In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  She pushed herself away from the mirror over the sink. And then she slowly crumpled underneath it and had a good cry.

  The cold, unimaginative richness of Park Avenue in the seventies and sixties fired Ilse as much as the Rolls Royce. She walked faster then usual, scowling.

  I learned my lesson. I repeat the same mistake over and over. It doesn’t work out with a woman who’s not a feminist yet. I keep hoping that it will but the change is too great and the challenge too much for them. The only way they can defend their ego, that piece of them built to survive all the shit, is to disagree with me. This always happens. I keep thinking some woman out there will make the transition without such a hassle. They turn into feminists but first they have to resist you. It’s exhausting. I really don’t want to ever go through it again. Carole will get it together. I know she will. Off my back. I wonder if that’s what happened in other places. You can read all you want but the books never tell how a Chinese peasant changed into a soldier. What happened inside? By this time there are hundreds of thousands of us and we can tell each other what happened but we can’t seem to tell people not with us yet. We try or at least I try and all I get is no. I’m not patient. I just lay it on the line. I’m no good at it. I’ve seen Alice go through this same resistance from people but she’s calm. She holds their hand practically while they cling to their outworn beliefs. Well, I haven’t got that one-to-one talent. And I’m not very attentive. I only want to bother with people when I feel like it even when I love them. When I watch lovers together I always feel like they’re playing hostess to each other. I could never give anyone that suffocating attention. Carole never asked for that. Come to think of it she never asked for much of anything. She has a funny kind of reserve. At first I thought she was some kind of aristocrat. But now I think I like that in her. I could use some of that distance myself. She taught me some valuable things, really. Maybe in time we can be friends or something. There’s too much friction to be lovers but who knows? I did learn from her. What is it she used to tell me when I’d start speed rapping? Oh yeah, “Words are the oil slick on the waters. Integrity holds truth to be more complex than language.” She’s a brilliant woman. Maybe the Buddhists are right. When you’re ready your teacher comes. I think I taught her too. She just doesn’t know it yet.

  God, I hate these fucking buildings. They’re inhabited by moral lepers. How can anyone miss the rot here? The few who live off the many. I hate these people. I hate everything they stand for and I hate their Mercedes-Benzes and Rolls Royces. I hate their suntanned cadavers and the sickening smile on their faces. And the women who live here. They’re worse than the pigs they married. Maybe because I expect more of them. Diamonds. They actually wear diamonds on their fingers and ears and over their breasts. If we had all the diamonds located on Park Avenue between 79th and 60th Streets, we could finance rape crisis centers in every major city in this country and probably still have money left over. We’ve got to end their hold on this country. What good are civil rights when they run everything? These people are the enemy. Here and on Fifth Avenue and Grosse Pointe and Brookline and Bel Air and Beverly Hills and wherever they congregate with their fat cars loitering in the driveways like shiny cockroaches.

  What few women there were on the streets when Ilse emerged from the subway at Sheridan Square blurred into replicas of Carole. All voices became her voice. She thought maybe Carole hurried down here to apologize. She crossed Grove Street and opened the first door leading into the Queen’s Drawers and nearly got squashed as a party of five barreled out of the second inner door. When she walked inside the place all heads at the bar turned, then resumed conversation. The coat attendant, eager for the small sum each checked coat brought the house, grabbed at Ilse’s light jacket.

  “No, I don’t want to check my coat. I’m looking for someone.”

  “That’s what they all say but okay, honey.”

  The dance floor was occupied but not crammed. After ten minutes of searching Ilse walked back out into Sheridan Square.

  It was a dumb idea. If she’s looking for me she wouldn’t go into the bar, she’d go to my house. Hurrying down West Fourth to Twelfth Street she saw a tall woman in front of her. At a slow trot Ilse finally overtook the woman. A fleeting look confirmed her sorrow. She wasn’t Carole.

  Embarrassed, she muttered, “Excuse me,” and walked the rest of the way home. No one lurked in front of the building. No one was in the hallway and the courtyard was equally bare. Lucia’s don’t-bother-me banner hung over the balcony. Opening the door to her small cottage revealed that no one had crawled through the window. Ilse closed the door on the last vestige she had of romantic illusion and shuddered. What is it that Alice quotes or did I read it? Scratch a fascist and uncover a romantic. I wonder if it’s true?

  The shower lifted her a bit but her stomach was firmly tied in a knot. A dank anger pulled at her. She was mad because Carole didn’t chase after her and she was even more furious at herself for secretly wishing to be chased. Slowly a sense of release untied the knot. She felt low but she felt free—not of Carole but of something, that remaining sliver of romanticism that clouds the truth and softens those hard edges of reality that should push us into action. Ilse fell asleep wondering if she was growing up in spite of herself.

  The door flew open and Martin Twanger, a fat sorry looking son-of-a-bitch if ever there was one, jumped under his desk, terrified by the three furious feminists bearing down on him. Twanger, the Village Rag’s hatchet columnist, prided himself on shocking the public. His most famous expose to date was an article “proving” over seventy-five percent of all New York City’s employees had smoked marijuana, and of that number, twenty percent admitted to oral copulation. Twanger thought he was big time. Now he looked more surprised than surprising.

