non-fiction

Basket Case

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

From the storage space under the basement stairs, I took out my mother’s wooden picnic basket. I opened the lid, with its grinning sun. I removed the plastic utensils and plates. I spread the checked napkins on the bottom. On them, I laid

  • a ceramic chicken
  • a plastic mouse in a vest
  • a triceratops sticker
  • a drawing of a snake-clad woman

I closed the lid and took the basket with me.

I kept the basket safe for years, never opening the lid until one day, you needed me to open it. I took out these precious talismans, hoping somehow they could help me help you. I released the pieces of my heart they held and tried to bandage your wounds.

Too strong. Not strong enough? Spoiled? For whatever reason, it doesn’t quite work. I don’t have something you need.

A Few Miles South

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You are there

On the cusp of the beanbag,

The protected island but

Near the edge of the storm.

Close enough to

Hear the wind scream

Through the window screens

Close enough to

Hear the wind suck

At the shingles.

And after,

You find pieces of

Someone else’s life

Lodged in the mud

Of your backyard.

You are perched on the edge.

And you face forward,

You look over the cusp.

You close your eyes,

And thank Whoever

That you were on the beanbag.

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Even knowing you don’t, I can’t help but.

I covered my face – though no one but god was watching – and sobbed, the water of the shower washing my tears down the drain, wasted just like my feelings. I blew my nose in my palm and washed that down the drain, too. I slapped myself.

Snap out of it. Don’t spend yourself.

Well, I have to afford it. The grief shows me that I am not cold, isolated, or bitter.

I felt the imagined loss as if it was real, and I mourned it. I mourned you and the believed-death of beauty in potentia. I asked myself why? Because I do, and I can’t help but.

Instantaneous Rate Of Change

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One of the best days of my life was the day you called me to come pick you up because you totaled your Camero.

You took me to the lot with you, and I told you it was stupid to buy it, that you should buy something sensible. You rarely ever took my advice. I remember looking at that car and thinking, I’m going to die in that thing. You always drove, and you always drove fast and sometimes drunk.

We took every curve too fast.

I watched you take out the T-tops, lay them in their special cases as if laying a newborn babe in a bassinet. You loved her so. You never touched me with such tenderness and care. Perhaps if I had been more expensive…

The heat was on full-blast, my hair whipped into the night air. I think I had fun the first time, until I realized that if we wrecked, I would lose my head.

It had to be CLEAN, and god forbid I tracked in dirt or got cigarette ash on the door panel.

You loved that car, and you drove it the night you left your dog in the woods. I cried, begged you to go get him. He was still sitting in the same place, his blanket made into a nest, his food covered with twigs and leaves. He knew you weren’t coming back, and when he saw you, he peed himself. I held him, shaking in my lap, on the trip back home. You gave him away a month later.

Two months later, your next dog vomited all over the back seat.

The month after that, you wrecked.

Pantera

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Sitting on the concrete bench in front of the building, I smoked between classes. I liked the spot, a kind of perch atop the wide stairs that overlooked sidewalks, flowerbeds, oaks planted after the campus burned during the Civil War, and the crosswalk. Despite a flashing neon yellow sign that read, “Stop for pedestrians,” someone got hit there every semester. Stupid kids, driving like stupid kids, and hitting other stupid kids like they were squirrels.

I hogged the bench. I had my feet up, my knees tucked up to my chest. I liked sitting that way – the way they made us hunker during tornado drills or actual tornados when I was in elementary school. With my right arm wrapped around my knees, I clasped my left arm just above the elbow. With methodical timing, I bent my elbow, took a drag, and straightened my arm. Then, I watched as the smoke wafted out of my gaping mouth or streamed from my nostrils. I’m a dragon, I thought childishly and smiled at myself.

“Hey,” someone called to me.

