Songs of the Dead Page 6

  “It matters because of how much beauty standards hurt women. I know how much they hurt me, and I basically fit, more or less, into acceptable.”

  “Acceptable? Look in the mirror.”

  “Thank you, but if I grant a category called ‘beautiful’ then that means that some of us are left out, and what if it’s me who’s left out?”

  “Well, you’re not.”

  “But what if I were?”

  “Look, you’re an amazing painter. That leaves some people out. You’re really smart. That leaves some people out. You understand that civilization is killing the planet. That leaves some people out. You’re attracted to me. That leaves some people out.”

  “Not many.”

  “You’re sweet, but why do you get to say it and I don’t?”

  “Because you’re a man and you don’t have to carry six thousand years of patriarchal pressure on having the overwhelming majority of your worth be determined by whether men deem you fuckable based on how pleasing you are for them to look at. And so far as the painting and intelligence and understanding, those are all things I’ve worked at, that I’ve tried to develop in myself. In contrast, I was born with a certain physical appearance and there’s only so much I can do about that, for better or worse.”

  “You were born smarter than other people, too, and more talented. Those were gifts that were given to you.”

  “But I developed them, and besides, they aren’t based on a several thousand year history of abuse that comes from a power relationship of male watcher and female object to be judged. Women’s intelligence and artistic abilities have not so often been used against them, but beauty is constantly used as a weapon to render women self-hating and ashamed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Here’s my experience: you say something nice about my physical appearance and I’m immediately outside my body, imaging it, not being it. And of course I don’t measure up. My breasts are too small. . . .”

  “They’re perfect.”

  “Thank you. But I’ve been told they’re too small ever since I had breasts.”

  “Anybody who would say your breasts are too small doesn’t deserve to see them.”

  “It’s not just men. It’s advertisements. It’s movies. It’s television programs with large-breasted women looking happy. It’s a constant barrage of propaganda telling us what we should look like. We all compare ourselves to these standards reached by one-tenth of one percent of women, and them only after they’ve had surgery and been airbrushed. And even if you ask those women they’ll say, ‘No, I’m not happy with my body.’ Your comments right now get weighed against years of conditioning that go exactly opposite to what you’re saying.”

  “I still think your breasts are perfect.”

  “Thank you. But then it’s this sort of nerve-wracking pushpull of: I want the nice thing to be true, but it’s not true, and you’re going to realize any second that you were wrong, and then it will be really humiliating. And even if you’re right, lots of women are left out by this standard, and their lives are very pained because of it. I don’t want what I look like to matter. I want every woman to be loved for who she is, not for what she looks like.”

  “And what she looks like is part of who she is, just as her intelligence is, her politics are, her grace is, her outrage is, and so on. To only care about your mind and not your body is just as patriarchal as to care only about your body and not your mind. It’s the same split, only the other half. That’s why Christianity and pornography are two sides of the same coin. One wants the soul and not the body; the other wants the body and not the soul.”

  She thought a moment, then said, “I can see that.”

  “A desire to be close to beauty is not just a product of patriarchy. Everybody—human and nonhuman alike—has a sense of aesthetics. Why else do you think nature is so beautiful? The problem is not in wanting to be close to beauty, but in wanting to consume it.”

  “To possess it. To own it. The cannibal sickness.”

  Another silence, then I said, “I want to tell you a story, about beauty, and about sex.”

  “Okay,” she said, a little hesitant.

  “It’s a groupie story.”

  “About you?” Her voice became colder. “Do I want to hear it?”

  “Don’t worry. It has a happy ending.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Trust me. It won’t make you feel bad.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve never done the casual sex thing. It’s just never interested me, and frankly I’ve never understood it. I remember I was at a friend’s wedding several years ago, and I didn’t know anyone there except my friend. I’m just standing around beforehand and this woman comes up and stands next to me. We introduce ourselves, and then there’s this silence. So I ask, ‘Who are you?’

  “She says, ‘What do you mean?’

  “I say, ‘Who are you? What do you love? What’s important to you?’

  “She says, ‘You don’t ask that question.’ What she doesn’t say, but I can read on her face, is, ‘Nobody asks those questions of me. I don’t even ask them of me.’ Then she shakes her head and stalks off, clearly disgusted. I didn’t take any of this personally: it’s just that if she and I were going to talk, I wanted to talk about something real; I wanted to know who she was. Anyway, I later learned that that night she got drunk and had sex with—I guess fucked would be the more accurate term—some guy she met that day. The whole thing kind of confused me, because I couldn’t understand how someone could find even the most basic conversational intimacy threatening, yet be prepared to take another person into her body.”

  “That reminds me,” Allison said, “of something I read a few years ago. It was an anarchist analysis of sexual behavior of college students. It seemed so true that I’ve never forgotten it: ‘Sexual activity, long repressed, is now tolerated within the context of relationships which could only be described as masturbatory. If it had any meaning, if it opened up new realms of communication, sex would be a force antagonistic to schooling—instead it is a safety valve.’”