  “All right, Twanger, get your fat ass out from under the desk,” Ilse barked.

  The white walls covered with push pins, copy, and fingerprints seemed to shudder as much as New York’s fearless boy reporter.

  “What are you going to do,” whined a high-pitched voice.

  “Cut your balls off, what do you think,” Alice Reardon snarled.

  “You’re sick,” Martin managed.

  “Right—of you, you hothouse phony. Now get your ass out from beneath that desk.” Ilse landed a furious kick smack on his can.

  “I’ll sue, I’ll sue.” The voice was climbing into the soprano register.

  “What makes you think you’ll live that long?” Ilse laughed.

  According to their scouting, the Village Rag emptied out Thursday at four. People were exhausted by copy deadlines, layouts squeaking in just on time, and the usual chaos of that weekly red-letter day when the Rag made it to press or else. Martin Twanger usually stayed on and the women counted on his solitary vigil with a blue pencil behind his ear for effect.

  What they didn’t count on was a noise behind a closed door which opened narrowly then tried to close again. Harriet, along for the fun, grabbed it and pulled it open. Hanging on the door knob was none other than Olive Holloway and a middle-aged man smoking a pipe.

  “Join the party.” Ilse motioned them to come in.

  “Olive, what an unexpected displeasure,” Alice crooned.

  Olive, looking stricken, slunk out, followed by the puffing pipe. As Harriet closed the door she noticed an Emmy standing conspicuously on a cluttered desk. So that’s who it is, she thought, Joshua Chernakov, who did the script for that television special on instant nostalgia: “Where is the Left?” So much for political journalism.

  As color returned to Olive’s face, her tongue warmed up as well. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Flushing out a rat,” Harriet answered.

  “Now see here, young women, I don’t know what all this is about but can’t you act a little more discreetly? You aren’t going to really beat up Martin, are you?” Joshua spoke.

  “Not with my hands, I don’t want to get them dirty.” Ilse glared at the pipe.
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  Still squeezed under his desk, Martin babbled something inaudible.

  “Martin, come out from under there,” Joshua commanded.

  “And let these harpies tear me limb from limb? Fat chance.”

  “Don’t come out, Martin. I know these women. They’re capable of anything,” Olive warned.

  “Really, Olive, this is ridiculous.” Joshua’s voice lowered to give him a more commanding tone.

  “Why don’t you both shut up and sit down,” Ilse ordered.

  “Young lady, I don’t take orders from the United States government, I won’t take them from you. I was on Nixon’s shit list, you know.”

  Ilse walked over and cracked him in the chest. Joshua Chernakov sat down with new respect in his eyes. “Well, now you’re on my shit list, mister.”

  “See, see, I told you they’re violent,” Martin moaned, the desk giving his words a mystical reverberation.

  “Get out from under there, Twanger,” Alice softly called to him.

  “I won’t, I won’t. You can’t make me.”

  “Wanna bet?” Alice grabbed one chubby leg. Martin’s white socks flashed like a surrender signal. “Christ, this pig really is a pig. Give me a hand.”

  Harriet grabbed the other, equally chubby leg, and they pulled mightily.

  Martin held onto the desk legs, tears streaming down his cheeks. At this point he bordered on hysteria and said something garbled but that sounded like, “I’m too young to die, I’m too young to die.”

  Ilse, tiring of the intrepid reporter’s melodrama, brought her booted foot down on his left hand with a swift crunch. As he let go, Alice and Harriet pulled as hard as they could and out he came collecting most of the floor’s filth as he slid.

  “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” Martin wailed.

  Neither Joshua nor Olive made a move to help the stricken man, either out of cowardice or scarcely concealed loathing for a creature both had come to depend on.

  “Now sit down and shut up.” Alice threw him in a seat.

  “We’re all going to sit here and have a polite conversation. Since Mr. Twanger needs some time to collect himself, let’s start with you, Olive. You here to pick up a payoff for that rotten story you helped write about our group?”

  “I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “I’d advise it.” Ilse’s anger, cool, was frightening but Olive perhaps thought her female hormones would save her and missed Ilse’s purpose entirely.

  “Don’t try to push me around, little Lenin. I’ll get a lawyer as soon as I get out of here.”

  “You do that.” Ilse backhanded her with such force Joshua’s left eye began to twitch uncontrollably. “Now what are you doing here?”

  With tears in her eyes, Olive whispered in a small voice, “Joshua and I were working out arrangements for me to do a monthly column on the women’s movement.”

  “Getting smart aren’t you, Olive?” Alice stared at her. “You’ve learned not to take things in money but in kind. I’m real impressed. How about you, Harriet?”

  “Yeah, I’m real impressed.” Harriet moved to get closer to Alice and she reached for Joshua’s arm. Disgusted he picked her hand off his sleeve as though she were a cockroach.

  “You too good for her now, Mr. Big?” Ilse sneered at him.

  “I don’t have anything to do with your movement battles.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Alice stated.

  As he was not the center of attention, Martin Twanger made for the door. With two graceful strides Ilse was behind him and darted her right foot around his ankle. Down he went.

