Taking It Back

I’m definitely what society at large would consider plus sized considering I fluctuate between a 12 and 16 depending on how well I’m doing at the time cutting calories down to nothing and doing some kind of exercise in between. It’s been that way since high school. It’s who I am, and it’s been a long, hard-fought war with accepting myself as is and with the fact that I’m never going to be thin. I have this shape and this body, and as long as I work actively to be healthy, I’m okay with it (most days…okay some days). I try, anyway.

But what the fuck is plus-sized anyway?

I’m fine with the terminology, I guess. It helps some people on their journey just like reclaiming the moniker “fat” has helped others while still different folks prefer to say they have fat and are not fat. I just don’t get what we’re actually trying to say with that particular phrase “plus-sized.”

Is it a normal body plus some extra?

An acceptable body plus some pounds?

Plus some extra fabric for our clothes?

Is our fat our plus one on our invites and R.S.V.P.’s?

Plus what exactly?

“Plus sized” has never exactly come with a positive connotation since fat people, women especially, are constantly shamed about even a few extra pounds by men whose egos are overinflated and whose constant struggle in life is calling women sluts who won’t give them what they think they are owed. The more people fight for the right to be respected no matter how much they weigh, a right to take up space and exist without being shamed for something that’s often out of their control, I can’t help wondering what exactly we’re adding on here when we say “plus.”

I. Am. Not. A. Human. Plus. My. Extra. Weight.

I am just a human being with all the complexities that comes with it including a little extra weight over society’s standard definition of “normal.”

I don’t bleed adipose cells.

I don’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and it’s no one’s business if I did.

I’m an offense because I exist.

I deserve a space in this world.

So I might just reframe plus sized. I’m a human being plus some extra love, plus extra kindness, plus extra awareness.

I am woman plus fire.

I am feminist plus magic.

I am me plus a raging hard-on to topple the patriarchy.

I am everything your mama warned you about plus a caring, loving mother myself.

I am flawed in so many ways plus a little side of perfection.

I am enough plus a handful of sass and a nice ass. Rhymed intentionally.

I am the universe in one curvy, soft body—star stuff plus wit, sarcasm, and coffee.

Yes, I have fat, but I am not nor will I ever be a human plus your punching bag, verbal or otherwise.

Sit. The. Fuck. Down.



<3

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This was my 3rd time back with Sunday Confessions, a blog challenge hosted by More Than Cheese and Beer. The links to the other submissions can be found below. Feel free to join in--the link is open all week. Our prompt is "plus."

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Vigilante Heroin

Elizabeth shifted her purse from her left to her right shoulder and quietly slipped her right hand inside searching out the cold metal of the handgun she kept there. The weight of it in the bag was comforting, but once she felt the textured grips under her fingers, the world around her calmed.

She was hungry.

She only knew of one thing that would quell her appetite, and he was walking about a block ahead of her.

She had really been curious the first time she followed a man like this late at night, and it was a little unnerving how easily it could be done. She had yet to have any of these guys notice her until it was too late. It was so different than the world she knew as a woman walking with her keys between her fingers even in the daytime if she was at the bus stop for any length of time, having illegal pepper spray because getting in trouble for that was way better than the alternative for not having it… being hypervigilant, keeping covered, never walking anywhere with headphones on or with your nose buried in a book because taking focus from the world could end with death. And that night, the first night, she just wanted to know if the world worked the same for him after she sat in a coffee shop and watched him hassle the barista for her phone number then call her fat when she turned him down. She watched her devolve into a snotty, teary mess after he threw his coffee at her and stormed out. And she followed him. It wasn’t reasonable or rational or a good idea, but deep down, this rage she had never felt before welled up blasting out of her pores. She was angry at him, yes, but she was angrier at herself for being too afraid to step up and say anything.

And by the end of the night, she said a lot.

Back then she didn’t have a gun. That was a new thing. Back then it was just the illegal pepper spray and a rape whistle. At the time, it was enough, though. She followed the guy a few blocks into a parking garage with her pepper spray in hand, and just before he got into his truck (because of course it was a huge truck), she whistled at him from just beyond the tailgate. He turned, and she got him good right in the eyes. She doesn’t even remember now what she actually said to him as he rolled on the ground screaming, but she faintly remembers threatening his life if he so much as thought about doing to another woman the way he did that barista.

The anxiety she felt afterwards was indescribable. Would she get in trouble? Would he be able to track her down? What if the pepper spray hadn’t worked? What if she missed? What if he hurt her? Why did it feel so fucking good and make her feel so goddamned happy? What was wrong with her? She was a writhing mass of emotions that ate away at her like blowfly maggots.

After awhile she couldn’t get the rush out of her mind--that heady feeling from the sheer power and control she had. For the first time in her life, she felt like she had an inkling of what it might be like to be a dominatrix, but she was also getting justice or at least that’s the way she saw it. Vigilante justice, maybe, but it still made her feel good to do something and to fantasize about doing it again. Like some kind of feminist antihero. Like Deadpool but less angry.

So when she was out at a bar a few weeks later and saw a guy grab a girl’s crotch and yell “TRUMP THAT PUSSY” she did it again. He got kicked out of the bar, and she followed, sprayed him, and unleashed a torrent of obscenities about his behavior. It wasn’t long before she had another opportunity, and next thing she knew, it had been a year and she had left probably a half a dozen potential felony charges in her wake.

But the last couple months had been different. She’d been watching this guy up ahead of her for at least 6 months getting to know his habits. He was the boyfriend of her new coworker at the vet hospital. She’d never gone after someone she knew but this was different. She had seen Maven come in far too many times with bruises on her arms, her throat, with too many excuses for black eyes and swollen wrists. The girl was clumsy, sure, but that couldn’t explain the teary mornings, the fear in her eyes when someone raised a hand near her for any reason (and never to hit her, not at work). It couldn’t explain the excuses she gave when they all went out after work for drinks, and it damn sure didn’t give a reason for the times they worked late together when he, Stephen, would call screaming at her and accusing her of sleeping with the male employees.

This was different. This time it was personal.

Maven wouldn’t leave him. They had all talked to her about it last week, had an intervention of sorts. She was too scared to leave. She knew the chances he would hurt her seriously after she left were higher than staying. She had done her research… That’s the thing. She wasn’t stupid, and he hadn’t been this obvious when they got together. She turned a blind eye to the problems when they first happened because back then it was easy to make excuses. Tying their financial accounts together seemed like a logical step, and when he spent their money carelessly then chastised her for so much as buying a coffee, she chalked it up to depression. He’d get help and take medicine then get off it when he felt “fine.” Every time she caught him cheating or in a lie, there would be a honeymoon period that made her question everything. Things didn’t start at this point, in other words. They built slowly until Maven’s life was such a tangled mess she didn’t really have hope of ever getting out of it.

What other choice was there then?

Tonight, Maven would be free, and the world would finally shift in her favor no matter the cost.

Elizabeth was starving for the adrenaline rush, for the sense of good she felt afterwards, and as much as she wanted to pretend this was for Maven, she also, down deep, this had nothing to do with an altruistic need to save. She wanted blood.

Up ahead, Stephen ducked into the parking garage near his side chick’s place.

Showtime.

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This blog post was for Sunday Confessions, a weekly blog challenge hosted by More Than Cheese and Beer. The link up is below. Be sure to check out the other submissions!

An InLinkz Link-up

Not So Politically Charged

I’m the kind of person that often makes politics the center of my life. And by “often” I mean like political and sociopolitical issues are my life. But recently, I have had to take some steps back from a lot of what is going on in the United States. Part of me feels guilty for it, but part of me knows that going strong the way I have about other things has made me burned out.

