Girl on a Wire

by Libby Phelps

  A FEW SHORT MONTHS AFTER I GRADUATED WITH MY doctorate in physical therapy and got a full-time job, Shirl immediately asked me to take Mondays off. I’m sure she knew this was going to be a tough thing for a new hire to ask her boss, but she demanded it of me anyway. She told me I needed to help out more with watching children, going to the noon pickets, filing at the law office, doing yard work, and running errands for the church. It felt to me as though she wanted me to get fired or give the job up voluntarily, that she was trying to keep me from straying too far or seeing too much of the outside world. She never seemed to feel I’d done enough.

  Soon, I was babysitting for eight hours at a stretch on my days off. Resentment began to build up in me. I loved being around kids and helping out, but if I’d wanted to watch children all day, I’d have taken courses in child development. I certainly wouldn’t have a chance to have my own children, as my aunts had long ago decreed that no one else in the church was going to be getting married going forward. I finally broke down and vented to my mother about it, worrying all the while that she’d take the complaint back to headquarters—in other words, Shirl. I’d be in trouble for two things: not having a positive attitude about helping the church, and not being totally honest about all my feelings all the time. The fact that these two things were often in opposition to each other didn’t enter into it for Shirl. My mom agreed with me, that Shirl was requiring too much of me and her demands were outrageous. She understood where I was coming from, but she too was fearful of Shirl’s lashing out if someone dared question her authority.

  ANOTHER THING SHIRL DEMANDED OF ME WAS TO REGULARLY lead a picket with my younger cousins. One of them took a menacing turn.

  It was our duty to get five to ten church members to our regular daily picket site at 17th and Gage. One sunny summer afternoon in 2003, Josh and I assembled a group to walk up to the site: Josh’s younger siblings Megan and Gabe, and Jael with her younger brothers Jacob and Josh (whom we referred to jokingly as Little Josh, because he was bigger than the older Josh). We carpooled in my white Toyota Corolla, while Josh took Gabe in his family’s red Chevy pickup. His truck held some signs and two of our upside-down flags—one American and one Kansan.

  We parked on my street, Holly Lane, and walked to the side of the park across the street from the two churches we regularly picketed. As we set up on the corner, the girls holding the littlest signs and the two Joshes holding the biggest ones, a man came out of the trees behind us. As he walked toward us, I could see he had a weathered face, shaggy, graying hair, and dirty face and clothes.

  “Y’all out here picketing,” he snarled. “Flags upside down. Y’all are fucking pieces of shit.” He came to the girls’ side first, and we ignored him, as we had been trained to do time and again. It wasn’t easy, though, pretending the grown man screaming in our faces didn’t exist. Finally, he moved along toward Josh, who told little Gabe to get behind him. He grabbed Josh’s sign and a tug-of-war ensued, which Josh won—as everyone does to win tug-of-war—by letting up a little, then yanking the sign out of the man’s hands completely.

  The man staggered almost completely into the street. Josh got out his phone and dialed 911, as we always did if we were being physically threatened in any way. The girls, in the meantime, went into fight mode: Jael and I had disassembled the flags and were wielding the rods from them like bats. Megan held her sign aloft, ready to swing it if necessary. Finally the man left—but it took a lot longer for all of us to relax. It was getting scarier all the time to be out on the street with our message. We were always peaceful—why weren’t our opponents? Why was everyone getting so mad at our signs? We were doing the most loving thing anyone could do for a person: telling them that if they didn’t repent, they’d end up in a terrible place, where fire shoots out of their eyeballs. But I also had to admit that just as I was finding our message to be more and more extreme, maybe others were seeing it too, and having more and more extreme reactions.

  It wasn’t long afterward that Josh made the decision to leave the church.

  IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME THAT I BECAME MORE AWARE OF THE sexual comments from people passing by. A gay man saying he would turn straight if he could get a piece of me, and people pulling over because they thought I was “fucking hot” were two of the most minor words and gestures thrown my way. Some of them were so obscene they left me speechless, or in tears.

