by Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (retail) (epub)
HIM: No, it was a huge deal. It was a huge betrayal. I’ve felt terrible about it for however many years now. I have to admit I was pretty surprised to hear from you. I kind of assumed I never would again.
THE WHOLE BANALITY OF EVIL THING
I rewind and listen to the recording again:
No, it was a huge deal. It was a huge betrayal.
No, it was a huge deal. It was a huge betrayal.
No, it was a huge deal. It was a huge betrayal.
This is what I wanted. So why do I not know how I feel?
I call my friend Rebekah, a novelist and journalist in Chicago. She and I met last fall. After reading my essay about how Nina and I became friends in the psych ward, Rebekah emailed me, sharing her experiences with mania. Soon we were talking on the phone. When I read at a feminist bookstore in Chicago, Rebekah came to the event—and then we spent the evening and next morning together, just talking. And we’ve talked almost every week since. I love that an essay about one friendship gave me another.
Rebekah says, You’re wrestling with a really important question, which is, How can someone who seems so harmless or acts so well or is so intelligent be capable of committing what is understandably kind of an evil act and how can it happen? I’m going into the whole banality of evil thing—but not in an Arendtian sense, more in like a how can that act occur in such a commonplace setting—and now you’re going back and talking to the guy and the guy is still himself. It’s just fascinating to me. It’s a fascinating work of journalism and memoir. I think that a lot of what gets shown online is conforming to a very flat intersectional narrative, simply because it has to be flat, it has to be blunt, or else it’s not consumable. Your narrative is to be chewed and thought over and reflected upon in a way that maybe #MeToo isn’t. #MeToo is more political activism. I think I would do the exact same, be the exact same way as you are, figuring this all out.
Mark said the assault changed the story he could tell about himself. It changed my personal narrative too—or it confirmed what I’d suspected but was afraid to admit: I cared too much about pleasing men. I didn’t stop Mark partly because I didn’t want to embarrass him. What sort of feminist acts like that? I asked myself—instead of asking, What sort of friend does what Mark did?
And now, listening to myself reassure him, I’m again asking myself, What sort of feminist acts like that?
I reread the scene of the assault, of Mark putting his fingers in my vagina. He pressed them as far as they would go, as if trying to make the space inside me bigger. I remember a picture from a psychology textbook. Sketched by a child sexually abused by her uncle, the picture depicted the uncle as a giant. His head reached the ceiling. But the girl looked so small she could have been an insect.
Some pressure pushes against my eyes from behind. My forehead aches. I retrieve some ibuprofen from the bathroom vanity and catch my reflection. Waterproof mascara? Either the packaging lied or my tears are made of something else. I wash my face and then return to my desk and the audio.
. . .
ME: Well, we had talked afterward. Remember? You met that guy I dated through most of college. It was the last time I may have seen you. It was at a wings restaurant in a strip mall. That’s kind of a sad memory. [We laugh.] Anyway, my college boyfriend went. And you didn’t know that he knew. I didn’t tell him that you were going to be there until shortly before. He was not going to go in. And I really wanted him to meet all my friends. So I made him. Afterward, though, he said, I can’t believe you made me do that. I think that was the last time I saw you.
HIM: My memory is so selective. I only hang on to the stuff I really regret.
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MADE ME DO THAT
Outside it was probably dark. It was winter. The living room blinds were closed. Mark had destroyed our friendship, but there I was, still at the party, watching the basement door, hoping it wouldn’t open, hoping Mark would stay down there, hoping that what had happened hadn’t happened, but I knew it had happened because Amber was telling me again, That’s rape.
No, it’s not, I told her.
Jake said, I want to beat him up.
No, I told Jake, just forget about it.
Garrett, Carlos, Mark’s brother, they were all asleep. Whichever other friends were there were also asleep. Mark, was he asleep? I watched the basement door do nothing.
My LeBaron was parked in my mom’s garage, more than an hour’s drive away. I didn’t want to ask anyone to drive me back this late.
I called my college boyfriend, told him what had happened. We’d met a few months before at rescon training at Northwestern. Rescons, or residential consultants, were students hired to offer tech support to other students. At the first training session, I raised my hand, asked if the university network supported Linux, and it was as if I’d just thrown bread at a bunch of seagulls. The guys clustered around me during the lunch break. One guy asked me what I studied, and I said journalism but that I really wanted to major in creative writing. He said that even though he majored in computer science, he loved poetry—and I asked him for his number that afternoon. He and I would date for the next three years.
When I called my college boyfriend from the party, he was with his family in North Dakota for the holidays. I described what Mark had done.
I am so sorry, I told him. I was drinking, but I thought it’d be okay.
You shouldn’t apologize, he said. That’s a crime. That’s rape.
It’s not rape, I told him. He used his fingers.
I can fly to Ohio, he said. I want to know where that guy lives.
No, I said. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know why I called.
Report him. Right now.
But it wasn’t rape.