  “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”

  “Shut up, creep.”

  As if walking on eggshells he made his way back to his chair.

  “Martin, move over here so you can be next to your colleagues.” Alice pulled up a chair next to Olive so she could enjoy his overpowering aroma.

  “So you’re above all this, Mr. Chernakov?”

  “I didn’t say that. I simply said I have nothing to do with your movement battles. You’re angry at Olive for cooperating with Martin on that unfortunate article. That has nothing to do with me, really.”

  “Unfortunate! That was one of my best pieces,” Twanger wailed.

  Joshua’s left eye twitched again.

  “Well, Mr. Chernakov, I don’t see it your way at all.” Ilse started in on him. “You’ve made a career sucking off the male left, the Black movement, and now you’re going to draw some blood from us. You just sit back in your chair while other people take all the risks and then you pass judgment on it. Yeah, I’ve been checking up on you. My favorite part is that then you go to cocktail parties and parade as a genuine intellectual member of the radical left. Bet the women in Valentino clothing dig it.”

  Chernakov sputtered, his face blotched, but Ilse, unable or unwilling to check her contempt, chopped him square in the throat and he gasped, eyes bulging. “That’s a small payment for everyone you’ve ripped off. I wish to hell I could kill you and get away with it.”

  Alice put her arm through Ilse’s left elbow and pulled her back gently. “Easy, Ilse, we’ve got work to do here.”

  Alice took over. “I do have to hand it to you, Chernakov, you get a flunky like Twanger to write the smear story, you hire so-called reporters to cover each of the movements, preferably everything negative they can lay their hands on, then you write the big picture piece on what’s really wrong with America and the movements and your prose just sings, doesn’t it? Must be quite a strain putting out an essay every two weeks. But you must get quite a nice salary for it, don’t you? Just to show your heart’s in the right place, wouldn’t you like to contribute two thousand dollars to the rape crisis center? You could get your name on the patron’s list. That’d look real good to the cocktail crowd now, wouldn’t it? Show the world what a big guy you are, Joshua, you’re going to take women’s issues seriously, especially this issue.”

  Joshua’s eye twitched wildly. Sweat poured over his forehead. He was a man afraid but he was afraid of something more than physical violence. “Yes, yes, I’ll do that.” What was left of his voice after Ilse’s chop cracked over every word.

  “Just to make sure you won’t have a change of heart, we’ll check the center next Thursday to see if they’ve received your generous gift,” Ilse added.

  He nodded his head painfully. Chernakov’s eyes never met theirs. He seemed to have found oneness with the floor.

  Twanger yelped in disbelief, “Josh, what’s wrong with you? So what if they beat us up, we’ll take them to court.”

  Head down, Chernakov said, slowly but distinctly, “No, I think there’s already been enough damage. Maybe they’re right. I haven’t taken any risks.”

  “Come on!” Twanger exploded. “What do you care what they think? You run the Rag, man. You can blow them out of the water. I mean this is America. We’re the free press.”

  “This is America all right and no one is free from your kind of freedom of the press.” Ilse looked at him.

  Realizing he overstepped his bounds on two counts, Twanger shrank back in his chair, thoroughly dumbfounded. He was confused which frightened him more than ever.

  “I get paid a lot less than Josh, you know. You’re not going to hit me up for money, are you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Martin Twanger. I think you could make a small contribution to the women’s press collective.”

  His face shriveled. “How much?”

  “We’ll let you off the hook for five hundred dollars.” Alice nailed it home.

  “Five hundred dollars?”

  “Be a sport, Twanger, you spend that on grass.”

  “Yeah, well so does everyone else in this city.”

  “Did I say anything moral about it? But how would you feel if your contact went public, assuming someone muscled him and he had to, you know? New York has some strange drug laws these days and that poor guy could get salted away for years. I bet he’d be real mad at you
, Martin.”

  “Christ, you all are like the Mafia.”

  “Not quite, Martin, not quite. They’ve got money and political power. Right now we’re a little short on both counts but we’re learning, we’re really learning,” Harriet joined in.

  “Now about your contribution? Would you like to make it in your name or remain anonymous?” Ilse pressed.

  “Uh, anonymous.”

  “One other little thing you need to do for us, Martin. You’ll print a retraction of last week’s slam on all counts particularly about my rich ‘keeper,’ ” Ilse quietly requested.

  Twanger’s face went beet red. This hurt more than the money. Glancing at Joshua who now had his head in his hands, he thought the better of protest. “All right.”

  Olive, last on the list, peered apprehensively at her foes. Harriet continued on the track, “Olive, since you can’t write and since you won’t have access to the women’s movement in the future it doesn’t make much sense for you to put out a column, does it?”

  “I’ll do as I please, you haven’t got anything on me.”

  Ilse started for her but Alice restrained her.

  Harriet faced her down and with something approaching kindness in her voice said, “Olive, no one is going to talk to you and I doubt if Mr. Chernakov can afford to print your inner thoughts on a monthly basis.”

  “What do you mean, no one is going to talk to me?”

  “Just that,” Harriet countered.