Breaking Bad: Breaking a Bad Law
- for my daughter
My senior year of high school, long ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, I told my father I had my heart set on attending Sarah Lawrence College. My father, whose substantial wealth was not disclosed then to his children and who complained regularly and dramatically about teetering at the edge of insolvency, ignored my pipe dream. He blocked even a tentative gesture toward independence on my part, when I brought up possible scholarship opportunities. Though a lifelong Republican undercut by my mother’s Democrat loyalty, he agreed with his spouse on the absolute necessity of college for their six children, but balked at my scholarship idea, refusing to have government “prying into“ his taxes. He had “converted” to Catholicism from his Scandinavian Lutheran background for my mother, who, I knew, hoped that I would choose a Catholic college.
So --what was my next move, as a seventeen year old would-be writer, non-stop reader, straight A student, product of an excellent “convent school” type education? With impeccable wrong-way radar, I managed to find the worst college I could possibly have chosen for myself: a Jesuit learnery in Omaha, Nebraska. (I now share alumnae status with the unhinged wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, “Ginni” Thomas, who apparently flourished there.)
I could have attended the University of Minnesota, But I wanted to leave St. Paul, I wanted to get away from my family. Marquette University would have been an ok-ish fit. It was a Catholic (Jesuit) school, with a well-known school of journalism.
But I’d had a bad experience at Marquette. As editor of my high school newspaper, I’d attended a conference with other journalism students, but spent the entire conference, holding my roommate , my best friend, in our hotel room, as she panicked and sobbed. She was having a nervous breakdown. She had been raped --walking two blocks to her home from the bus stop in the early dark a few weeks earlier. She told everyone she was “ok” afterwards, even as she viewed police line-ups - but she was not ok. She broke down that weekend in the hotel. How could I help her? I couldn’t help her. She was the best writer in our all-girl senior “college prep” classes – among brilliant accomplished young women. After that weekend, she was diagnosed with “a conversion reaction” – or “hysterical” paralysis, her legs turned to stone. She remained in bed at home. There was nothing to be done.
My unfounded hope in applying to the Jesuit college was that perhaps this institution would equal or better the excellent education I had received from the nuns at our convent-style high school. The Black Robes, I thought. The Great Equivocators.
And I wanted to escape from my dictatorial father, who had tried to remove me from my beloved college prep courses: Latin, French, Philosophy, History, Science and Creative Writing. He wanted me to take Typing, so I’d have “something to fall back on.”, assuming I’d be a secretary – I certainly would never be a writer! He didn’t succeed in wiping out my advanced class schedule, with Creative Writing ascendant. (I took Typing during the summer at his insistence, hated it and nearly failed.) It was in high school Creative Writing that I first imagined myself a writer. I wrote awful poems but learned how to “revise, revise!” from the robust and rhyming Sister Mary Yolanda. I learned as much from the other students, especially my friend who had stopped moving, who loved poetry and wrote measured lyrics and perfect prose. Together, as nerdy naifs, we affirmed our belief in Stoic philosophy.
My passionate ambition to learn nearly died when I ended up in Omaha with the Jesuits. There was no attempt to hide a gruesome misogyny, a commonplace crushing sexism informing every aspect of student life. In Theology class, the silver-haired Jesuit prof remarked, slyly, to the “men” in the class -- that the “ladies’ should keep their legs crossed. When women’s legs were crossed, he smirked, “the gates of hell stayed closed.” I grew deeply depressed, my grades suffered. The school had only recently become co-ed . I was a homecoming queen candidate --probably I stood out because the ratio of men to women was so lopsided. I had a steady social life but broke dates and acquired a reputation for being “fast”. Without campaigning, I was elected editor of the literary magazine, Shadows. I put together, with staff, an issue of which I was mutedly proud, though I knew few on campus read the journal. I was wrong. One of the poems I’d selected, a witty musing by a young poet on her breasts created a firestorm, a major scandal on campus. All copies of the magazine were confiscated and I was called into the president’s office. The president, a potato-like Man of God in a black frock, attempted to interrogate me about the poem. I asked him why all copies of the magazine had been seized and he said I’d published a “bad word”.
“So breast is a bad word?” I was trying hard to hold on. I noticed that my interlocutor was starting to sweat in his great leather chair – I guessed that he had not read the poem in question, but perhaps had always been made nervous, in fact grossed out, by any reference to female anatomy.
I explained, as if to a child, that this innocent anatomical term in question showed up universally, historically - in various discourses and publications, medical to literary. (I thought of the irrepressible poems of Catullus that my paralyzed friend and I had once translated, stretched out in front of a fire, with our Latin books propped up in front of us. With a dictionary, a “pony” and our excitement, as those jagged insouciant radiant poems coalesced before us.)
“Shakespeare used the word breast” I said, enunciating carefully. (Was it possible this person had managed to live in a world without “bosoms”, “busts”, “bubbies”, “teats”, “tits”, “dugs”, “jugs” -- or was he confusing these more casual allusions with the “too too solid” fleshly reference of plain old mammary glands?) The president looked inspired, then uncertain. “But he only used “breast” in plays” he said.