Like a Viewmaster, I blinked to switch from what I thought to the real world. I looked two steps down to find the guy-in-the-Pantera-T-shirt. He always wore one with faded, black jeans, black Chuck Taylor’s, and three wallet chains. This day, he wasn’t wearing his dog collar bracelet or armor ring.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He tossed his backpack at the base of the bench and took out his pack of cigarettes. Since he meant to sit, and I felt polite, I swiveled, letting my feet drop, and sat on the bench normally. He patted himself, and knowing what he sought, I offered him my lighter, keeping my hand out as a reminder for him to return it. He did and sat beside me.

“How’re you doing in this class?” He waved his cigarette at the building.

Simultaneously, we turned our heads and blew smoke over the azaleas instead of in each other’s faces while never breaking eye contact. I rubbed my cigarette under the bench to put it out, not minding when bits of hot tobacco stung my hand, and set the butt on the bench between us.

“Good,” I said in answer to his question.

“I thought so. Could you maybe help me? I mean, I can pay you, some.”

“Yeah, I’m real busy.” After a glance at my watch, I knew I had time for one more, so I bent sideways to fish out a smoke from the front pocket of my backpack. Pantera bumped my arm and offered me one of his.

When I took it, he said, “Yeah, I figured, but look, I’m serious. I have to pass this class.”

I lit the cigarette and took a drag, exhaled and took another, making him stew just a bit. “How about Saturday?  There isn’t a game.”

He winced. “I can’t do it then. My friends and I…we build rockets.”

My eyebrows darted up at that. “Really?  Like fifth grade science class?”

“Well, not dinky ones.”

“You build rockets,” I mused and thought of the little engines that looked like rolls of coins with tampon strings. “Do they have parachutes?”

He laughed and looked off into the bushes. “Yeah, and one weekend, a buddy of mine had his dad down and he helped us make napalm.”

I choked. “That’s just…not normal.” Then, I laughed because anyone who spoke to me for more than five minutes knew I wasn’t normal. “Yeah, okay Pantera-Napalm-Guy. When are you free?”

We made plans to meet at the library on Thursday afternoon, and when he finished his smoke, I said I’d meet him in class. I sat a bit longer, wondering how much money the University spent on grounds upkeep. The azaleas were quite beautiful, cotton candy pink.

When I stood, my bottom was numb from sitting for so long on that hard, concrete bench. Nintendo butt, my brother called it, like Nintendo thumb. Except now, there was Sega thumb, X-Box thumb, and Playstation thumb. I wondered if anyone had ever used a Playstation dual-shock controller as a vibrator.

I pinched my cigarette just above the filter and rolled it between my fingers.  When the hot rock fell out, I scrubbed it across the concrete with my boot and flicked the unburned tobacco free. I always left that little bit because I hated the taste of burnt filter.

After buying a coffee from the street vendor, I pitched my butts into the trash and headed back in the building to class.

Decartes

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It’s painful to care about someone who doesn’t acknowledge your existence unless you’re in the same room together. Mariposa was the first person I ever met with this ability. I have always wondered if she is this way because her mind is so full of other things – worries, school, work, her lover, herself – that she has no room for anyone else, or if deep inside her, she believes that no one really exists unless she thought of them. She is the creator. She could bring me into the world or remove me with a thought.

When I send her an email, does it cease to exist until she chooses to receive it and open it?

And not just her. So many sociopathic gods. I ask myself these questions: how do they do it? How do they convince themselves that someone they met, someone that made an impact (for better or worse), is no more?

To all the gods, if I meant something, even if you can’t define it, how can you ignore me?  The only answer I find is that you tell yourself that I don’t exist anymore.

But, you won’t read my words or hear my voice because you’ve already forgotten me.

Even so and throwing like a girl, I send out the digital version of a message in a bottle. My message reads like a fortune cookie fortune. It isn’t really a fortune, just some vague advice or nonsense that’s funny when “in bed” is tacked to the end, and then is tossed it into the trash bin with the used napkins. I’ve grown used to it to the point that I’m not sure I exist unless I think of me. Then my head hurts because I’m a paradox.

