July 1, 2010
Letter from the Editor
Welcome back. Here's hoping that you are enjoying your summer and getting some much needed rest from the hustle and bustle of the year. We have a great issue for you, packed with quality writing and artwork from some of the best female minds today. First, we were able to get an interview with Barbara J. Berg, an activist for women's rights and prolific author. Beyond that, we have articles about communication between men and women, bad dates and finding a Delta Burke-approved thong!
Don't forget that you can "like" Della Donna on Facebook for updates, fun news for women and even some giveaways coming up... And tell your friends!
- April
Interview with a Fabulous Female
AB: Tell us a bit about your career so far.
BJB: When I was working on my doctoral dissertation in history, I came across records of female voluntary associations formed in the early 1800s in all of the major US cities. These were groups of middle and upper class women who, against the wishes of their husbands, pastors, and indeed the whole weight of “proper society,” joined together to assist the destitute of their sex. They insisted on their right to do this work, even helping prostitutes and women convicted of crimes, without male chaperones or guidance. This was totally unheard of back then. These women forged an early and profound “feminist” ideology before the word was in use. They even signed their letters, “Thine in the bonds of sisterhood.” My male dissertation sponsors said “Go with it,” and this became the focus not only of my thesis, but my first book.
I’ve taught women’s studies at all levels and written five books and innumerable articles, all dealing with different aspects of women’s lives. Now, I’ve turned to blogging, both at A Blog of Our Own and other sites.
I’ve also been fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about various aspects of women’s lives in different venues all over the country and to participate in numerous organizations that work on behalf of women’s well-being and future.
AB: What got you into women's issues? Was there one defining moment or experience that made you feel it was an important cause?
BJB: There actually was a defining moment that in many ways charted my career. When I was quite young, my father, a college professor, was stricken with Parkinson’s disease. He was only 43 years old at the time. When my mother told me, she started to cry, “I wish it were me, I wish it were me.”
When I asked her why, and this I remember so clearly, she said, “Because if I were sick, Daddy would be able to support the family, to see that I had everything I needed. What will I be able to do?” Then she looked at me and said gravely, “You must always be able to work, do you understand?” At the time, I didn’t understand. I thought my mom was amazing. She’d gotten a scholarship to Barnard College and earned the rest of tuition by working at Macy’s department store. I was certain that she’d be able to get a wonderful, well-paying job. Back then I didn’t understand the cultural noose cutting off women from professional employment.
AB: What inspired you to write Sexism in America? What was your hope for the book?
BJB: My inspiration came from a group of women of differing backgrounds and ages, watching Katie Couric on TV and waiting for my son’s Halloween Party to begin. This was 3 ½ years ago, before the game-changing interviews with Sarah Palin, and Couric was still getting a lot of criticism about her appearance and mannerisms. One young woman commented how unfairly Couric was being treated and told us that a CBS reporter had accused the network of “tarting up” with her. That started the conversation…it went from the hypersexualization of Halloween costumes for adults, to those available for children, to the way women were being demeaned in popular culture and in work. As I listened to this eclectic group of women, many of whom were meeting each other for the first time, pour out their stories, all I could think of were the Consciousness Raising Groups of the 1970s. I decided to do research to find out how prevalent these concerns were. Unfortunately, I discovered the persistent reality of sexism in America, Often subtle, but so pervasive and dangerous, that I began to think of it as the Sexism of Mass Destruction.
I hope that the book will serve as a wake up call that we are not living in a post-feminist society and that, in fact, we have actually lost rights and opportunities over the past decade. The book also provides a brief history of the women’s movement in this country as well as a blueprint for change. One of my messages that I care deeply about is for women, young women especially, to transcend the media myth that we are naturally competitive and enemies of one another. Much more unites women than divides us. I’d like to see us discard the message of popular culture, especially reality shows, and go from looking at each other as adversaries to allies. Most of all, I want to start the conversation going again about how we can bring about a more equitable society for our daughters and our sons.
AB: What results have you seen from your book? Have you heard any stories about how it has affected people?
BJB: I’ve been extremely gratified by the reception the book has gotten. And yes, I receive emails, letters, comments on my website about how the book has impacted individual women—everything from women taking on sexual discrimination at work to starting an organization for young women on a college campus to repairing a broken relationships with mothers and friends.