The next morning, somebody drove me to my mom’s house. I forget who (definitely not Mark). I forget what we talked about (probably not Mark). All I distinctly remember of that day: my mom was standing where our Christmas tree usually stood, but this December there was no tree—not that I cared. The year before, my dad had died.
I can’t believe he’s gone, she said.
I tried not to look at her, and looked, and looked away. Her eyes were wet. And I thought, Why tell her? She might tell Mark’s parents. Why ruin their Christmas?
That same day, or maybe a few days later, Mark called and apologized.
We all make mistakes, I said. Just read Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. Tell me what you think of it.
What was I thinking?
A week or so passed before Mark called again, said he’d read and loved Franny and Zooey.
Strange that I asked him to read Franny and Zooey, considering how much I loved it. Was I rewarding him? Shouldn’t I have asked him to read long legal cases about sexual assault, or philosophical texts about morality?
You asked him to read Franny and Zooey? That’s it? my college boyfriend asked.
I know, I said. It’s a weird response. I’m sorry.
You don’t have to apologize to me.
My college boyfriend was a great boyfriend. Friday nights, we’d order pizza and listen to poetry recordings in his dorm. When writers visited campus, he’d go to their readings because I’d want to go. And when I was inside depressive and manic episodes (though at the time I didn’t know I had bipolar disorder), he patiently stayed with me. The thing with Mark, though—it bothered my college boyfriend. He seemed angry at me for forgiving, or supposedly forgiving, Mark. Maybe I’m concluding this based on a single memory—and the problem with highlighting a single memory instead of many memories of a person: suddenly that single memory stands in for that person’s entire being.
I remember it was summer. I’d made plans for my college boyfriend and my friends to meet—at a wings restaurant in a strip mall. Mark heard about it and apparently invited himself along. I didn’t tell my boyfriend that Mark would be there, not until we approached the restaurant.
I’m not going, then, my boyfriend said. Not if he’s going
to be there.
He turned around.
Please, I said. I already told Mark I forgave him.
I can’t forgive him, he said.
I want my friends to meet you.
I don’t want to meet him, my boyfriend said.
I followed him back to the car.
I don’t want to see Mark either, I said, but my other friends are in there. I know it’s not fair to you.
My boyfriend got out of the car and slammed the door, and we went into the restaurant.
Mark shook my boyfriend’s hand.
It’s good to meet you, Mark said.
My boyfriend grimaced.
Afterward, back in the car, he said: I can’t believe you made me do that.
That was the last time I saw Mark.
. . .
ME: Do you have a favorite memory of us? I mean, I want to write about what a great friendship we had.
HIM: In high school we had so many fun nights. It seemed like endless summers of hanging out and watching movies and talking and staying up too late. That was a lot of fun. And then I remember in college, it seemed like, it seemed like in some ways we were both really close friends and also each other’s sounding boards. Because I remember it seemed like we would talk for hours. And I don’t talk on the phone for five minutes.
ME: I remember that. Just a few days ago, after suggesting that we talk, I thought, If he agrees to a phone call, then he must really feel bad. [We laugh.] But we did talk on the phone a lot, right?
HIM: A lot of it was we were both struggling in different ways. I remember those phone calls rather fondly. I don’t remember specific phone calls. It felt nice to be that close to somebody far away. I didn’t have a lot of people in my life, especially at that time, and just to feel understood was really nice. I got the impression a lot, especially after your father died, that obviously you were struggling, and it felt good to try to help you through that. I don’t know.
ME: I think about our friendship, though, and the type of friend, whatever friend you are—the stuff that happened with my newspaper advisor.
HIM: I think I got more details out of your book than I ever did out of you about exactly what had happened.
ME: I ended up cutting a lot from the book. But yeah, he put his hands between my legs and then later he stalked me. Another teacher confirmed to detectives that my advisor was stalking me. But ultimately there was no proof. And I just remember at that time, I was so miserable.
MEN COMPLICATE ALL OF THIS
In graduate school, I wrote about my high school newspaper advisor. In a memoir workshop, I shared a scene of him touching me between my legs. I also shared scenes of what followed: him inviting me to his apartment, yelling at me, telling me that I didn’t know how to respect authority. I included another teacher in my manuscript. This other teacher had called me into his empty classroom, said he wanted my opinion on a poem.
Because I know how much you like poetry, he said, closing the door behind me.
He read the poem. The only part I remember: my lips and your legs. Or maybe it was: my lips between your legs.
What do you think? he asked.
It was terrible, but I couldn’t say that.
I said, I think your wife will like it.
It’s not for her, he said.
One bad teacher was believable, my workshop classmates said. Two bad teachers were distracting.
I could see their point. My story explored my grief for my dad. The teachers cluttered it.
And I hadn’t told the full story in high school because, yes, two bad teachers seemed distracting. I worried that I’d be accused of merely wanting attention. So, when confiding to my principal and then to the detectives, I simplified the narrative. My newspaper advisor was the only bad teacher. As for the bad teacher who wrote the bad erotic poem, I told myself that I’d misread his intentions.