  “Of course that applies to more than college students.”

  “And of course it applies to more than schooling. We can just change one word and that last sentence still works: ‘If it had any meaning, if it opened up new realms of communication, sex would be a force antagonistic to civilization—instead it is a safety valve.’”

  I’m sure you can see why I fell in love with her.

  She said, “But you haven’t said anything about groupies yet.”

  “I’d been told before I went on my first book tour that I might encounter groupies. My feelings about casual sex notwithstanding, I didn’t want to prejudge. I wanted to remain open to finding out what I really thought about all of this—and once again, Allison, don’t worry, it all ends up cool. So the first night on the first tour I end up talking after my gig with this amazing activist who spent a lot of the seventies underground as a violent revolutionary. We have a great conversation that lasted till three or four. It would have been inappropriate for the conversation to turn sexual for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that she’s a lesbian. But there were other reasons, too. I go to the next town, do the noon gig, then sleep till evening. That night I had another talk, and then afterwards I am scheduled to do an interview at a pirate radio station. I’d spoken with the people who would be interviewing me, and I knew the conversation would be good. Well, that night at my talk there was a woman sitting in the front row who is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I’d say she’s about one five-hundredth as beautiful as you, which should let you know how gorgeous she was. She was as beautiful as a tree or rock or bird. She was just blessed that way, as you are. She spends the whole talk giving me the look, and afterwards I announce to the crowd that I am hungry, and ask if anyone would like to go with me to get something to eat. She is the only one who sticks around. But I have the interview, so I call the stati
on to get directions—because it’s a pirate station they don’t give out directions beforehand. No one answers. We go to dinner, and it takes about ten minutes for the conversation to devolve to, ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ Hers is ‘that classic, Top Gun.’ She is still very interested in me. So I had a stark choice: I could either have sex with a physically beautiful woman with whom I had no interest in having a conversation, or I could have a great conversation about things that matter with the people at the radio station.”

  “And?”

  “I went to the payphone and called the station. They answered and I got directions. I realized that night that the important thing to me is not and has never been sex. The important thing to me is the conversation, and if it’s appropriate for our bodies to enter the conversation, as it has been for yours and mine, so much the better. I don’t want you because you are beautiful. I want you because of who you are, which includes but is certainly not limited to your beauty.”

  “I realized long ago,” Allison said, “that I could never make love with anyone who didn’t understand that the dominant culture is killing the planet, or with someone who couldn’t make love with trees, rivers, stars.”

  Years later, long after I learned about Jack Shoemaker, long after I experienced first-hand what he does, long after what he did to Allison, to me, to others, long after I learned about Nika, I learned also that Jack had said to Nika much the same thing I’d said to the woman at the wedding, and Nika had given him much the same response. For some reason—I think because the horrors I’d seen and experienced were too large, and even years later still too raw, for me to allow myself to fully feel—the parallel behavior shared by Jack and me tore me up inside. My horror at that seeming similarity became a stand-in for those other, stronger feelings. I wanted, for obvious reasons, to have nothing in common with him. I felt dirty, and for a time I couldn’t bring myself to ask people who they were, what they loved, or what made them happy. It felt as though there was something wrong in this simple act of communication and interest, something intrusive. That feeling lasted maybe a year. Still later, though, I realized that there was something else going on here, something central to the workings of this culture, something central to the workings of the entire cannibal sickness.

  The room is barely lit. The woman lies on a metal table. Her hands and feet are cuffed to the table’s legs. She feels plastic beneath her. She has been here a long time. She says to the silhouette of the man standing at the foot of the table, “You don’t have to do any of this. I will give you sex.”

  “Do you think this is about sex, Nika? You don’t understand anything. It’s not about sex at all.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  Silence.

  “I want you.”

  Silence.

  “More than I’ve ever wanted anyone. I’ve never even wanted anyone before. I want you more than life itself.”

  Silence.

  “I am yours, to use however you want.”

  A warmth in the groin.

  “I want you to use me.”

  Not a pressure yet, but soon. Soon.

  “Because you are powerful. Because you are a man. Not like other men. A real man.”

  A swelling.

  “I was nothing before you.”

  More.

  “You saved me from myself.”

  Hard, harder, hard as steel. A steel rod.

  “You,” she hesitates, then repeats her last sentence, “you saved me from myself. You saved me from the, um, horror that was—”

  He slams his hand down on the table. “No! You never get that right. It’s ‘You saved me from the chaos of life, the horror of who I was. You are the only man for me.’”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, Silence.

  “Don’t,” she says.

  The warmth, the steel, the pleasure, the calm, everything is gone. “You’ve ruined everything, Nika.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Allison says, “I lied to you.”

  “Okay.” Noncommital.