AB: What would you recommend women do to make a change in their communities and lives, even if they aren't activists?
BJB: Today it’s possible to be involved is so many ways. A good starting point is to sign up for a Google Alert for a topic in which you’re interested: domestic violence, for example. You’ll receive all kinds of information about what’s being done nationally and locally. There are petitions to sign and letters to write.
I suggest that anyone with young people in their lives should make a point of seeing what children are being taught in school about the contributions, struggles, and successes of more than half the population. Is women’s history being taught? Do young women see examples of female scientists? Engineers?
Ask local hospitals to sponsor Women’s Health Day or Week; ask libraries to stock books on women; include books by and about women in book club readings; donate gently used clothes to organizations like Dress for Success which help women reenter the workplace; become a Big Sister, a mentor, a tutor. Use our power as consumers to resist buying products that have advertisements that demean women and let the company know about your boycott. Refuse to see movies that exalt violence against women or belittle us. Support and check in with the women’s news media: Women’s Media Center; Women's eNews, Women in Media and News, etc. so you’ll have a fuller picture of women’s lives. And most of all, look upon other women with kindness and understanding.
AB: Is there one specific issue that you think is of tantamount importance to women today, or should be?
BJB: Whatever is important to individual women…that’s where they should/could put their energies. I personally believe that keeping and extending reproductive justice is crucial because if we can’t control our own bodies and the decisions about having children, we truly can’t control our lives or our futures. Beyond that, I’m terribly worried about the health and lack of affordable, accessible healthcare for women in America. For the first time since 1918, we are actually dying at younger ages than our mothers did…so that is another area in which I work as part of Mount Sinai’s Community Board. I’m also a Vice President of the Board of the New York Correctional Association, involved in prison reform especially for women who are perhaps the most invisible sector of our population. Another area that is important is government supported, sponsored childcare is absolutely vital to maintaining the wellbeing of working families.
AB: Do you have a motto that you live by?
BJB: With apologies to Robert Browning, I’ve always been inspired by a line in his poem, Andrea del Sarto: “A [wo]man’s reach should exceed… [her] grasp…” as well as by a motto of the second wave women’s movement, “Sisterhood is Powerful.” All of the great movements for social justice in this country have achieved successes by groups of like-minded people uniting and fighting for a common cause. And in support of the late Dr. George Tiller whose favorite motto was “Trust Women,” I now wear a bracelet from NARAL with that inscription.
AB: What are you currently working on?
BJB: I’m spending much of my time traveling and talking about sexism in this country and what we can do to bring about gender equity. I’m also working on another book...this time, a novel.
Lifestyles
A Common Language
by Dallas Woodburn
“Why is it so hard for men and women to communicate with each other?”
This question was recently posed to my human studies class, and our assignment was to write a paper on the topic using our own personal knowledge and observation of relationships around us. I knew from the start what I would write about. My parents get along well enough, but my dad is from Mars and my mom is from Venus, and they have visibly different ways of communicating. My dad, while he will listen to others’ feelings, hardly ever talks about his own. The only time I remember seeing him cry was when my grandmother – his mother – died over a decade ago. Instead of relating to what you are saying, my dad usually responds by thinking of ways to solve your problem or make you feel better – often by pointing out that there are people worse off than you and that you should be grateful for your blessings.
My mom, on the other hand, connects to what others are saying by sharing similar experiences of her own and assuring you that she understands what you’re going through. Conversation is a way for her to bond and express agreement and support with other people. It isn’t as important to my mom to find an immediate solution to your problem as it is for you to let your feelings out and realize that you’re not alone.
My thesis was simple: men and women grow up in different social surroundings and have contrasting ideas about communication, and thus it is often hard for them to talk to each other. I left class with an outline for my paper already written in my mind. After all, it is easy in everyday life to see the dissimilarities between men and women – the different ways they deal with issues, the problems they have communicating, the contrasting ways they relate to one another.
But sometimes it takes a crisis to make you realize that for all our differences, we really are very much the same.
* * *
“We lost the baby.”
