Being Mean

by Patricia Eagle

  Now that I’m pregnant, Dad’s words seem to fit. It occurs to me that there are not any corresponding insulting words like slut and whore that I could use against a man. Filthy itself says something, then slut feels like such a hard word, and whore is simply dismissive. All those words are like dirt, scum, waste, shit, discard, trash. That’s what I feel like when I’m pregnant. Something to throw away. It’s not just the baby that gets tossed, but a piece of my soul as well. Just like my students felt when they were sent away to that Catholic home for pregnant girls.

  “I will need a ride to the Greyhound station tomorrow,” I state, matter-of-factly, as I stare out the open window and smell eucalyptus trees swaying in the coastal breeze.

  Richard doesn’t flinch and agrees, with nary a question. We haven’t even talked about my leaving. Again, I can smell his relief. Me—outta sight. Baby—gone.

  I pedal my bike to a nearby bike shop and leave it there with the owner, who agrees to ship it to me in Texas. I walk to The Whale’s Tail, the restaurant where I have already given notice, and slip a goodbye note under the door for the owner. I think of the kind, old, weathered fishermen there who, after meeting Richard, encouraged me to open my eyes to my choice of relationships. I didn’t listen.

  Next stop: abortion clinic. The suction method is painless, and afterwards I am told that a cursory examination of tissue proved that the abortion is complete. Thank God. I can’t fathom hours of sitting on a toilet hemorrhaging again.

  I walk back slowly to the apartment and climb into bed by late afternoon, hearing Richard’s sports car roar out of the parking lot just before I fall asleep. I feel like I’ve been sleep-walking all afternoon. I never know if Richard comes home that night or not. Maybe he slept in the living room. But he’s there in the morning, holding his cup of espresso, waiting to drive me to the bus station. I’m still in a trancelike state when he casually drops me off—wishing I had an espresso—and by late afternoon I’ll be in Los Angeles, being picked up by a girlfriend who used to live next door to my apartment in Venice. After this short visit in LA, I’ll be heading back to Texas, rattled by my experiences in California, though skeptical of returning to life in Austin.

  But on the bus from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles, I slowly begin to realize that something is not right. Now my girlfriend, who met me at the station, is also suspicious of the cramps she notes I’m having at regular intervals. Then the intense bleeding starts. I’m jolted to awareness.

  We rush to the emergency room, where I explain that I had an abortion only the day before.

  “Well, it looks like you are having a miscarriage, ma’am.”

  “That’s impossible. This is something else. The clinic called and told me they checked the tissue and the fetus was completely aborted.” I’m matter of fact.

  “Did anyone check if you were carrying twins?” the young resident queries. His eyes are kind, and his voice soft. He seems like the kind of guy who would truly care if he got someone pregnant. But what do I know? I’ve hardly been a good judge of men.

  Twins? I’m confused. Wouldn’t I have known? Wouldn’t the doctor’s assistant who diagnosed my pregnancy have discovered this? Is that why my belly was unusually large for three months, my breasts so swollen, my energy so diminished? Are twins in my family? In Richard’s? Is this even possible?

  Another contraction comes, and I push. A fat clump of tissue slides out, plopping in a metal container that a nurse pushes out of sight. Then more blood. I realize I am crying. Gulping sobs. It hurt so much to let go of yesterday’s baby, and now another one today? I want to scream from a place of fierce sadness.

  I close my eyes and detach as if suspended above the entire hospital scene, negotiating with myself, pulling on an endurance I’m so familiar with as a marathoner, and as a woman. I can do this. C’mon. I know how to do this. Let go. Calm down. Breathe.

  From somewhere deep, deep within, compassion for these children, my situation, and myself emerges. I imagine wrapping my arms around the baffled young woman I am, lying on that narrow gurney, and I love her, just plain love her.