  “Or not so much lied as told only part of the truth.”

  I wait.

  “Because I am attractive, and because that has cost me dearly, not only because I want to be noticed—and for some fucked up reason I want to be noticed even by those I don’t want to notice me—but far more because of what it has cost me when I am noticed. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be hired for a job, and then not to know whether you were chosen because of your talent or your looks? And to want so desperately to have someone recognize your talent—because you’re a young artist, and still developing, and like any young person needing the strokes of your elders—only to lose that position when there are certain positions—as in legs spread— you won’t assume? And to have that happen not once, not twice, but again and again? To have boss after boss after boss presume that his position of authority carries with it rights of sexual access? And to say No, and No, and No, and No, and to have those unheard so many times that you just get tired and your Nos turns into Maybes, which is all the encouragement they need to keep pressing, pressing, pressing? To have a landlord tell you that you can forget about the rent if only you. . . . And so you move, and the next landlord says the same, and the landlord after that. Where do you move to get away from the attention? Maybe that means you shouldn’t rent. But when you find some land you want to buy, the realtor suggests that instead of getting a mortgage you find a sugar daddy to take care of it for you. I’m not making this up. ‘Use your assets,’ he said, looking me up and down. Not that it matters, but I was already an established artist by this time, and taking home more than he did: even by the wretched capitalist valuation system I was ‘worth more’ than him, not even including my orifices. Can you imagine what it’s like to not even be able to stand in line at a grocery store without men telling you they wish they had X-ray glasses? To not go anywhere without men looking at you, undressing you, telling you what they want to do to you. I know that men feel entitled to the bodies not only of women they perceive as attractive, but to the bodies of all women—more or less all of my women friends have been sexually assaulted at least once if not more—but there’s an added danger to being conspicuous.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  Neither of us says anything for the longest time.

  Finally I ask, “What can I do? How can I help?”

  More silence. It stretches. Allison doesn’t look at me, and I look away, too. At the edge of my vision I see her chest rise and fall with each breath.

  She takes air in, holds it, then says in measured syllables, “I’m still lying to you.”

  I know enough to wait. I still look away. After a time I look at her, at first not at her face, but at the movement of her chest, then up, to her chin, her cheeks, her eyes.

  “My sophomore year in college I had a class called Philosophy of the Enlightenment. The teacher paid me way too much attention, wanted to conference too often, sat too close during the conferences. It was a night class. One night I was the last student conferencing. We were probably the only people in the building, certainly the only ones on the floor. He shut the door behind me. Usually he left it slightly open, which I believe was department policy. I should have gotten up and re-opened the door. I should have gotten up and walked out of the building. There are many things I should have done. I didn’t. I sat down. He sat next to me, too close of course. I remember that several times he brushed his arm against mine as he looked over the paper we were supposed to be talking about. And then he told me I was beautiful. I should have gotten up and walked out, but I didn’t. For a long time I hated myself for doing nothing. He said it again. Put his hand on my arm, held it there. I put my paper in my pack and stood up. I took one step and he pushed me against the wall. I told him No. I told him so many times. But I should have screamed. I should have kicked him. I kept telling him No. He held me th
ere with one hand on my throat. I kept saying No. I didn’t scream.”

  I look in her eyes. She’s still not looking at me. I don’t move. I’m scared to reach to take her hand, scared to do the wrong thing.

  “The class was misnamed. It should have been Gender Relations 101.”

  I don’t know what she wants me to do. I don’t know what to do.

  “I didn’t tell the police. I should have screamed. I should have kicked him. I never went back to class. I got an A. I guess I passed Gender Relations 101 with flying colors.”

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath. I open them again.

  “I was young. And nobody would have believed me. Not the cops, not the other students. Nobody. They would have thought it was like that horrible movie Oleana.”

  “Which is exactly why Mamet wrote it.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Of course.”

  She nods, sits silent, then says, “After that I started taking self-defense classes. If that happened now I’d slit his fucking throat.” She reaches into her pack, pulls out a knife, opens it, shuts it, puts it back.

  I think for a long time before I say, “I would help you do that, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  I think some more, then say, “I do.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “He’s not worth it now. Or maybe he is. He’s probably still doing this to other young women. Someone should do something. I just don’t know that he would be worth the risk right now, to me or especially to you.”

  “You did nothing wrong, by the way.”

  “I should have screamed.”

  “Someone once told me that we almost never get mad the first time something bad happens. That first time we’re so surprised that we don’t know what to do. Then afterwards we stew and reflect, and so the next time we’re prepared.”

  “Some of us don’t learn after only one time.”

  “I don’t und—” I stop, then say, “I’m sorry.”

  “I think the worst part is that all throughout he kept saying over and over how beautiful I am, and how he didn’t do this with— can you believe he actually fucking used the word with, and not to— all of his students, but that I was so beautiful. Beautiful, he said. So so beautiful.”