Strange Animals

by Chad Kultgen

  Karen said, “The producers emailed to tell me to use a back entrance around the corner. They have it blocked off from public access.”

  Robert drove the car around the back side of the building, where they found another entrance that was heavily guarded by police, and where there were no demonstrators in sight. The police escorted them into the building and back to the floor where she’d done her first TV interview. The main producer showed her the room where she’d be doing her press conference. A small table had been set up in front of a nondescript background drape, with thirty folding chairs for journalists. The producer told her that they couldn’t vet them all in advance, but handed Karen a printed list of the most likely questions. Karen said, “Thank you. I can handle any question they throw at me, and they may not even know what they want to ask after I make my statement.” At this the producer seemed confused, but she was too busy to engage any further. She showed Karen and Tanya and Robert to the greenroom and told them that they had about half an hour before the journalists would be allowed in. After they’d all taken their seats, Karen would be summoned to the pressroom.

  In the greenroom, Tanya said, “I just can’t get over how insane this is. Six months ago, you were complaining that you had no good ideas for your dissertation. Now you’re not even in the PhD program, and there’s a mob of people in the street who want you to die.”

  Karen said, “That’s one way to look at it, I guess.”

  Tanya said, “You know what I mean.”

  Karen laughed and said, “Yes, I do.”

  Robert said, “At least the hard part’s over.”

  Karen said, “That remains to be seen.”

  Robert said, “You’re at the end of it. Once it’s all said and done, which has to be in a few days, right? Legally?”

  Karen said, “Yeah, legally.”

  Robert said, “Well, once it’s done, it’s done. Then there’s nothing left for these people to care about. They might talk about it, but there won’t be people with megaphones and signs. They’ll move on to the next person or the next thing to be mad at.”

  Karen said, “Well, hopefully they’ll still think about the question I’m raising here.”

  Robert said, “Honey, I know that’s been your whole goal since the beginning, but you can’t really get your hopes up about it. People don’t change their minds that easily. They have too much pride. Eventually they have kids who see the world differently, and that’s how real change happens. Old people die and the things they mistakenly thought were important die with them.”

  Karen said, “But you and Mom agree with what I’m doing, right?”

  Robert said, “We support you.”

  Karen said, “I guess that’s good enough.”

  They waited the rest of the half hour in silence.

  At some point, Karen went to the window and looked down at the crowd below her. She was too high up for them to see her, but she could hear them on the street. She could hear some of them chanting, “Burn in hell! Burn in hell!” It was strange to Karen to have that much hatred directed at her. It didn’t make her feel bad, exactly, or that what she was doing was wrong. It was just strange to know that complete strangers—many of whom considered themselves Christians—could be so full of hate and rage. This was part of the hypocrisy she wanted to expose and attack. In some ways, she thought that the discovery of her identity had aided her overall objective in this manner. In others, she felt it had been detrimental. Had she to do it all over again, she would have been much more careful. She would have posted the website from a public computer, maybe in an Apple store, so there would be no way to trace her identity without serious measures, such as a police review of security footage from the store, which she thought would have been unlikely because security footage was generally purged quickly unless a crime had been committed. She couldn’t help but wonder whether the hundred-million-dollar goal would have been met if knowing her identity hadn’t given people a target for their rage; whether remaining anonymous would have enabled people to focus on the philosophical question she was raising; whether people would have been more likely to think for themselves instead of giving into the easier, more primal emotional urges that come with assigning blame to an individual.

  A producer came into the greenroom and told Karen it was time for the press conference. Karen followed her out and saw a room full of reporters waiting impatiently in their seats. Karen was escorted to her seat behind the table she saw earlier and was told that Anderson Cooper would be doing a small lead-in from New York, and then the cameras would cut to her, live in the studio. Karen sat down and waited.

  Karen remained silent, looking out at the various reporters there. None of them returned her gaze. They were all busy looking at their phones or iPads or laptops or handwritten notes. Then a monitor showed the CNN feed. He said, “Hello, I’m Anderson Cooper. A few months ago I had the opportunity to sit down with Karen Holloway, who even then was among the most talked about people in the country, maybe in the world. She explained to us why she decided to solicit one hundred million dollars in donations as a trust fund for her unborn child—and, further, that if the donations failed to reach that goal, she would terminate that pregnancy. Today, CNN brings you an exclusive press conference with Karen, the day after her experiment came to a close without reaching that hundred-million-dollar goal. Now let’s go to Los Angeles, and here is Karen Holloway.”

  Karen looked out to see a producer point and nod at her as her own image appeared on a monitor just behind the producer’s head. Karen said, “Thank you to everyone who’s watching this and who has been following this. Before I take any questions, I’d like to say a few things.

