The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad (19 page)

Both fighters nod.

The referee continues, “Return to your corners, and come out swinging. May the best man—by which we mean the most Holy Man of God—win!”

Both fighters retreat to their corners. The leader of MAWAR rings a bell. Both fighters step to toward the center.

Ezekiel lands the first blow by stating, triumphantly, “Deuteronomy 21:11! It says there that when God helps you kick some heathen ass, and you see some really hot chick, you get to take her home to be ‘your wife.'”

The MAWAR and LAWAR crowd cheers.

Sam nods thoughtfully.

The cheering grows even louder.

Sam says, “So you're equating rape with marriage?”

The crowd clearly thinks this blow landed directly on Ezekiel's solar plexus, as they fall silent, stunned.

But Ezekiel is unfazed. He says, “Read some books, Four Eyes. Deuteronomy 21:14 answers that one: if she's not a good lay, you can send her packing back to Mommy and Daddy, but can't sell her as a slave. So rape only equals marriage if she's fuckin' hot!”

The referee waves his candy-striped cane and says, “Two points to Ezekiel.”

Ezekiel moves in close for a body blow: “Ready for another one? The whole fuckin' story of Genesis 19!”

More cheering.

He pushes home the attack, “Lot lived in . Angels came to town, and them fuckin' sodomites—get it?—wanted to rape them angels, but Lot said no, you can't have them angels. Instead you can have my two daughters. Did Lot pull out any knitting needles? Hell, no, bub. God woulda turned his ass to salt.”

Sam looks dazed.

Ezekiel moves in for the knockout punch. “Now let's go back to Deuteronomy, Academic-boy. How about a little Deuteronomy 22 action? The whole fuckin' chapter.”

Sam is up against the ropes.

Jasmine shouts, “Do something!”

Ezekiel offers a flurry of verses, “How about the story in Numbers 31, or Second Samuel 12:11-14? Judges 21. You want more, boy? You had enough?”

Sam stutters, “I …”

Ezekiel is relentless. His flurry is staggering Sam. Ezekiel says, “There's plenty more where that came from. We got us some Zechariah 14, verses 1 and 2. We got us some …”

Sam leans over the ropes and says to Jasmine, “I have a secret weapon at my disposal.”

Ezekiel hears him, crows, “Bring it on!”

Sam staggers away from Ezekiel, but becomes more steady as he approaches his corner. After he takes a standing eight count, he regains his composure, sits on his stool, crosses one leg over the other, European style, puffs contemplatively on his empty pipe, then takes the pipe out of his mouth. He looks absent-mindedly at it for a moment, before he begins to speak. “I must reject not only your logic and your sources, but even your epistemology itself. We must begin with the Notion.”

Ezekiel says, “Huh,” as though hit with a philosophical blow to the gut. Or maybe it makes as little sense to him as it does to anyone else.

Jasmine says, “Your secret weapon is a notion?”

Sam doesn't seem to be worried. “As I'm sure you know, in his
Shorter Logic,
first published in 1830, Hegel wrote that ‘The notion is what is mediated through itself and with itself. It is a mistake to imagine that the objects which form the content of our mental ideas come first, and that our subjective agency then supervenes, and by the aforesaid operation of abstraction, and by colligating the points possessed in common by the objects,
frames notions of them.' You see how this applies, do you not?”

Ezekiel looks stupefied.

The referee waves his candy-striped cane around briskly and blows his whistle. He says, sharply, “Two points taken away. No Hegel.”

Sam doesn't hesitate. He says, “No loss. If we're going to speak of God's support of rape we must speak of the existence of God. For this I prefer Wittgenstein's approach to truth as manifested in his
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,
where he stated quite clearly, and, ahem, this is my own modest translation, that according to the nature of truth-operations, in the same way as out of elementary propositions arise their truth functions …”

The referee shakes his head to stir himself awake, and has to blow a couple three times on his whistle to get it to make a sort of “piffle” sound. He says, sleepily, “Two more points lost. No Wittgenstein.”

Sam continues calmly, patiently, really hitting his academic stride. “Well, then, let us accept that before we can talk of rape, we must talk of the metaphysics, indeed, the metasymbology, of free will. And before we can speak of free will, we must speak of, if I may coin a phrase, metaepistemological exegetic dialecticalism …”

Ezekiel is having a hard time standing.

