A Letter
My dearest friend Catherine,
Florida! Land of killer Christians throwing little girls into alleys full of lions with coat hangers. You might remember me telling you about a guy I was seeing named Jeremy. I met him one night in the bar. He was actually a pretty nice guy, that first night, but I was pretty drunk. Anyway, I found out right after that that I was pregnant. It was no big deal, really, but you know how it goes. I remember how Robert treated you, last summer. Guys are such jerks sometimes. On the drive to Planned Parenthood, I had to pull over because I was crying so hard. Can you believe it? I couldn’t find anybody to take me to the clinic! There is no way I could ever tell my mother about this. She would just kill me. Jeremy has hit the road to find himself or something. Can you believe that? Three weeks of bliss and then the minute that he hears that I am pregnant, he splits. I haven’t been dealing with the situation, very well. I have been trying to stay busy, but sometimes the whole thing catches up with me.
I have been writing a story, somehow trying to get a grip on this whole fucking mess.
Once upon a time, and all good stories begin with once upon a time, there is a lonely girl drinking away another night in a loud bar. A little boy walks up and says hello. They end up doing the drunken slow waltz through the 2am parking lot.
The heat of the sun drives Jennifer crazy. She tosses and turns, trying to escape waking and remembering. Slowly, she realizes that she is in someone else’s bed. Before Jennifer can piece together how exactly she got there, she is forced awake by the screaming of a telephone. Her head is pounding out a tune as her stomach turns and churns.
“Did you sleep well? There is coffee in the kitchen, I’m sorry I can’t be there to wake you, but you know how that goes, this fucking job is driving me crazy. Shit, here comes the boss. Hey, do you think I could see you again?”
He talks for a full minute nonstop, sounding like a tape recorder stuck on fast forward. Jennifer doesn’t say anything. Looking around the room for a cigarette, she remembers that he didn’t smoke. In fact, she thought, he was giving me grief about licking an ashtray or something, last night.
“I have to take my jeep to the shop and drop off my shirts at the cleaners.” He is still talking. Staring up at the ceiling, she realizes that he hasn’t even heard the response to his first question.
“Yes, I slept fine.” She lies, not having energy to explain herself. This morning, she knows that she is hanging over pretty hard, before she has even sat up.
“Listen, I have to pee, and get out of here for work. What time is it, anyway.”
“Quarter to ten, why?”
“Shit, I’ve got to go. You don’t mind if I take a shower here, do you? Hey, listen, I had a great time, last night. Call me, okay?” Jennifer drops the phone into its sleeping place, without waiting for a reply.
The human chain of protesters attempts to encircle the entrance to the office. A tall man with a Bible and a megaphone stands on the hood of a car across the street, screaming a chant of encouragement. National Guard militia, all in green and stonefaced, stand between the protesters and the incoming traffic. Terrified faces poke out of the moving windows. Usually fresh expressions of youth look weary and ancient pressed to the glass. Suddenly, the parting sea of human beings pushing and pulling itself through the chaotic melee creates a break. The car is allowed to push itself through the walls of flesh and into the dark corners of the covered parking lot.
Jennifer forces herself to concentrate on the magazine in front of her. Staring at the same page for several moments, she tries to ignore the angry screams from across the street. Suddenly, the back door opens and the doctor walks in. She can tell that he is the doctor by the bulge of the bullet-proof vest under his coat. A rock smashes a window above her head and lands at her feet. Four people grab at her from different directions, and she is quickly hustled into another room.
It is quiet and extremely cold in this room. There it is. The torture bed of my birth. I am the abortion.
Jennifer puts her feet into the stirrups. Looking for something else to think about, she notices the poster of two chimpanzees on the ceiling. Dressed in clothes, the chimps are posed to appear to be sleeping. Out from one of the mouths is the caption: “But will he respect me in the morning?” She feels like puking again, her third time this morning. The room is spinning. Cold sweat nightmare visions! She awakens and screams.
Try to ignore the gunfire, just outside. Battlefields for our children are the streets outside clinics and the doctor’s office. Our other starving children die of cholera on highways of bones that lead from Ethiopia to Somalia to Rwanda and back to the United States of America. A woman can’t own her body because everybody else does, with bullet proof vests and bibles.
The separation of church and state and my body began with the baby and the bloody bath water. All I know is that I wanted this thing out of my body. They keep calling up in the middle of the night, and screaming obscenities. They call me a “baby killer” and hang up. The damn thing begins howling, again. They won’t leave me alone. It is madness on the other end of the phone. I will cross my legs and pretend that it will go away. A pretty girl pouring her blues into another drink and good by.
Sincerely,
your friend,
Jen
(October, 1994)
