Even if test-tube babies were possible, I doubt they'd be too popular. During the Two-Hundred-Year War, the End-of-the-World War, the Nine-to-Five War, whatever you want to call it, more than half the babies born were the result of artificial insemination. Now that they're slowly cleaning up the air and water and the old munitions and chemical-waste dumps, the birth-defect rate has fallen considerably. There's a widespread horror of any technological tampering that might further damage the gene pool. That's why there's no birth control employing synthetic hormones any more. That's why there's always some legislator agitating for sterilization of the unfit and more maternity incentives.
Myself, I think babies are a necessary evil, and I don't want to get close enough to one to smell it. It's just fine with me that men don't run the world any more, that the war has stopped, and that we're trying to stop contaminating the planet. But I can't help but wonder why so many of us have not profited greatly from the women's revolution, despite the fact that we are women. Perhaps it's because I'm not the right kind of woman.
I try to imagine, sometimes, what it would be like to live then, with a debilitating ground war being fought on another continent that constantly bled resources and lives away while I endured hard, grinding work to keep the war machinery turning. There was intense legal and social pressure to stay pregnant, so you wouldn't have been able to ignore the fact that you were a woman while you were holding everything together, making everything run. It must have been horrible, but in history classes they always say it was a necessary precondition for revolution. Women got radicalized during World War I and World War II, but it evaporated when the men came home. It took one generation to learn how to do the work, another generation to take competence for granted, and a third one to refuse to give up the control. Not that there was anything other than a halfhearted attempt to take it back. When the whole shooting match was over, most of the army didn't want to be repatriated. They had wives, families, whole lives in Europe. So they stayed on the land they had laid to waste with trenches, napalmâeverything except atomics. It sounds to me like nuclear weapons might not have been that much worse than what they used in their place. Maybe there
is
such a thing as poetic justice.
I'm not immune to the irresistible forces of social change. When Amanda Kim ran for president, I would have voted for her. When the national elections that defeated her were proven to be fraudulent, I would have gone on strike and rioted to put her in office. I would have thrown rocks at the National Guard when they tried to put down the revolt with tear gas and rubber bullets, and I would have cheered the women who deserted and came over to our side. When Kim was assassinated, I would have marched in her cortège and mourned for her and vowed that our first female Chief of State would not be the last. Maybe I would have been one of the witnesses who saw miracles in the wake of the funeral processionâpeople healed, springs cleansed, childbirth without pain. They say Kim's body lay in state for months with no sign of physical deterioration, and an odor of roses still lingers in her tomb. I could have been one of the Hands of the Goddess, the religious order that sprang up to spread the glad word that She had manifested among us.
The day Kim was laid to rest, when a Russian missile removed New Orleans from the map and the South African Aryan Republic retaliated (as they had always promised they would if nuclear weapons were used) by simultaneously melting down Moscow and Washington, D.C., I would have joined my sister-workers on the rooftops to mow down the government troops who had finally been shipped home from Europe to straighten out the womenfolk. I can easily imagine myself lobbing bottles full of burning gasoline and detergent into their jeeps. All things considered, I would have been one of the happiest celebrants in the month-long carnival that followed the signing of peace with Mother Russia.
So why am I here, one of the bad guys, working up a sweat, my tension building, slowly poisoning my muscles? I unlock my knees, rock back and forth a few times, shift my weight onto the other foot, and try to settle my stomach. Am I bored enough to eroticize this situation? I try to pretend that the liquid dripping from my armpits and spilling over my back is blood. It's been too long. I can't really remember what it feels like to be whipped that severely. After all, it's been two years.
Reconstruct, I order myself. You hang from your wrists, the tips of your toes scrabble for tenuous contact with the ground, cold air hits your bare skin as your shirt is ripped open. You hear the swish of the whip and scream before you feel the pain. The fear makes you scream, but the pain leaves you dumb. It doesn't stop, it doesn't alter its character, you have no choice but to learn how to accept it and take it and ride it out.