  “As everyone knows by now, donations to the site I launched several weeks ago have fallen far short of the hundred-million-dollar goal. A total of about thirty million dollars in donations was registered on the site, all of which has now been electronically refunded. This, in effect, proves my point. My original thesis was that the Christian right in this country has an agenda where women are concerned, and the pro-life movement was offered the perfect opportunity to disprove my point, but they failed. I hope that in the mind of the general public it’s now abundantly clear that the Christian right does not actually care about the life of an unborn child. They were given the chance, with minimal effort, to save the life that’s growing in me, and they failed to do so. They actively chose to let this child die. And that raises the question of why they would do that, after speaking out against abortion so vehemently and for so long. The only conclusion any rational person can draw is that they care far more about taking away a woman’s choice than they do about protecting life, which they claim is their paramount goal.

  “With this concrete proof of the hypocrisy in the pro-life movement, and more broadly in the whole of the Christian right, I hope we can collectively agree that this movement no longer warrants serious consideration as a political or social ideology. The failure of the Christian right to uphold what they claim as one of their primary objectives was something I expected. It was something, in honesty, that I was counting on to prove my point, and they delivered.

  “That was about the only thing I expected in this whole ordeal that actually came to pass. Many more things happened that I didn’t expect. My identity was discovered, which led to problems I could never have anticipated. I got kicked out of school. I lost the love of my life. My safety has been threatened. And, while all of that surprised me, the most unexpected result of this project should have been the one thing I was most prepared for. But I wasn’t at all.

  “The only thing that was guaranteed when I started this was that I would be pregnant for a while. I never really gave much thought to that until it became a fact of my life. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past several months, and I’ve come to a conclusion that I would never have anticipated. Even though the monetary goal wasn’t met, I’ve decided to have the baby and to raise her as my own child. The Christian right in this country m
ay have abandoned this child to a death sentence, but I’ve found that I can’t be as cruel. They have attempted to stifle my right to choose, but in the end, I don’t think I could be making a better and more definite choice. And, as the final part of my pregnancy continues, I’d just ask the press and everyone else to give myself and my child privacy. Now I’ll take any questions you may have.”

  The reporters gathered were slightly stunned. None of their prepared questions made sense now. Everyone in the room had assumed that Karen was going to have an abortion, and all their questions were based on that notion. After several seconds of silence, Karen said, “If there are no questions, I’ll thank everyone for being here today and conclude this press conference.”

  One reporter raised his hand and asked Karen if this had been her plan all along, to use this entire scheme to shame the Christian right, to beat them at their own game of self-righteousness. Karen said, “No. I fully intended to have an abortion, just as I indicated on my website, but the best thing about letting women choose what to do with their own bodies is that we get to make a choice. And that’s what I’m doing today. My mind has changed, and this choice reflects that. I think many people on the right would have you believe that pro-choice is synonymous with abortion, but it’s simply not. I remain pro-choice, and I’m exercising my choice to do what I believe is right for me and for my child.”

  Karen waited for several more seconds, but there were no other questions from the reporters present. After a minute of silence, the feed cut back to Anderson Cooper, who said, “A shocking turn of events in the story of Karen Holloway. She has decided not only to have the child, despite missing her goal of one hundred million dollars, but she’s going to raise it as well. I’m sure we’ll be talking about this a lot in the coming days, but for right now, it seems that the reporters present were stunned, as are most people I would guess. Anderson Cooper for CNN.”

  chapter

  thirty

  James listened to every word of Karen’s press conference on the radio as he drove toward Los Angeles. He couldn’t believe she was going to keep the child. It seemed like a trick of some kind to James. Like Karen Holloway had played everyone for a fool. He couldn’t fathom how evil she must be in her heart in order to do such a thing to people. Then he looked up and saw the words Find Her on a billboard. As he continued to drive he saw that the billboard had been slightly obscured and it actually read, “Find Her the Perfect Engagement Ring.” Nonetheless, in that moment, it was very clearly a sign. God meant for him to find Karen Holloway. That’s why he sent James to California, to Los Angeles.

  He wondered why God would want him to find her or what he was supposed to do once he did. Maybe he was supposed to talk to her, to find out her true intentions or to just keep an eye on her for God, or maybe he was even meant to convert her. James had always been very self-conscious about testifying to strangers. He knew it was one of his duties as a Christian, but he also knew that it was his biggest weakness. He was shy around people he didn’t know, and he’d always thought that if a person hadn’t developed a relationship with God on their own, then he certainly wouldn’t be able to introduce them. He knew that his ultimate purpose would be revealed in time, when God needed him to know it. All he knew for certain was that his goal was much clearer than it had been before, and this excited him. James realized that it was all part of the plan. Karen’s trick couldn’t fool God, and by extension it couldn’t fool James. Even though she didn’t get the money, she was still going to have the child. She had gone against her own rules in order to bring that child into the world. James knew of no better indicator of Satan’s involvement in such affairs than trickery, which Karen openly employed. James began to think that it was possible, likely even, that God wanted him to convert Karen. The conversion of an open agent of Satan to Christianity would be a great blow to the Devil. He became slightly giddy at the prospect and then calmed himself. All he knew for sure was that Karen and her child were the reasons God sent James to Los Angeles, and that was more than he knew before coming to Los Angeles.