  PART II:

  Try and Try Again

  THAT WON’T WORK FOR ME

  1980 (age 28)—Austin, Texas

  Donna has found a new printer for the publication we both work for, New Age in Austin. I sell advertising, write, and edit a small fitness section in the paper. Marnie, a co-worker, and I tag along to the Austin Citizen, one of the two newspapers in Austin, to meet the guy who will now be doing our printing. I know zip about printing and have never been in a pressroom. Papers are strewn everywhere, machines roar, and the smell of ink and chemicals punctures the air. I’m wondering why I came along.

  From the back of this din comes a man in a white T-shirt and jeans, wiping his hands on a towel and wearing a warm, kind smile on a face smudged with ink. He shakes our hands, then turns to listen to Donna. She goes over details, he answers our questions, we set a printing date and, with affairs in order, we take off. We are barely out the door when we unanimously agree that Bill, our new printer, is someone we are all happy to have found.

  When it’s time to print, I’m eager to return to the Citizen. Somehow Bill and I end up in the darkroom looking at some proofs. Out of nowhere, he kisses me on the mouth, a soft kiss, nothing invasive, barely a suggestion, but my heart thumps like elephant hooves in a stampede. Before leaving, I invite Bill to our publication party, always held at Mother’s Restaurant, and I hope to God he’ll come.

  My eye has been on the door for an hour when I finally see Bill enter. Marnie, Donna, and I all greet him, but I stick by his side for most of the evening. What seems sweet about this guy doesn’t wear out. He neither flirts nor initiates conversation, but he smiles and listens. As the evening comes to an end, we make plans for a bike ride in the coming week.

  I have been riding a bike in Austin since showing up in 1970 with the Huffy I got when I was ten years old. I use my car for work and ride my now well-used ten-speed the rest of the time. When Bill shows up with a brand-new bike, bought just for our date, and in what looks like a recently purchased outfit consisting of matching shorts and shirt, it occurs to me that this guy might be different in a lot of ways. Fresh comes to mind.

  Bill doesn’t have much riding experience, so I keep our ride to areas close by. I learn that he is newly divorced with two boys, four and ten. He shares that he married at sixteen, dropped out of high school, and immediately moved into the work world to support a family. I mention that I’m divorced, thought I was pregnant at fifteen, and often wonder how my life might have gone had I had a baby at that age. I made it to college; he wished he had. I don’t mention an illegal abortion three years later, and more after that. No need to run this guy off. But thinking of my own experiences sobers me, and I pause as I consider dating someone who is divorced, with children, and who never went to college.

  Back at my airy, upstairs duplex apartment, we have a bite to eat and sip ice teas on the screened in porch that looks out on several gigantic oak trees. Just being with Bill feels like relief—casual conversation interspersed with comfortable silences. Getting to know him is like an easy float down a cool, refreshing Texas river, not a rapid in sight.

  As Bill prepares to leave, I want to keep the communication between us as open and honest as it has felt all evening. He has already suggested that we get together again soon.

  “I’ve had such a wonderful time,” I gush, “and I really want to get together again. I feel like I should tell you that I’m dating other people as well.”

  At the time there is this sloppy pile of guys I go out with here and there, though I am not serious about any of them. After my last experience with Richard in California, I have felt down on my luck about selecting a decent man, so I decided the best thing to do was to check out as many men as I could in a short amount of time. I am dating the guy who owns my apartment, both a doctor and a chiropractor who I see, the facilitator from the last EST training I attended, an acc
ountant who wears special yogi underpants, and the former husband of a teaching colleague whenever he slips into town for attorney biz.

  All these guys accumulated after yet one more gynecological procedure earlier in the year, when a nurse practitioner friend agreed to insert an IUD just days after a night of unprotected sex. My first time to do cocaine, unfortunately during the fertile time of my cycle. It was like I was caught in the spin of Russian roulette, or something akin to sexual suicide. Neither the cocaine buzz nor the unremarkable night of sex was worth it, for the guy or me. Amidst hysterical sobbing, I told my nurse friend I would kill myself if I were pregnant again, and I meant it. I was intensely disappointed with myself. Predictably I slid into depression and then, typically, on to this pile of men, sex, and more confusion.