Worry not. I think of you, all the time. I’m keeping us here.

 

We Are Not Walking Pussy-Tit Dolls

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By now, I’m sure everyone has heard about writer Kelly Oxford’s tweet requesting that women share the stories of their first sexual assaults. If not, you can read about it here. She posted this tweet on the evening of October 7th:

Women: tweet me your first assaults. they aren’t just stats. I’ll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my “pussy” and smiles at me, I’m 12.

By about the same time the next day, she had accumulated over 9,000,000 tweets from women sharing their stories. I tweeted my story to her, followed by this tweet to her:

The saddest thing about this is, I had to really think about which assault was the first.

In four hours, I received over 200 likes, messages, and re-tweets. Women who told me they had to do the same thing. Women who told me that they realized after they tweeted her that there was a prior assault.

I am still getting tweets about this (over 400 now), and it breaks my heart. And the other responses: story after story of girls (yes, it seems most of us were around 12) violated.

As I typed my message, I thought about it in more detail than I have ever let myself. It was the thing when I was 12 to 13 – “gripping” girls. The middle school version of notches in the bedpost. How many pussies can you grab? Gotta grab ’em all. I heard about it. A few friends told me it happened to them. One of my friends was grabbed while she was on her period, and all the boys made fun of the guy who grabbed her because he grabbed maxi pad instead of cunt. I walked the halls and wondered when it would happen to me. It seemed like it was happening to all my friends. Part of me just wanted to fit in, to be considered cute enough for someone to want to grab me, but the child part of me was terrified of the unknowns surrounding sexuality and my own body. She was terrified and didn’t want anyone to touch her in any way, much less that way. And why in the world was this the measure for being “in?” How did this become something that happened on a regular basis, for weeks?

I remember that I was in my science class, talking about this very thing, when one of the older boys (14 or 15 but still in 7th grade), asked me if no one had grabbed me. I told him no, and when class let out, he grabbed me right outside the classroom door. I remember running to gym with red cheeks. I remember waiting until math to write a long letter to who I thought was one of my best friends telling her what happened. Too shy, too ashamed to go into much detail, I wrote, “He grabbed my front.” She read my note, and to my horror, told our other friends about it. When I came out of the building at the end of the day, she was wearing a sign across her crotch that said, “FRONT.” I felt more alone and more betrayed by her than I ever had before. She was supposed to be my friend. This was exactly the moment I stopped trusting anyone.

I didn’t tell my mother. When my “friend” told her older brother,  he actually came up to me and said he was sorry someone touched me that way. Like ???? Right?! But apparently I was “in.”

It happened a few more times, the same guy again during science when we got up to do a lab, another guy in that same damned class. I’m sure I should’ve told someone. I’m sure the teachers only found out because someone braver or angrier than me spoke up. One day, we got a lecture on touching without permission. We were told that if anyone was caught “gripping” a girl, they would be sent to the principal’s office. I never heard of anyone being caught, but it stopped, probably because it got boring and not because of the threat of punishment.

No one was ever reprimanded. No one was ever taught not to treat girls this way. It was grab it if you want it. That was the first time, but it wasn’t the last. Only once I was a little older did I start slapping back – verbally and physically – anyone who tried something like that on me without my permission. That didn’t always work. In fact, twice, I wasn’t even awake to voice whether or not I wanted to be touched or engage in intercourse. That didn’t matter to him, and when he told his friends about it right in front of me, they laughed and slapped him on the back. Then I knew that none of them cared about me. I might as well be a walking pussy-tit doll, and this is the message sent to women when we are girls.

Not long after I sent my tweet to Ms. Oxford, I saw posts on my Facebook by some “friends” who were those boys back then. How much they love and respect their wives. How much they love and respect their daughters, their mothers, and I just wonder like…do you remember anything? I know I blocked out a lot of middle school, but did you? I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them don’t remember. It was just a game to them.