  I regularly stood by the big fountain next to the Washburn University sign at the corner and turned my big GOD HATES AMERICA sign toward traffic. Some of my aunts would go to this picket to get some exercise; they would walk up one side of the sidewalk, turn around and walk back, then walk up the other sidewalk before repeating. Across the street to the north was a fraternity, and they didn’t hesitate to come out regularly to show their displeasure with us by yelling “Go home.” They also didn’t hesitate to come out and yell at me when I would run around the school alone for exercise, only this time their yells were catcalls. I would look down and wonder what on earth had made them target me—as usual, I’d be dressed in athletic clothing, nothing revealing or suggestive.

  Not long afterward, I was informed by Shirl that I had broken the 4B rule: No showing your boobs, belly, back, or butt. It was the first time I had heard that rule; I felt pretty sure she just made it up for the occasion. My V-neck shirt was deemed too scandalous, apparently—even though my intention in wearing it was most definitely not to attract the opposite sex; V-necks were more comfortable! When I brought up this point, it was brushed aside as nonsense. I was scolded most for the way I reacted to my verbal punishment, but all I did was remind them of what others had done in the past. Questioning their authority was forbidden. But enough was enough. What if one day I had more serious objections and wasn’t able to express myself? This was no way to live.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LEAVING

  “DON’T YOU DARE START TO CRY. THERE ARE COUNTER-protestors across the street and they have cameras, and they’re not gonna see you cry,” said Shirl, clenching her teeth through a forced smile.

  Traffic at the intersection of 17th and Gage was at a constant flow on this sunny Saturday afternoon in 2009, and cars honked at regular intervals in response to a small HONK FOR LOVE sign held by a counter-protestor on the other side of the street. The cheap cardboard sign contrasted sharply with the six-foot-tall, laminated GOD HATES YOU sign I was holding.

  “Don’t you think for one second you’re gonna run to your mom because Megan and the other girls are shunning you,” she continued. “If you weren’t misbehaving, they’d have no reason to shun you!” Shirl stuck a bony, well-manicured finger in my face as she spoke and rose up on the balls of her feet, trying to match my height. She leaned in so close the bill of her baseball cap almost touched my nose. I could smell the bitter stench of coffee on her breath.

  I wanted to turn to the small group of protestors, who looked just like me or anyone else, and let them know I was upset and why. I didn’t think the way Shirl was treating people in the church, including myself, was right. But all I could do was stare down into her dark eyes, barely visible through her thick sunglasses, and bite my tongue.

  “This is gonna get real messy, real fast,” she said as she turned her back to me and marched down the sidewalk with her GOD IS YOUR ENEMY picket sign held high above her head. Her ponytail hung through the back opening of her hat in a long braid, reaching past the middle of her pink GODHATESFAGS.COM T-shirt.

  As I caught my breath and attempted to pull myself together, I imagined, if only for a moment, a life unrestrained by Shirl’s sharp tongue and disapproving glare. I was twenty-five now, but Shirl still treated me like a child and never hesitated to criticize or scold me. I was relieved her outburst had ended, but I knew it was only a matter of time before she was going to be on me again, which seemed to be happening with more and more frequency. Our latest clash, earlier that week, had brought her near the boiling point. What I didn’t know was that in only a few days’ time, I’d be fre
e of her forever.

  TWO MONTHS EARLIER, I HAD BEEN EXCITED WHEN MY PARENTS announced that we were going to Puerto Rico for our yearly weeklong vacation. The night before we left, I took a break from packing to see what my sister Sara was up to. I found her sitting on the floor of her bedroom in front of a stack of neatly folded clothes and an open suitcase.

  “Get out! Why do you always barge in like that?” Sara shrieked.

  “I knocked while I opened the door. That’s good enough, right?” I smiled a big, goofy smile, jutting my head forward. I got a kick out of how much it annoyed her when I did that.

  “Whatever. What do you want?” she asked impatiently, as she picked up an old pair of pink flip-flops for inspection.

