by Kris Radish
What she really wanted to do was go back in time and graduate from college. She wanted to whack herself upside the head for having run off to marry Jackson at the end of her junior year at Iowa State University. She wanted to stop crying half the night. She wanted to press a magic button and be the kind of woman everyone thought she was—a real hard-ass.
Lenny wasn't a hard-ass. That's why she put up with Jackson for all those years, thinking day after day that tomorrow would be the day she would boot him out. But the excuses were always there. First it was the kids, then he broke his leg, then she had to have a hysterectomy, then the hogs got a virus. Then finally, there wasn't anything else, just the long nights and the begging and the stains on his clothes when she pulled them from the hamper.
The morning she kicked him out was the coldest day of the year. She pulled her father's old double-barreled shotgun on him while he was working flat out in the barn. She pushed a suitcase toward him with the tip of her work boot, threw the keys to the old car at his bad leg, and told him it was time he was moving on.
“What?” He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.
“I've had it, you big fucking jackass.”
“Jesus, honey, put that thing down.”
“You call me honey again, touch me, even look at me, and I'll blow your balls clear to hell.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, stumbling back into the stacks of hay after he saw her eyes narrow to a slit as she brought the gun to her cheek, ready to fire, ready for anything. “What do you want?”
“I'm taking everything, and you get the suitcase and the old car. Go, go fuck your way through the rest of this county but don't ever come back here or I swear to God, I will kill you.”
Jackson left with his tail between his legs, and Lenny managed to fire a round into the air just before he got into the car, hoping the entire time that he might shit his pants. That was the strongest she had ever felt, and she had spent the last three months trying to figure out how to rekindle that feeling.
When she heard about the women, Lenny pictured each one of them strutting down the highway. The vision gave her a moment of joy. She walked with them for a minute, felt the spring air brush across her face and through her long dark hair. Her arms propelled her along—swinging back and forth as if they were on fire. The sun tanned her arms, her feet flew, she was free and happy and smiling, always smiling.
Lenny picked up the phone to call Sue, a friend who lived down on Wittenberg Road. She wanted to know if the walkers had turned or were still heading her way.
“What do you think about them?” Sue asked her.
“It sounds pretty damn wonderful to me, walking like that, not talking to anyone, being with your friends.”
“Should we run out and join them?” Sue laughed at what she thought was the absurdity of her own question.
“The thought has crossed my mind, but I just want to see them. Maybe that's what I need.”
“What you need is a good screw,” Sue told her.
Sue wanted to keep talking but Lenny suddenly had an idea. She wanted to do the chores, throw a big dinner in the oven, get some wine out of the garage, take a shower, and get those women to come into the house.
The chores were like a zillion pounds of weight around her waist that kept her tied to the farm. There had been plenty of times when Lenny had thought about shooting each one of the hogs in the head and burying them in the pit behind the fence. But she knew the hogs would eventually save her when she sold the whole damn place—lock, stock and barrel. When that would happen or how it would happen, she had no idea.
All she could think of now was the women. She fairly flew through the chores after she called Pat and told him that a friend was visiting and would help her for a few weeks. “Don't come back until I call,” she told him.
Lenny hadn't bothered to cook a big meal for months. She ate frozen burritos, salads, vegetarian pizzas—all the foods she loved but Jackson had hated. For the women, she took out two turkey breasts from the freezer, peeled a bag of potatoes, washed some broccoli, got out her mother's homemade cranberry sauce, whipped up some rolls, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found a perfectly good cherry pie lurking in the back of the freezer.
After she set the dining room table, she showered so long the water turned cold. Then she dressed for the special occasion. She put on her silver Indian bracelet from college, the ring her grandmother gave her when she graduated from high school, the one pair of jeans that had managed to fit her for five years in a row, a red flannel shirt that highlighted her dark skin, and her black cowboy boots.
At 5:25 P.M., with the smell of turkey floating like invisible bubbles throughout the house and out into the front yard, Lenny took the phone off the hook and set it under a pillow on her bed, grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass and went out to sit on the edge of the front porch.
Lenny knew in her heart that she could get them to stop. She knew if she walked out to the edge of the yard when she saw them turn the corner, if she went out onto the road and started walking toward them that they would simply follow her into the house.
It was 6:20 P.M. when they finally appeared, like a desert mirage. First one and then the next woman came into view, shimmering under the sun as they walked through what was left of the almost hot spring day.
Lenny finished her second glass of wine in one quick gulp, set it down gently on the step and started walking out to the highway. If the women saw her, they didn't act like it, but the few cars following them must have spotted her. Lenny ignored them, figuring they were bored local kids or some of those damn reporters.
Something magical happened to Lenny on the road, like someone reached inside of her and fluffed up her heart as if it were nothing more than a goose down pillow. She was nineteen again and happy, and the entire world stretched out in front of her and glimmered, just like these women walkers glimmering on the road.