I can’t say the last 8 years when my interests really grew were perfect. Obama wasn’t an infallible leader by any means. Sure he was charming and put forth bills and executive orders that aligned, if not fully mostly, with my core beliefs and values. When I was outraged at something that happened in this country, it usually wasn’t coupled with fear that this IS our country. I might have known that the issue wouldn’t be addressed the way it needed to be, that these things wouldn’t be fixed overnight, but I wasn’t terrified that we, as a people, were devolving, going backward, fucking time traveling back to a time when hate was worn like a uniform out in the open, brazenly, when it was something to be proud of…

All that changed this year when 45 was elected. Being a woman, not exactly a straight one, has put a lot of issues in the public eye that I thought we were moving past as a nation. I mean, who would have thought in 2017 rational people would be like, hmmm, maybe we should let literal Nazis have a platform to speak on college campuses, maybe we should engage them and sway them from actual genocide with, you know, internet infographics and arguments.

But here we are.

Here we are with a President who has given confidential information to another country not exactly known for being, you know, all about freedom and shit. But who cares because at least he doesn’t have a vagina? Amirite???!!?

BUT HER EMAILS, THOUGH. Her fucking emails!

Like seriously, Trump is under criminal investigation for obstruction of justice AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. And I don’t even think it’s the worst thing he’s done so far nor will it be the last investigation. If Trump is impeached or resigns or worse, what then? Pence? That might even be worse. He’s not as hotheaded, but unlike Trump he isn’t in it for the attention and the praise. He has an agenda, and I don’t think we have even half a clue how deep it goes.

So things have changed for me. Where I had room to be outraged, opinionated, and outspoken about big issues like police brutality, systemic racism, feminism, body acceptance under Obama, everything is so insane lately that I’m not sure where to even start. What the fuck do you even talk about these days? Which issue? Which bill? Which ineptitude? Which country he pissed off? Which attempt to cut off rights for people like me?

I don’t know how to keep up anymore, and I know this won’t last forever. Even now I see things here and there that I have to comment on or share, but for the most part, I am trying to live life and focus on self-care. I can’t avoid real life for long, and it’s a privilege to even be able to do so this long, but I needed this vacation from the madness.

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This little ranty thing was part of Sunday Confessions, a weekly blog challenge hosted by More Than Cheese and Beer who has taken a hiatus lately from blogging. I love these weekly challenges with just one word or phrase to twist into something fanciful. This week, the topic was Center. Thanks for reading and feel free to link up yourself with the rest of us below.

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Interspection

I wrote this piece for a newsletter run by a pen pal and very close friend. I wanted to share it here for Sunday Confessions. Its about a term I coined called "interspection." The Sunday Confession prompt is "give" and since interspection requires you to give a piece of yourself to someone else, i thought it would be perfect.

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I read a story not long ago about a man whose life was saved by something I like to call interspection. This man was fresh out of the military and subsequently entered a downward spiral ending with his decision to kill himself. The night he planned to commit suicide he walked around his neighborhood one last time taking in the sights when he happened upon a woman crying in the rain. Instead of going on about his business like many of us would do, he spoke to her, checked on her, and eventually asked her if she wanted to get out of the nasty weather and have a cup of coffee. The two of them walked over to a diner across the street and talked for a good long while about all sorts of topics. They laughed and pondered life, traded stories, and for a little while forgot about their respective problems. After he came back from a quick trip to the bathroom, he found that she had disappeared on him. In the article I read, this man had recently posted an ad looking to get in touch with this woman because after a full life, he wanted her to know he thought about her from time to time even more than 40 years later, and that the connection he felt in that diner is what gave him the will to go on living.

Interspection is powerful stuff.

We all know what it means to be introspective, to explore our own depths, thoughts, and emotions, but when two people (or more) apply that same level of exploration and scrutiny to one another, you get interspection. Like the man in the story I read, interspection requires letting down your walls and allowing a person see you for who you are and seeing them for who they are as well. It’s a process unencumbered by the usual detachments and baggage that we typically bring to social relationships after a lifetime of experiences. With interspection, you willingly make yourself vulnerable allowing another human being to see a part of yourself that very rarely gets recognition while simulataneously peeling back the layers to reveal that part of someone else.

In that process, you learn a lot about that person but you also begin to realize new information about yourself. You see parts of yourself reflected in that someone else, and you begin to notice things about you that need growth and improvement. It’s natural of course to compare ourselves to others as a way to measure our own selves, a process that begins typically in middle childhood, but this, interspection , is more than a simple compare and contrast type of effort. With interspection, you also form a bond unlike anything you’ve experienced before it. It’s not love or friendship though those can certainly be a side effect; it’s a strengthening of the ties of humanity that reside within us all and a true exchange of empathy.

We live in a world currently where people seem like shimmering apparitions lacking real substance and a full form. You friend someone on social media to get 140 character quips and anecdotes for likes and shares. Photo highlight reels scroll across tiny screens to show us a moment here and there, but is that humanity? Can you capture the full essence of a human being in a couple sentences and a photo here and there? Or even in letters that talk about what happened that week and what the weather is like? I don’t think so. I picture the people I know and even with my deep desire for interspective relationships, I mostly get flickering shapes of others built on the tiny bits of life they’re willing to share with us all… We are always too busy, too absorbed with our own selves and too caught up in daily life to stop for just one moment and truly let go with another human being. We love but keep secrets. We marry but keep up our walls and defenses. We have unbreakable bonds with our children yet still hold back the truths of our existence from them. We are all but ghosts to one another searching for a connection but not able to grasp anything solid.

The lack of connection we feel to others, that inability to full grasp onto those ties that bind us to other human beings is painful not only to ourselves but all of society. When very few people in the world take on solid form, when we fail to be able to truly put ourselves in another person’s shoes and see the world from their eyes instead of just our own, it becomes far too easy to dehumanize others even entire groups of people. It becomes all too easy to become desensitized to the plights other people might face and to care only for the things that are within our own reach. What we lose by focusing on ourselves and our own daily struggles is the critical piece to the puzzle that could begin to mend some of the violence and oppression that plagues our society as it stands now.

Interspection can change that. When we enter the world intent on letting ourselves be vulnerable and intent on strengthening our ties to other human beings on the deepest of levels, we foster empathy, compassion, and even our own humanity. We recognize ourselves in others, but, perhaps for the first time, we also begin to see what it could be like living their life and having their experiences. Opening up in such a way comes with its risks, but the benefits, for each person and all of society, could be incredible. Every interspective relationship could reach far beyond its own two participants rippling out and changing how each person interacts with others, shaping worldviews, and altering the fabric that connects us all to one another.

Take a deep breath, let your walls down with someone, and watch the world metamorphose.

I Loved

Before I post this, I just want to say this is fiction. I have never dealt with this personally and hope that I havent done any injustice to the topic by writing about it. I like to explore characters and potential reactions to life's problems like grief and loss and love... And I honestly hope I never have to know what it feels like to be in this narrator's shoes because I'm not sure I would handle it so well personally.

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“At least we aren’t that bad off yet, right? Fighting each other in the mud for a scrap of water. What kind of life is that?” I had asked her during the first parts of Mad Max: Fury Road. We were home that night, neither of us being too keen on going to the cinema anymore with people on cell phones the whole time, loud ass, disruptive kids, and the recent rash of theater shootings.

“Are we really all that different though? Aren’t we all fighting for scraps while the rich keep the power and the money?”

This was another reason we didn’t like going to the theater, these conversations.

“Well… we have water and no one makes us shave our heads.”

“Shaved heads notwithstanding, does everyone have water?”

“Not everyone, no.”

“But isn’t there enough money in the world to make sure they do?”

“I’d have to do the math on that, but most likely.”

“And isn’t there some random rich white person that decides on occasion to do some charity and bring medicine or food or water instead of everyone pulling together and actually resolving the issues that cause it? Sort of like raining down water from a gushing pipe every now and then?

“I mean…I don’t think those people are necessarily as evil as this guy, Sadie.”

“Some famous guy somewhere said something about the biggest evil being inaction.”