  Right now, I seem blind to what is standing right in front of me.

  “Well,” and after a pause, “that won’t work for me,” Bill responds in his soft drawl, somewhat sadly.

  What do you mean that won’t work for you, I want to blurt out! Why not? I have told this to the other guys I am dating and not one expressed concern about my choice. But I don’t know what to say. Suddenly my past, present, and future are colliding. It’s like I’m a pinball in a frickin’ pinball machine, bouncing against flappers that are randomly opening and closing until ZING, I’m down the hole. No score!

  I don’t see Bill for three months, not until our next publication. Meanwhile, whatever luster there was has dulled on every guy I was dating. The yogi underpants guy mistakenly gives a special beaded belt of mine to another woman, whom he must be sleeping with, and I see it around her waist at an event. The EST facilitator proves to be in need of a few EST trainings himself. In a sensitive moment, the chiropractor shares that the wrinkles around my eyes bother him. The doctor who offered a house call at no charge for his services in exchange for sex did the same for a friend as well. The attorney is glitzed by the entertainment industry he now serves. And my apartment owner has come to look like the motorcycle he rides. I think about Bill for months as I cycle through this string of guys, some who profess a desire for a more serious relationship. Not one suggests monogamy.

  Every day I consider calling Bill. Our publication date is highlighted on my calendar and anticipated for one reason only. Is he still available? Would dating me work for him now?

  Bill comes walking up from the back of the shop with the same warm grin on his face, kindly greeting Donna, Marnie, and me. My heart melts. He doesn’t invite me into the darkroom again, despite my intense wish. I just want a chance to be alone with him. No, he is all about work this evening, friendly to us all. But he does say he’ll come to our publication party again.

  That night I wait by the door. When Bill arrives, he appears genuinely happy to see me and to hear that I’ve been waiting for him. I love introducing him to the yogi-underpants guy and the chiropractor, and then walking away with Bill. I can’t wait for this gig to end so I can have some time alone with him.

  Bill is open to coming by my apartment later. We sit on my upstairs screened in porch.

  “I’m not dating anyone else any longer. I would really like to spend more time with you!” I blurt out before we are even settled. I don’t tell him I’ve thought about him every day, or how all the other guys paled in comparison to his simple honesty and integrity. Or how only one other man in my life has been as respectful of me, and I let that guy walk away from my dorm steps for a fickle boyfriend who had just arrived in Europe to surprise me.

  “Well, that would be real nice,” Bill answers in his southern drawl. I let go of a deep breath I have been holding for three months and reach for his hand.

  GOOD GOD

  1981 (age 29)—Tulum, Mexico

  Glancing back, I see a trail of red dissipating in the clear Caribbean waters. Have I been bitten? Panic engulfs me as the sleek predator circles in an eerie silence. Maybe this is it: the culmination of all my daring behaviors and stupid decisions. The Mexican guys out spear fishing gather swiftly surround me and take aim at the shark. Frantically kicking my fins, I shoot up to the water’s surface where the guy in the boat, who has been watching the action below, reaches down and yanks me up. Tumbling onto the boat’s floor I feel along my legs–intact–then realize I am bleeding between my legs. Good God, it’s another gushing start of a menstrual cycle. A little early. No wonder my head’s been pounding and my abdomen aching. I stick a towel between my legs and make an okay sign to the fellow, who nods politely, looks away, and offers an explanation in Spanish to his comrades bobbing in the water beside the boat. They are all workers for this Tulum, Mexico retreat center where I have been flown to interview for a director position.

  Although the sun is shining, my teeth are clattering. The guy in the boat notices and kindly offers an old shirt. As I slip into it, I almost bust out into big baby sobs. What is wrong with me? Why do I get myself into these situations, as if daring life to toss me to the sharks? This was too close; my practice of risk taking and fearlessness just about got me killed. When we arrived at the reef, these workers gestured toward an area that would be safe for me to snorkle as they hunted, and we all jumped in. About fifteen minutes later, I spotted the shark.