I looked at my parents’ tear-stained faces, at my mom’s just-starting-to-swell belly, at the book of baby names sitting on the kitchen counter, filled with post-it notes marking possibilities, and I was flooded with the overwhelming impossibility of speech. Yes, we had known there were risks – my mom was forty-five, and doctors warned her that there was an increased chance of something going wrong. But my mom was healthy, her check-ups were going great, she had gotten through the first trimester, which everyone said was the most precarious...
There I stood – a woman, just like her, who is supposed to be easier for her to communicate with, who is supposed to understand what she is experiencing, who is supposed to relate to her and make her feel better – and I had no idea what to say. How could I tell her I knew what she was going through? I had never experienced a miscarriage. I had never lost a child when I was just beginning to believe that I made it through the worst times and everything was going to be okay, when I had let myself imagine what it would be like to have another child in the house and had just started dreaming up names and planning how to share the news with my friends, when I had just bought my first pair of maternity pants two days ago because my jeans were beginning to get awfully tight and you were starting to see the growth of the baby inside me. How could I ever tell her I know what it feels like to lose all that? Because I don’t. And she knows I don’t.
My dad – a man, who is supposed to have trouble communicating with her, who is supposed to not listen to what she is saying, who is supposed to have difficulty understanding her emotions and making her feel better – he didn’t hesitate at all. He wrapped her up in a big hug and just let her cry.
My parents, a man and woman who are supposed to have trouble communicating, stood there in the kitchen holding each other. I realized that it doesn’t matter that my dad sometimes doesn’t connect to what she is saying, or that my mom sometimes jumps in and interrupts him. After twenty-two years of marriage, they understand each other. When words are hardest to come by, they know what to say (or what not say.)
They love each other. And, when you really get down to it, that’s the common language that matters.
by Kate MacDowell
The artist says, "I created Daphne in part as a response to my experiences hiking through the backwoods of Oregon and Washington and stumbling across vast areas of clear-cut forest. In this piece, Bernini’s sculpture of Daphne pursued by Apollo is transformed by one additional step from woman to tree to clear-cut slash pile. The nymph’s distress now reflects a different kind of “rape.” Whether the piece is seen as an eco-feminist analogy, a deconstruction of an iconic artwork, a meditation on growth and death, or simply an alluring play of organic line and form, I invite viewers to think about what is lost from environmental degradation, what sensory delights of texture and form are removed as we allow part of our body to be cut away. With species destruction, is it not just biodiversity we lose, but visual imagery and symbolism as well? How does this erode our understanding of ourselves and the ability of artists to communicate?"
Kate MacDowell lives in Portland, Oregon. Her hand-built porcelain sculptures have been shown throughout the US, and in Japan, the U.K. and Europe. Her work has been featured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Calle20, Ceramics Monthly, and Hi-Fructose, and online at NOTCOT.org, Street Anatomy, Sprayblog, FormFiftyFive, Abduzeedo, TreeHugger, JUXTAPOZ and more. You can find more of her work at her website, KateMacDowell.com.
Lit by Chicks
Self-Reflection
by Dorla Moorhouse
For you, I will
learn once again to
love my body
the way I instinctively
love the mole on your
back and your universe
of freckles and freckle-toasted skin
By now I've collected
an album of images
capturing my reflection
as each relevant
person sees it.
But inevitably, these pictures
fade and I forget
and the panic returns.
And so again begins the work
of finding someone reliable
and loading the camera
and crawling into your skull
and positioning the lens perfectly
behind your eyes
and remembering how
to see myself.
Dorla Moorehouse is a writer and dancer living in Austin, Texas. She primarily writes feminist-oriented erotica, and her stories have appeared at Black Heart Magazine,Oysters and Chocolate, Mainstream Erotica, Pink Flamingo, Sliptongue, and For the Girls, with work forthcoming at The Erotic Woman. In addition, she serves as the poetry editor of Gloom Cupboard. You can find more of her work at her blog, Lusty Literati.
Health & Beauty
Because Delta Burke Said So
by Becky Liendo
“If there’s one thing my mother always told me, it was to always wear clean underwear. You never know when you’ll end up in a car accident.”