Not long after this conversation, I had a date with an attractive cocky classmate, whom I didn’t instinctively trust. I had intended to drop the date. He had a very loud laugh and drove a hot car with a Florida plate and a confederate flag bumper sticker. On the afternoon of our date, I realized it was too late for a “headache”. He picked me up, we had a quick bite, after which I told him I’d like to go home, my “headache” showing up out of nowhere. He said he had to stop at his apartment, he’d forgotten something. When we got there, he began kissing me. I pulled away, but he began to force himself on me.
We struggled, I pushed away, then felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. There was someone else in the room. I shouted in alarm. A closet door opened and a lurker, sheepish, sidled out. My date had planned to let this guy “watch”.
The creep slipped out the door. I turned to the door myself, but I didn’t make it. I was raped.
I had been teaching a composition course for freshmen. It was the end of the semester. The Vietnam War was raging. Bobby Kennedy had been shot. I left Omaha the day after the semester ended. I traveled to San Francisco and stayed with acquaintances from high school. Not long after, I discovered I was pregnant. I had no money and no life plans. I was a runaway. Twenty one, all alone, in trouble. And now all the Catholic hell-fires blazed in my dreams, intensifying my terror and guilt. Murderer. Murderer.
I’d somehow found a job as a technical writer at a major insurance company, but kept to myself at work though everyone was friendly.
I began to have morning sickness. Time was not on my side.
I told no one about my situation. I could not let my parents know, they would have disowned me. But I visited a health care/social services center and a very kind social worker there took pity on me when I asked her for help. I was so terrified about breaking the law that criminalized women seeking abortions (Roe v. Wade would not pass for a couple years) that I gave the social worker a pseudonym, panicked about using my real name. She understood my panic. I told her I knew that my only hope was a “back alley” procedure, probably in Mexico, but she let me know that a legal abortion might be available at a major hospital if I could convince a psychiatrist that I was mentally unstable, unfit to give birth - or suicidal.
She helped me register for an appointment to talk to a psychiatrist at a large San Francisco hospital. It took a while to be scheduled. Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking. Weeks passed and finally I was assigned a slot for a “pre-interview”.
I met at the hospital with an older woman who may have been a therapist. I’m uncertain, because she did not identify herself, but summoned me to her office with a distracted wave.
I tried to tell her my story, but I stumbled over words, my voice shaking. I was mentally unstable, I said, truthfully. I was filled with guilt about the possibility of an abortion. But I had no other choice. I had no resources. I could not afford a child. I did not want a child. And I had been raped. No one would have believed me at the Catholic college, and even if they had – they would have hushed it up, blamed me, forced me to bear this brute’s child. I had nowhere to turn. And the thought of a back alley abortion… I couldn’t go on. I sat in front of her, frozen, unable to utter another word.
The woman stared at me for what seemed like a long time. Then suddenly she began laughing. “Sorry” she said. “You’re a nice smart little girl who got herself into a pickle, aren’t you? You’re in a pickle, kiddo, but I can’t help you.” I heard her merry laughter lengthening as I left her office.
More time passed. Despite my hopeless “pre-interview”, I was allowed one more meeting with “the authorities”. I was given the name of a male psychiatrist at the hospital. In the waiting room, there was a young (my age or younger) Black woman. We were alone. I sat next to her. We began to talk, sharing our stories. She had also been assaulted, but by a family member –the attacks ongoing for a couple years. Her tormentor was an uncle, who entered her bedroom late at night, drunk, whispering, fondling her, then lying on top of her. When she told her mother, her mother slapped her face. Now she was pregnant. As with me, weeks and weeks had gone by while she waited for a chance to plead for help before someone with the power to deny or, miraculously, provide that help. Neither one of us was hopeful.
Suddenly there were tears, silent tears – we both stared straight ahead as the tears fell, soundlessly. One of us took the other’s hand.
Jeanette (I’ll call her Jeanette) was summoned first by a secretary, who poked her head round the door, shooting us a lowering “look”. We were used to that look by now.
I wiped my tears on my sleeve. I suddenly realized, sitting there, that Jeanette and I, and all other women in our desperate state, wrongly thought of this system of formal appeal as “help.” It was not help. It was a bad law’s mockery of mercy– a “loophole” provision that exacted a performance from both the “wrong-doer” and her judges.
From the wrongdoer it required a show of abjectness, a fake-voluntary act of self-criminalization, of self-abasement akin to that of a political hostage. “How low would she go, admitting her crime? How far would she crawl, begging? And from the self-applauding, thumbs-up-or-down mastabatory “decider”, there would be a pretense of objective professional evaluation, both psychological and legal: an instant arbitrary “call” of “how” mad, “how” desperate, “how” impoverished, “how” sick at heart, “how” remorseful, did these base supplicants seem? -- and what would be “enough” for a voyeur-judge, allowed ultimate power over a woman’s womb, to cede her a reprieve based on scorn and a barely-masked sense of enjoyment?