  “Well,” I said excitedly, “I got these two bikinis from Meg at work. She gave them to me because she hasn’t used them since she got pregnant three years ago. Do you want one?” I also got a kick out of giving presents. “I like this one better because of all the bright colors, but I’ll let you have it because it’s smaller,” I said, holding up the vibrant, multicolored, floral printed bikini. “This is the one I’ll wear.” It was a dark brown bikini with a single pink flower design in the upper corner.

  “I like mine better,” she said with a grin, holding it up for closer inspection.

  “I know! I love all the bright colors, but it will fit you better, so I guess you can have it. You should pack it right now so you don’t forget it,” I told her, happy she liked the gift.

  “Thanks … but can you leave now so I can finish packing?”

  “OK, bye,” I said, and headed back to my room to do the same.

  FAMILY VACATIONS WERE ALWAYS SOMETHING I LOOKED forward to. We went almost exclusively to beaches or mountains, and either lay on the beach and swam or went on hikes. We discussed the magnificence of God, and how He was responsible for the Earth’s beauty.

  Puerto Rico didn’t disappoint. We snorkeled, surfed, and hiked through huge, magnificent forests. Growing up, I had gone on countless hikes with my family, and I always valued the sense of closeness I got from sharing an adventure with them. Like any adventure, there were usually a few bumps along the way, like when my dad would carefully follow the map to the only closed gate of entry into the park, which we could laugh and tease him about later. It was especially nice to be away from the church community for a while. It was almost unheard of to go on a trip that wasn’t arranged around some picketing event, and I had one of the best times of my life.

  WHEN WE GOT BACK HOME, I WAS EAGER TO TELL GRAMPS and Gran about our trip. Sara and I found Gran in the kitchen humming a hymn as she wiped the counters in her signature red sweater, her hair wrapped in a bun at the nape of her neck. The kitchen, as usual, smelled of Dawn dish soap. We told her we had come to tell them about our trip, and she got on the phone and buzzed upstairs to Gramps to tell him to come down and listen.

  I was relieved he wasn’t working on a sermon. Now I could sit down with my grandparents and tell them about Puerto Rico, instead of the usual talk about God’s wrath and the damnation of the world.

  “Hey, lovebugs. How’ve you been?” Gramps smiled as he shuffled slowly but surely down the stairs in his tennis shoes, athletic shorts, and a purple Minnesota Vikings football jersey. On his way through the kitchen, he stopped and grabbed a sandwich from the refrigerator. He sat down by Gran on a stool across the tall, cream-colored table from Sara and me, unwrapped a veggie Subway sub, and announced he was ready to listen.

  “It was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on. It was just so beautiful!” I began, breathless with excitement. “We went to this awesome lighthouse on the southwest part of the island; it was breathtaking. The guide told us a lot of movies had been shot there. They were actually shooting a movie while we were there, and I got a picture of this guy doing karate moves. We almost didn’t make it up to the lighthouse because the roads were so bad and bumpy, but I’m glad we kept going to see it! And there’s this water we went in at night that would light up when we touched it.” Sara sat by silently, smiling and nodding, as she was used to doing when I had a wave of excitement come over me.

  “How does that happen? How does the water light up?” asked Gran, interested.

  “There are microorganisms that sparkle for a little bit when they’re agitated,” I said. “It’s called a bioluminescent bay and there are only a few in the world. I’ll have to show you a picture of us in it.”

  “Did you get any pictures of you two girls together? I haven’t had one of you girls in a long time,” asked Gramps, taking a moment away from his sandwich.

  “Sure, I can look through them and give you a good one,” I said.

  That evening, I looked through the photos, searching for the best one to give them. My personal favorite was a picture of Sara and me in our bikinis on the beach near the Los Morrillos Lighthouse. I ordered an eight-by-ten of the photo, put it in a silver frame, and eagerly took it to my grandparents the following week. They placed it front and center on their dining room table, where they displayed a few religious books and a small collection of family photos. The table was also used to collect tithe at the beginning of each church service, so every member of the church was sure to see it.