  After the press conference ended, James turned his car radio to a Christian station on which two pastors and the host of the show were discussing the story and what they thought it meant. One pastor thought that Karen had done the right thing by keeping the baby. He said that although he had not donated to her site and he found what she did to be disgusting, he had always hoped that the child would live, and he was happy to see that it would. Whatever animosity any Christian may have felt toward her throughout this process, he warned, should be alleviated by her decision. He urged Christians to forgive her, just as Jesus would have done, because God had clearly taken a hand in her decision. James did not agree with this pastor’s outlook and questioned whether or not this pastor was even a true Christian. Perhaps he, too, was an agent of Satan.

  The other pastor chastised the first for abandoning one of the most fundamental tenets of their faith: oppose Satan at every turn, at all costs. This second pastor claimed that what Karen Holloway had done was a spiritual flip-flop. He maintained that forgiving her for what she did would be the spiritual equivalent of electing Osama bin Laden as president of the United States. He couldn’t understand how she could be so vehemently in favor of aborting a child if she didn’t get enough money, but then when the money didn’t come in, she could just choose to abandon her initial threat. He claimed that her decision was a sign of weak moral and spiritual fiber, and possibly a trick of Satan himself to gain sympathy for this girl who was obviously working in his service quite possibly to give birth to the Antichrist. James agreed with this and thought that his own Pastor Preston must have felt the same.

  Despite the first pastor’s claims that all Christians should extend forgiveness to all sinners, as this was the most fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ, both the host of the program and the second pastor suggested that Karen Holloway be arrested and the child be turned over to the state after the delivery. They saw no reason to keep her in society after having committed such a heinous crime against God, which they likened to spiritual kidnapping. James turned the program off just as he drove into Los Angeles on the 10.

  The traffic became more congested immediately, he noticed, but more than that, he was struck by the sheer scale of the city. He had assumed that Los Angeles would be similar to Las Vegas. They were both places of terrible sin, and it stood to reason in his mind that they would look nearly identical. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

  Las Vegas had been tiny compared to what he saw as he drove down the 10. Los Angeles seemed to go on forever in all directions. Some of the buildings he saw from the freeway were old, but many were brand-new. There was no consistency in its look or feel, and this bothered James on a subconscious level. It was as if the city had just been thrown together haphazardly. It was frenetic and disjointed and chaotic, and it was endless. No matter where James looked, there was no reprieve from the city sprawl or from the brownish-yellow haze in the sky. There were so many people on the freeway that he couldn’t even imagine what it must be like down in the city itself, where people lived. He felt pity for these lost souls condemned to roam this endless wasteland. This, he thought, was the real sin city. This was hell on Earth, and he would have to scour it in order to complete God’s plan, in order to find Karen Holloway.

  chapter

  thirty-one

  Karen pulled a pink jumper off the rack in a Babies “R” Us store and held it up. She said, “This one is cute.”

  Tanya, who was with her in the store, held up a different pink jumper and said, “I like this one. Jesus, I can’t believe you’re going to have a daughter. You know what I really can’t believe, though?”

  Karen said, “What?”

  Tanya said, “You’re having a kid before me. How the hell did that happen?”

  Karen said, “Well, when a man loves a woman, he puts his penis in her vagina—”

  Tanya said, “Screw you. You know what I mean.”

>   Karen laughed and said, “I know. This is just so fucking weird.”

  Tanya said, “Shopping for baby clothes?”

  Karen said, “Yeah, that’s obviously pretty weird, but I meant actually being kind of excited for this. I really never ever thought in my entire fucking life that I’d have a kid, want to have a kid, be remotely excited about having a kid. I just feel like I’m not the person I always thought I was, I guess.”

  Tanya said, “That’s the weird thing about life. You change.”

  Karen looked at her watch and said, “We have to get out of here. My appointment’s in twenty minutes.”

  The two women put the baby clothes back on the racks and made their way into the parking lot. Once they were outside the store, two photographers followed them to Tanya’s car, but they weren’t screaming and they weren’t trying to stop them from leaving. It had been a few weeks since the press conference, and while talk about her story hadn’t really gone away, things were certainly changing. The media had shifted from debating whether Karen was the most evil person in the world to a milder celebrity-style fascination with the baby, and what magazine might get the first image of the baby after she was born, and even an occasional voice hailing Karen as a national hero. Her initial supporters rallied behind her even more passionately than before, and even many of her detractors felt compelled to take her side now that she was having the baby, which is what they’d been clamoring for since the beginning. Some of them cited what they believed to be the obvious influence of God in her decision, which slightly bothered Karen, but overall she was happy to be rid of the feeling that more than half of the country hated her.

  The thing Karen disliked the most was how people had more or less stopped talking about the issue at the center of her story. It seemed like things were slipping back into the way they were, despite her best efforts to put a dent in the armor of the religious right. There was no significant exodus from the Christian denominations. Legislators in the Southern states were still passing laws making it harder for women to get abortions. It just seemed like it might all have been for nothing, and that was disheartening. Karen knew there was little she could do or say that she hadn’t already done or said. She began to think that her parents were right: People tend to avoid making significant changes in their lives, no matter how beneficial that change might be.