Sam continues, “I'm sure we all know that, as Kierkegaard wrote, ‘in the interest of ever more highly specialized deliberation'—and Biblical exegetics are nothing if not specialized—which by forgetting—well, I'll skip over that and dash right to the point where we attain …”

Sam looks around, then continues, more and more slowly and quietly, as if to a child falling asleep, “… a dubious perfectibility by being able to become anything at all.”

There is complete silence in the gym, except for the ticking of a far-off clock, and the slight hiss of steam in the pipes, and the faint sound of distant traffic, and the louder sound of closer traffic, and helicopters flying overhead, and jets taking off from the nearby airport, and the thunderous snoring of Ezekiel and several of the members of MAWAR and LAWAR. Even Uncle Wiggly snores fitfully, leaning on his candy-striped cane.

Sam quietly climbs through the ropes and out of the ring. He tiptoes to Jasmine. With one hand he gently shakes her awake while with his other hand he holds a finger to his lips. She grins as he unties her. They step quietly around the sleeping MAWAR and LAWAR members and out the door. Once outside, they start running.

The sensible response to Jasmine's dramatic rescue is to gather at the house of the most sensible person and eat cake and ice cream. So the core members of the knitting circle and friends gather at Gina's house. Jasmine is hugged by everyone in turn. “Sam did a splendid job at the duel!” she gushes.

Sam blushes and smiles bashfully as Suzie beams with pride. Suzie says, “He was just doing what he does best!”

Gina raises her cake in a toast, “That was the enemy's last hope. They've got nothing left. They're finished. We've won!”

Everyone cheers.

Jasmine leans over to Christine, and says, “And you know, his teeth weren't even really that good.”

It is a few days later. Sandy knocks at Brigitte's door. From inside Sandy hears the sounds of Sophie Scholl and the rest of the White Rose Orchestra performing “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

Nick peers between the curtains and sees her. He panics,
ducks below the window, hiding.

Sandy calls out to him, “I saw you, Nick. Don't worry, I'm not here to arrest you.”

He sheepishly opens the door. Sandy asks how he is.

“I'm going crazy, locked up in here.”

She replies, “This is your lucky day. I'm here to tell you that you can come out now.”

His eyes widen. He asks, “What about those cops who want to arrest me? Who want to
shoot
me?”

Sandy says, simply, “They're gone.”

He raises his eyebrows.

Sandy pantomimes stabbing herself in the heart with a knitting needle. Nick grins.

Sandy grins back. She says, “I'm the highest ranking cop left. In fact, I've used my new authority to shut down the police station. I've turned it into the Community Self-Defense Academy. Our new mission is to arm the community for self-defense, and train everyone in the use of knitting needles. You know, to preserve the peace.”

Nick responds, “I love it! And I'm
free!”
He runs outside and dances on the lawn, sort of a combination of a Vienna-style waltz and the Charleston.

Sandy smiles. “Would you like to volunteer at the Academy? We could use someone like you, with your valuable experience of being a Lone Secret Turtle Agent of Death.”

Nick corrects her: “That's Undercover Secret Agent Lone Wolf.”

“Whatever. Do you want to?”

“I'll come right now!”

Nick skips to her car (a red Corvette) and opens the passenger door.

Brigitte comes to her door and sees Nick leaving. She calls out, “Nick! Where are you—” She stops herself abruptly.

Nick asks, “What, Brigitte?”

She says, “Nothing! Bye! Have fun!”

“I will, thanks!”

Suzie and Sam are on Suzie's bed. They are, if you can believe it, still fully clothed. Except that by now they have at least taken off their socks.

Sam says to Suzie, “I know you
say
you want to. But how do I know that you really absolutely positively want to? How can I be sure you're not just ‘allowing' it because you'd feel guilty for rejecting me, or because you want me to be happy even if you aren't, or as a favor, or because you're being kind, or because you're rewarding me for doing the dishes, or for some other bad reason that if I knew about it would be depressing and humiliating?”