The stats are 1 in 6. I’m sure it’s far more than that. Woman are afraid and ashamed, and “friends” like mine make it even harder to speak up or speak out. Even though it’s horrible and heartbreaking to see all those tweets, I’m so glad women are sharing and supporting each other. We can help each other heal or at least cope, and hopefully, as survivors, we are teaching our daughters and sons to respect and protect themselves and others. My body, my choice.

~ bethbishopwrites ~ 1 Comment

You thought my fear of bridges as ridiculous as my fear of tunnels. How else could we cross relatively small bodies of water, you asked me. So as we drove the ugly trough of white concrete that bulged above the Choctawhatchee Bay, I stared straight ahead to the shore and focused on singing along with Sheryl Crow.

I never remember much about driving to Florida, but I remember that bay, that bridge, and the Tom Thumb at the crossroads.

You said you loved my voice, loved to hear me sing, and that I missed my calling as a country music singer/songwriter. I reminded you of my opinion of most country music and told you that you were full of shit. You laughed, but I was still afraid that any moment the bridge would give way and your car would drop forty feet into the swamp. I lit a cigarette the moment the wheels touched asphalt again and smoked in celebration of surviving another trip over water.

Cheap cheap smokes, back then when I was young. I had my purple Bic, the last of a quickly vanishing breed of non-childproof lighters. Adjustable flame and see-through plastic. When it finally ran out of fluid, I tried to open it to refill it. The plastic cracked and fell apart in my hands.

You said it wouldn’t be much longer before we were in San Destin and inside a house of strangers to me. With only you for a liaison. I was as afraid of that house as I was of the bridge.

It rained every day but even so, I went out on the beach, fully dressed because it was still too cold for swimming. In the drizzle, I danced and sang in my head.

You made me feel things I’d never felt. Cute in a skirt. Protected, sheltered, and yet afraid at the same time. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t intentional. Once the fear connects itself to the pain, it’s hard to ignore. It’s hard to shut it down and move on. I had to shut it down and move on every time you touched me and looked at me that way.

I was young, and I didn’t know any better, and I should have. It isn’t all your fault. Like with so many other things, I didn’t know when to stop, to say “Enough,” until it was well beyond the point. The fear of being without you matched the fear of being with you. The fear ate up everything until there was nothing left. Then, one day, the fear was gone, too.

I’m okay with bridges now, as long as I can see the other shore. I can see a way out. I still can’t abide tunnels.

Bus Rides

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We always sat together for the bus ride home. The two players who bridged the boy-girl gap, but not the only two who practiced together. At that age, I felt it was a measure of myself that a boy found me tough enough to be a real competitor.

You were my friend, too, for that spring. We had English together and sat side-by-side there as well, but it is the bus rides I remember. Ten girls and ten boys on a sketchy school bus, rumbling from the match back to school, back to the school parking lot where I would get in my failing Volvo and you would get in your failing Mercedes. Yuppie mothers’ hand-me-downs. But the bus rides.
Cold evenings, just after sunset, but I never put on my leggings. In the dark, next to each other, our thighs and shoulders touching even though there was room enough for them not to.
I was so sweet, so nervous, so unsure of what or who you wanted. There were two girls who vied for your affection, your attention, but I was the one who had it. For that spring.

So young, so green. Our hands touching, your pinky sliding over mine. Chill bumps on my arm. My heart lurching when your warm palm slid over my hand and gripped it for the first time. I didn’t look at you. I just sat there, touching you – hand, shoulder, thigh. Sometimes we talked. Most times, we sat there and just looked at each other. Every week. I remember the night I played in sleet, and the teams stayed so late that it was full dark and close to my bedtime when we got on the bus. I fell asleep standing in a Taco Bell. When we got back on the bus, you told me to put my head on your shoulder, and I fell asleep against you. When we got back, you woke me. You rubbed my cheek and squeezed our joined hands.

There was never pressure, just affection. We never even kissed. We were friends who cuddled, until one of your girlfriends decided we shouldn’t. After that spring, we didn’t. We didn’t even talk anymore.