There is a dilemma that I still face at the age of 24: are thongs really that much more comfortable than my plain-Jane-cotton “getting what I paid for” panties? While growing up, my younger sister promised me a few things—one of those promises being that she wouldn’t go to the dark side. The dark side of rectal floss. Well, I’ve been betrayed, and of course, like a scorned woman who has lost a friend to a better version of myself, I had to investigate the lure of the thong.
Mistake 1:
Wearing a black sweater, black jeans, hair down and sunglasses, I made my first stakeout at a Ross department store. Arms crossed, I casually walked to the silver, tiered racks, seizing the moment when the aisle was clear of onlookers. I skimmed and scanned the little pieces of material on those impossible, tiny hangers, gingerly at first. After taking hold of a possible pair that “looked cute on the hanger,” I placed my fingers under the elastic and stretched the fabric as far as I could. Still alone in the aisle, I stretched and twisted the elastic—not as a test of dexterity or strength but merely to stretch it in disgust. A silver cart with blue bumpers on the corners turned into the aisle and I freaked out. Should I ever need a sling shot, I could find a cheap one at Ross for $1.99. The thong slapped against my chin and fell onto my purse, which I had put down on the floor between my feet. The intruder, a pregnant woman, smiled and began to browse the bras at the end of the aisle. I tried to put the thong back onto the hanger but like I said, those hangers are impossible and ridiculously tiny. I slung the elastic over the neck of the hanger and put it back onto the cold rack. I turned around and walked to the other side, seemingly browsing the bras like any other woman would, yet eyeballing the thongs on the opposite side.
When the coast was clear, I made my way back and started to slam the hangers from right to left fast enough to get a glimpse of the size. Extra small, extra small, medium, medium, medium, medium, medium, medium, small. The first large I found was fucking huge—I guess that’s why it was at Ross being sold with a tag stamped “defect product.” The pattern was sensible, a nude color with a teeny-tiny white ribbon rosette centered on the waist line. Again, I stretched and closely examined the back of the garment, trying to imagine the elastic. I couldn’t imagine it; I shuddered at the thought of the elastic. Did I forget to mention that this Ross has, for remodeling purposes, relocated their lingerie “aisle” next to the men’s department? I guess I did. Well, there was this one man who was standing in the aisle across from me. He was on the men’s side so it wasn’t exactly that creepy but I experienced such a feeling of dread. There was a knot in my stomach as he stared at me—this thong was also stubborn, refusing to get back onto the hanger and only prolonging my discomfort as I stood there with a thong and a 40-something man staring at me the entire time. He had this smile on his face when I finally walked away, a smile that just stabbed past and through me. I imagine that smile is seen at every strip bar, street corner, bed of a truck all over town. Yeah—I felt right at home, again.
Mistake 2:
The next day, in hopes of concluding my research, I took the plunge and made the great trudge to the mall. After experiencing the very low end of self esteem, I decided to try the high end: Victoria’s Secret. I met the very nice Monica, who wanted to measure my bust to make sure that my breasts were getting the correct support. By the looks of the merchandise and the especially large ads, I was sure that someone could pick up the support I didn’t want.
“What can I help you with today if I can’t assist you with your bra size?” She spoke with that retail voice, too sweet and not giving a shit.
“Well, I was curious about the thong.”
“Curious?”
“Oh shit,” was all I could think as we started to walk.
She smiled at me, and led me toward the back of the store. I felt as if I she was going to tap on the wall a few cryptic times and the dressing rooms would turn dramatically, with a fog machine somewhere, leading me into a dungeon where I would be tortured with thongs, thus fulfilling my curiosity.
“These are special thongs. They can tuck in your tummy,” she says, looking down at my tummy. “And they stay in place.”
“Stay in place—because that’s called riding. And, well, it’s a piece of elastic that is nestled…”
“Well, if you put it that way, of course. But it hides your tummy. That’s a bonus.”
“Oh Jesus,” I sigh and walk out of the red room into the pink room and out of the store.
Not feeling very well about that visit, I walked to Dillard’s and made my way to the lingerie department. There were sensible slips and red, black, white, and pink silky ribbony things hanging everywhere, and then there was a table. A table surrounded by four white, 14 year old girls wearing miniskirts, halter tops, flip flops and that curled hair that seems to be very popular—you know, the just got out of bed look. They were browsing the “thong” table, giggling and answering cell phones. I slipped behind a circular rack of bras that were marked 75% off and waited for them to finish. I haphazardly started to move a few hangers right to left, looking at the bras and underwear on sale. Of course I was looking at the wrong size: 34A. I circled the rack and found the 38B marker. Slim pickings for me.
