That Takes Ovaries! (32 page)
Read That Takes Ovaries! Online
Authors: Rivka Solomon
One day her message revealed her plan to come into the city for the night so they could rendezvous. It was on a day he and I had already arranged a late dinner together. So by midmorning he left a sappy, sad message telling her she’d have to cancel her plans; he couldn’t be there.
I erased his message.
Come midafternoon she had left another message, telling him she needed to know of any problems right away because she would be leaving soon. Once again he left a response, a bit more urgent sounding, telling her not to come.
I erased that message, too.
That evening, just before my husband’s quitting time, I went to the rendezvous point, a gas station parking lot, and waited. She soon pulled up in her beat-up station wagon. Emerging from my hiding spot behind the mini-mart, I quickly drove around front and pulled in close beside her so our drivers’ windows were together and her car was pinned against the curb. I spoke with the graciousness and cordiality the occasion called for: “Bitch,” I said, “it’s time we talked.”
She must have recognized me. She shook her head furiously, slammed down her car lock, and reached for her window knob.
“Wrong answer,” I muttered, happy to move on to Phase II of my plans. I put my van in reverse, backed up about twenty feet, shifted into drive, and floored it. On impact, her door buckled, her window shattered, and she flew sideways into the passenger seat.
Time was standing still, the way it sometimes does when your system is splashing full of endorphins. I felt powerful but detached. I assessed my work as though I were an exacting demolition engineer. Not satisfied, I backed up and took aim again, this time for the car’s rear end.
Crunch!
Her fender dug deep into the wheel well.
It occurred to me that in order to cause maximum grief I had to total her car. I backed up a third time and aimed for her front fender, battery, and radiator. The impact crumpled her hood like paper and flattened the front tire. By now she had escaped through the passenger door and was standing a few feet away, watching, shoulders hunched, clutching her arms to her chest.
“Now,” I called to her matter-of-factly, “I’m gonna go get George, and we’re gonna have a talk.”
I drove the few blocks to my husband’s job. He was just coming
out, waving goodnight to friends, sauntering casually down the drive.
“We’ve got a little problem,” I told him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just wrecked your whore’s car up at the Gas ’n ’Go.”
As we pulled back out onto the street, the police arrived—three cars with sirens screaming and lights flashing. We were ordered from our vehicle, hands above our heads. My husband had to lie on the ground as I was handcuffed. My van and purse were searched for weapons, drugs, and anything more interesting than the wife-and-mom crap they found there. As the police drove me away, my husband yelled “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll get you out. Don’t worry!” at the back of the squad car.
What a drama queen.
He loved being part of the whole scene. In his mind, the incident served as proof of my devotion. For me, it was more about setting clear and unmistakable boundaries. My husband was oblivious to subtlety. He required grand statements. It wouldn’t be enough to simply say, “No honey-humping on the side.”
It worked. The affair ended, and my husband was extremely supportive and unflinching in court, in a twisted, charging-tothe- rescue sort of way.
But first I spent three days in jail awaiting arraignment. When I was finally brought to court, it became clear the system didn’t have a standard procedure for anomalies like me. “Enjoy,” a friend said. “It only happens once: the point at which you’ve done something truly rotten, but your record is clean as the driven snow.”
I was originally charged with Felony Endangerment, but that was downgraded to Criminal Damage to Property. The DA and the judge acted embarrassed and apologetic for even giving me that. I looked like a hardworking mom, driving an old van, tending the garden, volunteering with her kid’s youth group—oh, yeah, and in jail on criminal charges. I was Lucy, the Law-Abiding Citizen gone awry. This confused and upset them. Worse, I was reasonable and intelligent. At the very least, to
make their decision-making easier, I should have been ranting and tearing at my hair.
I probably scared them, too. The police, attorneys, and judge knew I was a wronged wife. They likely concluded I’d been
driven
to this insane and desperate behavior by grief over my two-timing hubby. And who knows which of them had played with infidelity and were now fearful of being caught by their own sweet, cookie-baking, apron-wearing (knife-wielding?) wives. I made them nervous.
Fatal Attraction
nervous.
I suppose I
was
driven, like they thought, but the whole thing was a great deal more cold and rational than they guessed. I knew I would be caught, go to jail,
blah, blah, blah.
But the six hundred dollars I had to fork over in damages was a small price to pay for the satisfaction I got. The whole thing still feels magnificent, triumphant. I can see what career criminals get out of their work. What a rush!
christine maxfield stone
is still driving the same Chevy van and the same husband in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Putting her foot down (pedal to the metal) seems to have done the trick, and all honey-humping has remained intramarital. She cannot, however, vouch for any of the cops, attorneys, and judges in her county.
(How cool is that?)
The work of a writer does not stop when her book is written. Today book promotions and author tours are an essential part of the job description. So while editing this book and strategizing for its (and my) future, I knew I’d have do the promotion dance, too. But instead of conducting a run-of-the-mill book tour where the author travels from city to city, sits in front of whoever she can draw to the bookstore, reads, and takes questions, I wanted to do something new, exciting–something different. Besides, I had to do something different; due to a physical disability, being on the road is difficult for me. My hope was to find some way to involve organizations and people at the grassroots level, raise funds and awareness for girls’ issues and human rights, and at the same time limit my need to travel. Combined, these goals motivated me to imagine a completely innovative publicity and promotion strategy: I decided to tap into the main idea behind this book, the empowerment of people, and encourage women and girls to organize and speak out for themselves at each Ovaries event.
–Rivka
This book is important because of the voices in it—women and girls proudly shouting from the rooftops how they acted boldlyin the world. Their stories are celebrations of womanly brazenness. But,
surprise!,
women and girls everywhere have triumphant
stories to tell. So wouldn’t it be exciting for the vibrant, feisty female voices in
your
community to be heard, too?