And with that her point had been proven for the most part, I guess. We enjoyed the rest of the movie, but the conversation was done. That’s the kind of thing I remember about her most, the thing I might miss the most except smelling her in bed beside me, feeling her heat, being able to put my cold toes against her calves and start a wrestling match in bed. I miss those moments beside her in bed the absolute most, but I also miss that quick intelligence, the snapshot conversations that didn’t take a debate or hours worth of back and forth. She dropped in and made her point, and that was that. It was like that idea was waiting inside her perfect little brain just for the right moment to show itself.

I’ve dated since Sadie.

Let me rephrase that. I’ve been out with other women since Sadie, but ultimately I end up comparing them to her or her to them, and it never works out. And even if I like someone, she inevitably asks me how I deal with it—having been with someone who committed suicide.

Is there an answer to that question, though? Truthfully, I haven’t dealt with it. Truthfully, every time I sit down to dinner with some other woman, I feel like a lying cheat. I hate myself for it. My heart still belongs to a woman that never wanted to be in this world in the first place, and all I can do is lay awake at night and think of all the things I should have said or done or not done even while knowing there was nothing that would have changed it. Rationally, I *know* it wasn’t the first time she tried to end things and that it was a constant battle for her. I *know* that it was going to happen sooner or later because even when she got the help she needed, it was only a temporary fix. But, the part of me that doesn’t give a shit for rationalization, the part of me with all the feels…that part of me is always and forever going to search for something I maybe could have done differently that might have made all the difference.

I love her. Even now after 2 years in this world without her, I think I love just as much as the first time I ever told her. Or maybe just as much as the 12th time I told her. I did kind of rush into things, but the first time I met her I just kind of knew that I would fall head over heels in love with her. I don’t scorn her memory for leaving me with all this baggage, and I don’t think she took the coward’s way out of things the way her family seems to… What I do think is that I was lucky enough to spend 6 long years with her through the hard times and the best times, through the tears and the depression and through the days when we laughed so hard together that my face ached the next day. It hurts to be without her. It hurts more than I ever thought anything could hurt me, but she was honest with me from the start, so how can I fault her? She told me on our 3rd date that one day she would probably commit suicide one day, and if I was going to date her, she needed me to understand it would never be forever. It was a serious conversation, but I already had a serious crush, and I thought naively that maybe it wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. That’s when I told her that life isn’t worth living without taking risks, and that I needed to know what falling in love with her felt like despite those risks.

She kissed me for the first time that night and cried softly into my neck afterwards.

So how do I deal with it?

I don’t.

I don’t think there’s a way to deal with losing the love of your life. Sure, life goes on and all that. I don’t cry every day anymore, so there’s improvement to be had, but there will never be a time when her memory fades, that I don’t fall asleep at night wishing she was here, and I’m okay with that. I took the risk with her and saw it through, and for at least awhile I knew how it felt to love someone more than I loved myself.

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I hope the strength of my narrator shines through instead of this being seen as bleak and depressing... thanks for reading and be sure to check out the rest of the link ups and the More than Cheese and Beer blog!!

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Teenage Wasteland Mixtape

In my teens, I thought I was a real rock rebel.

I wasn’t.

More than anything I was a misfit, insecure and scared on the inside who paraded around like some kind of badass bitch hoping that everything I thought of myself and everything I felt wasn’t as blaringly obvious as I feared. That was me in a nutshell--always pretending to not give a shit, always hiding behind what I wore and big, scary words. A heart of glass masquerading as a heart of ice, me.

I can say that now that I’m 34 looking and feeling better than I ever have, but then? If this me traveled back in time to give young me some advice, young me would flip the bird and tell this me where to stick it. Young me thought of herself as wise beyond her years not realizing that years are a requirement. Maybe everything I went through did make me a little more mature than some of the other people I knew back in those days, but in no way did I have all the answers I thought I did. No one that insecure in her own skin has the answers to much of anything. Getting over that insecurity, an ever-present battle, is something that comes with time and a whole lot of effort, and maybe just maybe I will have half the answers I thought I did when I was young and full of it.

The songs you might find on an autobiographical mixtape from my adolescence are just as eclectic and confused as I was. In those songs, you can feel my rage from the turmoil and upheaval of my parents’ divorce and the aftermath of death threats against my mom and foolishly moving back in with my dad despite his history of abuse and drug addiction problems. You find evidence of my drug experimentation, of the friends loved and lost, of unrequited love and a budding sense of my own indefinable sexuality. There’s an air of melancholy to it all, to being such an outsider. But, simultaneously there’s a heavy forcefulness that shows just how much I *made* myself an outsider. It’s a soundtrack of contradictions, changes in tempo, and every over-the-top teenage emotion possible. Every song brings up a well of emotions and memories crawling out of locked boxes and dirty hampers and shadowed crevices to both electrify my senses and make me cringe in embarrassment.

It’s time travel that leaves you breathless and nauseated and weirdly nostalgic for days that you’re glad are over.

Teenage Wasteland Mixtape

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit—Nirvana

Did you call that? I bet you did or at least you could have because didn’t everyone who wanted to stand out think that listening to this would do the trick? I think it was supposed to be like some magic pill to take to instantly be about a million times cooler than you actually were at least until everyone took that same pill and it was no longer the edgy thing to do. The lyrics were nonsense, but that made it better somehow. More mysterious to explain to parents. And the naked baby on the cover outraged them which is exactly what made me buy it. I hadn’t even heard of the band, but I was fucking angry. I don’t know that I was angry about the divorce necessarily, but it was so much change, so much fear when my dad came around, so much guilt when I visited him, and so much resentment about my mom moving on so quickly and adding yet another element of change to the chaos and all I wanted out of life at that time was to make her just as angry as I was. Now, I’m not saying that was a fair attitude to have, but that revelation came with time and a whole lot of growing up. Back then it satisfied all my misery and channeled my anger into something I could deal with. That whole album was one of the first times I realized that music could do more than entertain for whatever brief time a song lasted; it can make you feel alive, make you want to keep living--which is something I contemplated a lot in those days.

2. Me & Bobby McGee—Janis Joplin

I moved back in with my dad not long after my mom moved in with her new boyfriend (who has been my stepdad for almost two decades or more than two decades or something like that). It was too much change for a kid my age (12/13) to take one, I guess. I don’t even know why I wanted to in the first place, but I missed my room and the dirt roads I grew up on, the familiarity…I missed home. My dad had his own bar in his house. He built the actual bar and the shelves behind it with his own hands. There were lighted beer signs on the walls and random things to do with dicks. It was definitely an adult area situated essentially in our living room. And, man, did he have a killer sound system. He had progressed from a turntable to cassettes at that point, and eventually got a CD player, but I remember listening to a Janis Joplin greatest hits cassette with one of his many girlfriends over and over and over. This song in particular takes me back to sitting on the kitchen counter laughing it up with her in some of my dad’s old clothes. She told me that day I had a little bit of Janis in me.

3. Say It Ain’t So--Weezer

I listened to a lot of stuff in the year and a half I stayed with dad. Most of it was his music—lots of Allman Bros and the Eagles, Floyd, Zeppelin, the Marshall Tucker Band, Little Feat…all the Southern Rock. But I branched out, too. I had a boyfriend (if you can call it that when you are 13ish) that introduced me to Alice in Chains and Korn and STP. And then my dad got himself a side chick whose son and daughter were a few years older than me. I started hanging out with them when I was just 13 and many of them were 17 or older. It wasn’t exactly the best parenting decision my dad made, but it was far from the worst, I’d say. Trying to kill me was probably the worst. The girl’s boyfriend was in a band, so I started going to their shows pretending I was about a lightyear cooler than I actually was. My life started to resemble something like Dazed and Confused… The parties were in fields, and I was with the band, but I was still Sabrina having bitches like Parker Posey telling me to air-raid when I just wanted to look like I might actually belong there. The band did a cover of this song that was remarkably mediocre, but I loved it anyway. Every time I hear it, it takes me back to the first few times I ever got stoned, listening to music in the middle of a field with people who thought of me as a tagalong they had to babysit while I pretended they actually wanted me there.