I had been judged by a fatuous dope of a crony-empowered old Jesuit for publishing a poem using the word “breast”. Thus the efforts of my mind and talent were censored – and “disappeared”.
Now my body and my right to my body were being erased – because I had a uterus, because I had breasts, because I was a woman. And that was the original “sin”.
Yes, I recall having all these thoughts. I have almost total recall. If this seems unlikely, just remember: I was a nice smart little girl who got herself into a pickle.
I remember this as my state of mind when I was called. I remember wondering if there was another way out because I hadn’t seen Jeanette leave.
The psychiatrist was sitting erect, with his hands folded. I don’t remember his face. I remember anger, like a high unwavering whistle in the air, a dog whistle audible only to me. I was a dog. There was a family photo on his desk: a wife, also faceless, and three faceless kids. A faceless dog. No chance that he would listen to me.
The shrink smiled at me. I didn’t smile back. He scratched his head reflectively.
“You know” he said “It’s unusual to see a nice girl like you. What we usually get in here is trash.”
I repeated “trash”, as if I hadn’t heard the word before.
“Trash” he repeated. “You know, like that one who was just in here before you. There was a long pause.
“Trash – like, shall I say, that Black slut who was just in here.” (For “Black”, he used another word, we all know what it was.)
I don’t remember exactly what poured out of my mouth. It was violent and it rose up fast and encircled the facelessness, like strangler vines: choking off each “nice girl” mindless racist lineage of vile sap. From the time I was a child I knew that race hate was indefensible because it was so spectacularly stupid – its pathetic illogic an insult to the intelligence of anyone conscious. I put up the poster of a black hand clasping a white hand on my bedroom door and my father tore it down in his fear and ignorance. Oh such a nice girl in a pickle, but also smart – smarter than a half-wit college president, smarter than this sleazy fake empath – misogynist, racist – I knew more at nine about this stupidity with a face drawn clumsily on -- each specific image of hate – smarter than this brainless confederacy of bottom feeders.
I remember how he startled away from my rage, dropping fast his phony shrink impartiality: “I should have known better than to expect a reasonable reaction from you and your ilk – your pit of loose morals –sleep around and claim rape? Got caught out, sister, don’t even know his name?”
So far was I from caring what happened next – I’d blown up any chance I’d had for fair “adjudication” – imagine my surprise when the unthinkable occurred. Imagine my surprise to learn later, after exiting another way, following Jeanette’s lead, that I had been granted a “safe” hospital abortion – because of my “aggression, hostility, threatening and violent behavior towards Dr. Whomever” – ergo, madness.
I managed to find out that Jeanette’s appeal had been approved as well.
What followed was both predictable and the opposite. Predictable were the orderlies mopping floors outside the curtained examination rooms calling out “Murderers!” Not predictable was the abbatoir of a labor-like abortion – the result of my long bureaucratic wait. How I covered myself with blood as I crawled on the steel table, so that I would never forget any part of it – though I was given a drug to make me “forget”.
After my youthful disturbed history among the Jesuits – the ultimate irony occurred. The college invited me, years after my literary magazine debacle and my awkward disgrace – to come to campus to accept their “highest” alumni award -- in recognition of my publication and prize resume, blah blah. Because my parents learned of this honor and arranged to attend the ceremony, I relented, stopped saying “no” and showed up with Mom and Dad. The new “guard” of black robes applauded my speech, (in which I hailed my education there as equipping me for “any crisis of the 12th century”) but a couple older priests, whom I remembered, could call up no trace of me in their records. No record of the Shadows censoring and seizure, my having been called on the carpet of the dimwit president and our “breast” debate, no record of my teaching freshmen then disappearing. It was as if I was a ghost returning to haunt – except I was a “who?” spirit without identity.
Yet this was oddly liberating in a way. I had always wanted to attend Sarah Lawrence – perhaps in a wishful summoning of an alternative universe my bad college memories would naturally be erased – and I’d travel back through time to begin again. And the Jesuits would go on searching for a young woman they’ll never find - because she never actually existed for them. I was never real to them at all and I wasn’t real in their new acknowledgment. But my doppelganger is walking down a street somewhere – and her story is the one I just related – the one where I am indeed real - as real as any woman – and like all women who attempt to fight back, I have survived so far.
Before Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973 – stories like mine and Jeanette’s were not unusual. Because we were pregnant, whatever the circumstance – we were considered criminals for seeking an abortion. A woman, whether impregnated by rape or by chance when birth control failed, or simply having made the decision not to have a child for whatever reason, including to control (or save) her own life and right to decide reproduction – became a criminal if she exercised choice. In 2022, after fifty years of legal abortion, we are in danger of returning to that Dark Age once again.
Debemus repugnare.
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Thank you, Carol, this is a powerful and frightening reminder of what we're heading back into.