When she got close to them, Lenny smiled. She laughed too, a soft chuckle that moved up from the soles of her feet through her legs, past her thighs and stomach, through her soaring heart and into her fine white throat.
There was a woman about her age walking in front. She was over six feet tall, and she wore Nike tennis shoes, black jogging tights, a blue shirt and carried a white sweatshirt over her shoulder. When Lenny met up with her, the woman smiled and locked her arm inside of Lenny's. Together they strolled down the highway and into the front yard of the hog farm.
“Please come in.” Lenny held open the door. “The wine is on the kitchen table, the bathroom is upstairs and I've set out towels by the shower.”
When everyone was inside the house, Lenny went back out by herself to talk to the people in the cars. What she said was fairly simple. “Leave us the hell alone.”
Two reporters hopped out of their cars anyway, and Lenny bent down to pick up a stick, then headed toward them. “This is private, that's all,” she told them, pointing the stick toward the car doors.
The reporters saw the look in Lenny's eye, that same look Jackson had once seen, and they quickly returned to their cars and backed down the driveway.
Lenny threw the stick into the air and stood for a moment by herself right in the spot where she would eventually put the For Sale sign, then turned and walked into the house, wondering the entire time if her feet were really touching the earth.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 4, 1970
Waukesha, Wisconsin
HAMMES AWARDED SCHOLARSHIP
Jeffrey G. Hammes, 18, a senior at Johnson Hill High School, was awarded a full athletic scholarship to Notre Dame University where he will play middle linebacker for the Irish football team.
Hammes, an all-star player for the Hill team during the past four years, was actively recruited by numerous colleges and universities including the University of Wisconsin, Stanford, and Northwestern.
“I can't believe it,” said Hammes, the oldest son of John and Carol Hammes. “This is just the greatest thing
that could ever happen to me, and I'm really excited.”
Bill Stoughten, Hammes's coach throughout his high school career, said Hammes is not only a superb athlete but also an outstanding student and team leader. “This scholarship comes as no surprise to me,” said Stoughten. “If I had more guys like Jeff, we'd probably win the state championship every year.”
Hammes won the Singelton Award for sportsman-like conduct this year and was chosen by his teammates as team captain for the last two years. He was also on the Journal's All-Conference team the last three years and was selected by his school to represent them at the National Sports Convention in Toledo last January.
Hammes plans to study business at the university and said he might consider a professional football career.
—30—
The Elegant Gathering: J.J.
This morning I could not take my eyes off of the skyline. I have never been out here like this to watch the sun rise, and now I am thinking that I may never, ever miss another one the rest of my life. When I watched the sky open up and change from dark to light, I felt as if I was exploding on the inside, like something burst open and I could feel whatever it was running through the veins in my body.
The girls call me J.J. because my name is Joanne Johnson. This is the first nickname that I have ever had. I like it. When this is over, that's what I am going to make everyone call me.
This morning after my experience with the sun, I walked for a long time with Susan. She was crying, and I did something that I have never done before: I reached down and took her hand. I don't know why people get so riled up about holding hands because it's just so nice to be able to touch someone you care about. All this focus on sex, everyone thinking about it all the time. It's pathetic. You should be able to touch someone if you care about them.
Susan cries a lot, and I always want to be able to do something to make her feel better. When I felt how warm her hand was, I put it up to my face and turned to look at her. She smiled and said, “Thank you, J.J.,” and I knew that it was okay for me to keep holding it.
Holding someone's hand helps me too. I have spent a great deal of my life feeling lonely and fairly frightened of everything. These women here, behind me, around me, in front of me, they have given me such great comfort and strength that I can hardly think about it without crying. For the first time in my life I feel truly safe. I know that these women would do anything in the world for me and I the same for them.
When we started out like this, we never bothered to think about anything else. Now that I am thinking about it, I consider it very wise because we have always thought about everyone else and now it's finally time, for just a while, to think of ourselves.
Since we started, I've felt truly relaxed and not worried about anything except putting one foot in front of the other. If I can manage to even say the word happy, then that is what I am right now. There is nothing to hold up, no one to smile at, no more secrets that can come flying out of a mouth that is tired and finally needs to stay closed.
It is so unlikely for me to be here, because what happened to me when I was seventeen years old has spun a web inside of me that has kept me from letting go of those terrible moments.
Before befriending these women, I told only one person what had happened to me—my mother. I'm sure she only told my father because she is the one who came back to me pleading that I do nothing. So that is what I did for all these years, until I told these women. My husband does not know, my two daughters do not know, but Jeff Hammes knows.
When I read in Sports Illustrated about his bad knee injury and his addiction to painkillers ending his NFL career years ago, I can honestly say that I was glad. I feel he deserves nothing good, and the people who raised him and coached him and knew about the blackness in his heart deserve the same.
