The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad

by Derrick Jensen

  Sam quietly climbs through the ropes and out of the ring. He tiptoes to Jasmine. With one hand he gently shakes her awake while with his other hand he holds a finger to his lips. She grins as he unties her. They step quietly around the sleeping MAWAR and LAWAR members and out the door. Once outside, they start running.

  The sensible response to Jasmine’s dramatic rescue is to gather at the house of the most sensible person and eat cake and ice cream. So the core members of the knitting circle and friends gather at Gina’s house. Jasmine is hugged by everyone in turn. “Sam did a splendid job at the duel!” she gushes.

  Sam blushes and smiles bashfully as Suzie beams with pride. Suzie says, “He was just doing what he does best!”

  Gina raises her cake in a toast, “That was the enemy’s last hope. They’ve got nothing left. They’re finished. We’ve won!”

  Everyone cheers.

  Jasmine leans over to Christine, and says, “And you know, his teeth weren’t even really that good.”

  It is a few days later. Sandy knocks at Brigitte’s door. From inside Sandy hears the sounds of Sophie Scholl and the rest of the White Rose Orchestra performing “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

  Nick peers between the curtains and sees her. He panics, ducks below the window, hiding.

  Sandy calls out to him, “I saw you, Nick. Don’t worry, I’m not here to arrest you.”

  He sheepishly opens the door. Sandy asks how he is.

  “I’m going crazy, locked up in here.”

  She replies, “This is your lucky day. I’m here to tell you that you can come out now.”

  His eyes widen. He asks, “What about those cops who want to arrest me? Who want to shoot me?”

  Sandy says, simply, “They’re gone.”

  He raises his eyebrows.

  Sandy pantomimes stabbing herself in the heart with a knitting needle. Nick grins.

  Sandy grins back. She says, “I’m the highest ranking cop left. In fact, I’ve used my new authority to shut down the police station. I’ve turned it into the Community Self-Defense Academy. Our new mission is to arm the community for self-defense, and train everyone in the use of knitting needles. You know, to preserve the peace.”

  Nick responds, “I love it! And I’m free!” He runs outside and dances on the lawn, sort of a combination of a Vienna-style waltz and the Charleston.

  Sandy smiles. “Would you like to volunteer at the Academy? We could use someone like you, with your valuable experience of being a Lone Secret Turtle Agent of Death.”

  Nick corrects her: “That’s Undercover Secret Agent Lone Wolf.”

  “Whatever. Do you want to?”

  “I’ll come right now!”

  Nick skips to her car (a red Corvette) and opens the passenger door.

  Brigitte comes to her door and sees Nick leaving. She calls out, “Nick! Where are you—” She stops herself abruptly.

  Nick asks, “What, Brigitte?”

  She says, “Nothing! Bye! Have fun!”

  “I will, thanks!”

  Suzie and Sam are on Suzie’s bed. They are, if you can believe it, still fully clothed. Except that by now they have at least taken off their socks.

  Sam says to Suzie, “I know you say you want to. But how do I know that you really absolutely positively want to? How can I be sure you’re not just ‘allowing’ it because you’d feel guilty for rejecting me, or because you want me to be happy even if you aren’t, or as a favor, or because you’re being kind, or because you’re rewarding me for doing the dishes, or for some other bad reason that if I knew about it would be depressing and humiliating?”

  She responds, “During this encounter so far, have you heard me sigh, even once, in a burdened sort of way?”

  “No.”

  “Did I say ‘I want to make love with you’ in the same tone of voice that I use when I say something like, ‘Okay, I’ll take out the garbage’?”

  Sam smiles. “Not exactly.”

  “Does my mood seem sort of blah, ho-hum, ehhh—or does my voice seem warm and enthusiastic when I say ‘I’m mad for you! I adore you! I love your hot delicious body, especially with my arms and legs wrapped around it’?”

  “You seem fairly warm and enthusiastic … kind of. Can you repeat all that so I can make sure?”

  Suzie gives him a playful shove. She says, “Now, to make this very easy for you, when a basketball player hits a home run to win the Super Bowl, and he runs around with his arms waving, grinning and laughing, can you tell if he’s really absolutely positively interested in playing the game, or is he just going through the motions because he doesn’t want to hurt the other team’s feelings, or because they did the dishes?”

  Sam muses, “I think if he kissed the other team in a passionate way, and maybe tore off their uniforms in his eagerness to get as close to them as possible, and licked their ears, then I’d really be absolutely positively sure he wanted to play.”

  They kiss, and finally the clothes begin to come off. Rather quickly. I do believe they set a U.S. and perhaps a world record for the fastest-ever removal of clothes.

  Brigitte is walking toward the cheese factory. Today is Gaperon day, and the smell of cream, peppercorns, and garlic is already making her salivate. She is humming and swinging her tote bag.

  She sees people laughing and smiling. She sees couples (of all gender combinations) holding hands, walking, sharing milkshakes with two straws. She sees someone she recognizes from pre-knitting-circle fashion advertisements as a supermodel eating a huge piece of cake. She walks past burned-out porn stores and high-fashion boutiques. She walks past a garbage can that overflows with broken high-heeled shoes. Brigitte smiles and says hello to passersby, and they return her greetings.

  Jasmine and Suzie walk along another street, also on their way to the cheese factory. They’ve never before tasted this particular cheese, but the smell wafting through the city is so good they know they will love it.