4. Glycerine—Bush

I lost my virginity the weekend I before I turned 14. It wasn’t a decision I made or had any control over; that choice was taken from me just like my innocence that night in front of my dad’s bar. I didn’t deal with it very well for a long time. Do you ever really deal with something like that “well?” Maybe not. Either way for a long time, I bottled it in, and lost all respect for myself, for sex, for the idea of choosing to have sex with someone you really love and care about. It warped my ideas about sex in general. I never saw it as special until I was old enough to have sex with someone I really truly loved, but that didn’t stop me from doing it, from seeking attention that way, and from making terrible decisions about my body. In some way, I think I was attempting to exert the control that I didn’t have that night in the worst possible ways. The first person I did choose to have sex with was just a friend, an older boy who was a friend of a friend that I started talking to on the phone regularly and flirting with. That’s the thing of it though. We didn’t even meet in person until the night I snuck out of my dad’s house to screw him in his dad’s shitty white Cavalier. I enjoyed myself in so much as it is possible to enjoy oneself while also being scared shitless about getting caught. Sixteen Stone, Bush’s debut album, was playing in the car and this song in particular always takes me back to that night. I stayed in touch with that guy for a long time, and even now I might hear from him every now and again. There’s a part of me that fell for him in my own way over the years, and a part of me that will always love him.

5. Low—Cracker

The stupidity in my decision to move back to my dad’s didn’t take long to figure out. My dad had moved yet another woman at the house that looked at me like the competition. His drug use had progressed to the point where he was doing coke all the time and sometimes meth. He was drinking more, smoking more weed, and then he got caught trafficking. He was in prison for awhile and married the woman when he got out, literally the moment he got out. They drove straight to the courthouse in the city he was doing time in and tied the knot. He was ever the romantic. He came home worse than ever before, and I knew it was either go or get beaten more. Go or get in an accident because of his drunk driving. Go or let him kill me. So here I was making another move after having dealt with all that and having been raped. I became a really apathetic mess. Truly. I was still getting all As, but I was high more days than not, drinking a lot, still dressing in my dad’s old clothes. My mom and her husband didn’t know how to deal with it, and I didn’t know how to deal with everything going on in my own mind. Depression, zero motivation, a complete and total lack of regard for them and myself. I was a fucking wreck. Taco Bell put out a completion album around this time. Do Something it was called and it was supposed to be full of alternative tracks. This one captured my don’t give a fuck attitude at the time while soothing all the chaotic swirls of emotion. I could listen to it over and over and sing the lyrics and actually get some peace from myself.

6. Loser—Beck

This one, like Glycerine, makes it onto my life soundtrack because it was such an instrumental part of my life. When I moved back in with my mom, she and my stepdad had moved into one of the nicest neighborhoods in this town. It was at that time, at least. Everyone I had become friends with had parents who were struggling to make ends meet. Most of them had single moms barely scraping by. And then there’s me living in this neighborhood with rich kids… So this became my theme song. It was a way to put down the thing that most of us actually wanted—some sense of security and a bit of status—if I had to guess, but I just know it made me feel like an imposter with everyone I knew and strangers alike. I hated it when I should have been thankful my mom met someone that could give her the financial security we never had with my father. You don’t see things like that though when you’re 16 and hanging out with a bunch of stoner kids. I do know that singing along to this song riding in the backseat of a car passing a joint around made me laugh and feel like none of that shit mattered.

7. Stickshifts and Safetybelts—Cake

When I think back on being young and stupid and trying to hard with the people I called friends, this song always comes to mind. I can listen to it now and have a few flashbacks of riding around in a little red pickup with a couple of my friends looking for a place to get stoned and listening to it back to back, over and over. Every single one of us would hold that long note towards the end then bust out laughing and do it all over again. I loved those nights when the song was all we needed.

Stumbleine—Smashing Pumpkins

“Nobody Nowhere Understands Anything….About Me. All My Dreams Lost At Sea….” That line still gets me even now, but in my teenage years the melancholy notes of this song and that particular lyric made me feel less alone in the world. I still get goosebumps when I hear it. I still feel that little swell in my heart from feeling the absolute bitter truth in that lyric while simultaneously hoping that maybe the person who wrote it really does understand what it might be like to be me. I needed that more than anything at the time I got really hooked on this band. I needed that feeling of connectedness especially when I could go into a room full of people and still feel alone.

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I wish there was something I could share, some powerful melody that showed that I made it out of my adolescence relatively intact and unscathed and all would be fine like the triumphant moment at the end of an 80s high school movie, but there’s not. Finding music that connected me to other people and that made me feel less alone in the world was the only triumph that could be had back then. It took me a long time to deal with it, to process everything from those years in a way that left me stronger and better than before, but that’s where I eventually ended up—an improved version of me that made it in spite of and despite everything that happened earlier in my life and a version of me that still embraces her rebellious roots with purple hair, tattoos, and skulls on her clothes. No matter when it happened, it's a win in my book, and I still love laying back, hitting play on a nostalgic playlist, and traveling through time.

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So today is, as always, Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. I hope you will check out her blog and the rest of the link ups. The prompt was low so be sure to join in if you have something to add. 

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The Plan

“You’ve put me in a bit of a difficult position here, Ms. Fernandez.”

Simone looks at him a moment with a half smile curling the left side of her mouth upwards. She runs her olive-skinned fingers through her jet black hair being careful not to snag her expertly manicured nails in her waves and slides out of the maroon silk sheets to grab a hairbrush from the master bathroom.

“Are you back to calling me Ms. Fernandez so soon? What happened to ‘Simone’?”

Her back is turned away from him, but she can still feel his eyes roaming every inch of her naked body taking in the sights of the skin his mouth and hands had just finished exploring. She lingers there letting him look a little longer hoping to break a little of the resolve she heard in his voice. Surely a man this weak, a man that had given in to her, his boss’s wife, in less than 10 minutes, would cave with just the right amount of pressure.

“Well, Ms. Fernandez…”

“Jimmy, call me Simone. You’re naked in my bed. I think we can safely agree that at this point we should be on a first-name basis.”

“But..”

“No buts, Jimmy. Play nice and I might let you stay for a second round.”

She turns then tossing her hair back over her shoulder and makes her way slowly back to the bed. His pale blue eyes soften a little, and she knows she has him. A fly in her web. He licks his lips nervously, watching her climb back under the sheet. His hair had been pulled back and now fell in messy tangles around his shoulders. The sandy blonde beard that covered a portion of his cheeks and chin was a little patchy, but it disguised a weak jawline. He spent a little bit too much time in the gym for her tastes, but she liked the roughness of him. Her husband, Enrique, was a bit too meticulous about his looks. Too smooth, too polished and put together.

The fact that she hated him, her husband, probably didn’t help things either.

The two of them had been married since she was 19 and he was 22, roughly 17 years now. At that time, he was young and full of passion. He had goals. He wanted to open his own restaurant, cook the food himself, and keep things low-key and simple. They talked about having a small family and still living in the city so he wouldn’t have to commute to work. She would stay home with the kids, but they had agreed never to take each other for granted—he wouldn’t act like she didn’t work just because she was at home and she wouldn’t hold the fact that he always had to be at work against him. They had seen those very problems ruin marriages. Simone’s parents had succumbed to the very same ones themselves.

But nothing worked out like that. When he was 24 and still taking business classes at the local community college (the plan being to get his associates in business then go to culinary school), she worked at a Hooters type restaurant to help pay the bills. She would work to put him through school then they would start their family. The work was shitty. Customers always coming on to her, following her when she left, demanding her phone number. The store’s management wasn’t much help and told her it was par for the course. The tips were good though. She couldn’t make the kind of money they needed to get them through this without that job. So, she convinced the owner, Steven, to hire Enrique as a type of bouncer on weekend nights when the crowds were the worst. He would seat people, bus tables when needed, and if someone got out of hand, he would essentially kick their ass out. That was the nice way of putting it anyway. Enrique had a bit of a temper and was especially rough on the guys that put their hands on his wife. But, he built up a bit of camaraderie with all the women after awhile watching over them like a protective older brother. It didn’t take long for him to get a bit of a reputation. That’s when Adolfo Machado started coming in the club with some of his goons.