The second row on the rack had the larger sizes and from there I could see the unisex haircut, white face, huge blue eyes and sly smile glaring at me. Delta Burke was looking up my skirt, mocking me for being such a prude about the situation. I looked at the bras and underwear hanging with her tags—40D, 38DD—holy shit, there was a Delta Burke-approved thong dangling on a hanger. It was very pretty—black lace, demure yet sexy. It was a huge thong that wouldn’t fit me but there was hope when I saw that the rest of the rack was nothing but Delta Burke thongs. The girls had left and I walked over to the table ready to just grab a reject thong and slam it onto the counter. I opened my hands and picked up a simple lime green triangular contraption and it was a size large. Perfect.
Two dollars and fifteen cents later, I walked to the bus stop holding my purse, waiting for a purse snatcher to rob me and humiliate me or worse. I hoped and prayed that the bus wouldn’t crash and all that they would find of my identification, when I was passed out somewhere on a gurney, would be a red wallet, change at the bottom of the purse, lip gloss, pen and paper and… a lime green, large thong.
Becky Liendo was born and raised in Laredo, TX. She currently writes for and about her culture, family, and life (so far). She has a degree in English and Art History from the University of Texas and her work has been published in The Rio Review and Hothouse Journal.
Anecdotes
Things That Make You Go “Hmm”
by Carolyn Johnson
There were early warning signs, big red caution flags. His mouth kept moving. I knew I should just get up from the table, excuse myself to the ladies’ room and head out the front door. But did I listen to that little voice inside my head?
It all started with my blind date, or should I say my missing-in-action date, at Boulevard Bistro. The bartender refilled my glass of Pinot Grigio as I sat like a waif at the bar. He was twenty-five minutes late.
The hostess walked over and tapped me on the shoulder. My blind date wanted to speak with me on the phone. His lame excuse for being late was that he had gone to the wrong restaurant. Way to make a gal feel special. He was going to finish his margarita and join me soon. At that point, I should have gone home, but I figured bad company was better than no company, so I stayed put. The “hmm” was barely perceptible.
A dating service had fixed me up with Mike. They said he was a six-foot-one, blonde, blue-eyed TV journalist who loved golf, cooking and volunteer work. He sounded promising until he swaggered through the door. His hair, what was left of it, was blonde, but he wasn’t anything like the picture I had painted in my mind. He was tall, but he looked rode hard and put up wet for forty-six years old.
I guess I didn’t score any points when I didn’t immediately recognize him, but I was new to town and hadn’t surfed the evening news channels. My account fell further into the red when I asked him what he did for a living. He puffed up and said he was a sportscaster personality for a local TV station. Obviously I didn’t watch that channel. Warning “hmms” were going off in my head, but I was a glutton for punishment. Maybe his ego would deflate just a smidge so we could actually have a nice evening.
He suggested we dine at a nearby Mexican restaurant and allowed me time to clear my tab while he chatted with the door hostess. I assumed we were taking separate cars until the passenger’s side door of my car swung open and he plopped down. Oh well, what would one dinner hurt? The choir was now “hmming,” but once again I ignored it.
At the restaurant, he topped off his margarita level while he unloaded all his dirty laundry on the table. His daughter was nineteen, pregnant, unwed, unemployed and living with him. The sperm donor was a one-night-stand and was nowhere to be found. Thanks for sharing, but that was more than I needed to know at this point in our relationship.
Mike proceeded to swill margaritas and lament about the TV news business while frequently checking out his camera-ready smile in the reflection of the window. Younger upcoming sportscasters were nipping at his heels, jockeying for his time slot on the ten o’clock news. He had already been relegated to field reporting and was threatening an age discrimination suit against the station. The “hmm” was blasting in Dolby stereo now.
As if listening to his woe-is-me life story with feigned interest wasn’t enough, he offered to split the dinner tab. What a hero. I felt like a psychiatrist who was grateful when the hour was finally up.