How did I do that? I cannot remember what it is like to abandon my will to the other's careful, deadly hand and the impartial whip that will obtain the same truth from me it obtains from anyone who comes under it: to be human is to be a prisoner of your suffering flesh, but your physical senses allow you to catch a glimpse of some other possibility, something free and mysterious. I can only remember concrete details and conversation. Jackie's whip, homemade out of unraveled hemp rope, had little nails in the end of it that she had sharpened by hand. She cut me down. She said, “I don't love you.” I was crying, broken, liberated, and I said, “I don't care. You've never lied to me. I'd rather have honesty than love.”
What a motto! Well, it was our idea of romance. People who said they loved us had done terrible things to usâlocked us in cells, sent us away to a penal farm on a rocky piece of ground that couldn't support the inmates, let alone produce a cash crop, starved us, given us nothing but summer clothes to do outdoor work in the middle of winter. But tough-talking Jackie, whose favorite nicknames for me were “asshole” and “dumb-shit,” Jackie would lie to me about how much money we had to make sure I would eat.
We were quite a pair, prowling the streets, outlaw aristocracy living on bottles we returned for the deposit in neighborhoods where nobody would recognize us, her in that leather jacket, me in my denim imitation. One of her epaulets was missing a star. I wore it on the flap of my breast pocket. When it got cold, she always tried to give me her jacket, but she wouldn't have worn mine. She would have run around in nothing at all. So I never let her take her leather off.
I say, Jesus bless the janes who like them young, 'cause if it weren't for them we would have starved. There was one time when we could've gotten ourselves set up as housegirls, maybe even adopted daughters, by this rich trick who just loved to be the filling in a chicken-salad sandwich. But we were as incorrigible as feral cats, and not about to accept any more adult supervision. We weren't quite grown up enough to make it on our own, but we were bitter enough to know that if something was supposed to be safe and easy, it wasn't.
My inability to conjure up the sensations of an actual whipping makes me wonder if I have any business telling another woman to get down on all fours and put her ass in the air. But I don't have any business. I've been put out of business. Which is why I'm here.
My application rattles in the Big Bully's meaty hand. It seems to be attempting to escape. Good luck. “Ms Mann,” she says, clearing her throat with my name, “how old are you? About twenty-five?”
I am not, but I nod. If they thought I was under the age of consent, I'd really be in trouble, and that unlucky jane would be busting up radioactive sidewalks in the District of Columbia. Ham Hocks, the Wonder Pig, has stopped looking at me. I wait for her to look up, then nod again at her impatient face. I would rejoice if society at large ignored me, but I cannot tolerate it from this petty bureaucrat.
“You've left Item 12 blank. Haven't you completed even one child-rearing term?”
“No.”
“At your age, most womenâ”
“There's no mandatory age for completion of that requirement.” I wonder if I can get away with that line when I'm thirty-five. How about when I'm sixty-five? Of course, I could cut through this shit, pretending to look for a job, if I would let the agency put me on a baby farm, but I don't think that's a good idea. I can't imagine telling some little shaver why Mommy sleeps until dark and then goes for long, long walks with a riding crop stuck down her pants leg. Even if I didn't have to raise the rug rat (and, come to think of it, I doubt they'd let me), it makes me nervous to think about bequeathing my genes to some poor kid who might get fucked up by them. I didn't ask to have these exotic sexual preferences or this rebellious streak that's always doing an eagle on society's expectations. I cope with myself as best I can; I won't willingly pass the same problems on to someone else.
“Well, technically, I suppose you're right ⦠” She finally turned the page over.
I can't believe how long this is taking. Once again, my exasperating need to survive has trapped me in very unpleasant circumstances. In order to qualify for rehabilitation, I must demonstrate that our equal-opportunity economy has no use for skills I presently possess. This is the fourth interview my case worker has sent me to, and if they reject me, I can go on the dole and get assigned to some sort of technical training. This amounts to a monthly pittance that will barely pay my rent. But, hey, I could wind up back here, fixing the air conditioner.