The first night, one of those goons took it upon himself to grab Simone’s ass. When Enrique tried to throw him out, the two got into one hell of a brawl which is exactly what Adolfo had wanted. That was his plan all along, and the thug on his payroll had acted on his orders when he made that ass grab. Adolfo wanted to see if Enrique lived up to the reputation. He did. Unfortunate, that.

At first it was just a fight here and there, underground fights that paid a few thousand dollars a pop—well more than she could make in a week’s time even on the best weeks, even when she flirted too hard for tips and overlooked the comments and the touching. She didn’t like, had told him she didn’t like it, but he always said it wasn’t a big deal, that they needed the money, and that it wouldn’t be forever.

All of that was a lie. It WAS a big deal. Anytime you get involved with someone like Adolfo Machado, it’s a big fucking deal. They didn’t need the money bad enough to get involved in shit like that. And here they are all these years later with Enrique entrenched with that man more than ever. Their entire lives revolved around Adolfo. What started out as a fight here and there turned into fight nights every weekend then bare knuckle fights once a month, then Enrique was traveling with Adolfo on jobs as protection, taking orders…doing things to people who owed money. She used to ask him questions about what exactly that meant, but he wouldn’t answer, didn’t want to involve her in what he knew. The risks to her life if she knew certain things wasn’t worth sharing those secrets.

So that’s how they lived. She was his wife, but she knew next to nothing about his life anymore. Enrique had risen up to be one of Adolfo’s most trusted. He was gone more than he was around, and when he was around, the two barely spoke. He mocked her when she asked for more of his time and told her if she was so unhappy she could find some other chump to buy her $2000 purses and $5000 gowns.

The man she fell in love with had gone a long time ago, the man who would have understood she would have been happy working every day beside him in a little sandwich shop making bread at 4 am and getting her hands dirty, coming home smelling like garlic and onions and grease. She wanted her Enrique not this stranger who came in, patronized her, then waltzed out to cater to one of the young women Adolfo provided or do God knows what on Adolfo’s orders.

The last time she packed her bags to leave, Enrique told her if she left, she was as good as dead. As far as she was concerned, she had no choice given that Adolfo, she was told, had been diagnosed with and advanced stage of pancreatic cancer and had chosen Enrique to take his place when he was gone. If she ever wanted a life of her own, Enrique had to go.

Simone snuggles up closer to Jimmy nearly purring in his ear about how good he makes her feel. She runs her hand along the smoothness of his chest enjoying it but knowing this charade is just a means to an end, her way out. All she had to do is convince Jimmy that taking out Enrique would earn him the top spot. It was just the distraction she needed to get out of there. She could clear enough money out of the account to set her up for a few months and leave the rest of this shit behind right.

“Jimmy?” she says.

“Yeah, Ms..I mean, Simone?”

“Why don’t you do more for the business? You seem like you should be the one running things, you know.”

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Well, I just finished up an Elmore Leonard novel which might have had a bit of influence on this piece. The prompt was Position. Thanks for stopping by for another Sunday Confession. Be sure to check out the other entries on the More Than Cheese and Beer blog

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A Miscarriage of Justice

The justice system in the state of Louisiana is inherently flawed. I can say that without a doubt. Since 2002, 49 death sentences have been reversed and 5 people have been exonerated. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in Louisiana, 10 people total have been exonerated—10 people lucky enough to get someone to fight and help them prove their innocence. Most estimates suggest that at least 4% of the people on death row are innocent, so given there are 85 people currently on death row and 28 who have been executed, that leaves at least 4 people who are either innocent and fighting for life or have already been wrongly executed by a state that messes up pretty damn often considering how many exonerations and reversals have happened in the last 13 years.

Not only is the system there often erroneous, studies have also proven it to be extremely biased. 32% of Louisiana’s population is Black, but Blacks make up almost 66% of the death row population. Studies have found that if a minority defendant is accused of killing a white person, death is given almost twice as often as if the victim is black. If the victim is a white woman, the likelihood of death is 12 times greater. Even though more than 70% of murder victims in Louisiana are black, only 33% of the victims in death penalty cases are. Those differences are glaringly obvious to even the amateur statistician.

Of the 12 death sentences that have been handed out in the last 4 years in Louisiana, ¾ have come from 1 county, Caddo Parrish, and 2 prosecutors. One of those prosecutors, Dale Cox, has gone on record saying that more people *should* be killed by the state and that death row inmates spend far too long behind bars before being executed. Still, he spent almost a year waiting to sign forms to release a man when evidence exonerated him from the crime for which he was sentenced to die. Time is only important when it comes to killing inmates not when it’s about actually handing out justice. He also loudly denies the existence of racial disparities in the justice system proudly pushing forward to seek more death sentences despite the fact that in his county a white person has never been sentenced to death for killing a black person. Not one.

As I said to a new friend of mine recently, Louisiana fucks up a lot.

In the past couple of months, I have had the pleasure of getting to know one of those innocent men that reside in Angola at Louisiana State Penitentiary, a man sentenced in, of course, Caddo Parrish and whose case was prosecuted by none other than Dale Cox. I originally read an article about him published in the New Yorker and was compelled to reach out to see how I might help. And now, I would like to share with you some of his story and a little about the man himself.

Rodricus Crawford, Hot Rod to his friends, is a well-spoken, comical, and easy going guy that loves to make people laugh. He adores his daughter and lights up so much when he talks about her that you can hear it in his voice. You don’t hear him complain much about anything which is astounding given everything he has been through, but he puts his faith in God and has a huge family that continues to love and support him through the fight of his life, for his life.

About a week after Rodricus’ son Roderius turned a year old, Rodricus woke up to find the baby unresponsive. He called for his mom to help him out while his brother called 911. It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to finally show up to help the child despite the fact that the family frantically told 911 dispatchers that CPR was having no effect. In fact, the ambulance drivers dispatched to the house, when asked what was taking so long, responded without concern that one of the 100 people living in the house probably slept on the kid. When they finally did arrive at the house, the baby was taken to the back of the ambulance, the doors were closed, and the EMTs refused to provide Rodricus or even anyone else in the family with any respect or any answers.

From the start, race played a factor in this case.

When the police arrived, Rodricus was treated like a suspect from the start. He was almost immediately put into the back of a police car without any answers about how his child was doing. Instead of being taken to the hospital to check on their child, both Rodricus and his son’s mother were driven to the police department instead and questioned about bruises on the child’s lip and head. As both explained, the injuries occurred the day before when the baby being clumsy like babies are fell in the bathroom. He busted his lip but after a little ice and the some affection from his dad, the kiddo shook it off and, as his mom told the police, was happy and playing like always.

The police, though, had made up their mind anyway. It didn’t help that the forensic pathologist in this case decided after an autopsy of the child’s body that he had died by asphyxiation due to an acute episode of smothering. He also found bruises on the child’s bottom.

Rodricus was brought in for questioning again that day and again grilled about his treatment of the child. Again, he told the police that he had fallen in the bathroom. He also stressed that he would never spank or hit his child. When the police told him the cause of death was smothering, Rodricus was in total disbelief and shock. He had just woken up the day before to find his child unresponsive and not breathing. In the span of little over 24 hours, he not only lost his child but he was being accused of killing that child himself.

He was arrested for murder, first degree murder, and Dale Cox, of course, immediately decided to seek the death penalty for what he believed to be a most grievous transgression.

There are a lot of problems with the above information, however, considering that there is no physical or scientific way the child could have died in an episode of acute smothering.