Afterwards, he wanted to go see a movie. It’s not like I had anything better to do, so away we went. He bought his ticket then kindly stood aside to let me purchase mine. What a gentleman. I wondered if he would offer to reimburse me for his half of the gasoline. “Hmm” finally broke the sound barrier in my head.
I can’t remember what movie we went to see, but I’m sure he enjoyed it. I drove him back to the Bistro at warp speed while listening to his review of the less than spectacular parts of the feature. He was lucky I didn’t make him pony up for a cab to take his happy hide home.
I debated slowing to thirty-five and shoving him out on the fly, but decided he wasn’t worth the jail time. As I came to a stop in front of the Bistro, the “hmm” finally subsided. The curtain closed, the show was over.
His parting words, “Don’t forget to watch me on the evening news and enjoy the city,” bounced in one ear and out the other as he watched the tail end of my car make a fast getaway.
(Girl, may God bless you!)
by Sofia Maldonado
As an artist, Maldonado admires her country's rural landscapes, as well as the chaos of the city and the abandoned structures within them. During her undergraduate studies she painted numerous murals, with or without permission, in abandoned buildings, barrios and indoor spaces as a way to bring beauty to each site. She received recognition throughout her country by creating her own visual language with bright colors and flowing brush strokes that simulate nature. Sofia's artwork is a blend of fashion trends, the Latina female aesthetic and various street culture elements such as skateboarding, graffiti, public art, reggaeton and punk music. You can find more of her work at her website, SofiaMaldonado.com.
Lit by Chicks
Bonnie
by Caroline Taylor
Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. Mine’s Bonnie. Why they did it, I’ll never fathom. I don’t look like a Bonnie, and no one thinks I’m nice, let alone cheerful. Bonnie is so not me that some people can’t help snickering when they discover it really is my name.
Oh, I know what it means—even before looking it up in the dictionary, which said, “Attractive. Fair. Fine. Excellent.”
Maybe they were hoping I’d be all those things when they saddled me with the name. And maybe I despised it so much that I did everything in my power not to live up to it.
You could say I’m a real head-turner—if by that you mean that people tend to turn their heads away whenever they see me. I have mousy brown hair, as limp as a dirty dishrag and just about the same color. Only one eye matches my hair. The other decided to be yellow. And both of them are small and squinty and too close to my over-large nose, which makes those people who do look at me think I must be cross-eyed.
Of course, most of the time, they’re staring at my mouth. Not for me the plump, bee-stung lips of a budding starlet or fashion model. I was born with a harelip, and no amount of lipstick or makeup masks the scars from a botched attempt to make me look normal back when I was a kid.
So, forget attractive—or fair, in either sense of the word.
As for fine, I stopped trying to be fine back in grade school when Mrs. Hardesty put me in the retard class because of the way I looked. Which brings me to excellent.
Now that depends. Sometimes I think I’m excellent, but I’m also smart enough to know that hardly anyone would agree. You see, I’m a professional bitch. I get paid not to play fair. I write letters to businesses for nice, bonnie folks who’ve never had to be nasty to get someone’s attention. I’m successful at what I do, but I seldom get thanked—except monetarily, which is fine, considering how it’s just about the only expression of gratitude that you can be sure isn’t insincere.
So, yeah, Bonnie is a bit of a joke for most folks who require my services. I picture them, after I’ve been hired, high-fiving their Significant Other, both of them enjoying a laugh at my expense:
“Imagine a person with a name like that in her line of work.”
“You’re kidding, of course.”
“No way. That’s her name. Not Bonita either—which would be even funnier, considering her face could stop a clock.”
Then, of course, hypocrites that they are, they’ll reassure each other that they don’t really mean the things they’ve just said, that they’re such nice, fair-minded folk. The honest ones will pause momentarily before once again giving way to guffaws.
Well screw ’em. Sticks and stones, after all…
And screw Roger and Victoria too. They’re the ones who thought the stupid name would prevail over the reality of the child they’d adopted, sight unseen, from an orphanage in some godforsaken place they refused to name, except to assure me that I was much better off being an American.
The records are sealed, not that I have any interest in tracing my ancestry, let alone trying to track down my so-called “real” mother.
The only thing I care about right now is Gordon Addison.
