by Kris Radish
Gail thinks a few bottles of merlot, maybe something from Chile, would be good with the steak, and she says she loves those big Brandy Alexanders after a meal like that. “Lots of thick ice cream and an excess of brandy and then some nutmeg sprinkled on top of the drink to make your tongue curl up like a slinky cobra,” she muses.
Alice can't get off the sex thing, saying “a good screw” for the first time in her life, forming the words like a naughty teenager. The women discuss their fantasies with such fervor that miles pass them and they barely realize they are walking.
Alice listens intently, taking mental notes like this is the day before the biggest test of her life. J.J. has always had the hots for a guy she met on a train trip once a long time ago on the way to meet her sister in San Francisco. They had a drink together, flirted like crazy, and she has always regretted not going into his sleeping car and screwing his brains out as the train rolled through the tall, penis-like Wasatch mountains of Utah. Janice relates that she fell in love with one of her doctors about ten years ago. She describes him as a goofy-looking guy, yet with the kindest face she has ever seen. His shoes were always untied, his hair was a grizzly mess. But whenever he talked with her, she got the urge to slam him down right on his office floor because the desk would be just too small.
Chris, who has slept with almost as many men as Sandy, manages to shock her friends by telling them she had a mad crush on a National Public Radio correspondent who shared her room in Beirut. The correspondent was a woman, and although they did some wild necking, the entire process was always cut short, literally, by bombs dropping.
Sandy picks Olivia Newton-John as her secret, wild sex fantasy and that cracks everyone up. No, she says, she had a girlfriend for a long time, long before she had breast cancer and broke up with her husband. The woman is sexy and beautiful, “and she could sing while she took off my clothes.”
Gail claims to have a hard time picking just one fantasy lover: “Damn, it's not fair.” She finally settles upon a tall, older man with gray hair, dark eyebrows, and a voice deep and buttery that made her wet just to hear him. He is a dear friend's uncle, a happily married man who would never, ever think about touching her. “But God, what a man!” she says, and this was twenty-five years ago.
Susan has a hard time even mentioning the word sex these days. She's thinking about becoming a nun, except for the problematic vow of celibacy, but all right, she has someone in mind. But her fantasy is more of a conglomerate—a man with the best qualities of all the guys she would love to claim for wild sex. He has a long blond ponytail tied in a rubber band, no hair on his chest or back; he's probably a professional athlete who has made a lot of money and roams the country just looking for women to seduce. He has dark eyes, and teeth that are so white they glow in the dark. His hands are full of calluses. “When he caresses me,” she describes, “especially on the face, I want to kiss his fingers and place my own hands over all the tiny marks and nicks that have scarred his hands.” Susan can't seem to stop, and the women begin to understand why she has had a hard time getting rid of her sorry-ass lover. “When he drops his pants,” she says slowly, panting just a little, “his penis pops out erect, and it's the most beautiful goddamned penis I have ever seen in my life.”
Alice thinks Susan should stop talking, but she can't quite bring herself to suggest that. Most of the women have almost stopped walking and seem to be just shuffling along the highway, as if sucked wholly into Susan's Big Penis Amusement Park Fantasy. Susan has her eyes closed, and she has her hand on the back of Gail's shirt, and she is in that damn bedroom and Fantasy Guy is putting his hands on her breasts because he thinks that's what women like. She can barely stand to look at him because he is so beautiful. When he bends to kiss her mouth, Susan tilts her head back as if she is doing just that, and J.J. and Chris and Alice also part their lips, take a breath and wait for, wait for…they wait for this guy to run his hands down Susan's stomach and hips and legs, where he will move them apart and then inch his way from the bottom of the bed and then into her, right into her, slowly, slowly, because he is so blessedly endowed.
Finally Susan opens her eyes and smiles, and the women breathe again. Alice says, “Geez, I was just thinking about Paul Newman because he is so beautiful, and he's had the same wife all these years, and he's, well, geez, he's so beautiful that I would love to just have him kiss me once, just once. Well, okay, maybe just a bit more, if Chester was dead or wanted to watch or something!”
As everyone laughs, a car goes by. A fellow rolls down his window, tells them his wife said it's okay if they want to sleep out in the trailer tonight on his property. His wife cleaned the trailer all out, and he has to go clear to Iowa to check on some chickens, but their property is the next place over the hill—two miles—there will be supper too.
The women are still laughing, wired enough by wild sex talk to make another two miles. They say yes, yes they will stop because they need a break. When the wind picks up, the man shifts the Buick into drive again and dips his hat out the window. Only Sandy has the gall to say, “You women are getting to me. Even that guy looks pretty damn good.”
Associated Press, May 2, 2002
Wilkins County, Wisconsin
WISCONSIN WALKERS ARE GIVING THE
WORLD A CHANCE TO PAUSE
Spring could very well turn to summer before the seven now world-famous women walkers decide to end their back roads pilgrimage—a simple journey that has inspired people from one end of the country to the other.