The forensic pathologist in this case, for one, knew that little Roderius had pneumonia at the time of his death, but this was a fact that he completely disregarded as having anything to do with the cause of death in this case. Nevermind, he must have thought, that pneumonia is the leading cause of death by infectious disease worldwide for children under the age of 5. The pathologist found cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) and concluded this was caused by smothering.

Several experts have since taken a look at the forensic reports in this case, experts hired by a law firm that has taken on Rodricus’ case pro bono to try and help him prove his innocence. I want to include some key statements from several reports below.

Dr. Janice J. Ophoven M.D., a forensic pathologist with 30 years of special training and experience in the evaluation, investigation, and interpretation of injuries in childhood:

• · “onset of brain swelling takes time and typically peaks at 48-72 hours after hypoxic injury. Presence of brain swelling indicates that the boy’s brain damage did not result from an acute episode of smothering inflicted at the time of cardiac arrest. Complete occlusion of the airway will result in loss of consciousness in 1 ½ to 2 minutes with irreversible damage and death in 4 to 5 minutes. Brain swelling will not develop within the short time period in such an occurrence.

• · “the boy was suffering from a condition [pneumonia] that led to brain swelling over a period of hours”
• · “My review of the autopsy photographs shows a small bruise on the inner aspect of the right lower lip and linear discoloration of the margin of the left aspect of the upper lip. The discolorations have the appearance of superficial bruises. These bruises are not specific for the inflicted injury”
• · “The significant evidence/basis for the diagnosis of smothering came from the finding superficial bruises to the face and lips. In my opinion, the explanation for these bruises was from the fall the preceding day with these injuries verified by the baby’s mother the day before his death. Simple falls are exceedingly common in children in this age.”
• · “Because this injury was considered to be a critical finding in the determination of cause of death, microscopic sampling of the injured tissue to determine the presences of inflammation in the tissue would be a critical aspect of the autopsy”
• · “None of these areas of bruising showed a pattern indicative of abuse and did not contribute to the baby’s death.”
• · About the one tissue injury which was microscopically examined: “this could not have occurred at the time of his death”
• · What was described [in the forensic pathologist’s reports] as early bronchopneumonia in fact shows multifocal areas of acute, purulent pneumonia with an area of abscess formation…that most certainly could serve as a source of bacterial sepsis or spread of bacteria into the bloodstream. 

Daniel J. Spitz, M.D., forensic pathologist and toxicologist, Chief Medical Examiner for both Macomb County and St. Clair County in Michigan

• · “It is my determination that Roderius died secondary to septic complications associated with bilateral pneumonia and pulmonary abscess”
• · “Bacterial pneumonia is a very serious condition which often develops in the background of a viral illness. The symptoms associated with such an illness are often quite subtle and non-specific, however, the infection can be rapidly progressive to the point of causing a child to become gravely ill or die over a period of hours”
• · “The pneumonia that affected [the child] was a very serious condition which resulted in sepsis as indicated by a positive blood culture”
• · In relation to the bruising: “the injuries are of relative minor severity and not what would be associated with causing death”
• · “The small bruises involving the lips are also non-specific injuries and thus to conclude that these injuries represent asphyxia is without scientific basis”
• · “The idea that this child just happened to be suffering from bilateral pneumonia and pulmonary abscess with a positive blood culture at the same time that someone purposely caused his death by suffocation is simply implausible. Furthermore, the facts of this case simply do not support such a conclusion”

It should also be noted that Mr. Spitz was retained during Rodricus’ original trial but did not provide attorneys with information about cerebral edema in his original report. Both attorneys provided affidavits claiming they did not know cerebral edema was not associated with acute smothering and would have brought this information to light at trial if they had known. Dr. Spitz later stated in a second affidavit that, “it is my opinion that cerebral edema is not consistent with death due to homicidal suffocation. Cerebral edema may develop over the course of hours and/or days in response to hypoxia where the patient survives the hypoxic event, but does not develop when an individual dies during or immediately following the hypoxic or anoxic event.”

Margarita Silio, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Section of Pediatric Infections Disease, Tulane University Health Sciences Center. Affiliated with Tulane Clinic for Children, Medical Center of Louisiana, and the Ruth Fertel Community Clinic.

• · “Based on the autopsy report there was evidence of bilateral bronchopneumonia with focal microabscess in all lung fields with an area of necrosis in one lung field”
• · “It is my opinion that there is sufficient evidence of infection to support a conclusion that the child died of overwhelming sepsis”

Robert C. Bux, M.D., board certified forensic pathologist, elected Coroner and Chief Medical Examiner for El Paso County, Colorado. 29 years experience.

• · In regards to the fall both Rodricus and Roderius’ mother stated occurred on the day before Roderius’ death: “ Given the known history of the reported fall in the bathroom with subsequent ‘busted’ lip, microscopic sections of these injuries must be taken in order to substantiate or refute whether the histological inflammatory changes that can be observed microscopically and develop in a systematic way over time are compatible with the history offered as to how these injuries occurred”
• · “Biopsies of tissue samples taken from these injuries to the inside of the lip would have revealed whether they occurred on the prior day…” The indication here is that if these injuries were the major evidence of smothering as indicated by the original pathologist, dating should have been done on the injured tissue in order to substantiate or refute the claims that the child fell in the bathroom. 
• · “There was no fresh blood found on the bedding which supports the conclusion that the injuries were older injuries”
• · “Older infants, toddlers, including a one-year old, and children will struggle against the effort to prevent them from breathing, and in doing so I would expect to see areas of abrasion on the exposed areas of the body such as the shoulders, buttocks, and iliac crest areas. In my experience the forensic pathologist would expect to see more evident trauma in the older infant or toddler such as bruised on the arms, chest, and legs where the child is pinned down”
• · “Only two microscopic sections of the brain were taken. This is an inadequate number of areas sampled and thus potentially valuable evidence was lost”
• · Brain swelling does not occur in smothering as the individual dies very rapidly. Brain swelling is due to brain hypoxia/anoxia and can occur from prolonged hypoxia such as in cases of bronchopneumonia with sepsis. 

These findings shared above are only from *some* of the experts who have reviewed this case in an attempt to help free Rodricus. Not a single one of the pathologists and doctors consulted in this case believe there is any indication at all that the child died from an acute trauma like smothering and report that the evidence shows without question that the illness, bronchopneumonia, is the cause of death. It takes hours for a brain to show signs of swelling and any pathologist *should* know this and should not use cerebral edema as proof of death due to acute smothering. The pathologist also did not date tissue samples. Given how much the case rested on these bruises as proof of smothering, these injuries *should* have been tested. At no time was this case treated rationally or scientifically. In fact, from the 911 call forward, Rodricus was pigeon-holed and stereotyped.

An innocent man is giving up the best years of his life to a very racist system, sent to his death by a prosecutor that wants to execute as many people as possible, by a forensic pathologist who is completely incompetent and biased, and by a jury who was mislead entirely by “evidence” that actually should have shown that no crime was even committed.

At the bottom of this, I am going to include links to a petition and the original New Yorker article as well as some links where I gathered the information about Louisiana’s system. But before I leave you with those, I want to ask for your help in spreading that petition and the article. Show your friends. Tweet it to every media outlet you can. An innocent man shouldn’t have to die in a county that prides itself on carrying out legal lynchings… With that, I want to leave you with Hot Rod’s own words:

“There has been a major miscarriage of justice and now is the time to right this wrong. We need your help. Please read the attached information provided by some of the top medical experts in the nation.

We are not asking you to take our word. We aren’t asking you to believe what we are telling you. We want you to read these reports and reach your own conclusions.

Read this information and try to imagine that it was your son, your brother, your father, your firend, your nephew, your loved one sitting in a cell 23 hours each day. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

What are you going to do?

I thank you in advance for any assistance you may provide. I believe in the goodness of human kind.

