Togetherness

During the holidays my large extended family would get together to eat …and drink. A kind of togetherness for them but also for us because the grownups being drunk brought the kids together in a united front. “Fuck them!” was our battle cry and “fuck this” our exit line, before we ran downtown, through the empty streets, away from the house. The shops were closed and there weren’t any cars; we climbed things and kicked shit and hollered and sang.

When we got back to the house the party had died down. We sat around and talked for a while. Things began to loosen up. We talked and we listened to the grownups talk. The united front started to relax a little. The older kids were already in the back room getting stoned. I was too little to join, but liked knowing. Everyone acted like it was a secret.

One night the girls got to talking and decided to do something about an older relative, a real slime ball, who had gotten away with too much. We had all been warned about him but often the warning came too late. Talking about it gave me a feeling of solidarity I had never had before or imagined I could have. We couldn’t tell the rest of the family but decided we would tell the police—just so there’d be a record of it. The oldest made the call, while the rest of us stayed quiet, listening.

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A few years later, 7th grade, Mr. Winter’s class. He told us we needed to move some chairs to another room. So we started moving chairs. But then he said “not you, girls, this is boy’s work; maybe you can go make us some lemonade.” I blurted out something like “huh?” and he said “get used to it, Honey.” The other girls watching in disbelief. We went out in the hallway and talked it over and then we went back to his empty classroom and wrote the words male chauvinist pig in big letters with sharpies then cut each letter out and taped them together into a tall springy pile that would unfurl like a jack-in-the-box to spell out the words when he picked it up. We left it on his desk.

I didn’t go back to class. Instead I got up my nerve and went to the principal’s office and told him how Mr. Winters had called me Honey and sidelined the girls. I was scared. The principal said I’m sure Ernest would never say those things, and that was that. I walked past the office ladies on my way out. They weren’t saying anything but they were shaking their heads. Mrs. L caught my eye and nodded a couple of times. The sympathy of the office ladies was everything right then; I needed it and they had it and I walked out feeling pretty bad but still ok.

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