Wait, that came out wrong. I do not care for the jerk in the sense of feeling any shred of emotion, especially affection, for the guy. No, I care that Gordon is wrecking my business. He’s trying to compete, and he’s a lawyer, which gives him a huge advantage.
I discovered his existence when one of my customers told me she didn’t think I could handle her problem with the cable company. Like most of the other problems I deal with, it began with her growing increasingly frustrated that she could not explain her particular situation to a human being over there. I gave her some tips on trying to get past the automated troll, but none of them worked. She kept getting recycled back through the system, rejecting each of the options it offered because they didn’t apply. She finally reached the limits of her sanity and ended up throwing the telephone across the room, where it shattered her brand-new flat screen HDTV. Now she wanted to collect damages from the cable company.
I told her a simple letter to the head of the company might solve her cable problem—a letter I could produce in about two clicks of the mouse, I’d written it so often. But when I cautioned her that she probably didn’t have much chance of collecting money to replace the TV, she said, “Okaaaaaay. I guess I’ll call Gordon Addison.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“Somebody I heard about from my neighbor. He’s a lawyer, so he knows just how to approach these a— these unresponsive people.”
“So do I,” I reminded her.
“But you’re not a lawyer.”
I’m no math whiz, but I figured too many more calls like that one, and I’d be out on the streets.
I set the wheels in motion to assess Aggravating Addison’s weak points. Like, for example, why he wasn’t working for some high-end fancy shmancy law firm. Was there something he was hiding—something he’d done, perhaps just a smidge short of disbarment proceedings, but enough to have him toiling at the sewer end of the practice of law? Was he lazy?
Unfair, you say? I just told you that I may be Bonnie, but I’m most assuredly not fair. Besides, all is fair when it comes to survival.
Maybe Addison had some other problems—an unhealthy interest in young children, for example, or two or more wives, none of whom realized he was a bigamist. Or maybe he was just not very bright. It happens. Some of the dumbest people I know are Ph.D.’s.
I Googled him. If his mug shot could be believed, he, too, was no prize catch. His ears stuck out like silver dollars on either side of a long narrow face with a receding chin. He was wearing glasses that made his eyes appear to be bulging out of their sockets. Acne scars. The photo was grainy and washed out, but the light color of his thinning hair suggested it could be blond or gray. He was fifty-one. Graduated in 1984 from some mediocre law school in the Midwest.
The whole thing might have made me yawn except for it being a matter of life and death. I weighed my options carefully. If there was not a spec of dirt to be found and exploited, what would I do? Take him out?
What, you say? Surely I didn’t imagine I could seduce him. Or did I mean “take him out” as in murdering the guy?
Of course not. That would be stupid. After all, I would be a logical suspect as his only (I hope!) competitor. But there were other ways…
Which was why I checked him out so carefully. It’s far easier to expose the dirt in someone’s background than to invent it, if you get my drift.
I learned that Addison wasn’t married. If he was a con artist or a pedophile, those proclivities hadn’t yet been exposed. He had worked for a low-end ambulance-chasing law firm in Philly before he came here. But, as is typical of most businesses these days, they refused to divulge anything of interest, such as why he left and whether it was voluntary or not.
I discovered that his office was no better—and no worse—than mine. He too leased space in an over-the-hill professional building on the fringe of the downtown area, the only difference being that my building has a pharmacy on the ground floor. This got me thinking if drugs might be the ticket. What if he had a secret habit, and that’s why he ended up bottom-feeding?
He might have had a secretary, but I doubted it. The answering service at his number sounded just like the one I use—the kind that pretends to be your personal staff when, in fact, they service hundreds of sole proprietorships like mine—and Gordon Addison’s.
Not too long after the first of my customers defected, a couple of my other regulars—who tend to be older people who just aren’t comfortable on the Internet or punching numbers into a phone—said they’d heard great things about this new fellow, Gordon Addison, who’d successfully sued a cable outfit for damages incurred when an irate customer lost patience with the company’s automated phone service.
Ring a bell? I didn’t even need to check the court records to make sure that the rumors were true. The story was all over the morning paper, along with a head-and shoulders shot of a smiling Addison and, right next to him, my former client. This was definitely bad for business.
I thought about visiting the jerk, telling him that I had been there first and to keep his filthy paws off my customers, but I know what I’d do if somebody came whining to me with the same complaint.