Sincerely yours,

Rodricus Crawford.

https://www.change.org/p/caddo-parish-louisiana-louisiana-grant-rodricus-crawford-s-appeal

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/06/revenge-killing

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty#inn-st

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year

http://www.dpalternatives.org/

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/category/categories/states/louisiana

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-percent-death-row-inmates-innocent.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-defendants-innocent

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I often use Sunday Confessions to talk about subjects I feel passionately about. This case and the well-being and freedom of Rodricus, someone I now consider a friend, is one of those things. The prompt was Share and I felt there was no better time to share this story than now. Thank you for reading. 

Closing Arguments

“Morality isn’t an absolute, you see. For me, having premarital sex at any age is immoral, but I realize not everyone sees it that way…”

Jenna watches the rotund attorney pacing before the jury while his hands gesture wildly in the air. She knows without a doubt that she is watching a performance piece. This man with his baritone voice drilling into the minds of the mostly white, mostly male jury was an actor delivering his final monologue in an incredibly dark play about what happens when women say no.

She has yet to figure out if she, the victim, is the hero in this for having the bravery to prosecute this thing, to take it all the way, or if the man sitting at the defendant’s table, a friend of a friend she met at a frat party, would come out the lovable antihero. It seems that if the bigmouthed dick of an attorney has his way, it will be the latter.

“Was it moral for Ms. Banks to flirt like a dog in heat with my client the night the two of them met as witnesses here today have testified to?”

Did he really just fucking say that? Surely she is in some nightmare universe? Did she time travel back to the 50s unawares?

“Was it moral for her to send him gratuitous pictures of her person via Facebook which we have in evidence if you recall?”

She feels a confusing mix of rage and hate rising up in her chest like black, tarry poison. The adrenaline rushes her system like a sumo wrestler threatening to bounce her out of her seat screaming unintelligible obscenities that juxtapose her smart gray pinstriped suit and sleek, conservative blonde bun.

“Did Ms. Banks show any shred of morality when my client took her out to dinner, and she, as she testified here today herself, had sex with him in the restaurant bathroom?!”

Rage gives way to absolute disbelief. The last few days have been stressful, anxious but still so busy she hadn’t had time to listen to everyone and everthing. It had been like a pin pong match with so many back and forths and this and that and arguing, but now this man, this wretched, portly demon with fangs dripping acid, was all she could hear. This. She hangs her head at the realization that this is what she has fought so hard for—to be on trial herself for her own assault.

“Was it morality that drove Ms. Banks to meet up with my client in his room, HIS ROOM, to Neflix and chill as the kids say? Or was it her insatiable sex drive, that unrepentant lack of morality, that same void that led her into that grimy restaurant bathroom to commit an act that should only happen between husband and wife?”

Tears roll down her cheeks, a product of anger and shame, but the verbal onslaught continues even as her ears darken to a deeper shade of red. Several members of the jury look her way, women shaking their heads and men with a smugness that makes her skin crawl.

“I think we can all agree that it wasn’t morality that drove my client to have sexual intercourse with Ms. Banks in that restaurant bathroom. Morality wasn’t what drove my client to invite her back to his residence even after that bathroom incident. In fact, I think you’ll agree that Ms. Banks’ lack of morality spoke to that lascivious part of my client forcing him to abandon any morality he might have had himself.”

Numb. That’s how she feels. Numb, void, nothing. Everyone told her to just forget it. That it wasn’t worth this. 2 of her friends had been assaulted themselves and never did anything about it, and she had thought they were just too weak, too soft to handle it, but now she knows… Now she knows they were just avoiding the obliteration of any faith in humanity they had left.

“But does abandoning morality to be with an equally moral person make my client a rapist? It seems to me, and I hope you will agree, that at no time did Ms. Banks every refuse any of his advances and, in fact, as testimony has shown, she was quite forward from the start. What I need you all to ask yourselves today is why on Earth would my client have to take anything from Ms. Banks when she had so readily and eagerly offered it to him previously?”

With that, he closed and marched his considerable girth back to his corner of the metaphorical ring. With that, the weight of his words hammered down on her heart one more final time, and she weeped unable to even face the jury again knowing justice would very likely never be hers, not this way.

Jenna tucks her dirty blonde hair behind her ears as the judge explains to the jury what their next steps are. The sounds buzz incomprehensibly in her ears as she fights to get her tears under control. Once the courtroom is dismissed, she steps out the old brick courthouse downtown into a vibrant afternoon. She stares into the sky above her watching clouds change shapes and letting the heat warm her face. Part of her wants to run as fast as she can and never look back. She could move. She could hide from this torment and never have to face the resolution or lack thereof in this case.

But she won’t.

Because fuck running and fuck giving up.

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This was hard to write as a victim myself. I never took my case to court for reasons out of my control, but so many women never prosecute. 68% of assault victims never report their attacks. This might be fictional, but it certainly explains a lot of things... 

Sunday confessions. The topic is Morality. Thanks for reading. 

 

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Tomorrow

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

That’s her heart right now feeling like it might explode out of her chest. She’s sitting in the back of a dark SUV between two muscley guys in expensive-looking, hand-tailored suits and mirror shades. One of them has a blonde crew cut and a jagged scar crossing half his forehead and the other has a slicked back, black ponytail. She would call it a nub more than a tail really. These guys aren’t from around here, not this side of town. The two of them haven’t answered a single one of her questions since they grabbed her outside the run-down gas station on 1st and Pine. It was the only place on this side of town that had a cheap cup of coffee that didn’t taste like burned garbage. It was still garbage, but at least it wasn’t scorched. So she had been there bright and early to score her first fix for the day and get ready to hustle for more.

So there she was in her too-big pink hoodie and a pair of ratty ill-fitting jeans just crossing the parking lot in her own world when these two well-dressed goons grabbed her. In broad daylight she was being dragged into this vehicle despite her protests and no one even bats an eye. 3 people walked into the store as she was being manhandled and not a single one even stopped to give her a second glance.

Once the muscle had her safely tucked between them, she jokingly asked, “Don’t you fellas think I’m a bit underdressed for this party?”

Nothing.

“Am I in a Pretty Woman remake?”

Nothing.

“Isn’t Richard Gere a little old for a hooker?”

Nothing.

“Tough crowd in there tonight,” she had huffed then belying how nervous she was becoming.

The last 5 minutes have passed in silence while her heartrate steadily climbs and not from drugs for once. She has been considering feigning an OD or something but at this point, she might just have a heart attack all on her own. No pretending necessary.

She decides to try another tactic and lets her hand slide higher up the thigh of the “gentleman” to her right, Ponytail, and says in her most sultry tone, “what’s a girl gotta do to get some answers around here?” She feels him tense under her touch, but he firmly takes her hand and places it back in her own lap. When she moves to touch him again, he reaches out with lightening speed, grabs her wrist, and bends it back until she’s screaming in pain. Ponytail never utters a word, not so much as a grunt, and Blondie may as well have been a statue.

She sits in silence then nursing her throbbing wrist, breathing heavily, and unable to think clearly enough to formulate any real plan to get out of this fucking mess. Every second ticking by feels like a lifetime, and she wonders if this morning will be her last.

Did she miss her last sunrise? Had she wasted her last night fucking johns for $45 a pop, pun intended, to re-up her heroin stash? Had she not even gotten her last cup of morning coffee? Her last real orgasm? The tallying in her head nears obsession. She had never gotten even her GED, never went to college, never been much of anything but a stripper (and a damn good one) until that sunken-in, strung-out look got her fired. She’d never had never even had a dog. Her last boyfriend beat the shit out of her for 2 years straight which, she is pretty damn sure, isn’t love. Had she ever been in love? Been loved?

When was the last time she felt the grass between her toes? Gone swimming? Had a fresh glass of lemonade? A homecooked meal? Fuck’s sake, when was the last time she even had a Pop Tart? A Twizzler?

She tries to remember the last time she laughed, a real laugh not that fake shit she does when one of her clients tells one of their stupid jokes, and she can’t. That fact sinks in—that she can’t even remember the last time she didn’t have to force a laugh, when something was so spectacularly hilarious that she lost her breath, tears streaming from her face. The thought sucker punches her in the solar plexis catching her breath and hurting so much more than the wrist she still cradled against her chest.