In creative nonfiction, the author is unreliable as a result of memories being unreliable. Montaigne famously said: What do I know?
I know what happened.
But, according to my former advisor, I was unreliable. I hadn’t been sleeping, he told the detectives. I had bloodshot eyes. He expressed concern.
Two other teachers had observed my former advisor’s inappropriate behavior. One had heard him yell at me. Another had noticed him stalking me after I quit the paper. They told the detectives. However, the yelling and the stalking would not appear in the final police report.
The detectives suggested that I may have misinterpreted his behavior.
I thought, They don’t think I’m pretty enough to have been sexually harassed.
I call Sarah, tell her that I’m struggling with how to include my newspaper advisor. She tells me she remembers that workshop—when classmates argued that two bad teachers were distracting.
That’s another reason why the author can seem unreliable, Sarah says. Not just because memory is unreliable but because the memories themselves may seem too perfectly appropriate, too good, to be true.
Men are making this narrative complicated and unwieldy, I explain. In my first book, I didn’t even mention the friend who raped me in New York.
Why don’t you just say that? she says.
What?
That men complicate all of this.
WE CAN DO THIS AT MY PLACE
Here’s how it started between me and my newspaper advisor.
One morning, before the Pledge of Allegiance and school announcements, I was reading By-Line: Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades. My homeroom teacher came to my desk, lingered. I looked up. He smiled, asked why I was reading the book.
I said I wanted to be a journalist and a novelist, like Hemingway.
I was fifteen.
My homeroom teacher asked if I’d visit him during his free period. He could tell me more about journalism. He used to be a journalist at several newspapers and radio stations in Ohio.
I can’t miss class, I said.
He’d write me a permission slip.
I really can’t miss class.
After transferring from Catholic school, I felt behind in every subject, except for English. I loved poetry and fiction. I loved when authors didn’t spell out what they meant.
After school, then? he asked.
I had art club and then drama club.
You must be a hard worker, he said.
The next morning, he suggested that I help him bring back the school newspaper. The last issue ran twenty-two years ago, he said. He’d work with me, advise me.
I have experience, he reminded me, as if I were interviewing him for the position.
He asked if I could meet with him over the summer months.
He said, I’ll make you editor in chief.
After I told my first boyfriend about the school newspaper, he said: The summer is our time. He now majored in architecture at a university two hours away.
I assured him that the paper wouldn’t interfere.
But I wanted interference. I didn’t know how to break up with him. He said he’d kill himself if I ever did, and I believed him. He kept a rifle under his bed. I hated guns, and I once asked him if he could put it somewhere else. He moved it to his closet, but then the next time I went over, the rifle was back under his bed. In college, he’d become captain of his school’s rifle team. I found it absurd that I dated a gun guy. But he only ever shot inanimate targets. It’s just a sport, he told me. So I rationalized staying: he shared his literature syllabi with me; since he was at college during the school year, I saw him only on some weekends; my dad liked him—and if my dad liked him, then it must mean that he was a good guy.
Hemingway, my boyfriend, my dad, my homeroom teacher. Did I have female influences?
I sometimes read Sylvia Plath.
My time with other girls mostly involved studying.
I loved my mom, but I argued with her more than I argued with anyone.
I was a teenage girl.
I remind
myself of that when I think about what happened next.
It was June or July but I was at school, in the new computer lab, choosing fonts for the newspaper’s name. I showed my advisor several options, asked him his opinion.
Standing behind and sort of beside me, he leaned over and squeezed my right thigh. I was wearing shorts. I remember the contrast: his pale white hand against my tan skin.
I like it, he said.
His hand moved between my thighs.
A dull pain rose from my throat. I couldn’t breathe—as if his hand were holding me underwater.
I stood, embarrassed.
I forgot, I lied—so as not to embarrass him. I’m supposed to babysit this afternoon.
The hallways were empty. The student parking lot was empty. I reached my car, fumbled with the keys, fumbled with the radio, drove to static.
I drove toward home, then past home. I thought about subtext. I drove past a woman bent over in her front yard, watering a flower that was long dead.
My advisor’s hand altered how I perceived myself: Was I genuinely smart and capable, or did I—respectful of authority, dedicated to school, insecure about my appearance—simply seem like an easy victim?
I wanted to tell Mark, but he might tell his parents. They didn’t teach at our high school, but they worked in the same public school system. His dad was a principal and his mom was a teacher.
I didn’t want to tell my parents. My dad was in his midseventies by then. Ashamed that he now needed a cane, he almost never left our house. If he learned what my newspaper advisor had done, my dad might feel weaker than he already felt. And if I told my mom, she would tell my dad.
If I told my first boyfriend, he likely would blame me. He often accused me of flirting.
Because I smiled? I’d ask him.
Because of the way you smiled, he’d snap.
I needed the school newspaper, I thought, because I wanted to study journalism in college. I wanted to be an investigative reporter.