This beautiful farm country is only quiet these days where the women happen to be walking. The rest of the county is pretty much on fire because of the national and now international publicity the women have been receiving.
The women remain unidentified, but sources say they include one journalist, a social worker, a housewife, one grandmother, and a secretary, who seem to have no exact destination in mind, and that is one aspect of the adventure that seems to appeal to a broad range of other women.
“Half of the world is running from one spot to the next, while these gals are doing something we all dream of doing,” said Cecelia Mackums, who traveled to a police roadblock to show support for the women. “God bless 'em all and I wish I could join them.”
Mackums, like many of the women who show up each morning near the highway where walkers may pass, says she knows most of them personally but refuses to reveal any additional information.
Husbands, friends, and relatives of the women have also refused to provide further details about the walkers, saying only, “We respect what they need to do.”
While some experts think the women are protesting, perhaps against unkind circumstances in their own lives, others see the walkers as a symbol of this country's desire to slow down and put their own lives in perspective.
One woman who shows up near the walkers' roadblock each morning said she has not only quit her job because of the walkers, but she's decided to travel by bus from one end of the United States to the next.
“I don't know what took me so long,” said the woman, who refused to give her name but smiled as she spoke. “I've been wanting to do this my entire life, and when I heard about these women, I decided I was just finally going to get on with it.”
While the walkers have inspired at least this woman to change her life, they continue to march along these Wisconsin country roads seemingly oblivious to who is watching them and holding a collective breath.
“We're all having fun,” said the sheriff's deputy, Rick Rudulski, who has been assigned to assure safe passage for the walkers. “This seems like it's something really important to them and it's my job to give them the space to do what they need to do.”
—30—
The Women Walker Effect: Jane
Jane was beginning to think there was some major conspiracy going on. For five days in a row, her entire routine had been the same as always. Get up, eat a bowl of Raisin Bran, let the cat out, shower, dress, get the cat back in, drive five mil
es to work, punch in at the time clock and walk through her office door. Work, work, work, all day long. Answer the phone, type up the records, file the records, lunch at noon, usually some fruit or maybe a salad from the cafeteria. Work some more, home by 6:15 P.M., dinner, television, and then once in a while, Katherine or Michael would come over. But most of the time, she was alone.
All that was fine except for one darn thing. For the last five mornings when she got to work, her desk seemed to be just like she left it the night before. Her pen would be by the telephone, a pad next to the edge of the stack of papers, her coffee cup sitting on top of her box of Girl Scout sandwich cookies. But after she would check the fax machine in the back room and sort the messages, by the time she got back to her own office there would be a neatly clipped newspaper article sitting right in the middle of her desk.
Every article was a story about those women walkers in Wisconsin, and while Jane had to admit it was a really neat story, she couldn't figure out where the newspaper clipping had come from because there wasn't anyone else around. Gloria, the shipping clerk, was always in the back warehouse—unless she sneaked in the side door, which was possible, but unlikely. Mark and the other guys were always hunkered around the coffee and donuts that Bruce brought in every day of the week.
The first day, finding the article was a singular strange occurrence. But by the third—and then the fourth and fifth days—Jane was really spooked by the whole thing. The articles were from the Austin Daily News, and they were trimmed right to the edge. Jane could almost feel where someone's hands had touched the edges of the newsprint.
Each day as she discovered the articles on her desk, Jane would look around her office really fast and then tiptoe to the hallway, but she never saw the person obsessed with newsprint. She was certain no one knew about her, certain no one would really care. But who was doing this?
From the first day and the first article, Jane could feel a little nudge next to her heart when she saw the word Wisconsin. Oh Lord, it had been such a long time, and she thought she had done such a good job for the last twelve years of avoiding everything and anything that might remind her of the place she had come from.
On this morning, the fifth morning, Jane sat at her desk for a good fifteen minutes fingering the latest article, this one recounting the geography of the walk to date, what the women looked like, how they acted and why this strange journey was attracting so much attention.
She was thinking about how green Wisconsin always was in late spring, just about this time, and about how she would go with her cousins down to the Wisconsin River. They would all wade into the frigid water on a dare. Someone, never the same cousin, always jumped in first and splashed everyone else until the entire gang forgot about the cold water, the frigid winds and feet and fingers that quickly went numb.
Jane thought about campfires in the forest, and remembered from way back when she was about eleven. She and her cousins Mary and Sharon sat talking for hours and roasted an entire bag of marshmallows, then hunted through the edge of the dark trees for more wood to keep the fire burning.
Greg, the assistant manager of Big Wheel Tires, came in then to see if he had any messages in the big basket that sat at the edge of Jane's neat desk.
“What's up?” he asked.
“Oh,” Jane said, startled that someone had interrupted her thoughts.
“I haven't seen anything for you yet, Greg.”
“Whatchya readin'?”
“It's a newspaper article about those women in Wisconsin.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about them on the radio. What the heck is that all about anyways, Jane? Do ya think those babes had some bad bananas or something?”