She hasn’t really been alive in a long time.

The SUV begins to slow. She peers nervously through tear-blurred eyes out the windows as the driver turns left into driveway guarded by a wrought iron gate. He pauses, shows his face to a camera, and waits for the gates to open.

A strange sensation, part light and part tingle, begins to well inside her, and she realizes for the first time in a long while, she has hope that she sees tomorrow.

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Another Sunday Confessions prompt that made me terrified I would never be able to come up with something then boom the words fall into place. I would have had this posted by now but damn it I am ready for fall and I am forcing it into my life in the kitchen today making gingerbread cookies. Hope you enjoyed the tale and stop by for dessert and coffee :)

I'm Okay with Intimidating

I put my proverbial pants on one pant leg at a time just like everyone else.

But, after the second pant leg slides on, I hit the ground running, and for that, I refuse to apologize.

In the last several years, since my divorce 7 years ago really, I have been on a journey of the self. I can’t say I was completely naïve before that about the world and about life, but I hadn’t really ever taken the time to figure out ME, to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be. My newfound singledom along with events that preceded and followed it were a jumpstart on that lifelong adventure to growth, self appreciation, and purpose.

In those 7 years, I went from someone who thought she knew everything to understanding that I had to look at the world with curiosity and awe like a child to learn even a tenth of its secrets. I learned I had to be humble and modest. I began to see that there was a time to be open and malleable and a time to be firm and unforgiving. It took time, but I learned that I could be an individual and embrace my rebellious spirit without being angry and in-your-face about it. Individuality doesn’t have to sacrifice and forsake community. And when I learned that, I figured out that the people I admired most were those that cared about something bigger than themselves. I admired people who worked for others, who cared about the big picture while embracing the detail and the individual lives affected by a problem, who wanted to make a difference even if it was only in one life or two lives. I wanted to be the kind of person who recognized inequality but worked to rectify it one step at a time.

So, I went from being a girl who had no real informed opinions, who only cared about things in my immediate vicinity, to being a woman who took on and championed for cause after cause.

It wasn’t an easy transition. It’s still not an easy transition to be completely honest. For whatever reason, being the kind of person who cares about more than what’s inside her own personal bubble really rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I have lost a lot of friends because the person I became along the way is “intimidating.” Their word, not mine.

Intimidating.

When I see that someone has been unjustly imprisoned, I don’t just share an article, I write that person and say, “how can I help?” And then I do it. When I know that someone is going to be executed, I sign

petitions, I email senators and representatives, and I pass along information. I vote. I give money or items to kids in need when I can. I message people and tell them exactly what their stories have meant to me. I rescue animals that need homes and give them a happy one because I have the space to share even though I am rapidly running out of room. I write people in prison because I know that support can make all the difference in the quality of their lives once they come home and share information about social issues and politics and help them grow as much as they help me… I share articles with them, books, photos, stories. We laugh and cry together. Learn together. I reach out to people that society otherwise deems unworthy of human contact and make them feel human again.

So, yes, I am the kind of person who shares article after article on facebook about any number of important issues. I rant. I argue (not just debate), and at times I get heated. I do a lot of talking. But for all the talking, I am also doing.

For a long time, I thought maybe I was supposed to hide that part of myself to make other people feel better since it seemed, so often, to alienate friends and piss them off to the point where they turned on me. Along that self-journey I have come to realize it wasn’t ever really me they were angry at but themselves for their own lack of doing, for their lack of passion and caring. The problem wasn’t that I was the pretentious bitch I was made out to be. Sometimes it takes seeing ourselves as a reflection in someone else to realize what we’re lacking. It’s an inevitable process of self-awareness. If we don’t like that reflection, we either resolve to make changes or we shatter the mirror. The people I knew tried to shatter the mirror—me—by tearing me down, but it was our friendships that were the only real casualty of the violence.

Why should I hide myself to make their position in life more comfortable? We both put our proverbial pants on one leg at a time. If they would rather sit on the couch in theirs, it’s not my problem. I’m still going to hit the ground running, and these days I am far more loud about it than ever.

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Sunday Confessions today! The prompt is Pant. Join in if you want and be sure to check out the More Than Cheese and Beer facebook page on Wednesdays for the prompt announcements! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Karma

“Are we square or what?” he shouts into the swirling chaos of shadows outside his house. He stands in the doorway bracing for more and holding his bleeding hand, wrapped in a burgundy kitchen towel. Staring out into the blackness outside he feels an icy fear radiate from his chest and wonders if he might be going crazy.

The blackness shifts and moves in front of his eyes pulling closer together. His eyes widen as he sees a face shape form out of those swirling shadows that never stop moving. Even with it pulled so tightly together, he can see faintly through to the other side; it’s “skin” seeming to crawl like individual living creatures. It, this living darkness, flew straight for him stopping maybe an inch from his face. He could smell death and decay so strong he thought surely he would lose his supper. That twisting madness floated there right in his face almost nose to nose as his fear grew. His mind runs this way and that looking for an out, for a way to save himself. He knows, feels this is it. He’s done for. A goner. That’s when his bladder gives way, a warm puddle forming at his feet.

The face throws itself back in screaming laughter. One second it is there filling his entire field of vision, then next it flies back howling. He feels himself flushing, growing red and hot, and it howls harder pissing him off in the process. He is standing in his own damn house being laughed at like a fool and bleeding from where his pinky used to be.

“It was just a few hundred thousand dollars from people that never fucking missed it, you bastard!” he screams in desperation shaking his bleeding fist in the air and immediately regretting it.

The darkness answers with so, so many high-pitched screeches as it breaks down into thousands of ravens that fly straight at him knocking him down, pecking, screaming, and shitting on him in the process. For a moment, everything is quiet then the blackness swirls again dragging debris from the ground into its midst in his front yard.

From his position on floor, he sees and lifts himself up on his knees. He puts his hands together in front of his face almost in prayer, “please. Please! Just… I… I’m sorry. I never should have done it. I never should have taken that money from my clients. But it’s gone. I swear it’s all gone. I don’t have any to give back.”

Growls emanate from the swamp of living night growing louder and deeper as it shifts and moves tighter once more until a bear forms, black as coal and impossibly large. It seems like intangible mist and solid muscle all at once as it stands tall on its hind legs and roars again before coming back down on all fours preparing to change.

He screams howling out imsorryimsorryimsorry over and over again. His maimed hand is still cradled against his chest as he pushes himself backward into the house as the bear charges forward. He gets up running for the pantry door making it inside milliseconds before the bear swiped for his face. He held the door closed with one shoulder bracing himself against it.

Silence.

He moves his ear close to the door. There’s no sound. Nothing. Not a hum from the appliances or a creaky footsteps from the bear on the floorboards he should have replaced years ago. No growls. Nothing. The weight of that quiet, the unknown, pushes down on him second by second by second.

He wonders again what is happening to him, how this, this…thing knows what he did with the money. He thinks about the letter he got in the mail, the black bordered envelope with the elegant script sealed with a red wax symbol. The card inside was ebony matte cardstock with vermilion-colored glossy lettering embossed on the front.

It said, “What you stole you must return or it will be taken from you one way or another. –K”

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but it comes back to him now in the quiet. Maybe whatever K was had taken what it came to take. He slides down the door with a sense of relief taking in a deep, shaky breath laughing uncontrollably that it was all over.

He stops abruptly, though, when he sees everything around him darkening, the shadows growing thicker, moving, swirling around him, filling the pantry little by little.

K isn’t done yet after all.

So, yay, we are back to Sunday Confessions! I am totally stoked about this. Today's prompt was Square. check out the other linkups below as well as on the More Than Cheese and Beer page. And if you want to do your own SC post, hit the link up below to link to your own blog!

An InLinkz Link-up