My mother should have helped me, sent me to talk to someone, but I never even saw a doctor. In 1970 the world was not as accepting and open as it is now. Even though we were all supposed to be liberated from the '60s, Waukesha was not so liberated—at least not in my neighborhood, where nearly every house had a two-car garage and a large lawn and a father who drove to work in the city.
What I think about most is my own teenage daughters. I have always wanted to tell them what Jeff did to me, but somehow I have never been able to. Would it help them? Would they shrink back and give me that big-eyed look I have come to interpret as, “What's wrong with you, Mother?” Maybe I needed to do this journey first, or maybe I needed to wait until they were just a bit older. Surely Jess and Caitlin are stronger and smarter than I ever was. That is why I have not blurted it out when we have had our talks about sex and being careful and being in control of your own body.
But there isn't a day or a second when I don't think about something terrible happening to them. Oh, I know all mothers worry like this. All mothers creep through the house at night when their babies are sleeping, just to watch them breathe, just to know that for those few minutes their babies are alive and safe. All mothers wonder each time a door closes behind a baby how long it will be before they hear the door slam again and then those feet pounding across the kitchen floor. When a siren wails and we are home alone, we expect tiny pieces of our stomachs to pass into our throats. There is endless worry.
I hate to admit my special worry, the one that I carry within me when I watch them pulling down the edges of their bras, playing with eye shadow in the hall bathroom, or poring over the photos of the senior boys in the high school yearbook. That worry borders on becoming a consuming fear that is dangerously close to an illness.
I have no sons. No young man on testosterone overload to guide through these years. Maybe just that, the fact that I am a mother of daughters, has brought me finally to this place of walking women with our no-name tennis shoes from the sales rack at Kohl's. I think that only in the telling and the sharing of this story with the people I love the most, only then will this deep dark hole in my heart be filled with the light from the sun that I am knowing so well these days.
Of course there's Tim. My wonderful husband Tim. I have imagined telling him about Jeff so many times. We would be in the car holding hands or sitting on the couch with our backs pushed up against the middle cushion, and I would want to say, “Tim, there's something I have always wanted to tell you.” But words would never come, and I would turn to look at him in his old sweat suit, with his forehead that seems to slant toward the attic, and I would think about how much he loved me and how my telling might change something. Maybe he would love me less and everything that I had would change. Perhaps the secret had become such a part of me, I couldn't live without it.
I would always talk myself out of revealing my secret, and then it would feel as if that old place of terror would grow just a little bit larger and then I would say to myself that Tim is looking at me and he loves me, but he really doesn't know this one thing about me that has moved through my life like an attached shadow. And I would cry in the bathroom for betraying him with this secret, with the one thing that I have never been able to find the courage to tell him.
Something wonderful did happen when I first told my best friends the secret. It kinda felt as if something vile had busted loose out through my mouth. Like the top of a huge wall or a dam broke, and the water seeped through and the weight of the world rushed slowly off of my head, then my neck, then my shoulders until finally even breathing became easier. I can remember the moment as if it happened this morning.
When it actually happened was December 12, not quite two years ago, and all eight of us were drinking wine at Janice Ridby's house. Her husband was out of town on one of those cross country truck runs, and we used that as an excuse to have a get-together. We did intend to talk about books or the economy the first time or two that we held these meetings, but those conversations never lasted long. It was so much fun just to get together and not to be making crafts or something like that, which none of us like to do anyway. I had to have three glasses of wine before I even broug
ht the rape up, and it wasn't even something that I had thought about doing. Maybe the reason was because Janice had already told us about her uncle, but suddenly right when the bowl of chips and salsa passed through my hands and into Susan's, I blurted it out.
“Hey,” I said fairly softly. “There's something I never told anyone that I want to tell you. Something that happened to me a long time ago.”
This announcement pretty much stopped everyone in their tracks because I hadn't ever shared much before.
“Well,” I started out again, hesitating because suddenly this huge swell of emotion washed over me and made me start crying. “Oh hell, I don't know why I'm doing this but I've always wanted to tell someone and you're all like sisters to me.”
Alice was next to me, she's the “Mom” of the group, and she put her short little arm around my neck and held me close. “Get it out, honey,” she encouraged me. “Tell us, get it out of there so it won't eat you up.”
“All right,” I said. “It's just hard because this was so horrible, and no one helped me, and I guess, I guess I never, ever talked about it.”
“You were raped, weren't ya?” This question came from Sandy, who is about the most direct person I have ever met in my life.
I simply nodded and felt Alice's arm tighten around my neck.
“High school or college?” was Sandy's next question.
“High school,” I answered.
“Well, you're still cute so you were probably really cute in high school. My guess is that it was one of those jock bastards and everyone begged you to keep it quiet because it would ruin his pathetic little life.”
“Something like that,” I mumbled, surprised at all that Sandy seemed to know, trying hard to get the images of Jeff Hammes out of my mind because they were dangerously close to making me scream.