“Greg, Greg, Greg. Could your attitude explain why none of your wives ever stayed very long?”
“Hey, it wasn't me, ya know.”
“Okay. The women are just walking, Greg, like when you and Steve go down to that rodeo for a week each year. It's the same thing. This is their rodeo.” Jane knew Greg could relate to this explanation, and anything beyond that would float right over his head. She waited for his predictable response.
“Well, it's goofy ta me, is all. Wisconsin, too. Where the heck is Wisconsin?”
“Oh Greg, it's a long ways away from here, really, really far.”
When he left, Jane didn't move. She knew Wilkins County was down south, not close to where she grew up in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. When she closed her eyes she could see the rolling hills and tractors and trees, mostly those big old oaks dotting the horizon and then usually one or two, standing alone in a big field where the farmers plowed around it and sat to have their lunch, and where there would be a big pile of rocks right by the tree that the pioneers had collected.
Jane touched the words on the newspaper with her index finger, and she imagined the women walking, maybe she even knew some of them. Imagined them walking and holding hands and stopping along the side of the road to rest. If Jane missed anything in Wisconsin, it was those times when she had so many friends and they would go so many places and share so many things. Jane had loved her friends and they had loved her but now, sitting in the tire store, she started to cry. This sudden burst of emotion startled her more than the recent appearance of the newspaper articles.
Jane forced herself to get up and go to the rest room. She washed her face, wondering as she checked to see if her eye shadow was okay, when those lines coming off the edges of her eyes had become so long. She straightened her hair and pulled down the edges of her green jacket. Back at her desk, Jane folded the newspaper article into a palm-size square and slipped it into the top section of her purse. Then she started on the summer publicity sheets.
All day long, she did a pretty good job of forgetting about Wisconsin and those walkers, distracting herself with projects she had been putting off for weeks. At lunch Jane decided to leave the office, something she rarely did. Instead of eating, she walked around the block and sat on a little concrete bench that was in front of the fountain over by the library. No one recognized her. No one said, “Hello, Jane, do you mind if I sit down?” She was all alone on the bench until 12:30 P.M., time for Gloria to have her lunch.
The afternoon was a blur, because the Ford salesman went nuts in the outer office and needed to have about sixteen tires mounted yesterday. Jane handled him in a calm manner, and caught Greg winking at her as she got the guy to smile and sit down and accept a ride back to his own office.
Jane stayed late that night to finish all the paperwork so she could have a fresh start in the morning. She hated coming in to yesterday's work, and now that she was pushing forty herself, she could understand what Gloria had been talking about when she said getting up every morning wasn't always easy. Jane stayed up too late each night, watching television because she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep when she went to bed anyway.
That night Jane stopped at the small corner deli, Fratanno's, near her apartment complex. She bought a little pizza with the works, even anchovies, and then turned and grabbed a six-pack of beer out of the cooler.
There were no messages on her answering machine, particularly no word from Michael, who hadn't called her in ten days. The cat was happy to squeeze out the front door when she checked her empty mailbox. In her one-bedroom apartment, she turned on the radio and then the oven, slipped out of her work clothes and into sweatpants and an old jogging bra because it was warm but not too warm, then finally sat on the couch.
The long coffee table was now covered with the unfolded newspaper clippings from her purse. Certain words seemed to stand out in the newsprint like Wisconsin and women and support. Jane sat with her elbows on her knees and her hands on her face. She reread each article.
The bell on the oven went off and Jane jumped up, took out the pizza and let it sit for a minute while she popped the tab on a beer. Her uncles had always loved to drink beer as they sat around outside in those dorky old lawn chairs that always had strips of plastic missing. They would fill up one of those o
ld metal tubs with water from the hose and put all the beer, always in bottles, right in the tub, and they would sit in a circle and talk about the war, and work, and their wives, popping off beer caps and looking each other in the eye, which they usually didn't do unless they were drinking lots and lots of beer.
Jane started to cry again after that, and she let the tears come as she cut up the pizza and stood at the kitchen counter for the first bite. She decided to go outside, even though she didn't know why, and filled up her plastic wash pan with cold water and put two more beers into it and then set the pan out on the patio. Then she grabbed the pizza and sat on her lone chair, looking right into the side of the apartment building that was next door. The lawn between her apartment building and the one across this small patch of dying grass was empty. There wasn't anyone watching her from a window. No one waved. It was endless emptiness. Nothing. No one. This made Jane cry harder as she felt a growing ache of loneliness rise from her stomach and into her throat.
Jane continued to cry while she ate. She finished the entire pizza and was on to the third beer when she heard the phone ring. She jumped off her chair and grabbed the phone on the counter just in time to hear a sound, like a person finishing a cough maybe? Then there was a click. “Shoot,” she said, wiping her eyes and heading back to the chair.
Jane hardly ever drank anymore, and the third beer was making her head spin. The Texas sky was as dark as it was going to get. There were a few spring stars to the north, the same stars, Jane figured, that the women in Wisconsin might be seeing at this exact same time.