She responds, “During this encounter so far, have you heard me sigh, even once, in a burdened sort of way?”

“No.”

“Did I say ‘I want to make love with you' in the same tone of voice that I use when I say something like, ‘Okay, I'll take out the garbage'?”

Sam smiles. “Not exactly.”

“Does my mood seem sort of blah, ho-hum, ehhh—or does my voice seem warm and enthusiastic when I say ‘I'm mad for you! I adore you! I love your hot delicious body, especially with my arms and legs wrapped around it'?”

“You seem fairly warm and enthusiastic … kind of. Can you repeat all that so I can make sure?”

Suzie gives him a playful shove. She says, “Now, to make
this very easy for you, when a basketball player hits a home run to win the Super Bowl, and he runs around with his arms waving, grinning and laughing, can you tell if he's really absolutely positively interested in playing the game, or is he just going through the motions because he doesn't want to hurt the other team's feelings, or because they did the dishes?”

Sam muses, “I think if he kissed the other team in a passionate way, and maybe tore off their uniforms in his eagerness to get as close to them as possible, and licked their ears, then I'd really be absolutely positively sure he wanted to play.”

They kiss, and finally the clothes begin to come off. Rather quickly. I do believe they set a U.S. and perhaps a world record for the fastest-ever removal of clothes.

Brigitte is walking toward the cheese factory. Today is Gaperon day, and the smell of cream, peppercorns, and garlic is already making her salivate. She is humming and swinging her tote bag.

She sees people laughing and smiling. She sees couples (of all gender combinations) holding hands, walking, sharing milkshakes with two straws. She sees someone she recognizes from pre-knitting-circle fashion advertisements as a supermodel eating a huge piece of cake. She walks past burned-out porn stores and high-fashion boutiques. She walks past a garbage can that overflows with broken high-heeled shoes. Brigitte smiles and says hello to passersby, and they return her greetings.

Jasmine and Suzie walk along another street, also on their way to the cheese factory. They've never before tasted this particular cheese, but the smell wafting through the city is so good they know they will love it.

In the sunlight the two beautiful young women, filled
with energy and confidence and lofty dreams, shimmer as they always do, from the top of their glossy hair down to the flashes of iridescent color on their toenails. Glittering brightest of all are their happy eyes, as they swing their tote bags of knitting supplies back and forth and chatter together about grand plans, Suzie's boyfriend (who is as adorable as a whole litter of soft baby bunnies), and Jasmine's new girlfriend (well, we're not actually sure if she's her new girlfriend since she hasn't actually called, but she has texted
07734
, which after much puzzling, Jasmine discovered spells “hello” upside-down) and they have met online several times and she's the cutest woman in the world (after Suzie and Jasmine herself, of course) who sometimes looks like a gorgeous bird and sometimes a willow tree).

The women pass a building under construction.

A construction worker notices them. He yells, “Hey! Hey!”

They turn, smiling.

Jasmine says, “Yes?”

He points at them, says, “Your yarn … it's dragging on the ground!”

Jasmine thanks him, and tucks the yarn back in her bag.

All of the original knitters are at the cheese factory. Nick is also there, as is Marilyn, as is Sandy. A plate of the Gaperon has been left out for all of them, with very plain crackers that don't compete with the exquisitely subtle taste of the cheese. They are eating slowly, savoring each bite.

When they finish this act of worship, they begin to knit.

Brigitte says, “Everything turned out magnificently. It's a happy ending.”

Jasmine quickly responds, “For a real happy ending, we need wedding bells. There are
always
wedding bells at the happy ending. From
Cinderella
and
Snow White
to
Bridget Jones's Diary,
wedding bells signify and define
Happy Ending.
You can't have a happy ending without them. Come on, Brigitte and Nick. We're counting on you.”

Brigitte says, “I don't hear any wedding bells. Do you hear any wedding bells, Nick?”

Nick puts down the cheese he was nibbling, and gets on one knee. He says to her, “Brigitte, I love you very much. Will you marry me anyway? Will you make us miserable slaves to each other for the rest of our lives?”

Brigitte gets tears in her eyes, and answers, “Oh, my darling! I love you way too much to do that to either one of us. I'd rather get a knitting needle through the heart.”