  In the sunlight the two beautiful young women, filled with energy and confidence and lofty dreams, shimmer as they always do, from the top of their glossy hair down to the flashes of iridescent color on their toenails. Glittering brightest of all are their happy eyes, as they swing their tote bags of knitting supplies back and forth and chatter together about grand plans, Suzie’s boyfriend (who is as adorable as a whole litter of soft baby bunnies), and Jasmine’s new girlfriend (well, we’re not actually sure if she’s her new girlfriend since she hasn’t actually called, but she has texted 07734, which after much puzzling, Jasmine discovered spells “hello” upside-down) and they have met online several times and she’s the cutest woman in the world (after Suzie and Jasmine herself, of course) who sometimes looks like a gorgeous bird and sometimes a willow tree).

  The women pass a building under construction.

  A construction worker notices them. He yells, “Hey! Hey!”

  They turn, smiling.

  Jasmine says, “Yes?”

  He points at them, says, “Your yarn … it’s dragging on the ground!”

  Jasmine thanks him, and tucks the yarn back in her bag.

  All of the original knitters are at the cheese factory. Nick is also there, as is Marilyn, as is Sandy. A plate of the Gaperon has been left out for all of them, with very plain crackers that don’t compete with the exquisitely subtle taste of the cheese. They are eating slowly, savoring each bite.

  When they finish this act of worship, they begin to knit.

  Brigitte says, “Everything turned out magnificently. It’s a happy ending.”

  Jasmine quickly responds, “For a real happy ending, we need wedding bells. There are always wedding bells at the happy ending. From Cinderella and Snow White to Bridget Jones’s Diary, wedding bells signify and define Happy Ending. You can’t have a happy ending without them. Come on, Brigitte and Nick. We’re counting on you.”

  Brigitte says, “I don’t hear any wedding bells. Do you hear any wedding bells, Nick?”

  Nick puts down the cheese he
was nibbling, and gets on one knee. He says to her, “Brigitte, I love you very much. Will you marry me anyway? Will you make us miserable slaves to each other for the rest of our lives?”

  Brigitte gets tears in her eyes, and answers, “Oh, my darling! I love you way too much to do that to either one of us. I’d rather get a knitting needle through the heart.”

  Nick exclaims, “I knew you’d say no! This is the moment I’ve always dreamed of! You’ve made me the happiest man in the world!” He throws his arms around her.

  Brigitte turns to the group and says, “And that’s our happy ending.”

  Romantic music swells, white doves fly, and rose petals fall from the sky (or at least the ceiling), as Brigitte and Nick gently kiss.

  Abruptly, the music stops. Everyone in the cheese factory notices its absence.

  Gina turns to Brigitte. “What do you mean, ‘ending’? Okay, we stopped rape. We empowered women. What about the rest?”

  Marilyn asks, “The rest?”

  Gina answers, “Sure. Now that we’re all empowered and everything, what are we going to do with that? The world didn’t need rapists. As far as they don’t overlap, does the world need CEOs? Politicians? Fast-food restaurants? Fashion magazine publishers? Dictators? Advertising? Industrialists? Priests? Generals?”

  Marilyn whines, in a way that only teenagers can whine, “Mom! Don’t you ever get tired?”

  They all laugh, eat cheese, and continue talking and knitting.

  Marilyn, much older now, stands at the front of a classroom.

  She is talking to her students. She says, “My mom and her friends didn’t set out to change the world. All they wanted to do was make fabulous sweaters. But it led to much more than that. Now we have a beautiful existence. No more rape, no more war, freedom from all the horrors and injustices of capitalism. And, though this is all theoretical to you thus far, even sex is better.

  “For now we’ve put our knitting needles back on the shelf. But we remember where they are, just in case.”

  ABOUT DERRICK JENSEN

  Hailed as the philosopher poet of the ecological movement, Derrick Jensen is the widely acclaimed author of Endgame, A Language Older than Words, and The Culture of Make Believe, among many others. Jensen’s writing has been described as “breaking and mending the reader’s heart” (Publishers Weekly). His books with PM include: Truths Among Us: Conversations on Building a New Culture and the novels Songs of the Dead and Lives Less Valuable.

  Author, teacher, activist, and leading voice of uncompromising dissent, he regularly stirs auditoriums across the country with revolutionary spirit. Jensen holds a degree in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and has taught at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay Prison. He lives in Crescent City, California.

  ABOUT STEPHANIE MCMILLAN

  Stephanie McMillan self-syndicates the award-winning editorial cartoon Code Green, and creates the daily comic strip Minimum Security for Universal Uclick.

  She has a book of comics journalism, The Beginning of the American Fall (Seven Stories Press, 2012); a comic strip collection, Attitude Presents Minimum Security (NBM, 2005); plus two other books co-created with Derrick Jensen: a graphic novel, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial (Seven Stories Press, 2007); and a children’s book, Mischief in the Forest (PM Press/Flashpoint, 2010).

  She is also an organizer for the anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist collective One Struggle (onestrugglesouthflorida.wordpress. com). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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  Flashpoint Press believes that the Left has severely limited its strategic thinking, by insisting on education, lifestyle change, and techno-fixes as the only viable and ethical options. None of these responses can address the scale of the emergency now facing our planet. We need both a serious resistance movement and a supporting culture of resistance that can inspire and protect frontline activists. Flashpoint embraces the necessity of all levels of action, from cultural work to militant confrontation. We also intend to win.

 

 

 
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