill, just me,” said my mother. “I am the beauty!”
And she offered her beauty to them. Laughter could be heard as they … raped her. She screamed, my father sobbed. We held hands tighter, sucking down beer to escape. Hours. The noisy forest rose up, and we knew our parents were gone.
We didn’t dare move.
Imagine, for a moment, being betrayed by your own village elders. When I asked them sometime later, they argued that they were only protecting their own wives and daughters. We, the beauties, were their only offering, all they had to give of any value. Us.
Eternity. There, hidden away, numb, shivering, we floated in banana beer until morning light crested our hill and a day passed and another morning came in the same way. And then we heard them, footsteps approaching the trough, and we prepared to surrender our innocence. This was a moment we had known might come. We each gulped a huge mouthful of beer, preparing. Hours of our tears blended with the beer, giving it a familiar saltiness. Our hearts beat mad beats, angry, sad beats, bitter beats. The footsteps were above us, a lone figure cast a shadow across the banana leaves. We held our breath as a hand slowly lifted away our protective covering.
And then we saw the face of our discoverer. An ancient white bearded chimpanzee peered down at us, looking as surprised as we were. We could see the shock in her eyes. She hadn’t expected to find us, the three beauties, soaking in beer. Her huge black furry hand reached toward us and then plunged into the liquid, scooping up a mouthful of banana beer. And then another, and then another. We watched as she grew pleasantly tipsy.
Then the chimpanzee gave us the most compassionate of looks, as if to say, “I understand.” She carefully replaced the banana leaves overhead, and we listened to her disappear into the forest, and then … and then we found laughter in our throats, relief. And as if by invitation, we pulled ourselves from the trough of beer and staggered into the forest, drunk, wet, but very much alive.
True
Carol Michèle Kaplan
SPEAKER
(in a rush of words)
I saw a man in the park, his face bloated with anger, red, his arm raised, the end of it a fist aimed at the child at his knees wanting attention a hot dog I want something to eat I want I want but he had nothing to give, no money no patience no anything else and fury surged up in him as if from hell itself and the fist braced to explode like a bullet and the little girl cringed and screamed, “Please no don’t!”
(beat)
And he didn’t. He stopped. His arm frozen as if arrested by an idea.
(beat)
And he looked at the little girl as if seeing her for what she was—small, frightened, innocent—and he picked her up and tossed her into the air and the little girl’s laughter sounded like bicycle bells and sparrows twittering in flight.
I saw this news report about Darfur that showed Janjaweed militiamen riding their horses into the burning African village, firing their automatic rifles at the scattering villagers—bare backs, sandaled feet, ragged clothes whipping against bone-thin limbs as they fled—and in one militiaman’s path, an African woman, a Zaghawan, eyes wide with shock, one hand stretched out as if to fend off a blow, and at her breast, the nose of her nine-month-old baby. And the soldier leveled the rifle and stared down the barrel and the woman’s whispered cry went out, “Please! No, don’t!”
(beat)
And he didn’t. He stopped. His finger poised as if caught by a thought.
(beat)
And he looked at the woman and saw her for what she was—a mother, desperate, alone—and he noticed that the other Janjaweed had passed and he spurred his horse on and galloped around her and the woman’s sobs of relief rose up like the beating of drums strong enough to bring down the rains.
I read this article in a magazine where a Muslim girl, a Bosnian, just fifteen, was dragged from her bed and taken to a camp and surrounded by men who threatened to rape her and break her, who hit her and beat her, and she beseeched them, “Please no! Don’t.” And a teenage boy passing by heard her cries and he stopped. He came over to look and said, “I know you. We used to go to school together in Prijedor.” He saw her for who she was.
And he turned to the men and said leave her alone she’s just a girl from my school who won a prize for her essay and I’ve seen the sun shine on her teeth when she laughs with her friends, and the men hung their heads and backed away and the young girl’s tears flowed like a prayer from her lips for the boy had appeared like an angel and intervened.
I knew a girl who went to school with me who always changed in the toilet stalls when we got ready for PE and one day she was late and couldn’t wait and when she took off her shirt I saw welts on her back.
Red welts. The kind you can only get from a whip.
And she saw me see them and the look on my face and I stopped what I was doing and opened my mouth to tell her that I cared, that it was wrong, that we would confront her mother and shake the switch from her hand and fling it to the floor and stamp it into a thousand broken pieces and she’d never again have to fear going home.
(beat)
I wish this is the way things had happened.
Everything I have said, but they did not. No.
The father hit, the soldier fired, I did not speak I turned away I pretended I had not seen.
They did not happen as I have said, but they might have. Because of the boy from Prijedor.
He stopped.
He was the only one.
Club
Nicole Burdette
A Young Waif speaks:
Everybody loves stories about the eighties. Especially New York in the eighties. Here’s one:
I was supposed to be in a fashion show at the Limelight. I had done them there before and gone in the back entrance but this time it was closed. I was nineteen years old and living at the Chelsea Hotel then and for some reason I was wearing a white fur coat—I still don’t remember where I got it or where it went. In addition to the fact that I am allergic to fur. But regardless, I was wearing this coat with tennis shoes, white tennis shoes—I remember because at the end of this story I am sitting on the curb with my feet in the gutter on Sixth Avenue staring at my shoes. I was rushing, as I always was in the eighties, in New York. I went up to the main entrance and told the bouncer that I was in the show. He said the club wasn’t open yet. I said “I know but I’m in the show and have to get in there,” and then he hit me. (Incredibly long, long beat) (Girl looks down, no expression)
I’m sorry that I can’t describe to you what it felt like. I can only say that I wanted to go back home in tha
t moment and in that same moment I knew there was no home to go to—the hit didn’t mean anything—was just a brutality—the bigger problem was where to go.
I made my way to the curb. I was in a daze and collapsed there in a pool of tears. There were so many homeless people that it was not unusual to see someone crying or lying in the gutter. I wish I could explain to you what it was like to sit in the gutter but all I could see were my tennis shoes—ghetto-white and brand-new. I remember this because I spent the first part of my life looking down at my feet. I could have been anywhere.
I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know I was talking to myself—“I want to go home, I—I want to go home, I want to go home …” I was saying this all the while knowing I could never go back home. “I want to go to Minnesota …” (Beat) I knew there was nowhere to go—but I couldn’t stop saying it and I couldn’t stop thinking it. I couldn’t move. (Beat) I was never a good girl in the sense that I could ever articulate what anything in my life had felt like. A hit was a hit. It didn’t feel like anything. I was terrified to be awake in my life—I thought I would die. It was easier to look at the ground.
So the city, the gutter—everything turned white … landscapes of snow that seemed a long time ago. Meadows and flatlands and farms, cornfields high and bean fields … blankets of snow that went on for miles—a landscape so barren it looked like outer space. Following the lights along the highway, I saw the gas station five miles from my house.
By now I was far, far away from a gutter on Sixth Avenue. I was rolled up in a ball when I felt two hands on my shoulders. I heard, “Are you all right?” “What’s happened to you?” “Honey, stop crying and tell me.”
He had a kind voice I remember that. I didn’t look up but I told him what happened. I let him pick me up out of the gutter and stand me on my feet. My knees gave out straightaway; he stood me up again and then he walked up to the club to have words with the bouncer—righteous and direct. Not violent.