  I didn’t give much more thought to the photo until the end of the following church service, which as always took place at Gran and Gramps’s house. I noticed that the picture had been pushed to the very back of the table and was now mostly blocked by the other books and photos. My heart dropped. I wondered why it had been pushed to the back. All I could think of was the bikinis. I grabbed the picture and ran out the door without saying a word to anyone.

  I WENT HOME AND PREPARED TO BE REPRIMANDED BY MY family. My plan was to keep quiet and pray that everything would blow over. I rationalized that since the picture was all but invisible, it couldn’t cause anyone any more grief, and they’d probably soon forget about it. On my way back from a picket the next day, I got a call from Megan.

  “Libby, why were you wearing a bikini in that picture you gave to Gramps and Gran?” she asked. Here we go, I thought. My body tensed.

  “A girl I work with had a couple of them before she got pregnant and had her baby. She didn’t want them anymore, so she gave them to me,” I said, as calmly and matter-of-factly as I could manage.

  “Well, we’ve been talking,” Megan said, “and no one thinks it’s appropriate to wear that.”

  “We?” I thought to myself. I guessed she meant her and her mother. “You’ve worn one before!” I said out loud, incredulous.

  “That was when I was twelve!” she said. Even though Megan was my best friend, she, like her mother, still expected me to immediately apologize when confronted by a displeased church member.

  “OK, well you wore one before and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” I spoke quickly and hung up the phone, hands shaking. This was the first time I had ever stood up for myself against another member of the church. Megan was surely going to tell Shirl, who would in turn call everyone in the church to inform them of my disobedience. The whole issue had gotten blown way out of proportion—but this, as I was soon to learn, was just the beginning.

  I saw Megan at a picket the next day. Traffic at 17th and Washburn was steady on this overcast afternoon, and the occasional car honked as they drove by, some with passengers who flipped us off as they passed. Megan and I set up with our GOD HATES YOUR TEARS and FAG BODS signs on the landscaped grassy terrace in front of the school’s fountain. My aunts Rachel and Becky were down closer to the street, chatting while walking up and down the sidewalks, turning their signs to greet the oncoming traffic. They were regulars at this location; they considered it a good place to walk for some easy exercise.

  I was hoping to put the whole bikini drama behind me, but Megan brought it up almost immediately. She reminded me of the 4B rule. I tried to explain that this bikini was no more revealing than any other; I considered the swimsuit to be adequately modest. Seeing that she was still displeased,
I gave in and apologized, hoping it would resolve the issue once and for all.

  The next day, I stopped by Gramps’s house on my way home from a busy day at work. He had been complaining of pain going down his right leg and wanted me to use my physical therapy skills to try to fix his back. I had been helping him for a few weeks by this point, and we were in mid-routine when my phone rang. It was Shirl.

  She told me she wanted me to go down to her house because a few people wanted to talk to me. I squeaked out an “OK,” and hung up, panic-stricken. I tried to restrain my tears to avoid upsetting Gramps and Gran, but simply couldn’t; I burst into tears.

  “What’s going on, hon?” asked Gramps, turning to me with a concerned look.

  “You remember that picture you asked for—of me and Sara?” I asked, struggling to get the words out. Gramps nodded. “Well, we got in trouble for wearing bikinis.”

  “That’s not right,” he said. “I think you both look great in that picture,” he added.

  “But it was the way I reacted to them when they told me not to wear it, so now they want me to go over to Shirl’s house and talk to people.”

  “We’ll come with you,” said Gramps.

  We both knew what was in store for me: when a church member committed a wrongdoing and it was seen as severe, Shirl called a meeting for an intervention. My bikini offense, and my initial reluctance to apologize, had been deemed severe enough to qualify. I was absolutely devastated by what I knew would shortly happen. The judgment and vitriol of the whole church was about to be unleashed on me. I was to be the sole target of a massive, coordinated verbal firing squad that had but one purpose—to tear me down, put me in my place. Their aim was to make me so frightened, so humiliated, so ashamed, that I’d never find the courage to challenge them again.