Enter the That Takes Ovaries! Open Mike.
There are two ways to make this happen. One is small, intimate, and held in your living room; suggestions for how to set this up are included below. The other is bigger, public, and held anywhere larger than your living room—a bookstore, coffee shop, university campus, poetry reading spot, auditorium. The guidelines for how to organize this second type of open mike are summarized below, with the full version found on the
That Takes Ovaries!
website (
www.thattakesovaries.org
). Either event will give women and girls in your area an exhilarating chance to inspire and be inspired.
The topics can vary. General theme open mikes might draw the biggest crowds. Specific themes—sports, traveling, fighting back against racism or violence—might draw more dedicated, focused groups.
Whatever type of open mike you hold, it is modeled after this book. If you organize one, please support the book and its goals, and encourage people to take the message of empowerment home with them by having the paperback available (translation: for sale) at your event. Yes, this is a plug for the book—and forspreading the word about the audacious, outrageous, and courageous way we women and girls live our lives.
It’s easy. Invite friends over, as you would for any other party, and tell them to bring their friends, too—new blood makes things more fun. If you want, use this e-mail invitation (shaded box) that the book editor (that’s me!) sent out when she held her own Living Room Open Mike.
Before your Living Room Open Mike, please contact the book website simply to indicate you are hosting one. This is encouraged, not required. It just helps me to know where and how many living-room soirees are being held. If you’d like to support the book and have it available to sell at your event you
have options: One, buy a bunch of copies from a bookstore (go local, go independent!), recoup costs when you sell them at your party, and return the ones you don’t sell. Check the store’s return policy first, and
save that sales receipt.
Bookstores are the best way to go, but if you simply can’t make arrangements with one, you can order books directly from Random House special sales at 1-800-729-2960. Your event, Ms. Hostess, will rouse women and girls to raise their voices and will give them a chance to look at their own lives and identify their courage; taking the book home will keep them inspired long after the evening has ended.
Please join [your name] for a way cool
THAT TAKES OVARIES!
TM
Living Room Open Mike
Come tell & hear real-life stories about being a brazen babe. Stories can cover anything YOU have
*
ever
*
done—little or big—that was bold, gutsy, outrageous, audacious, courageous, or inspirational. It can be playful, serious, spontaneous, calculated, smart, sexy, and/or an example of leadership. It could be an act that defies racism/sexism/ableism/classism & homophobia…or not. Anything that when you think about it today, makes you nod your head with
*
pride
*
or even semi-disbelief and think,
“Wow! I did that!”
Stories should be true and short, 1-7 minutes. (Helpful to time your story aloud beforehand.) Come ready to read your written story—or share one off the top of your head.
DATE/TIME:
Anyday, Anytime
PLACE:
(Your name)’s cozy, hopefully crowded, living room
ADDRESS:
Anystreet, Anytown, Anycountry
DIRECTIONS:
Take a right, then a left, blah, blah, blah
QUESTIONS & RSVP:
Call (Your name, phone, e-mail)
COST:
Free (Or collect donations for some good causes!) (See below)
WHO:
All ages/genders invited
(Optional lingo: Guys, come share stories about moms, sisters, and daughters.)
Male-bashing, and Why It Won’t Be Helpful At
Your Ovaries! Event
Yes, we still live in a patriarchal society. Yes, the majority of people who hurt (harass, abuse, rape, murder) women and girls are men. For this reason, some stories heard at your event may be about how women and girls fought back. These stories are important; we need to tell them, people need to hear them. But if we want things to change–truly, radically change–we need to understand the full complexity of how a society steeped in sexism hurts
all
involved. How it tries to turn inherently strong girls into women who hesitate to use their power, and inherently compassionate boys into men with an inclination to dominate or hurt. For any one group to be free of these harmful effects of institutionalized sexism, we
all
need access to our full range of emotions and abilities; we
all
need to escape the gender roles and rules our culture declares definitive.
There are many tactics we can use to achieve this goal. Some include anger. Anger is often an appropriate response to being hurt and sometimes a necessary first step to reclaiming one’s power (and ability to fight back against assault). But it won’t be helpful to direct anger at men who attend your open mike. They came to support women. Besides, if our ultimate goal is to “reach” someone, change their heart and mind, then anger, and certainly bashing, will likely trigger their defense mechanisms. And then those we’d specifically hoped would learn and grow can’t even hear how their attitude and behavior affect us.
Happily, there are other tactics we can employ: education, guidance, perspective sharing, and simply telling the truth about our lives. Hearing the truth, for the first time or the hundredth time, can be transformational. Given that, set a tone at your open mike where the truth about how women and girls have been hurt and how they fought back can be told, without simultaneously asserting that
all
men participate in the hurting. If needed, remind your audience that good men have always stood side by side with women in our mutual struggles to be free.
May your
Ovaries!
event be made up of the transformative stuff that tears down walls, not raises them. Good luck!
When at last your living room is brimming with people, here’s what I suggest: Bring out the chips and dip, read aloud the book’s preface, called “Rivka’s Note to All Readers” (which sets the tone), plus a couple of stories (which model the storytelling style), then go around the room and have everyone share her (or his) own true stories. It is a homey, sofa-pillows type of comfortable, and it’s entertaining and inspirational—all rolled into one. Feel free to use any activities from the
At the Event Itself
section detailed in the Open Mike Guidelines found on the website. Make sure everyone who wants to speak gets a chance. Tell
folks in advance to keep their stories short: maybe one to seven minutes? You don’t want any one person hogging the floor (oink, oink). If someone does, don’t be shy: Interrupt and announce her allotted time is about up. Then make sure it is. Being a Benign Dictator is easier than you might think. Or use an oven timer, the Instrument of Neutral Democracy.