Instead, I turned to the Internet, a truly marvelous invention. For reasons known only to the gods of cyberspace, people will believe anything you say on the Web. I posted a few thoughts about Addison and his secrets to some lawyer blogs and settled back to enjoy the show.
It took about three months for the stuff to grow to the magnitude that had other people in town beginning to whisper—and then talk—about Gordon Addison’s drug problem. A local columnist wrote a piece claiming that Addison had been kicked out of a law firm in Philly for attempting to bribe prosecutors in a drug trial—a charge that could never be proved and which he vehemently denied. Only nobody would listen, let alone believe him.
You see how it works? Try to prove you didn’t do something when everyone around you believes you did. Gordon Addison threatened to sue the paper for defamation, but I (and presumably the paper’s legal counsel) knew he couldn’t possibly afford it. He produced and posted to the Internet a letter written by a partner in the Philadelphia law firm where he’d worked, denying the “false and scurrilous rumors” and claiming that Mr. Addison had been a model associate defense counsel until he resigned due to a decision to relocate to our fine town.
Very cleverly worded, except whose decision was it? I couldn’t help thinking it ranked right up there next to resigning “to spend more time with my family.”
Soon enough, the blogosphere was full of “knowledgeable” claims (some drafted by moi under an alias) that the partner’s letter was a forgery. Gordon Addison was toast.
One by one, his clients showed their gratitude to him, their faith in his innocence, by returning to me. On their behalf, once again I wrote letters withholding payment on disputed invoices, castigating airlines for not forking over a decent amount of money when they had to bump passengers, pointing out to errant ex-spouses serious breaches in custody and support agreements, and—in one very involved case—demanding that the president of a large national home mortgage lender inform the three credit bureaus that the “past sixty days” notation on the mortgage in question was the fault of the lender, not the borrower. That one tested even my patience, I’ll confess.
All in all, I was back in business big time, as happy as someone in my situation can possibly be. Until Gordon Addison showed up. He’d Googled me, you see. Found my address, figured out I was in the same line of work, and came to offer his services.
Now he’s sitting here in my office. “I figured better to join ’em,” he says with a lopsided grin. He’s got a funny accent like he isn’t American, and I can’t help staring as a tiny trickle of drool creeps down his chin and his head lolls against the back of his wheelchair.
“You think I—”
“Let’s say I hope. Hope. I don’t suppose you’re making any more than I was before all those damned rumors about me got circulated. But maybe two can do better?”
Smothering a sigh, I lean back in my chair, but before I can open my mouth, he jumps in.
“I assure you I am completely functional. I do take drugs, though. I have to. Otherwise …” He shrugs with his eyebrows.
“I understand.” If only he knew. “It’s just that I—”
“Oh. You don’t have to worry about me being able to do the work. It’s all by voice-aided computer. Research. Typing. You name it, I can do it.”
Addison doesn’t have a clue. “You want a job? Here? With me?”
He’s laughing now, but not at my expense, more like a kid on a lark. “Why not?”
Normally at about this stage I’d be saying, “What’s in it for me?” or “You think I’m made of money?” Instead, I find myself woolgathering at the most inopportune time, wondering what color his eyes are, noticing that he hasn’t looked away from me once, castigating myself for thinking it might be because he can’t control the movement of his head. His eyes follow me as I come around the side of my desk and stand before him, arms crossed, so he can get a good hard look at just how bonnie Bonnie is.
“I can’t pay you.”
“I figured that might be the case.”
“Then why…?”
“I need the work.” He grins sheepishly. “All this gear is expensive to maintain, as you might expect. Of course, the settlement covers pretty much everything except—”
“Let me guess. Boredom.”
His head drops forward, which I interpret to be a nod. And that’s when I completely lose it. Is it pity that propels my decision? Of course not. I am a professional bitch.
I wind up offering him a partnership, fifty-fifty, as though that can ever begin to erase the blogs and their damage. We shake on it, which, under the circumstances, has me putting my right hand on top of his lifeless one and giving it a gentle squeeze.
That’s when I think I catch one gigantic eye winking behind the coke-bottle glasses, and he says, “There’s a bonnie lass.”