I try not to think about how I'm going to feed myself now that I've fallen into the clutches of the welfare bureaucracy. That tofu-faced social worker is already talking about how I can't really afford the luxury of an individual cubicle and if I am sincere about rehabilitation I should remove myself from the influence of anti-social elements and live in a dorm. I just play dumb, and she patiently, sweetly explains it all over again. I don't know what I'll do. I'll go on, somehow, I'll find another chink to slip through, another crack in the system just big enough for my escape.
“Is Mann your real surname?”
“Well, it's not my original name. But it's a legal change. I wanted to anticipate questions about my gender.” She doesn't get the joke. (My first name is Noh.) She shakes her head, disgusted. I am in bad taste. I have abused a fine feminist law that allowed the daughters of the revolution to sever their identities from the syringe full of soldier's semen that begat them. She resumes reading. It occurred to me that I should be gentle with her. This may be our first time. She's moving her lips. Our literacy rate isn't what it should be.
I think I am completely prepared, but when she gasps, my sweat freezes. I have to force myself to stay in the room with my panic. Well, here we go. Things should speed up now.
“You were arrested on the fifteenth of last month? For pornographic sexual activity?”
“That's why I'm looking for a straight job. I've put the number down there if you want to call and get the official details.” Members of a free society should have nothing to hide from one another, so my record must be accessible to all potential employers, lovers, friends, and taxi drivers.
Her face gets a little stiffer at my arrogance. “I would rather not,” she says, distaste making a little rosebud of her mouth. “I think I can obtain all the relevant information from you.” I'm good at recognizing threats. They're my stock in trade. I decide it's time to give in to my lower instincts and lean on the nearest file cabinet. It creaks in protest, and a book lands on the floor. We both ignore it. “This ordinance covers prostitution and misogyny, and assorted other counter-revolutionary acts,” she lectures me. As if I didn't know. “What exactly are you guilty of?”
“Both. That is to say, the woman who was arrested with me got charged with prostitution. They don't prosecute hustlers, just janes, buyers. They charged me with misogyny since I had hit her. Sexual harassment, too, because of my language. It was a felony since I've been busted before. Public assumption of sex roles. That's a misdemeanor. Some cop didn't like my haircut. But this time they got me on videotape in an alley, so they didn't even need a trial. I wasâ”
“I don't want to hear any more of this,” she says, throwing out one hand to stop me. She averts her face and talks to the shrine. “It seems to me that your major contribution to our clinic would be an exposition on the anti-sexism code. We don't have much need for jailhouse lawyers. Those of us who work here, and the women who come to us for treatment, have suffered greatly from the effluvia of the patriarchal mentality. I don't think you would understand our process or fit into our collective, but I can't make that decision independently. It will have to be discussed at our next general meeting, if we have time after handling the rest of the agenda. I'll inform your case worker when we achieve consensus.”
I feel my temper awaken, stretch, and glare at her. I knew I was going to have a bad time when Ms Homespun-and-Wholesome, cheerful as always in the face of other people's problems, insisted I apply for the janitorial job at a women-only clinic. It had taken me all morning to find someone who knew about the job opening, and it took her another hour to find the application forms and figure out who was supposed to be doing the interviews. They had refused to give me an appointment, promising me that the woman in question would see me as soon as she had a minute (and implying that an unemployed parasite like myself didn't have anything more important to do than wait on my betters anyway), so I'd waited three hours for this cosy little session of a consciousness-raising.
This comes on top of a week in which I've been interrogated, harassed, interviewed, shunted from one desk jockey to another, and stood in a dozen rooms in front of people who despised the way I looked, talked, thought, and got my eggs off. I do not like being told that I am not good enough to empty the garbage, make coffee, and straighten up the literature table. I'm not some moron. After my six years of basic education, I didn't go to a trade school, I made it into college-prep. The fact that I got expelled in disgrace does not make me forget that I could have been somebody, maybe even a doctor.