  There has been one perilous adventure after another since I arrived at this retreat center in Tulum, and I still haven’t met the person who is supposed to be interviewing me. Sitting there in the boat, in some kind of last-ditch effort to discern how I can curb my risky behaviors, I begin to wonder how carefully did I think through this trip while still in Austin, or do any preliminary research about this position?

  I first heard about this place several months ago when I approached a travel agency for possible advertising in the publication I work for. A conversation with the owner of that agency, who knows the owner of this place, led to my being flown to Tulum for an interview as the possible director of a new age retreat center that will soon be opening here.

  On my first day, once out of my palapa, I discovered shocking blue waters rolling onto a pristine, snow-white beach. Yucatan jays cawed at me, enticing me to stroll along the water’s edge. Later I found an employee in the café, apparently another American, who offered me a beer and a bit of information. Yeah, the sailboats I saw on my walk are free to use, equipment in the nearby shed. The owners had some things come up and will be interviewing me in the next day or so. Said to enjoy myself and get to know the place.

  The following day calm blue skies begged me to set sail.

  I found the shed and surveyed equipment. Sails were wrapped around the masts, dagger boards off to the side, life jackets in a bin. Equipment looked good. Nothing to these little boats that I used to teach sailing on and maintain at summer camps. Tucking what I needed under each arm, I was soon pushing a boat out into waters deep enough for me to plop onto, push down the dagger board and broach the dinghy, turning it sideways to the wind and surf. The winds were providing perfect sailing fuel. It didn’t take long, and I was tacking out with my sail close to the wind, pulled in on alternate courses with the wind first on one side of the boat, then on the other.

  I had read in an airport brochure about the Tulum ruins, on the same road as the retreat center, learning they perch on a bluff overlooking the Caribbean and face the rising sun, spectacularly positioned and magnificent to behold. They didn’t take long to find, comprising an impressive view from over a mile away. No wonder this place is believed to have been one of the most important cities of the ancient Mayans.

  Kchunk! The boat was slamming into something. Looking down I discovered a coral reef soaring high enough underwater for my dagger board to scrape it. I yanked up the dagger board, tightened my sail, maneuvered my rudder higher, and focused on quickly moving above and beyond the reef for what would surely be a painful capsizing were I to topple. Suddenly I realized in my haste to set sail, I had left the life belt lying on the beach. Shit, I better be careful and quit daydreaming.

  The winds were calming, and sailing back became a slow
, tedious process, inching downwind, the warming sun and gentle rocking of the boat lulling me toward sleep. Painful stomach cramps were making me feel dangerously woozy. I struggled to stay awake, nodding off a couple of times and drifting off-course. After banging into a couple of more reefs, with relief I finally steered the boat back to the retreat site, pulled it ashore, and stumbled up to my palapa for a good snooze.

  Back in my grass hut today the delivery of the Kotex I requested arrives. By now everyone at the retreat site knows I’m having a doozy of a period. I don’t understand what’s going on in my body. After the difficult abortion in California, then only months later having the IUD put in, my periods have become unpredictable and increasingly bloody and difficult.

  Apparently, the owners have become curious enough about me to finally schedule our interview. Guess they figure they better meet me before I die on their watch. After sticking in a new tampon and padding my underwear with a huge Kotex, I take off in the direction of the fancy hacienda.

  An attractive and very fashionable middle-aged American woman greets me, offering a mixed drink right away. I decline and answer her ultra-polite questions about my time thus far and answer, yes, I am enjoying this ancient Mayan area. “You must visit the Tulum ruins,” she insists, explaining what a powerful impact they can have. As she dispassionately tells me about plans for a yoga/meditation retreat site, she mixes a second drink, and before asking me one single question about my experience, is called out of the room for a phone call. A household worker soon arrives to inform me that the interview will continue later in the week. Later in the week? I am scheduled to leave the next afternoon, and at this point sure don’t feel up to extending this “vacation.” As I head over to the café, my reasoning abilities are starting to kick in, and I decide I would never work here even if I were offered a position.